Biden? Or Trump?
A US presidential election, let us tediously remember, is decided not by the country’s voters but by an “electoral college” to which each of the country’s fifty states sends a designated quota of delegates. The larger a state’s population, the bigger its quota; but the entire quota goes to the victor, even if he or she has won the state only by one vote.
A handful of minuscule state-wide victories can therefore overturn a massive nationwide defeat.
In 2016, Hillary Clinton received 66 million votes against Trump’s 63 million, but Trump secured 306 electoral college votes as against Clinton’s 232 and became president.
The final debate of Thursday Oct 22 seems to have given Donald Trump a lifeline for this 2020 contest. While Joe Biden remains in the lead, Trump’s improved performance seems to have ensured his survival in the race, including perhaps in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, where (and elsewhere) oil and gas, and fracking, are among the hot issues.
To the surprise of many Trump-watchers, the incumbent controlled himself during the last debate. He did not shout or interrupt, and he allowed Biden to make remarks capable of troubling elements in the Democrats’ diverse coalition. A promise to transition the economy away from oil and gas was one such remark.
To the disappointment of his base, however, Trump failed to score any points on allegations implicating Biden’s son Hunter, even though just before the debate Fox News had presented a supposedly explosive but in some ways suspicious testimony by a man called Tony Bobulinski, who brandished a cell-phone but refused to answer questions.
If Biden wins in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin – three traditionally Democratic states that Trump narrowly won in 2016 – the game will be over for Trump.
But if Trump retains Pennsylvania, Biden will have to compensate by winning one or more states from the “traditionally Republican” basket: states such as Florida, Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina, and Iowa, all places where Trump has seemed on the defensive.
Along with encouraging far-right groups that openly espouse White supremacy, Trump has with a straight face sought Black support by enlisting a few successful African American rappers and sports stars attracted by Trump’s low tax rates for high incomes, and by providing federal finances for historically Black colleges. Polls suggest that 17 percent of Black America’s male votes might go to Trump this time, as against 12 percent in 2016.
He seems to have improved also on his share of the likely Latino vote, but these projected gains have to be set against expected losses with two significant segments: White women and senior Americans of all races. This setback is being connected to Trump’s failure over the Covid pandemic.
Some on the Trump side claim that polls predicting a Biden victory will be proved wrong because a number of usually non-voting White Americans will come out and vote for Trump.
America’s voting percentage has been in the 51-58 range for about two decades. This time, with eleven days to go, about 51 million Americans have already voted in person in early voting or by mail. It is estimated that another 110 million may vote between now and Tuesday Nov 3.
More than two-thirds of the electorate are thus yet to vote. What is eleven days in the story of the US? Nothing, but in volatile politics even a few hours can make a difference.
A huge additional complication this time (independent of Covid) is the certainty of dozens of state-by-state legal challenges to ballots and their counting, and the associated probability of a great delay in obtaining a result.
A result, moreover, that might require confirmation by the Supreme Court – which might get a new Trump-nominated justice on Monday the 26th!
A step probably consequential for the whole world is also likely to be a clumsy, controversial step.
