With less than a month left for the most
awaited election around the World- The American Elections 2024. The US is
considered as the world’s oldest democracy and the US President is seen as the
most powerful position in the world. Let us look into the entire system of US
elections and how they are conducted.
Dates, Days and Months
American elections are more than a year-long
process. For many people, election day is mentioned as the day of voting but
for others, it’s the day when a new President takes charge and much more. For
enthusiasts, it’s the year-long process of selection of candidates till a new
President takes the oath that keeps them hooked. As per the American Constitution,
the first Tuesday (after the first Monday) is decided as the date of election. But given that the idea
of elections has changed for circumstances, there are different dates for
different types of voting as well.
Rules of the election
Unlike other countries where it’s usually the
Election Commission that sets the rules, it's much different in the USA. There
is a Federal Election Commission (FEC) but it’s a very weak institution. It
decides rules on candidates, their profiles, rules on spending, advertising, and
much more. As per FEC, one party can have only one candidate. The rules on
voting, registrations, ballots, voting certifications and much more are done at
the state and county level. Depending upon the margin of victory (0.5 or 1%),
there will be an automatic recount.
Parties in USA
In Political Science we are taught that the US
has a two-party system but does the US have only two parties? The answer is no,
the current party system has evolved over 200 years. The first party was the
Federalists followed by Democratic-Republican Party. This later evolved to the
Democratic Party which is currently the world’s oldest continuing party. Their
counterparts were the Whigs Party. In the Civil War era, Whigs gave birth to
the current Republican Party also known as the Grand Old Party (GOP) for their
legacy. Besides Democrats and Republicans, there are smaller parties like the Green
Party, Libertarian Party, Forward Party, Communist Party and many more.
Although its Democrats and Republicans who control the political discourse in the
USA now.
Do parties stand for the same ideology and
values always? Not really, the current values and ideologies evolved over time
largely due to the circumstances and the leaders of the times. Democrats under
Andrew Jackson started out as the party of small government, state rights and pro-slavery.
Republicans started as a progressive party opposing slavery, high tariffs and
isolationism. During the World Wars, Democrats under Franklin D Roosevelt stood
for expansion of the federal government and engagement with the world. During
the Cold War, both parties were pro-war, Free-Trade, and Internationalism.
John F Kennedy and Lyndon B Johnson drove
Democrats to the socially progressive side with Civil Rights and rights for
immigrants. Richard Nixon through his southern strategy moved Republicans
rightwards. Ronald Reagan gave birth to the new right which were pro-religion,
nationalism, and interventionism. This continued even the Bush era. As a
reaction, Democrats came towards the centre being New Democrats under Bill
Clinton to support welfare, fiscal conservatism, and pro-environment. Barack
Obama and Joe Biden took forward this idea of the New Democrats and brought it
to this day. Republicans are now divided between the Old Bush-Reagan-Romney
faction and the Alternate Right of MAGA. MAGA stands for protectionism, isolationism,
social conservatism, and anti-immigration.
The present US politics can be said as post-2000
era. The Republican Party is now dominated by MAGA while the Bush-Romney
faction is somewhere between both MAGA and the Democrats. So now let’s discuss
these two parties in detail.
Parties now
So, have parties always been the same? Are they
stagnant? Not really. Americans today identify as a Republican, Democrat and
Independent. But what do these terms mean? Why do people identify like that?
Let us look in depth.
Republican Party
Started as a progressive party in the 1860s,
when the US was in a Civil War. Since then, the party has evolved to be the GOP
of the day. Today, the Republican Party is largely associated with conservative,
nationalist and constitutionalist values. It believes in a strong
interpretation of the US Constitution which is minimal government, a strong
advocate for both the First and Second Amendments. It is pro-religion
(pro-Christian), pro-family, pro-life on abortion, etc. It is against
reproductive freedom and Affirmative action as well. It supports a strong
national security policy with an interventionist approach. In matters of
governance, they are fiscally conservative with minimum government spending
except for the military, supported free trade and low taxes. Under MAGA, the GOP
has become more socially conservative and wants an isolationist foreign policy,
against immigration, pro-tariff, and a weak US dollar. Perhaps the only common aspect
between both is that they are socially conservative and have low taxes. Hence, one
identifying as Republican can be indeed confusing.
Republican Party has its strength in rural
areas and suburbs. Its strength is in conservative Christians mainly
Evangelicals, Whites without a college degree, Blue-Collar workers,
farmers, small businesses and much more.
