My Monthlong Quest To Win The 1872 United States Presidential Election As Horace Greeley (Part 2)
by zombiepie
A Brief Summary Of The Campaign To Get Horace Greeley Into The White House Thus Far
Hey there! In case you missed it, here's a handy link to the first part of my two-parter on me playing an election browser game, New Campaign Trail. In this blog series, I will be detailing my journey through a modded campaign for the 1872 United States Presidential Election. In this campaign, I will play Horace Greeley against Ulysses S. Grant, the latter of which is running for reelection. In real life, Grant beat Greeley despite a deluge of reports of outright corruption and nepotism in his cabinet during his first term. The 1872 election saw Grant winning 286 electoral college votes out of a possible 349 and Greeley only winning 63. However, Greeley's electoral votes were invalidated after he died before the election was certified. Even if Greeley had lived, the 1872 election proved to be a landslide, and my mission of winning as him is no easy task, though it is possible considering New Campaign Trail has an achievement for doing so. And to answer a few questions from the first part, I did not play any of my campaigns using a guide or walkthrough. I am also playing the campaign on its default "normal" difficulty.
Additionally, I ran four simulations to get in the spirit of this being a historical exercise. My four playthroughs represented different political factions during the 1872 election cycle. The first of these represented a moderate Liberal Republican, which tried to follow Greeley's actual campaign stances and actions as much as possible; the second was a Southern-sympathizing Mugwump; the third was a moderate centrist Half-Breed; the fourth was a full-on Radical Republican. If you need help understanding what those terms mean, please check out my first blog as I review their meanings and significance in great detail. Nonetheless, when it came to the campaigns, they were all trailing against Grant rather miserably. The closet was the third scenario, which saw Greeley hovering at 175 electoral votes against Grant's 191. Can I make up this deficit? We shall see, but it's only going to get more difficult. Heavy-hitting issues like what to do about Reconstruction or how the federal government should respond to the rise of white supremacy represented massive stumbling points for Greeley during the actual 1872 election.
And one point of clarification before we continue. This campaign addresses and brings up Reconstruction, Manifest Destiny, and white supremacy. The decisions made are not a reflection of my personal beliefs, and I condemn the United State's handling of Reconstruction and its failure to deliver on basic promises of civil rights during that period as one of the nation's gravest injustices. Also an injustice was the development of boarding schools for Native Americans in the 1800s, which stripped them of their culture and heritage. Finally, though I am playing Greeley, this blog is not an assertion that I believe he would be a person befitting of the title of President of the United States—quite the opposite. I think Greeley would have been terrible for the country, considering his support for an immediate end to Reconstruction and unfettered support for rapid westward expansion defined by the purest interpretation of Manifest Destiny. Grant was not a saint, but Greeley probably would have been worse.
Running The Campaign - Part 2
Questions #11-15: White Supremacy, Monetary Policy, And Manifest Destiny
It is time to address the GIANT skeleton in Greeley's closet. That's right, as someone who advocated for the end of Reconstruction AND the enshrinement of the rights of states, it is time to talk about the development of white supremacy during the 1860s and 1870s, and in particular, the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. In real life, Greeley's stance was that for the United States to move forward from the Civil War, Reconstruction had to end, but with the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments agreed as settled law. He consistently dodged questions about the rise of white supremacy and the brutal and illegal activities of the Klu Klux Klan and other White Leagues, which formed with the expressed purpose of using violence, fear, and intimidation to discourage African Americans from participating in elections and expressing their constitutional right to participate in the electoral process. Say what you will about Grant's time as the President of the United States, but one of his most outstanding crowning achievements was recognizing the original Ku Klux Klan as a threat to democracy and the rights of American citizens and squashing them with firm force.
With that out of the way, my semi-realistic first and second scenarios condemned the Klan's violence and intimidation tactics without naming them specifically as a conciliatory measure not to disenfranchise Southern Democrats. My third scenario conceded that the Grant administration's efforts were correct and would be echoed in my administration. In contrast, the Radical Republican fourth scenario implored for more federal efforts to enshrine the Fifteenth Amendment. To my relief, I found the latter two options netted better gains.
