The West Wing Election

The election episode in the last season of The West Wing was awesome. It turned out to be a real nail-biter as Rep. Matt Santos of Texas defeated Senator Arnold Vinick of California by a narrow margin of 272 to 266 electoral votes. The whole night was filled with intrigue and excitement. There were some results that really baffled me such as South Carolina going to Santos and Vermont going to Vinick, but other than that, the results reflected reality pretty well.

The ending was set up nicely. Vinick won his home state of California and that gave him 266 electoral votes, with Oregon (7 electoral votes) and Nevada (5 electoral votes) still up for grabs. Winning just one of those states would give him the presidency (270 electoral votes are needed to win a presidential election). But of course it was not to be. Oregon was called for Santos first, which made Nevada the big decision maker in this election (making it similar to the role that Florida played in 2000 and Ohio in 2004). The final results came in and Nevada was called for Santos, thus making him the first Latino president in United States history (in TV land at least).