2024 U.S. Elections
What to Expect
The Elections taking place in the United States on November 5 are not only for the next president of the United States but, in addition, for the entire House of Representatives comprised of 435 members, who each serve two-year terms. One third of the Senate is also up for election. The Senate has 100 members, two from each state, who are elected to serve for a term of six years. The U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives make up the two chambers of Congress.
State and local elections also occur as part of the same November 5 election.
Media reporting is rife with speculation about whether Harris or Trump will win the presidential election. Many media reports give an impression that Harris is the favourite but, in fact, this is not certain. It is not the popular vote which determines the outcome of an election in the U.S. but the verdict of the Electoral College where 270 Electoral College votes out of 538 are required to claim victory.
According to the New York Times News Service report, early voting exit polls for the 2024 U.S. election "show that the Presidential race for the White House is becoming a tight one."
The "U.S. presidential race appears to be hurtling toward a photo finish with the final set of polls by the New York Times and Sienna College finding Kamala Harris showing new strength in North Carolina and Georgia as former President Donald Trump erases her lead in Pennsylvania and maintains his advantage in Arizona," the NYT News Service wrote.
According to these exit polls, Harris is narrowly ahead in Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin, while Trump leads in Arizona. They are "locked in close races" in Michigan, Georgia and Pennsylvania. The results in all seven races, considered key for an electoral college win, "are within the margin of sampling error," meaning neither candidate has a definitive lead in any of them.
More than 70 million people have voted in states that have early voting, a majority of them. An estimated 40 per cent of registered voters "in the hotly contested states," have already voted, the NYT News Service says. What goes for news reporting then speculates on slight majorities for those who already voted in favour of Harris and slight majorities for those who have yet to vote for Trump and so on.
There is also speculation over whether the Democrats will keep their majority of 51 in the Senate and the Republicans their majority in the House of 221-214. The large majority of Senators up for election are expected to get re-elected. Nine races are considered significant for the Senate and lean Republican.
Twenty-two of the 435 races for the House of Representatives are expected to decide the outcome. Democrats need a net pickup of just four seats and no losses to win a majority in the House.
To generate some excitement, CNN writer Harry Enten said, "The House could flip from Republican to Democratic control, while the Senate may flip from Democratic to Republican control. If that happened, it would be the first time in over 230 years of congressional elections that the two chambers of Congress changed partisan control in the opposite direction."
However the elections to the Senate and House go, the Congress can be expected to remain as dysfunctional as ever due to the high level of factional in fighting and the fact that the system of wheeling and dealing between factions often no longer gives rise to even temporary truces.
This article was published in
Monday, November 4, 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/ITN2024/Articles/TI54461.HTM
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