Question #12 was a more manageable topic to process mentally and emotionally. This question asked Greeley to establish a stance regarding their monetary policy, whether they supported the continual use of Greenbacks or would maintain the post-Civil War transition back to the gold standard. Now, this is a complicated issue for those outside of historical majors. For those unaware, for much of its early history, the United States used coins and currency back by their intrinsic value as they were backed by a reserve of gold or silver held by an independent treasury. During the Civil War, the United States issued an emergency currency called "Greenbacks," representing the United States' first use of a fiat currency, similar to the one we use today. With the end of the Civil War, Greenbacks slowly were retired in favor of returning the United States' cash flow to a currency backed by gold or silver standards. Democrats, outside of Bourbon Democrats, favored Greenbacks and more free-flowing forms of currency. In contrast, Northern Republicans and industrial states favored a quick return to the gold standard.
Now, this issue is NOT the galvanizing one seen during the 1896 United States presidential election, with Williams Jennings Bryan hitching his entire campaign on the issue of "Free Silver," but praising Greenbacks and pushing for unity between state and federal treasuries is the best option and it also happens to be the historically correct one. In terms of our campaign, with the first two scenarios meant to emulate efforts at offering olive branches to Southern Democrats, I will opt to say that "State and federal governments should work in tandem" while praising Greenbacks as a necessity to keep the Union alive. The in-game advisors point out that this is the "moderate" response, and it elicits a broadly positive reaction. The more left-leaning third and fourth scenarios will opt to respond with "It was only right for the Union to adopt greenbacks for the stability of the Union's economy." The in-game advisors interestingly respond that this position exactly mirrors Grant's stance.
The monetary issues continue as it's time to talk about tariffs! Before the federal income tax was established, most of the United States federal government was funded through tariffs, which are duties or taxes on imports and exports. Because Southern states lacked manufacturing centers to the degree of Northern states, they tended to favor lower tariffs to increase profits from exporting agricultural goods and lower the cost of importing foreign manufactured goods. Northern states generally favored higher tariffs to protect internal manufacturing investments and domestic production. I find striking the middle ground the best stance, though, so I had all playthroughs stand by higher tariffs on new and emerging industries while preferring low tariffs on all other sectors. If you view the in-game map, you'll find only a few states are "moderate" on the tariff issue, but this is one of those questions where the play is not to maximize your win but to minimize your losses. And I will warn you this issue gets you annihilated if you try to avoid it entirely with a mealy-mouthed answer. Likewise, be aware that supporting free trade was considered a far-left stance, erring on the socialist side of the political spectrum, in the 1800s.
Question #14 is a layup for Greeley as it relates to westward expansion. The man famously was among the strongest advocates for westward expansion and Manifest Destiny. He not only authored multiple bills related to the Homestead Acts of the 1800s, but the quote "Go West, young man, go West and grow up with the country" is famously attributed to him, though that is disputed. The important thing here is to call for Western development without calling upon more violent conquest of new lands. The electorate of the 1870s is correctly depicted in New Campaign Trail as being war-weary, with even the suggestion of conflict with Native Americans netting pushback. Historically, the United States did indeed wage major military campaigns against Indigenous peoples before, during, and well after the American Civil War, with the United States military and federal government engaged in military and cultural genocide. Nonetheless, every scenario in my campaigns went with "Western settlement is of utmost importance," and doing so put Western states into play to some degree, though a lot of work was still needed to flip them.
Question #15 asks for a statement about the Transcontinental Railroad, and this is one of a handful of questions where there only appears to be one winning answer for Greeley that doesn't result in him being called a flip-flopper, which he was lambasted for during his real campaign, especially by political cartoonist, Thomas Nast. That response recognizes the importance of the Transcontinental Railroad but decries the federal government's program of giving away land for practically free to railroad companies. New Campaign Trail even points out that general discontent with railroad monopolies during this time led to growing calls to nationalize all railroads, but these calls were few and far between.