It has been in recent times has been trying to reach out to Blacks and Latinos
as well.
Democratic Party
Even though started as a very conservative; today is seen as a progressive party. Democratic Party has believed in a strong
Federal Government ever since FDR initiated the New Deal. It believes in
secularism, individual freedoms, and expansion of the role of government. They
support higher taxes and extensive government spending mainly for welfare and
social security. Similarly, they support affirmative action, pro-choice on
Abortion, restrictions on military spending, and pro-Human Rights. They stand
for labour and unions along with the rights of minorities- mainly Blacks and
Immigrants. They also advocate strict restrictions on guns. Progressives are
more the exception in Democrats where in they support extensive social welfare
policies such as Medicare, Education, and much more. They support Palestine,
call for the end to wars around the globe and seek more friendly relations with
countries. They are more of an anomaly.
Ever since New Democrats emerged in the 1990s, the
ideology of the party has changed. Today, democrats are the party of urban
areas, and businesses, as well. Its support lies in urban areas and almost all
major cities across the US are Democratic. They have extensive support amongst
College-Educated Whites, Blacks, Latinos, other immigrant groups including
Asians and Jews, and much more. Its support among the unions and the working
class has been waning since Trump took charge of the Republican Party. Today,
Democratic voters are more focused on strong Foreign Policy than
Republican voters which have turned more isolationist.
Region-wise, Democrats are number 1 in the
coastal states, the New England region and border areas with Mexico.
Republicans are the number 1 in the Mid-West, the American South and regions
along the US-Canada border.
Despite trying to assign binary values to both,
it has often backfired because a party always has a mixture of multiple
ideologies across the spectrum and does not exactly point to the same
thing. In recent years, the American political spectrum has been more and more
polarised. Hence the idea of Republican and Democrat can also be an anomaly.
You can still be a Republican or a Democrat
even if you have disagreements with your party on certain issues. As an
independent you can be a part Republican and a part Democrat.
Steps involved in the elections
US elections are not a single event and it
does not happen in a single day or a few days. An average election timeline expands
to more than a year. Just a few months after the mid-term elections, the
talk is now all about the Presidential Election. The sitting President usually by
this time decides to run again. Similarly, many candidates started to show
their interest in running for the presidency. All of these together contest
amongst each other to reach the candidacy.
As per the rules of the FEC, one party can
only have one candidate. This means, that out of a pool of candidates,
only one can be nominated to represent the party. Unlike other countries where
parties handpick or select the candidates, US politics has a unique system
where the voters themselves can select the candidates. This is where caucuses
and primaries step in.
Each contestant develops a group of followers
across the 50 states to promote their names for candidacy. Now, to make the job
easier, intra-party debates are conducted by parties and media outlets to make
them more familiar to the voters and the public at large so that it makes it
easier to make a choice.
After this, we have Primaries and Caucuses.
There are two types of them- Open and Closed. As we have already mentioned
earlier, it’s the parties that have control of this. Hence, Open Primary and
Caucus allow anyone to vote for their favourite contender for the party while a
Closed Primary and Caucus allows only registered party voters to participate in
them. For example, Democrats can only vote in a Democratic Party Closed Primary
while an Independent can also vote in an Open Republican Party Primary in addition
to Republicans.
Democratic Party has 4253 delegates are
allocated based on the population of each state. To win the nomination, a
candidate needs to secure at least 2126 delegates. Republican Party has 2250 delegates
of which it needs 1276 delegates to clinch the nomination. Similarly, the Green
and Libertarian Parties have their own systems in place. These delegates along
with Party leaders and members meet at their respective Party conventions to
elect their candidate. This is a mere formality but such conventions are
designed to energise the parties ahead of the elections.
After the respective parties confirm candidates,
the official campaigning starts followed by the announcement of the
Vice-Presidential Candidates. Unlike Presidential candidates, Vice Presidential
Candidates are handpicked by the candidates and they have the major say. The
traditional election period is said to be from the Labour Day to the first
Tuesday of November. By October, Presidential Debates are held between the two
candidates. The moderators and TV networks publishing them are handpicked by
the Presidential Debating Commission.
In 2024, President Biden was the main contender
for election from the Democrats. He has been at the forefront from the end of the Mid[ -Term elections in 2022. On the
other hand, the Republican Party had multiple contenders ranging from
ex-President Trump, Governor Ron DeSantis, Governor Chris Christie, Governor
and Ambassador Nikki Haley and Senator Tim Scott. Lastly, entrepreneur Vivek
Ramaswamy was the outsider candidate with a surprise element. As the Primaries
proceeded, one by one started to quit. The Republican primary was largely
restrained to a Trump vs Haley match. By Super Tuesday, Haley also dropped out
paving the way for Trump vs Biden rematch.
