United States of Almeria Presidential Election of 624

The **United States presidential election of 624** was held on Tuesday, November 6, 624, and was the electoral contest to take control of the White House between the New Red Party, Blue Party, and Secessionist Party. It was the 157th quadrennial election for President and Vice President and the second election in the Reunification Era.

## Nominees

### Blue Party

* Gerald Washington, Governor of Georgia
* Andre Walters, Governor of Nebraska

### New Red Party

* Norman Hill, 5th and 7th President of the Second Confederacy
* Clint Castillo, Governor of Minnesota

### Secessionist Party

* Clay Byrd, Senator from Arkansas
* Representative Megan Jude from South Carolina

## Election

### Nominations

As the presidency of Jacob Winters wound down, the president's decent approval ratings and involvement in the reunification of Almeria led pundits to predict that the New Red Party would hold the presidency for many elections to come. However, the Blue Party establishment disagreed, seeing a chance to exploit southern indifference to the New Red Party and Northern annoyance at the party's southern pandering. Since the end of the primary system, the Blue Party had chosen largely establishment, nationalist liberals, but major members of Blue Party leadership sought a different approach in the face of incredible headwinds. They ultimately settled on Gerry Washington, who had pulled off a miraculous gubernatorial upset in Georgia by 1 point, the same election where Jacob Winters won the state by 20 points. The Red Party nominated Vice President and former Southern President Norman Hill without much debate, following the original plan that Winters and Hill had agreed on when forming the New Red Party. The Secession Party nominated Mark Reese's chosen successor Clay Byrd, who chose obscure running mate Megan Jude to run with, a sign of the dwindling support that the Secessionists had in congress and in the country at large.

### Campaign and Issues

For Norman Hill, victory relied on reminding southerners of the economic gain he had brought them, while retaining gains in the Midwest that Jacob Winters had brought to the party, even though losses across the Northeast were largely expected and unavoidable. Gerry Washington focused down onto a few key states that he hoped to flip, including Georgia, North Dakota, Montana, Kansas, Nebraska and Pennsylvania visiting them relentlessly and focusing on them in all speeches. Secessionist nominee Clay Byrd made the decision to spend nearly the entire election in Texas, hoping to take home its 40 electoral votes and play kingmaker in a divided election.

As the disruption from the reunification of the North and South began to subside, both major parties were still struggling to form lasting coalitions and identities. Under the master plan that Jacob Winters and Norman Hill had laid out, the New Red Party sought to be a catch all party, forming a coalition between the Northeast, West, and the South, a coalition so large and so broad that it had never been accomplished before in the history of the country. The Blue Party largely wanted to simply recapture it's historic strongholds in the Northeast and West, however Gerald Washington had aspirations of capturing the new generation of voters in the South, who saw less of a distinction between the South and the North and had less loyalty to the Secessionist and New Red parties. The New Red party platform retained the moderate progressive policies that Jacob Winters and Norman Hill shared, while the Blue Party threw treats to the growing labor movement in the Midwest and patriotic young voters in the South.

During the presidential debate, viewers largely agreed that Washington was able to upset Hill, who failed to acknowledge Northern fears of allowing a former Confederate president the White House, sealing off key Northeastern states that Winters had easily carried. As the election neared, the Hill campaign began to worry that