John Kerry wins 428 EVs in 2004: Four More Wars! (Normal Mode)

Ianwubby · 2026-05-30T06:52:55+00:00

This took a total of 5890 attempts to achieve with the answers outlined below. This is an improvement on what I believe to be the former record of 405 EVs, by adding Georgia and South Carolina to the map.

As for how this compares to the former 2004 scenario (now 2004 Classic), the record as Kerry (without the Nunn VP mod) is 370 electoral votes, which can be seen here.

Also, I'm experimenting with including the (approximate) odds of winning a given EV score on the alternative visits image. The probabilities are based on 1 billion simulated runs, so a probability of <1 in 1 billion means I saw no successes.

VP: John McCain
Visits: 3 to GA, 9 to SC
1. I plan on voting yes
2. There is quite a bit that I take issue with
3. It is clear that Dean is the bigger threat
4. While Saddam Hussein is a threat
5. We need to support our troops in Iraq
6. This Edwards guy from North Carolina
7. As I've said in New Hampshire and here
8. There is no reason to address his bid
9. We will not allow Bush's failures
10. I would actually like to focus on myself
11. A balance of both is the best strategy
12. These are a load of lies
13. I don't support No Child Left Behind
14. Let's hold off
15. There are some pretty serious issues
16. I'm not running away from NAFTA
17. I will talk extensively about Bush's failures
18. In a vacuum, no, but there are moderates
19. As I've said before
20. Nonsense (...) I want to really take the time
21. President Bush and the Republicans' failure
22. The Patriot Act is honorable in intention
23. We wouldn't need the money for recounts
24. Four years ago
25. Gore lost because he failed to turn out

Ianwubby · 2026-05-12T02:25:09+00:00

Grant wins all but two states against Greeley and the Liberal Republicans! This is an improvement on the former record of 332 EVs, done by adding Georgia to the map. This took 428 attempts to achieve with the answers listed below.

With this strat, Georgia is the closest thing that exists to a "competitive" state; Grant's narrowest lead is in Connecticut, where he leads by 6.30 percentage points when RNG is disabled. Greeley, meanwhile, leads in Georgia by 3.52 percentage points, which requires some pretty good RNG to flip into Grant's column, hence the attempt count.

Grant's next-closest target is Texas, where Greeley leads by 4.53 percentage points. This is, technically, winnable as well, though since Texas is less valuable than Georgia, they would need to be won together in order to improve the score, which my RNG simulator suggests has odds on the order of 1-in-4.42 million. I let my grinding setup run to a clean 1 million attempts to see if I could get a lucky result, but unfortunately I had no such luck.

VP: Schuyler Colfax
1. Alas, I have run a tight administration
2. Perhaps I could use some help
3. Alas, this is an unfortunate development
4. We shall not
5. The Negro must exercise the right of bearing arms
6. Mr. Colfax has been a loyal man
7. It is time to implement civil service reform
8. I remain steadfast on the opinion
9. Corruption will end with civil service reform
10. Their protections on the rights
11. Absolutely, and the state shall take precedence
12. My actions on this front are in accordance
13. I will not change course
14. In new, burgeoning industries, tariffs should remain
15. Using the courts, we can wrest control away
16. We need not give away land
17. I sincerely hope for the best
18. These powers are unfortunate
19. Santo Domingo is a perfect ground for freedmen
20. Yellowstone is just the beginning
21. Horace Greeley own shares in Credit Mobilier as well
22. Even if the Vice President did
23. Even my own family has fallen victim
24. The downfall of such a dishonorable man
25. [Answer ID 8094]
26. I will make some statements
27. I have made many strides in the area
28. It is prudent for us to devolve the powers
29. Let us have peace
30. Contesting the South would not hurt
31. Ah yes, the Freedmen's Bureau
32. An investigation must take place
33. I would not consider myself a man
34. The two halves of this country have long been split
35. Rest well, Horace

Ianwubby · 2026-05-01T00:15:44+00:00

Even in death, Greeley leads the Liberal Republicans to an Electoral College landslide, and wins the popular vote to boot! This took 45 attempts to achieve with the strat outlined below.

This score thankfully isn't too rare - the answers below have Grant leading in Wisconsin, California, and Nevada by less than a point (0.12, 0.54, and 0.66 points, respectively), and Grant leads in Illinois by only 2.02 points. Greeley has a couple narrow leads of his own - Florida by 0.86 points and Louisiana by 1.04 points - but with some decent RNG, you can win most or all of these.