Electoral Votes:
- Scenario #1 - Grant 230, Greeley 136
- Scenario #2 - Grant 231, Greeley 135
- Scenario #3 - Grant 254, Greeley 112
- Scenario #4 - Grant 275, Greeley 91
Questions #16-20: Foreign Policy, Social Welfare, And SCANDAL!
That was an absolute onslaught of questions, and it won't get any easier! Luckily, things start innocently enough with question #16 asking where you stand with Colorado's statehood. Greeley would have stood by immediate statehood, and I don't see a need to deviate between any of the scenarios. Colorado doesn't suddenly get to vote as part of this election, but your campaign gets some brownie points with states on the West Coast. Question #17 is the oddest question in this campaign, asking for a statement about the Proclamation of the German Empire and the Risorgimento of Italy under Giuseppe Garibaldi and King Victor Emmanuel II. I get that this question is in the game to hint at this being the first election when political parties transitioned from attacking Italian and German immigrants or using them as a nativist scare tactic, but it is clunkily phrased. It's also one of the few questions about foreign policy. I praised the rise of the newly unified German and Italian states for the first three scenarios, and the in-game advisors supported that. For the fourth scenario, I wanted to try something different, play on Greeley's proto-socialist leanings, and responded to the revolutions with "The workers must be liberated before centralization." Unsurprisingly, business interests and mainstream political donors do not like you after you say that.
And now for a "fun" question with question #18! This question asks for a statement on what Greeley should do to address the growing "indigent classes" in urban and agricultural community hubs. Remember, this is where Greeley ended up dooming his campaign to a degree as he was a proto-socialist, wherein he ended up advocating for land, dietary, and sexual reform in the 1870s, but it was a weird mishmash of sorts. As his biographer, Erik S. Lunde put it, Greeley was "a dedicated social reformer deeply sympathetic to the treatment of poor white males, slaves, free blacks, and white women; he still espoused the virtues of self-help and free enterprise." So, why hold back? In the first three scenarios, I will call for the breakup of monopolies and refer to exploitative sweatshops and factory jobs in the 1870s as "slavery of the worker." My reward isn't just an uptick in my poll numbers but an op-ed by Karl Marx arguing for my candidacy. Historically, Greeley hired Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels as correspondents for his newspaper for over a decade. So, for shits and giggles, why not start quoting Marx during the campaign for our fourth and final scenario? Let's completely freak out the business establishment for fun!
Question #19 provides another fun historical fact about presidential campaigns in the past. The question opines that many Americans are concerned about Greeley's health and age, which makes sense considering he died before the election was over. The question prompts Greeley to prove he is up for being President of the United States. Historically, Greeley responded to these concerns by breaking from tradition and actively campaigning by taking tours throughout swing states and conducting speeches in his home state of New York. At the time, it was customary for presidential candidates to avoid actively campaigning and instead hire people to fund campaigns and employ speakers who advocated on their behalf. By actively campaigning for himself, Greeley was relentlessly attacked for breaking custom. A middle ground that would eventually emerge was the Front Porch campaign, first pioneered by James A. Garfield, wherein a presidential candidate stayed in their home state or even home estate and made daily speeches at their home or headquarters addressing their political stances, generally one or two issues per day. While this was considered a significant shift, it still toed the line with tradition and would avoid campaigning physically anywhere else. All that historical context aside, staying home and only taking in a few supporters to prove your health sinks your entire campaign, and touring states too far from Greeley's home base of New York causes him to become physically weathered. So, the only real option is to have him make speeches in New York and New Jersey.
