Election 2024 crescendos on Tuesday, and it’s the Electoral College the decides things in the US presidential race. This archaic & anti-democratic set-up is poorly understood by the American people, which is the intent of the ruling political class. The first premise that voters need to understand is that unless you are in a “battleground state” your vote largely doesn’t matter. Most states are baked-in before any of the campaigning starts, especially in 2024 with the strict exclusion of 3rd party candidates.
If we didn’t have the antiquated Electoral College, then we wouldn’t have had 1/6. No one in bourgeois politics wants you to understand that.
The latest Real Clear Politics polling has the Electoral College as stands below, with 270 electoral votes needed to win. Note that anything more than 1.0 points in the polling is too much to overcome at this point, so battleground states like GA, NC, NV & AZ all go to Trump in 2024.
Donald Trump: 268
Kamala Harris: 225
Toss-ups: WI (10) Harris +0.3; MI (15) Harris +0.5; PA (19) Trump +0.3
Maine (4) & Nebraska (5) can split their electoral college votes, and have done so recently (2008 NE, 2016 NE & ME, 2020 ME). I’ve accounted for that in Maine, with 3 electoral votes for Harris, and 1 for Trump baked-in. Nebraska is trickier, with 4 votes going to Trump for sure, but one district is considered a toss-up and that may come into play on election night.
Harris has to win WI, MI & PA just to get to 269 and make NE relevant, or a congressional tie-breaker even possible. If she loses any of the three, Trump wins outright.
If neither candidate gets a majority of the 538 electoral votes (both at 269), the election for President is decided in the House of Representatives, with each state delegation having one vote. A majority of states (26) is needed to win. and the Senate would elect the Vice-President with each Senator having a vote. A majority of Senators (51) is needed to win. This scenario was brought up in Season 4/5 of House of Cards (2013-18), when Frank & Claire Underwood steal the election from Republican challenger Will Conway.
In 2024, neither major party will accept the “official” results, as both sides can honestly claim the other cheated & don’t deserve the presidency. If Kamala Harris can’t pull out MI, WI & PA, it’s over on election night. But if she does, this election has the very real possibility of dragging out for weeks, with endless anti-democratic maneuvering behind closed doors to decide the presidency, and Donald Trump as the clear favorite in that murky campaign.The US Supreme Court ruling Bush v Gore in 2000 taught us that.
The most democratic way to elect a president would be for every political party to be given a media voice & ballot status, so the issues could be seriously discussed before the electorate decides by popular vote who their leader should be. But in America we don’t have that freedom. There were no choices allowed in either Dem/Rep primary, and no leftist or anti-war voices were allowed to speak in the mass media, in fact they were attacked and slandered as “antisemites” through a coordinated smear campaign organized by the CIA Democrats with full Republican (Trump) support.
What we have with Election 2024 is American capitalism rotting on its feet, and doing everything in its power to prevent a popular uprising of the working masses & disenfranchised youth. It is this massive social force that must mobilize itself in solidarity to protect itself against the forces of imperialism & fascism that have dominated American politics & Election 2024.
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