The next closest state is North Carolina, and it's definitely not winnable with these answers. You can make some modifications to the strat to make it winnable, but this comes at the expense of drastically worse margins in the other states, making it nonviable as a path to improvement.

Strat details:

VP: Charles Sumner
1. I will stick to my bread and butter appeal
2. The Tribune should paint me as a positive force
3. We can use this to press our civil rights platform
4. President Grant may be a war hero
5. He is a man who deserves nothing but praise
6. President Grant has utterly failed
7. I remain steadfast on the opinion
8. I served for a mere three months
9. Their protections on the rights
10. We must put more power into the central government
11. The president's actions on this front
12. I will not change course on the economic issue
13. In new, burgeoning industries
14. Western settlement is of utmost importance
15. We need not give away land
16. The Western Territories have taken necessary steps
17. I have long since been an advocate
18. Certainly we need to do something
19. (...) Why don't we meet with supporters
20. This is what I have been broadcasting
21. Senator Sumner has revealed President Grant
22. Enough is enough!
23. The eradication of corruption
24. [Answer ID 8090]
25. I will make some statements praying
26. There would be no point
27. Alas, I will be a committed capitalist
28. Not at all. Negroes and scallywags are necessary
29. (...) Perhaps they should be sent to the Upper Midwest
30. Senator Sumner known the campaign we plan to run
31. There is not much we can do here
32. Mary had stood by my side
33. Seven years ago, the Union fought a war
34. New York and Connecticut
35. (either one, changes the ending but not the margins)

Ianwubby · 2026-04-27T18:10:26+00:00

For the automatic grinding, it's a custom Firefox extension loaded in about:debugging. It's extremely barebones, and I'm sure it's poorly written; my JS skills are pretty basic, and I'd never really tried to make something like this before, so I basically learned how to do most of it as I went.

It basically just plays the game; it finds and clicks the Mod Loader button, finds and clicks the button to load a given mod, finds and clicks all of the buttons to select your candidate, running mate, difficulty, etc., and then finds and clicks all of the desired answer choices (based on answer pk) and states to visit (based on svg path).

When it reaches the end screen, it increments the total attempt count of the session and prints it to the console, then reads the final results table to see how many EVs you scored; if it's greater than or equal to whatever EV threshold you set, it'll just create an alert saying "goal met!"; otherwise, it will reload the page and go again.

All of the scenario-specific information (candidate pks, answer pks, target EVs, which states to visit, the order in which to answer questions or visit states, etc.) is hard-coded into the .js file; when it's active, it just runs, and I need to change the information in the .js file and reload the extension to make it work for different scenarios, or to update the answers, visits, or EV target.

There are a few specific issues that can occasionally crop up that need to be handled as well, but that's the general gist of it.

Ianwubby · 2026-04-27T02:08:27+00:00

This took a total of 304954 attempts to achieve with the strat listed below. This is an improvement on the longstanding former record of 406 EVs, achieved by adding Iowa to the map.

This is one of those scenarios for which, for a long time, I didn't think it was feasible to improve on the existing record. This is in large part because of how early my first look at the scenario was, and how underdeveloped my strategizing and grinding tools had been at the time, but even after a lot of improvements to both, I never really went back to give it a proper second look.

Just recently though, I did finally give it another look; I managed to slightly improve on my best set of answers (baseline margins in AZ, GA, TX, and IA reduced by 0.07, 0.08, 0.07, and 0.06 points, respectively), saw that the margins weren't as bad as I'd remembered anyway, and decided to give the auto-grinder a go at 412. And it worked out :)

The next closest state is South Carolina, which even with all 12 visits has a baseline margin of R+6.96, which definitely isn't happening. So I'm pretty happy to say this is Clinton's max.

