WI: Bush won Oregon and Wisconsin in 2000

What if Bush won Oregon and Wisconsin in 2000? What effects would this have on subsequent campaigns? What effects would this have on the politics of those states?
 
Oregon and Wisconsin were close because of Nader getting a large amount of the vote in each state. It would probably kill off the Green Party in each state.
 
Oregon and Wisconsin were close because of Nader getting a large amount of the vote in each state. It would probably kill off the Green Party in each state.
It would also kill off any creation of the Oregon Peace/Progressive Party
Since the Independence Party is basically the only third party with a chance in an election, it doesn't really matter.
 
Oregon and Wisconsin were close because of Nader getting a large amount of the vote in each state. It would probably kill off the Green Party in each state.
actually oregon (ok maybe nader did have an effect there) and washington were close just cause they were swing states (kinda) back then kerry only won oregon by 4% and washington by 7% in 2004
 
Oregon and Wisconsin were close because of Nader getting a large amount of the vote in each state. It would probably kill off the Green Party in each state.

Oregon was close due to Nader, but Wisconsin was just as close in 2004.

Plus Seattle and Portland were smaller share of the pacific northwest population back then IIRC - meaning those states were a bit more purplish.
 
The answer to this one depends on how big a swing we're talking.

A national swing of only 0.23% in Bush's favor would flip Oregon and Wisconsin as well as New Mexico and Iowa - while still leaving Gore with an infinitesimally greater share of the popular vote, by something like 0.05%. However, I don't think Bush winning an even bigger and less contested EC majority while still losing the popular vote would lead to any more of a loss of legitimacy than the OTL Florida shenanigans. It would probably do the opposite, actually, making him an "accidental president" through transparent and constitutional means rather than a shady affair involving his brother and a partisan SC decision. So that's one fewer angle of Democratic attack during the Bush years.

None of Oregon's congressional elections or ballot measures were decided by 0.23% or less in 2000. The closest was an initiative to increase the maximum federal tax deductible in Oregon, which passed with 50.52%. Wisconsin's weren't either. (Nor, from a cursory check, were Iowa's or New Mexico's.) So all a 0.23% swing would achieve, even assuming it was matched by a similar effect for conservative candidates and ballot measures is a) lending George W. Bush some added legitimacy and b) as others have noted, hurting the already fairly irrelevant lefty third parties in Oregon. (Oregon could be fertile ground for the Greens if they didn't run jokers like this guy, but this isn't a "WI a US Green party worth voting for" thread, so I'll stay on topic.)

A larger swing, however, and we're talking things like Tammy Baldwin losing re-election and Oregon's homophobic Measure 9 passing, which do have significant knock-on effects. A law prohibiting schoolteachers from "promoting homosexuality" would be a disaster and a statewide embarrassment, and might make a slight dent in people emigrating to Portland, even if the law was quickly repealed or ruled unconstitutional. So my rent would be a few dollars lower, but gay people would feel more besieged and discriminated against than OTL which doesn't really seem worth it.
 
There are people associated with it who don't suck - Winona LaDuke for example, and a few local activists I've met in Portland - but yes it's difficult for any American third party to be anything other than a protest vote, which tends to attract the cranks.
Even the Reform and American Independent Parties collapsed after losing their leader....
 
Anyway, would Oregon have less of a "blue state" identity today if it voted for Bush in 2000 and/or 2004?

I don't really think so. It was already in transition from a swing state to a reliable Democratic state by then - the conservatives had their triumphs in the 90s with Bill Sizemore's anti-tax campaigns, but the cities were growing very rapidly and Gordon Smith's re-election to the Senate in 2002 was the last time a Republican would win statewide office until Dennis Richardson was elected SoS in 2016. One different result in a Presidential election wouldn't slow that change.

A Measure 9 victory, on the other hand, might have made an impact on the state's image in the early 2000s, as it's a bit of needless conservative cruelty. But even then the bad press probably wouldn't last until today, any more than Prop 7 destroyed California's social liberal reputation.
 
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