The American Presidential Elections 2020 - The Race To 270!
American
Presidential Elections - The Race To 270!
By - Lt Col D
Purushothaman Pillay (Retd)
In my effort to explain the American elections to my children in simple
terms, I have compiled this note that I will blog, in order to demystify this
complex exercise and give a basic overview that will summarize the major
terminologies and numerical aspects that are involved in this fascinating election
process. It should help the layman to understand the meaning of this famous epithet
of the American electoral lexicon - “Race to 270” which is what the election is
ultimately all about.
WHO IS THE POTUS?
Let us start by understanding the acronym POTUS which stands for the “President
of the United States”, in the American Constitution, the President is both the
Head of State and the Head of Government of the United States, who is
indirectly elected to a 4-year term by the people through the Electoral
College. The officeholder leads the Executive Branch of the Federal Government
and is also the Commander-in-Chief of the United States Armed Forces.
HISTORY
To get a perspective on the matter, it is important to briefly delve
into its history. The office of the US President was established over two
centuries ago, in 1789, since then only 44 men have served as the President
to date, even though there are 45 Presidents. The first President, George
Washington had won a unanimous vote of the Electoral College. The reason why
we have only 44 persons in the count is because of an interesting fact that
Grover Cleveland is the only President who has served two non-consecutive terms
in office and is, therefore, the only one person who is counted twice, as the
22nd and the 24th President of the United States. The 45th and current
President is Donald Trump, he has been in office since January 20, 2017.
The shortest presidency in American Presidential history is of William
Henry Harrison, who died 31 days after taking office in 1841. The longest
presidency was of Franklin D. Roosevelt who served over twelve years, before
dying early in his fourth term in 1945. He is also the only U.S. president to
have served more than two terms. Since the ratification of the Twenty-Second
Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1951, no person may be elected President
more than twice, and no one who has served more than two years of a term to
which someone else was elected may be elected more than once.
Interestingly, in its 231 years long history only, 4 Presidents died
in office of natural causes, they were, William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor,
Warren G. Harding, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, 4 others were assassinated, they
include Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley, and John F.
Kennedy and only 1 had resigned to date, and that was Richard Nixon, facing
impeachment. John Tyler was the first Vice President to assume the presidency
during a presidential term.
The party-wise list of Presidents is given below.
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Party-Wise List Of U.S. Presidents |
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S.No. |
Republican Party |
Democratic Party |
Federalist Party |
Democratic-Republican Party |
Whig Party |
Union Party |
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6 |
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8 |
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9 |
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10 |
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11 |
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12 |
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13 |
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14 |
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15 |
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16 |
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17 |
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18 |
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19 |
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Now to make a better sense of the electoral process itself, we all need
to understand the Electoral College system that is used for it. In these
elections each of the 50 states of the USA, and the District Of Columbia -
DC are allotted “electoral votes” based
on their population to make up the national Electoral College.
It basically refers to the group of presidential electors that are
required by the United States Constitution to be formed every 4 years for the
sole purpose of electing the President and Vice President of the United States.
PRESIDENTIAL
TICKET
In the United States, political parties nominate one candidate each for the President and the Vice President of the United States. These candidates attempt to win presidential elections by taking a majority of the electoral vote. The two candidates together are known as a ‘Presidential Ticket’. Like this year we have Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on the Democratic presidential ticket.
THE CITIZENS ONLY
ELECT THE ELECTORS, WHO WILL THEN ELECT THE PRESIDENT
So in effect, the American citizens cast votes for electors, and do not
vote directly for the presidential candidates themselves. Each elector
represents one vote in the Electoral College. All but two states use a
winner-take-all approach. That means the
candidate that wins the most votes in any particular state, gets all the
electoral votes from that state.
However 2 out of the 51 entities involved in the election, namely
Maine and Nebraska are exceptions to the above rule. This is because they use a
more complex district-based allocation system that could result in their
combined 9 electoral votes being split up between candidates in a variety of
variations that could range from 9-0 t0 5-4.
