The world holds its breath as results come in from the much-anticipated American presidential election. It was widely predicted by experts to be a referendum on the mercurial leadership style and controversial America First policies of President Donald Trump.
Most national opinion polls as well as those conducted in the all-important battleground states placed Democratic Party candidate and former Vice President Joseph Biden ahead of Trump, candidate of the Republican Party.
The earliest exit polls that came in from parts of the states of Kentucky and Indiana showed Trump in early lead, but that was not a surprise since both states are “deep red,” i.e. they reliably vote for Republican candidates.
Counting was expected to continue through the night Nigerian time [which was early evening in America].
This was partly because, unlike Nigeria which has one time zone, the US covers five time zones, so the polls close at different times in various zones.
Counting was also complicated by the 102m early and absentee ballots already cast before Election Day, an all-time record.
In some states, the tally was more than 60% of the entire ballots cast in the 2016 presidential election.
While some states were counting those early ballots before Tuesday’s votes were in, other states would only count them after, so it could stretch into several days in some cases.
It might come down to Pennsylvania
With the vote well underway Tuesday night, CNN analysts said it might all come down to Pennsylvania which Trump absolutely needs to win re-election.
Assuming Trump wins Florida, Georgia and North Carolina [in two of which he was slightly trailing in the polls], he must still record wins in Arizona and Pennsylvania in order to make the 270 electoral college votes needed to win the election.
In order to forestall this calculation, Biden was in the state on Tuesday, where he was born, to ensure that Trump doesn’t win it.
Biden and the Democrats’ goal was to rebuild the “blue wall” in the industrial Great Lakes region by winning Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, in addition to reliably Democratic Illinois.
Trump won the first three of those states in 2016 and with them, the election, but polls indicate that they may flip back to the Democrats this time around.
Biden was projected by CNN analysts to have a much better chance of winning those critical states, based on opinion polls.
Even if he loses Pennsylvania and Florida, neither of which Trump could afford to lose, Biden could still win Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona and with them, the election.
Those five states, together with North Carolina and Georgia, were poised to be the most important states of the American election.
Referendum on Trump
The election was billed to be a referendum on President Trump.
While most Republican voters told pollsters that they were voting to retain him, majority of Democratic voters said they were voting to oust Trump and not necessarily for Biden.
There is deep interest across the world in the US election, for different reasons.
Trump’s far right, isolationist, anti-globalisation America First policies which shunned alliances, treaties and agreements alienated most parts of the world.
For Western Europe, America’s traditional allies want an end to Trump who did not uphold the US’s NATO and other alliances.
He also crashed America out of the climate change agreement, to the dismay of most US allies.
For Eastern Europeans, President Trump’s cozying up to Russian President Vladimir Putin upset most of them.
Trump’s best known 2016 campaign promise, to build a wall on the US’s southern border with Mexico, alienated the neighbouring country and Latin America as a whole.
Nor did it endear Trump to America’s growing Latino population, majority of whom were expected to vote for Biden.
In the Middle East, Israelis support Trump who moved US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, promoted a one-sided Middle East peace process and cajoled UAE, Bahrain and Sudan to normalise relations with Israel.
He also pulled the US out of the Iran nuclear deal, despite the continued support of European powers.
On the other hand, Trump’s “Muslim ban” of immigrants from several Muslim-majority countries into the United States alienated the Muslim world.
Trump also shunned the Asia-Pacific Conference; fought a protracted trade battle with China; and he ignored Africa almost completely.
The issues
Early exit polls of American voters last night indicated that the issues of importance to them were the economy, racial justice, coronavirus, crime and security.
Even though counting in some states might continue into Wednesday or indeed many days after, the winner of the election is expected to be fairly clear in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
Unless opinion polls were off the mark for the second time since 2016, Joe Biden might emerge as the new President of the United States by Wednesday.
Explaining race calls
Why the Associated Press called Kentucky for Trump
The AP declared President Donald Trump the winner of Kentucky as soon as polls closed in the state, even though election officials there had yet to release results from Tuesday’s presidential contest.
The news agency did so after results from AP VoteCast and an analysis of early voting statistics confirmed expectations that the state’s longstanding political trends in favour of Republican presidential candidates will hold.
VoteCast, the AP’s wide-ranging survey of the American electorate, captures voters’ choices and why they made them.
Bill Clinton was the last Democratic presidential contender to win Kentucky in 1996. Trump won the state in 2016 by nearly 30 points.
Why AP called vermont for Biden
The AP declared Democrat Joe Biden the winner of Vermont as soon as polls closed in the state, even though election officials there had yet to release results from Tuesday’s presidential contest.
The news agency did so after results from AP VoteCast and an analysis of early voting statistics confirmed expectations that the state’s longstanding political trend of favouring Democratic presidential candidates will hold.
VoteCast, the AP’s wide-ranging survey of the American electorate, captures voters’ choices and why they made them
Biden’s victory in Vermont is not a surprise: Democrats have won the state in every presidential election since 1992, and it is home to former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
Democrat Hillary Clinton carried the state in 2016 by over 28 percentage points. (Independent)
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