2024 United States Presidential Election: Kamala Harris vs Tim Scott vs Marjorie Taylor Greene

Background
After Republicans vastly overperformed the polls in the 2020 election, most pundits anticipated that Republicans would win back the House of Representatives in the 2022 midterms. However, that expectation was short-lived, as thousands of MAGA insurrectionists stormed the Capitol Building on January 6th while Congress was certifying Biden's electoral votes. The shock and fallout from the attack lasted well into 2022. Democrats relentlessly attacked many of the freshmen Republican representatives who still voted to overturn the election even after witnessing the carnage only hours earlier, with voters calling for those Congresspeople to resign. Ultimately, all but one of those representatives kept their jobs, although Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene was stripped of her committee positions because of her support for dangerous conspiracy theories. The only expulsion was Lauren Boebert (R-CO), as security footage showed her giving reconnaissance tours of the Capitol to rioters very shortly before the attack. As soon as incriminating texts of hers were turned up, the House Minority Leader, Kevin McCarthy, called on her to resign. After she refused, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell weighed in, saying that an expulsion of her "should be in the country's best interest". A day later, the House overwhelmingly voted to expel Boebert. Boebert was arrested shortly afterwards, and leaked footage of her screaming and cursing and resisting arrest later allowed Democrats to capture her seat in the special election, and win it again in the 2022 midterms. Following the arrest, Speaker Nancy Pelosi told McCarthy that he should look into expelling other representatives, but he bluntly refused.

President Joe Biden stayed mum on this whole fiasco, as he had to deal with far greater challenges. The biggest challenge he had to face was the coronavirus pandemic, which was raging out of control when he took office. Although people were slowly getting vaccinated, the process was very slow. By June of 2021, roughly half of America had been vaccinated, and most states began to allow businesses to fully reopen as long as people continued to wear masks. In July, President Biden announced that America was "not going back to the old normal, but moving forward toward a new normal where we all look out for one another's health and safety." The economy began to gain steam around this time, and by early 2022, economic growth was averaging at around 2.5% per quarter. President Biden also was able to add a public option to Obamacare, as well as pass a tax cut that mostly benefitted the middle class and the poor. Democrats campaigned on these successes in the lead-up to the 2022 elections. In addition, Democrats targeted many of the Republicans who voted to overturn the election. Republicans focused on recapturing many of the seats that Democrats only narrowly won in 2020. Pundits were unsure over who would control either chamber of Congress after the midterms. In the end, while Republicans managed to oust a few vulnerable Democrats in the House, Democrats were able to recapture more Republican seats, particularly those of the vulnerable Republicans who voted to overturn the election. Namely, Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ), Yvette Herrell (R-NM), Mike Garcia (R-CA), Beth Van Duyne (R-TX), and a couple of others went down in flames because of their votes to overturn the 2020 election. Ultimately, Democrats netted 4 seats in the House, slightly expanding their majority. The composition of the Senate, meanwhile, remained unchanged; Democrat John Fetterman's victory in the open Pennsylvania seat countered Republican Chris Sununu's defeat of Senator Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire. Apart from those switches, neither party could pick up any additional seats.

Following both parties' mediocre performances in the midterms, Republicans were faced with the challenge of who their 2024 nominee should be. After President Trump lost the 2020 election, he was the immediate favorite. However, that all changed following the January 6th insurrection. Although he ultimately was acquitted by the Senate, his political career seemed all but over. All of his corporate donors cut ties, all of his social media accounts had been terminated, and top Republicans knew that his continuous presence was fracturing the party. To make matters worse, in early 2022, the New York state investigation of him uncovered numerous past crimes of his, including racketeering, extortion, tax evasion, money laundering, and bribery. Shortly after the news broke, Trump suffered a moderate heart attack. His supporters insisted that he was poisoned by the "deep state", but such conspiracy theories failed to gain traction. After he left the hospital, Trump announced that he wouldn't be running for president. There was immediate speculation that one of his children would run for president, despite all of them being under investigation as well. Ultimately, the Republican leaders convinced them not to run. By early 2023, the battle for the nomination began to heat up.

