Hello, my name is Robert Singh, I'm
Professor of Politics here at Birkbeck
and a specialist in
the politics of the United States.
And I'm very pleased to be able to make
this contribution to the Birkbeck
Inspires series. I'm going to focus on the state
of the 2020 US presidential
election and the question of whether
Donald Trump
can secure a second term as President of
the United States. Many people are
assuming
that that's highly unlikely - Trump
has been a highly disruptive and
divisive
figure, his response to the COVID-19
pandemic
has been poor - about 170,000 Americans
have died
as a result of the pandemic thus far,
his approval ratings in terms of his job
are in the
low 40s and 70 of Americans
think that the country is on the wrong
rather than the right
track all of which might suggest that
he's likely to become
one of those rare creatures in modern
American politics -
a one-term rather than a two-term
President.
But I think those assumptions are
somewhat unsafe for three primary
reasons. The first is the state of the
polls.
Joe Biden, Trump's Democratic opponent
has maintained a fairly steady
and large lead over Trump in the polls
through the summer and into the early
autumn.
And at a nationwide level that's reached
an average of about seven percent.
But the US election is not really a
nationwide
election, the competitive elements are
really confined to a series of
six to eight states like North Carolina,
Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin -
and in those states Biden's lead is
lower than his nationwide
one - anywhere from two to four percent.
And indeed if you went back to 2016
Hillary Clinton's lead over Trump
in all of these states bar Florida was
larger
than Biden's lead is today.
So there's a sense in which even though
he is ahead,
Biden may be quite vulnerable.
The second element is that the US
presidential election
is not a direct election decided by the
popular vote, it's an indirect election decided
by this strange device
called the Electoral College.
And in the Electoral College it states
not individuals
that matter so the Electoral College
votes are roughly
proportioned according to population
size which means that
small depopulated states, Idaho,
Wyoming, get as little as three votes;
larger states like say California get 55.
But with the exception of Maine and
Nebraska, 48 states allocate those
Electoral College votes
so that even if you win the popular vote
in say California just by
10 votes, you take all 55 Electoral
College votes.
What that means is that the election is
really a series of 50
individual elections in the states and
to win
you need to reach 270 Electoral College
votes
out of the 538 available.
So the second reason for caution
about the prospects of Trump
getting re-elected
is that he could repeat what it did in
2016 when Hillary Clinton
won the popular vote by over three
million votes (about
two and a half percent) but lost the
Electoral College
in fact it's been estimated that a
Democrat could win the popular vote by
as much as four percent
and still lose the Electoral College.
The third reason why this is going to be
an unusual election in all probability
is the pandemic, which has largely kept
Joe Biden at his home in Wilmington,
Delaware
and it's only now after the Democratic
and Republican national conventions have concluded
that he's being tested on a day-to-day
basis
by the rigours of a campaign. And there is
a danger that
his weaknesses as a candidate -
his proneness to mistakes, to gaffes, his
fading
memory even when it comes to members of
his own family,
his tendency to say some impolitic
comments
may get increasingly exposed.
What this all means I think is that the
election will be decided by
two related factors. One
is simply what issues count for most
voters
in the key battleground states.
Biden and the Democrats are trying to
make the election a referendum
on Trump and the incompetence which he is accused of having
led the country since 2017.
Trump and the Republicans are trying by
contrast to make the
election a choice between
them and the Democrats and in that
environment it's rather ironic that
Trump is portraying himself
as he did four years ago as the
insurgent candidate
against an establishment figure, the
establishment figure in 2016 was Hillary
Clinton,
now it's Joe Biden who has been in
Washington
since 1972.
So which issues prevail is going to have
a decisive effect.
The Democrats want this to essentially
turn on
the response to the COVID-19 pandemic
Trump and Republicans want this to be
about the economy
and about public security, or law and
order.
Second related element then that feeds
off that
is which coalition is able to mobilize
its base
most effectively. In a hyperpartisan, highly polarized era
there really just aren't that many swing voters
to win over. The election is really about
mobilizing each party's base
and again for Biden there is a question
mark as to whether the Democrats
will turn out for him. Polls suggest that
while they support him
they do so more because of their
antagonism towards Trump
than because of their enthusiasm for Joe
Biden.
Trump on the other side is clearly
pursuing an
unabashed campaign, not just to appeal to white nationalism
and to try to convince suburban women
that even though they dislike him
personally, they will be safer and more
prosperous with him
but also to do what he can to suppress
the vote of the Democrats
coalition - whether that is through trying
to cut
funding for the post office that
actually delivers
the ballots, whether it's persuading the
senate not to fund election security
laws, whether it is perhaps even to
encourage a so-called
October surprise that may tilt the
election in his favour
a few days or a week away from November we don't yet know. But what we do know
is that this is going to be an extremely
rancorous, difficult,
unpleasant election which may well not
be decided on election night
but like 2000 when George W Bush
eventually prevailed against Al Gore, it
may take days, weeks, even months,
and may be ultimately decided by the courts
rather than by
the voters. The question therefore is
over the coming weeks and months through
to early November,
which coalition is going to be able to
mobilize its base
the better. I hope you've enjoyed this
brief presentation
but if you'd like to learn more please
go to our website at Birkbeck
www.bbk.ac.uk. Thank you.
