Today it “cool” is to be apocalyptic and nihilistic. Thinking about what is best for society and the world is considered naive. But beyond attitudes and inclinations regarding political circumstances, it is important to observe the facts.
The reality is that the presidential election in the United States is very close today, and most likely will be until the day of the final vote.
They will be the “pendulum” states—I like this figure better than the “hinge” or “swing” used to talk about the swing statesthose who can vote Republican or Democrat—those who will define the election.
Listed by their electoral weight, Pennsylvania (19 electoral votes), Georgia (16), Michigan (15), Arizona (11), Wisconsin (10) and Nevada (6) will be the states that will define the election. All of them were won by Biden in 2020, although by very tight margins.
Today in those states Donald Trump leads the voting intention polls. This explains why many analysts declare him a clear favorite to win the election.
However, in a close election, everything counts.
Biden is a president with very low approval, he is seen too old for the position, inflation overshadows his economic results and many people belonging to racial minorities (African Americans, Latinos and Asians) are abandoning him because they have not seen much that favors them directly, beyond rhetoric. Added to this is the migratory crisis on the border with Mexico and the indignation of thousands and thousands of young people over the role of the United States in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict (Netanyahu’s radicalized government can hand victory to Trump).
At the same time, it seems that Democratic voters have already resigned themselves to Biden being their candidate, keeping in the drawer the caps and noisemakers that they would have liked to use when nominating new leaders and this is beginning to be seen in the polls where the popular vote is already in a technical tie.
Various analysts are beginning to identify that the Biden campaign is moving forward with a well-defined strategy and generating surgical messages aimed at voters that can make a difference. For example, this spot aimed at women in Arizona where a deeply restrictive law has just been passed regarding to the right to abortion or this other one addressed to Pennsylvania industrial workers
Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s campaign is stuck in the New York courts, where this week the selection of 12 jurors and 6 replacements began who will issue their verdict at the end of the day.
This case—which for the first time has put a former president of the United States in the dock—is the most “Light” of the 4 criminal trials and a total of 91 charges he faces correspond to illegal money used to pay Stormy Daniels to hide his extramarital affair.
Everything indicates that his lawyers have managed to kick the can down the road and prevent trials for inciting the insurrection at the Capitol, for pressuring the Georgia electoral authority to commit fraud and for taking souvenir to his Mar-a-Lago residence confidential documents could be carried out after November 6, election day, although this remains to be seen.
It is true that all these accusations and legal entanglements were very useful for Donald Trump to win the Republican nomination, as they helped him play the role he likes most: that of “victim of the system.” By gaining the support of the Republican base that completely sided with him to defend him from “an injustice,” the candidacies of his main rivals never took off (first Ron DeSantis and then Nikki Haley).
The verdict of this trial will not have a seismic impact on voting intentions, but in an election that will be defined on the margins it can tip the balance in the pendulum states. Especially since these will be defined by a few percentage points or even tenths of a point (as happened in 2020 with Wisconsin, Georgia and Arizona).
Trump’s electoral base is titanium, but not enough to win, so he needs to attract independents and the few moderate Republicans who still exist, for whom voting for a criminally convicted person is not much to their liking.
Furthermore, the Trump trial with its enormous load of media coverage is a double-edged sword for his aspirations. On the one hand, it will continue to be in the center of the spotlight, sucking up all the attention mainstreambut on the other hand he will not be able to campaign in those pendulum states that could give him victory.
For the doomsayers of cooked rice and inevitable misfortunes, it is important to highlight that, in the United States presidential elections, pizza has not yet even entered the oven.
