By Bethan Laughlin
It is safe to say that 2020 has been quite a year for the United States.
Joe Biden has been announced as the projected winner of the 2020 US Presidential election. The final votes continue to be counted, but with the highest voter turnout in 120 years and the incumbent President Trump claiming the race to be fraudulent, without substantive evidence of any kind, this election is showing itself to be one of the most significant in living memory.
This election has shown the highest voter turnout since the election of 1900, with an estimated 160 million people voting and a turnout rate of 66.9%, up from the 56% in 2016. This high turnout has resulted in Biden receiving the highest numbers of votes in US history, with over 76 million votes and counting. An incumbent President losing re-election has only happened ten times since the creation of the Office of the Presidency in 1789. This fact, along with the scale of turn out, Biden swinging Pennsylvania back to blue, and the first female Vice President who is also from a minority background, makes it clear that both this election and the ticket that won it is a truly historic moment.
Naturally, much of the coverage of the election has been focused on Biden’s steady gains towards victory through a commitment to a hopeful future, one that aims to undo the harm created by Trump. Vitally however, it is imperative to remember that President Trump received the second highest number of votes in history, currently standing at over 71 million. This is 8 million more than voted for him in the 2016 election. All of this amid a pandemic that continues to ravage the USA with over 10 million cases recorded so far.
The last four years have been home to a Presidency filled with legal cases, Twitter storms, conspiracy theories, extreme partisanship, allegations of Russian interference, over 200,000 Covid-19 deaths and a racial reckoning following the death of George Floyd that swept the nation. Tumultuous to say the least.
From a UK perspective, it was thought sensible to assume that Biden, with his message of reconciliation, hope and a ‘united’ less divisive United States would lead to an obvious victory. The scale of voter turnout in support of President Trump paints a different picture to this idea and what was projected in the Polls.
Throughout his campaign Biden has strived to be seen as a moderate counterweight to the extremism in language, tone and policy that has defined Trumps term. Consequently, he became the anti-Trump vote. Was this unexpected? No, and fundamentally it was successful. However, the importance of the scale of the Trump turnout should not be minimised. With over 71 million people turning out to not only support the continued Presidency of Trump, but a Republican party that has seen a gradual but vivid shift towards policies that align with Trump’s vision for America, those labelled as ‘fringe’ voters for supporting Trump in 2016 have shown themselves to be anything but.
Moving forward, the grievances and political beliefs of Trump voters should not be overlooked by a victorious Democratic Party in the coming years. Any future success from a Democratic candidate rests on those Americans who identify as Republicans feeling that their lives, hopes, fears and grievances are being respected by the President across policy formulation and debate.
The reality remains that for tens of millions of Americans, the arguable chaos of the last four years was not enough to vote for Biden. This makes one thing perfectly clear, ‘Trumpism’ and the politics it champions is by no means defeated or going anywhere fast. In fact, it shows the immense task at hand for Biden in trying to bind and unify a country that has seen itself fracture over political divides more than ever in the last four years. It almost goes without saying that this will be a difficult task. It is highly likely that the Senate will be majority Republican - although the votes are still being counted - and with a conservative majority in the Supreme Court, President Elect Biden will have a fight on his hands in his quest for reconciliation.
Bethan Laughlin