Atlantic Sentinel

Tag: US Elections 2020

Presidential and congressional elections were held in the United States on November 3. The Atlantic Sentinel endorsed Democrat Joe Biden, who defeated Republican president Donald Trump. Democrats defended their majority in the House of Representatives and gained five seats in the Senate, where they split control with Republicans.

  • Trump’s Desperation and Republicans’ Shame

    Donald Trump
    American president Donald Trump answers questions from reporters in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington DC, July 18, 2019 (White House/Shealah Craighead)

    Donald Trump’s attempt to cling to power has been going no better since we last checked in. He is trying to steal the election, as I expected he would, but there are still officials, including Republicans, who care more about doing the right thing than humoring the president.

    • Election officials in all states counted all the votes, despite cries from Trump and his supporters to stop the count in states where he was ahead before mailed-in ballots could be counted.
    • Secretaries of state and governors, regardless of party, certified the results in all states, despite appeals from Trump and his supporters to overturn the popular will where the outcome was close and appoint electors for the president, rather than Joe Biden.
    • 86 judges of both parties threw out lawsuits brought by Trump and Republicans to discard postal ballots or otherwise invalidate the election results.
    • All nine justices of the Supreme Court, including the three appointed by Trump, refused to even hear a lawsuit brought by Texas attorney general Ken Paxton to overturn the election in four other states.
    • The Electoral College met in all fifty states and the District of Columbia. There were no faithless electors. Republican activists claiming to be electors in Michigan were barred from the state capitol, where the actual electors cast their votes for Biden.

    Trump’s last (legal) opportunity to remain in power will be on January 6, when Vice President Mike Pence reads out the Electoral College votes in Congress. But Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has already called on his members not to raise objections on that day. (more…)

  • Biden Wins American Presidency, Trump Refuses to Concede

    • Former vice president Joe Biden has defeated incumbent Donald Trump in the American presidential election.
    • Biden won 5.5 million more votes nationwide and an Electoral College majority by flipping Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
    • Trump has yet to concede and falsely accused Democrats of “stealing” the election.
    • Most Europeans preferred Biden, but Trump had fans in Central Europe. (more…)

  • Race Is a Poor Predictor of How Americans Will Vote

    Miami Florida
    Skyline of Miami, Florida (Unsplash/Ryan Parker)

    For years, it looked like Republicans were becoming the party of white, left-behind America and Democrats the party of upper-class whites and racial minorities.

    Tuesday’s election hasn’t upended that narrative, but it has put a dent in it.

    If you had to pick one characteristic to predict party affiliation, it would be education. The better educated Americans are, the more likely they are to vote Democratic.

    Gender is another fair predictor. Women historically vote more Democratic than men. But relatively fewer men voted for Trump this year than in 2016, according to exit polls. (more…)

  • If Trump Is Trying to Steal the Election, It’s Not Working

    Donald Trump
    American president Donald Trump boards Marine One outside the White House in Washington DC, July 31 (White House/Tia Dufour)

    More than a month ago, I warned Donald Trump would try to steal the American election by depressing Democratic turnout, discounting postal ballots, changing the outcome in the Electoral College and possibly throwing the election to Congress.

    Now that he has lost, and few elected Republicans are repeating his lie that Democrats stole the election, it seems that — hopefully for the last time — I overestimated Trump’s ability to put autocratic words into action. (more…)

  • What Biden’s Victory Means for the World

    Nguyễn Phú Trọng Joe Biden
    American vice president Joe Biden listens to a speech by Nguyễn Phú Trọng, the general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, in Washington DC, July 7, 2015 (State Department)

    Joe Biden, who was declared the winner in America’s presidential election on Saturday, would return the United States to the Paris climate agreement and the World Health Organization; rejoin the Iran nuclear deal if Iran complies with its terms; extend the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia; and end America’s support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen. (more…)

  • One Clear Verdict from 2020 is That Trumpism Is Here to Stay

    Donald Trump
    Portrait of Donald Trump in West Des Moines, Iowa, January 23, 2016 (Tony Webster)

    Former vice president Joe Biden could still win America’s presidential election, but Donald Trump’s performance in the wake of a deadly pandemic, hugely negative polls and a mainstream media almost universally hostile to him shows that cultural and political elites in the United States keep getting things wrong. (more…)

  • Close Election Result Won’t Convince Republicans to Change

    United States Capitol Washington
    The United States Capitol in Washington DC, December 10, 2019 (Unsplash/Julien Gaud)

    My hope was that Republicans would lose Tuesday’s election decisively and decide they had no future as a far-right movement. (Donald Trump’s Republican Party has more in common with the European far right than with Britain’s Conservative Party or Germany’s Christian Democrats.)

    That now seems unlikely.

    Trump and Joe Biden could be neck and neck in the Electoral College. Not enough university-educated and suburban voters, who have been trending away from the Republican Party, supported Democrats in the Sun Belt to color Florida, Georgia and North Carolina blue. (Arizona could be the exception.)

