Biden in front, but don’t write off Trump yet

KP Nayar
Strategic Analyst

The East Coast of the United States, which masquerades as the mirror image of America, owing to its centrality in national politics and as the fountainhead of the mainstream media, has written off Donald Trump in the November 3 election. America’s West Coast has also written off Trump and is convinced that Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic Party candidate, will become the 46th President of the United States in January next year.

All over the world, people sit up and take note of the thinking on the West Coast because it is home to Hollywood, one of the most powerful influences in contemporary society. The West Coast is also synonymous with the Silicon Valley, which represents one of the biggest advances yet made by the human race. In the electoral college, which chooses America’s presidents, the liberal West Coast states — California, Oregon and Washington — together have 74 votes, nearly double that of Texas, the second most populous state.

It is tempting for foreign correspondents, diplomats, political analysts, bookies and the Sunday television chat show-watching public to believe what the East and West coasts are predicting about the upcoming Presidential election. Those like this writer, by reflex, are prone to relate better to these predictions than to the views of a rancher in Texas racing along the countryside with a gun in the back of his pick-up truck. Or pay heed to a redneck in Alabama repeating the half-truths of arch conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, praising Trump for Making America Great Again, MAGA, which is its household acronym.

With less than 100 days before the votes of Americans are counted, the coastal extremities of their country may be wrong once again about this year’s election to the White House. The East Coast’s dominant media stars and opinion pollsters, who did not give a ghost of a chance for Trump four years ago, had anointed Hillary Clinton as Barack Obama’s entitled successor well before the campaign ended. They may be about to go wrong again.

No one doubts that Biden will be far ahead of Trump with voters as a whole on the counting day. The former vice-president may bag more popular votes than Clinton did when she was Trump’s adversary in the last election. But the devil is in the details of how this year’s challenger to the President will fare in the electoral college.

Damaged by his poor handling of the coronavirus pandemic, hamstrung by the decline in the economy, which was to have been his showcase trophy by the end of his first term, the President is no longer campaigning to win a majority of the popular votes. Instead, he is single-mindedly pursuing a majority in the electoral college. As of now, he stands a fair chance of getting that and being elected for a second term in the White House.

In a closely fought US presidential election as this year’s, it is treacherous to predict the outcome merely on the basis of opinion polls. Most people who write off Trump at this stage are making that mistake in the run-up to November.

That was what happened in 2000 when Vice-President Al Gore won half a million more popular votes than Texas Governor George W Bush. The recount dragged on for a month, courts intervened, but the decisive victor of popular votes was robbed of the presidency and Bush went to the White House, defeating Gore by just one vote over the majority mark in the electoral college.

A look at Trump’s campaign tactics, when he is presumed to be down and out even in some solidly Republican states, is revealing. His crudest attacks against the opposition figures has been reserved for four members of the US Congress, all four women, all of them from minorities, including two Muslims. It may make decent folk sick in the stomach, but it is wildly approved by the President’s base, which wants the women to be sent back to countries of their ethnic origin.

Trump is not wasting any time going to the so-called blue states, which are sure to vote for Biden. He is spending most of his energy on the ‘red’ states, making sure that these — Texas and North Carolina are examples — remain in the Republican column, notwithstanding the coronavirus-triggered gains made by Biden in opinion polls there. What is often lost on those who are writing off Trump is that his approval rating, among Republicans nationwide, has rarely come down since his assumption of office in 2017.

Whatever Trump may do or not do, his base remains with him. In order to retain his majority in the electoral college in the next, less than 100 days, he must ensure that some ‘battleground’ states which unexpectedly gave Clinton the boot in 2016 remain with the President to once again let him cross the magic 270 mark in the electoral college.

Much is made of opinion polls which show that Biden has either caught up with the President or overtaken him in several battlegrounds. While these polls send what Trump derisively calls the ‘fake’ news media into paroxysms of ecstasy, dispassionate and neutral analysis of data will reveal that in states like Texas, Ohio, Georgia and Arizona — which Trump must retain — the standing of both the candidates is within the margin of error.

What it means for Trump is that his re-election is by no means over as the spin in the eastern and western coastal extremities of America would have us believe. What Trump is not is a lame duck. Many of his predecessors had become just that by the time six months were left for voting.

Every day, Trump comes out with executive orders which energise his base. The latest is an order that bans H1-B visa holders — foreigners who are despised for taking away American jobs — from being employed on any federal government-funded projects. Earlier, he sent the National Guard out to states to restore law and order. By all accounts, even in liberal Oregon, the National Guard has won praise despite Trump.

On top of such actions, what if a cure is somehow found for Covid-19 in the three months ahead? Despite being trashed by liberal economists, there are unmistakable green shoots in the US economy. What if the economy rebounds before the election? Enough Americans who are desperate for good news and hope will then flock to Trump in states critical for the electoral college majority and he may have another four years in the White House. Don’t write him off yet!