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WI/AHC: Lutheran President

It has already been noted that the Minnesotan Tim Pawlenty is a Lutheran, and he actually ran for the Republican nomination, so there's that. Curiously, he appears to be the only Minnesotan to run for President with a serious shot at (your mileage may vary) it to actually be a Lutheran.

I haven't been able to pin down Walter Mondale's religion, but despite him being of Norwegian stock, his father was a Methodist minister, and his brother was a Unitarian minister. So I'd put him down as likely non-Lutheran. Similarly, despite being of Norwegian stock, Hubert Humphrey attended Methodist churches. Harold Stassen, another Minnesotan, wasn't of Scandinavian heritage at all, but Bohemian German, and he was a Baptist. Eugene McCarthy, who challenged LBJ in 1968 and later Bobby Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey, was a Roman Catholic.
 
This was an interesting rabbit hole to go down, honestly - as far as people who actually ran for president go, you have Vance Hartke, Fritz Hollings, Paul Simon, Dave McCurdy, and of course dat boi Gary Johnson. I think Simon and McCurdy are the only ones with a real shot, with McCurdy having a harder time getting the nomination (Clinton needs to crash and burn) but Simon having a harder time winning the general.

That leaves two pretty common ‘30s hipster picks - Floyd Olson and Charles Lindbergh - and today you have both Joni Ernst and Sherrod Brown. Brown didn’t run in 2020 so I don’t think he’s ever going to, and Ernst is probably not a top tier candidate aside from coming from Iowa, but neither would be all that shocking a nominee.

Fred Trump was himself raised Lutheran so if we don’t care about the butterfly effect, that’s another fairly easy way to accomplish this as well.
 
Paul Simon would be peak Lutheran president, given both his brother and father were ministers, and people often flippantly called him by religious titles. His family were also Germans originally from Wisconsin, which is equally pretty peak Lutheran.
 
It has already been noted that the Minnesotan Tim Pawlenty is a Lutheran, and he actually ran for the Republican nomination, so there's that. Curiously, he appears to be the only Minnesotan to run for President with a serious shot at (your mileage may vary) it to actually be a Lutheran.

I haven't been able to pin down Walter Mondale's religion, but despite him being of Norwegian stock, his father was a Methodist minister, and his brother was a Unitarian minister. So I'd put him down as likely non-Lutheran. Similarly, despite being of Norwegian stock, Hubert Humphrey attended Methodist churches. Harold Stassen, another Minnesotan, wasn't of Scandinavian heritage at all, but Bohemian German, and he was a Baptist. Eugene McCarthy, who challenged LBJ in 1968 and later Bobby Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey, was a Roman Catholic.
Wiki seems to suggest Pawlenty is Baptist.
 
Another Minnesotan, John A. Johnson, would in all likelihood have been a serious player for the Democratic nomination and potentially the White House had it not been for 1) Bryan using the party as something to pass the time every fourth year and 2) his untimely death in 1909. I couldn't find anything on his personal denomination, but his parents were members of the swedish lutheran congregation in nicollet county.
 
There's an obvious POD with Simon's career btw - in 1972 he was very narrowly defeated in the Democratic gubernatorial primary by Dan Walker, an anti-incumbent, anti-Daley, anti-establishment candidate. Simon was the Mister Clean of Illinois politics and Daley had blocked him running statewide for senate or governor for at least a decade, but Walker undercut him by running as a sort of proto-Class of '74 candidate and charging that Simon would put up taxes.

Walker would go on to have a fairly disastrous governorship, where as a political outsider he had a Carter-esque lack of relationship with the legislature, and he continued serious feuding with Daley. In 1976 Walker lost renomination in the Democratic primary and with the Democrats in shambles, Jim Thompson won the governorship in a landslide against a Daleyite candidate. No Democrat would win the governorship again until Rod Blagojevich in 2002. Walker would also later go on to join the Illinois gubernatorial convict club.

If Simon had won the nomination he would very likely have won the general; he'd lead in multiple polling against Richard Ogilvie for months, and given Simon was a well-known fixture of Illinois state politics by this point it's unlikely the campaign would have changed things substantially - he and Ogilvie also got on quite well, so it would be unlikely to turn particularly bitter. In his OTL statewide races for the Senate he performed strongly with Independents and Republicans, (In 1984 he ran well ahead of Mondale, and 1990 was initially supposed to be competitive, and he went on to win it in a blowout) and of course he was a downstate politician. So his purchase with the Illinois electorate shouldn't be underestimated.

He'd have a much more successful governorship than Walker; he had decades of legislative experience, knew everyone who mattered, and was respected by both sides of the aisle. Though him and Daley weren't close politically or personally, they knew each other well and had a good working relationship.

I think Jim Thompson would make 1976 competitive even against Simon, and we're very much in the era of tax revolts, which is what did in Simon against Walker, but with a united Democratic Party and a productive record in office it should certainly be winnable for Simon.

And if he does win in '76, then all the presidential cycles of the eighties open up.
 
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