The West Wing’s Electoral School maps are extremely bizarre

True followers of Aaron Sorkin’s center-left fantasia The West Wing (a present that has loads of flaws however that additionally makes for magnificent consolation meals typically) know that the collection takes place in an alternate timeline the place America has presidential elections within the years when our actuality has midterm elections and vice versa. As an example, Democratic President Josiah Bartlet (Martin Sheen) was voted into workplace in 1998 after which once more in 2002, and the collection concludes with the election of Democrat Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits) to the presidency in 2006.

Some West Wing followers have speculated (largely in, like, on-line boards and remark sections) that the rationale for that is that on the earth of the present, Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974 triggered a particular presidential election that 12 months (as an alternative of resulting in Gerald Ford ascending to the presidency, as occurred in our actuality). However the truth stays: The West Wing’s actuality isn’t our personal.

Maybe that explains the present’s really out-there Electoral School maps.

We see two presidential elections in the course of the collection’ run — Bartlet’s reelection in 2002 and Santos’s election in 2006 — and the electoral maps it cooks up for them are, effectively, they’re bizarre.

Right here’s the one for the 2002 reelection of President Bartlet, courtesy of the West Wing fan wiki:

westwing.fandom.com

Now, within the 2002 election of the West Wing universe, President Bartlet gained with an 11-point edge within the widespread vote, which translated to 419 out of 538 electoral votes, with the opposite 119 taken by his Republican challenger Robert Ritchie. (Ritchie, alas, by no means realized he was operating in opposition to the protagonist of a TV present, which might have been useful info for his marketing campaign to have.) I don’t actually know why Bartlet could be that widespread however for the actual fact of Sorkin stacking the deck in his favor, however let’s go together with it.

At first blush, the map above is fairly darn odd. Bartlet wins a bunch of conventional Democratic strongholds on the West Coast and within the Northeast. However he additionally wins the Dakotas and Nebraska? And each swing state besides notoriously swingy Florida (which the present mentioned Bartlet gained in 1998)? And the strip of states that borders the Mississippi River, from Minnesota all the way down to Louisiana? Yeah, Democratic candidate Invoice Clinton gained that Mississippi River strip in 1992 and 1996, however he was from Arkansas. Bartlet (from New Hampshire) boasts no such geographical benefit.

When you perceive that Bartlet gained the favored vote by 11 factors, nonetheless, all kinds of goofy issues change into believable. When a presidential candidate wins by a double-digit margin within the widespread vote, states you wouldn’t anticipate them to win flip to that candidate’s column (although double-digit widespread vote winners additionally sometimes sweep all of the swing states, so Florida nonetheless doesn’t make sense). In our world, for example, Clinton gained reelection in 1996 with an 8.5 % edge within the widespread vote, and he gained quite a few states folks may not have predicted him to win, together with Arizona, which had been a Republican stronghold to that time (and which flipped again to George W. Bush in 2000).

Regardless: I don’t know that I’d predict the Dakotas and Nebraska to fall into the blue-state column, even in a Democratic-friendly 12 months, however possibly Bartlet had a tremendous agricultural coverage I’m forgetting about.

Anyway, the much more weird West Wing electoral map is the one from the present’s model of 2006:

westwing.fandom.com

The clearly wild factor right here is Democratic Santos successful Texas and Republican Arnold Vinick successful California, however Santos is from Texas and Vinick is from California, and the “house state impact” apparently stays potent within the West Wing universe. (It isn’t actually as potent in our universe — Al Gore misplaced Tennessee in 2000, and Donald Trump didn’t take New York in 2016.)

However even for those who account for the collection making an attempt to reverse-engineer an impossibly shut election — Vinick wins the favored vote 50.1 % to 49.9 % whereas Santos wins 272 electoral votes to Vinick’s 266 — one which ultimately leads to each events deciding to work collectively for the great of the nation (as a result of we’re all Individuals!), this map is basically unusual.

It exhibits Vinick successful each Ohio and Florida, the 2 most vital swing states of the 21st century, then dropping South Carolina, when North Carolina is the a lot swingier state. Conversely, Santos wins South Carolina (one way or the other) however loses Vermont? There’s no method a Democratic candidate loses Vermont to somebody operating to his proper. Equally, Arizona was nonetheless a Republican stronghold in our universe in 2006; I suppose you may argue that Santos, the primary main Latino candidate for the presidency, created excessive turnout amongst Latino Individuals throughout the Southwest (although one way or the other not in California). However nonetheless!

Anyway, if Donald Trump wins Vermont and Joe Biden wins South Carolina in 2020, I’ll retract this submit with a full apology to the employees of The West Wing. Till then, I proceed to consider these electoral maps are a multitude, concocted to not mirror actuality however, relatively, to create drama and excessive stakes on a TV present. The gall.