During the 2016 Presidential election of America, I wrote an article in Merinews ‘Why I won’t be surprised if Donald Trump becomes next President’ just before America was going to vote. The opinion polls of 2016 were clearly showing that Hillary Clinton was winning. My analysis then was based on American electoral history, the change-states/swing state, the contemporary political status, and many other things. That time my analysis said that Donald Trump could be the next president of the USA. Many were surprised to find my prediction coming true, although no prediction ever is perfect and guaranteed. Anyway, it was pleasing for me to see the analysis coming true.
On 28 August 2020, I had written another article where I gave Donald Trump an advantage because the opinion polls were although showing Biden is leading, the lead margin wasn’t enough to defeat an incumbent President, especially when the opinion polls data was the same as that of 2016 opinion poll data.
Now, the American election is due in less than a week, and I have enough material (data) to do a proper analysis. So as usual, I will do the analysis considering the raw data of various opinion polls (I always consider the data of opinion polls as valid, but don’t agree with their prediction like the number of seats or states won by a party, etc.). While analyzing the American election, an eye on American History is always required. Thus, my first focus will be on what American Electoral History says.
History Of American Presidential Election
If we closely look at the list of American Presidents, only once in American History the Republican Party lost an election after four years of tenure (one term) in 1892. Otherwise, the Republican Party always got a minimum of two terms and most of the times more than two terms. Let’s consider the situation from 1860—exactly when the Republican party and its other temporary name as ‘National Union’ started contrasting from the ‘Democratic-Republican’ Party and Democratic Party.
So, from 1860 to 1880, the Republican party held the Presidential Post for five terms continuously. In 1884, the Democratic party won for one term, and the Republican party won for one term in 1888. Then in 1892 again, the democratic party won for one term followed by the Republican party winning the Presidential election from 1896 to 1908 for four terms continuously.
The Democratic party again won two continuous terms (1912 and 1916) followed by Republican party again winning the Presidential election for three terms (1920, 1924, and 1928). Then the Democratic party won 5 terms continuously (1932, 1936, 1940. 1944, and 1948). After that, the Republican party won the election continuously for two terms (1952 and 1956), (1968 and 1972). It won again for three terms continuously (1980,1984 and 1988) and then the Republican party won for two terms (2000 and 2004).
The point I want to highlight here is that the Republican Party always holds the Presidential post for two or more terms except for the 1892 election. On the other hand, the Democratic party lost election five times after a single term of four years (1840, 1848,1890, 1896,1980). So, from the Historical point of view, the Republican Party (Say Donald Trump) has more chances to win the American election 2020.
Present Opinion Poll Data
The 2016 opinion poll data was showing that although Hillary Clinton was ahead of Donald Trump by a margin of 4-6%, her vote share was not even touching fifty per cent. That was why I said in the previous article that it’s time for the Republican Party (Donald Trump to win the election). Normally, the challenger should get more than fifty per cent vote share to defeat an incumbent President. (Barack Obama of Democratic party held two continuous terms). Hillary Clinton wasn’t getting that. Then, the history of American election also shows that except for 1932 to 1948, Democrats never won Presidential election continuously for more than two terms. So both, the History and Opinion Poll data of 2016, were against Hillary Clinton.
However, the present 2020 Opinion poll data shows that Joes Biden not only gets more than 50% vote share (although slightly more), Donald Trump is also trailing by 6-8% vote share. Thus Joe Biden has the advantage. Many blame that opinion polls of America are biased against Donald Trump, but as a Principle, I take the poll data as valid. Now, historically, Donald Trump has the advantage of retaining the Presidency whereas as per Opinion Poll Joe Biden has the advantage. Who would win then? Is there anything that can break the stalemate?
In the meantime, there’s another report by the Times of India which summarised many other polls. According to this, a majority of white people (Evangelical Protestant 78% and Protestant non-evangelical 53% and catholic 52%) support Donald Trump. Now, as per America’s racial demographic count white Americans comprise 76.3% of the population. That means the majority of the three-fourth population supports Donald Trump. It directly contradicts the opinion polls. That means if the 3% margin of error works in favor of Donald Trump, then Biden will get a vote share of 47-48% and that’s not enough to topple Donald Trump.
There are many other interesting surveys, but I focus on racial demographic support base only because of the availability of the racial demographic counts. It’s difficult for me to find the percentage of married people or college-going students, urban public or so many other indexes as detailed in that article. Thus, here too I find Donald Trump has an advantage despite the opinion polls put Biden ahead.
