01 Jul The column by Miguel Ángel, July 1st, 2020
What if it is true that Trump is going to lose the elections?
Polls say outright that Trump will lose the election next November, and they say so because he doesn’t have to lose much of what he surprisingly won in 2016 to lose the upcoming elections. Just by losing in some key states that he won by the bare minimum, he would lose. Therefore, was Trump a better candidate than he has been president or is it that the Americans were not prepared for a woman to be the most powerful person on the planet? What the polls didn’t say, but now they do, is that Republicans are likely to lose the Senate too, and perhaps the key is who will Biden elect as vice president.
By Miguel Ángel Temprano
CEO Orfeo Capital
July 1st, 2020
Reading time: 5:20 min.
It seems like a century ago, but it was only three and a half years ago that Trump became the most powerful man on the planet. During a frigid January morning, he took office on the steps of the Capitol as president of the United States, despite having obtained the worst electoral results in terms of popular vote in the history of the United States. And they were even worse than those obtained in George W. Bush’s first victory – that which was elucidated after three ballot counts in the state of Florida and Bush lost the popular vote against Gore by a slim margin. In contrast, Trump lost him by more than 2.5 million votes.
The now president won in the most unsuspected way possible. He lost overwhelmingly in the popular vote, but won in three key states, alt-hough by a majority of less than 1%, less than 100,000 votes, which in American population terms is puny. It was in three states, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, which during the previous four presidential votes had recurrently voted Democrat.
In both elections Obama, a politician with no relevant previous experience, beat the Republican candidate in these states by an average of more than eight points. And in the first of those elections the Republican candidate had all the ballots to be a winning candidate, John McCain. He was a war hero who became a prisoner of the Vietnamese for a long time, a senator of prestige and a moderate politician.
“Obama won in three states of white majority despite being a politician with no previous relevant experience and, at least in the first contest, fighting against a white candidate, a war hero, a prestigious senator and a moderate politician: McCain.”
It coincides that in these three states of the American Northeast the white population represents approximately 7% more than in the rest of the states of the Union. Thus, we can conclude that despite the racial problem that, with reason, is often talked about, the white population voted for Obama in the majority of the two elections he run for president.
I write all this only to explain and demonstrate that the standard voter in these three states is a Democrat voter.
So why did Trump win in these three states? The explanation can be found in the few affections, not to mention hatred, that Hilary Clinton caused. Hilary lost by a large majority in all the counties of these three states except in the large cities, such as Detroit, Philadelphia and Milwaukee.
This leads us to wonder if the problem is that the American voter is not yet ready for a woman to sit in the oval office.
A few days ago, one of the largest opinion poll companies in the world, Gallup, did a large survey on the acceptance and rejection a candidate would cause by his primary conditions. The results indicated that a woman, as such, would not cause more rejection than acceptance. The same thing happened if the candidate was of color, homosexual, Catholic or even Islamist. There was only one condition that did cause more rejection than acceptance and that was whether any of these were socialists. The survey revealed that neither sex, nor race, nor religion, nor even sexual orientation were cause for rejection when choosing a president, only their political orientation.
“A recent wide political poll showed that the American people would not currently discriminate on the basis of race, sex, religion, or sexual condition. The only type of candidate that a priori would generate more rejection than acceptance is the one who claims to be a socialist.”
Therefore, we should not look for any other rea-sons as to why Hilary lost in these three states after a very long time being Democrats. She was simply not liked to be the premier Democratic candidate.
A society as conservative as the American, and more so in rural counties, preferred to vote for a candidate with all kinds of sex scandals than for Hilary Clinton. But if you dig a little deeper, the people responsible for Trump’s victory were the women themselves. They did not vote for Trump but stayed at home and their vote was lost. Sub-sequent studies noted an average 1.44% drop in the female vote in these three states. Enough for Trump to win. (1)
The morning after the elections that Trump won, I received multiple calls from colleagues who tried to explain how the policy of the incoming administration was going to follow and at the end of all the calls I simply replied the same thing: “I’m sorry, but I think you are wrong. This man (Trump) is there because of an accident in history, because the Democrats have chosen the worst possible candidate. This man does know nothing about anything, nor does he have any strategy at all.”
