What: 2020 US Presidential Election
Short Background: Hillary Clinton wins the Presidency in 2016 and decides not to run for reelection. Can the Democrats hold onto the White House for another 4 years or will the GOP take the White House back?
Download Here:United States – 2020 [Zip]
***Update – 8/8/2015 – Version 1.4***
-New VP candidates include: Gov. Kim Reynolds, Gov. Doug Ducey, Fmr. Gov Mary Fallin, Fmr. Secretary Jack Lew, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Fmr Gov Gina Raimondo, Gov. Kate Brown
-Marco Rubio is now a potential Presidential candidate
-Edited the same sex marriage issue across the board
***Update – 7/19/2015 – Version 1.35***
-Changed storyline from having Mark Udall as Clinton’s VP to Rep. Joaquin Castro. Udall is still a candidate, but starts much lower on the totem poll. Castro obviously has moved up the totem pole.
-I’ve reworked some of the starting numbers for candidates strenght in the primaries based on if they are a former VP, former party nominee or former Vice President, former candidate or VP candidate, statewide elected officials (or high up CEOs) or a nobody….for the most part I’ve been consistent.
-I also added additional primary debates
-I love Trump, for the entertainment, so I’ve kept him as an independent candidate. I did change his bio. For better or worse, if he keeps up the 2012 antics I may keep his as an independent but weaken him significantly then add in another GOP leaning independent.
***Update – 6/23/2015 – Version 1.3***
-Added Condolezza Rice as a candidate for the GOP
-Added Sherrod Brown and Jon Stewart as a candidate for the Democrats
-Changed the Democratic and Republican primary schedule to start in February 2020 and make the primaries regional after the first four states (IA, NH, SC, NV).
-Added VPs: Sarah Palin, Rick Scott, Gavin Newsom, Maggie Hassan
***Update – 6/20/2015 – Version 1.25***
Not a big update here. Minor edits, turned Al Gore off by default as per suggestions by commenters and also put Trump & Bezo’s funds at 100 million each (prior, Bezos was higher but I wanted to balance it out).
I’ll do another update soon, as always I am reading and accepting suggestions.
***Update – 5/17/2015 – Version 1.2***
-Two US Senator Endorsers from Puerto Rico
-Updated all State Governors to reflect 2020 — minus US territories
-Added Jeff Bezos as an independent candidate. My intent was to balance out Donald Trump.
-Made Jill Stein a VP candidate for the Green Party; added two of the Green Party’s committeewomen as potential Presidential candidates
-Fixed Joaquin Castro’s photo for the most part…still makes him look a bit chubby
-Tim Scott is now off by default; Rep. Steve Chabot is now Trump’s VP
Coming Up Next: More Pres/VP candidates, feel free to suggest them. If anyone has any suggestions on fleshing out new policy/issues, let me know.
***Update – 4/29/2015 – Version 1.1***
Whats New in Version 1.1
-Added Alan Mulally as a potential Democratic candidate
-Fixed Endorser Tags [i.e Mark_Kirk –> Tammy_Duckworth]
-Added Republican VPs: Marco Rubio, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Jon Huntsman
-Added Democratic VPs: Bill Nye, Kamala Harris, Gary Locke
-Changed Observation Party images to generic ones
-Fixed Castro’s image
-Some of the new images for candidates/vps might be slightly off. Will have to amend in future.
-Changed to .zip format
If anyone has numbers on how state political affiliation demographics are expected to change in the next few years feel free to send it my way.