ARTICLE TWO
The provisions for the process to be followed for the election is
given in Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the Constitution of the United
States. Each state appoints electors selected in a manner its legislature
determines, to the Electoral College.
TOTAL STRENGTH OF
THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE
There are currently a total of 538 electors in all.
The state-wise alphabetical list of electoral votes is given below.
THE DAY OF ELECTION
Traditionally the first Tuesday following the first Monday of November is when the American voters elect
their President.
PROCESS
The election of the President Of The United States is a two-step
process. First voters cast their ballots on election day in each state, they can
also, cast their ballot by post or by early in-person vote, this will then elect
the electors who will form the Electoral College that will formally choose the
President.
The 2020 United States Presidential Election is scheduled for Tuesday,
November 3, 2020. It will be the 59th quadrennial Presidential Election. The
Presidential Electors who are elected in turn will vote on December 14, 2020,
to either elect a new Democratic President and Vice President or reelect the
incumbents Donald Trump and Mike Pence respectively.
STATE-WISE LIST
OF THE ELECTORAL VOTES IN DESCENDING ORDER
Let us now take a look at the number of electoral votes of the
different states and their ranking in detail.
It is followed by Texas which has the second most electoral votes with
38.
The states of Florida and New
York has the third most electoral votes with 29 each.
Illinois and Pennsylvania with 20 each round off the 6 most important states
that have over 20 votes each. Their consolidated total of 191 votes accounts
for 33% of the total votes.
So in the run to 270 if a ticket gets these 6 states they would have 191 votes or
70% of the target, and then they require only another 79 votes to be elected.
So technically if a ticket wins the 79 votes from the next 5 states in
the ranking, that is Ohio-18, Georgia-16, Michigan-16, North Carolina-15, and New
Jersey-14 they win the elections. The total of the top 11 states is exactly
270. So 11 states make up the winning 50% of the votes, while the rest of the 40
constituents total up to 268 only.
The bottom 34 states out of the list of 51 have a weightage of 10
votes or below. The total number of seats that they add up to is 199.
So here is a comparison that puts into focus the sharp disparity in
weightage between the states. The top 11 states add up to 270 and allow the
candidate to win by crossing the 50% halfway mark. Whereas the bottom 34 which
is 3 times the number of states with a total of 199 votes accounts for only 34%
of the total.
So it is of primary importance to get as many of the top 15 states to
be in a comfortable position.
RED STATES AND
BLUE STATES
Since the Presidential elections of 2000, the moniker ‘Red States’ and
‘Blue States’ refer to states of the United States whose voters predominantly
choose presidential candidates either the Republican Party identified as Red or
Democratic Party identified as Blue. The term, therefore, differentiates between
states being perceived as Democrat and those perceived as Republican.
Actually, all states contain both liberal and conservative voters, they
are the voters in "Purple" but then they end up appearing Blue or Red
on the electoral map because of the winner-take-all system used by most states
in the Electoral College. This perception of some states as "Blue"
and some as "Red" was reinforced on noticing a degree of partisan
stability from an election to election analysis from the base-year 2000. Psephologists
had found that from the elections of 2000 to the election of 2004, only 3
states had changed their color. A detailed study of the pattern of voting in
the 4 election cycles until 2016, found that 37 out of 50 states have voted for
the same party in every presidential election, that made a compelling case for categorizing
and identifying the various states in Red or Blue colors, hence it’s introduction
into the electoral lexicon.