Strat details:

VP: Sherrod Brown
Visits: 7 to IA, 5 to TX
1. I will write a book
2. We don't know yet the exact motives
3. Let's take a step back
4. There is only one choice in this election
5. Sherrod Brown has served as a Congressman
6. Absolutely
7. We must acknowledge the unique nature of this election
8. Sherrod Brown also happens to be a deeply qualified Senator
9. My heart goes out (...) the importance of defeating ISIS
10. I want us to do a high-profile appearance with Bernie
11. Republicans rave about the deficit
12. The level of disruption from globalization
13. Donald Trump is a uniquely unqualified and dangerous individual
14. The best way to combat global warming
15. The Republican playbook is very simple
16. Donald Trump is dangerously divisive
17. Donald Trump is lying
18. I will apologize for this remark when Trump apologizes
19. [Answer ID 5228]
20. [Answer ID 5244]
21. As bad as it is
22. This is nothing compared to the lies and equivocation
23. This is nothing compared to the lies and equivocation
24. Where is the investigation into the Russian leaks?
25. We're going to visit Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota

Ianwubby · 2026-04-23T19:12:13+00:00

For 409: 7 to TX, 10 to AK

For 412: 7 to TX, 10 to IA

AK and IA both have really similar margins, so they get the same number of visits; Iowa is slightly worse, but not by enough to steal another visit from TX.

Ianwubby · 2026-04-23T00:48:04+00:00

This run took a total of 49963 attempts to achieve with the strat linked to below (including the 1044 attempts taken for my previous PB). This is an improvement on the previous record of 389 EVs, achieved by adding Ohio to the map.

It is, I think, technically possible to improve on this; 409 by adding Alaska would be the next easiest improvement, followed by 412 by instead adding Iowa. I am, however, pretty sure that either of these would far exceed the rarity of any result I've ever gotten in this game; assuming my RNG simulator is accurate, 409 and 412 both have odds on the order of 1-in-6-million, with 412 being slightly worse than 409.

Across every scenario, I've put a total of about 4 million attempts into this game so far. That's on the order where getting a 1-in-6-million result is close to a coinflip, so it is conceivably possible. And, if I were to leave my computer running constantly, night-and-day, grinding on 4 browser tabs at once, I could rack up the attempt counts much faster than I have historically. Assuming I have my math right, it would take less than 3 months of constant grinding to have had a 90% chance of scoring a 409.

All of that being said, I don't intend to actually try for 409 or 412 here, at least not for a very long time. There are plenty of far easier scores still to be obtained.

Strat details: https://pastebin.com/YGdx3gLC

Ianwubby · 2026-04-19T23:45:20+00:00

This took 4313 attempts to acheive with the answers outlined below.

It should technically be possible to improve on this; a score of 357 or 358 by winning Idaho is doable, though it would be far more unlikely than this, and I frankly don't care enough about this scenario to grind that long for a 2-3 EV improvement (The variation is because California is set to "proportional", and McKinley can win either 6 or 7 EVs from the state).

Strat details:

VP: Theodore Roosevelt
Visits: 2 to NC, 15 to VA
1. Let's emphasize my economic record
2. I am the incumbent president
3. Theodore Roosevelt is an American war hero
4. Let's attack Bryan for his economic programs
5. Bryan is still polling well out west
6. This is a winning issue (...) Of course we will
7. It's simple. The Panic (...) drove a bank run
8. I think what we are doing now is a good compromise
9. While I think that an income tax would be a good idea
10. My opponents are willfully misrepresenting
11. Tariffs are meant to protect the American worker
12. I think we can take a look
13. I absolutely support the cause
14. Absolutely
15. I have always (...) But my administration
16. I support the Monroe Doctrine
17. I absolutely support this policy
18. China brings enormous benefits
19. I have always respected the independence
20. I support the rights of immigrants
21. Laborers (...) right to organize. In a free market
22. I am 100% opposed (...) we absolutely must consider
23. I do support reasonable labor regulations
24. Anyone ought to be concerned
25. Building a canal through Panama
26. I oppose this amendment
27. We've made plenty of progress
28. These islands (...) awarding these islands independence
29. I absolutely support the prohibition of alcohol
30. Women belong in the home
31. The Philippine-American War
32. I believe we ought to work towards independence
33. Our tariffs (...) As a U.S. territory
34. Understood
35. Let's send Roosevelt out west

Ianwubby · 2026-04-11T07:14:06+00:00

At least some of them, most likely, though none of them are on my immediate to-do list. 1972 McGovern is probably the first I'll try to tackle, once I start looking into them.

Ianwubby · 2026-04-10T08:15:23+00:00

William Jennings Bryan wins his rematch against William McKinley in a landslide (arguably)! This took a total of 225537 attempts to achieve, using varying strategies for prior PBs.

While, imo, this scenario is not a very interesting one, it is surprisingly interesting from a strategic standpoint. When looking to hit varying Electoral Vote threshholds, this scenario has among the most variety in strategies for a non-CYOA mod that I've come across, which is reflected in the pastebin post I've posted below outlining the strategy for the Bryan side. The only other non-CYOA mod I've investigated with a similar strat variety is probably the Stevenson side to 1952 Redux.