Playable Characters:
Name (On/Off by Default)
Democrats:
President Hillary Clinton (Off)
VP Joaquin Castro (On)
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (On)
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (On)
Sen. Cheri Bustos (On)
Sen. Tim Kaine (On)
CEO Alan Mulally (On)
Sen. Sherrod Brown (On)
Fmr. Sen. Mark Udall (On)
Former VP Al Gore (Off)
Gov. Andrew Cuomo (Off)
Sen. Chuck Schumer (Off)
Former VP Joe Biden (Off)
Jon Stewart (Off)
Republicans:
Sen. Rand Paul (On)
Gov. Scott Walker (Off)
Sen. Kelly Ayotte (On)
Rep. Paul Ryan (On)
Gov. Susana Martinez (On)
Sen. Joni Ernst (On)
Gov. Mike Pence (On)
Gov. Nikki Haley (On)
Gov. Brian Sandoval (On)
Sen. Ted Cruz (On)
Rep. Louie Gohmert (On)
Fmr. Sec. of State Condolezza Rice (Off)
Sen. Tim Scott (Off)
Scenario Backstory:
Democratic Nomination
In 2016, Hillary Clinton barely defeats Martin O’Malley in Iowa – soon after she sweeps the remaining early primary states and goes onto being the uncontested Democratic nominee. She picks Congressman Joaquin Castro as her running mate.
Republican Nomination
In 2016, The GOP primary field is overly packed – Scott Walker pulls out a bare bones win in Iowa, but loses to Rand Paul in New Hampshire. South Carolina goes to Walker and Paul picks up Nevada more or less making the GOP nomination a two man race. The contest becomes bitterly contested but Walker pulls it off in the end. Word leaks that Paul turned down Walker’s offer for VP hurting the GOP nominee. Walker selects Kelly Ayotte as his running mate.
2016 General
Running on an upswing economy as a centrist Hillary Clinton defeats Governor Scott Walker 55% to 45% despite winning the Electoral College 297-241
2016 Senatorial Freshman & Pickups Winners:
Florida: Patrick Murphy (D-pick up)
Illinois: Tammy Duckworth (D-pick up)
Indiana: Marlin Stutzman (R-hold)
Louisiana: John Kennedy (R-hold)
Nevada: Catherine Cortez Masto (D-hold)
Maryland: Chris Van Hollen (D-hold)
Pennsylvania: Joe Sestak (D-pick up)
Wisconsin: Russ Feingold (D-pick up)
Picking up 4 seats gave Democrats 48 seats in the Senate, plus two independents gave them 50 seats. Vice President Udall would be the tie-breaking vote for control of the Senate. Democrats pickup 30 seats in the House, giving them a barebones majority.
2018 Senatorial Freshman & Pickups Winners:
California: Alex Padilla (D-hold)
Illinois: Cheri Bustos (D-hold)
Indiana: Brian Bosma (R-pick up)
New Jersey: Richard Codey (D-hold)
North Dakota: Kevin Cramer (R-pickup)
Utah: Mike Leavitt (R-hold)
West Virginia: David McKinley (R-pick up)
The loss of three seats gave the Republican Party a 53-49 advantage in the Senate. Republicans pickup five seats in the House handing the majority back to the GOP.
Clinton Presidency
The Clinton Presidency benefits from a Democratic Congress quickly passing immigration reform in addition to later reforming the tax code. Democrats lose a small number of seats in both houses in 2018 costing Democrats the majority in both Houses.
In 2019, Clinton announces that she will not seek reelection leaving the field wide open. Pundits speculate that Clinton believes the economy will stop expanding around the time of the election and thus ensuring a Republican victory.
Disclaimer: I made this for fun, this is not a prediction of the future. I am open to suggestions, etc.
Download Here:United States – 2020 [Zip]
A few things:
1. You have Julian Castro’s picture for his brother Joaquin Castro.
2. With Manchin running again in 2018 (which he announced just recently) I doubt he will lose that seat baring some unforeseen circumstances.
3. Also in WV: Earl Ray Tomblin will be term limited and will not be able to run for reelection in 2016.
4. Mark Dayton won’t be Governor in 2020. (MN) Same with Jerry Brown in CA.
5. Actually there are quite a few Governors that won’t be there in 2020. ie. most of them.
6. A few endorsement problems including Bustos endorsing Bustos. I think I resolved this in my 1960 by starting the individual off at 100 or something.
