22 Nov Analysis of election results in the US mid term
The 6th of november 6, midterm elections were held in the United States. These elections have been clearly different from those held on other occasions, always in the middle of the presidential term. And I say that they have been different for who is sitting at the head of the first world power in every way, the economic, the military and especially the influence.
We interviewed Miguel Ángel Temprano, CEO of Orfeo Capital.
“Trump’s defenders and detractors have given these elections a different character from the real one. They have given him the character of a plebiscitary ”
So much so, that the president himself embarked on a real crusade, visiting constant cities throughout the country and in the same way the Democrats embarked on this work to President Obama. Never and until now a former president had embarked on a similar work in this way. Both facts certify the involvement of both parties, Democrats and Republicans, in a mobilization of the vote with a clear additional purpose to the real, to elect senators and / or congressmen, to validate the controversial policies of President Trump.
Voting mobilization has had no comparison in previous midterm elections. The increase in voting with respect to the previous ones has been 12 points, that is, 34% more Americans left to vote that day. And even if we compare them with the midterm elections with more mobilization, they have surpassed them by more than eight points. All of the above gives it the plebiscitary character described.
It has been said repeatedly that it has not been a republican victory, but not a defeat. I do not share that opinion. I think it has been a resounding defeat, especially if the results are analyzed in terms of presidential elections.
Trump has already lost, and clearly did, the 2016 presidential elections. He lost by more than three million votes. Never has a president won the elections losing them in popular vote by such a number of votes Trump governs thanks to a very complex American electoral system, based on assigning a series of electoral votes to each state and that these are taken completely by the winner in that state, without being distributed proportionally to the votes cast by the electors.
For those who do not know this system, I will give an example. The state of New York is assigned 33 electoral votes of the 538 of the electoral college, which are distributed among the 50 states of the Union. If a candidate obtains a single vote more from the electors than the other, the 33 electoral votes are not distributed almost equally, but the winner takes the 33. It will seem unfair, but it is the system that has been used since the founding of the Union. Target English I don’t know if now it makes sense or not, there will be opinions of all tastes, but at the time it made perfect sense. Well, thanks to this system of distribution of electoral votes Donald Trump arrived at the White House.
Therefore, it does not seem very logical that we focus on analyzing the electoral results only if they have won or lost the congress or the 35 senator seats at stake. The popular vote has lost it, but it is already lost in 2016. I think the logical thing is that we make a reading in terms of whether or not I would keep the chair of the White House.
If we analyze what happened in the last five presidential elections, that is, since those held in the year 2000, we see that only in 14 states of the 50 that make up the Union has there been a political color change in any election. In other words, in 36 states the candidate of the same political, democrat or republican party has always won, depending on the case.
Of those 14 states, three of them have always voted Democrat, except in the last three elections, which voted Republican. These are, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Trump won by a meager majority of 1.15% in Pennsylvania, 0.78% in Wisconsin and 0.25% in Michigan. In Michigan the difference was 22,748 votes, 15% of the votes that were awarded to other outsiders. These three states grant 52 electoral votes, which, if Trump had not obtained them, would have lost the elections.
If we see what happened in these three states, the Democratic victory in these midterm elections has been overwhelming. The Governor, the Senator and the sum of all the votes cast in the districts for the Congress have won. And they have won by eight to ten points apart. That is, a victory without palliatives. Additionally, seeing the number of votes cast within each state to each of these elections, we see that it is very similar, that is, the voter of a party has mostly voted for the representatives of that party, without clearly distinguishing the names . This is another demonstration of the plebiscitary nature that voters have also conferred on the 2018 elections.
It is true that, despite all the percentage of votes cast in the last presidential elections, it was higher than in these, but if the mobilization continues in the next presidential elections in 2020, and the percentage of votes increases until the one issued in the previous presidential elections , the Democratic candidate will only need one in three new votes cast to win in these three states. This will lead to winning the elections to the Democrats, and that despite the fact that they continue to lose critical states like Florida or Ohio.
Republicans would only be worth recovering states that, despite having voted as a Democrat in the last elections for President, at some point would have voted for the Republican candidate, such as New Mexico, Virginia, Colorado or Nevada, but the results of these last elections They don’t anticipate any of that.
Well, what do the Democrats lack? Only one candidate that causes no more rejection than acceptance, as happened with Hilary Clinton in the last elections. In these elections, women have voted 20% more democratic than Trump won, and that despite the fact that the candidate was a woman.
“To the Democrats only one candidate who does not cause more rejection than acceptance, as happened with Hilary Clinton”
Another fact that the Democrats must take into account is that their candidate is not very radical of lefts, although that radicality is understood in American terms. That radicality would lead Trump to win again for sure. And that candidate is called Bernie Sanders.
But Democrats should not dig much. They have in their ranks the ideal candidate. Known, moderate, experienced and accepted. The Vice President with Barack Obama, Joe Biden. Biden did not appear for the elections given the recent death of his wife, but now he is letting himself be loved and can be the white horse of the ass party.
And what to expect from Trump in these two years? In my opinion more radicalism in their positions. The Democrats will attack him throughout his waterline with constant commissions from Congress. And they are going to restrict the vast majority of the measures you would like to take. This, together with its irascible and unpredictable character and with what I think is going to be a petition reading by the most radical voters, will lead us to see a Trump in his most belligerent part.