Wednesday, October 30, 2024 12:00 PM Last updated: Wednesday, October 30, 2024 12:00 PM
Presidential candidate’s milk chocolate sold at the Hudson store at John F. Kennedy Airport, New York, USA, on October 25, 2024. Photo: RAMISA ROB
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Presidential candidate’s milk chocolate sold at the Hudson store at John F. Kennedy Airport, New York, USA, on October 25, 2024. Photo: RAMISA ROB
With just one week left, predictions about who will win in the fiercely contested US presidential election have become a kind of tabletop conversation. There is a strange aura of burnout among the American people. Seven out of 10 American adults feel stressed about the upcoming election, according to a new report from the American Psychological Association (APA). And as the past four years have been tainted by two wars, genocide, moral reckoning, and increasing polarization, the results of the U.S. election will affect lives far beyond our borders. Probably.
As we know, polls aren’t always great at predicting outcomes. Even so, most polls show it’s a problem. Given the margin of error in key battleground states, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are essentially a 50-50 split. Trump has never been this close to his Democratic rival in the polls over the past two campaigns. Polls underrepresented “hidden” Trump supporters in both 2016 and 2020. Perhaps due to lack of knowledge, some have concluded that Trump will win. But it’s really still up in the air, with many possible outcomes. There is a good chance that Trump will win in a landslide, but there is also a chance that Harris will win as well.
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Or it could be a close election, with either Harris or Trump winning by a narrow margin. There is also a possibility that the vote will go to the House of Representatives, where there is a tie vote and Republicans hold a majority, in which case Mr. Trump would win. But it could be a repeat of the controversial 2000 Bush vs. Al Gore presidential election, with close election results requiring weeks of recounts and a decision by the Supreme Court. There is a possibility that it will be brought in.
One of the reasons it’s so hard to predict the outcome or form any almost reliable intuition is that Trump is somewhat rusty, Kamala Harris is running an unexpectedly centrist campaign, and Kamala Harris is running an unexpectedly centrist campaign. Because they brought in old-school Republicans like Liz Cheney to talk about gun ownership more than students. Debt forgiveness to win support from Republican voters in battleground states. In contrast, she has supported populist economic policies such as lowering health care and housing costs for the middle class.
There are also black holes in the strategies deployed by both candidates to mobilize voters. A registered Democrat in Michigan revealed he was receiving text messages from an unknown number paid for by the “Republican Accountability Compact.” Former Trump supporters in Michigan say they won’t vote for Trump because of the January 6, 2021, riot. These strategies, likely by the Harris campaign, have not received much media attention. The Trump campaign’s tendency to use AI to lure voters (such as fake images of President Trump surrounded by black voters) is even more well-documented, but has previously had ludicrous success in persuading many MAGAs. The extent of their disinformation campaign, as it turned out, remains to be seen. Supporters claimed the 2020 Democratic election was fraudulent.
For resident voters, domestic issues such as the economy and health care are more important than foreign policy. But foreign policy is a concern for voters. For example, a Pew Research Center survey conducted in September found that 70 percent of Trump supporters and 54 percent of Harris supporters cited it as a key factor in their vote. Many people who are deeply concerned about Israel’s genocide, particularly Arab Americans who have lost family members in Gaza and Lebanon, are also deciding whether to vote at all or to vote for Harris, who is in cahoots with Biden. We believe that this is the case.
However, it is important to note that Arab Americans are not large enough in the battleground states to dramatically affect the outcome. It is also possible that many Arab Americans will vote for Harris over Trump on the Palestine issue. Harris is supported by right-wing extremists in Israel and her comments against Palestinians are inflammatory. The game-changer for Harris comes as large numbers of Arab voters, along with young and black voters in battleground states, decide to vote for Trump, pro-Palestinian independent candidate Jill Stein, or not vote at all. Only if
Overall, national sentiment is unclear. Even the popularity vote is up in the air. Trump lost the popular vote to Joe Biden and Clinton both times in an electoral system that historically favors Republicans. Mr. Trump has made significant gains in uncompetitive states such as New York and California, where Ms. Harris has a lead but is an underperforming Democrat. Republicans won the House popular vote in the 2022 midterm elections even in less competitive states such as California. It’s not impossible for Donald Trump to win the popular vote, and it’s not impossible for Harris to win the Electoral College but not win the popular vote, but this is precisely because this election is so unknown. It reflects what is in the area. There’s also a good chance they’ll revisit the 2016 or 2020 movies, but it could also be a completely different script.
Political scientists have historically believed that incumbents have an advantage when predicting elections. Between 1986 and 2012, 11 of the 14 sitting U.S. presidents who sought re-election actually won. But the United States, like many other countries, is now in a different era where conventional political wisdom no longer applies. This is a time of deep political mistrust and discontent. In 2020, the anti-incumbent fervor against Donald Trump supported Joe Biden, especially over the disaster of Trump’s mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic.
However, the incumbency theory cannot be applied to this election either. It’s an election between a notorious former president who lost reelection four years ago and a questionable current vice president after the incumbent president resigned. Technically, Kamala Harris is in office because she has not distanced herself from the Biden-Harris administration and failed to address the shortcomings of the current policy of providing a new package deal for Americans. Biden’s record could work against him. However, there is another way to look at it. Harris is a woman of color, the first female vice president, and is not in her 80s. The idea of Kamala Harris as president of the United States offers a refreshing image. But with racism and sexism so prevalent, this could work against her. A variety of scenarios can be drawn out, including some bizarre ones, and the conversation can go round and round until November 5th. In reality, the projected winner will only be known when the maps of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin turn red or blue.
The uncertainty surrounding a global phenomenon like the US election is even more amplified in this day and age because social media has all the answers. Mainstream media is full of predictions and probabilities, just like a game. But even after thorough political analysis of different scenarios, we still don’t know. Even if you’re sure Trump will win or Harris will win, that’s just a guess.
Ramisa Rob covers geopolitical insights for The Daily Star.
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