WASHINGTON-(MaraviPost)-The outcome of the US presidential election is on a knife edge, with Donald Trump and his rival Joe Biden neck and neck in key swing states.
Trump, a Republican, claimed to have won and vowed to launch a Supreme Court challenge, baselessly alleging fraud.
Earlier Biden, a Democrat, said he was “on track” to victory.
Millions of votes remain uncounted and no candidate can credibly claim victory as yet. There is no evidence of fraud.
The US is on course for the highest electoral turnout in a century. More than 100 million people cast their ballots in early voting before election day, and tens of millions more added their vote on Tuesday.
With the nation on edge, the final result may not be known for days.
What are the results so far?
Trump has defied the pre-election polls to do better than predicted, but Biden is still in the race and the overall result is not yet clear.
In the US election, voters decide state-level contests rather than an overall, single, national one.
To be elected president, a candidate must win at least 270 votes in what is called the electoral college.
Each US state gets a certain number of votes partly based on its population and there are a total of 538 up for grabs.
LAGOS-(MaraviPost)-As the whole world is looking forward to the much-awaited United States election slated for Tuesday, November 3, 2020, there are lots of political intrigues to the poll. This is the 59th quadrennial presidential election of the country.
Major issues that shape the election include Climate Change, COVID-19 pandemic, the death of George Floyd which gave birth to the Black Lives Matter protests across the world and the death of other African-Americans, pushing for the repeal of Obama Care, Economy, Faceoff with China among other issues.
COVID-19: Presently in the United States, over 9 million cases were confirmed and 231, 000 deaths recorded. It was reported that President Trump ignored experts advice and undermined the pandemic.
George Floyd’s Death: The Majority of Americans ranging from whites and black believe the President didn’t handle the killings of Black Americans with care.
Obama Care: President Trump got it wrong when he started pushing for the repeal of Obama Care which millions of Americans are benefiting from.
Climate Change: President Trump doesn’t seem to show enough concern about Climate Change.
It’s worth noting that the US election is not about the total number of votes cast or states won but satisfying the 270 or above Electoral College votes needed to win the White House.
If no candidate receives the minimum 270 electoral votes needed to win the election, the United States House of Representatives will select the president from the three candidates who received the most electoral votes, and the United States Senate will select the vice president from the candidates who received the two highest totals. The election will occur simultaneously alongside elections for the House of Representatives, Senate, and various state and local-level elections.
In 2016, President Trump won the Electoral College with 304 votes compared to 227 votes for former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. Though, Clinton won by 65,853,625 (48.0%) to Trump’s 62,985,106 (45.9%) of popular votes.
With my holistic view of how the campaigns across the country have taken shape, you would agree with me that typical Americans prefer Republican candidate, President Donald Trump while the Latino, African-American, Indian-American, and the Asian-American voters queue behind the former Vice President and Democratic candidate, Joe Biden.
While doing my state by state analysis that might give Joe Biden the victory prompted my explanation in assessing the states in alphabetical order.
The Republican party is expected to win in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana Nebraska, (Statewide), North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wyoming.
The Democratic party is expected to win convincingly in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin.
California is the home state of Democratic Vice Presidential candidate, Kamala Harris. So, Democrats are expected to win with about 60-65% while Republican struggle with 30-32% votes.
Delaware, the home state of Democratic Presidential candidate, Joe Biden. The democratic party is expected to garner about 55-60% while Republican struggle 35-40% votes
Florida is the home state of President Trump, the state and Iowa are expected to be a tight race for both major political parties. Democratic Party also is expected to win with a slim margin of 2-5% above Republican in Michigan.
In Indiana, the Republican Vice-President candidate, Mike Pence state, his party is expected to win with about 55-60% to Democratic 30-35% votes.
In Minnesota, the election in the state will be determined by the aftermath of George Floyd’s death which gave birth to the Black Lives Matter movement, Democratic party expected to garner 46-52% votes.
For record purposes no Republican has won the White House in nearly a century without winning Florida, and for Trump to win he needs the Sunshine State and its 29 electoral votes too.
In light of my above analysis, President Joe Biden is expected to win the Tuesday election convincingly.
If Biden wins the election, his victory then becomes historical. He would become the oldest person to serve as president of the United States at 78-year-old on the day of his inauguration and the first candidate to defeat an incumbent president in 28 years since Democrat Bill Clinton defeated Republican George Walker Bush in 1992.
His running mate, Kamala Harris would also become the first woman to serve as vice-president of the United States.
It’s worthy of noting that this is the first election in the history of the United States in which both major parties candidates are over 70 years of age.
About the author: Jumu’ah Abiodun, A Social Commentator, Columnist and Political Analyst from Lagos, Nigeria
President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden traded personal insults in the first 2020 presidential campaign debate held on the campus of the Cleveland Clinic at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, [Morry Gash/Pool via Reuters]
OHIO-(MaraviPost)-President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden engaged in a heated and at times ugly exchange of words in the first presidential debate of the US election.
