US Election 2020: is Donald Trump sensing defeat?

Could US President Donald Trump be sensing a defeat in Pennsylvania and Texas, and in the overall election, by preparing to declare himself the winner on ballots that are yet to be counted?

This as Trump began casting doubt over the election results prior to balloting taking place and results being known, and a day before the actual election. He seemed to be targeting Pennsylvania, which he won convincingly against Hillary Clinton in 2016, and Texas – which was another source of worry for him.

Many political analysts believe Trump might be pre-empting a loss to current presidential candidate and former vice-president, Joe Biden, hence he has begun making an unsolicited noise about the ballots. It is law in the US that mailed ballots were counted within three days after election day.

Various analysts said the president was spoiling for a fight and he prepared for it by appointing his lackey Amy Coney Barrett as Supreme Court justice on the eve of the elections. The president knew he was going to “manufacture” a crisis that would land in Barrett’s hands.

With early polls showing that Texas is moving towards Biden, Trump wouldn’t like to lose another Republican electoral safe haven, including Pennsylvania.

Polls showed Biden, from the small Delaware state, was leading Pennsylvania by six points as of Sunday while Texas was changing to blue on the maps, and that is not good news for Trump. This is peculiar because besides Kamala Harris – Biden’s running mate – recently, Democrats have not visited Texas in over 30 years.

Biden has to win by a huge margin in the two states otherwise Trump is already gearing to take their results to court and the counting process to court.

It was important for Biden to make inroads and even win either Texas or Pennsylvania, or both. With the main swing state of Florida showing a liking for Biden, the Republicans cannot afford to lose both Texas and Pennsylvania.

On Sunday, Trump supporters were caught on camera intimidating Biden’s campaign team by attempting to push their campaign bus off the road on a highway in Texas.

Although he denied it, Trump’s body language and rhetoric said that he wouldn’t bow out gracefully if he lost. During his last-minute campaigning recently, he told his followers that “we are keeping on winning [sic]”.

Reports said Trump might declare victory while vote counting was still underway and even if he had not yet achieved the mandatory 270 electoral college votes required to become president.

He has already condemned the processing of mail ballots and post-election counting. But this is normal practice as states have different laws governing the receipt and counting of ballots.  “We should know the results on the night of the election. What is going on?” Trump told his supporters at the weekend

He said it was a “terrible thing” that ballots were counted after the election and that there could be fraud. This was interpreted to say he was planning to challenge the process in court, should he not win.

According to experts, Trump – more than Biden – was likely to start trouble if he lost. Liz A. Dorn, a political expert from the East-West Center in Honolulu, Hawaii, said Biden has to win by a huge margin otherwise Trump would not concede defeat.

“If Biden were to pull clear college vote and a clear popular vote win, there is likely to be no challenge. But should Biden get a small margin, then Trump will challenge the results and neither candidate will concede in case of small margin victory by the other,” Dorn said.

In another scenario, if Trump won the electoral college vote but not the popular vote, he would take office and government for another four years. “But very few Democrats will support that, they will see him as illegitimate.

All experts envisage an outbreak of riots should Trump return, but in the end he would be sworn in.

Dorn said Republicans had invested heavily on Trump and it would be interesting to see what would happen to the party and its mouthpiece Fox News, if he failed to get re-elected.

Eric Naki is The Citizen’s Political Editor and our man currently covering the 2020 US Presidential election as part of a seminar organised by the East-West Centre based in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA. He is the only South African in a cohort of 12 foreign journalists attending the seminar virtually.

ericn@citizen.co.za

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