Then there's question #20. Question #20 is a make-or-break question. It addresses the Crédit Mobilier scandal, in which the Union Pacific Railroad and the Crédit Mobilier of America construction company pocketed millions of extra federal dollars to construct the Transcontinental Railroad. Grant's cabinet members covered up the fraud, and some of Grant's confidants were implicated. Historically, Greeley was pressed to take advantage of this scandal but avoided it because it turned out he had shares in the Crédit Mobilier company. For my purposes, I'm calling out the Grant administration and worrying about any blowback later. I'll be less harsh with the first scenario but go straight for the jugular with scenarios two through three. I will call for the accused to resign immediately and attack the quality of Grant's vetting process for his cabinet members and advisors. For our most radical version of Greeley, I elected him to call the accused "traitors" while promising to enact widespread civil service reform.
Electoral Votes:
- Scenario #1 - Grant 281, Greeley 85
- Scenario #2 - Grant 232, Greeley 134
- Scenario #3 - Grant 264, Greeley 102
- Scenario #4 - Grant 227, Greeley 139
Questions #21-25: Defining Your Vice President
There are a handful of questions that change depending on who you select as your vice presidential candidate, and Question #21 asks you to defend your pick. I praised Benjamin Gratz Brown's efforts to address corruption in scenarios one and two. You must be mindful that Brown represents a more placating pick for Southern voters, so options that speak to his work to help the Union during the Civil War aren't as helpful as you'd like. On the other hand, there's more wiggle room with what you can do with Charles Sumner. You can either frame him as evidence that Grant is poisoning the values of the Republican Party, and that's what I did with my third scenario. You can also highlight Sumner's record as a reformer and fighter for equal rights, which I did with my fourth scenario. It's important to note that many of the answers speak to Sumner's acrimonious "break" from Grant. The real-world origin for that is a historical fact rarely discussed today. In 1869, Grant peacefully proposed the annexation of the Dominican Republic, and its then-president, Buenaventura Báez, consented to the proposal. When Grant submitted a treaty for annexation to the Senate, Sumner, a staunch anti-imperialist, rejected it and prevented Grant's attempt to expand the United States' geopolitical presence in the Caribbean Sea. After the treaty's failure, Senators aligned with Grant ousted Sumner as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Nonetheless, had it not been for Sumner, the independence of the Dominican Republic was all but toast.
Question #22 asks you to summarize the scandals that seem to be all too common with the Grant administration, and this is annoyingly a question with one honestly "good" answer, with the rest dinging you or doing nothing to help your cause. That answer is to pick the option that lists all of the scandals in the Grant Administration up to this point. So, that's what I went with for all four scenarios. Question #23 is another question with one correct answer, with the rest of the answers netting anemic results at best. Regardless, it's more acceptable because it involves a slight historical "Easter Egg." The question announces that the infamous 'Boss' Tweed of Tammany Hall fame has been brought down and that you are being pressed to issue a statement. If you pick the option to praise the state party leaders that made this possible, the game massively flips the state of New York in your favor and announces that Samuel Tilden is now actively campaigning in the state in your favor for every turn. I don't care if it is not historically correct, but I picked that answer for every scenario as it nets you essentially a hero unit. For those unaware, Samuel Tilden is one of the most extraordinary presidential candidates, and giving him props in this scenario is fun.
Question #24 highlights a massive design flaw in a handful of scenarios in the New Campaign Trail application, especially regarding the modded campaigns. There are a handful of questions where you either only have one choice and there's nothing you can do to avert a disaster, which is sometimes the point, and then there are questions like this one where there are one to four options, but they are the same answer in each clickable answer. The game is rolling the dice with each clickable option to determine if you get a good, neutral, or bad outcome to a truly random event, which is how this game imitates the fickle nature of politics. To highlight, I clicked the top choice for every scenario on Question #24, and in scenario one, Greeley's stock investments in Crédit Mobilier were revealed during a federal investigation. His credibility immediately went into the gutter, and there wasn't much I could do to recover from this. With scenario four, Greeley's stock investments weren't revealed. However, only one of Grant's accomplices was implicated, allowing the other to work double time, resulting in a small ding to my campaign's polling numbers. With scenarios two and three, Greeley got lucky and came out scot-free while Grant's two primary supporters were sent to jail, which, AGAIN, I had no agency over. I'm glad not all of my scenarios went down the shitter. However, this sucks, and even if there's a reason for a design like this to exist as a teaching mechanism, I'd rather it not be here.
