‘Winning US Elections Depends On One Determining Factor’
- 5.11.2024, 18:43
- 4,954
The degree of confrontation is very high.
During the elections of the 47th US president — who will be either Democrat Kamala Harris or Republican Donald Trump — the decisive factor will be the mobilization of the electorate, believes Alexander Leonov, executive director of the Penta Center for Applied Political Research. On air at Radio NV, he explained how this will determine the winner of the race:
— In the US, there is a fairly high level of trust in government bodies, because citizens vote by mail and understand that the secrecy of the ballot will be preserved (there are special procedures for this), and there will be no falsifications.
And now, despite the tension, despite the fact that in the United States there is a fairly serious... probably not a split, but the degree of the elections is very high. There are both objective and subjective reasons.
One of the subjective reasons is that Donald Trump, we understand, is either going to the White House, or, with a high degree of probability, may end up behind bars. And that is why the principle is: either all or nothing.
And for Kamala Harris, this is also quite a big challenge, since she joined the campaign quite late. And now we see that Donald Trump is investing heavily in his campaign, the same Elon Musk is simply pouring money, and sometimes this even has signs of voter bribery. American law enforcement agencies are not just talking about this, they are starting an investigation.
That is why the mobilization of the electorate will now be at a very high price. This will be decisive, everyone is talking about this. Whenever there is very serious [competition], candidates are on the same level, then the one who can bring their voters to the polling stations wins.
And we see that Kamala Harris is trying to do this by attracting stars — Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga. They held concerts and urged their fans to go vote. They say that when Taylor Swift spoke out in support of Kamala Harris and posted a link to register for the elections, literally within a few days more than 400 thousand Americans registered. These are most likely young Americans who have decided to go to the polls.
The important point is that, firstly, there is a clear distribution. About 60% of young America is ready to vote for Kamala Harris. And Donald Trump has the greatest support among older people. This is a sign not only of political division, but also a question of the modernization of the country: young people speak out and vote for new trends, and older people are afraid of these trends and try to vote for a conservative.
And we see that Donald Trump is not just a conservative. Sometimes he even crosses all the boundaries that are the tradition of American politics, American elections.