Everything You Need To Know About Succession Season 4's Big Election

This post contains spoilers through the seventh episode of "Succession" season 4.

The political situation in "Succession" has always been fascinating. Back in season 1, Shiv (Sarah Snook) ended up working on the Presidential campaign of Gil Eavis, an anti-billionaire Bernie Sanders-type character. Although "Succession" has always felt fairly realistic with its take on how politics and wealth intermingle, the fact that Gil would have Shiv on his campaign team was admittedly a bit of a stretch.

If real-life Bernie Sanders ever mentioned in an interview that he had Rupert Murdoch's daughter on his team, he'd almost certainly get some pushback from his base. And although his meeting with Logan during Shiv's wedding in the season 1 finale was never made public, it would still be a massive PR risk for Gil if the press ever got a whiff of it.  

So it may have been for the best when Shiv quit/got fired from Gil's team early into season 2, leading to us only getting Gil in little doses ever since. Instead of him, the Democratic nominee in season 4 is revealed to be some guy named Daniel Jimenez. Presumably, Jimenez is a more moderate candidate than Gil, but for the most part he's a total mystery. All we know for sure is that his campaign's been in contact with Shiv throughout this season, and if he wins, she might be a part of his transition team. 

But what about the Republican candidate?

Before Jaryd Mencken (Justin Kirk) became the Republican nominee, the presumed nominee was the unnamed incumbent president. The expected move would've been to make him a Trump stand-in, but what little information we got of the president indicated that he was just a generic Republican who was a little on the old side. When the president refused to help Logan (Brian Cox) out of a bunch of legal binds in seasons 2 and 3, Logan weaponized his age against him, directing ATN to insinuate that he was too old and confused to do his job correctly. 

This turned out to be a bit of a blunder, because the president actually did have some age-related mental health issues. With the relentless attacks from the media, the president did not appease Logan's demands but instead announced he'd no longer run for re-election. This was a huge deal because the primary period had already happened, so the nominee would need to be picked in some other way. That teed up "What It Takes," the season 3 episode where Logan's crew heads to Virginia for a secret conference with all the other Republican figureheads vying for the nomination. 

"What It Takes" is probably the most politically pointed episode in the entire show, as it really dives into just how little partisan politics in America has to do with appeasing the average constituent. Instead of pleasing America as a whole, every potential nominee in this episode is bending over backwards to please Logan, the selfish multi-billionaire whose media network gets to decide the national narrative. It's the exact opposite of democracy; "the next President," as Tom puts it, is decided by just one guy. Or to put it slightly more charitably, it's decided by one man and his terrible kids. 

The nominee battle in "What it Takes" comes down to Shiv's candidate Salgado, a rare moderate Republican, and Roman's candidate Mencken, who is steadily revealed to be a full-on fascist underneath his cool, polite exterior. Unfortunately for America, Roman likes to dabble in a little fascism himself — after a vaguely homo-erotic conversation with Mencken in the bathroom, Roman is 100% on board with him. 

Meanwhile, despite Shiv's self-proclaimed liberal ideals, it's made clear early on that her main motivation for backing Salgado is that he's promised her he'd help her become CEO if he wins. As far as we know, Logan never finds out about this ulterior motive, but he still picks Mencken. Why? Well, much like Roman, Logan doesn't particularly have any qualms against fascism, and he likely believes that a moderate candidate like Salgado wouldn't do that well in a general election. 

The other reason is far pettier: this episode also features Logan's assistant Kerry (Zoe Winters) nearing the height of her power. Logan has the hots for her, and when he can't decide which of his kids to listen to, he glances at Kerry, who silently points him to Roman with her eyes. Poor Kerry loses any influence she has just a few episodes later when Logan dies, but for a few seconds in this season 3 episode, she's the most powerful person in the world.

Throughout the latest "Succession" episode, season 4's "Tailgate Party," it looks like Jimenez is the expected winner, but not by a large margin. It's definitely not large enough that either side feels particularly confident. What makes things scarier is the repeated references to what sounds like some sort of attempted insurrection going on. There are references to some sort of firebombing by Mencken supporters in Arizona, Kendall's daughter is apparently involved in a public racist incident, and the talk of Mencken "victory vans" implies there's going to be some attempt at voter intimidation going on next episode. The Roys don't take these things that seriously, but maybe they should. 

