[M] A bit late, on account of timebubble and time-consuming election falling into Christmas-time, yikes. State-by-state write-up might also follow sometime in the future - this is a short-hand.

November 1920

1920 sees state legislations largely swing Democratic. Southern one-party states often see an emergence of independents or third-party delegates to state legislations on account of Lansing's support of States Rights on his Presidential platform and advocating for their central role in subjects like Prohibition. Although the DNC’s central control weakens in the south, it's not to the benefit of the RNC, who lack organization in the area. Altogether, 12 state chambers (more often, the Senate) in 10 states flip Democratic, and 3 state chambers see Democratic gains to produce a tie. Most shocking news for observers of politics are the flip Democratic of Delaware’s chambers and gubernatorial mansion, and the newly Democratic New Hampshire House, coupled with the near total conversion blue of New York State. The East Coast on the whole seems to foretell a changing of the times - Democats manage to flip state chambers in Massachusetts, Maine, Delaware, New York, and Rhode Island.

In governorships, Democrats lessen the 27-20 gap of seats held to an even 24-24. The election cycle’s notable events have been the flips Democratic of Delaware and Connecticut, the latter thought of as a safe Republican seat. The Democrats have demonstrated the power of their organization all over, nearly unseating the incumbent Massachusetts Republican, Calvin Coolidge, who held on by barely a percentage point. Furthermore, narrow results in Ohio and Nebraska were the first warning shots for Republicans, as was the victory for Democratic Governor of New York Al Smith, of the Democrats’ ability to organize during a major shift in national leadership.

Senate composition of 49R-47D remains unchanged despite the flipping of 8 seats one or the other way. The Senate features several nail-biting, often shocking races, like the mere 50.1% save in Oregon by the Republicans, or the 50.2% triumph for the Democrats in North Dakota. Perhaps one of the most telling signs of shifting fortunes in the Lansing era would be the Democrats flipping a seat in New York by a rather strong margin. In the House as well, the parties’ fortunes are reversed, with the Democrats taking a 32-seat lead. Meanwhile, the ranks of congressmen unaffiliated with either party soar from 2 to 15, drawing from seats formerly held by either party across the country.

The Presidency

The Presidential race proves to be a true test of the manifested Republican dominance since 1896, interrupted by the unusual electoral strength of a third party in the 1912 election. The shockwaves of the Great War and, perhaps even more consequential, the April Bombings have sharply altered the balance of power in American politics, brought new issues to the fore and retired some others. Most notable has been the clear alienation of left-wing and liberal Progressives in both parties. Conservative-leaning trends observed in both parties during the 1910s have however been shaken up as well. Where one might have expected the Southern Democrats to take a stronger hold over their party, a New York business conservative rose up by chance instead. And although business interests were expected to dominate the conservative Republican sphere, a compromise conservative with Progressive and Rooseveltian roots has gained the party ticket.

Incumbent President Lansing builds a strong campaign apparatus in the year leading up to his nomination by the Democratic Party, and got to work. He left the Solid South to its own devices, having secured a crucial base of support among its political elite, with the likes of Dorsey, Simmons and Davis endorsing his candidacy. This left him enough time to focus his attention on the rest of the country, particularly the North-East and the Mid-West, where his campaign figured it could win back a sizable part of the electorate through messages of national unity, a strengthening of America’s security and standing in the world, and the support of the federal government for both local enterprise and local initiative.

Lansing reserved for the East Coast a promotion of American interests above all, with a slogan of America First - smoothly borrowed from the Republican Warren Harding. The campaign’s portrayal of the President as the Lawyer in Chief skips Wilson’s idealistic notions entirely and offers to the urban elites a vision of securing American interests in a shaken world. These optics of American-centered efforts and not working for anyone else also serve to hit back at Irish-American lobbying to secure American support to Irish independence - although Lansing doesn’t go after the Irish lobby in name, he does take warning shots at their and the Zionists’ efforts to disrupt the campaign’s messaging in the cities, speaking often in clear terms about the foolishness of bowing down to a foreign lobby while pressing issues await at home. In following this path, Lansing’s tangible record as a key figure in negotiating for American geopolitical interests in the past as well as his well publicized appeals for strength and unity seem to help a great deal with urbanites.

The campaign for America First isn’t constrained to the east. Lansing and allies advertise his track record all over the Union - by disseminating his famous addresses widely, they aim to create the idea that the American people already know what they’d get with him - a vote for Lansing is a vote of strength and stability.

