Kamala Harris and Donald Trump duel after the most turbulent campaign in recent history
American citizens are called to the polls this Tuesday to determine the political future of the country for the next four years. Vice President Kamala Harris hopes to prolong the Democratic government against a Donald Trump who seeks to make history by returning to the White House four years later, in a context in which the polls avoid taking for granted the victory of either of the two candidates.
Although the process itself has been underway for weeks given that citizens have already been able to vote by mail and even in person, this Tuesday will be the big day. When the polling stations close – most will do so between 1:00 and 6:00 hours in mainland Spain – a trickle of projections and results will begin from which the future tenant of the White House will be known.
Technically, citizens do not directly elect the president, but rather the members of the Electoral College, under a particular system that establishes that the winning candidate in each state takes all the representatives in play in that territory; with the exception of Maine and Nebraska, where the distribution is proportional.
There is no large federal body to follow on election night, so the trickle of projections from the major media will tint the map blue or red depending on each state. The general average of polls gives Harris a clear advantage in the popular vote, but former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton experienced eight years ago that it is not enough to obtain more votes than her rival but to win in key areas, the so-called ‘swing states’.
These territories do not vote clearly Democrat or Republican and fluctuate depending on each election. The national average of polls by RealClearPolitics indicates that in the disputed states, Trump maintains his advantage in Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia, while Harris is ahead in Wisconsin and Michigan.
The counter for each candidate will go up throughout the night and once one of them reaches 270 electors, more than half of the members of the Electoral College, he will be declared the ‘de facto’ winner. Tradition then marks a succession of victory and defeat speeches, although Trump four years ago refused to publicly recognize the victory of the current president, Joe Biden.
The White House is not the only thing at stake, since the House of Representatives, currently controlled by the Republicans, will be completely renewed, and in the Senate, with Democratic dominance, a third of the seats are at stake. Controlling the Legislature or at least one of the two Chambers is essential for a president to have room for political maneuver, both symbolic and practical.
A TURBULENT CAMPAIGN
The United States arrives on November 5 after one of the most turbulent electoral campaigns in recent history. Initially, the Democratic ticket was to be shared by Biden and Harris, but the president’s poor performance in his televised debate against Trump – June 27 – and a succession of mistakes revived the debate about his advanced age and forced him to step aside. His figure seemed already written off.
The ‘number two’ took the reins with the president’s endorsement and without primaries in between, an exception that the Democratic Party tried to solve with a national conference aimed at promoting Harris and her new partner, Tim Walz, governor of Minnesota.
The mere holding of the convention allowed the vice president, who aspires to be the first woman in the White House, to shoot up in the polls, but the wear and tear of four years in the Administration and the lack of clear ideas or changes of opinion on certain issues has hampered her popularity. Her hope is to attract the undecided who do not want another four years of Trump.
On the opposite side to Harris is Trump, who ran again in the Republican primaries ready to sweep and without a minimum counterweight within his party. If eight years ago the moderates tried to stop him at first, in 2024 everyone seemed resigned to accepting what seemed to be inevitable.
In fact, Trump does not seem to have been affected by the assault on the Capitol in January 2021, carried out by hundreds of his followers, or by the multiple judicial fronts he has open. In May, he became the first president convicted in the United States, for falsifying records to buy the silence of a former porn actress, Stormy Daniels, shortly before the 2016 elections.
He hopes to emulate Grover Cleveland, the only president to have two non-consecutive terms, and he does so without changing his populist strategy, which has led him to introduce a hoax about immigrants eating pets into a debate or to include Senator J.D. Vance as vice-presidential candidate, also tainted by several controversies.
Trump has survived an assassination attempt in his campaign, from which he emerged wounded: on July 14, an individual fired a shot in the middle of a rally in Pennsylvania before being shot down by security forces. The candidate was wounded in the ear, while a man attending the event died, which triggered a wave of solidarity and unanimous condemnation in the midst of a wave of political polarization.
In mid-September, the tycoon was again the victim of another attempted attack at his own golf club in Florida, although the person arrested did not fire a shot.
FOUR YEARS FROM JANUARY 20
Whatever happens on Tuesday, there will be no immediate replacement in the Oval Office. The US political system is marked by a mix of laws and traditions that begins with the holding of elections on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November and ends on January 20 of the following year at the main entrance of the Capitol with the formal inauguration of the next president.
Whoever gives the triumphant speech will have to deal with an economy that is apparently booming but that continues to worry citizens — 81 percent acknowledge that it is an aspect that they will take into account when casting their vote, according to the Pew Research Center. Immigration has also crept into the general concerns, with Trump openly speaking of “invasion.”
On social matters, Harris has placed special emphasis on the fact that with Trump in the White House, women’s rights such as abortion will be in danger, warning of a downward trend that already began with a Supreme Court ruling in June 2022. Having the reins of the country may also be key to modifying the current conservative dominance in the High Court, since the future president will foreseeably have room to appoint a judge.
Trump has also shown off during the campaign that he is a president who guarantees peace and has even said that, if he had remained in office for four more years, Vladimir Putin would not have dared to invade Ukraine or the current escalation of violence in the Middle East would not exist. What both candidates do agree on is making it clear that Israel is the main ally in this region, despite the criticisms slipped by the Biden Administration to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In Europe, both in the orbit of the EU and NATO, the meeting is closely watched in anticipation of what may happen. For the vast majority of governments, Harris symbolizes the continuity of Biden’s policies, while Trump has already shown that he is willing to add more political, economic or defense pressure on his theoretical European allies. Copy to clipboard
