AMERICA DIVIDES: The Multi-Party US Election of 2016

[Jophiel]

Really want to see a more regular timeline of Hillary-Bernie's term in this TL.

 

[Comrade Izaac]

Really want to see a more regular timeline of Hillary-Bernie's term in this TL.

honestly, despite the fact that Clinton hates Sanders and Bernie despises everything she stands for, it would probably work out fairly well until foreign policy would get brought up lol. i can easily see a Lib-Prog coalition where Bernie essentially becomes VP/Vice PM and forces Clinton to the left on welfare/healthcare/labor issues before something like U.S support for Israeli Settlement Construction or the Saudi War in Yemen becomes a major issue and causes the alliance to collapse.

 

[Catalunya]

honestly, despite the fact that Clinton hates Sanders and Bernie despises everything she stands for, it would probably work out fairly well until foreign policy would get brought up lol. i can easily see a Lib-Prog coalition where Bernie essentially becomes VP/Vice PM and forces Clinton to the left on welfare/healthcare/labor issues before something like U.S support for Israeli Settlement Construction or the Saudi War in Yemen becomes a major issue and causes the alliance to collapse.

I think they’re both pragmatic enough to not let it collapse, but the next general election could get dirty enough that they may not wish to enter government together if that opportunity arises, which I doubt will considering Trump is cannibalizing the rest of the right.

 

[Stikfigur]

Wonder about local things too. Will this Lib dominant but with a strong Prog CA deal with it's housing woes faster or slower, or start ramping up pressure around the early 2020s like OTL?

 

[Thande]

Wonder about local things too. Will this Lib dominant but with a strong Prog CA deal with it's housing woes faster or slower, or start ramping up pressure around the early 2020s like OTL?

That would depend on the state elections, which I am not touching with a barge pole. @Caprice mentioned possibly looking at it, but it'd depend on if the primary data was available by the appropriate districts. Of course in California's case the artificially constrained three-party setup means the result would probably not be interesting enough to be the one you'd look at doing anyway. Somewhere like Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota or Michigan could be fascinating on the state legislative level though - again, if the data exists.

 

[Thande]

That would depend on the state elections, which I am not touching with a barge pole. @Caprice mentioned possibly looking at it, but it'd depend on if the primary data was available by the appropriate districts. Of course in California's case the artificially constrained three-party setup means the result would probably not be interesting enough to be the one you'd look at doing anyway. Somewhere like Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota or Michigan could be fascinating on the state legislative level though - again, if the data exists.

Here's a link to Daily Kos' page for presidential and other general election results by legislative districts, but I don't think they have primary data by the same districts, unfortunately. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/20...ts-by-congressional-and-legislative-districts

edit: apparently there's been an initiative to collate election data by precincts (see this paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-022-01745-0.pdf ) but although the paper is free to download, it looks like one has to apply for permission to MIT to get it - and I'm not sure if it includes primary data anyway.

 

[Visigoethe]

I know that all precinct election results (even primaries) are based on the State House districts in Vermont so it would certainly be calculable here (though unfortunately lopsided in favor of one man), I could look into seeing if there are any other states that do it that way as well.

Also wonderful TL Thande, and now my default answer when anybody asks if anyone has ever done a rigorous model of what a multi-party America would look like. It really puts Patrick Ruffini to shame.

 

[Thande]

I know that all precinct election results (even primaries) are based on the State House districts in Vermont so it would certainly be calculable here (though unfortunately lopsided in favor of one man), I could look into seeing if there are any other states that do it that way as well.

Also wonderful TL Thande, and now my default answer when anybody asks if anyone has ever done a rigorous model of what a multi-party America would look like. It really puts Patrick Ruffini to shame.

Thank you kindly. There are definitely more 'realistic' multi-party US scenarios here (@Ares96 has done some on a state-by-state basis and someone else did a very similar but different one) but this is probably the best we're going to get for anything specifically derived from real data of how actual Americans voted in an actual election. (Or multiple actual elections I suppose).

 

[Caprice]

That would depend on the state elections, which I am not touching with a barge pole. @Caprice mentioned possibly looking at it, but it'd depend on if the primary data was available by the appropriate districts. Of course in California's case the artificially constrained three-party setup means the result would probably not be interesting enough to be the one you'd look at doing anyway. Somewhere like Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota or Michigan could be fascinating on the state legislative level though - again, if the data exists.

