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| - The United States presidential election of 2064 was the 70th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 4, 2064. Democratic candidate and incumbent President William J. Rutherford had come to office in January 2061 with the United States gripped in the Second Great Recession, with genetic rights becoming the chief civil rights issue in the United States, and with foreign policy crises in the Korean Peninsula, West Africa, and Indochina. Rutherford and the Democratic Congress had embarked on a series of tax relief, infrastructure reform, labor reform, civil rights reform, and educational reform initiatives which had become known as the New Destiny. The President, moreover, had successfully negotiated the commencement of reunion talks between the increasingly democra
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| abstract
| - The United States presidential election of 2064 was the 70th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 4, 2064. Democratic candidate and incumbent President William J. Rutherford had come to office in January 2061 with the United States gripped in the Second Great Recession, with genetic rights becoming the chief civil rights issue in the United States, and with foreign policy crises in the Korean Peninsula, West Africa, and Indochina. Rutherford and the Democratic Congress had embarked on a series of tax relief, infrastructure reform, labor reform, civil rights reform, and educational reform initiatives which had become known as the New Destiny. The President, moreover, had successfully negotiated the commencement of reunion talks between the increasingly democratized North Korea and its long-time South Korean counterpart, had greatly reduced both inflation and unemployment, and had passed the pivotal Human Anti-Discrimination and Comprehensive Protections Act. Rutherford, consequently, who enjoyed high approval ratings with the American populace, won 66.1% of the popular vote, the highest win by a candidate since James Monroe's re-election in 1820. It was the most lopsided US presidential election in terms of both popular and electoral votes. No candidate for president has since equaled or surpassed Rutherford's percentage of the popular vote, and since 1820, only Abraham Lincoln in 1864, Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936, Richard M. Nixon in 1972, and Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984 have won by a similar electoral vote margin. The Republican candidate, Senator Thomas P. Leach of South Dakota, suffered from a lack of support within his own party, his controversial statements, and his deeply unpopular political positions. Rutherford's campaign continued to advocate for the New Destiny and successfully portrayed Leach as being a dangerous extremist. Rutherford easily won reelection to the Presidency, carrying 51 of the 52 states and the District of Columbia, which marked its centennial anniversary of voting in this election. He therefore obtained 542 electoral votes. Leach carried just one state, Mississippi, earning just six electoral votes, thereby joining George McGovern and Walter Mondale in ignominy. This election was the first with the participation of the newly-admitted Virgin Islands. Leach's unsuccessful bid spelled an end to the historic conservative movement and caused a realignment within the Republican Party that ultimately culminated in the victories of Tommy Franks in 2072 and Robert M. Kraft in 2080. His campaign still received its greatest amount of support from traditional Republican regions in the Deep South and in the Mountain West. Conversely, Rutherford became the first Democrat in a century to win the states of Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma, the first in 88 years to win Alabama, and the first in 68 years to win West Virginia, as well as only the third Democrat of the twenty-first century to carry the historic Republican state of Indiana. No post 2064 presidential candidate has been able to match or better Rutherford's performance in the Electoral College, in the popular vote, or on a geographic basis. Moreover, Rutherford had the best performance of any Democratic presidential candidate since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964.
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