Meanwhile, the Republicans do not run a poor campaign per se, however the coalition and organization around Wood proves to be far shakier than that of Lansing. The Republicans are a bit unclear on their central messaging, with the top of their ticket often acting rather independently of the party organization and his campaign-runners - for instance by speaking softly of national conscription or at times advocating for Rooseveltian ideals in a Union strongly conditioned to view Progressivism with suspicion at best.

The Wood campaign plans its routes essentially by determining the regions where it would be necessary to strongly counter Lansing. Wood’s campaign is built up diligently on the West Coast and he also sets up shop in the Mid-West, while ignoring entirely the South and its adjacency. The GOP determines correctly that by securing the South’s political elite, Lansing is trying to save funds and secure a springboard to launch an energetic campaign into Middle America. Lansing does indeed charge at the cornfields and targets the farmers. In a show of his campaign’s messaging prowess, he promotes to these German-Americans exclusively the idea that a vote for Lansing is a vote for German Freedom, a new Democratic initiative to guarantee universal freedom of trade and communication in and with post-war Germany - something Republicans would unsuccessfully explain is nothing novel but the already existing push for the Open Germany Commission in Paris. Lansing however pitches it as their chance to both fight for their kinsmen and secure for themselves better business opportunities in a Europe short of food.

The Republicans fail to provide a working counter-argument to that and the rest of Lansing’s platform, and the failure rears its head in the shape of Democratic or Farmer-Labour seat gains in a lot of the rural Mid-West. At the same time however, the narrowly geared Democratic messaging of course doesn’t work on the non-German or more urban population of this region, leading to a failure by Lansing to garner anything resembling majority support in the lead-up to the Presidential election.

While the GOP builds up a solid structure in the Mid-West, they do however neglect the East a fair bit. They begin to realize the inefficiency of their complacent efforts as soon as Lansing emerges before his first overpacked campaign rally in New York City, flaunting endorsements from Governor Al Smith and the many Democrats in New York’s legislative chambers. The local Republicans’ attempt to paint Lansing as yet another Bourbon Democrat, this time miraculously made and raised in such a forward-looking metropolis as New York, falls severely short of stopping Lansing’s momentum, which has been built upon a reputation of looking forward in a time of crisis. Nevertheless, once they manage to properly fire up, the Republican machines of the metropoles prove to be a strong match for Lansing, turning the East Coast into a political warzone in the last months leading up to the election.

In terms of campaign organization and clarity of platform, perhaps the best example of the Republicans’ weakness in 1920 could be the failure by Wood and his party to carve out an electorate from among the masses of Americans that seek normalcy above all else, despite the fact that the campaign took cues from Harding’s early success in the Republican primaries and adopted a distinct focus on regaining normalcy. The problem being: the Democrats and Lansing did the exact same thing. Where Wood falls short, as the Mid-West foreshadowed, is messaging.

In this, Wood again takes an independently minded approach, frustrating party leadership to no end, and steers off the chosen message. While the Democrats gleefully run the slogan Your Problem, Our Solution to advocate for Lansing as the good father in Washington who would work with states and local powers to create and fund local initiatives, while protecting America from the outside world, the GOP attempts and fails to discard of Wood’s clear militaristic mind-set when it comes to achieving the same message, ending up with a perceived slogan of I’ve Come To Fix Your Mess. Safe to say, the latter doesn’t resonate remotely as well. The hickup becomes so clearly visible to Democratic strategists that by the end of October Lansing even dares to start toting “Coming To Fix Your Mess” as a major problem of the nearest past, effectively pushing Wood into the same pot with Wilson and the rest of the Progressive Elite.

As such, as Election Day comes and goes, the Republicans find themselves ever less confident that the Wilson administration was a mere political fluke that could be corrected in 1920. Indeed, while the amount of states that vote as they were generally expected to should not be understated, the parties receive one shocking telegram after another as confirmation to their specific efforts or lack thereof. Connecticut votes for Lansing. So does New York, followed by Vermont. The race remains tight all throughout the East and the Mid-West, as Democrats make a few crucial gains in the Atlantic Coast but fail to win decisively. The Pacific coast is all but sure to vote for Wood, however the Party and media headquarters wait anxiously for results to be declared in the continental west. As New Mexico declares for Wood, the Republicans rejoice. As deep red South Dakota chooses Lansing however, cheers subside, and they wouldn’t be heard again. The Continental West is near unanimous in its preference, and it does not favour the general.

By the next day, the calculations have made it clear - the Republicans have failed to prove Democratic conquests a coincidence. The Democratic ticket prevails by a narrow 274 votes to the Republican 257, making Robert Lansing an elected President at last.