Bypassing the Presidential Debating Commission,
both the Biden and Trump campaign decided on two Presidential debates. One in
June and the other in September. With the first Presidential debate, Biden
became too weak to contest again and thus after a month he dropped out of the
race. He nominated Kamala Harris and handed over the PAC to her. In the DNC
she secured the nomination while Trump secured his GOP nomination in
the RNC. Both the candidates have announced their respective Vice
President Candidates (VPs). Currently, all the Presidential debates are also
over and early voting has started.
Let us know the candidates this time in 2024
The most talked about candidates this election
are Donald Trump, Kamala Harris, and their running mates while Jill Stein of
the Green Party has also seen massive headlines this year.
Donald Trump
His politics can be expressed in a few ways,
such as conservative-nationalist, Protectionist, isolationist foreign policy, and
weak US dollar. Along with this, his strong areas have been low taxes
and anti-immigration policy. In his first term, he had taken several radical
decisions such as pulling the USA out of international treaties and
commitments. His most popular domestic policy has been tax cuts mainly on
millionaires and billionaires. His strength mainly lies in rhetoric
rather than on policy which makes him quite popular to his base. The
biggest failure of his term has been battling COVID-19 creating a massive
health crisis in the country. His credentials are largely in question due to the cases he is involved in and for the January 6th insurrection in 2021.
In 2020, he was a continuation candidate while
in 2024 he is more the opposition candidate which makes him have a better
number. This time he promises almost the same set of ideas he campaigned
on previously but with great vigour and rhetoric. He promises to close borders,
deport immigrants, etc. On the economic front, he is likely to announce tariffs
on imports and tax cuts for the rich. This policy will likely decrease the government
revenue and widen the deficit. Another big discussion has been on Project 2025
and other sociocultural issues such as abortion, the end of DEI and the ramping
up of the Federal Government. Although Trump has tried to stay away from the same,
he hasn’t largely contradicted many of its ideas. On the Foreign Policy
front, Trump has called for ending the Russia-Ukraine War but on the Israel-Hamas
war, he would give a free hand to Netanyahu.
Why do people support Trump?
Donald Trump from 2015 has been trying his luck
in politics under the banner of “Make America Great Again”. His entry into
the field from a business background followed by his controversial opinions had
garnered a lot media attention. Additionally, his politics is explained as
populist in nature, going with the flow of the masses and not exactly with
realpolitik. His takes on illegal immigration, racism, US involvement in foreign
wars etc. have got a lot of support. From 2016 to 2024, he had a massive following
called MAGA which tried to have a unique identity within the Republican Party.
His speeches and approaches to handling media have moved the public to a cult-like
following. Trump's strongest base is the white-non-college educated people with a slight tilt to the working class. In recent years, he has expanded his base to Blacks and Latinos as well.
Kamala Harris
Has a strong political experience as San
Fransico District Attorney, California State Attorney, The Senator from
California, and lastly four years as the Vice President of the United States. She
holds the record of voting the highest number of tie-breakers in the US Senate-
33. She came in as the Change Candidate after Joe Biden dropped out of the
race. Hence the repeat of the 2020 race has been avoided. Additionally, she
has tried to balance between being part of the Biden Administration as well as
being much more distinct and presentable than Biden.
She is a unique candidate in terms of both background
and identity. She will be the African-American and Indian Descent to obtain the
candidature and be a President if she successfully wins in November. Her main campaign slogan is "We are not going back and Hope". In
terms of foreign policy, she is expecting to follow the same line as Biden,
especially in Ukraine, NATO, Israel, and China. Economically Kamala Harris
promises to bring down the prices of goods through price gouging. Also, she has
called for an Opportunity economy which includes support for expanding
Child Tax Credit, incentives for first-home buyers, and tax breaks for
tips. Unlike Trump, she supports higher taxes on the wealthy and
a 25% tax on unrealised capital gains for people with wealth above
$400,000. She claims she will prioritise signing the Border Security Bill that
was stuck in Congress on her first day in Office.
Can She pull it off?