What I'd personally want to do is look at state-level primaries, setting the elections a few years down the line (say, 2018-9 midterms) so that the coalitions make sense to be a bit different. I might shift them to fit the 2016-based numbers a bit if they're horribly scuffed, but other than that.

 

[Thande]

What I'd personally want to do is look at state-level primaries, setting the elections a few years down the line (say, 2018-9 midterms) so that the coalitions make sense to be a bit different. I might shift them to fit the 2016-based numbers a bit if they're horribly scuffed, but other than that.

I see - well, I'd be interested in seeing it if you want to tackle it, data permitting.

 

[Caprice]

I see - well, I'd be interested in seeing it if you want to tackle it, data permitting.

It might be more of a Canada deal, where state-level politics are loosely-related to national politics at best. Course, the most obvious format for that is a Laboratories of Democracy/Seventh Party System-style anthology map series, but I'm not sure if I want to do that format.

 

[theflyingmgoose]

The interesting thing here would be how Governors would be much more prominent if the Senate is gone (unless the convention also changed to a Canadian-style provincial legislature).

Also, how did Obama's presidency go ignoring the convention?

 

[Nyvis]

It might be more of a Canada deal, where state-level politics are loosely-related to national politics at best. Course, the most obvious format for that is a Laboratories of Democracy/Seventh Party System-style anthology map series, but I'm not sure if I want to do that format.

Isn't that often already the case in the US, even with FPTP? There's quite a few states where one party can win state level offices but has zero chance at the national level. I expect we'll see some of that. On the other hand, in places where the state party machines broke overwhelmingly for one of the splinters, it's unlikely that the other splinters will recover in time for state politics, which should solidify the domination of the one left.

 

[Thande]

Isn't that often already the case in the US, even with FPTP? There's quite a few states where one party can win state level offices but has zero chance at the national level.

As I understand it, it's a bit different - Canada has had (as far as we can tell) long-lasting divergence, whereas the US divergence seems to mostly have been a transitional thing with the 20th century party realignment. People in the South voting for Republicans for President while still re-electing Democrats for other offices for a couple of decades later, often until those incumbents retired, but then immediately going Republican for those offices too. (And vice versa for New England, etc.) Now, partly because of that incumbency-dependent issue and also because of greater polarisation in general as wave elections cleared out some incumbents, the states are realigning back to match the presidential partisanship. I think an enduring separation between federal and state party systems in the US would be quite different.

 

[Thande]

Here's a nationwide map of Progressive Party seats to go with the others.This is helpful as it's easier to see the distribution south of the northern regions in places where they were no longer finishing first, but were still picking up seats.

 

[Jophiel]

Here's a nationwide map of Progressive Party seats to go with the others.This is helpful as it's easier to see the distribution south of the northern regions in places where they were no longer finishing first, but were still picking up seats.

View attachment 61458

Really glad we've established the Cold Party, with the Liberals are the Hot party, and Nationals as the Warm party.

Please ignore all the exceptions for this to work. Alternatives being the Northern Party, Central/Middle Party, and Southern-Coastal Parties.

 

[Thande]

And to round it out just before the real-life midterms, here are some final maps for the Conservative and Constitution Parties. The Con-Con Fusion wins, co-endorsed by both parties, appear on both maps in a different colour shade.

 

[Mumby]

very interesting how conservatives seem the party of the 'east', constitution the 'west, and then the nationals are like the 'east and also the pacific'

 

[Thande]

As they have nearly finished counting the votes from the midterms which happened (checks notes) three weeks ago, I thought I'd go back to this project.

I'm not sure if it's worth trying party popular votes by district but I had a go by state. The problem is the colour scale isn't the best for this. I've tried just adding extra pale shades for more nuance at the low end but it doesn't really work. I'd probably be better frameshifting it and ignoring the outliers where there's over 50% of the vote for one party in a handful of places (which, DC aside, are probably due to factors from the primaries that wouldn't apply to a real multi-party election anyway). But at least now I've got the colours down it could be recoloured relatively easily.

 

[Walpurgisnacht]

That Alliance map is almost comedically stark.