That’s it for the moment. I am playing through a full game of the scenario right now. Interesting “what if” scenario.
@booth088
Thanks for the feedback!
1) Yes, I was lazy — I do need to change that. Surprised someone noticed.
2) I didn’t change any Governor’s yet. I more or less saw it as Manchin not running, but now that we know he will run I can change it.
3/4/5 – Need to change all the Governor’s still.
6 – Thanks for noticing that I’ll have to change it.
Tammy Duckworth’s platform needs to be moved from where Kirk’s was as an endorser.
Ok, I figured out what the problem with the endorsers being separate from the candidates: You need to make sure the “ID” is the same for both the endorser as well as the candidate. Example: your candidate Joni Ernst has the id joni_ernst while the endorser Joni Ernst has the id tom_harkin.
I’m going to bring these particular ones up in the blog comments because the problem is the same in the official 2016 scenario.
Thanks, at least its not a hard change to make! I’ll edit it as I go through and and change up the Governors as well.
I would also add Donald Trump as a Republican candidate as well.
@Jvikings1 – Donald Trump is included as an independent candidate for fun.
You should also have the Bloomberg as an independent candidate.
@jvikings1 – Bloomberg will be 78 in 2020. While this is a fictional scenario, I don’t think it’s plausible that he’d run at that age. However, if you think of another independent candidate who would make the scenario more interesting I’d definitely consider adding that person in!
For the observation party, switch the picture to the one that says the seal of the President of the United States.
Kentucky governor, Jack Conway is leading in the polls for the Democrats for Governor.
My biggest issue with this is the type of the file. Why is this not a zip compressed format?
@Dallas – .rar files are zipped, but I can upload it specifically as a .zip file next time.
Oh. I did not realize he was so old. Maybe you could use Bill Walker of Alaska. Also, for the Democrats, you could add Lincoln Chafee as a candidate.
***Update – 4/29/2015 – Version 1.1***
Whats New in Version 1.1
-Added Alan Mulally as a potential Democratic candidate
-Fixed Endorser Tags [i.e Mark_Kirk –> Tammy_Duckworth]
-Added Republican VPs: Marco Rubio, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Jon Huntsman
-Added Democratic VPs: Bill Nye, Kamala Harris, Gary Locke
-Changed Observation Party images to generic ones
-Fixed Castro’s image
-Some of the new images for candidates/vps might be slightly off. Will have to amend in future.
-Changed to .zip format
Still Need To…
-Update Governors to reflect 2020
-I’d like to add an additional independent candidate
-Additional Pres candidates & VPs
How do I download onto a mac. I hit download and it just creates a folder. How do I play it in the game?
@Kevin – This campaign is based off the PC version of President Infinity. It will only work for PC. Sorry.
Maybe it does work for Mac…let me know if anyone has success.
I’ve also added Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos as an independent candidate. It’ll be in the next update.
Before some idiot think of creating a game he or she should test & see if the game works. It really doesn’t make any sense to have someone waste there time downloading a broken zip that doesn’t work,
@Sentinel Please. Just Please make Bill Nye playable.
@Mason – I just downloaded it and played it. It works.
@Bubbles – Will def consider for next update.
You say you just played it, When ever i click on a candidate profile a little box pop up and says abnormal program termination. & the entire game shuts down, I have Windows 7, So your program must be different from mines,
@Mason – I can’t replicate the problem that you’re having. The candidate profiles are functioning properly for me. Could you provide more information? Are you playing President Infinity Version Amundsen 1.9.9? I am also using Windows 7.
Always nice with a new scenario!
I have a lot of suggestions and constructive criticism, so bear with me:
* The basis of the story is solid. Little needs to be changed. I have some question marks, though:
** Mark Udall, a defeated Senator (and old to boot!) would not be chosen as Hillary’s VP. The role is much better filled by Gov. Hickenlooper.