Donald Trump’s Policies
Let’s ignore what Donald Trump claims. In politics, many leaders sometimes became motor mouths and are criticized heavily. But they win the elections, too, as the public ignores the speeches and focus on intent. At the moment, the world has become nationalistic and protective (right of center ideology), and America is no different. Thus, Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ is gaining appreciation among common Americans.
Donald Trump, too, took some hard decisions that made many international communities feel bad, but the American domestic constituency was happy about those decisions. Even before the attack of Covid-19, the American economy was much better and improved along with increasing employment opportunities.
American people never care what happens in the world. George H. W. Bush (Senior Bush) lost the election in 1992 to Bill Clinton serving for one term (although for the Republican party that was the third term) despite winning the war against Iraq. The present global situation is heading for a third World War. Thus, America’s role is important.
America needs a strong leader, and as per the various polls, Donald Trump is considered a decisive and strong leader. But that’s not going to help Trump get votes. Many say because of Covid-19 mismanagement, Trump may lose. I think otherwise. The Covid-19, in fact, made common Americans anti-China, and Biden is known for his soft stance on China while Trump is very hard on China.
Those who are aware of the American system know very well that Health in America is mostly a state subject, and interestingly, the Democratic party rules the states that are more affected by Covid-19. Thus, any mismanagement of the pandemic will go against the Democratic party and bring support for Donald Trump.
Black Life Matters
The majority of Americans don’t accept racial torture, especially over the black community. The Police atrocities and killing of black people definitely hurt many Americans. But then the violent protests, hooliganism, vandalism on Black Life matter too created a lot of displeasure. The Democrats were forefront in organizing such protests which made a polarisation among the black community towards Joe Biden. But as a political fact, a polarisation many a time create a counter polarisation. That means whites of America those who are thinking of supporting Joe Biden may decide against it because of those violent protests.
American polity is a bit unique in this swing state case. There is some state which always gives the vote to Democrats and some states always give votes to Republicans irrespective of whoever stands in the election. Those are called Red states and blue states. That’s why the focus of the campaign always remains in swings states such as Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin. Such swing states are called purple states. It’s the swing states that decide which party will win. The opinion polls although have their own way of finding the mood of the swing states but I would like to go as per history. Since 1992 Republican and Democrats are winning consecutive two terms and thus it should be concluded that swing states will keep the History intact. In any case, as I have mentioned earlier that History is with the Republican party.
Presidential debates.
This time there were two presidential debates only as one debate was canceled due to Donald Trump infected with Covid-19. In the first debate, Donald Trump was heavily criticized for frequent intervention. But then Joe Biden too lost his temper and called the President of America as liar and clown which has not gone well with Americans.
The next debate (technically the third) where there’s bit proper debate. Many media showed that Biden won the debate but I think Trump cleverly trapped Biden in the issue of fracking. Biden said that he never opposed fracking but later Trump issued the tape showing that Biden falsely said that he never opposed fracking. Point is that American voters are always conscious if some Presidential candidate lies.
Conclusion
With all the above analysis I still believe that Donald Trump despite his peculiar comments and observation still may win the 2020 Presidential election. There are just two caveats to my conclusion. First many a time ‘Recency biases’ influences the voters. Recency bias can be described as an assessment based on recent acts ignoring all previous acts. An Indian example is that many state governments in India were defeated just because Onion price soar high just before the election. Many also blame the recency bias for BJP’s extra-ordinary win in 2019 followed by Balakote-surgical strike. So, despite the states are more responsible for Covid-19 management, Donald Trump may be subject to assessment for COVID mismanagement ignoring his ‘American First’ policy that improved the American economy just before the Pandemic attack.
The second caveat is that almost fifty percent of voters already voted through Mail-in. Although there’s a ‘Change my vote’ campaign by Donald Trump, (many states have the option to change their voting preference till election date). But then American people are generally ignorant of electoral politics as their turn out of late is less than 60%. Thus if there’s a recency bias, it can’t be changed drastically at the last moment.
Who’s better for India? – Donald Trump or Biden
Frankly speaking, it doesn’t matter as the foreign policy of the USA doesn’t change much whoever might be President of America. Thus, India won’t be affected by the result of the American Presidential election in 2020.