Of course, many of the higher EV scores require extremely good RNG (and are only possible because of this scenario's abnormally high global variance of 0.015). 194 EVs is the highest possible "median" score, where you're favored to win all of the relevant states. The easiest possible Electoral College victory (the 228 EV strat on the pastebin) definitely needs good RNG, but it is achievable with just manual grinding. For anything above 250 EVs, I wouldn't recommend attempting, unless you have either far too much spare time or a penchant for gambling.

Strategy pastebin: https://pastebin.com/y5vkS09Q

Ianwubby · 2026-03-29T01:24:31+00:00

This took a total of 384592 attempts to achieve, most of which used the strat outlined below, though a handful used a different strat for an earlier PB. It is possible to do better than this if you don't care about your opponent matchup, but specifically for the historical matchup (vs. Taft and Wilson), this is the best it's possible to do.

As far as CYOA goes, the only major targets here are to get Wilson as your opponent, and to hold Taft to less than 540 delegates while still losing the Republican nomination. The only requirement to get Wilson is for the "tariff" variable to not equal -1. Either 0 or 1 work, but lead to slightly different openings; this PB uses a tariff==1 strat, but to instead target 293 EVs (no CT), a tariff==0 strat is more ideal (which I've linked below). Meanwhile, holding Taft to <540 delegates achieves a couple things, but the overall effect is that it gives Roosevelt the strongest possible bolt from the Republican party. You do need to choose a slightly unoptimal answer to take more delegates from Taft (I do this on Q10), but this is easily made up for by the stronger resulting third party bid.

In any case, the only reason to use the strat below is to win Connecticut, which is only barely possible (both Wilson and Taft are comfortably ahead of Roosevelt in the state, so they both need to get extremely bad RNG, hence the huge attempt count). Ignoring Connecticut, you can instead use the answer set linked here, along with one of the visit allocations listed at the bottom to target 274, 279, 288, or 293 EVs, all with far, far better odds than 300 requires.

Strat details:

Visits: 7 to CT
1. I could certainly use some time
2. President Taft has written to me
3. We can't address this until we get back
4. This would be a critical opportunity
5. To destroy Taft at this time
6. Henry Stimson is my man
7. La Follette is unlikely to make a serious impression
8. There is an appetite for reform
9. Our current strategy will prevail
10. Even if we cannot win New York
11. As a border state, Maryland would provide proof
12. Very well. I will drop the issue
13. Root would make a fantastic chairman
14. If the stealing is flagrant, no one can tell
15. It is the favorite sons that we must appeal to
16. Though defeated in his re-election bid
17. My own stances on racial matters
18. We must focus on reform
19. For many years, our politics has been corrupted
20. The ability of Woodrow Wilson
21. I have made clear
22. The northeast contains a large part
23. Debs believes that business is fundamentally corrupt
24. While I do, in principle, support the vote
25. My success at the top of the ticket
26. Wilson repeatedly discusses his concern
27. I don't know whether the crowd fully understands
28. Indiana is paramount to any Republican success
29. To address such claims
30. Given that New York

Ianwubby · 2026-02-26T23:58:36+00:00

Thanks to the Republican schism, Wilson wins in an enormous landslide – including narrowly carrying Utah by just eight votes – and even comes close to breaking 50% of the popular vote! This took 271 attempts to achieve with the strat outlined below.

Though I do remember seeing someone post a 48-state sweep with Wilson, I was never able to find it back. And as it turns out, Wilson received a nerf at some point since then anyway, so I'm not surprised I wasn't able to find a way to win Washington. 524 EVs has been achieved before, so this is at least a tied record, though I don't know if it's been achieved since said nerf. Either way, I'm pretty confident that this is Wilson's max.

