New Delhi: With less than two weeks until Election Day, more than 51 million people have already voted, either in-person, or through ballots, surpassing 2016’s overall early vote total. Election experts predict historic rates of turnout.
More than 257 million people in the US are 18 or older, and nearly 240 million citizens are eligible to vote this year, according to the US Elections Project. Eligible voters include people living overseas but not non-citizens or people convicted of a felony, depending on state law
The US saw the lowest rates of eligible voter turnout at the end of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th century. Just 6.31% of eligible voters turned out in 1792. The elections of 1820, 1789 and 1816 also saw rates below 20%.
The highest turnout was in 2008—Barack Obama v John McCain at 61.65%.
In the last week of October 2020, election fever is marching in step with the Chinese virus.
The queues outside polling stations appear longer than normal owing to social distancing. Most voters carry their mobile phones and listen and sway to music through their air-buds.
The Presidential election system is curious. There are fifty US states, with 438 members of the House of Representatives and 100 Senators. The Electoral College therefore has 538 electors (different from Congressmen and Senators) who elect the President. Electors can vary from 55 for California to 3 for Alaska, 270 electoral votes is the magic number.
If a candidate wins the popular vote in a state by even one ballot, all the electors of that state are obliged to vote for him or her.
Theoretically, therefore, if a candidate wins 12 large states, he gets 276 electoral votes and packs his bags for the White House. It does not matter that he does not get a single vote in the other 38 states. A fair system? The jury is still out on that one.
The present Presidential campaign in the world’s oldest democracy has descended to new lows. Even the “refined” and cerebral Barack Obama, launched an unprecedented personal attack on his successor Donald Trump. He surprised his fans.
The pro-Trump Fox News released information on the strong China connection of challenger Joe Biden, his family, and friends (including his running mate Kamala Harris). The allegations are of the Biden family and its buddies reaping billions through permitting access by shady Chinese companies to the highest administrative levels in the US.
China hovers large in the background, whether in terms of its virus or unfair trade practices or aggressive posture against US allies in the Indo-Pacific region. Without pointing a finger at China, the FBI has just announced that Beijing’s present best friends Russia and Iran have hacked information about American voters and will unleash a misinformation campaign.
Does Iran have that capability? Probably not (not too long ago it struggled to neutralise the Israeli Stuxnet attack against its nuclear programme). So that begs another question. Who is using Iran? The answer is obvious—at least to informed Americans. A fundamental Shia Islamic “revolutionary” regime is willingly in bed with a Communist country against their common enemy America.
Perhaps half of eligible and willing voters would have exercised their franchise by the time you read this, through in-person early voting or postal ballots. Will this help Donald Trump or his opponent? Like with the Chinese virus, there is no clear answer. Such numbers have never been experienced before.
The last Presidential debate on 22 October was much more civil and balanced than the previous one, which was marred by name-calling and interruptions. The moderator in that debate was largely ignored.
So, the second debate included a mute button, operated by an official of the Commission on Presidential debates. He did not use it. Moderator Kristen Welker of NBC News managed the discussion skilfully, with polite firmness.
Donald Trump was calm and “Presidential”. He hit Biden where it hurt—on the sensational charges by a former Biden employee of Chinese money flowing to the Biden family. Biden’s defence that he did not benefit personally from any country sounded hollow.
American mainstream media, especially CNN and MSNBC that detest Trump, focused on the optics of the debate, not so much on its substance.
Tens of millions of Americans watched the debate. But in this deeply divided country, the question of “who won” is irrelevant. Not one voter that I know of changed his mind after the debate.
China was the elephant in the room, especially the global pandemic. The first question to both candidates was about the virus.
Trump announced that a virus vaccine would be available within weeks. The moderator seized on this to say that it was new information. The President repeated it, acknowledged there could be no guarantee, and, when pressed, said the vaccine might arrive by the end of the year. He claimed that the US Army’s Logistics Division would distribute the 100 million vaccines expected soon.
Biden did not challenge this, expect with a smirk. He was careful not to question the competence of the US military.
According to a most recent survey, some 57% of Americans have been adversely impacted by the virus in terms of their economic well-being. In the past seven months, 42% of US consumers have missed paying one or more bills, while over a third (39%) believe they will need to skip payments in the future.
Over a quarter (27%) of US consumers reported having missed a bill on their auto loans, followed by 26% for utilities and 25% on cable or internet costs.
Americans, so long used to a system in which consumerism is king and spending is the magic potion for the economy, are wary about how much savings they have in their bank accounts to weather the tumultuous months ahead. While unemployment figures are recovering from historic troughs, the fear of losing one’s job remains high.
