Only 25 days left to the November 3 election, which will designate the next President of the United States. We thought a quick update could be useful.
What to remember from the debates ?
Trump vs Biden: Nothing. There was no debate. Donald Trump kept interrupting his opponent, who however managed to pass a few key criticisms about the current Administration, but nothing was said about programs. Overall, the candidates mainly exchanged insults, and the moderator looked powerless. This “show” attracted 13% fewer viewers than four years ago: does that mean they made their decisions already
Pence vs Harris: more civilized. This was a real debate and the running mates looked much more mature than their leaders. Kamala Harris knew that the Democratic ticket had a clear lead in opinion polls, and was obviously avoiding to say anything that could upset voters. She focused mostly on healthcare topics, but also clarified a few points on tax hikes and oil exploration. Mike Pence defended the President’s “achievements” and rejected the responsibility for Covid fatalities on China.
What we learnt about programs
Few details were clarified during the debates:
– the Republicans reaffirmed that they plan to keep taxes unchanged
– the Democratic camp clarified that the threshold for the tax increase on high income individuals would be 400k$
– Joe Biden does not intend to ban the fracking techniques used by the oil industry (and, by the way, wouldn’t have the power to easily do so since 90% of current drilling is carried out on private land).
The opinion polls
The gap increased to about ten points in Biden’s favor after the first debate and Trump’s hospitalization, but polling is complex in the USA because of the role of the Electoral College. As a reminder, only one of the last three Republican victories in presidential elections (Bush in 2004) was obtained with a majority of popular votes.
State polls show Biden rising slightly in many battleground states lately, but the gap is tight (less than five points on average). Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida, Arizona and North Carolina are key “swing states”.
Bettors are more certain: 64.6% see Biden winning, according to realclearpolitics.com’s monitoring.
The quotes
Biden about Trump: “He says he is smart because he can take advantage of the tax code, and he does take advantage of the tax code”.
Trump about Biden: “You could never have done the job we have done. You don’t have it in your blood “.
What’s next ?
There should theoretically be two more debates between the presidential candidates (Oct. 15 and 22) but organisers want to turn the first one into a virtual debate due to the pandemic. Each candidate would be in a different location, with the moderator and a few US citizens asking questions from a third place. Trump said he would not participate if this format was maintained.
The incumbent President continued to warn that if he loses, it will be because of frauds, and he will not accept the results until the Supreme Court validates them. This promises a confusing situation on November 3, all the more as Trump accuses vote-by-mail of facilitating fraud, and many people are using it this year. At this stage, more than six million Americans have already voted, either by mail or with the early in-person voting procedures available in most states. This is 50 times as many as in 2016.
ALF – Oct. 9, 2020