As long as the Democratic dominance since 2048 was, only interrupted by an independent President in the 60s, it all had to end at some point. President Firouze Glass was a popular president, but the Democratic brand was only getting more and more unpopular, especially as the economy stagnated.
People were calling for fiscal sustainability and blamed the "bloated" Democratic-built state apparatus that "dragged down the economy". They wanted a slimmer state, but certainly not a starved one. This wasn't the Second Gilded Age, for one! And the GOP wasn't calling for die-hard paleoliberalism. Merely what they played up as their miracle cure - a "social market economy", on the line of the EuroFed.
While they were happy to take cues on the economy from the EuroFed, the Republicans were generally sceptical of the Democratic grand project, namely the
euro-dollar ("eddie" for short). Nevertheless, the war on that was comprehensively lost after twenty years, and new voters by 2088 grew up with the eddie. So the Republicans had to shift tack. The Democrats' new idea was that of pegging the eddie and the Asian Union's yupee together to form a new economic zone enveloping the majority of the world. Republicans cried foul at this idea, decrying it as "further distilling American influence over its money".
And indeed, the majority of Americans were unconvinced by the idea. Perhaps it was mere Sinophobia, maybe it was the concerning news coming out of the Chinese Consortium regarding their controversial way of managing their people. But in the end, Americans stood opposed to the idea of a global economic zone. The Republicans used this to make historic gains in the midterms, finally winning the House for the first time in 40 years. President Glass was concerned.
As the Republicans started to dream once more of finally returning to the White House, the Democrats went on the offense. Arguing that the Republicans' domestic policy would enable "the corruption of Americans' very own humanity" by legalising transhumanism and allying with radical transhumanist states such as Emain Ablach (Ireland). President Glass would be seen attending several swing states such as Oklahoma, Utah, North California and Alabama in order to shore up Democratic support in those states that were seen as vulnerable to a Republican swing.
The Republicans ended up nominating the charismatic Governor of Francisco, Summer Cardona, who decided to run with Senator from Alabama Everett Hudson in an attempt to unite the urban and rural wings of the party. Cardona campaigned hard on "the dignity of labour" and "Putting Americans First". She campaigned primarily on the social market economy and relaxing "moralistic" laws such as the "unreasonable" ban on transhumanism the Democrats imposed on to the American people. However, emerging from a strongly-held convention, President Glass would not go down without a fight. With Vice President Levi Sifuentes of Puerto Rico by her side, she hit the GOP hard and played up the Democrats as the party of safety and the
only party that could be trusted by all of America.
Unfortunately for Glass, by 2088 the American people wanted change. And they voted for that in a clear victory, with the Republicans increasing their hold on the House, gaining in the Senate [albeit not winning it due to unfavourable states being up] and the cherry on the top was that their woman, Governor Summer Cardona, would be going to the White House, ending a 20 year streak of Democratic control and a 40 year Republican drought.
As Cardona made her victory speech surrounded by the cheering students, part of the new conservative generation of students that supported the GOP, the world felt America tremble as a new era started. America was now under new management.