I have been to America many times. On this visit, in Washington DC, New York, Chicago—that I have looked at—there are many more mendicants on the streets (panhandlers as they are quaintly called).
The direction of the overall economy normally affects stock markets. So, measures of consumer sentiment have historically moved in tandem with major indices like the S&P 500.
Strangely, since the Chinese virus pandemic began, consumer confidence and stock markets have become noticeably misaligned. Even as the economy is in a mild recession (so far), the stock market is booming. Trump’s businessman approach to politics seems to have hit a sweet spot.
He wants to open the nation as soon as possible (alleging that Joe Biden wants to lock it down), so that America goes back to work. In some states, schools have reopened, and kids are going back in a staggered manner. In New York where I am at present, most restaurants have resumed service, and advance bookings are recommended to get a table on the pavements that have become wildly popular extensions of the indoor dining areas
Joe Biden warns of a dark winter ahead, with hundreds of thousands more deaths likely, in addition to the 220,000 Americans already dead. He blamed those deaths squarely on the President, instead of on China. When Trump said Americans were learning to live with the virus, Biden made a school-boyish comment that Americans were learning to die with it.
Donald Trump acknowledged that when the pandemic attacked, America did not know how to deal with it. He was initially advised that it would soon go away. The unsaid suggestion was that in hindsight we all have 20×20 vision.
I was watching the debate with my “Quad+” group in New York. It includes white Americans, African Americans, Europeans, Hispanics, Asians, a Chinese, whose family emigrated to the US two generations ago after the Communist takeover, and a Russian Jew.
On the issue of climate change and his decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, Trump said that the atmosphere in America was much cleaner than in “filthy” countries like China, Russia, and India. I squirmed, but then he corrected himself that the “air is filthy”. I told my group that our air quality is indeed poor.
Interestingly, once the questions shifted to other subjects such as immigration, my group significantly lost interest.
The issue of immigration was discussed, with the President being accused of separating at least 545 children from their parents at the US-Mexican border. He defended his tough zero-tolerance immigration policies by claiming that these children were brought by human traffickers and coyotes (a medium-sized dog-like animal related to foxes and wolves—a colloquial term in the US for a person paid by migrants to illegally guide or assist them across the US-Mexico border, as opposed to mules who smuggle contraband).
Trump said the broken immigration system was a Barack Obama legacy. Biden acknowledged the mistakes made when he was Vice President.
Trump struck a chord with many white Americans when he said that “bad” people had brought the children into the US. The parents (trying to run away from economic desperation and violent crime) were led to believe that their children would be the anchors for their own immigration to the US. Non-college white Americans, mainly blue-collar factory workers, are Donald Trump’s core supporters, who want their country back.
They are acutely aware that their lifestyles and value-systems that built America (integrity, ethics, trust, hard work) are being challenged by the millions of people from the developing world (including China)—“the wretched refuse of your teeming shore” as Ms Liberty proclaims—who have come or want to come to the US.
In 2016, Trump was helped to victory by winning a record margin among white voters without a college degree. In the last four years, they have declined as a share of the voting-eligible population, going from 45% of eligible voters to 41%. But they will vote in significant numbers.
Having seen Ronald Reagan on televisions several times during my posting in Washington DC in the early 1980s, I could not help notice that Joe Biden tried to copy him at times, looking straight into the camera and addressing the American people.
So where are we in this fascinating circus today?
In India, the anti-incumbency factor is often blamed for unexpected election results. In America, the three Presidents before Donald Trump have all had consecutive terms.
In these uncertain times, despite all his idiosyncrasies, Donald Trump is a known entity. He is focusing on the two things that matter most to Americans—the virus and jobs. Joe Biden, uncharismatic and uninspiring, has failed to show his magic wand for these two critical issues.
Desperate for reassurance, Americans would prefer continuity to change. They do not want things to get worse. Now, more than ever, they want their “great” America back, with their jobs, their homes, their cars, their luxuries. Trump is not yet packing his bags to leave the White House.
For well-informed Indian Americans, who have realised the American dream, the forthcoming visit of the top US defence and foreign affairs officials (for in-person, not virtual, meetings with their Indian counterparts), despite the round-the-corner elections, is satisfying evidence that while India may not have fallen into America’s lap, America is certainly in India’s lap.
Deepak Vohra is former Indian Ambassador to Armenia, Georgia, Sudan, South Sudan, Poland and Lithuania.
Another report by the author, “China is Public Enemy No. 1 in US election” is also a part of this edition.