** 55-45 won’t result in 297 electoral votes – if we apply a universal swing from 2012 it would result in 347 electoral votes and all the Obama states + NC for HRC. The only way for that one to happen is to rack up the score to impossibility in non-competitive states like CA and NY which could happen, I guess, but campaigns don’t work that way. Also, I assume 55-45 is the 2-party votes (so in reality it’s 54 for HRC, 44 for Walker and 2 for Others)?
** The GOP will probably win back more than 5 seats in 2018 if the Democrats win the House, as they would have to win districts rated Safe R today (could happen in a wave!)
Now for candidates:
* Would Haley and Scott run against each other? Perhaps. Likewise with Gohmert and Cruz. Sandoval would probably not get very far in today’s GOP – in 2020’s? Maybe.
* Gore will be 73 in 2020, Biden 79. They won’t run. Schumer will stay in Senate leadership until retirement.
* Warren doesn’t seem interested in the White House, keep her but turn her off by default.
* Joaquin Castro running and not the far higher profile twin? Huh?
* Cuomo will probably have too much ethics stuff hung around his neck in 2020 and he’s DOA in a Democratic primary.
* Bustos won’t run after only 2 years in the Senate. Duckworth could replace her.
* Suggestions for candidates: Flake, Cotton, Rounds, LePage, Snyder, McCrory (if re-elected); Hickenlooper, Merkley, Heinrich, Klobuchar, Franken, Sestak, Hassan, Bullock)
VPs:
Remove people who will be irrelevant or too old in 2020 (Pawlenty, Bachmann, Huntsman; Brown, Locke). Addition suggestions, in addition to listed Prez options:
Ducey, Rauner (if re-elected), Moore Capito, Stutzman; Raimondo, Bennet, Chris Murphy, Schatz, Tester, Baldwin, Patrick Murphy, Cortez Masto)
3rd partiers:
* Stein will probably not run, she’ll have had 2 unsuccessful campaigns and she’ll be 70. The Libertarians might as well still be running Johnson, though, since he’s their only credible candidate.
* Trump will not have Chuck Hagel as VP. Some irrelevant Tea Partier maybe? I dunno.
That’s all for now. Good work, though. 🙂
Thanks for the feedback Tayya.
On Udall as VP — weirder things have happened. Bush chose the guy charged with finding his VP — as VP. I thought it added an interesting element to the game — bringing someone ‘back to life’ in a sense who otherwise would not be included.
As per the 55-45 numbers, you don’t have to run up your numbers in democratic states to win that. You can perform better in traditionally Republican or competitive states and still reach that end result.
As for the 5 seats in 2018 — I went with less losses over more because it was easier TBH.
-No idea on Haley and Scott, I might turn off Scott by default. Gohmert is a wacko and would run against anyone. He’s in there really for fun.
Biden is off by default. Cuomo is off by default. Schumer is off by default. Cruz is running in 2015 after only two years in the Senate so Bustos is staying on as well. Al Gore is in there to make it interesting — 73 is old indeed, perhaps I’ll reconsider after we add more Democrats, but for now I’m going to keep it. Having 2 former VPs running is unprecedented historically I believe…
Warren isn’t interested in the White House in 2015. 2020 is anyone’s guess.
I’ll take a look at the suggested VPs and Pres candidates.
Stein is in the game only because she was in the 2016 version. I haven’t edited the Green or Libertarian parties categorically. Same thing for Hagel as Trumps VP. Just haven’t edited it.
Next update will have an updated Green Party — two leaders (the 2012 VP and a co-chair of the Party), in addition to Jill Stein being moved to a potential VP choice.
