Where Is the US Election Heading?

Fewer than 100 days remain until the U.S. presidential election. If the coronavirus hadn’t plunged the world into economic catastrophe, Donald Trump, always the businessman, would be staying in the White House for four more years, and his second term certainly would have led to the downfall of all international norms. The Israeli regime, which is so aggressive toward the Islamic world, has never been more powerful as during the Trump era. Jared Kushner, Trump’s Zionist son-in-law, has been Israel’s right-hand man in the White House. If Trump stays for a second term, the plan Kushner has drawn up for Palestine would leave no land for the Palestinians, and the dream of two states, one Jewish and one Palestinian, existing side by side, would be dead. The disaster in Syria and the changes brought about after Western countries used it to justify their continued presence in the Middle East to enrich Arab countries like Saudi Arabia will only damage the Islamic world.

But COVID-19, this unpredictable virus, has thrown all projections into disarray. Customarily, a new president’s legacy is determined during the president’s first 100 days in office. These new conditions mean that Trump’s fate will instead be determined during the final 100 days of his term. Before the outbreak of COVID-19, Trump was confident he would remain president thanks to the strong economy during the beginning of his term, and often expressed this confidence on Twitter. But now he is trying to postpone the date of the election.

Trump’s tweet about delaying the November election is even stranger than his typically strange tweets, taking both Democrats and Republicans by surprise, and even drew criticism from influential members of his own party. They called the tweet the quintessential example of Trump dreading imminent defeat, and it provoked a further drop in his poll numbers, as it hardened the resolve of those who fear Trump’s rash decision making. Voting in the U.S. takes two forms: voting in person on Election Day or mailing in a ballot via the postal service. Before Election Day, those who mail in their ballots are generally less passionate than outspoken supporters of the candidates, and the results of these ballots always favor Democrats. During a chaotic election, radicals made up of traditional Americans and young people play a defining role in the Republican Party’s base. If the election proceeds calmly and in a period with no particularly charismatic candidates, the Republican Party fares better. Barack Obama was a charismatic figure who, with his slogan of “Change We Can Believe In,” stirred things up and rode the support of young voters and women to become the first Black president of the U.S.

Traditionally, during the final 100 days of a presidency, U.S. newspapers focus on polls, which influence the “silent vote” and those who pay close attention to the media. The Economist, in a column about its election predictions, was the first to declare that, based on traditional polling measures, Joe Biden will definitely be the next president. American elections are unique and special in many ways. Each state, based on its population, receives a number of electoral votes, and whichever candidate receives the majority of the popular vote in a state gains all of the electoral votes the state holds. According to polls in all 50 states, Biden will receive between 249 and 415 electoral votes, while it is predicted Trump will receive between 123 and 289 votes. Overall, the average of the Electoral College votes for Biden is predicted at 347, compared to Trump’s 191, meaning that Biden will win. Additionally, The Economist predicts that when it comes to the popular vote, Biden will win 54% to Trump’s 46%.

It is interesting to note that The Economist explicitly states that scientific polling data show Biden will take several key states and capture the golden number of 270 electoral college votes it takes to win the presidency. They give Biden a 91% chance of winning the Electoral College in contrast with giving Trump 9%. In the 2016 presidential election, Hillary Clinton surpassed Trump in the popular vote, but Trump prevailed in the Electoral College, taking the popular vote in two or three key states from the Democrats, and winning the all important Electoral College vote, despite losing the overall popular vote.

Analysts believe that even after Trump, the world will have to continue to deal with his antics. Trump is a successful showman who likes to be involved in everything, and is well versed in using the media, particularly television. Analysts believe that Trump will leave the White House without issue, but as long as he is alive, his shadow will weigh heavily over the office. He will continue to tweet after leaving the Oval Office and coverage of him in the media will still be problematic. Those who are close to him and know his character say his narcissism means he must always stay in the headlines. They believe that after he leaves the White House, he will certainly set up multiple TV networks and continue to promote Trumpism, something that the Republican Party has already felt the adverse effects of. In the event that Trump is not reelected, Republicans are making plans to redefine his relationship with the party so that his tweeting and founding of a media brand without regard to Republican priorities do not cause the party’s collapse.

Biden’s victory will not only be a victory for the Democratic Party, which will regain the reins of the country, it will be a defeat for Trump’s ailing ideas, his opposition to people of color, his opposition to Muslim communities, and most importantly, his unquestioning support of the ruling Israeli hard-liners. The Palestinians are fortunate that Benjamin Netanyahu’s partnership with Trump will soon come to an end. If Trump is no longer in the White House, and the polls say he won’t be, Netanyahu’s replacement will be closer to Biden, and Kushner’s plan for the region will be shelved, putting an end to the current intensity of Jewish settlement construction on Palestinian lands.

Biden's advisers are fully aware of the role and influence of Muslims in U.S. society, and so they have compelled him to announce that as soon as he is elected, he will nullify Trump’s executive orders against immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries, including Iran. Iranians in the U.S. make up a significant portion of population with about 1.5 million people, and when taking into account their common culture with other Asian and Muslim countries, they can have a notable effect on directing the votes of Muslim immigrants in the U.S. toward Biden.

Trump’s withdrawal from many agreements, such as the Paris climate agreement, the World Health Organization, NAFTA and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or Iranian nuclear agreement were not approved by Congress, but rather took place under executive order from Trump, and therefore will be nullified by the next president. Trump’s executive orders on international agreements have not caused these pacts to collapse, and in fact, none of these withdrawals have been finalized, making Biden’s job even easier. In his first 100 days as president, he can put a stop to all of them. The world after Trump’s defeat at the hands of COVID-19 will be a more reasonable world.