United States presidential election, 2064 (Original)

=Hypothetical, Fictional Election of 2064= The election was held on November 4, 2064. Incumbent President William J. Rutherford was reelected in a decisive electoral and popular vote landslide, winning 49 states, including his opponent, Governor Thomas P. Leach's, home state of South Dakota, and the District of Columbia. Rutherford won a record 532 electoral votes and captured 66.1% of the popular vote. Leach won only the state of Mississippi, which gave him just six electoral votes-the lowest won by any American presidential candidate in history, since the beginning of the present system in 1820. He delivered the worst Republican performance in the Electoral College in history, worse than those of President William H. Taft in his reelection bid of 1912 and Governor Alf Landon of Kansas in 1936, each of whom had won only eight electoral votes. Moreover, his performance in the popular vote (32.7%) was the worst of any major-party candidate in American history since John W. Davis in 1924, who had won just 28.8% of the popular vote against President Calvin Coolidge (Davis was hurt by the presence of Senator Robert M. LaFollette Sr. of Wisconsin, who captured 16.6% of the popular vote in that year). It was worse then the performances of Landon (36.5%) or Barry Goldwater (38.5%). President Rutherford achieved therefore, the historic combination of the most popular and electoral votes won by a single candidate. He outperformed Ronald Reagan by seven electoral votes (532 electoral votes as compared to Reagan's 525), and won a higher percentage of the Electoral College then had Franklin D. Roosevelt (98.88% vs. Roosevelt's 98.48%). Rutherford's percentage of the popular vote was ahead of those of Warren G. Harding in 1920, Roosevelt in 1936, Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, and Richard M. Nixon in 1972. In fact, Rutherford's performance exceeded Johnson's by five percentage points. The popular-vote margin between Rutherford and Leach was a record 33.40%, the largest popular-vote margin in American electoral history. It surpassed the previous record-holder, the margin which had separated Harding and his opponent, Governor James M. Cox of Ohio, in 1920 (26.20%).

In achieving this historic, and decisive win, the President capitalized on a booming economy, foreign policy successes in the Congo, Saudi Arabia, and Korea, the American exploration and colonization efforts at the Moon, Mars, and Venus, and the public perception of his opponent, Governor Leach. Leach had a habit of making off-handed, bullish comments about foreign policy, war, economics, and civil rights. Leach even proposed abandoning exploration efforts planned by NASA and other space authorities for penetration into the outer reaches of the Solar System, a viewpoint seen as ridiculous by many Americans. He was also dogged by allegations of his past sexual behavior, of corruption charges during his time in the U.S. Congress, and of his alleged disregard for Mormons, religious minorities, and Jews. Rutherford, who had won great praise from both sides of the aisle for his ability to compromise and moderate between opposing parties, and for his vigorous support of American economic, energy, and military interests, succeeded in painting Leach as an extremist. His campaign slogans harkened in some ways back to the days of LBJ; Leach's words were turned against him, and the President's surrogates warned that the Governor, if elected, would reverse the progress made to restore American economic strength. Rutherford also touted his conservative policies in regards to a balanced federal budget, reduction of taxes, and equitable tax burdens for both business and the middle-class citizen, policies popular with libertarians and fiscal conservatives.

The consequences of all of this was that he made substantial gains in the electoral map, expanding his decisive win of 2060 into a sweeping landslide in this election year. Rutherford won a number of historic Republican states which had not gone Democratic since the days of LBJ, exactly a century earlier. These included Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma. Moreover, he became only the third Democrat of the twenty-first century (following Barack Obama in 2008 and Joseph P. Kennedy in 2044), to win Indiana, which had voted Democratic only four times since World War II, the second to win Alaska (following Kennedy), and the fourth to win Montana (following Cory Booker, Kennedy, Boyle, and Charlotte Clinton). He also became the first Democrat of the twenty-first century to win Alabama and West Virginia. The former had not voted Democratic since 1976 (when it had gone for Jimmy Carter); the latter, since 1996, when it had gone for Bill Clinton. Rutherford accomplished all of this while at the same time maintaining and extending Democratic dominance in the Party's traditional strongholds, such as California, Washington, Oregon, Hawaii, Washington D.C., New York, Illinois, and the states of the Northeast.

