On November 5th, the oldest democracy in the world will elect a new president to lead the country for as long as four years. Tuesday will be the presidential election day for the United States where Democratic nominee Kamala Harris will face Republican candidate Donald Trump, the former US president.
The US Elections
Elections for the presidential candidate, in America, are not direct. Instead, Americans first vote to form an electoral college, which further elects the President. In total, there are 538 electors in the Electoral College. Out of this, 270 votes are required to reach the majority mark.
The huge country is divided into several states, each electing a certain number of electors, depending on their population density. These electors are already chosen by the respective political parties to represent themselves in that state. In this way, a vote cast to elect an elector is eventually a vote for either of the two presidential candidates. And since the United States follows a winner-takes-all electoral college system, each state comes up with a clear majority of either a Republican or a Democratic.
Usually, in all presidential elections, most states clearly lean towards one political ideology. But a few states, namely Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, will make this year’s presidential race more exciting. This is because these swing states have been equally targeted by both the parties and do not have a clear single inclination towards either.
US Looking Forward
The 2024 presidential elections have high stakes for the US and the rest of the world. Both political divisions agree very little with each other’s policy positions on major issues. US politics has become more polarized over the years, especially after the 2016 win of Donald Trump.
For instance, the country’s economy is one of the top issues for voters in this year’s elections. During Joe Biden’s term, who inherited an already battered economy post-COVID-19, was successful in reducing inflation from a peak of 9.1% in June 2022 to 2.4% in September 2024. The unemployment rate has also fallen from 6.4% in January 2021 to 4.1% in October 2024. But despite this, the democratic wing is unable to garner trust amongst voters, who still believe that the US economy is doing badly. This perspective of the voters is not unreasonable, as grocery bills and the cost of living have increased from what they were four years ago.
Addressing this inhibition of the voters, Trump has promised to “make America affordable again”. His plan includes increasing oil drilling to reduce energy costs, reducing interest rates (something out of the control of the President) and introducing import tax to incentivise domestic manufacturing.
Similarly, the two political divisions also clash on policies on immigration, climate change and abortion.
This year’s presidential election will also be important for the rest of the world because the US is indirectly involved in the ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia. While Harris has promised to keep up support for Ukraine for as long as it takes, Trump has been advocating that the country should disentangle itself from any conflict worldwide.
The Last Election Day
Voting for the presidential candidate ship already began as early as September. To date, more than 74 million people have cast their votes nationwide. While results for some states will be known sooner, other states will take a bit longer. This is because a few states have their own rules for counting. In other states, the process of counting can be lengthy because of population density.
Taking reference from the previous US election, it might take more than four days like in 2020, to count votes from a single state. What will catch everybody’s site is the results from the seventh swinger states.
