The 2024 U.S. presidential election witnessed a head-to-head confrontation between two polar opposites, nearly twenty years apart.
On the one hand, there is the Democratic Vice President, who replaced the elderly President Joe Biden on short notice in July this year – 60-year-old Kamala Harris could become the first woman to lead one of the world’s major economic and military powers – and on the other hand, there is 78-year-old former Republican President Donald Trump, who left the White House in 2021 in the midst of a chaotic campaign. On the other side is 78-year-old former Republican President Donald Trump, who made a spectacular political comeback after leaving the White House in 2021, escaping two impeachment proceedings in a chaotic situation, and being convicted in a court of law. Whatever the outcome of this historic vote, it is expected to have a crucial impact on the US and the rest of the world.
It’s a tight race, it’s a final push.
Ahead of the polls, Emily Hunt and Donald Trump put their final touches on a tense and anxious campaign in Pennsylvania on Monday. Both rivals are confident of victory, but in reality, the competition is fierce: just a few tens of thousands of votes could determine the outcome of the election. Those votes will be contested in seven clear swing states where the two contenders for the White House have been campaigning aggressively for months, spending hundreds of millions of dollars. Polls show Trump with a small lead in four states, Hershey with a small win in one, and a tie in the other two. But in all seven states, the gap between the two candidates is within the margin of error. Among these seven states, Pennsylvania has the most electoral votes. The U.S. is a federal state with indirect universal suffrage, where a candidate can be elected with a majority of the 538 electors, i.e., at least 270 electoral votes.
The quadrennial U.S. elections provide a window into American politics, economics, and society. This unusually heated campaign highlights a number of political stakes, and clearly shows the views and differences between the Democratic and Republican candidates.
After three years of high inflation, purchasing power has become a major concern for many Americans. During his presidency, Trump has lowered tax rates for the wealthiest and corporations, and this time he has promised to impose tariffs of more than 10 per cent on all imports, as well as to make the US the ‘Bitcoin and cryptocurrency capital of the world’. Georgette Hershey, on the other hand, presents herself as a middle-class candidate who wants to create ‘an economy of possibilities’. She promises to provide birth tax credits, support homeownership and promote entrepreneurship. And undoubtedly the most sensitive issue in this campaign is the number of illegal aliens in the country, which has peaked under President Biden’s leadership. Trump has promised to launch the largest deportation of illegal immigrants in U.S. history. Hershey is on the defensive, saying that she will adopt a tough policy and that there must be ‘consequences’ for those who enter the country illegally.
The United States is the most important global actor and the only country with a truly global foreign policy. And when it comes to foreign policy, everything pits Georgette against Trump. The campaigns are taking place at a time when wars are raging in the Middle East and Ukraine, and the positions of both candidates are being scrutinised by certain groups of voters. While both support Israel’s right to ‘self-defence’, the vice president has tried to strike a balance by highlighting the suffering of the Palestinians in his speeches. Trump, on the other hand, argued that the United States has never been so disrespected in the world, and that he has always said he would resolve the conflict without delay, but he has never explained how. In addition, Trump has condemned Washington’s huge funding of Kiev since 2022. In contrast, Geoffrey Hogan promised that she would ‘stand firm in support of Ukraine’.
Failure to Introduce Mandatory Voting Creates Greater Uncertainty
Although it is the American electorate that will be voting, the outcome of the election will have a bearing on the direction of the turbulent international relations landscape over the next four years. The election was seen as one of the most hotly contested in U.S. history. The presidential candidates of the two major parties have been mobilising until the last minute, but have not been able to pull away from each other, and no polls have dared to predict which candidate is likely to win. This stalemate means that the end of the polls on 5 November may not necessarily be the end of suspense, and months of intense campaigning have raised fears of a repeat of the chaos of the 2020 presidential election, especially if there is a repeat of the storming of Capitol Hill on 6 January 2021 that shook the world. The stalemate between the two presidential candidates is naturally the biggest cause of uncertainty in this election. The special characteristics of the U.S. election voting system magnified this uncertainty, laying the groundwork for possible post-election disputes.
