Time is running out for President Joe Biden to change the balance of power in his rematch with Donald Trump in what will be America's most crucial election since the Civil War.
Minnesota, South Dakota and Virginia began early voting on September 20, with the first votes cast for the Nov. 5 general election just 88 days away. California's ballots will be sent out shortly thereafter, on October 7.
That means Thursday night's one-on-one presidential debate couldn't be more important, and the historic significance of the choice couldn't be clearer.
“This will be the most important election since 1860 because the future of this country as a democracy will be at stake,” said Herbert Kitschelt, a political scientist at Duke University. The New York Times.
The showdown between Biden and Trump “is an election that will ask whether this country will maintain the rule of law with an independent judiciary; whether women will be respected as independent decision-makers or will be gradually subordinated to male chauvinism embedded in religion; whether this country will continue to have free and fair elections or whether a new version of what prevailed in the South before the Civil Rights Act will be generalized to the entire country,” he added.
Why is this important: Studies have shown that presidential debates rarely sway the outcome of national elections. With a few exceptions, such as in 1960 and 1980, televised debates are often about spectacle rather than substance, and experts generally agree that the debates matter very little.
Biden will need to prove conventional wisdom wrong.
Poll after poll points to Biden vs. Trump matchup Most Americans don't want that: The Republican former president remains deeply unpopular and the Democrat has the lowest approval rating ever for a president seeking reelection.
Voters of all stripes, including many Democrats, say Biden, 81, is too old for the presidency. Trump is just three years younger, but Biden's campaign has effectively stoked the impression that he is weak, disorganized and unlikely to survive a second term, and has raised the specter of Vice President Kamala Harris, who is even more unpopular than Biden, occupying the White House.
While Trump and Biden are technically tied in national popular vote polls, the former almost always holds a small but steady lead that is directionally significant if not statistically significant.
Importantly, Trump is polling ahead of Biden in all six battleground states that will likely decide the Electoral College again. And while it's unclear how third-party candidates such as independents Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West and the Green Party's Jill Stein might affect votes in some states, most polls suggest that their inclusion on the ballot would help Trump.
Biden-Trump polls have been essentially static for months, and if, as this suggests, preferences in this contest are beginning to solidify, Biden must now shift the shape of the race from a judgement of voters to a referendum on Trump.
Thursday night's event, hosted by CNN at 5 p.m. PDT and expected to be widely broadcast by other cable and network networks, may be his last and best chance to turn the tide.
Montesquieu vs. Mussolini: The oldest presidential candidate in history, Biden is a gaffe-prone octogenarian who shows signs of physical decline, from his limp gait to his aged face.
Regardless of all this, or where he stands on specific policies, Biden stands firmly within the historical mainstream of American politics and governance. In drafting the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, the Framers drew on the work of Enlightenment political philosophers such as John Locke and Charles Montesquieu to advance the liberal democratic values of rule of law, checks and balances, and separation of powers that have governed the country for 250 years.
Trump, 78, offers an unprecedented contrast.
After his loss in 2020, Trump fought to overturn the election results. The violent attempt by his supporters to stop the certification of the election on January 6, 2021 marked the first time in U.S. history that a peaceful transfer of power did not take place. Over the past four years, Trump spread lies about the vote and was indicted by a special counsel for his actions, leading nearly three-quarters of Republicans to believe that Biden was unfairly elected.
President Trump, echoing nationalist authoritarian voices around the world, has expressed his desire and intent to rule as a dictator. What is less known is that a series of polls show that majorities of Republican voters would prefer an authoritarian president who would rule without significant interference from Congress or the courts.
On Thursday night, Trump's basic message was likely to be: “The world is out of control. I am strong. Biden is weak.”
Biden's response: “I may be an old man, but he's a crazy dictator.”
Decision maker: The timing of Thursday's debate differs significantly from recent elections because it comes so early on the campaign calendar.
One thing remains the same: The Electoral College calculation, which treats the presidential election not as a nationwide contest but as 51 separate elections, including the District of Columbia, means the election results boil down to a relatively tiny number of voters in six states.
Experts have shown that Trump has many paths to winning the 270 electoral votes he needs, and in a country divided into political tribes, the outcome in more than 40 states is all but inevitable, meaning that the remaining handful of undecided voters will decide the future of our democracy.
The battlefield is divided into the following main categories:
Blue Wall: In three consecutive elections, the 45 electoral votes of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin will determine the outcome. Until 2016, Democrats had won all of those votes in every election since 1992. If Democrats regain the electoral votes in 2020, Biden will be almost certain to win reelection if he keeps them, but losing even one vote will significantly reduce his chances of winning.
Sun Belt: In 2020, Biden surprisingly won Arizona and Georgia, and also retained Nevada, a state that Clinton had won in 2016, for a total of 33 electoral votes. Trump now has large leads in all three states, making them Biden's second-highest priority.
Stretch Status: Both campaigns claim they can flip states that have long been held by the other, such as North Carolina (16 EV) for Biden and Minnesota (10 EV) for Trump, and the weaker candidate is aggressively pursuing a win while forcing the leading campaign to spend resources on home defense.