Democratic and Republican primaries
From the start, very few Americans expected President Joe Biden to seek a second term, as he would be 82 years old. Thus, it surprised no one when he announced that he would be a one term president in the summer of 2023. Immediately, Vice President Kamala Harris declared her candidacy, and pretty much became the presumptive nominee. No Democrats decided to run against her, with most hopefuls instead angling to be her VP pick. Harris highlighted the economic growth under the Biden administration as the main reason she should be elected. She also stressed that her healthcare plan was to continue to improve the Affordable Care Act, which still had many issues that needed to be ironed out. In a major effort to reach out to rural voters, Harris said that, if elected, she would propose a massive reinvestment program to help impoverished rural communities move into the 21st century. She specifically said that such a program would directly benefit coal states like Kentucky, West Virginia, and a few others. To emphasize her commitment to reconnecting with rural voters, Harris chose Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman to be her running-mate. Throughout the campaign, Fetterman made many unscheduled visits to not just Appalachian states, but to the deepest red areas of plains states, such as west Kansas and Nebraska, north Texas, almost all of Oklahoma, both Dakotas, etc. Because of his down-to-earth appearance and demeanor, he was able to attract tons of blind-faith Republican voters. This later proved to be very successful in states such as Kansas, Texas, Ohio, and Iowa.

Republicans, however, were far more hard-pressed to find a suitable nominee following the collapse of Trumpism and the massive fractures within their party. A large number of candidates threw their hats into the ring. At first, Senator Marco Rubio was considered to be the front-runner, but by the time the Iowa caucuses rolled around, the polls had tightened up. In the wee hours of the morning, Rubio was projected to have won the Iowa caucuses, barely edging out Senator Tim Scott. Governor Larry Hogan of Maryland won the New Hampshire primary with ease, as his regional power and moderate views resonated well in the Granite State. However, Tim Scott achieved a landslide win in his home state of South Carolina, even garnering the support of a decent number of African Americans in the primaries. Republican voters started to decide that nominating an African American would help win over more minority voters and would bolster the chances of winning the election. Scott rode this momentum into Super Tuesday, when he won the majority of states, effectively making him the nominee. As such, the 2024 presidential election became the first in history where the Democratic and Republican nominees were both people of color. To balance out the ticket, Scott selected his former rival, Marco Rubio, to be his running-mate.

Rise of the Patriot Party
Tim Scott's success at becoming the first African American Republican presidential nominee was historic, but it also led to even deeper divides in the Republican party. In states like Alabama and Mississippi, many Republican voters were furious that an African American was nominated. Those voters had supported Representatives Matt Gaetz (D-FL) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (D-GA) in their presidential bids. Both Gaetz and Greene couldn't get the support of any mainstream Republicans or from any corporate donors, so their campaigns didn't last long. Both Greene and Gaetz demanded that all the southern states refuse to support Scott at the Republican National Convention, but that effort ultimately failed. Nonetheless, huge numbers of voters in the Bible Belt began to openly use many racial slurs against Scott. Several states even lynched an effigy of him.

Knowing that Scott wouldn't be able to do anything to stop this, Mitch McConnell harshly condemned their actions while still stressing party unity. However, McConnell's pleas largely fell on deaf ears. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz, despite condemning all the racist attacks, announced right after the RNC that they were going to form a new presidential ticket under the "Patriot Party", which was a very pro-Trump third party that previously didn't have any backbone or leadership. Greene nominated herself for president, and immediately picked Matt Gaetz to be her running-mate. Donald Trump immediately endorsed the two of them, as did his family members as well as several prominent Republicans in Congress, including Senators Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Cynthia Lummis, Cindy Hyde-Smith, and Tommy Tuberville. Other Republicans, including Senators Mitch McConnell, John Thune, Ben Sasse, and most other establishment politicians, once more pleaded for party unity and warned that the Patriot Party would only result in a Democratic landslide.

Nonetheless, Greene and Gaetz held rallies in all 50 states, and seemed to garner up huge support in all of them, even in the deep blue northeast. They both insisted that their ticket was going to win the election. However, the polls showed that the Republican party had severely fractured as a result of this, with the Harris-Fetterman ticket obtaining pluralities in many states that previously weren't considered to be competitive. Meanwhile, to make matters worse, polls showed that the Patriot Party had a strong plurality, if not a majority of support in states like Alabama and West Virginia.

Election Day
On the day of the election, pundits all predicted a landslide win for Harris because of the Patriot party splitting the Republican party in half in many states. Those predictions ultimately turned out to be very correct, as seen on the map. Harris won every single battleground state and even eked out a plurality in Alaska. In addition, Harris came very close to winning Kansas, South Carolina, and Utah.

Results glossary
Alabama: Democratic Party: 30.23%, Republican Party: 22.37%, Patriot Party: 46.88%

Alaska: Democratic Party: 44.91%, Republican Party: 42.73%, Patriot Party: 11.61%

Arizona: Democratic Party: 56.7%, Republican Party: 31.16%, Patriot Party: 10.05%

Arkansas: Democratic Party: 25.38%, Republican Party: 32.88%, Patriot Party: 40.95%