Friday 30 October 2020

Will Democrat-inclined voters get up and vote for Biden?

The turnout for the US presidential election so far is breaking all records. But will all Democrat voters, or Democrat-minded voters make the effort to vote for Joe Biden? Is Biden the kind of guy who makes them all think, "oh my God, please remind me darling to vote today, we have to keep that nasty man Trump out and bring in that lovey fellow, what's he called." Biden is no Messiah but has he got enough kapow wazoom whizbang to persuade everyone to stir themselves and vote vote vote? It always amazes me how comparatively low the turnout is in US and UK elections when you know how many people are actually eligible to vote. Why is it that a lot of people either can't be bothered or deliberately decide against it. You hear the usual argument. "Oh I can't stand any of them, what's the point?" Basically what they are really saying is, "I'm not interested in politics or the future of my country, let them all go hang, they are all rotten. Just leave me alone." There are masses of people like that. There has to be, otherwise the voting turnout would be 100 per cent. But it's never 100 per cent, not in the US nor in the UK nor anywhere in the West. The only difference this time in the US election is that the pre-election turnout is staggeringly high, in some states as much as 80 per cent. If that is reflected across the whole of the country, it could be decisive. But for whom? Trump or Biden? It could mean a sudden surge in people who want to get rid of Trump or it could be a sudden surge of people who don't want Biden at any cost. I doubt it's the latter although it was definitely the case in 2016 with Hillary Clinton. Many people then decided they didn't like Hillary and voted for Trump to make sure she couldn't win, although it has to be said, and repeated, that Hillary won the popular vote by nearly three million, yet lost because of the bizarre electoral college system. The same could happen for Biden but there really isn't the same antipathy towards him as there was for Hillary. But there may well be a sense of boredom or disinterest about Biden that makes people think, "a decent guy but let's watch a box set instead". The rush to vote before November 3 may well be Trumpites who want to stick it to the Democrats.

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