Parliamentary districts: Nebraska and Maine differ from other states in that they award their electoral college votes by district rather than statewide, meaning the presidential election can be decided by voters in each district within each state.
Nuclear options: If the election ends in a 269-269 tie, the House of Representatives, elected in November, will choose the president. Each state has one vote, and the majority party controls. If this happened today, Trump would win because Republicans control 26 of the state's delegations.
P.S.: If Trump loses on November 5th, he and his supporters will refuse to accept the result, which will surely trigger another wave of lies of election fraud, political outrage, and the possibility of violence.
Here's the current state of each close race:
Midwest
Michigan: 16 electoral votes
2020 results: Biden: 50.6 percent, Trump: 47.8 percent
Latest poll: Trump: 48%, Biden: 46.7%
The bottom line: This is an election Biden must win, and he is hoping that the political machine of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who is far more popular than he is, can help make up for lost support among a large base of Arab American voters who are outraged by Biden's support for Israel in Gaza. Trump's appeal to black men has been increasingly successful, and could hurt Biden in Detroit.
Pennsylvania: 19 electoral votes
2020 results: Biden: 50 percent, Trump: 48.8 percent
Latest poll: Trump: 47.8%, Biden: 45.5%
BREAKING: Both candidates have been showing up frequently in the Keystone State, and the president appears to have a big advantage in local organization, but both Kennedy and Stein are poised to win votes in a state where third-party elements may have the biggest impact.
Wisconsin: 10 electoral votes
2020 results: Biden: 49.5%, Trump: 48.8%
Latest poll: Trump: 47.4%, Biden: 47.3%
Key takeaways: The Republican National Convention is in Milwaukee, where Trump recently made the gaffe by calling the city a “bad city” during a closed-door meeting. It was the epicenter of the 2020 electoral fraud plot and has vowed not to accept the results if he loses in the city where both Kennedy and Stein are likely to appear on the ballot.
Sunbelt
Arizona: 11 electoral votes
2020 results: Biden: 49.36 percent, Trump: 49.06 percent
Latest poll: Trump: 48.3%, Biden: 43.7%
BREAKING: Abortion rights will be crucial, as Democrats are likely to pass pro-abortion ballot measures after the state Supreme Court upheld an 1864 total ban. But Trump's promise to use the U.S. military to control immigration may trump this issue; nearly two-thirds of voters here approve of him.
Georgia: 16 electoral votes
2020 results: Biden: 49.5%, Trump: 49.2%
Latest poll: Trump: 48.5%, Biden: 43.7%
BREAKING: Trump's infamous call to Republican state officials in 2020 demanding they “find 11,780 votes” to overturn his loss could help Biden sue in 2024 to protect democracy, although the Atlanta District Attorney's broader lawsuit over election interference has stalled. Biden's victory four years ago came as a major surprise, but black voters are much less enthusiastic about him this time around.
Nevada: 6 electoral votes
2020 results: Biden: 50.1 percent, Trump: 47.7 percent
Latest poll: Trump: 48.3%, Biden: 43.7%
Key takeaways: The Silver State was one of the hardest hit by the pandemic, and as it has recovered slowly, many blame Biden for inflation and rising gas and grocery prices. And his stubborn insistence that “Bidenomics” has made things better is counterproductive. Trump is making inroads with Latino voters, even though a Republican hasn't won there since 2004.
Stretch States
North Carolina: 16 electoral votes
2020 results: Trump: 50 percent, Biden: 48.6 percent
Latest poll: Trump: 47.8%, Biden: 42.5%
Bottom line: One interesting reason the Tar Heel State could be competitive is that Republicans nominated homophobe and Holocaust denier Mark Robinson for governor, but Biden is competing here mainly to get Trump to spend money that would otherwise be spent in the Midwest.
Minnesota: 10 electoral votes
2020 results: Biden: 52.4 percent, Trump: 45.3 percent
Latest poll: Biden: 45.7%, Trump: 42.7%
Key takeaway: Minnesota last voted Republican in 1972, when Richard Nixon was re-elected with a landslide victory of 49 states. A Trump win here would mean a devastating defeat for Biden.
Major constituencies
Nebraska 2nd District: 1 electoral vote
2020 results: Biden: 52 percent, Trump: 48 percent
Latest Poll Result N/A
The takeaway: Trump won four of the Cornhusker State's five electoral votes in 2020, but Biden won the so-called “Blue Dot” 2nd Congressional District, which includes Omaha, which is more liberal than the rest of the state. The district could be a literal tipping point, boosting Biden's electoral votes from 269 to 270.
Maine: 4 electoral votes
2020 results: Biden: 53 percent, Trump: 44 percent (statewide)
Latest vote: N/A
Key takeaways: Trump won the rural 2nd Congressional District in 2020, giving him one electoral vote, while Biden won the state overall, including the 1st Congressional District, giving him three electoral votes. Professional forecasters are now predicting the same outcome in 2024.
