I discovered this exploit in democracy 3 and I'm surprised that not only does it remain, it got even more powerful.

In the setup menu, select 200% difficulty and max out debt. This will make the game easier I promise.

Once you've started the game:
Step 1: Get rid of income tax. All it does is piss off middle class people and that ain't good.

Step 2: Get rid of Corporate tax, Inheritence tax, Sales tax and other non-sin taxes. The goal is to almost only borrow.

Step 3: Spend spend spend. Get rid of problems and spend all you want on any policy you want, as long as you have the political capital to do so. Make sure the policies you implement are sound, just don't care about the cost.

Step 4: Trigger the Debt Crisis, followed by Emergency Powers problem. These are actually GOOD. The negatives that the debt crisis gives you can be very easily suppressed with the right policies. The negative feelings middle income people have for it is actually less than for income tax, so it more than evens out.

Step 5: Win the election. The game becomes super easy after this, as the extra political power given by the emergency powers will grant you alot of political capital.