United States presidential election, 2056 (Smith, Harder, Spiegel)

———————————————————————————————————————————————
The 2056 United States presidential election took place on Tuesday, November 5, 2056. It was the 68th quadrennial presidential election. Voters selected presidential electors who voted on December 14, 2056, to select a new president and vice president. The election will occur simultaneously alongside elections for the House of Representatives, Senate, and various state and local-level elections.
Jason Smith’s first term started well, but the economy soon collapsed following the Panic of 2053. Despite a stable world situation, Smith grew vary unpopular over the poor economy and multiple scandals within his administration of oppression of minorities. 
Despite Smith’s poll numbers dropping, he remained popular in the Republican party. Smith and DeSantis were both almost unanimously renominated on March 27th, 2056.
By 2056, the Democrats have grown increasingly unpopular. Moreover, after the retirement of former President Joe Cunningham, they were left leaderless. The two frontrunners for the Democratic nomination were California Governor Josh Harder who was the moderate and Minnesota Senator Ilhan Omar who was the progressive. Despite many outcries, Harder became the presumptive nominee on May 15th, 2056.
The freshly created National Change Party only continued to gain momentum following their surprising good-showing in the 2052 election. They once again nominated Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel and Illinois Senator Lauren Underwood (who had now fully converted into a member of the National Change Party). The party’s base now consisted of young urban people, and people rooting against the establishment and wanting to get rid of the electoral college.
Smith defended his administration and tried invoking his base via massive rallies and demonstrations, Harder attacked Smith on the bad economy and Spiegel on his lack of experience in politics, and Spiegel advocated for change and blamed both candidates for being establishment puppets.
Due to the massive unpopularity of both Smith and Harder (Smith for presiding over a recession and being accused of racism) and Harder for being considered corrupt and dishonest, early polls have indicated a close race between all three candidates with Smith polling at 36%, Harder at 33%, and Spiegel at 31%. By July, Spiegel had taken the lead polling at 37%, with Smith at 34%, and Harder at 29%.
In order to stop the rise of the National Change movement, both Democrats and Republicans coordinated to run negative ads on Spiegel and prevented him from being able to participate in the debates. This greatly hurt Spiegel‘s campaign and his polls numbers began dropping in October and early November. A week before the election, Smith was polling at 37%, Harder was polling at 36%, and Spiegel was down to 27%. 
Jason Smith won re-election receiving 277 electoral votes and 42.6% of the popular vote. This was a great upset, as most pundits predicted a split electoral vote where the House of Representatives would decide the winner. Josh Harder finished second receiving 155 electoral votes and 35.5% of the popular vote. Spiegel finished third receiving 106 electoral votes and 22.8% of the popular vote.
This was the best third party showing since Theodore Roosevelt in 1912. This was also the worst Democratic showing since 1924 and the worst Republican showing since 1996. This was also the worst share of vote for any elected president since Woodrow Wilson in 1912.
Category:Elections
Category:US elections
Category:US elections 2056