President Trump accused Biden of being a leftist and promoting socialism. Biden openly called Trump a racist and told him to “shut up” as Trump repeatedly tried to goad Biden with interruptions.
The debate did little to illuminate the policy choices facing Americans in the election and probably did not shift the dynamic of a race in which the incumbent, Trump, is fighting from behind.
“It was awful. It was hardly a debate. What we saw was Trump being Trump which was out of control most of the time,” said Paul Beck, a political science professor at Ohio State University.
Trump recast many of his lines from the stump speech he has been giving at the airport rallies he has been holding in competitive states. “What we have heard from Trump” were the same attack lines against Biden “repeated over and over again tonight,” Beck said.
The signal it sends is Trump “thinks he is behind and he is clearly doubling down on the things he thinks will attack and undermine Biden,” Beck said.
Former vice president Biden projected an open disdain towards Trump, turning away from the president, calling him “a clown” and addressing viewers directly, saying the president is a “liar” and a “racist”.
Instead of changing the narrative of the campaign “what happened tonight turned it into a referendum on Trump,” which is a losing proposition for the president, Beck said.
At several points, Trump converted moderator Chris Wallace’s attempts to focus on policy issues into personal attacks on Biden, bringing up his son Hunter Biden’s business dealings with China and alleging he took funding from the wife of the Mayor of Moscow – all claims he has made repeatedly on the campaign trail.
Biden rejected Trump’s accusations about his son as “untrue”, but the barrage forced him to acknowledge his son’s troubles in life. “My son, like a lot of people you know at home, had a drug problem. He’s overtaken it. He’s fixed it. He’s worked on it, and I’m proud of him,” Biden said, looking not at Trump but directly into the camera.
“Trump demonstrated once again his ability to be an exponential version of himself,” said James Henson, a political science professor and pollster at the University of Texas.
“It is hard to imagine that performance persuaded anyone,” Henson said.
In an effort to “throw Biden off his game”, Trump was “disruptive beyond any precedent we have seen in a presidential debate,” Henson said.
Wallace struggled at times to keep the debate on track, repeatedly reminding Trump that his campaign had agreed to terms of the debate that gave each candidate time to state their views without interruption.
Al Jazeera debate analyst Alan Schroeder said the debate was not one “either candidate particularly wanted – nothing to feature in the presidential library”.
“Biden’s mission was to protect his lead, which he did. Trump’s mission was to move the needle, which he did not,” Schroeder said.
“The bottom line is that the first debate, to no one’s surprise, changed nothing. And that’s good news for Biden,” he said.
Given an opportunity to condemn white supremacist groups like the Proud Boys, Trump equivocated. He stumbled in his answer on global warming. And he was self-congratulatory about his response to the COVID-19 pandemic that has killed more than 200,000 Americans.
Biden leads Trump in national polls by a significant margin and he leads or is competitive with Trump in key battleground states needed to win the decisive US Electoral College.
Nationwide, Biden led Trump by 10 percentage points among likely voters in an ABC News/Washington Post survey released on September 27.
A Quinnipiac University poll released on September 23 also showed Biden with a 10-point lead over Trump, consistent with earlier polls in August.
Prior to the debate, analysts expected Trump to go on the attack.
Typically in American politics, incumbent presidents come into the debates leading their challenger “and try not to do anything to upset the trajectory of the race”, said Robert Yoon, a lecturer in politics and journalism at the University of Michigan.
This year, that dynamic was reversed with Biden in the lead and Trump having to do something to reshape the contest. Yoon expected Trump to “play the role of aggressor”.
“Trump clearly had a strategy to show he is a fighter and was not going to let attacks on him go unchallenged,” Yoon said.
But, “I didn’t really feel his debate performance did anything to win over undecided people … like suburban women,” Yoon said.
Biden at times tried to ignore Trump and speak directly to voters, Yoon said. Biden’s goal was to demonstrate he is not low energy and also avoid losing his temper. He was only partially successful.
“He did get flustered early and told Trump to shut up,” Yoon observed.
Overall, Yoon called it a “low point in American politics”.
“It was a debate in name, but it was a disservice to the voters who were watching,” he said.
DELAWARE-(MaraviPost)-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and running mate Kamala Harris have attacked “whining” President Donald Trump as an incompetent leader who has left the US “in tatters”.
The pair held their first campaign event together, a day after Biden unveiled Ms Harris as his number two.
According to BBC, President Trump hit back, saying Harris had “dropped like a rock” in her own presidential bid.
Biden will face Trump, a Republican, in November’s election.
What did Biden say?
Wednesday’s event at a school in Wilmington, Delaware, was not open to the public, with Mr Biden, 77, citing coronavirus prevention needs. Both candidates walked on stage wearing masks to address a group of masked journalists.
Biden noted that Harris, a US senator from California, was the first woman of colour to serve as a presidential running mate for a major US party.
Biden said: “The choice we make this November is going to decide the future of America for a very, very long time.”
