What if Trump doesn’t win?
If the Republican nominee falls short because of razor-thin margins, then you can be sure many Republicans will rally behind him
ven before last week’s final United States presidential debate, more than a few observers were declaring the race over. Republican nominee Donald Trump’s performance was, mostly, steady — at least when using the low bar Trump set in his first two meetings with Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Yet, it was a performance calculated mainly to energise his base. He offered little that might win over undecided voters (assuming these still exist) or pull wavering Republicans back off the fence. Trump needed a gamechanger. He didn’t get it. His threat to refuse to concede the election if he loses sealed the deal for many Americans.
This pretty succinctly summarises the conventional wisdom as we head into the campaign’s final days. And all of that came before Trump’s meanspirited remarks at a charity fundraising dinner or his promise to focus his first days in office on suing women who have accused him
So over these final two weeks there really are only two questions that need to be considered. First, can Trump still win? Second, if he loses but refuses to acknowledge defeat, what then?
The answer to the first question is yes, Trump can definitely still win. While the vast majority of polls show Clinton with a comfortable lead in both the popular vote and the electoral college, it bears repeating that some polls have consistently shown the race to be essentially tied. The ‘Tom Bradley Effect’ may be coming into play here. The term refers to people giving pollsters what they perceive to be socially acceptable answers rather than saying how they really plan to vote. It takes its name from a black politician who lost the California governorship to a white opponent in 1982 despite having led in virtually every pre-election poll. It appeared that a significant number of people had lied to poll-takers for fear of appearing racist.
On the one hand, it is easy to believe that something similar may be at play this year. It isn’t hard to imagine some people not wanting to admit they plan of sexual assault. to vote for a racist bully like Trump, just as some Californians two generations ago feared being seen as racist if they didn’t support Bradley.
On the other hand, as large as California is, it is one thing for the Bradley Effect to swing a state election and another thing entirely for it to swing a nationwide vote.
This brings us to the second, more important question. What will happen if Trump loses the election but refuses to concede? The first, and simplest, answer is that it will not matter much.
Close contests
A candidate’s refusal to acknowledge his or her loss of an election neither changes the result of the vote nor does it automatically leave the final result open to question. If the vote in a particular state is close the losing candidate can usually request a recount. Indeed, some states mandate recounts for especially close contests. But once a winner is formally declared, court challenges are difficult to mount, even if the loser refuses to acknowledge defeat.
So will a Trump claim that the election was stolen resonate? That depends. If Trump is denied the presidency because a state or two went to Clinton by razorthin margins then you can be sure many Republicans will rally behind him. If Clinton wins close to 400 out of the 538 electoral votes and a popular vote margin of 9 or 10 points (meaning she beats Trump by something like 10 millionplus votes) and Trump starts ranting that he will fight in court because the media and the establishment were always out to get him and the election was never a fair fight... that will convince few people other than his most ardent fans.
For the vast majority of Americans who do not get their news from hardcore right-wing sources this may come down to how the media treats a defeated but unbending Donald Trump.
Trump’s remarks at the final debate were shocking, but unless next month’s voting produces a situation similar to the Florida recount of 2000 — the presidency hanging on a few hundred votes in a single state (or two) — it is hard to imagine a situation where unhappiness on the losing side crosses the line into widespread anger and uncontrollable civil unrest.
Four years ago, US President Barack Obama beat Mitt Romney by 4 points and roughly five million votes. That night Donald Trump sent out a string of tweets calling the election “a total sham.” He wrote: “We should march on Washington and stop this travesty”.
Both the media and the broader public paid little attention. Partly, of course, because Trump was not a candidate, but mostly because he was both obviously ranting and, in claiming the election had been rigged, obviously wrong.
The question that looms over November 9th is: will the media — and the less blinkered among Trump’s followers — display similar maturity if confronted with a similar result?
Gordon Robison, a longtime Middle East journalist and US political analyst, teaches political science at the University of Vermont.