2020 Presidential Election Season 31

The **Season 31 Presidential Election of Mock Election** will be held on June 19, 2020. Incumbent President Ethan Fitzgerald is term limited, and therefore cannot run for re-election. Vice President Tom Kirkman is running against Mayowa Olabode in an unforeseen re-play of Season 16. The June House Elections will be held concurrently.

## Republican Party Nomination

### **Candidates**

Declared

**Nominee Who Withdrew**

* Brett Patrick, Presidential candidate in S24 and S27, Former Governor of Jefferson *(withdrew due to voter intimidation and blackmail scandal which saw Patrick get banned from MEC for two weeks, thus making him ineligible for the election)*

**Withdrew**

* Jakob Tawney, Senator from Fremont, Former President of the United States
* David Yimby, Representative from District 2, Former Representative from District 9, and Former Sheriff of Hillsborough County, New Hampshire

#### **Declined**

* Logan Balsan, Caesarean President Pro Tempore (running for D8; Endorsed Yimby, then Patrick, then Olabode)
* Stephen Bryant, Former Representative of District Five (Endorsed Patrick)
* James Hiatt, Caesarean State Senate Majority Leader and candidate for president in S16, S17, S18, S20, S22, S29, and S30 (Endorsed Louthan then Yimby)
* Nate Brown, RNC Advisor, former Senator, former Governor, former Representative
* Epideli II, Governor of Caesarea, Former D8 Congressman and GOP Chairman
* Ben MacKay, Former Vice President of the U.S., Former Senator of Caesarea, Former D9 Rep.
* Roman Thaddeus, Senior Senator of Jefferson and Vice Presidential candidate in S30.
* John Lampros, Junior Senator of Jefferson (Endorsed Patrick)
* Harry L. Crosby, Fremont Governor
* Bryson Pittman, Jefferson Governor
* Andrew Dominguez, Junior Senator of Fremont and Presidential candidate in S30. (Endorsed Patrick)

### Heartland Primary

The first primary to be held was for the Province of Heartland. Early speculation suggested that Rep. Yimby would make it close or even win, however his numbers dipped before officially suspending his campaign. Many saw it as important, but the Caesarea Primary was seen as the make or break primary.

When results came in they were very unfavorable to Rep. Yimby who secured 0 votes. In turn Sen. Tawney outperformed and nearly polled 30% of the popular vote, compared to Fmr. Governor Patricks 70%. While the number Sen. Tawney attained was low, many expected him to not even be viable in the Province.

Sen. Tawney racked up large wins in rural areas and blue-collar areas such as eastern Kentucky and the Minnesota Iron Range, however Fmr. Governor Patrick polled huge margins in suburbia and ancestrally Republican areas. The city's were split with Sen. Tawney carrying many major city's such as Chicago, while the Former Governor carried smaller city's such as Cincinnati and Lexington.

### **Final Delegate Count**

*1,276 delegates needed to win nomination*

 David Yimby
 Harvey Long

## Green Party Nomination

**Nominee**

* Jon S. Überfeld, Former Speaker of the House, Former Representative for District Three and Former President and Vice President of the United States (withdrew)

## Independent Candidates

**Declared**

* Tom Kirkman, incumbent Vice President and former President of the United States.
* Mayowa Olabode, former United States Representative.

**Potential**

**Declined**

* Joseph Brosnahan - Former Presidential candidate from Tennessee

## Democratic Party Nomination

*To this date the structure of the party was disbanded; however, there are some that will be seeking to run their candidacy with the name of the old party.*

**Nominee**

* Jon S. Überfeld, Former Speaker of the House, Former Representative for District Three and Former President and Vice President of the United States (Withdrew)

**Eliminated in the Primaries**

* Jacques Sampson, Caesarea State Senator

**Withdrew**

* Christian Louthan, Former President and Former Vice President

## Sampsonian Party Nomination

**Declared**

* Jacques Sampson, Caesarea State Senator (Withdrew)

## FiveThirtyEight Speculation Poll Results

https://www.surveymonkey.com/results/SM-RVJFY95X7/

## Early Campaign & Patrick Scandal

Following the primary, Patrick was leading Fmr. Pres. Uberfeld by over 40% on average, making it appear to be the easiest GOP Presidential victory since Uberfeld himself. After a few days, Uberfeld announced he would be dropping outof the presidential race, as he had not time for MEC. Soon after, Vice Pres. Tom Kirkman, announced he would be running for President. A day or two after, it was also announced that Kirkman would choose Harry L. Crosby, Governor of Fremont, as his running mate. The Patrick campaign announced Ethan Davis as Vice President.The Patrick campaign remained very strong, despite the rising opposition from the Kirkman/Crosby campaign, until cracks began to show within the GOP and within the Patrick campaign itself.

