US election: Biden, Trump mark homestretch with few days to go

President Trump is in a big fight for political survival and a second term-four year reign after coming second in the 2016 popular vote against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Former Vice President Joe Biden in his third run for president has been running ahead of Trump in most public opinion polls, which are starting to tighten somewhat.

Fighting from behind, Trump on Monday night seated Amy Coney Barrett as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court pushing through this nominee in about 30 days from announcement to swearing in. 

His predecessor Barrack Obama, who served eight years in the White House only got to seat two justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. 
Joe Biden has waged a low key campaign largely based on the visual that he is not Trump, an approach that has kept his support steady and financially well-oiled from campaign contributions. 

In the Electoral College, Biden is performing better than Hillary Clinton in a number of States such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan,  which all miraculously went for Trump in 2016. Flush with campaign cash, he has gone on offensive and made some Republican States like Georgia and latecomer Florida suddenly competitive.

More than 60 million Americans have cast their vote about half the total using absentee ballots and early voting sites. So for the first time, more Americans may cast their ballots outside Election Day by “mailing it in.”  Some States such as Oregon are all mail now, which takes days to announce the winner, but probably has improved voter participation. 

After years of international events dominating American elections, the war on terror, which ended in the Great Depression of 2008, Americans have been fixated with another big domestic problem, the rising cases and deaths from Covid-19. 
Slightly cooler weather in the fall has seen an upsurge in new cases in the range of 70,000 to 80,000 cases a day.

 President Trump recently joined other world leaders who have come down with the flu, like Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Prior coronavirus, relative success stories like Germany and Russia are experiencing a steep rise in new infections as the virus possibly mutates into more resistant forms. Joe Biden has put the blame squarely on Trump even though the narrative is a bit more complicated. 

The attention to Covid-19 and possible mass vaccination as poor countries cannot afford the procurement, transport and immunisation of an imported vaccine, is going to require presidential effort. For America, this will not come easy.
 
Trump unconventionally has trimmed rises in defence spending and pushed for withdrawal of American troops in countries like Afghanistan. A raw détente between Israel and the Arab world may reduce tensions. Last week, Sudan agreed to compensate American victims of al-Qaeda, closing the chapter on a 23-year-old case and in return, the country was removed from the list of official sponsors of terrorism.

The departure of Britain from the European Union may once again bring France and Germany front and centre as the United Kingdom struggles to find its way. A president Biden is widely expected to be a transition leader who will have to wrestle with a distressed economy and soon a rising number of hotspots marked by medium scale conflict, popular uprisings and despondency. 

A second Trump term would mark continued rising of America as an important, but maybe more modest in its goals. Trump has made cutting China to size a strategic goal through a mix of tariffs, relocating American businesses home due to a record low corporate tax rate of 21 per cent. He hasn’t duplicated the expectation of a major war having learnt the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan well.

How Americans pass judgment to the pandemic and the blame game will decide the winner on November 3.

Mr Ssemogerere is an Attorney-At-Law and an Advocate. [email protected]