America chooses
Ethnic divisions will play a major role
The United States, in less than three weeks, will face one of its most consequential and polarised presidential elections since World War II. The winner will not only determine the character of the world’s most powerful nation but also the shape of 21st century international order. The contest — between the incumbent, a far-right Republican, and a middle-of-the-road welfarist Democrat — takes place in a country that leads the world both in terms of the number of Covid-19 cases and the number of deaths from the pandemic, and is riven by renewed unemployment, inequality, and racism. Though Joe Biden leads Donald Trump in the polls by a substantial 17 points, predicting a winner can be a tricky exercise, given the vagaries of the Electoral College, as the 2016 election demonstrated.
Some pointers can be found in a recent study of where Americans stand on the eve of the 2020 elections, by Bruce Stokes, a respected fellow of the German Marshall Fund, a think tank. On key issues Mr Trump, who has never crossed the halfway mark in job approval ratings during his tenure, leads his rival by just one percentage point only in terms of the handling of the economy. On foreign policy, handling the Covid-19 pandemic, and bringing the country closer, Mr Biden leads by nine, 20, and 17 per cent. These opinions are consequential principally on account of the evolving ethnic composition of the electorate. Since 2000, the non-whites — the Hispanics, Blacks, and Asians — accounted for 76 per cent of the growth in the US electorate. Significantly, though the margins vary widely, the proportion of the non-white voters is rising in key swing or battleground states such as Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona (Mr Trump led in all six in 2016). These are precisely the sections hit hardest by the pandemic, racism, and unemployment. And, as a recent poll of the Indian community showed, the bulk of these voters lean Democrat (more than half the white electorate leans Republican). Though these ethnic dynamics suggest that Mr Biden holds the upper hand, the fact is that these states, and those ruled by the Republicans, tend to raise the bar on qualifications for voter registration to exclude precisely these groups. And the latest data suggests that the Republicans appear to have overtaken the Democrats by a significant margin in voter registration.
Globally, if the world’s major countries had a vote, with the exception of Russia, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and North Korea, they would elect Mr Biden the unequivocal winner. This may also be the first time that the Indian foreign policy establishment may be hoping for a Democrat winner since Mr Trump’s erratic policies on H1B visas and trade have hit India’s exports. Here, however, the outcomes may be less clear-cut. It is possible that Mr Biden, should he win the White House, will reverse Mr Trump’s deleterious actions on immigration, H1B visas, the climate change agreement, Iran nuclear deal, and Trans-pacific Partnership. But it is unclear whether he will back down quite as much on tariff barriers. True, he has been a professed free trader throughout his political career but he will have to balance competing interests among corporate supporters seeking tariff cuts, and a stable relationship with China, and labour union backers seeking job protection, a key issue in red states. The future of the world depends on America’s choice, too.