With question #25, it is time to take a stance on Women's Suffrage. Remember, Greeley was an early feminist at the cost of his political fortunes. My conservative first scenario involved Greeley praying for equal treatment of women without advocating for suffrage. I echoed the same strategy with my second scenario and deviated slightly in my third by trying to both sides women's suffrage by calling for "equal treatment of all peoples" without mentioning suffrage, which netted some votes. With nothing left to lose with my Radical Republican scenario, I opted to call on states to pass laws promoting full representation in politics. The game's advisors castigate you for being too progressive but also give you Victoria Woodhull as a supporter for the rest of the campaign. In real life, Woodhull ran for President in this election.
Electoral Votes:
- Scenario #1 - Grant 264, Greeley 102
- Scenario #2 - Grant 255, Greeley 111
- Scenario #3 - Grant 165, Greeley 201
- Scenario #4 - Grant 175, Greeley 191
Questions #26-30: Dealing Straight-Out Democrats & White Supremacy
Question #26 presents you with a scenario about "Straight-Out Democrats" and if you want to show them an olive branch to develop a better ground game in the South or if you have a different plan. Straight-Outs were a faction within the Democratic Party that refused to accept the DNC's decision not to nominate a Presidential candidate in 1872. They were primarily from the state of South Carolina and opted to nominate their own candidate, Charles O'Conor, a conservative Democrat from the state of New York. Fun fact: O'Conor was a Catholic and would have been one of the earliest Catholic presidential candidates had he not telegramed the Straight Outs that he would not accept their nomination. The Straight-Outs nominated John Quincy Adams II, grandson of John Quincy Adams, as VP, who also declined the nomination. Despite those setbacks, they still netted 23,054 votes. After this election, the Straight-Outs played a massive role in swinging the results in the 1876 South Carolina gubernatorial election by aligning with a white supremacist paramilitary terrorist group known as the "red shirts." Red Shirts used violence and intimidation tactics to harass and even kill people attempting to express their constitutional rights during a state election, at one point razing an entire county of South Carolina, resulting in the death of 40 to 100 people. There were examples of black militias enacting violence on whites, but an overwhelming amount of the death and destruction came from the Red Shirts and their like-minded affiliates.
So, outright supporting the Straight-Outs is not good. Doing so destroys your credibility in the North and, worse, is called out as pandering in the South, as your campaign started by affirming the 14th and 15th Amendments. The conservative option, which fits with my first two scenarios, is to pry away Southern Democrats from the Straight-Outs by repeating the agrarian and populist aspects of your political agenda. For the third and fourth scenarios, it makes more sense to decry the state of the downtrodden and push for welfare reforms and social safety net protections. Speaking of social welfare, question #27 asks you point blank if you support socialism. Again, I turn to my earlier quotation by Greeley's biographer, Erik S. Lunde, in which they describe him as a proto-socialist but still thoroughly supportive of private property and favored notions of pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps. At the end of the day, he was, of all things, the owner and editor of a popular newspaper. For this question, in scenarios one and two, Greeley confirmed his support for free enterprise while saying the ideals of socialism help them know how to "guide the downtrodden." For scenario three, I opted to have Greeley say, "Socialism is a guiding path for capitalist excess," BUT that they did not support the redistribution of wealth. I also went with this option for my fourth scenario because calling for the redistribution of wealth poses so much of a leap that the in-game advisors point out that President Grant has grounds to throw you in jail.