“Trump sits in the chair of the oval office not because of his experience or strategy, but because of an accident in history.”
Two and a half years after these comments, I had the opportunity to read the latest book by one of my favorite authors, the journalist Bob Woorward, well-known among other things for being one of the journalists in the Watergate case. In that book entitled Fear, he narrates the follies of the most powerful man on earth, where his collaborators have to withdraw his documents so that he does not carry out actions with unpredictable consequences. For my part, stop counting when 23 collaborators were dismissed or resigned in just 20 months of administration. That does remain at his side one of the most macabre characters in the world economy. A character without a defined administrative charge who acts as a plenipotentiary presidential advisor, and the voice that is whispered to Trump of the highest conspiracies, Peter Navarro.
Polls carried out since the mid-term elections, and very contrary to what we usually hear in the press, do not predict that Trump will win the next elections, but quite the opposite, although it is true that until barely 60 days ago they were within the margin of error. (2)
To lose the elections on the next November 3rd, Trump only has to lose in Pennsylvania and Michigan, two of the states where he won by less than 1%, even if he repeats victory in all the other states in which he won. At the time of writing this column, Trump would not only lose in these two states, but also in Wisconsin, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Arizona, states in which he won on the previous elections. And polls indicate that in many of them the expected result is outside the margin of error.
Erratic decisions and explosive statements on issues as sensitive as the pandemic, racism or police brutality may not have led to loss of votes, since it has a very stable base of loyal followers, but it has caused a large portion of voters who did not plan to vote to do so, and do it against him.
The American election system is complex and difficult to understand, since the electoral votes that correspond to each state in question is not assigned to each candidate as a percentage based on the vote received. On the contrary, all of them are entirely assigned to the candidate who wins.
Meanwhile, Democratic candidate Biden re-mains confined to the Delaware state home, watching his enemy’s tower collapse.
And if Biden wins, what should we expect? Well, it depends on what areas. Biden is a veteran senator, with experience and knowledge of Europe.
But let no one believe that he is a leftist, because he is the antithesis to it, as demonstrated by his action. He will face the Chinese and the Russians, but most likely in a much more subtle and diplomatic way than Trump. And it is very likely he will recognize the status of Europeans as allies and friends, which has been evident for decades, although he will demand many of the things that Trump has been demanding.
But while I long ago anticipate Biden as the next president, the past two months have brought me a surprise. Up to now I discounted that Congress would remain in the Democratic hands and the Senate in the Republican hands, but the latest polls are beginning to turn the tables in the upper house.
As the reader will know, senators are elected to six-year terms, but the chamber is renewed by thirds every two years. With the renewal next November, it is foreseeable, or so the polls say, that the Democrats lose the position of Alabama, but regain that of Maine, Colorado and Arizona. So everything would depend on the results in North Carolina. In all cases the polls are out of the margin of error, but the question lies in North Carolina, where the polls, while winning the Democrats are still within the margin of error.
All seems to indicate that the Democrats will win North Carolina, therefore would be a tie for 50 seats for each party, and in the case of a tie, the President of the chamber has to vote, and it corresponds to the vice president of the nation. Thus, if Biden wins and the polls on the Senate are correct, the Democrats would take over both, the executive and the legislative, being able to carry out 100% of their program.
“Most likely part of the next legislature will be decided in North Carolina. If Democrats win the Senate seat, the legislature will be one way, if not, it will be the other.”
And on what does North Carolina depend? Fundamentally from the mobilization of the female, and especially African-American, vote. And do you know how I think Biden is going to approach this problem? by electing a black woman as Vice president. And she is called Kamala Harris.
Kamala Harris is from California, a Democrat senator with Jamaican origins who was a state attorney. She has been a pre-candidate in these elections and retired to support Biden.
No matter, we will see the solution in no time, because the final sprint has already started.