Perhaps most terrifying is the little glimpses we've gotten of ATN's coverage of the election. In this latest episode, we see a news anchor referring to polling data as a hoax, which feels right in line with the rhetoric used by real-life Trump pundits throughout the 2020 election chaos. Luckily, COVID doesn't exist in the "Succession" universe, so it'll be harder for Mencken to take advantage of the unique pandemic-era circumstances that helped make the 2020 election so uniquely agonizing, but what if 2020 isn't the blueprint for how "Succession" handles this election? What if the writers are taking inspiration from the 2000 election instead?

For those who don't remember, the 2000 election was between George W. Bush and Al Gore, in which Gore won the popular vote but lost the electoral college. The whole thing came down to a couple hundred votes in Florida; Gore's team wanted a recount but didn't fight for it nearly as much as they should've, Bush's team forcefully argued against it, and the Supreme Court stepped in to put a stop to it and ensure Bush's victory. It was the agonizing age-old tale of the Democrat foolishly taking the high road in the hopes that their Republican opponents would take the high road in return, which of course didn't happen.

The good(?) news about the 2000 election is that the atmosphere was nowhere near as heated as it would be 20 years later. Sure, plenty of people believed in 2000 that this was a serious issue and subsequently raised the alarm bells for the terrifying precedent being set by halting the Florida recount, but those were not the people whose voices the media generally prioritized. 23 years ago, the country could stand to wait until December 13 to finally figure out which candidate won the election, but one can't even imagine the chaos that would befall 2020s America if the same scenario occurred, be it in our universe or in "Succession." With ATN constantly running headlines like the one above, Americans have gotten far more riled up.

But no summary of the 2000 election would be complete without a mention of Ralph Nader, the significant third-party candidate who arguably cost Gore the Presidency. That brings us to the biggest wild card in the "Succession" universe's upcoming election: Connor Roy, a man who was interested in politics from a very young age. 

Throughout "Tailgate Party," Roman tries his hardest to convince Connor to drop out of the race. Connor may be a third-party candidate like Nader, but here his presence seems to only hurt the Republican candidate. With Connor's anti-taxes platform, he's siphoning off conservative voters that would otherwise vote for Mencken, and Mencken's team wants to stop this. 

In perhaps the episode's most heartwarming moment, Connor's lovely wife Willa is there to convince him to stay strong. As Connor explains, she's the only person in the room to not think he's a joke, so he's going to listen to her. He's definitely not going to win, but he's going to grab that 1% of the vote no matter what his siblings say.

This means next week's episode of "Succession" has the potential to do one of the funniest things the show could do: what if Mencken loses specifically thanks to Connor? What if Connor, the man who's been ignored and not taken seriously by his siblings throughout the whole show, ends up being the one to save America from letting a borderline Nazi take control of the White House? The feud between Roman and Connor would be fascinating, as would the likely newfound friendliness between Connor and Shiv. It might also lead to a massive backlash against Waystar from Mencken's base, considering it was a fellow Roy who unwittingly kneecapped their movement. 

Then again, perhaps "Succession" will take things in a much darker direction and have Connor be the one to cause a massive 2000-esque electoral crisis. Maybe instead of helping Jimenez win, he accidentally stirs up something akin to a civil war? Anything's possible, but with season 4's unique day-by-day structure so far, a quicker resolution seems most likely.

Of course, this is a show about the rich and powerful; even if this turns into a prolonged national crisis, it likely won't hurt the Roy family at all. If anything, it'll probably be great for ratings at ATN, which might inflate their company's value and provide further ammunition to help them tank the deal with Matsson. The worst case scenario is that the election will cause further conflict between the Roy siblings, but it's not like their wealth or physical safety is actually in danger. 

It's also worth noting that "Succession" isn't shy of the anti-climax. Things often seem big and scary on this show, but the characters' wealth and power tend to protect them from the worst of it anyway. Tom's prison-scare storyline is a big example of this: we spent most of season 3 thinking Tom was a goner only for things to be fine, mostly due to bureaucratic nonsense. With that in mind, there's a good chance "Succession" takes the least straightforward dramatic direction, and has Jimenez win definitively without any drama. 

The build-up to this election has been going on for pretty much the entire show at this point, so it's crazy to think that the range of outcomes is still this large. The final season might feature the end of democracy playing out in the background, or it could have things continue to go on as normal. Either outcome could be thematically on point, and either outcome would lead to more of what the show does best: the constant infighting and changing dynamics between the Roy siblings. We know the Roys will always be the Roys, but when it comes to how "Succession" will handle this election, we still have no idea.