Understandably, public attention is focused on the presidential race and to a lesser extent on the Senate and House contests to be decided next Tuesday. President Donald Trump and former Vice-President Joe Biden clearly have dominated the public’s attention approaching Election 2020. Polling continues to show Biden ahead in both the popular vote as well as in electoral votes in most of the key swing states. The House is likely to stay in Democratic control, but there remains heightened attention on whether the Republicans can retain control of the Senate.
There are, however, major contests throughout the country for control of state houses and especially state legislatures. At present Republicans fully control 21States (governorships and both houses of the state legislatures) while Democrats fully control 15. There are eleven governorships and state legislatures that up on November 3.
It is the state legislatures which, based on the census allocation will determine the boundaries of the seats to be allotted to each state for the next decade in the House of Representatives. It will be the representatives elected to the state legislatures throughout the country on November 3 which will draw up the district lines for these congressional districts for elections beginning in 2022. This is in addition to determining their states’ legislative agenda.
If Democrats succeed in electing Biden as well as Democratic victories in the Senate and House—no ticket splitting--there is a real possibility that they could make significant gains in state legislatures as well. Successful down-ballot votes for Democrats could enable these new legislatures to solidify continued Democratic control of the House of Representatives for the balance of the decade.
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Long Lines for Early Voting
Donald Trump may not have realized it, but the fact that so many people remain unemployed due to the pandemic and the ruptured economy, has had an unpredictable impact on his bid for re-election. Aside from the unprecedented number of absentee and mail-in votes that already have been cast, the long lines for early voting also confirm heightened voter interest and turnout. The fact that so many people have remained in line throughout the country is partially a function that so many American voters have a lot of time on their hands. There are millions of people who are unemployed and have nothing better to do on a mild October day in the middle of a work week, than to wait in line to vote; hoping to bring change which could give them relief from Covid-19 and the opportunity to go back to work.
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Money
Rarely has an incumbent Republican President found himself running out of money in the final days of a presidential campaign, yet that is precisely where President Trump’s campaign finds itself with a week remaining until Election Day. The Trump campaign is also reportedly pulling back advertisements in key battleground states like Florida. This is occurring just as the Biden campaign, flush with all the cash, is spending in races and states throughout the country which the Democrats had previously been conceding to Trump; including Alaska, Kansas, and Montana.
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Footnote to Amy Conan Barrett
Many scholars consider that the elevation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court will force the country to prepare for decades of extreme, ultra-conservative rulings from the High Court. There may well be a rash of opinions from the Court in the next several weeks/months which will demonstrate the profound and immediate impact which the loss of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has had on American society.
Americans, however, need to remember that the nation survived the onslaught against the New Deal which F.D.R. faced beginning in 1933. He confronted an extremely conservative Supreme Court which declared unconstitutional major portions of the Democratic New Deal during his first term. SCOTUS only fell back into place in June 1937 when, “a switch in time saved nine”. It did so without Roosevelt’s “court-packing” proposal ever receiving a vote on the Senate floor.
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