Calling The Race To The White House

"And now, after a long night of counting, it's clear that we're winning enough states to reach [the] 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency."

"I'm not here to declare that we've won. But I am here to report that when the count is finished we believe we will be the winners."

"Every vote must be counted. No one's going to take our democracy away from us, not now, not ever."

Former Vice-President Joe Biden

 

"We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election."

"This is a major fraud on our nation. We want the law to be used in a proper manner. So we'll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court."

"We want all voting to stop."

President Donald Trump 

"We wanted to see a repudiation of this direction for the country."

"And the fact that it's this close, it hurts. It just hurts."

Democratic strategist, CNN commentator Van Jones

 

Despite the polls, the confident pre-election predictions that a Democratic sweep was assured, a near-repeat of the 2016 election has roiled its successor in 2020. The man that liberals, progressives, foreign diplomats, the press corps in the U.S. and abroad loathed for his uncouth personality and mercurial decision-making, his casual dismissal of global partnerships, and his openly transparent sharing of the presidency with family members, somehow has retained the loyalty of millions of American voters.

There would be no Democratic landslide on November 3 because over 65 million people think of their president as the best alternative available to them in a roster of socialist has-beens. A bare quarter of respondents to exit polls stated they judged candidates on personality traits, the state of the economy rating much higher in their opinion, a far more important issue than the pandemic, as well. The Democratic wins in the states that cast their ballots for Biden were less than overwhelming in numbers.

 

The response to online polling by Survey Monkey with the question why Americans approved of Trump, elicited responses such that the president had kept his promises, he put America first, he attempted to get things done, and above all, he reversed the Obama years. He was also able to attract more ethnic minorities to his vote than any other Republican presidential candidate in a generation, appealing to Americans feeling alienated by left-wing progressive politics.

 

Although Joe Biden continually hammered away at Trump's handling of the coronavirus, 35 percent of voters felt more involved in the economy, followed by racial equality (20 percent), the pandemic (17 percent) and crime and safety (11 percent), according to exit polls. When asked what was more important in voting in a leader, only 27 percent of voters considered personality, while 73 percent chose the candidate's position on the issues.

 

And then there was the dashing of Democratic hopes that minority groups would vote in dependable blocs. Hispanic Americans contributed to Trump taking the 29 Electoral College votes in Florida through major gains in the Miami area where Joe Biden's tally was unexpectedly poor.  "The Cuban community in Miami has been through a communist regime. We believe in law and order, we believe in family values and we believe in freedom. That's what President Trump offers", explained Marti Mees, Cuban immigrant, Republican activist.

2020 saw an unprecedented turnout across the entire U.S. with estimates from exit polls seeing averages between 60 and 80 percent turnouts from state to state. Young voters, defined between the ages of 18 and 29, made up a double digit share of the total of ballots cast, according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning & Engagement. "Nearly half of all eligible young people cast ballots in the most critical election races in the country", a CIRCLE analysis concluded.

 

"It's always hard to figure out how much differences in political behaviour due to age are because of something generational ... or whether it is something that is really a life cycle thing", commented Peter Loewen, a professor at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, but little doubt exists that Biden benefited from a high share of the youth vote; 62 percent for Biden, 33 percent for Trump. Trump's support was clustered in older voters landing in the 30-to-44-age cluster where 57 percent voted Republican. In the age demographic 45 and up, 51 percent voted Republican.

 

The Pew Research Center found in its regular, multination poll early in the year, that confidence in the U.S. president had diminished to a dismal 17 percent in countries considered friendly to the United States, the lowest any U.S. president has rated since the surveys began several decades earlier. In a select group of 13 countries Trump received a lower rating than China's President Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, President of Russia.

"Certainly it's not the blowout that we expected, or that some people expected and what the polls foretold", political scientist Matt Dallek at George Washington University -- an expert on American conservatism -- observed, crediting in part the manner in which Trump's 2020 campaign was organized. "Trump has really been masterful at tapping into the idea that the other side is this left-wing socialist enemy that is going to destroy American culture. He's really tapped into this alternative media universe -- Fox News, Breitbart, Daily Caller -- and created an alternate reality that is fed by these media."

Democratic presidential candidate former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden speaks Thursday, Nov. 5, 2020, in Wilmington, Del. Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., stands at left. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)