Trump still has a path to victory. It all depends on who turns out to vote

Trump still has a path to victory. It all depends on who turns out to vote

By Shachi Kurl, President

In November 2016, we struggled to understand the dynamics and motivations of the nearly 63 million Americans who cast their presidential vote for Donald J. Trump and left the world stunned.

Months later, I would write about the morning after that election, and visiting a small college town outside of Cleveland, Ohio; a place of little consequence to anyone except those who live there, and those who used to live there –  in this case, my parents.

The pilgrimage, I wrote, offered insight into why so much of middle America had turned to Trump. Indeed, the good folks of Wooster did not seem deplorable then. But they did pepper their lawns with Trump-Pence campaign signs, too innumerable to count as I drove past boarded up storefronts, locked up factory yards and rundown homes.

Were it not for the pandemic, I’d have gone back this fall. To see what was the same. To see what, if anything, had changed.

Still, even watching from afar, we are wiser, and wearier. Does anyone else feel they’ve aged 14 years in the last four, helpless as our neighbours have torn themselves apart? Now we must leave them to their fate.

There are strong signs Americans will make a different choice in 2020. But there are equally compelling, and unsettling, reasons Trump may yet prevail. Polling, including ours at the Angus Reid Institute – shows Democratic nominee Joe Biden with a solid advantage in popular vote intention. But (no malarkey!) the divisions along age, gender and ethnic lines are so stark, the election result will depend heavily on turnout.

For the rest of this piece, please view it on the Ottawa Citizen’s site where it was initially published.

Image – DOD Photo by Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Dominique A. Pineiro


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