TFSmith121
Banned
Republicans throw in Tennessee and Louisiana's votes
and Lincoln still wins.
Best,
There has been a lot of talk about the plausibility of Little Mac winning in 1864 if Atlanta hadn't fallen or if a union victory did not look inevitable in some way. I thought I would show just how close it really was.
In OTL Lincoln won by 10% of the vote and over 400,000 votes, but due the the Electoral College system, this large victory is not as strong as it appears.
Little Mac won Kentucky, Delaware and New Jersey. But he only needed two win seven more states to win the election: New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Indiana, Oregon and Illinois. To win these only 41,721 votes would have to change from Lincoln to McCellan. That's only 1.04% of all votes cast.
Some of the big states were very close. With 3,376 votes need to switch to give New York's 33 EV to McCellan and 9426 for Pennsylvania's 26 EVs.
I think it is entirely reasonable to assume that failure to capture Atlanta or a general lack of success in the 1864 campaign could have swung 1.04% of voters to McCellan. As for what he would have done with power, I leave that to the time period experts.
and Lincoln still wins.
Best,