My Suggestions: (R – AR) Tom Cotton, (R – UT) Jon Huntsman, (R – NJ) Chris Christie, (R – WA) Cathy McMorris Rodgers, (D – MD) Martin O’Malley, (D – CO) Michael Bennet, Tammy Duckworth (D – IL). Those are just a few that came to mind, also PLEASE add Bill Nye! 😀
For the Republicans, you could add John Kasich, John Thune, Bobby Jindal, Tom Cotton, and Marco Rubio. Bruce Rauner could be a candidate if he wins re-election.
For the Democrats, you could add Julian Castro (I know you have his brother, but he is a potential candidate), Maggie Hassan, John Hickenlooper, Amy Klobuchar, Martin O’Malley, and Brian Schweitzer.
New update posted today FYI. Next update will have more potential leaders and VPs.
If anyone has a source for projected changes in D/R registration state by state, I’d appreciate it.
Now that Donald Trump announced that he will run this year, you could add him as a Republican candidate.
@JVikings1 – This is true — Trump is a candidate. I wanted a conservative/rich independent to be able to run in the 2020 scenario to make it more interesting. If you have a suggestion of who that could be (besides Trump) then I’ll move Trump to the GOP pool.
Next update will also have a new primary calendar with regional primaries after the first four states. Iowa will be on 3/3/2020. The primary season will end on 6/9/2020. (As of now, I may change it slightly).
You could still keep him as an independent and add him into the Republican primaries(for if someone wants to run him as an independent still). If you do not want to do that, I will try to think of a candidate to replace him that is conservative/rich.
Meg Whitman could be a possibility.
Sherrod Brown should be a candidate, he’s just as progressive as Warren and as an added bonus he’s from Ohio.
Suggestions
Additional candidates
Democrats
Joe Kennedy iii
Russ Feingold
Bill Maher
Angus King
Wendy Davis
Stephen Colbert
Republicans
Rob Portman
Tom Cotton
Ben Sasse
Scott Brown
Bill O’ Reilly
Independents
Bill Gates
Charlie Sheen
On your description, you forgot to factor in the Senators from Puerto Rico.
What about a Sanders re-election campaign, and adding Joseph P. Kennedy III
You could add Rahm Emmanuel as a democratic candidate
Can you please get rid of Mark Udall as a candidate and Clinton’s VP. Some better options for Clinton’s VP/Democratic candidate are: Mark Warner, Cory Booker, John Hickenlooper, Rahm Emmanuel, Joseph P. Kennedy III, and possibly Joe Biden or Sanders but these two re very unlikely.
@Frank/Harold – Thanks for the suggestions.
@Bjorn – I did decide to change Udall to Joaquin in terms of the VP candidate. I don’t think replacing an older white male with another older white male was going to be especially creative, so I went with Joaquin.
Make Marco Rubio a Republican candidate. It’s very unlikely that he’ll not run in 2020 if he is unable to secure the nomination in 2016.
The next update will have at least 3 new VP candidates on each side, and Marco Rubio is a Republican candidate for President now.
I just read this morning that the CEO of Starbucks was being urged to run for President in 2016 — he could make an interesting candidate for 2020.
ALSO, I have started work on a 2024 scenario. The 2024 scenario follows this one — it assumes that in 2020 Kelly Ayotte/Brian Sandoval defeats Joaquin Castro/Jack Lew. Ayotte ends up being a a controversial but relatively moderate President (vetoes repeal of Obamacare, Sandoval resigns early amid a serious campaign finance scandal…). I’m still working on it, but I’ve adjusted some of the D v. R percentages and the issues.
Will release both the updated 2020 Scenario and the new beta 2024 scenario this weekend.
Hey, a couple of things. In 2020 if you have Joe Biden run he is endorsed by his late son Beau Biden. And if you need any help on the 2024 scenario or any other you are planing on making let me know, i’d be glad to help out.
New update just published in addition to the 2024 Beta. Removed Beau Biden as well.
@Bjorn – I appreciate the offer for help, I could use some other issue ideas or potential candidates for 2024, but it’s still a work in Congress.