Question #28 is an esoteric one. It asks if you believe there is a way to unite freedmen, scallywags, and redeemers by pointing out the commonality of their struggles. For reference, freedmen were emancipated former slaves, scallywags were white Southerners who collaborated with Republicans during Reconstruction, and redeemers were predominantly white landowning farmers who wanted to remove Republicans from Southern state office and re-establish white supremacy. Yeah, game; those three political groups are bound to agree on SOMETHING! Nonetheless, selecting the option that you will work to unite all three factions goes over well, and it makes perfect sense for the first three scenarios. For the fourth scenario, I rejected calls for political unity and instead planted my flag in the camp of freedmen and scallywags. Question #29 announces you have a quick infusion of cash and can spend it on a geographic region to improve your polling there. There's not much to describe here other than if you're campaign isn't entirely borked following Question #24 you should pick the region with the most swing states.
Question #30 is the second time the campaign diverges depending on your vice presidential selection. If you selected Benjamin Gratz Brown, you discover he has a history of abusing alcohol and was observed attempting to "butter a watermelon akin to toast." The best and most logical option is to talk to him, and this results in him campaigning exclusively in border states that he is more familiar with and less likely to be caught slipping up, which I selected for scenarios one and two. With Sumner, you discover that he made a speech in which he "unequivocally declared that the rights of the Negro must remain at equal with other Americans," and this has Southern supporters considering bolting from the ticket. For scenario three, I attempted to mend bridges by saying that the campaign wants to extend the idea of reconciliation to all Southerners, not just emancipated African Americans. This option deflates support from African Americans but does well with all other demographics. We stood by Sumner's speech without equivocation for the fourth scenario and took a ding in the South.
Electoral Votes:
- Scenario #1 - Grant 275, Greeley 91
- Scenario #2 - Grant 275, Greeley 91
- Scenario #3 - Grant 183, Greeley 183
- Scenario #4 - Grant 198, Greeley 168
Questions #31-35: The Final Leg And Oh, Right, Our Boy Greeley Needs To Die
Question #31 marks the wrap-up phase of New Campaign Trail's simulation of the 1872 Election. As we are still in an era where active campaigning was not a thing, there aren't turns to select states to make speeches at or divert campaign funds towards, which is the case with some of the more modern campaigns. Question #31 specifically brings to your attention reports that the elections in Louisiana and Arkansas have faced frequent accusations of voter intimidation, illegal electioneering, and outright corruption. There are only three choices; the best one involves calling for a formal investigation. Calling for the votes to be thrown out and advocating for the electors to decide how to vote independently is an eerie prospect that hits too close to home today. Still, it was not unheard of back in the day, and there was a precedent for it in previous elections. Nonetheless, selecting that option destroys your credibility nationally. You can also elect to campaign in nearby states to compensate, but calling for the investigation is better overall, so I'll opt for it across all scenarios.
Question #32 informs you that Greeley's wife has passed away. This tragic event happened one week before election day, which resulted in Greeley being understandably unavailable during the critical final week of his campaign. The game allows your Greeley to make a statement to avoid that from happening. There's no real bad answer here, but the response that mentions that Greeley's wife always supported his efforts to help the poor is the most interesting one. It gives you a bump with progressives, but the game's advisors note that Greeley has developed a cough that those around him are starting to worry about. Probably the best option is to have Greeley say that he is mourning the loss of his wife but knows he must move on with the campaign.
Question #33 provides you with one last opportunity to make a final speech before people head to the polls. For the first three scenarios, I allowed Greeley to go back to the bread and butter of his campaign: reminding voters of the Grant Administration's prior scandals and corruption. Each scenario that selected this option saw a nationwide bump as it is one of the few cudgels that Greeley has that works. For the fourth radical campaign, I gave a speech that called upon people to work with him to help the impoverished and support new welfare programs. Question #34 prompts you to select where to send your final campaign funds before people head to the polls. With scenarios one and two utterly dead, this felt entirely pointless. I opted to send funds to New York in the first scenario in hopes of winning the state with the most electoral college votes, and with the second scenario, I campaigned in the South, knowing an electoral victory was out of reach. With the last two scenarios, things were slightly dicier. The third scenario, which was the first with Sumner as VP, had more swing states on the edge than you could shake a stick at, so to triage things, I went with sending the final funds to Indiana and Ohio. With the fourth scenario, as the campaign heavily relied on Northern votes, I went with a final push in the Mid-Atlantic states.
