America witnessed a historic election day with both the contenders fighting really hard. They went into election day with polls pitting them neck-and-neck.
Some polls had showed that prior to the elections, the Democratic candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, had gained significant ground in four battleground states such as Nevada, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Georgia. With razor-thin electoral margins, Harris led Michigan and Wisconsin, while former US President Trump led North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada, while Pennsylvania remained in a tossup. Though the Republican candidate, former US president Donald Trump, gained a significant lead in Arizona, he was fighting hard to reclaim Michigan, a state he had won in 2016 and was banking on significant anger amongst the resident immigrant Muslim and Arab communities against Harris.
However, this election also showed something that has hardly ever been seen in American electoral politics: an active campaign that cast doubts on the electoral system prior to the polls. The US is not immune to voting irregularities and candidates have challenged election results in the past, but for candidates to actively campaign on potential electoral fraud as a campaign issue has been rare. When the election campaigning ended on Sunday night, former US President Trump was trying to lay the ground for disputing the election results should he lose. At a rally in Pennsylvania, he said: "He shouldn't have left (the white House)."
He made the statement in an effort to remind his supporters about his purported claims regarding the results of the 2020 elections, where he lost, and he incited people to rebel, leading to an insurrection at Capitol Hill in 2021. It also served to preface the November 5 elections, casting doubts on its legitimacy should he lose. Claiming there's no verification for overseas or military ballots and that election officials use early voting to commit electoral fraud, he asserted that the only way Kamala Harris could win the elections was by cheating.
It's important to note that in early voting, almost 75 million Americans had already voted.
It's a fact that Donald Trump lost a close election in 2020, though he never conceded defeat and tried every option to overturn the results. And it seems that he has not gotten over that loss four years later, even when he goes into fresh polls.
Trump further claimed: "Democrats are fighting hard to steal this damn thing," as he accused the incumbent Vice President's party of attempting to tamper with voting machines would be tampered with. About the election results, he said, "These elections have to be, they have to be decided by 9 o'clock, 10 O'clock, 11 O'clock on Tuesday night".
All of his accusations, together with a close election campaign, suggest that Trump had set the stage to cast serious doubts on the integrity of the voting process, which he could exploit if he lost. Undoubtedly, American democracy really seems to be in troubled waters at this time.
Contrary to popular claims that the US isn't yet ready to accept a woman as a president, the American people this time seem ready to do so. As women voters sided with Harris, men mostly supported Trump
Turning blue states red
Pennsylvania and Wisconsin were once strongholds of the Democratic Party before Donald Trump turned them red when he won the 2016 elections. Biden had regained these states in 2020. Harris hoped to continue Biden's electoral momentum for her campaign - just as she has promised to further his policies. If she can replicate Biden's performance in these states, she could be on the course to winning the elections.
In national polls, Kamala Harris enjoyed the slimmest of leads, staying a single-digit over Donald Trump in two new polls released on Sunday. Remember, Pennsylvania will be a decisive state as it boasts 19 electoral votes (the electoral colleges play a greater role in deciding the US President compared to the popular vote) that would determine the fate of the White House and winning it makes it easier to reach the minimum of 270 votes that each presidential candidate needs to secure out of a total 538 electoral votes to claim the American presidency.
Contrary to popular claims that the US isn't yet ready to accept a woman as a president, the American people this time seem ready to do so. As women voters sided with Harris, men mostly supported Trump - which is probably why this election has become so close to call. But an interesting fact is that media houses like CNN projected a victory for Kamala Harris just as they did for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Electoral issues
Like all elections, this election, too, is being primarily fought on core issues that matter to most Americans. Some issues which remained dominant throughout the election cycle were abortion, inflation, climate change, immigration, foreign policy and Israel and the Gaza conflict.
Gen-Z supported abortion rights and thus leaned towards Harris, who championed the cause, making the first official visit to an abortion clinic. Trump, on the other hand, was wary of doing anything which would dent his supporter base and remained reluctant to advocate for abortion rights.
On the economic front, the Trump campaign mostly attacked the Biden administration's policies—including Kamala Harris — over rising inflation in the country. Resurging inflation had been the biggest economic story of the Biden-Harris presidency, with inflation cumulatively increased to nearly 20% during the past four years, surging by 9.1% in 2022 alone. Americans, especially the blue-collar workers within whom Trump enjoys a large support base, were struggling to grapple with its effects; they recalled the relatively low inflation they enjoyed during Trump's first term in office- generally around two per cent.
Trump appeared to dust off his talking points from 2016 and reintroduced some of them as he vowed to pursue protectionist trade policies and even a trade war with China. On many occasions, he argued that the US wouldn't have had high inflation if he had remained in office for a second term.
On the Israel- Gaza conflict, Harris expressed her belief in a two-state solution and called for a ceasefire - though critics said that those calls were far too late and too meek. Some of her positioning on the matter also deeply impacted public perception around Harris' commitment to peace in the Middle East.
America's stakes are so high that it simply cannot afford to be hit by a political storm of internal disturbances
Trump, however, clearly positioned himself as a champion of Israel and backing its war on Gaza. However, he criticised Israel for taking too long and urged Israel to "finish up" things because it was losing support. Most importantly, Donald Trump doesn't believe in a two-state solution - he effectively killed it by shifting the US Embassy in Israel to East Jerusalem.
As far as the curtailment of China is concerned, both contenders appear to adopt a protect-and-eliminate stance on the US' economic dependence on China.
Harris' Indian origins, though, may become troublesome for Pakistan, as Islamabad has aligned itself with China, committing to the blueprint of the futuristic Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit recently held in Islamabad didn't give a positive signal to the US and its allies on Pakistan's geopolitical leanings. Thus, Pakistan needs to be more cautious about its moves and try to balance its foreign policy as Washington is likely to engage more actively with New Delhi in the coming days.
This time, America's stakes are so high that it simply cannot afford to be hit by a political storm of internal disturbances. A war continues to rage between Ukraine and Russia alongside the looming shadows of a full-scale war in the Middle East between Iran and Israel. With Iran expected to launch another attack against Israel either before or on election day, it will be a challenging task to tackle for anyone who gets elected to the White House.
Future of democracy in America
The big question now is how, after Tuesday night, would democracy survive in the US. Whatever may happen, however, one thing that we observe that what makes America great is the deep-rooted trust that the American people have in their institutions. And surely, by all means, democracy has always been their strongest institution. But it's a hard fact that democracy doesn't work in as transparent a way as it has always been perceived to have done in the public eye; there are deep states that actually manoeuvre or heavily influence the outcomes.
But why will the establishment tamper with the election results when Trump is becoming a strong voice of the American people and has already signalled how his course of action would be if elections were tampered with?
It's a populist era, where individuals with strong personas tend to influence institutions to claim their victory, and the public at large is more inclined to follow their charismatic personalities than facts. But, if Trump loses, it's pretty much obvious that he will resort to protests against election fraud — and the possibility of that turning violent is very real. However, it remains to be seen how things unfold in the days to come in a deeply polarised society and how the US reacts to the challenges that lie ahead post-November 5.