NATHAN TRACEY
The Democratic primaries in 2019 and 2020 were an interesting spectacle, taking place against the backdrop of the divisive office of Donald Trump, with many candidates trying to position themselves as the ‘anti-Trump’ option. If anything, the process showed that Trump has maintained a tight grip on the media and the Democratic establishment. All networks and debates have featured questions relating to him, his policies, or his election chances. In total 29 major candidates announced their candidacies for the primaries, the largest field of candidates since 1972. Some candidates, such as Andrew Yang, announced their candidacy in November 2017. The front-runners in the race included Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Beto O’Rourke and Pete Buttigieg. One late entrant, Mike Bloomberg, took a controversial stance by not campaigning in the early voting states of New Hampshire and Iowa, instead focusing on states that announce their result on Super Tuesday and later, such as Texas. He spent over $1bn of primarily his own money on TV and radio adverts, although a scathing debate attack from Elizabeth Warren over his many NDAs with previous female employees helped sink his campaign. There were initial high hopes amongst supporters of Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders, with Buttigieg narrowly winning Iowa and Sanders winning New Hampshire. Many thought this could spell the end for Joe Biden, until the 29th February 2020 when Biden won South Carolina. From this point on he won 11 states in Super Tuesday, particularly with thanks to the large volume of support for him amongst African American voters. In the following weeks, most major moderate Democratic candidates dropped out and endorsed Biden. Despite this, Sanders gave him a run for his money, winning large states such as California. Eventually he suspended his campaign in early April when the necessary number of delegates were pledged to Biden to secure the nomination
As a former Vice President, Joe Biden entered the campaign with high name recognition. His choice of running mate, Kamala Harris, came as somewhat of a surprise. He had previously declared that he would choose a woman, but it was thought he might choose Elizabeth Warren to balance the ticket more effectively. Whilst Harris has one of the most progressive voting records in the Senate, she has only held the position for four years, and certainly did not share the more liberal approach of the modern Democrats as a prosecutor and Attorney General in California. Thanks to his polling advantage, and learning from the mistakes of the 2016 Clinton campaign, Biden took a much more offensive approach to his later campaigning, with a mixture of broadcast talks from his Delaware home and socially distanced ‘rallies’, targeting narrow Republican and potential ‘purple’ states such Texas and Florida, although we now understand that this was wishful thinking with Trump securing stronger support in these areas than was predicted.
President Trump did not appear to be campaigning on new promises, and for the first time in their history, the Republican National Convention did not select a new party platform for the election, carrying the previous one over. President Trump’s rallies were a point of contention given the COVID-19 pandemic but appeared to have worked in rallying his support. It was clear Trump would need to hold many of the Rust Belt states that he had taken from Clinton’s expected Blue Belt in 2016 to win, such as Wisconsin and Michigan. His path to the presidency would have been cut short even sooner had he lost Florida or Texas too, so these states were contested heavily. In the Rust Belt Trump clung to his record on the fossil fuel industries and continued with his sustained attacks against Biden on his opposition to fracking and fossil fuel usage.
Public trust and faith had been, quite justifiably, damaged in relation to opinion polling. Trump had managed to grab the 2016 election out from underneath Hilary Clinton, despite her narrow lead in the polls and victory in the popular vote, so when the media gave Biden a 10-point lead, scepticism was high. For those Democrats who trusted the polls, election night and the ensuing days were an agonising watch as Trump began securing his path to the White House with Texas, Florida and initially much of the Rust Belt falling his way. Despite this Biden was able to crawl back, and even set records by winning states like Georgia in the Deep South and reclaiming the Rust Belt states that Trump had gained a foothold in.
In terms of an October surprise, the COVID-19 pandemic has been one of the most disruptive and damaging events in an election cycle. It arguably brought down the Trump administration through its brutal impact on the economy, Trump’s main prior success. It also amplified some of the ‘controversial’ practices we have seen throughout the election, such as early voting and mail-in ballots. While state officials and researchers have shown that increased usage of these methods to vote has not enabled election fraud, it has allowed Trump to claim that there was, and sow doubt around the validity and integrity of the 2020 election.
