Trump and the US electoral system
By Maria-Cecília Costa
The 2020 Presidential election in the United States (US) is only a few weeks away. As the media coverage of the candidates increases, comparisons to the 2016 Presidential election are almost inevitable. This seems like a good moment to revisit the talk given by Lakkana Nanayakkara in a 15x4 Munich event in 2018 (https://youtu.be/lOg8ovbWVGg). Lakkana was a doctoral researcher at the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich (LMU). He has been following US politics for most of the 21st century and was particularly interested in the 2016 Presidential election.
You might be wondering why is this topic relevant to us, the general public outside the US. Well, the US is still the biggest economic and military power in the world and the actions of its president have global ramifications. Donald Trump is a deeply polarizing figure both within the US and internationally. Although he is very popular in some countries, such as Israel, he is deeply unpopular in other countries, such as Mexico. Therefore, it is not surprising that his victory was a seismic shock to the global political order.
His victory was especially surprising giving the predictions of opinion polls. According to FiveThirtyEight, a website that focuses on topics such as opinion poll analysis and politics, his opponent, Hillary Clinton, had a 71.4% chance of winning. The New York Times newspaper predicted even higher chances of winning for Clinton (85%). However, Trump won comfortably.
He received the majority of votes in the Electoral College, but lost the popular vote. If you are confused, be sure that you are not alone. Understanding the Presidential election process in the US is not trivial. Let’s take a quick look at it.
The US has a quite unique presidential system. France also has a presidential system. French citizens vote for two or more candidates and the one who gets the most votes becomes the new president. This is not how it works in the US. Instead, the new president is chosen by “electors” through a process called the Electoral College.
Understanding the US electoral system
According to this process, each Electoral College represents a number of votes, which are roughly based on the population of each state. When a candidate wins the most votes in a state (even by the slightest margin), they win all the electoral votes for that state (the exceptions are Nebraska and Maine). A candidate needs 270 out of the 538 Electoral votes to win the election.
Another important aspect of the US Presidential election is the presence of the political parties. The US has two major political parties: the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. The Republican Party is represented by an elephant and by the color red. The Democrats are represented by a donkey and the color blue. Traditionally, the US has “red states”, where the Republican Party often wins, and “blue states”, where the Democratic Party often wins. In general, the west coast and most of the Northeast heavily support the Democratic Party. The biggest blue state is California, with 55 electoral votes. On the other hand, the south and most of the Midwest heavily support the Republican Party. The biggest red state is Texas, with 38 electoral votes.
The states without a clear majority are called “swing states”, “purple states” or “battleground states”. The biggest swing state is Florida with 29 electoral votes. Swing states have roughly equal numbers of supporters of the Republican and Democratic parties. You might already have guessed that, to win the US Presidential election, it is important to focus on the swing states. It means that presidential candidates spend most of their time, money and resources campaigning in these states. In the 2016 Presidential election, Trump won in the swing states of Michigan and Pennsylvania by 0.23% and 0.72%, respectively, while Clinton won in New Hampshire and Minnesota by 0.37% and 1.52%, respectively.
Trump’s success in 2016
He had two paths to win the presidency: either concentrate on winning the south-west states of Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico or concentrate on winning the Rust Belt states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia. Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico used to be swing states, but, in recent elections, they became increasingly Democrat leaning. This is due to the growing Hispanic population in these states. Trump’s tough rhetoric on building a border wall and deporting illegal immigrants was not popular within Hispanic immigrants, so it was unlikely that he would win those states. He thus concentrated on winning the Rust Belt. The Rust Belt used to be the economic heartland of the US, with several factories, coal mines, and steel works. However, in the past few decades, the Rust Belt steadily lost manufacturing jobs. Then, Trump blamed immigrants for the steady erosion of jobs and promised to bring back these jobs. He also promised to get rid of unfair trade deals, such as NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), and environmental regulations, which, according to him, restricted economic growth.
His strategy worked and it became clear that the opinion polls failed to consider some important points. They underestimated Trump’s support in the Rust Belt and heavily overestimated the Democratic turnout. They guessed that the Democratic turnout in 2016 was going to be the same as 2012. However, african-american turnout in particular was much lower because most african-american voters were reluctant to vote for Clinton. Also, there was certainly a lot of hidden support for Trump, especially amongst women. The polls estimated that Trump’s sexist rhetoric would reduce the number of women supporting him, but this ended up not happening and he won 43% of the female vote and 53% of the white female vote.
One crucial factor that helped Trump was his name recognition. He hosted the TV shows The Apprentice and Celebrity Apprentice for seven years, so he capitalized on his name recognition. To increase his name recognition even more during the campaign, he would phone into a morning show like Fox & Friends, and speak for five minutes. This gave him nationwide coverage at virtually no cost. Meanwhile, most of his presidential opponents, with the exception of Clinton, remained largely unknown to the general public.
Trump also used his Twitter presence very skillfully. Twitter suited his rhetoric and style because he could send short messages that directly reached supporters without having to go through the traditional means of communication (a.k.a. media). This way, he directly delivered short sharp messages to his supporters or anyone who was on his Twitter network without the filters of the media. He would also send controversial tweets that outraged CNN and MSNBC. They would then hold six to eight person panels and discuss the issue intensely for the whole day. With this, Trump dominated any political cycle he wanted
to. Whenever he wanted to change the topic, he would send another controversial tweet and the same process would start again.
At the end, this meant that, with the exception of Clinton, most of his political opponents did not get any media coverage. Clinton was partially able to overcome this problem because she had twice as much campaign funds as Trump. She could afford expensive TV ads. Still, she did not reach as many voters as Trump and remained unpopular.
In summary, Trump’s success can be attributed to three points. The first one was recognizing that the working-class people, especially in the Rust Belt, felt aggrieved and promising to bring their jobs back. The second point was promising to stop illegal immigration and restrict legal immigration. The third one was skillfully using Twitter to reach his supporters directly and increase his name recognition.
Soon, the results of the 2020 US Presidential election will reveal if his choice of strategy worked as well this time.
If you want to know more about the US politics, check out this talk given at a 15x4 Munich event by Lakkana Nanayakkara on https://youtu.be/lOg8ovbWVGg.
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