Violence and Fear Rear Their Heads

Parity in the polls reflects deep polarization in the U.S., and no is ruling out a possible tie.

The U.S. elections on Nov. 5 are just around the corner in what appears in the polls to be a virtual dead heat with no clear advantage for either of the presidential candidates.

To talk at this point about who, between Vice President and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris and former Republican President Donald Trump, might be the winner is essentially an exercise of personal faith.

But now comes what in the United States is called the “October Surprise,” an unspecified event that could range from revelations about one of the candidates to a natural disaster that changes voters’ perceptions.

Barring that, perhaps the October “surprise” is what is needed to define a race that is essentially tied.

Tellingly, polling website 538’s latest presidential election forecast gives Vice President Harris the narrowest of advantages over former President Trump — she wins in 57 in 100 simulations, making it practically a coin-flip race.

Worse, while mail-in absentee ballots have already begun to arrive, it is expected that the recount could drag on for several days beyond Election Day, especially in swing states that may lean one way or the other.

“In swing states (Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina), the margins in the race for the presidency could be narrower this time than in 2020),” Axios said.*

The polls indicate that these swing states are on a knife’s edge.

According to 538, in state polling averages, “Harris leads by about one to two points in Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Trump has about a one-point lead in Arizona and Georgia, while North Carolina is essentially tied.”*

In Arizona and Georgia, for example, President Joe Biden’s lead in 2020 was less than 12,000 votes in each state, under 0.5% of the vote in each. And in that sense, absentee ballots may well end up, as they already did in 2020, at the center of doubts and conspiracies.

Some have even begun to worry about the possibility of a tie in the Electoral College, composed of 538 voters, since theoretically at least, it is possible that both candidates could be left with 269 votes each.

That would be perhaps the least of the problems, since according to the law, in the case of a tie, the election would fall to the House of Representatives.

But Trump is unlikely to accept a result that does not favor him, and in fact, several experts have raised the possibility of the former president declaring himself the winner on the night of Nov. 5, even though the vote count may not been completed.

For the time being, Republicans have filed more than 100 lawsuits against various 2024 election procedures, and the Harris campaign told The New York Times that its election legal team is 10 times larger than Biden’s in 2020.

The recount is likely to drag on for several days, and it could happen — though it is unlikely — that Democrats would reject the House solution, now in Republican hands.

The virtual parity in the polls reflects the deep polarization prevailing in the U.S. and, according to some, there is even the possibility of violence.

*Editor’s note: While accurately translated, these quotes could not be sourced.