TRUMP VS HARRIS
The presidential election scheduled for Tuesday, 5th November 2024, between Republican candidate, Donald Trump, and the Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris, is an analyst’s nightmare. Polls and pundits are agreed that it is a close race and that the gap between the two candidates is razor-thin.
So confounded by how tight this high-stakes contest is that NEWSWEEK found recourse in ChatGPT some two weeks ago. Even ChatGPT was not certain. It said:”It would be a highly competitive race, but difficult to predict with certainty”.
Even more confounded is CNN’s Harry Enten. After analyzing data going back to 1972, he remarked that the 2024 presidential election is “the closest in the Electoral College that we have ever seen at least over the last 50 years”.
Yet, the race was not so tight in June. Even before the CNN presidential debate of June, 27, in which President Joe Biden performed poorly, the presidency was Donald Trump’s to lose. He led in all the polls. And without as much as a viable alternative, Americans were largely resigned to a second Trump presidency.
Enter Vice President Kamala Harris and the narrative changed dramatically. Her advent as the flag bearer of the Democratic Party brought luster to her party. It witnessed a renewed interest in the contest. It saw funds gushing into the Democratic purse. It also saw a surge in the polls for Harris. So powerful was this surge that it obliterated the gap that hitherto existed between Biden and Trump. The surge surpassed it and made the race to the White House a contest for Harris to lose.
The surge in the polls in favor of Harris was informed by the fact that she offered a sunnier and more positive outlook where Trump offered a negative one based on fear.
The surge, however, turned into a short lived honey moon, all thanks to Trump’s doggedness and the two failed assassination attempts on his life.
Apart from securing the most overall votes in the election, the race is predicated on scoring a critical minimum of 270 Electoral College votes. Overall, there are 538 Electoral votes that are up for grabs.
Five states are crucially important by virtue of the number of their electors. They are: California, 54, Texas, 40; Florida, 30; New York, 28; Pennsylvania, 19; and Illinois, 19.
In the 2024 election, seven states are thought to be in a position to swing the election either way. They are Arizona, with 11 electors; Georgia, 16; 16 votes; Michigan, 15; Nevada,6; North Carolina, 16; Pennsylvania, 19; and Wisconsin, 10. It is the capacity of these states to determine the outcome of the election that two candidates have barnstormed them a couple of times.
Following the presidential debate hosted by CBS, in which Harris was thought to have outperformed Trump, the former president has shied away from subsequent debates. Harris on the other hand, and in order to address criticisms that she refrains from rigorous interviews, scheduled a slew of interviews including with the Republican leaning Fox News.
Given that Fox News is a well known sympathizer of the Republicans and Donald Trump, her foray was viewed as entering the lion’s den. Trump has since restricted himself to the campaign trail where he thrives the most.
As the campaigns reach their climax, each candidate is pandering to all demographics and latching onto all the tricks in the game. Elon Musk, who had earlier endorsed Trump, joined him on the campaign trail.Liz Cheney, a Republican who had earlier endorsed Harris, joined the Vice President on the campaign trail. So has former U.S President, Barack Obama.
While celebrating her sixtieth birthday on the campaign trail, music icon, Stevie Wonder, rendered one of his songs “Happy Birthday”. Harris used the occasion to draw a sharp contrast between her age and Trump’s who is 78. While Harris soldiers on on the campaign trail, Tump has dropped out of a number of campaign events on account of “exhaustion”. At 78, Trump is the oldest presidential candidate in U.S. history.
Tuesday 5th November will decide how the election outcome turns out between the Amazon and the dotard.