Election 2024: Will the United States Follow or Buck the Anti-Incumbent Trend?

Two thousand and twenty-four was rude to headlines around the world.

“the mother of all elections” saw UK voters send the Conservative party to power. In June, the African National Congress lost its parliamentary majority in South Africa for the first time. Japan’s long-dominant Liberal Democratic Party lost its majority in an election just two weeks ago. French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to call early parliamentary elections this summer has backfired spectacularly. The three parties in Germany’s ruling “traffic light coalition” each received the thumbs down from voters in critical state elections last month.

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The Diamonstein-Spielvogel Project on the Future of Democracy

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Elections and voting

Will the United States be another country to see the current administration go down in defeat?

Water’s Edge

James M. Lindsay examines the politics that shape US foreign policy and the sustainability of American power. 2-4 times a week.

At first glance, Kamala Harris should be able to buck the trend. Voters say the economy is their main problem. While the British, French, German, Japanese and South African economies are all struggling, the US economy is booming. The Commerce Department reported earlier this week that GDP growth it was 2.8 percent in the third quarter. Unemployment is near record lows. The stock market is at a record high. Inflation has cooled. Overall, the US economy appears to be active a historically good run. Like a Wall Street Journal title I said yesterday, “The next president inherits a remarkable economy.”

Americans, however, see things differently. Large majorities tell polls that the economy is bad. Equally large majorities say the country is pointed in the wrong direction.

This disillusionment explains why the election remains a nail biter like the race enters its final four days. republicans they seem confident that a close race is actually good news for Donald Trump. Polls in 2016 and 2020 grossly underestimated his actual levels of support. Add in the fact that undecided voters often defect to the challenger in the final days of an election, and it’s easy to see why the Trump team believes he will become the first president since Grover Cleveland 132 years ago to win non-consecutive terms in office. .

Democrats fear a repeat of the polling mistakes of 2016 and 2020. But they hope the 2024 polls will eventually repeat what happened in 2022. Then the polls underestimated the level of popular support for Democratic House candidates. What should have been a red tsunami that would propel Republicans to dominance in the House became a red filter that left them with a precarious majority.

More about:

United States

The US election

The Diamonstein-Spielvogel Project on the Future of Democracy

2024 election

Elections and voting

No one knows today whether 2024 will look more like 2016 and 2020 or like 2022. Pollsters have been busy modifying their methodologies this year to correct their past errors. They might get things more or less right this time. Or maybe, by solving a problem they have introduced others. And, as is often overlooked, poll numbers come with a margin of error. All of the current poll numbers in the battleground states are within their margins of error. Given that Electoral College votes are a winner-take-all process in all but two states, even small polls miss it could mean an irregular election result.

That means almost anything could happen next week. The votes could break for either Harris or Trump in all the battleground states, making one of them a clear and convincing winner of the Electoral College. Or 2024 could be so close that recounts and lawsuits become inevitable, potentially producing a protracted political and legal dispute that goes beyond the 2020 divide.

So will the United States follow or buck the global anti-incumbency trend? The honest answer to four days is that everyone is guessing and no one knows. In elections, just like in movies, sometimes you have to wait until the end to find out how things turn out.

Campaign update

This afternoon, over 68 million Americans they have already voted. This represents almost 43% of the voter turnout four years ago. Be suspicioushowever, about drawing any conclusions about who will win based on reports of partisan and demographic composition of the vote so far. No one knows who the early voters are supporting or who will or will not show up on Election Day.

Supreme Court he ruled six to three on Wednesday that the Commonwealth of Virginia may remove approximately 1,600 names from the state’s voter rolls that it suspects are not citizens. Two lower federal courts have ruled against Virginia, saying voter registration polls come too close to Election Day. The court did not explain its reasoning. The immediate impact of the decision is limited. Virginia has same day registration. Therefore, any citizen whose name was incorrectly deleted from the voting lists can still vote.

Government officials warn that foreign interference in elections grew up and probably will continue after election day as the votes are counted. Some of the efforts involve cyber attacks intended to disrupt the vote. Other efforts involve disinformation and disinformation. For example, local election officials in Pennsylvania identified a fake video showing mail-in ballots being destroyed in the Keystone State. Federal officials AWARDED video to a Russian disinformation campaign. More will follow.

What the candidates are saying

Harris and Trump tried this week to make their “closing arguments.” Harris spoke at a rally Tuesday night on the National Mall. It focused first on her argument that Trump “is not a presidential candidate who thinks about how to make your life better. This is someone who is unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with discontent and seeking unchecked power.”

The vice president mentioned foreign policy but broke no new ground. It he repeated his vow to “strengthen, not teach, America’s global leadership.” She also argued that “America’s alliances keep the American people safe and make America stronger and safer” and that “autocracies support Trump.”

Trump held a rally at Madison Square Garden in New York. He focused first about his intention to “make America great again” and how “in less than four years, Kamala Harris has destroyed our middle class.”

When he finally turned to foreign policy, he repeated his earlier vows to make overseas manufacturers “pay a very high tariff,” to “end the war in Ukraine, which would not have happened never if I were president’ and to ‘stop the chaos’. in the Middle East and to prevent World War III.”

That Harris and Trump both mentioned the world beyond America’s borders but didn’t lead with it or dwell on it highlighted that in 2024, as in most presidential elections, foreign policy doesn’t influence how they vote most people. But while 2024 was not a “foreign policy election,” the stark differences between Harris and Trump on how the United States should operate abroad means that the outcome of the election will have a major impact on US foreign policy.

What the experts say

The Financial Timesthis is alec russell took a deep dive in what a Trump foreign policy might look like. What he concluded can be gleaned from the title of his story: “Trump’s Foreign Policy Plan: Embrace Unpredictability.”

The results of next Tuesday’s election matter not only for the United States, but also for the rest of the world. So it’s no surprise that people around the world are debating how the outcome will affect them. My colleagues at the Council on Foreign Relations asked tank leaders and scholars from AfricaTHE Americas, Europeand middle east to weigh in with their thoughts. Their responses show that assessments of the likely impact of the election vary depending on who wins and the region or country requested.

My colleague Lisa Robinson argument in Foreign affairs that a Harris victory next week “would be consequential, perhaps even transformative.” That’s because her election would “strengthen those who fight against tyranny” and “quiet lingering doubts that women are equipped to make decisions about war and peace.”

What the polls show

Pew Research Center EXAMINATION what Americans think about how well the 2024 election will go. Democrats (90 percent) are much more confident than Republicans (57 percent) that the election will be very, or somewhat, well. This gap, which is eleven percentage points higher than in 2020, indicates that Trump would have substantial support among his supporters for a second “stop the theft campaign” should he lose again by a moustache. If the election goes to trial, only one in five Americans is confident the US Supreme Court will be a neutral arbiter.

Campaign schedule

Election Day is four days away (November 5, 2024).

Electors will meet in each state and the District of Columbia to cast their votes for president and vice president in forty-six days (December 17, 2024).

The 119^th The US Congress will be sworn in in sixty-three days (January 3, 2025).

The US Congress will certify the results of the 2024 presidential election in sixty-six days (January 6, 2025).

Inauguration Day is eighty days away (January 20, 2025).

Oscar Berry helped prepare this post.