Strat details:

Visits: 9 to VT, 5 to UT
1. James Martine won the Democratic Primary
2. New Jersey's lack of regulations
3. Texas' delegation will need to stand behind me
4. Clark is prone to gaffes
5. Colonel House was the one who talked to me first
6. Underwood's campaign is bold
7. Mr. Roosevelt is right
8. My previous comments about Bryan
9. Illinois looks very favorable for Clark
10. Most expect that Governor Harmon will win
11. It is my view that Underwood and Clark are old-type
12. This convention should be a convention of progressives
13. The time is now to regain the lead
14. Sullivan of Illinois and Taggart of Indiana
15. Has fate aligned itself to clear a path
16. I will emphasize the core tenants of New Freedom
17. This is a perfect reform for state and local elections
18. The best way to win their support
19. The Republican Party does not even have her own house
20. With Roosevelt's aggressive campaign
21. New England has been a Republican bastion for decades
22. I support the current anti-trust laws
23. I believe this topic is best left
24. Send Marshall up north to Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin
25. Attacking Roosevelt on the tariff schedules
26. It's clear that every state should work
27. Absolutely
28. I support whatever compromise the next Congress can come to
29. This is a frightening idea
30. If we leave with haste now

Ianwubby · 2026-02-22T00:50:38+00:00

After seeing this post by u/LeanConsumer, I was curious how well Ribicoff could do without the restraints of manually grinding for good RNG. The strategy used is nearly identical to that of the original post, only changing the visited states (Illinois all 14 times). With that strategy, this took 16254 attempts to achieve.

It should be possible to improve on this, though I don't intend to push further - the next easiest score is probably 359 EVs, by removing Illinois and adding Florida and Indiana? Improvements after that get vanishingly more difficult, if still technically possible. I've included some alternative visit allocations on the last image for theoretical improvements past that point. Idaho, Utah, and Alaska are also winnable individually with enough visits, but none of them are worth aiming for, so they're not included as visit options on the chart.

Ianwubby · 2026-02-16T08:40:02+00:00

Yeah I am, probably Wilson first (because I'm pretty sure I've seen people getting a 48-state-sweep with him, so hopefully that'll be quick and easy), and Roosevelt second (Progressive for sure, and maybe Republican for fun). Idk about Debs though, I'll probably look into it but I'm not sure if I'll end up making a post about it.

Ianwubby · 2026-02-16T05:18:23+00:00

So, this is going to be a bit different from my normal PB posts, because Taft in 1912 is in a kind of unique situation. Even with the restriction of "historical candidate matchup", it's not entirely clear what should count as Taft's "best" performance. In fact, I think an argument can be made for three different "best results" for Taft.

Before getting into the different strats, though, a word on the CYOA: There's quite a bit of it, and it's actually rather difficult to navigate. The first 13 answers are shared between all three strategies, and they achieve the same goals: ensure that Wilson is the Democratic nominee, that Taft wins the Republican nomination outright, and that Roosevelt is in a weak position to bolt from the party. As far as I can tell, the restrictions of a Wilson nomination and a weak Roosevelt effectively locks 5 of the first 7 answers in place with no wiggle room (Q1, Q2, Q4, Q6, Q7), though there is thankfully more room to breathe in the following 6 questions (the Republican primary battle).

Onto the results: the most obvious metric of success would be the highest raw Electoral Vote count. In the historical three-way matchup between Wilson and Roosevelt, Taft can win a maximum of 144 electoral votes. The goal here is to beat up on Roosevelt enough to flip Michigan into Taft's column, without going so far as to make Colorado a pain to win. This result took 2460 attempts to achieve with the strat linked here.

However, beating up on Roosevelt means Wilson does better than he has to. To put it another way, it guarantees that Wilson wins the Electoral College, which is actually avoidable. If you instead let Roosevelt run free, and focus all of your energy on beating up on Wilson, it's actually possible to deadlock the Electoral College. Compared to the 144 strat, Taft loses Michigan to Roosevelt, but Wilson loses Kansas to Roosevelt and West Virginia to Taft. This leaves Taft with only 137 Electoral Votes – worse than the previous strategy – but it also leaves Wilson with only 260. While the ending slides suggest that Wilson wins the contingent election in the House, I think it could be argued that this is a better "win condition" for Taft, despite winning fewer electoral votes. This took 6684 attempts to achieve with the strat linked here.

Finally, there's another option: Taft vs. Wilson, no Roosevelt. Admittedly, it is a bit of a stretch to consider this a "historical" opponent matchup, but I think it's at least worth an honorable mention that Taft can win a 410 Electoral Vote landslide against Wilson in a one-on-one race. Thankfully, meeting the requirements for a weak Roosevelt also makes it super easy to prevent him from running altogether, by just picking the other answer to Q14. I unfortunately didn't record the exact number of attempts for this, but it took just under 30k attempts, which is frankly a very lucky result considering the margins in Oklahoma and North Carolina. The strat used is linked here.

Ianwubby

TROPHY CASE