A Vote for the Economy? A Vote Against Democracy
- PDF / 85,685 Bytes
- 2 Pages / 595.276 x 785.197 pts Page_size
- 7 Downloads / 194 Views
Letter from America
A Vote for the Economy? A Vote Against Democracy When the text books are written, 2020 will go down in the annals of American history as exceptional for a number of reasons. This presidential election year has seen the first global pandemic in a hundred years, unemployment rates dip toward Great Depression-era levels, police violence spurred by systemic racism that has incited civic unrest reminiscent of the 1968 race riots and private citizens arming themselves to the teeth in order to take their security into their own hands amidst fears of “defunding the police.” It has endured wildfires burning up and down the entire west coast of the US that have killed dozens of people and displaced thousands more, and an ongoing tropical storm season. It has borne questions of possible electoral interference including threats of shuttering the federal postal service, intelligence reports of foreign interference and claims from the sitting US President that if he does not win re-election, it is most certainly due to voter fraud. In a year like this, it is utterly unthinkable that a first-term president would have a snowball’s chance in hell at winning re-election. And yet, poll after poll shows President Donald Trump is either tied with or is only narrowly trailing his challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden. The most recent Pew Research poll has Biden ahead with 53% to Trump’s 45%. Top pollsters FiveThirtyEight, however, found that in conducting over 40,000 electoral simulations, their model gave Biden a 77% chance of winning to Trump’s 23%. But winning what? In 2016, Hillary Clinton was ahead of Trump in the national polls by a similarly substantial margin. Most polls predicted her win was imminent by at least 80%. And perhaps the polls were correct – Clinton did beat Trump by almost three million votes. But the popular vote does not determine the electoral outcome in the US. In the electoral college system the US uses to elect its president, each state is given a number of votes based on how many representatives it sends to Congress – the House and the Senate. The number of House Representatives is determined by the state’s population whereas the number of Senate seats allotted each state is the same – two – creating a rural skew. To win the presidency, a successful candidate needs to secure 270 of the possible 538 electoral college votes – not the popular vote. Indeed, polling experts say that Biden could win the popular vote by 4.5 million votes and still only have a 75% chance of winning the electoral college. Despite the odds, obstacles and oddities, Trump’s support base remains fervent. The President has famously said he could walk down New York City’s 5th Avenue and shoot someone and would not lose a single supporter. What was once hyperbole appears to be inching closer to the truth. Trump’s supporters forgive every transgression, deny every accusation, reinterpret every misspoken utterance and blame the “fake news” for every mischaracterization. This ardent and unwavering support that may carry
Data Loading...