As we all know, the presidential election in the United States is a referendum, but not a direct election. The electors vote for the electors in each state. The number of electoral votes won by the two presidential candidates determines their respective victories. And while the number of electors in each state is certain, the principle is winner-take-all, which means that if the votes for Trump are in the majority in one state, then all the electors in that state should, in principle, support Trump. But the total number of electors in the 50 states is 538, which is an even number, not an odd number. This does not rule out the possibility that the two candidates will have absolutely the same number of electoral votes and each will win by 269 votes. According to the Constitution, if this were to happen, each state would be voted on in Congress by a single delegate of the electors who won the majority, meaning that the candidate who won at least 26 votes out of the 50 elector delegates in each of the 50 states would win. However, up to now, this has never happened in contemporary American history.
A hundred years ago, Australia introduced mandatory voting. Unlike Australia, the U.S. does not mandate voter participation in elections. Experts say this can be attributed to the fact that Americans don’t like to be told what to do; individual civil rights and liberties are fundamental to the U.S. Bill of Rights, and individual freedom determines much of the political dialogue in the United States. Gergich, a political expert at the Centre for American Studies at the University of Sydney, says that mandating citizens to vote might be considered very un-American from a political culture perspective. Like Australia, all states in the US except North Dakota require voters to register before going to the polls. In Australia, federal elections are regulated by a national body, the Australian Electoral Commission, and during general elections, each US state is allowed to specify its own rules about what forms of voting are allowed, how people should register to vote, and so on.
How will Australia’s future be affected?
The world’s attention is focused on the U.S. election polls, which concluded on Tuesday (Wednesday AEDST). Undoubtedly, it was an election with huge implications for the US, and the two presidential candidates have very different visions for the next four years. Given America’s enormous global influence, the impact of this election will also extend far beyond national borders. The United States is Australia’s most important military ally, one of its major trading partners, and its most important diplomatic partner in the Indo-Pacific region. Michael Freelove, a scholar of public and international policy and executive director of the Lowy Institute, a leading Australian think tank, says Canberra is nervous about who will be the next president of the United States. After all, the outcome of a U.S. election is likely to bring with it a lot of unpredictability and instability, especially if controversy arises.
AUKUS, the US-UK-Australia Trilateral Security Agreement, has been at the heart of the US-Australia defence relationship since the US agreed to share its classified nuclear submarine technology. AUKUS is a very long-term arrangement, with the first Australian-built nuclear submarine not due to be delivered until the end of the next decade. Despite her previous role as vice president, not much is known about Hogan’s foreign policy; most expect her to continue the Biden administration’s approach to some extent, including arrangements like Orcus. While little is known about what Trump will do with Orcus, there are signs that he is unlikely to scrap the arrangement altogether. And his nominee for deputy, Vance, has said he supports the Orcus agreement. China’s role in the Indo-Pacific region is a concern for both Democrats and Republicans, and Marcus already has cross-party support in the US. In terms of national defence, as a long-time US ally, Australia is investing more than ever in its defence capabilities, while gaining more influence in the US than ever before; it seems that this will not matter who is elected president.
Regardless of who wins the election, Australia is in a better position than almost any other U.S. ally to have a good relationship with the United States. Australia’s free trade agreement with the US largely provides it with stable access to the US market, as well as to many of the new US government programmes that exclude non-free trade partners, including all of Europe. However, there are also concerns that given the current return to tariffs as a trade policy, which has some bipartisan support in the US, and the US being Australia’s third largest two-way trading partner, these tariffs could have a direct impact on Australia’s local industry. In addition, the trade war could lead to a slowdown in China’s economy, which could also weigh on the Australian economy. These are all unknowns.
Final Election Results
Before this magazine went to press Wednesday night, Americans were still in the middle of the night, as states counted their ballots, and learnt that the Republican Party had gained more than half of the seats in the Senate race. The presidential electoral votes were confirmed, with Donald Trump having a solid 230 and Emily Hunt only 210 electoral votes. In the remaining undecided states, Trump is leading in many of them, and Trump’s vote share is more than two percentage points higher than Hodgkins’.
It can be said that the result of the US presidential election will not be known within a day or two, but the chances of the Democrats staying in power are not high. In other words, the world is likely to face the fact that Donald Trump is back in power. This would be a huge change for the world in flux, for Ukraine and Israel in the midst of war, and for China in the face of economic sanctions and pressure.
In the next issue, I believe we will be able to give a clearer picture.