Clowns to the left, jokers to right

[Jasen777]

Clowns to the left, jokers to right

A Trump with Reform in 2000 election scenario

In this scenario, Perot decides after his '92 run to put more effort into creating the Reform Party as a strong and lasting organization, a legitimate threat to the main two. He does slightly better than OTL in '96 (running with Richard Lamm as his VP candidate), but still drops off to 12% of the vote.

Perot sees Ventura's winning of the Minnesota governorship in '98 as validating his build the party strategy, in by 2000 they have legitimate organizations in every state and are set to compete in the majority of House, Senate, and governor races.

Perot decides early not to run again, rightly seeing that the party will need other standard bearers to stand the test of time. Donald Trump in this timeline is much more interested and running as the reform candidate, as it's seen as an organization on the upswing, not one fixing to be torn apart by the likes of Buchanan and Hagelin.

When Ventura declines, citing desire to focus in his job in Minnesota, Trump's only remaining opponent for the nomination is Richard Lamm. Perot initially supports (but stops short of endorsing) Lamm. But Trump capitalizes on TV appearances and ends up winning most of the states in the mail-in Reform party primary ballot contests. News networks fail in love with Trump's brash speaking and are riveting by a convention floor fight when Lamm attempts to wrest the nomination away. Lamm's attempt fails however, and Perot gives Trump his full support. Trump supports Lamm's ally, former representative Ed Zschau, for his running mate as a party unity pick, and the convention approves.

 

[Jasen777]

Now it's important to remember that the Trump of 2000 is not the Trump we now know and love rolleyes. Anti-immigration, including wall building, and anti-free trade (especially anti-NAFTA) is central to his campaign, but the rhetoric never descends to the level of calling people racists, nor is he calling for a complete deportation of illegal immigrants. He is trying, with mixed success, to be seen as the one with smart, “real” solutions to problems, that the other two parties aren't smart enough or are too corrupt to implement. Though he has been pro-choice and for prosecuting hate crimes against gays he respects the Reform's stance of neutrality on “distracting” social issues.

Some other Trump positions -

Very “law and order” and tough on crime, pro war on drugs, pro-death penalty.

For school vouchers, thinks NEA, teachers unions too powerful.

For “smart” gun relegation – assault weapon ban, waiting period, and background checks.

For increase military spending, with a reorientation to focus on terrorism.

On Foreign policy -

“Switch from chess player to deal maker”

Pro-Israel - “our unsinkable Middle East aircraft carrier”

Pro-Russia – minor support for is cheaper than cold war

Anti-China – due to their unfair business practices and human right abuses

Against “humanitarian interventions”

Stop North Korea from getting nukes, by force if necessary

But the most intriguing thing about Trump's campaign is some of his economic positions. He is running on the classic Reform plank of deficit reduction. And he is expected to be able to reduce welfare as the deficit pay down and protectionist policies create a job boom, and have money left over to give to the Social Security Trust Fund. But he is also purposing a one time (phased) 14.25% wealth tax on asserts of over $10 million, an increasing of the top tax rate, and the elimination of the mortgage tax break for millionaires and vacation houses, to help accomplish that. And almost as radical, Trump is running on a UHC platform of “Medicare for all.”

 

[Jasen777]

Trump is as close to a pure (white) populist as the U.S. has seen in a while, and posses serious threats to the voter bases of both Bush (who fairly easily cruised through the primaries as OTL) and Gore.

Gore was expecting to be able to ignore Nader's (whose campaign never approaches OTL 2000 levels as Trump sucks all the oxygen away from third parties) attacks from the left and had worked to carved out a response to Bush's tax cut proposals by suggesting smaller cuts targeted at the middle class. And he was also prepared to defend a lengthy list of modest health care reforms against attacks from the right. But Gore is caught completely unprepared for a clear call for increased taxes on the rich and for UHC from a major candidate.

Bush had showed that he was a Republican who could appeal to Latino voters, and had planned to make a major push for them in the general. But Trump's clear anti-immigration stance is popular with the GOP base, and Bush's attempts to thread the needle on the 2 leads to numerous missteps. Likewise Trump's clear call against free trade and NAFTA threatens to strike at some of Bush's base as well (though Gore's also), and Bush struggles to deal with something that he had not expected to be an issue against Gore.

Bush takes the lead in early August as he's the first to get a convention bounce. The back-to-back Reform and Democratic conventions come later in the month though, and Bush actually gets pushed down to third place. Trump's plain spoken boldness plays well in the debate against Gore's woodenness and Bush's folksiness. Trump leads throughout September as the media wildly speculates about a new era of politics. But Trump fades throughout October as the superior party machinery and ad bombing campaigns of the Gore and Bush campaigns hit full force. By election day it's seen as a 3-way toss-up nationally. The EC picture is quite unknown as Trump has nearly destroyed the idea of “safe states” – only D.C. (Gore), Texas and Utah (Bush) are considered safe.

 

[Jasen777]

Ok, so I went all DEMOGRAPHICS on this. Race/income/education/political ideology/religiosity/etc

Trump does best with lower income, less educated whites (but not highly religious), anti-immigration/free trade voters, Reform Party/Perot loyalists, registered independents, and “hardhats”.

Bush does best with religious conservatives, upper middle and upper income whites, educated (but not those with graduate degrees) whites, registered Republicans, and ideological conservatives.

Gore does best with minorities (especially African Americans but Bush's waffling on outreach has benefited him with other groups as well), whites with graduate degrees, social liberals, and registered Democrats (with adjustment for southern Democrats which are still registered far beyond their voting at this point).

Trump draws a little more from Gore than Bush overall, which makes sense since Perot took from both basically evenly and Trump is to the left of him on a few issues. However, this can vary a lot on a state to state level due to the different coalitions.

National Popular Vote:

Bush - 33.26%
Gore - 33.09%
Trump - 32.42%


State by State Results -

Map

Electoral Vote Total -

Gore - 274
Bush - 213
Trump - 51


So in a hilarious reversal, Gore loses the popular vote but wins the electoral (on the strength of 33.72% in Louisiana no less).