Have a President Unanimously Elected by the Electoral College Post-Washington

I think one Elector would always vote for another candidate just to preserve Washington's legacy.

Maybe, but this never seems to have happened, even in 1820. William Plumer didn't vote against Monroe to preserve Washington's legacy of unanimity. He voted against Monroe because he thought Monroe had been a mediocre president and John Quincy Adams would be a better one. The classic article on this is unfortunately not available for free online for non-subscribers except for its first page https://www.jstor.org/stable/1897643?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents but its conclusions are summarized at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1820

Plumer by the way was hardly unique in this attitude. His son later wrote, "This dissatisfaction with the course of public events was by no means confined to Governor Plumer. I was in Congress at the time, and saw much of it in that body. I received many congratulations on this vote of my father, from such men as Randolph, Macon, and other Republicans of the old school. Not that they liked Adams, (Randolph assailed him with the fury of hereditary hate); but they disliked Menroe, whom they regarded as having adopted, chiefly under the influence of Calhoun [remember that Calhoun was a nationalist in those days--DT] some of the worst heresies of the old Federal party. Randolph said in the House, with his usual felicity of sarcastic expression: 'They talk of the unanimity of his re-election. Yes, sir; but it is the unanimity of indifference, and not of approbation. Four years hence, he will go out, with equal unanimity; and the feeling will then be, not indifference, but contempt.'" https://books.google.com/books?id=O40ndLx4BowC&pg=PA495

Incidentally, a handful of Federalist electors were elected--unlike Plumer they all voted for Monroe (which somewhat confirms the Old Republicans' complaints about Monroe).
 
Would a TL where DC had not been given the right to vote until later have affected things enough to drastically change outcomes? It's always seemed a bit inconsequential

The amendment itself may not have had that great an effect (though it would have if Gore had carried Florida in 2000...). But it is hard to see the amendment not being enacted and ratified--if not in 1960-61 as in OTL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-third_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution surely by 1965 when thanks to the LBJ landslide there is a more liberal Congress and state legislatures.
 
Keep Vermont part of New York and Maine part of Massachusetts. Then 1936 is unanimous--disregarding a few billion butterflies...
 
In 1864 Democrats don’t run a candidate as wartime unity.

Absolutely impossible. There were far too many Peace Democrats, and even many War Democrats were critical of many of Lincoln's policies, especially emancipation and the use of military tribunals in the North. Also, there was a widespread belief--shared by Lincoln's opponents in his own party--that Lincoln had not been an effective war leader.
 
Absolutely impossible. There were far too many Peace Democrats, and even many War Democrats were critical of many of Lincoln's policies, especially emancipation and the use of military tribunals in the North. Also, there was a widespread belief--shared by Lincoln's opponents in his own party--that Lincoln had not been an effective war leader.

What if the Democrats split? An outright Peace Democrat candidate, and a War Democrat running against Lincoln's war record and emancipation, but still committed to putting down the rebellion. (I don't know which one should be the "official" nominee.)

OTL, Lincoln almost won NJ (47.2%) and DE (48.2%); any kind of Democrat split would throw both states to him.

The problem is KY, where Lincoln got only 30.2%. No matter how you split the Democrat vote, one piece of it would be bigger than that.

So there has to be some other factor to shift KY votes. Perhaps if the Republicans pick John P. Breckinridge of KY for VP in 1864; that might sway some votes. (He was the uncle of the former VP turned Confederate general, but a prominent Kentucky Unionist, and the Breckinridge family was a dynasty in KY.) Then the result might be: Lincoln, 38%, Peace Democrat, 36%, War Democrat 26%.

Hey presto, and we're done! (Aside from the minor detail of 11 states not voting...)
 
What if the Democrats split? An outright Peace Democrat candidate, and a War Democrat running against Lincoln's war record and emancipation, but still committed to putting down the rebellion. (I don't know which one should be the "official" nominee.)

If the Peace Democrats were willing to swallow McClellan, they would be willing to swallow any plausible Democratic nominee. Conversely, if the Democratic convention chose a more Peace-oriented candidate than McClellan (say, Thomas Seymour or George Woodward) even such a candidate would probably get the bulk of the normal Democratic vote and at the very least carry Kentucky, even if Lincoln chooses a Kentuckian (Robert Breckinridge or Joseph Holt) as his running mate.
 
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