This Tuesday, November 5, the new president of the United States will be elected. Voting actually began days ago: more than 75 million Americans cast their vote early, including the candidate Kamala Harris. It is more than in 2020, and almost half of the 158 million voters who then gave victory to a blurred today Joe Bidenled to drop out of the presidential race less than four months ago after the debate with Donald Trump.
Early voting, as well as the last-minute change of the Democratic nomination, are some of the various peculiarities of the race and the American electoral system. Another of them is that the election takes place on a working Tuesday, or that the president is not elected directly but indirectly: those who will decide who is the next president are voted on, that is, the members of the Electoral college.
These particularities partly explain why the campaign climate is not perceived in several cities, such as New York or Philadelphiaplaces where few signs, posters or events are seen. They are, in these cases, Democratic bastions secured in favor of Harris: in the case of New York with 29 votes for the Electoral College on the way to the 270 needed to become the country’s first president, and in the case of Philadelphia, blue votes are concentrated there for the dispute in the state of Pennsylvania, which grants 19 votes to the Electoral College. Let us remember that the College of Electors is made up of 538 representatives of the 50 states.
Pennsylvania It is one of the seven states that can decide the election along with Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada. Between them there are 93 votes in dispute, and whoever wins a state takes the set of votes corresponding to the Electoral College, regardless of the rival’s result: all or nothing.
Polls averaged by Five Thirty Eight show very close results, with Trump leading in five of the seven states, but with distances sometimes less than 0.2% as in Pennsylvaniaor 0.5% as in Snowfallthat is, a virtual tie. In the case of online betting, such as the Kalshi page, Trump overtakes Harris. An open election, which could be played with few votes in one of those states.
The great polarization
Both political camps consider that the victory of the adversary would be a tragedy for the country. In the Democratic case, because it is about the return of a man accused of being a “fascist” and “obsessed with revenge,” according to Harris herself, who he never acknowledged his defeat in 2020, promises mass deportations of migrants, particularly those who come from Latin Americaand carries a political discourse of internal confrontation in an over-armed country marked by very strong ethnic borders.
For the Trumpist social base, the figure of Harris embodies not only the continuity of the current government with its consequent problems such as inflation, which Harris herself recognizes, but that of a political force characterized as “woke”destructive of traditional American values, with a candidate from “radical Marxist left” as Trump points out, who despises the deep America of lower classes, mostly white.
The fact that Biden, who made few interventions in the campaign due to his unpopularity, called Trump’s voters “garbage” – although he later explained that there had been a misunderstanding – exacerbated that feeling among the Trumpist base. The Republican candidate took advantage of the news to get an orange vest and get on a garbage collection truck, a acting in line with the one made when posing as a worker McDonald’sand pay his best formula: being a millionaire who seems close to the workers.
This capacity of Trump, as well as his permanence at the top of the polls in three consecutive elections, reflects the roots of his charismatic leadership, his leadership in the Republican Partyand the representation of a social unrest that is maintained. Make America Great Again It makes sense for large sectors that experience firsthand the deterioration of the country, the impacts of neoliberalism, and project their hope in the promise of returning to what they remember was better and safe.
The Democratic Party, which changed three candidates in three elections against Trump, Hillary Clinton, Biden and now Harris, for her part, seeks to connect with a more heterogeneous and complex electorate in terms of the construction of discourses. One of the central subjects pointed out by the Democratic candidate, who emphasizes her middle-class origin, are women, as shown in the recent spot campaign with the voice-over of the actress Julia Robertscalling on them to vote differently than their Trumpist husbands: “You can vote however you want and no one will ever know.”
World attention
The dispute attracts worldwide attention. Although there are often greater continuities than deep breaks with changes in administration, the implications of a victory for Harris or Trump are several. One way to anticipate how important those changes will be is the other key result of the race: the 425 seats up for grabs. House of Representatives and 33 of the Senatewhich will reveal the new correlation of forces in Congress.
The way of projecting the result and benefits changes from each regional or national perspective. A return of Trump could mean, for example, for Moscow a favorable picture for a hypothetical agreement in Ukrainefor China an escalation of tariffs that the Republican promises to be 60%, and for a government like that of Javier Milei of Argentina or Bolsonarism in Brazil the arrival of a political ally although not necessarily economic.
A Democratic victory would instead be a continuity of the guiding lines of the current one, which has maintained the war in Ukraine and the destruction of Gaza and Beirut. From some think tank a doubling of wars is even predicted, as Frederick Kempedirector of Atlantic Councilwho anticipates that whoever wins “will become commander in chief at the most dangerous moment in geopolitics since the Cold war (and maybe since World War II).”
For the moment, eyes are on Tuesday’s day, in a climate of latent tension in a highly polarized society. Trump has already made comments regarding possible fraud, particularly in the pivotal state of Pennsylvania, and some media outlets such as NBCNews report reports from intelligence agencies that indicate the threat of “violent extremists “domestic terrorists who seek to terrorize and disrupt the vote.
It is part of the climate with which we live an election that could not have definitive results on Tuesday night, with the consequent zone of uncertainty and nervousness, with television screens updating live the data of the Electoral collegeand how each candidate rises until one of the two reaches the magic number of 270. Once the result is known, we will have to wait, finally, for the reaction of whoever loses.
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