Most of the Democrats have decided to support
Harris after Biden withdrew. Her popularity and appeal skyrocketed after that
but in recent days, her popularity has only stagnated, however, for a wide
range of voters who do not like a 2020 rematch she is doing better. Also, for
minority voters, she is better. Although, she is quite unpopular in rural areas
and among older voters compared to Biden. The only way her victory can be
guaranteed is through high turnout like in 2020. She continues to be pro-choice and a champion of abortion rights making her popular among women.
Jill Stein
She is the main third-party candidate after RFK
Jr dropped out. She is from the Green Party and has been making
significant strides through anti-Ukraine, anti-Israel stance. She is getting a wide
range of voters who are fed up with both candidates- Trump and Harris.
Additionally, several Arab, Muslim and Young voters prioritise the Israel-Palestine
issue and the Biden administration’s continued support for Israeli actions
in Gaza. She is successfully able to deviate, from potential democratic
voters, but her impact cannot be calculated until the results are out.
Types of Voting and Ballots
We must understand that the US Presidential
Election is not only the election for the President but also for both houses of
Congress and other state houses. Hence, US Ballots are comprised of multiple options.
Hence, the ballots have a bubbling feature which can be recognised by OMR
or OCR machines.
1.
In-Person
Voting- Here, the voter must reach a voting booth, which is available only
for the voting day ie. November 5th. The voter will fill the ballots
and drop them in the allocated box at the centre.
2.
Mail-In/Absentee
Ballots- The US Postal Service in collaboration with the states, allows the people
to apply for voting via mail. The applicants will receive the posts at home,
which will have to be filled and dropped in various collection centres across
the country. They will be collected and taken to counting centres. Those who
are unavailable on November 5th or are travelling abroad, work
abroad in consulates and embassies, and prominently the US military uses this
feature for voting.
3.
Early
Voting- Like In-Person Voting, the voters can approach various polling stations
days and weeks before the election day and drop in their ballots.
4.
Provisional
Voting- When the credentials of the voters are under question, they are
instructed to use a provisional ballot. It wouldn't be counted until the
identity is verified.
Election to the US Congress
Along with the election for the US
Presidential Race, given that elections in the US are simultaneous in nature.
This means that the elections to the US Congress and several other local
races is simultaneously happening along with the race for the White House.
The Entire House of Representatives has 435 seats and one-third of the Senate
for re-election.
The most sought-after senate seats this time are
Ruben Gallego(D) and Kari Lake (R) from Arizona, Thomas Sheehy(R) and John Tester(D)
from Montana, Sherrod Brown (D) vs Bernie Moreno (R), Collin Allred (D) and Ted
Cruz (R). There are a handful of house states in New York, California and
Florida which will be must-watch this time and determine who will control the
Congress.
Electoral College
The US Electoral College is the body of
the US Presidential system, which elects the President and not by people
directly. On the election day, voters elect the College. It is these College
electors who choose the President and Vice-President. So now, the total number
of the electoral college is 435+ 100= 535 and in addition to that DC has 3
electoral colleges, raising the total number to 538. Thus, a simple
majority is fixed at 270, which means that the President needs 270 to win the
election. The Electoral College system itself is a controversial topic, as
critics claim that this is a flawed system and that it doesn’t look into
popular votes or people’s choices.
Swing States
These are the states which are pivotal in deciding
the winner. These have equal chances of turning red or blue. They are also known
as purple states due to their Blue + Red Characteristics. This election has
categorised seven states- Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona
and North Carolina as swing states. Out of this, Nevada for the past several
elections has supported Democrats. Pennsylvania is the biggest prize this time
with 19 electoral votes followed by Georgia. The Second District of Nebraska is
also considered a swing region. The good old days of Ohio, Iowa, and Florida
determining the election outcome are over.
Polls
Most of the opinion polls suggest a tight race
with a small edge for Kamala Harris, but just like in 2016, the polls are
under the margin of error making it a toss-up. Dr Allan Litchman, the Professor
from Washington who has correctly predicted 9 out of 10 races has decisively stated
that Kamala Harris will win the Presidency as per his 13-key model. The polls also
predict Republicans to take control of the Senate while Republicans take
control of the House.
Conclusion
The US elections 2024 for the President and several smaller races prove extremely consequential for US politics and Global Politics at large. Hence, who wins- Donald Trump or Kamala Harris will be much more significant in terms of politics, policy and the larger implications for politics. Even global events such as the Israel-Gaza war, and the Russia-Ukraine conflict all depend on the result of this election.
Note- This article is the author's compilation on the topic which is designed to improve the reader's knowledge on the topic rather than promote or demote a viewpoint.
Here's a book on American Politics.
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