As for Linbergh 1940, you really can't use the actual results from the 1940 FDR vs. Wilikie map as a starting point, as Lindbergh would have been running a completely different kind of campaign, issues, and tactics, so the voters and demographics he appealed to would be different. I agree its almost impossible any candidate with an "R" next to his name would have won a state in the deep south back in 1940 though, even in a Worst Case Scenario for FDR where he loses re-election in a landslide.
And, of course, there's the easiest "alternate history" scenario: Nixon wins in 1960. Easy because he already DID in real life. Just throw out the dead votes in Crook County, Illinois, and the illegal alien votes in Texas, both states would have cast their electoral votes for Nixon and he would have defeated Kennedy nationally. Of course, rather than see an "alternate history" story of the election itself, I'd like to see an "alternate history" movie focused on what happened AFTERWARDS when we didn't have 8 years of Kennedy-Johnson New Frontier-Great Society garbage destroying this country. Should be required reviewing for the "JFK would be a Republican today" delusional crowd on here.
California would have been enough for Hughes to win and some say he did actually win that state, I think they found a ballot box with extra Wilson votes. RINO CA Governor also didn’t back Hughes.
He did very bad in the rural west, yes. Progressism appealed there, LaFollete did well in some of those states in 1924. A lot of the TR 1912 vote out west went to Wilson I guess.
And Hughes did badly in Ohio also, never before or since was Ohio ever so much more rat than the nation at large.