The US electoral campaign enters the final stretch. Unsurprisingly, the poll war generates all kinds of analysis, but one thing is clear: Biden continues to lead, with a comfortable margin in the national averages (+ 7% according to the renowned Monmouth University survey) and wider margins than Hillary Clinton had in 2016 in each of the key states like Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona. And a close fight ensues in states like Ohio or North Carolina, and incredibly, in Republican strongholds like Georgia or Texas.
Another clear fact is that Trump’s approval ratings are historically low, compared to any incumbent President in history during their reelection campaigns, with a solid 56% rejection of his administration, according to the prestigious Gallup pollster. And all this occurs in the context of the public health crisis of COVID-19, which is aggravated by a lack of government responses and an economic recession that hits the middle and working class, small businesses and, with special harshness, to the Latino and Afro-American communities, smaller in number, but proportionally greater both in contagion and deaths from the virus and those affected by the recession. To this must be added a very high volatility in the stock markets, which translates into juicy speculation opportunities for those who have more resources, liquidity and credit to operate in this privileged space of the economy.
In the line of clear data emanating from the polls, we find that, the greater the electoral participation, the wider the advantage of Joe Biden. An example of this is the Latino vote. Nationally, Biden leads the Hispanic vote, with levels averaging close to 60%. In Nevada, a recent Equis Research poll places Biden at 66%. The competitiveness of Biden’s campaign in Arizona, where he leads by 4-6 points (never before seen for a Democrat), as well as his competitiveness in Texas, has to do with the support of Hispanics.
In Florida, Trump has managed to optimize the support of the Cuban-American electorate in Miami, above the support that Obama or Clinton achieved between 2008 and 2016 … but the Hispanic electorate in Florida is much wider than just the Cuban vote or that of Venezuelans, the latter still being a minority, but both very palatable in a contest of narrow margins like those that usually occur in Florida. But the reality across the state, according to Equis Research and Latino Decisions, is that Biden has the support of 53% of Latinos in Florida, with 7% undecided voters, and Trump is 37%, among those sure to vote. To conquer those undecided and to increase participation, Joe Biden himself focused his campaign this week on the I4 highway corridor (Tampa-Orlando-Kissimmee), where the new great Latino electoral force in Florida is concentrated, the Boricua vote. Biden was accurate in his message, with proposals for the social and economic recovery of the island, saying something that, in addition to being fair, according to polls more than 80% of the most recently arrived Puerto Ricans expected to hear: “My personal preference is for Puerto Rico to be a State. It is up to the Puerto Ricans to decide its sovereignly and we must correspond that decision in a binding way at the federal level.” Simply put, the Biden-Harris administration is committed to Puerto Rico’s path to statehood.
The Puerto Rico statehood issue (as well as Washington DC’s) is a good bridge to connect with a crucial issue: the Senate and parliamentary elections. The admission of a new State to the Federal Union requires a legislative act of Congress, according to the so-called Admission Clause of Article IV of the Constitution. The House of Representatives appears, according to all polls, likely to remain under the control of the Democratic Party, despite the complex network of “gerrymandering,” which offers greater electoral profitability to Republicans. Poll averages indicate that generic support for the Democratic party is at 48%, with a 5.7% advantage over the Republican (located at 42%). The models suggest a projection according to which the Democratic fraction would add 214 seats, against 190 Republican representatives.
The battle for the Senate is a different matter because only 35 of the 100 seats are at stake in this election. On this occasion, the Democrats defend 12 seats and the Republicans 23 (the opposite happened in 2018). The current correlation of forces in the Senate is currently 53 Republican Senators, 45 Democrats and 2 independents (Bernie Sanders and Angus King, although both are incorporated into the Democratic fraction). Democrats would have to win 4 seats to control the Senate; and as often happens, there are states where the election or reelection of a Democrat or a Republican is taken for granted, leaving the fight for the Senate limited to a group of 13 states, where at this time 4 states stand out in which the Democratic opponent maintains a solid lead against the Republican who is seeking re-election: North Carolina, Maine, Arizona and Colorado. Only one possible Democratic casualty is seen in Alabama. And possible new Democratic conquests (in a fight as close as it is unusual) in one of the following states: Iowa, Montana, South Carolina and one of the two Georgia seats. An interesting detail: in Arizona, of course the Latino vote is large, but in the other disputed states, although the Latino contingent is still a minority, ranging from 3 to 7 percent of the electoral population, the differences are so closed that a high Latino turnout would favor Biden and could determine a Democratic victory on the entire ballot. The models (taking into account the effect of the concurrent presidential election and the unpopularity of Trump) allow to project a 50/50 or 51-49 Senate in favor of the Democrats. According to the Constitution, the Vice President of the United States presides over the Senate and only has the right to vote in the event of a tie in any decision of the Senate. In other words, in the polarized political environment of the United States, the current California Senator Kamala Harris, if elected Vice President, would be a historic figure for decision-making in the next constitutional period.
Tough battles are coming in the Senate. From the admission of Puerto Rico or DC as states of the Federal Union, the expansion of Obamacare, energy transition policies and budget for environmental sustainability, immigration reform with a path to citizenship, the introduction of reasonable federal regulations on weapons or automatic rifles to prevent violence, reform of the judicial system to solve the scourge of systemic racism or the approval of budgets that allow adequate investment in infrastructure or quality of the educational system, as well as access to higher education. Without going into speculation about the highly probable new appointments of magistrates in the Supreme Court or the Federal Courts.
As can be seen, many fundamental questions are on the table. All of special relevance to Latinos. And given the role that the Senate plays in all this, and even the possibility that it is the Vice Presidency of the United States that contributes the vote that decides all these matters in the Senate. As Latin American citizens who believe in change, we are very clear on the compelling reasons for going out to vote.
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