Changes ahead

The US presidential election is just days ahead and a historic voter turnout is already being witnessed in the most populous states. This unprecedented increase in turnout is threatening Trump’s ambition for a second tenure in the Oval Office. A record 77 million have already voted, more than 50 percent of the total votes cast in the 2016 elections.

At stake is not just the presidency; the US Senate which the Republican Party has controlled for the past eight years is also at stake. Exit polls show many sitting Republicans are vulnerable to their Democratic challengers. The Democrats need four Senate seats to claim a majority in the most powerful branch of the US federal polity. It may be noted here that without a majority in the Senate, Joe Biden, even if he wins the Presidency, will not be effective in terms of implementing his policy agenda, and to reverse Trump-era policies which he and the Democrats oppose.

A likely Democrat takeover of the Senate is fueled by multiple factors including an anti-Trump tide across the country; a far more serious reason is actually the changing demography within the American society. The Republican base, the white voter ratio among total eligible voters has been on a steady decline in the past two decades. Since 2000, the percentage of white voters has declined from 76 percent to 67 percent; a nine percent decline is seen as a game changer for decades to come.

The rise of white supremacists is widely seen as a reaction to the demographic changes. Non-white voters continue to register growth across the country; the single largest immigrant group is the Hispanic speaking population who now have surpassed African American voters. Hispanic voters’ ratio is at 12.7 percent followed by African Americans at 12.5 percent. Indians are the third largest voting bloc with 4 percent (total population 4.2 million, with 1.9 million registered voters), and the remaining three percent are others including Asians, Pakistanis, Arabs, Iranians, African immigrants and the rest of the world.

Hispanics and African Americans are over 25 percent of the US population but their representation in Congress is less than 5 percent. That jolt is yet to come to the Republicans if they do not come to terms with changing demography.

Trump has annoyed the key voting bloc by his divisive politics, anti-immigrant rhetoric, border wall ideas, and not offering any substitute to Obama Care (if the court strikes down Obama Care, 20 million people will be deprived of federal healthcare support). It is estimated that between 61 million and 133 million people have pre-existing medical conditions which private insurance will not cover. Sadly, Republicans who side with insurance and pharma companies have not proposed any healthcare plan as part of their election agenda in the past 25 years. Trump hardly mentions in his campaign speeches the plight of people with preexisting health conditions. One of the reasons behind the rise of Bernie Sanders was his bold take on health coverage. Bernie attacked big pharmaceutical companies and private insurance businesses, which makes billions of dollars in profits, Trump and the Republicans have remained silent.

Except Vietnamese and Cuban Americans, the rest of the Asian and Hispanic voters traditionally and with consistency vote for the Democratic Party. Trump’s 2017 policy of separating children from their families sent shock waves among Latino voters. After three years there are still over 500 children that remain separated from their families; federal agencies have failed to locate their families and reunite these children. This cruel policy has irked the Latino populace, the man in power appears to be facing the wrath of angry voters in the current elections.

One of the reasons the number of battleground states (also known as swing states) is increasing every election is the change in demography. Arizona, a red state, has fallen in the category of battleground state mainly because this is the first election that Hispanic voters are 25 percent of total eligible voters. Democrats already have won the Senate seat and are now eyeing a second Senate seat; that win would be crucial for their majority in the Senate. Georgia, a state that Democrats have not won since 1992, has 250,000 new Hispanic voters – threatening the Republican hold on the Senate. Democrats are likely to oust at least six sitting Republican Senators in Georgia, Arizona, Iowa, Maine, South Carolina and Colorado.

Historically Democrats win elections on the basis of a broad coalition forged by minorities, the progressive left and centrist Democrats. They only need 25 percent votes from White America to win back both the Senate and the Presidency. The changing demography, college degree holder white Americans, urban centers and women are creating conditions in years to come that in future elections actually will be within the Democraic Party, among centrists and the progressive left. There is not a single large city where Republicans rule, from LA, New York, Houston to Chicago and San Francisco, Democrats mayors rule. Republicans have been reduced to small towns, rural areas and suburbs.

On Tuesday November 3, if Joe Biden wins, the credit for that would go to Donald Trump; after all, he is a great mobiliser – not for his supporters but for his opponents. In 2016, Trump won with a margin in three states. This time realistic accounts suggest there will be 23 million more votes than the last elections, a much higher turnout than the much-celebrated Obama election in 2008. The change is credited to Trump, his unpopular policies and this demographic shift.

Email: mush.rajpar@gmail.com

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