User:HawkNightingale175/sandbox
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538 members of the Electoral College 270 electoral votes needed to win | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Turnout | 65.7%  1.9 pp | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Presidential election results map. Blue denotes states won by Whitmer/Khanna and red denotes those won by Rubio/Stefanik. Numbers indicate electoral votes cast by each state and the District of Columbia. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The 2028 United States presidential election was held on Tuesday, November 7, 2028, and saw Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer defeat Republican Secretary of State Marco Rubio and third party candidate Donald Trump Jr., son of then-incumbent president Donald J. Trump, who was ineligible to run due to term limits set by the Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution. The election saw Whitmer become the first female president of the United States.
President Trump had endorsed his son during the 2028 Republican primary; this caused an outcry amongst the Republican Party leadership, who viewed this as an attempt to establish a Trump political dynasty. Though Trump Jr. was initially the favorite to win the party nomination, a disastrous campaign rally in Montgomery, Alabama in which he espoused harsh criticism of the abortion-rights movement led Republicans to distance themselves from him and nominate Marco Rubio, President Trump's Secretary of State, as the party candidate, with New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik as running mate. In response to being passed up, Trump Jr. launched a third party ticket, effectively dividing the Republican Party and turning into what various political pundits called a "party train wreck". Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, meanwhile, won the 2028 Democratic primary election and selected California Representative and primary challenger Ro Khanna as her running mate.
The Second Great Recession and abortion-rights movement were critical issues in the election. Both Whitmer and Rubio had promised to sign the Amber Nicole Thurman Women's Health Protection Act into law if elected president; however, Whitmer's personal experience with sexual assault, as well as her own campaign's exposing of past pro-life remarks espoused by Rubio during his time as a Senator, led woman voters to gravitate towards Whitmer. Additionally, Whitmer blamed Trump's high tariffs on prolonging recession, and proposed the implementation of free trade policies and tax cuts for the middle class as parts of a planned new economic policy known as "Gretchenomics". Rubio stated that he would lift some of the major tariffs imposed by the Trump administration, while also working to protect the U.S. economy from foreign investors.
Because the Republican Party vote was split, Whitmer won the election in a landslide, receiving 527 votes in the electoral college and carrying 47 states including Washington, D.C.. Rubio won only eleven electoral votes, carrying only three states. Trump Jr. did not receive any electoral votes.