2048 United States Presidential Election

The 2048 United States presidential election was the 24th biennial Presidential Election, held on Tuesday, November 2, 2048. Incumbent President James Kennedy won a controversial election against three main opponents. His main opponent was Conservative nominee Wendell Willkie, a businessman and lawyer from New York. Another opponent was Senator Robert La Follette who left the Conservative party after losing it's nomination. He established the "Progressive party". Finally the Socialist party re-nominated Jack Reed of Oregon, he had been their nominee in the previous election and had received nearly 1% of the vote.

President Kennedy was re-nominated with little opposition. The conservatives had a competitive primary, early on former Vice President Tim Scott led in polls against the field but as the first primaries approached La Follette and Willkie began to surge. Additionally the campaign of Utah Senator Orrin Hatch drew support away from Scott as they held similar views. Scott became the distant third place finisher in many states, except for winning a few southern primaries. At the convention the nominee was still unclear but on the third ballot Scott threw his support to Willkie to prevent a La Follette candidacy and this support allowed Willkie to win the nomination. He selected conservative Senator Katie Britt of Alabama as his running mate. These events enraged La Follette and his supporters and he stormed from the convention floor. Shortly after he spoke to reporters to claim that Willkie had "Stolen" the nomination from him and announced the formation of a new political party. The "Progressive party", he declared that the time had come to abolish the corrupt alliance between wall street and politics. He selected Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker to be his running mate. Meanwhile the nominee of the socialist party, Jack Reed had begun to gain some traction as he hit Kennedy hard for not being left wing enough, indeed many within the Liberal party felt the same way and Reed surged.

Domestic policy was the primary issue of the election but foreign policy issues such as the Pakistani civil war and the subsequent intervention by the Chinese resulted in the increased importance of foreign policy. Domestic issues centred mainly around the many failures of the Kennedy administration. The Farm Reform Act of 2047 had failed in the senate and Kennedy's attempts to solve the southwestern water crisis proved unsuccessful. Kennedy had achieved some successes in space but these achievements did not help Kennedy much. Willkie promised that he would fix the southwestern water crisis, however he provided few details on his plans for doing so. He also pledged to help farmers and the working class, again he remained vague on what this meant. He did however campaign hard on foreign policy promising a tougher stance on China and to expand NATO to new countries. La Follette did not lack for policy or rhetoric in his campaign, he pledged a wide degree of new programs to help workers and farmers. He promised also to nationalise the water of the United states and build new infrastructure to alleviate the southwestern crisis. Kennedy focused on the space race and blamed conservatives for his failures with farmers and the southwest. He also tried to play up his own personal likeability. Reed promised an incredibly large number of things but most of his ideas were very far outside on the mainstream of american politics. He suggest nationalising all transportation and natural resources companies and also establishing a hard limit on how much money one could possess. La Follette started with fairly low support, as did Reed but as the election proceeded they both surged. La Follette rose as high as 30% in some polls and Reed achieved numbers as high as 15% in some polls. Kennedy and Willkie traded the lead back and forth during the entire campaign, but Kennedy performed well in the debates and managed to lead in most polls during the fall.

On election day the winner was quite uncertain, La Follette led in no polls but many had him within the margin of error of being in the top 2 of candidates. Willkie was confident that he would win the election outright, Kennedy believed that the election would go to the house as did La Follette. The latter two would be proved right as no candidate would receive the needed 301 electoral votes to be elected. Willkie won the plurality of electoral votes with 240, he performed best in the Midwest and northeast. Kennedy finished second with 225 electoral votes. He did best in the south. La Follette swept the plains and surprisingly won the key state of California. Jack Reed won no states but won around 9% of the vote nationwide. The contingent election held in the house was a long and complicated process. None of the candidates wished to drop out leading to 38 ballots of little change. However by the 15th many began to worry that no President would be elected by the 20th. So several conservatives decided to abandon Willkie to ensure the stability of the nation. On the 39th house vote Kennedy was finally re-elected President. Willkie took his defeat with grace and conceded. La Follette did concede but decried what he called the "corrupt process of contingent elections". Many of his and Willkie's supporters would riot in the streets in the aftermath of Kennedy's victory. Due to the threat Kennedy's second inauguration occurred in private. This was the first usage of a contingent election in United States History.