He continued: “Donald Trump has already started his attacks, calling Kamala, quote, nasty, whining about how she is, quote, mean to his appointees.
“It’s not a surprise because whining is what Donald Trump does best, better than any president in American history.
Media captionKamala Harris’ childhood home reacts to Biden pick
“Is anybody surprised that Donald Trump has a problem with a strong woman, or strong women across the board?”
He also attacked Mr Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, climate change, the unemployment rate and “his politics of racist rhetoric that appeals to division”.
What did Harris say?
Coming to the podium next, Ms Harris said: “I am ready to get to work.”
Media captionJoe Biden: Will it be third time lucky in 2020?
The 55-year-old former prosecutor told reporters: “Everything we care about, our economy, our health, our children, the kind of country we live in, it’s all on the line.”
Ms Harris – the daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica – continued: “America is crying out for leadership, yet we have a president who cares more about himself than the people who elected him.
“He inherited the longest economic expansion in history from Barack Obama and Joe Biden. And then, like everything else he inherited, he ran it straight into the ground.
Media captionObama: Voting rights being attacked with ‘surgical precision’
WASHINGTON-(MaraviPost)-Former US President Barack Obama has sharply criticised what he described as Republican attempts at voter suppression in a speech at civil rights leader John Lewis’s funeral.
Obama said people in power were “attacking our voting rights with surgical precision” and called for wide reform.
He also decried the police killing of George Floyd and the subsequent use of federal agents against protesters.
BBC understands that Lewis died of cancer earlier this month aged 80.
He was one of the “Big Six” civil rights leaders, which included Martin Luther King Jr, and helped organise the historic 1963 March on Washington.
In a fiery eulogy delivered in Ebeneezer Baptist Church in the city of Atlanta, Mr Obama, a Democrat, launched a stinging attack on Republican President Donald Trump’s administration and some police departments.
“Today we witness with our own eyes, police officers kneeling on the necks of black Americans,” he said. “We can witness our federal government sending agents to use tear gas and batons against peaceful demonstrators.”
He said people in government were “doing their darnedest to discourage people from voting” by closing polling stations and imposing “restrictive ID laws” on minorities and students.
Media captionFormer presidents speak at the funeral of civil rights leader John Lewis
Mr Obama singled out the role of the US postal service in delivering postal votes amid the coronavirus pandemic. Earlier on Thursday Mr Trump suggested the 2020 presidential election in November should be delayed because he said – without providing evidence – that postal voting would enable large-scale voter fraud.
Mr Obama also proposed a series of reforms to voting in the US, including:
making sure Americans are automatically registered to vote
giving the vote to former prison inmates who had “earned their second chance”
creating new polling stations and expand early voting
making election day a national holiday so workers who can’t get time off can vote
He also called for people in Washington DC and Puerto Rico to have the same representation as other Americans, a long-cherished ambition of Democrats.
Washington is a federal district and so does not have representatives in Congress, but only a delegate to the House of Representatives with limited powers. Puerto Rico is a US territory that does not have representation in Congress and Puerto Ricans cannot vote in presidential elections.
Image captionMr Trump has deployed federal agents to protests in Portland in Oregon
And he called for an end to the filibuster – which requires 60 votes to pass legislation instead of a simple majority of 51. He described it as a “Jim Crow relic”. Jim Crow laws enforced racial segregation in southern states until 1965 and were used to disenfranchise black people.
“If all this takes eliminating the filibuster, another Jim Crow relic, in order to secure the God-given rights of every American, then that’s what we should do,” he said.
MICHIGAN-(MaraviPost)-Joe Biden has cemented his position as front-runner in the Democratic race to take on President Donald Trump in November’s White House election.
The former vice-president won Michigan, the biggest prize of primary voting on Tuesday, extending his lead over main rival Senator Bernie Sanders.
Five other states – Washington, Missouri, Mississippi, Idaho and North Dakota – voted on Tuesday.
Mr Biden also swept aside Mr Sanders in Missouri, Mississippi and Idaho.
It was unclear if Mr Sanders would fight on until the party convention in July.
The Democrats’ next big election milestone is in a week’s time when 577 delegates are up for grabs.
To secure the nomination, a candidate needs the support of 1,991 delegates. Before Tuesday’s vote, Mr Biden had 648 to Mr Sanders’ 563.
The former vice-president had lagged behind his Democratic rivals in early voting states, but rebounded after big wins on Super Tuesday and endorsements from several former nomination rivals.
Malawi breaking news and World News. News about Malawi, Malawi Business, Malawi Tourism, Malawi Politics, Malawi News, World and Africa Top News.
![President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden traded personal insults in the first 2020 presidential campaign debate held on the campus of the Cleveland Clinic at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, [Morry Gash/Pool via Reuters]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/2020-09-30T011831Z_351732615_RC2P8J92Y3A2_RTRMADP_3_USA-ELECTION-DEBATE.jpg?resize=770%2C513)