LIST OF
TRADITIONALLY RED STATES
There are a total of 22 states that can be considered as traditionally
Red they are as follows:-
Alabama-9, Alaska-3, Arizona-11, Arkansas-6, Georgia-16, Idaho-4, Kansas-6,
Kentucky-8, Louisiana-8, Mississippi-6, Missouri-10, Montana-3, Nebraska-5,
North Dakota-3, Oklahoma-7, South Carolina-9, South Dakota-3, Tennessee-11, Texas-38,
Utah-6, West Virginia-5, & Wyoming-3
The cumulative total votes from these states are 180
LIST OF
TRADITIONALLY BLUE STATES
There are a total of 21 states that can be considered as traditionally
Blue, they are as follows:-
California-55, Connecticut-7, Delaware-3, DC-3, Hawaii-4, Illinois-20,
Maine-4, Maryland-10, Massachusetts-11, Michigan-16, Minnesota-10, New
Hampshire-4, New Jersey-14, New Mexico-5, New York-29, Oregon-7,
Pennsylvania-20, Rhode Island-4, Vermont-3, Washington-12 & Wisconsin-10
The cumulative total votes from these states are 251.
SWING STATES
The term “Swing State” or “Battleground State” in the American
elections, refers to any state that could be won by either the Democratic or the
Republican presidential candidate by effecting a swing in the voting pattern.
The poll strategists of both parties target these states, for hectic last-minute campaigning in the hope of gaining the favor of the voter by their rhetoric.
This becomes imperative especially in a polarized and highly competitive
election such as the current one.
There are no permanent members in this list because in every election
different states come into play as likely swing states. For the 2020 elections, the political pundits have identified these 10 states with 179 electoral votes,
as the likely swing states, therefore whichever ticket wins a majority of them,
will most likely end up victorious.
These states are Arizona-11, Florida-29, Georgia-16, Iowa-6, Michigan-16,
North Carolina-15, Ohio-18, Pennsylvania-20, Texas-38 and Wisconsin-10.
Out of the above list, the most crucial are these 3 “toss-up” states of
Florida-29, Georgia-16, and Texas-38 with a total of 83 crucial votes.
BELLWETHER STATES
In electoral politics, the term “Bellwether State” applies to describe
a state whose election results in favor of a particular party, predicts the
eventual victory of the ticket at a national level. So generally a victory in a
bellwether state is indicative of a final victory, it is not sacrosanct, as is
evident from the many misses listed.
Ohio has maintained a perfect record of predicting winners from 1960
The 6 American bellwether states with respect to presidential
elections with less than 3 misses are as under:
Ohio – 2 misses 1944 & 1960, perfect since 1964. Currently the longest
perfect streak.
Florida – 2 misses 1960 & 1992.
Nevada – 3 misses 1908, 1976 & 2016.
Missouri – 3 misses 1956, 2008 & 2012.
New Mexico – 3 misses 1976, 2000 & 2016.
Tennessee – 3 misses 1960, 2008 & 2012.
The winner of the 2020 presidential election is scheduled to be
inaugurated on January 20, 2021. If elected, Biden would become the oldest
person to serve as President at 78 years old on the day of his inauguration,
and the first candidate to defeat an incumbent president in 28 years since
Democrat Bill Clinton defeated Republican George H. W. Bush in 1992. In
addition, his running mate Harris would become the first woman to serve as
Vice-President. This is the first Presidential Election in which both the major
candidates are over 70.
As I blog this note, the American voters are lining up to cast their
ballots and select a ticket to lead them for the next four years. In these
uncertain Covid times they seem to have realized that it is very important to
make a prudent choice of leadership for their wellbeing. I am positive armed with
the information that I have given in my commentary above, it would make watching
the ‘Race To 270’ live on the news channels tomorrow very interesting. As the results
will start to pour in the map will slowly get filled with color, let us see
what pattern emerges and who ends up victorious. The choice of Americans will
have global repercussions so for the sake of humanity I hope a good choice is
made by them. Personally, I get a gut feeling that we are going to witness a historic
landslide victory that will be talked about for years to come.
Finally, I am appending below a link a friend of mine had sent to me, this is amusing as it allows us to play “The Race To 270”. Let us also have some fun in the process!!
https://classroommagazines.scholastic.com/election/interactives/race-to-270.html
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