    White voters without a college degree in the Rust Belt states of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin may once again decide the outcome of the presidential election, validating the strategy of Trump and Trumpists, which is to appeal to working-class grievances. (more…)

  • What’s at Stake for Europe in America’s Election

    Donald Trump Emmanuel Macron
    Presidents Donald Trump of the United States and Emmanuel Macron of France speak in the Red Room of the White House in Washington DC, April 24, 2018 (White House/D. Myles Cullen)

    Donald Trump has consistently sided against Europe and European interests, from raising tariffs on European exports to rescinding the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces and Open Skies Treaties — which protected Russia’s neighbors — to paralyzing the G20 and the World Trade Organization to withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal, the Paris climate accord, New START and the World Health Organization.

    It’s no wonder Europeans prefer Joe Biden — from between 58 percent of Italians to 80 percent of Danes, according to YouGov.

    Beyond hope for a normalization of transatlantic relations, six key issues are at stake for Europe in the election on Tuesday. (more…)

  • Why Many Germans Hope Trump Will Lose

    Angela Merkel Donald Trump
    German chancellor Angela Merkel speaks with American president Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington DC, March 17, 2017 (Bundesregierung)

    China wants get rid of me. Iran wants get rid of me. Germany wants get rid of me.

    Donald Trump bashing Germany is hardly surprising. It has been a constant of his presidency. The once-special partnership between Germany and the United States, which already lost some of its luster in the decades after the Cold War, sunk to a post-World War II low during his administration.

    Nor is Trump mistaken. Most Germans want to see him gone — with reason. (more…)

  • The Electoral College, Explained

    New York State Capitol Albany
    Electors gather in the New York State Capitol in Albany, December 19, 2016 (New York City Mayor’s Office/Edwin J. Torres)

    Americans don’t elect their president and vice president on November 3. Rather, they elect 538 members of the Electoral College, who in turn elect the president and vice president on December 14.

    Why are elections held this way? Who are the electors, and what happens if they can’t agree on a winner?

    Here is everything you need to know about the Electoral College. (more…)

  • Biden Would Pull America from the Brink

    Joe Biden
    Former American vice president Joe Biden campaigns in Des Moines, Iowa, August 8, 2019 (Gage Skidmore)

    The rest of the free world will never look at America the same way again.

    Donald Trump’s election in 2016, coming on the heels of a disastrous Iraq War few Canadians and Europeans supported, disillusioned even the most fervent Atlanticists. The land of the free was no longer impervious to the dark forces of nativism that necessitated the Atlantic alliance in the first place.

    A restoration under Joe Biden may be unlikely. America is drawn to Asia and Europe must take responsibility for security in its own neighborhood. But four more years of Trump could shatter even pragmatic cooperation between nations that are still committed to an open and just world. Biden would pull America from the brink and rejoin the West. (more…)

  • Demographics of the American Election

    Donald Trump
    Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gives a speech in Phoenix, Arizona, October 29, 2016 (Gage Skidmore)

    Donald Trump has lost support across demographics since 2016. The president is down with white voters and voters of color; men and women; Catholics and Jews; millennials and boomers.

    National polls give the Republican an average of just 42 percent support against 52 percent for Joe Biden.

    However, because Democrats cluster in big cities, which are underrepresented in the Electoral College, Biden needs to win by 3 points nationally to have an even chance of winning the election.

    Trump’s hope is to keep his losses among four (partially overlapping) constituencies in the states which hold the balance in the Electoral College to a minimum: white voters with and without a college degree, women and Latinos. (more…)

  • American Elections Guide

    White House Washington
    Aerial view of the White House in Washington DC (Shutterstock/Vivvi Smak)

    Presidential and congressional elections will be held in the United States on November 3. Democrats have nominated former vice president Joe Biden against Republican incumbent Donald Trump. All 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 seats in the Senate will also be contested.

    Here is everything you need to know. (more…)

  • British Conservatives Shouldn’t Root for Trump

    Theresa May Donald Trump
    British prime minister Theresa May speaks with American president Donald Trump the Oval Office of the White House in Washington DC, January 27, 2017 (10 Downing Street/Jay Allen)

    Like in 2016, there are those on the British right who are rooting for Donald Trump’s reelection.

    Like in 2016, they are deluding themselves if they think the Republican will be better for Britain than his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden. (more…)

  • Trump Can’t Count on Another October Surprise

    Donald Trump
    American president Donald Trump attends a meeting in Helsinki, Finland, July 16, 2018 (Office of the President of the Republic of Finland/Juhani Kandell)

    President Donald Trump’s (not so) shocking coronavirus diagnosis had all the markings of the fabled “October surprise” American election-watchers look for every four years.

    In the world of geopolitical forecasting, you would call an October surprise a “Red Dragon”: something rare, highly impactful, yet to an extent foreseeable. This contrasts with a “Black Swan”, which comes out of nowhere.

    Trump getting COVID was certainly a Red Dragon: wandering around campaign events without wearing a mask and taking only the barest precautions, it was more surprising that it took him so many months to contract the disease.

    From the standpoint of who will win the election, the diagnosis seems to only have reinforced Joe Biden’s lead, not undercut it. Polls suggest Americans have little sympathy for the president, and his maskless bravado on Monday on the White House balcony surely won’t convince them that this is a man who takes the pandemic, and his own health, seriously.

    Could another October surprise flip the script for Trump?

    Probably not. Here’s why. (more…)