On Monday, June 15, Gov. Harry L. Crosby, and Gov. Epideli reported to the mods that they were apparently being blackmailed and threatened by Patrick himself. Once the mods got hold of this report, the word quickly spread to Patrick himself, who in turn tried to bend the story. Patrick decided to type up a letter to send to his campaign, accusing peopleof very serious accusations and accused a chat of running a "sex ring."

Patrick's surrogates released a video of Crosby calling someone a "*retard"* and also referring to someone as "*ghetto."* The video quickly spread like wild fire, getting more than 79 views in an hour. Kirkman quickly dropped Crosby off the ticket.Soon after that was released, another video surfaced revealing the IP address of Crosby and Epideli. It is unclear who ran the second account, but it was eventually known that Sen. Andrew Dominguez created the first video, of which he later deleted and regretted posting, and eventually admitting the video was out of context and it was wrong for him to post it. The mod team announced that Brett Patrick was being banned for two weeks, following screenshots and audio recordings coming to light showing Brett Patrick committing voter intimidation, suddenly leaving the GOP without a nominee and throwing the community election into chaos. Former Governor Patrick would apologize for his actions later that day, as many people defending the Republican nominee came to admit the actions committed by him were disqualifying.

## Republican Primary Re-do

Only one hour later, Mayowa Olabode announced he would be running for president as an independent. A large amount of Republicans announced their support for Olabode.This brought many to question what the Republican Party stood for, as Olabode was known as one of the farthest left members in MEC. A day after announcing, Olabode selected D-2 Rep, David Yimby (David Davidson), as his Vice President. Polls quickly began to tighten up between Olabode and Kirkman.

Following Patrick's ban, the GOP announced it would be holding a re-do of the primary on June 17th. Several candidates announced but quickly dropped out, including Gov. Rickey Adams, Rep. Yimby, and former Sen. Jamie Riley. Olabode waged a write-in campaign for the nomination, winning it easily. By now it was announced that Maleek Diaz would be running with Kirkman, setting the stage for the general election campaign.

 Rowan Jones
 Jamie Riley
 Luke Zhang
 Ethan Davis (write-in)

## Campaign

Due to the Patrick scandal and extended Republican primary season, the general election campaign was very short and rather quiet. Both campaigns stumped across the nation, using surrogates to help drive up regional support. Logan Rabe, running a third party campaign, was planning on debating, but the mods unexpectedly placed a 15% threshold requirement to debate, which hadn't been used before. However, due to time constraints between the main candidates, no presidential debate was held.

Because of the lack of a Republican candidate, and the ideological state of the candidates, the battleground map was quite different from previous elections. Both campaigns focused on Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, while also focusing on states such as California and West Virginia. The Kirkman campaign also focused on Maryland, while the Olabode campaign made a last minute effort in New Jersey. Surrogates from the campaigns also stumped in states such as Kentucky and Louisiana.

## Election Day

Polls opened on Friday, June 19th, at 8 PM EST. The presidential election was held concurrently with House elections, and community referenda on term lengths and limits. This was the second presidential election in MEC to use ranked choice voting.

Results were live streamed on Saturday night. Early in the night, Kirkman built up a large lead in the electoral college by sweeping the South. Mayowa was able to catch up by winning large states in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic. As the evening went on, Kirkman continued to win battleground states across the lower Midwest and West, which was enough for him to build a substantial lead. Rabe was only able to win one state, Massachusetts.

At 10:33 PM EST, the state of California, a surprisingly close state, was projected for Tom Kirkman, putting him over the 275 mark and making him the president-elect. Iowa remains to be called.