Of the 3,126 counties and independent municipalities in the United States making returns, Rutherford won in 2,535 (81.09%) while Leach won only 591 (18.90%). This was the best performance of any Democrat since FDR in 1936 (who had won 2,634, or 85.11% of the counties then existing in the United States), and the third-best performance of any candidate in the twenty-first century. Rutherford was surpassed only by Donald Trump, who had won 2,600 (83%) of the nation's counties in 2016 and 2,715 (86.8%) of the counties in his reelection of 2020. His total surpassed those of John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2016, who had won 72% (2250) and 78% (2,438) of the nation's counties respectively. It was a far cry from the 875 counties (28%) and 687 counties (22%) won by President Barack Obama in his victories of 2008 and 2012, which had marked a record low for a winning presidential candidate, and from the 531 counties (17%) won by Hillary Clinton in her loss to Trump in 2016, the second-worst performance of a Democratic candidate in American electoral history. Conversely, Leach's performance was the worst of any Republican since Alf Landon, and demonstrated the extent to which the two parties had regained equilibrium, on the county level, throughout the country in the decades after 2025. Rutherford was only the second Democrat of the century (following Joseph P. Kennedy III in 2044) to win a majority of the nation's counties. Of the 49 states that he carried, he won the majority of counties in all but three of them (the exceptions being Nebraska, South Dakota, and Alabama, which, coincidentally, were among the President's closest wins). Rutherford made great inroads into Republican territory in the Mountain West and South, winning counties (such as Ada County, Idaho), which had not gone Democratic since the preceding century. Furthermore, the President won every county in Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts (which had seen a Republican-won county in an presidential election only once since 1992, in Trump's reelection of 2020), Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, his home state of Colorado (where he had also won every county four years earlier), Hawaii, and Alaska.

As regards to his demographic performance, Rutherford had the best of any Democrat since the days of LBJ. For the first time in the twenty-first century, and the first time since LBJ, one candidate swept all subgroups (religion, race, income, orientation, income, education, gender) of the electorate. He became the first Democrat since LBJ to win the majority of the white male vote, only the second in the century to win the majority of the overall white vote (following Kennedy), and the first since Jimmy Carter to carry a majority of white evangelicals, born-again Christians, and Protestants (who had been turned off by Leach's irreligion and his private comments about religious organization). He was also the first since LBJ to carry Mormons, key to his decisive win in Utah, long the most Republican of states. Rutherford's performance by race was truly impressive. He won 59% of whites; 94% of African-Americans; 71% of Hispanics; and 67% of Asians/Other voters. He thereby matched Mitt Romney's record of fifty-two years earlier among whites, as well as Barack Obama's 2012 totals among African-Americans and Hispanics, and his 2008 total among Asians. Men (65%) and women (67%) gave the President their support in overwhelming numbers. Rutherford completely dominated the working-class and low-income vote (66%), won a commanding majority among middle-class voters (61%), and beat Leach among wealthier voters (55%). Catholics gave him nearly three-quarters of their votes; Jews, 81%; the non-religious and agnostic, 86%. He carried religious minorities (Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, Native American practitioners, Sikhs, etc.), capturing 61% of their votes. Evangelicals gave the President 54% of their votes, a record for a Democrat; Mormons, 59%. All total, Rutherford won 65% of heterosexual voters (95% of the electorate) and 76% of LGBT voters (5% of the electorate).

The Rutherford landslide defeated many conservative Republicans in both the House and the Senate. Democrats picked up eight seats in the Senate and thirty-seven in the House, increasing their majorities to 63-47 in the former and 286-149 in the House. This increase in seats would allow for Rutherford and House Speaker William J. Dixon, Jr. of Washington D.C. (the first African-American Speaker of the House in American history, who had been elevated in 2063) to enact more legislation.