History YMMV / TheCampaignTrail

* BrokenBase: Is 2000N a fun little satirical mod that helped introduce CYOA elements and the addition of a soundtrack into the modding community, helping innovate what a NCT mod can do? Or is it a confusing and oftentimes disturbing mess of a mod that strays ''way'' too far from what a NCT mod should be?

** Flopulist[[labelnote:Explanation]]After the landslide Republican victory in 1972, Spiro Agnew deemed George [=McGovern=] a "flopulist". In the 1972 Kennedy VP mod, upon finding out about the Chappaquiddick incident the advisor feedback suggests the player will also be a "flopulist". In the 76 Agnew mod, stating that Agnew may well end up a flopulist is an answer to the Maryland scandal question, which leads to the advisor feedback suggesting that [=McGovern=] is laughing back in South Dakota. The achievement for dying as Huey Long was also renamed to simply "flopulist", after the original name "fix your damn mod" was no longer relevant.[[/labelnote]]

** [Insert candidate here] [[UnknownRival Who]]? [[labelnote:Explanation]]Originating from one of Trump's responses to the third-party candidacy of Evan [=McMullin=] in 2016 ("Evan who? Have you seen this guy? I'm not too worried!"), it later appeared as "Sid Who?" in 1956 Red and was being used by Stassen as a way to discredit his opponent Sid [=McMath=] (who is basically a nobody in national politics). It's since become a recurring joke on both the Reddit and Discord to refer to largely unknown presidential and vice-presidential candidates in mods as [Name] Who?[[/labelnote]]

** In the 1968Romney mod, Lyndon B Johnson crosses the horizon if Romney selects Brooke as his running mate. Upon hearing of the weak Republican ticket, Johnson helicopters into the DNC, steals the nomination from Humphrey, and has the police open fire on protesters outside, causing a massacre that sends the left running from him and into Romney's arms.

** The ending where Nixon is defeated by Ted Kennedy in 1972: Peace With Honor is ''horrifying'', to put it mildly. Richard Nixon is at a rather peculiar funeral in a church, and not a single person in the crowd has a familiar face. Until Nixon finds out that the one giving the eulogy is Ted Kennedy, who immediately alludes to JFK being ''[[WhamLine alive and in the crowd]]''. The crowd is then revealed to be the entire Kennedy family, who all screech and laugh at a Ted's joke about his family "having a thousand members". Nixon then realizes that, to his horror, the funeral he's attending is '''[[AttendingYourOwnFuneral his own]]''' and can only scream in horror when the crowd starts chanting Kennedy over and over again. Thankfully, it's revealed to just be a dream Nixon had. Doesn't make it any less disturbing though.

** The People's President has you win as [=McCain=] in 2008 after criticizing capitalism. Since picking that answer heavily hits your poll numbers and is hard to recover from, it takes a miracle to win after picking that answer.
** WHY?!?!?!?! requires you to play 2016a ''100 times.'' Needless to say, this takes a while.
** This One's For The Record on the Showcase website requires you to get the ''exact'' canon result for 1956 Red as [=McCarthy=], right down to the number of Electoral Votes each candidate has. Since [=McCormack=] and Conally's number of [=EVs=] are usually up to blind luck, this achievement is widely considered the hardest to get among the 1956 Red achievements.
** Even more mundane achievements like "Dark Brandon Rising" in 2020 (win at least 406 electoral votes as Joe Biden with any running mate on at least normal difficulty) or its converse, "MAGA... Again" (win at least 322 electoral votes as Donald Trump with any running mate on at least normal difficulty) can be incredibly time-consuming and frustrating due to the random element of the game. Even if you know all the most optimal answers, know how to game the debate questions[[note]]using inspect element, it's possible to tell the seemingly-identical answers apart and take the one with the best results[[/note]] and the best running mate to carry the most states, actually getting every state you need has a random element and getting the achievement can take hours of resets through dozens of playthroughs to actually get the achievements.

** The special ending in 1864, achieved if Lincoln wins every electoral vote with Benjamin Butler as his running mate while giving Butler functionally limitless free rein is a horrifyingly realistic depiction of how a vulnerable America could be transformed into a dictatorship, with Butler's actions going from brutal but understandable actions as a result of the civil war, to flat out political purges of his rivals, as he ruins the democratic traditions of America for his own ends, leading to an eventual dissolution of the USA and its replacement with a unitary American Republic, where Butler runs a Frankenstein dictatorship as a nationalist, socialist imperial dictator, elections are nothing but formality, with true democracy only being restored after his death in the 1890s. The [[WordOfGod creator has implied]] that the shocks this causes in American society lead to a full on socialist revolution not long after the first free election of the new Republic. Perhaps at least as terrible is the fact that while boorish, corrupt, and brutal, [[KnightTemplar Butler seems to be a true believer in his idea of a Jacobin Republic]], fundamentally transforming not just the United States but global geopolitics in both good and bad ways. Butler begins ultimately begins BelievingTheirOwnLies by the end.

** UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush can do a lot of morally reprehensible stuff in W., with sparking [[WarIsHell brutal and bloody]] wars that claim thousands of lives being among his worst acts. Yet suffering a landslide loss to the Democratic candidate has the Texas cowboy become a EmptyShell of his former bubbly self and by the end of the phone call with Poppy ([[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech who wastes no time ripping into his son for all his failures]]) is sobbing his eyes out.
-->''George stood in silence looking at the phone. In his mind, he saw himself crying. He saw himself shattering the phone against the wall. He saw himself calling back and screaming into his father's ear.''
** Investigating Al Gore's personal life in W. can lead to the discovery that his 2000 loss to Bush and the subsequent divorce with his wife have taken a severe toll on him, to the point that he nows spends most of his free time [[TheAloner alone and away from his friends]].

** Poppy still isn't proud. [[labelnote:Explanation]]The "W." mod portrays UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush as a WellDoneSonGuy who [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption can never win his father's approval]], even having a purposefully {{Unwinnable}} achievement for doing just that. Posts detailing successful playthroughs tend to have fans jokingly commenting that Poppy is ''still'' disappointed.[[/labelnote]]