Question #35, the last in the game, has Greeley greeting death. You can opt to have Greeley die before the polls close, which deals a MASSIVE BLOW to his polling numbers, or have him make a deal with the Grim Reaper to pass into the afterlife after his inauguration. This depiction of Greeley's death is an obvious embellishment. Greeley lived to see the totals of every state in the Union in 1872. However, he did not live to see the formal balloting and certification of the Electoral College results. Greeley knew he wouldn't be the next President, and after his campaign shuttered, he returned to his offices at the Tribune. Nevertheless, he discovered there was an attempt by Democrats to walk back their agreement to endorse him, and he became distressed that he was being unseated from the election tallies. Unable to sleep, his health worsened, and he was sent to an asylum to recover, but he never did and died. His electoral college votes were invalidated and split among four people. New Campaign Trail has an achievement for winning this election as Greeley after choosing to have him die before the election. I attempted that with the fourth scenario, as it had the best margin for him to win at 165-187, in his favor. There was a chance that his lead would drop, but not enough to cause him to lose the election.
Final Results & Lessons
- Scenario #1: Grant 261, Greeley 91 - Loss, But Better Than Greeley's Real Election Result
- Scenario #2: Grant 272, Greeley 80 - Loss, But Better Than Greeley's Real Election Result
- *Scenario #3: Grant 175, Greeley 177 - Victory!
- *Scenario #4: Grant 165, Greeley 187 - Victory & Achievement Unlocked!
So, how in the world did I manage to pull off two successful campaigns, let alone win one, with Greeley dying well before the certification of the electoral college? The answer is easy to figure out, and I explored it at the end of my first blog. Due to this modded campaign attempting to represent a significant shift in demographics in the South, considering how unprecedented this election was, it is actually EASIER to run as a left-leaning candidate with a strong emphasis on civil rights than it is as someone trying to offer olive branches to disaffected southern Democrats. That is because the demographics of the Southern states have a large portion of recently enfranchised African Americans who, in the case of states like Georgia, South Carolina, or Alabama, tilt those states to be swing states rather than conservative ones. As I have stated in this episode and the previous one, that part of this simulation's design is likely authentic. Now, I'm not going to sit here and say this would completely change every single Southern state, but if the United States didn't have gerrymandering or unjust blockades against voting access, how much would the current political makeup of the South change?
Also, in the case of the 1872 election, Charles Sumner is a vastly superior vice presidential candidate than Benjamin Gratz Brown. I don't know if this is a slight bias from the designer of this mod, but getting extra opportunities to drum up support for your progressive civil rights agenda with Sumner is miles better than the additional opportunities to strike moderate platitudes with Benjamin Gratz Brown. It still rubs me the wrong way that a considerable part of this campaign relies on RNG and getting lucky with question #24. Practically every campaign in New Campaign Trail has some RNG melded into its DNA, but it's still annoying and frustrating. There is a way for you to get around this, but it requires you to use the "inspect" tool in your browser, review your prompts in the code, and identify the marker for the lone good answer, but who wants to do that? Nonetheless, I learned a TON from running this campaign. I cemented my understanding of academic and historical terminology thanks to the rabbit holes I found myself in while playing this game. Despite some quibbles, it is an incredible teaching tool that I recommend, barring some limitations.
The modding community associated with the New Campaign Trail application is a wild bunch of people. Plenty of historical mods provide numerous opportunities to learn topics and themes you have never seen or heard of before. There are also joke mods that are bound to rot your brain. For example, a well-regarded or notorious mod has SpongeBob SquarePants running for President during the 2008 election as a Democrat and Squidward as a Republican. Patrick runs as a third-party candidate under the Reform Party, and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is his running mate.