TMID Editorial: The race to the Oval Office
So much has happened in the United States of America these past few weeks as the country prepares for the presidential election, slated for the first week of November.First we had an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, who is the
So much has happened in the United States of America these past few weeks as the country prepares for the presidential election, slated for the first week of November.
First we had an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, who is the Republican’s nominee for the post, which he has already occupied between 2017 and 2021.
At the other end of the American political spectrum, President Joe Biden withdrew his candidacy for the Democratic Party, making way for his second in command, Kamala Harris, to replace him as her party’s nominee for the election.
It is rare that a former President of the United States – in this case Trump – makes a bid to return to the position after losing a previous election. It is then unprecedented that a party’s main candidate – in this case Joe Biden – withdraws so late in the game.
Once again, Trump will be facing a woman in the run-up for the Oval Office. In 2016, his opponent had been Hillary Clinton, and he had emerged victorious. Trump lost to Biden in 2020, but returns to go up against Kamala Harris. With Biden still in the picture, Trump looked set for an easy win, but Biden’s withdrawal has now opened up the race once again.
All this makes the 2024 US presidential election one to look out for – even because we’re talking about a country that holds so much power in world affairs.
With each US presidential election that passes, it seems that the stakes become higher and higher. The rhetoric used in the campaign becomes stronger and harsher, and the attacks levelled from one side to the other goes up more than a notch. It is clear that either side is more intent of showing the negatives of the other side than to put forward plans to convince the American people that they are the right choice.
The American electoral system has its own quirks in the sense of how elections are won. It’s possible for an electoral candidate to win the election in spite of not winning the popular vote. This has happened five times in US history – in 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000 and 2016, the last time incidentally being Trump’s win over Clinton. This is because each state has a certain number of Electoral College votes which are mostly base on the size of the population. There are a total of 538, which means that the winning candidate must get 270 or more. All of the 50 states except for two – Nebraska and Maine – have a winner-takes-all rule, so whichever candidate wines the highest number of votes is given all the state’s electoral college votes.
The so-called swing states are therefore the ones which will determine the overall outcome. According to international media, there are seven to look out for in 2024 – they are Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Until last week, Trump was leading Biden in all the polls related to these battleground states, but now that Biden is out of contention, things can change.
Some argue that Harris has a mountain to climb given that she has been given less than four months’ time to put her message across. Others say that Biden’s withdrawal has given the Democratic Party a great push in its endeavour to retain the Oval Office.
We will wait and see.
Related
Share this page
Guest Posts by Easy Branches
