Battle for US presidency set for close finish

Under the lengthening shadow of Covid-19 which is causing widespread distress, death and destruction, the most powerful country in the world is struggling to elect its President. As the complex process of electing the President of the United States is drawing to a close, America is at its infructuous worst, wondering how and where it would end up before January 20, 2021, the date on which the new President has to be sworn into office.

Every four years, the President of the United States is elected through a complex electoral process spread over several months, starting with primaries and caucuses of the Republican and Democratic parties which choose their presidential candidates. Under the Constitution, only a natural-born citizen, who has been a resident for 14 years and is at least 35 years old, is eligible to become President. The process of election varies from state to state. Contrary to popular perception, the President is not elected directly through popular vote. He is elected by the electoral college which consists of 538 electors representing the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Each of the states has as many electors as the number of its representatives in the two Houses of the Congress. For instance, the state of California has the largest number of electors (55), while the sparsely populated Alaska has the minimum of three. Historically, the electoral college system is a compromise between popular vote and vote by the Congress and reflects the considerations which weighed with the founding fathers of the United States. Under the Constitution, a person is eligible to two terms of four years each to the office of the President. During the past 100 years, only Herbert Hoover in 1932, Jimmy Carter in 1980 and George HW Bush in 1992 lost their bid for a second term, thanks mainly to their perceived failure to overcome severe economic challenges and other adverse events like the Iran hostage crisis in the case of Carter.

For the 59th quadrennial presidential election, polling is due on November 3. Unlike in India, there is no Federal Election Commission to oversee the process. The American Constitution left it to the federal states to evolve their own systems to conduct the presidential election. Consequently, there are significant variations which are quite confusing to the uninitiated and pregnant with possibilities of legal challenge. During recent times, Democratic presidential candidates Al Gore and Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, but lost in the electoral college. The election of Bush Junior as the President was highly controversial with multiple legal battles and recounting of votes, culminating in the intervention of the Supreme Court, which ended with the declaration of Bush as the President-elect in a 5 to 4 verdict. Trump also got elected by winning majority votes in the electoral college though his opponent Hillary was far ahead in the popular vote.

Democratic Party presidential candidate Joe Biden is in many ways the antithesis of his opponent Trump. With over 50 years of active public service, having represented his state Delaware in the Senate many times and served as Vice President with Obama, he is a seasoned politician. His campaign theme ‘Build Back Better’ focuses on racial equality, social justice and rebuilding the middle class, especially the wage earners. He is committed to strengthening the Affordable Care Act and reform the taxation system. His choice of Kamala Harris as his running mate for Vice President speaks volumes about his vision for an inclusive American society.

As the acrimonious campaign is nearing its finale, Trump and his challenger have regrettably stooped low in making personal attacks against each other. Their first televised debate was a fiasco. For Trump, it’s a referendum on his performance in office, most importantly his highly evocative policy of America First and the slogan of Make America Great Again. His campaign highlights the successes of his highly controversial policies like replacing Obamacare, withdrawal from the Paris agreement on climate change, marginalising and belittling the UN and the WHO, revoking the nuclear agreement with Iran and trade sanctions against China to protect US interests.

Most of the steps which he took have attracted adverse attention globally. America’s withdrawal from the Paris agreement is a severe setback to global endeavours to prevent the catastrophic consequences of climate change and has been disowned by several American states. Trump’s transactional foreign policy has been perceived to be without any well-thought-out strategy or vision. His attempts at replacing the rule-based trading system reflect his urge to act without restraint and with maximum personal discretion. Often, his personal likings and preferences dictated American policy. The many reckless ways in which he imposed tariffs and sanctions against China, Iran and even India have often infringed upon accepted principles of international trade and attracted adverse criticism.

The most serious challenge that Trump faces in his re-election bid has been his total failure in tackling the Covid-19 pandemic. With the dubious distinction of being the worst-affected nation, America under Trump’s watch has had no systematic plans, even as the infection rate and the death toll are mounting alarmingly. Closing his eyes to the reality around, Trump has been consciously overlooking the magnitude of the Covid crisis and refusing to take any national initiative to tackle the menace.

National-level opinion polls have consistently been predicting significant lead for the Biden-Harris team over the Trump-Pence duo. State-wise polls also reflect the same trend. Going by the predicted popular vote count, the Democratic team is definitely leading. Other than assessments based on different perceptions, there is no certainty about the strength of the respective teams in the electoral college. As amply illustrated in the Bush and Trump successes, while trailing in the popular vote, a candidate can succeed in the electoral college and win the presidential election. The impact of Covid and the record level of unemployment, together with widespread anger linked to the Black Lives Matter movement, will no doubt be reflected in the popular vote in the presidential contest.

To what extent this will align with the composition of the electoral college is not certain and hence, the outcome cannot be predicted with certainty. Though the Democrats are expecting a clear victory and the Republicans are still hopeful of Trump scraping through, given the complexities in the functioning of the multilevel electoral systems, especially in the context of Covid and the record-breaking mail-in ballots, chances of the outcome getting legally contested and the Supreme Court giving a final verdict on the next President of the United States cannot be ruled out. Significantly, President Trump has already hinted at such a possibility, hoping that history may repeat itself!