2020 United States presidential election (SM)

The **2020 United States presidential election** was the 59th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020. The Democratic ticket of Governor of North Carolina Alex Avery and U.S. representative from Washington Kiko Snowe defeated the Republican ticket of U.S. representative from North Carolina Fabian Oedifs and former candidate for U.S. Senator of Texas Mark Defaultian. Avery and Snowe comfortably won the election, and were inaugurated on January 20, 2021.

## Background

President Sass Master, elected in 2016 as a member of the Democratic Party, left the party shortly after the 2018 general elections, whose results led to Republicans taking control of the House of Representatives and reaching 50 seats in the Senate; Democrats maintained their control of the Senate after reaching a deal with the independent Senator from Pennsylvania, Elliot Tuba. By April 2019, a Gallup poll cited the now-independent Master with a popularity of only 29%, making him the most unpopular United States President until that moment.

On May 2019, the Applebread scandal occurred, where members of the Democratic Party were caught taking bribes from the tech company Blurb and libertarian think tank The Queue Foundation. With some notable and former government supporters involved, Master resigned from the Presidency on July 11, 2019, citing an "inability to continue serving the country". This created a vacancy in the Presidency, which was filled by the Vice President and former California Secretary of State, Mona Spoon. Spoon, a Democrat, declared right after his inauguration on the same day he would serve as a "moderate, caretaker president".

Spoon, as the sitting President, was naturally the early front-runner for the Democratic nomination, but withdrew from the race after a narrow win in the Iowa caucuses. The Democratic primaries then split between two major candidates: the Governor of North Carolina Alex Avery, a self-described libertarian socialist Alex Avery, and U S. Senator from Arizona Sandy Ooo. Avery won the primaries, and their vice presidential nominee was Kiko Snowe, a Representative from Washington's 5th congressional district. Avery personally preferred another representative, Alpha Zeta from California's 38th congressional district, but Zeta was defeated by Snowe in the fifth round of voting. Both Avery and Snowe became the first presidential candidates from one of the two major parties to declare themselves as openly transgender, with both Avery identifying as non-binary and Snowe identifying as genderfluid.

The Republican primaries saw the nomination of Fabian Oedifs, who had been serving as the U.S. Representative from North Carolina's 1st congressional district since 2018, who defeated other candidates including former Press Secretary Chap Cherkasy and former U.S. Senator Leo H. Hurricane. The vice presidential nominee, Mark Defaultian, ran for the Texas U.S. Senate seat in 2018, finishing with 44.3% of the vote, and won in the first round of voting in an upset.

The Hairspray Party nominated Ambassador to the United Nations Felipe Martinez for President, while the weakening Continuum Party nominated former U.S. Senator from New Mexico, Odile Otarlette. Both campaigns, however, were overshadowed by the main parties.

Avery ran a progressive campaign, expressing their support for single-payer healthcare, tuition-free college, workplace democracy, and other progressive measures that resulted in them being called "communist" by the conservative wing of the Republican Party, and more conservative members of the general populace. Oedifs ran on a more centrist platform, promising to cut taxes and regulations and praising "sensible measures" by President Mona Spoon. The election was largely seen as a referendum on the Master/Spoon administration, with Oedifs seen as the continuation of their policies and Avery seen as a break from them.

## Endorsements

### Alex Avery

* Mona Spoon, 45th President of the United States (2019–2021), 49th Vice President of the United States (2013-2019), Secretary of State for California (2007–2013), State Representative (2003-2007)
* Hyper Cane, 43rd President of the United States (2005–2013), U.S. Senator from Ohio (1995–2005), U.S. Representative (1991–1995)

### Fabian Oedifs

* Sass Master, 44th President of the United States (2013–2019), 48th Vice President of the United States (2005–2013), U.S. Representative from Ohio (2001–2005)

### Felipe Martinez

* Kera A. Nique, U.S. Secretary of Labor (2009–2013), 2012 nominee for President

### Odile Otarlette

* Puffle Returns, U.S. Secretary of Defense (2007–2009), 2008 nominee for President

## Results

Avery and Snowe received 323 electoral votes and 51.9% of the popular vote, earning 82,200,986 votes, surpassing Master's 2016 vote totals in 2016 and becoming, until that point, the most votes ever cast for a candidate in a U.S. presidential election. Oedifs and Defaultian finished with 205 electoral votes and 46.5% of the popular vote, earning 73,658,282 votes. Felipe Martinez of the Hairspray Party finished third, with 1.1% of the popular vote and 1,742,217 votes overall, a record for the Hairspray Party, exceeding the previous 0.6 percent by Secretary of Labor Kera A. Nique in the 2012 election, the only election the party fielded a candidate until then. Odile Otarlette of the Continuum Party placed fourth with 0.4% of the popular vote and 633,533 votes, their lowest showing in history and significantly lower than Ryne Hunter's 12.6% showing in the 2008 election.

### Election night

The Oedifs campaign expected to win the election, citing close internal polls that had them leading in Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio, and Wisconsin, tied in Arizona and Nevada, and just a few points behind Avery in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and Colorado. In the end, only Florida and Iowa were won by Oedifs. Fabian himself had personally worked with his campaign strategist, HHS Secretary Lars X. Dee, on a transition website that was ultimately scrapped after the defeat. Despite polls predicting a close race, Alex outperformed polls by a few points; by late Tuesday night, at 10:55 p.m. Eastern Time (ET), the state of Michigan was called for Avery, leading to their election win. According to Lars, Fabian, who did not have a concession speech prepared, slept "peacefully through the rest of the night" and wrote a brief concession letter that was then shared through their Twitter account the following day. Oedifs only personally congratulated Avery a week later, on November 9, when both were invited to a White House dinner by President Spoon.

### Analysis

Avery's win marked a third straight Democratic Party election win, after Master's wins in 2012 and 2016. In comparison to 2016, Avery picked up Arizona and Nebraska's 2nd congressional district from the Republicans, but lost Florida, Iowa, and Maine's 2nd congressional district, which Master carried in his 2016 re-election win over U.S. Senator from Michigan Darren Dude. Master's resignation did not affect the outcome of the election significantly; while exit polls indicated his approval rating was still underwater (44%), a majority of voters opposed his resignation; these voted for Avery by a margin of 53-45%.

Exit polls released on the day of the election showed Oedifs won the white vote by 17%, slightly higher than Dude's 16% and significantly higher than the 12% attained by Ryne Hunter in 2012. Avery won black voters by 80%, the Latino vote by 38%, and the Asian American vote by 34%, which contributed to high margins in traditionally Democratic western states including California and Nevada, and was key in flipping Arizona, which had last voted Democratic for President in Hyper Cane's 2008 re-election win.

Turnout among young voters (18-24 years old) was also determinant in helping Avery keep control of the "Blue Wall", a group of states that had consistently voted Democratic since the election of 1996, which led to the election of Ben Genius.