The results for the election eventually came in late November as the states of Nevada, Georgia and Pennsylvania took longer to count the remarkably close election. Joe Biden won with 306 Electoral College points to Trump’s 232. In terms of the Congressional election, the Democrats suffered losses in the House, holding 222 seats to the Republicans 212. It was quickly realised the importance that Georgia would play in the Senate election, with neither candidate in both senate elections winning a majority, leading to two run-off elections as laid out in Georgia law. The race was incredibly close and decisive, determining the effectiveness of the coming Biden administration by potentially granting him a senate majority with Kamala Harris as the tiebreaker. In the end, both run-off elections were won by the Democratic candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, with narrow majorities of 51.28% and 50.7% respectively. Georgia featured a record turnout from the African American population, with some arguing that this helped to turn the state blue. The last time this happened was in 2000. The Presidential election also featured the largest turnout ever, with Biden receiving the most votes of any President with 81,283,485 votes, 51.4% of the vote. From this we can conclude that this was a contentious and hard-fought election, motivating record numbers to participate who might normally not. In the end the Senate is now a 50/50 split; however, as Vice President Kalama Harris can cast the tie-breaker vote, giving Democrats control of the Senate, initially thought to be unrealistic in this election and potentially allowing Biden to push through a lot more of his agenda, such as climate action and a $15 federal minimum wage.
As soon as early voting began, a measure taken by many states to increase voter turnout due to the impact of the pandemic Trump was contesting the validity of the election and clashing with top state election officials. His arguments ranged from people voting twice in certain swing states to rigged voting machines. Since the election, Trump has lost almost 60 cases in courts around the country as he contests the results. He also demanded that Georgia election officials ‘find’ 11,780 votes, one more than Biden won the state with, in order to win him the state. He held press conferences claiming that he won the election and rallying his supporters against the legitimate election process. This culminated in a march on Washington DC planned on the 6th January this year where Trump supporters claimed they would show their opposition and bring it straight to lawmakers as they were about to certify the electoral college results. There were a number of objections in Congress, such as those from Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri. They also held speeches rallying the Trump supporters and continuing the claims of fraud and malpractice. As the protestors gathered, Trump made a speech declaring he would ‘never concede’ and called for Mike Pence to overturn the election during the certification. He incited his supporters to ‘walk down to the Capitol’. From there, rioters were able to beat the police line and make their way into the Capitol building. Offices were looted and the Chambers of Congress were stormed as Congresspeople were evacuated by Capitol Hill police. This was the first time the Capitol building had been invaded by a hostile force since the war of 1812. Five people died because of the riot, including Ashli Babbitt, a Trump supporter who was shot climbing through a barricade and died later in hospital, and Brian Sicknick, a Capitol Hill police officer who died in hospital following injuries sustained during the riot. Eventually the Capitol building was retaken by heavily armed police and the electoral college votes were certified after the objections of various Republican lawmakers were dismissed. Since the riots and invasion, Trump has been impeached by the House of Representatives for a second time on charges of incitement of insurrection.
Biden is to be inaugurated on the 20th January as
the President. The inauguration takes place under a much more sombre tone than
normal. Up to 20,000 armed national guardsmen have been stationed around the
Capitol and White House and fences have been erected with the expectation of
more unrest. It symbolises a deep upset within American politics and puts on
full display the complete polarisation and hatred that now transcends party
lines. Donald Trump has made clear that he will not be in attendance, instead
flying out to Florida for his final dramatic appearance as President. Mike
Pence’s office has stated that he will be attending and will congratulate Biden
on the victory. This is not the last we will hear of Donald Trump. The
impeachment hearings in the Senate are likely continue for many months; the New
York Attorney General is pursuing legal action against Trump in relation to potential
tax evasion and it is rumoured that he will create his own media platform. This
could cause serious problems for a future Republican party as the Republican establishment
attempts to recover from the Trumpism that threatens to rip the party apart and
could haunt future elections for years to come.
Bibliography
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/06/us-congress-meets-certify-2020-election-result-what-will-happen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_storming_of_the_United_States_Capitol#Donald_Trump's_speech
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/20000-guardsmen-armed-now-inauguration-security/story?id=75223833
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/08/us/politics/police-officer-killed-capitol.html
https://www.ft.com/content/92cea3b6-cc1e-4238-8166-d457d350a412
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/r-i-p-gop-how-trump-is-killing-the-republican-party-187581/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries