With a few days to the November 5, 2024, US presidential election, the tempo of the campaign has reached fever pitch, with the two candidates, Vice-President Kamala Harris, Democrat, and former president, Donald Trump, Republican, in a dead run to the finish line. The final national New York Times/Siena poll, published on 25 October 2024, had the two candidates deadlocked at 48% to 48% for the popular vote. The aggregate of national polls also projects the election as neck-to-neck, with the two candidates tied at 48%, making it a cliffhanger.
Both candidates have carried the electoral battle to the battleground states which oscillate in their voting pattern between the two parties, states whose votes can swing the election either way. About 10 states are considered swing states, with seven of them – Michigan 15, Wisconsin 10, Pennsylvania 19, Georgia 16, North Carolina 16, Nevada 6, and Arizona 11, with a total of 91 electoral college votes – being of focal attention in this race. In 2008, former President Barrack Obama won in eight of the states, Trump took Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania in 2016 to clinch the presidency while in the 2020 election, Biden not only took back the three states but also wrestled Arizona and Georgia from Trump, on his way to The White House.
Two major issues have dominated the 2024 presidential election campaign, the economy and immigration with issues of abortion, Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender, and foreign policy taking second place. The economy, under the Biden/Harris administration, had experienced a high inflation rate and consequent higher cost of living felt by all. Trump highlights the improved economy under his administration before the advent of COVID-19, the global pandemic that ravaged the world economy. He plans to use tariffs on imports to raise revenue and as well protect local industries. Harris is for taxing the rich to generate revenue but laissez-faire on unbridled imports, despite its consequent drag on the U.S. economy, a manifestation of the democrat’s Father Christmas disposition to making America a liberal market for imports.
On immigration, while Trump is not opposed to legal migration, he pledges to stop the tidal wave of illegal immigrants from South America on its southern border and to deport illegal immigrants. According to him, illegal immigrants are polluting the American way of life and taking the jobs of Americans. Some dub this a racist agenda but it resonates well with Trump’s constituency. Democrats are liberal on immigration and not committed to forceful removal of illegal immigrants; a stand that earns Democrats 65 percent of Latino votes in southern states.
The issues of abortion and LGBT are not just election issues but are matters that have deeply polarised America to the extent that die-hard conservatives have fire-bombed abortion clinics and launched murderous attacks on gay and lesbian gatherings. Trump is opposed to LGBT and indiscriminate, free-for-all abortion. Democrats, and particularly Kamala Harris, celebrate LGBTs with Harris insisting they should be allowed to flaunt their sexual preferences! She is a disciple of Barrack Obama, the evangelist for Gays and Lesbians, who had threatened African countries that enacted anti-Gay laws with sanctions! The audacity of it all. The Democratic candidate’s vocal stand on LGBT has its cost in votes.
Foreign policy may be a muted election issue but it had in recent times crept into American public consciousness with Israel’s genocidal war against Hamas in Gaza, and for the Palestinian group’s October 7, 2023 incursion into Israel which left about 1200 Israelis dead, and over 200 abducted and being held hostage.
However, the Israeli military killing of over 40,000 Palestinians in its one-year battle with Hamas, has prompted unprecedented outrage and demonstrations across America, especially on university campuses, against Israel and the Biden/Harris administration, for its refusal to pressure Israel to agree to a ceasefire. Vice President Harris risks loss of votes in this regard, particularly in the crucial swing state of Michigan with an estimated 200,000 Arab-American population.
On Europe, while Trump regards the Russia-Ukraine war as avoidable and pledged to bring it to resolution if elected, the Biden/Harris government is inclined to perpetuating the war, recently pledging an additional $20 billion military package to embattled President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. This runs counter to the emergent American mood against avoidable war and its cost to American taxpayers. The anti-war voters will be a loss to Harris. These seemingly little losses of votes for Kamala can become significant in tight election contests where razor-thin victory vote margins can win bountiful electoral votes. For instance, in the 2008 presidential election between Senator John McCain; Republican, and Senator Barrack Obama; Democrat. McCain narrowly won Arizona state with just 3, 903 votes out of 2,887,725 votes cast in that election.
Trump’s foray into the presidential election contest in 2016 as an unconventional outsider, as against the deodorised correctness of professional politicians, literally took the political establishment by storm, and electrifying the electorate. In the 2016 presidential election between Trump and former US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, voter turnout was 136,787,187, at 59.2 percent as against 129,139,997; 58.0 percent in 2012, an increase of 7.6 million voters. By the 2020 election that pitted President Trump against former Vice President Joe Biden, the stakes got higher and so did the surge in voter turnout, with 158,429,631 voters; 66.8%, casting their ballot, an increase of a record 21.6 million voters over the 2016 turnout. The turnout promises to be higher again in 2024.
Money and funding may play a definitive role in victory at the polls. Top billionaires, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Elon Musk have waded into the presidential contest. Gates and Buffett were one of the richest men in the world, while Musk is the current richest man in the world. Gates donated $50 million to a pro-Harris non-profit organization, while Buffett who had endorsed Presidents Barrack Obama and Joe Biden has decided this time around not to endorse any candidate, which, by inference, meant non-support for Kamala Harris. On his part, Musk has not only donated $75 million in support of a Political Action Committee, a body engaged in getting votes for Trump, particularly in the swing states, but he has also been actively engaged in political election campaigns with the Republican candidate.
Crucially, the recent media endorsement losses by Harris may become her Achilles heel. Contrary to what has become a contentious media practice of endorsing presidential candidates, owners of major newspapers have stopped planned endorsements of Harris in this election cycle. These newspapers include The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, America’s largest newspaper chain, The Chicago Tribune, and Minnesota Star Tribune. Gannett, owners of USA Today, in announcing the stepping down of Harris’s endorsement stated that “our public service is to provide readers with facts that matter and the trusted information they need to make informed decisions”. For decades, American media had brazenly violated the media code of ethics which demands fairness, accuracy, and non-partisanship in media content.
The prognosis is clear. Kamala Harris brought sunshine charm, infectious laughter, and irrepressible energy into the 2024 American presidential election campaign, which almost rattled Trump, which gave her initial momentum. However, this momentum has since waned. That former President Obama had to complain that Black American men were not enthusiastic enough about Harris’s presidential bid—this is indicative that she may not get the huge Black American block vote of 87 percent given to Democratic presidential candidate Biden in the 2020 election. Her ardent advocacy for gays and lesbians will be another significant vote loss.
During the campaign, Harris could not defend the administration’s performance record on the economy, but would rather launch into what she would do if elected. So, her biggest albatross is a national economy that is in the doldrums, which remains a big concern for the electorate who will be inclined to vote for a change in government for a new economic direction. The omens are, therefore, dicey for Kamala Harris.
As for Trump, he faces a formidable battle in the gang up of America’s political establishment― Democrats and Republicans–against his re-election. Former Republican Vice President, Dick Cheney, and his daughter, former Congresswoman, Liz Cheney, lead the anti-Trump posse. Trump’s abrasive, and perceived crude manner will alienate votes. Ultimately, though, the parlous state of an inflation-wracked economy under the Biden/Harris administration, and a sustained, aggressive grassroots ‘get-out-the-vote’ mobilization, have the prospect of tilting the presidential election outcome in Trump’s favour. This makes Trump the man to beat.
•Dr Bisi Olawunmi, a Senior Lecturer, Department of Mass Communication, Adeleke University, Ede, is a former Washington Correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria