Race for the White House

Surely the bounteous election campaigns of the two American national parties in full swing, and  monumental-scale preparations afoot, it is clear that the November 5, 2024, U.S. presidential elections and other state elections are going to be a global political event.

In this one-day election, nearly 162 million registered American voters will choose 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives across the country in the 50 states, and also will be chosen six non-voting delegates from the District of Columbia (DC) and the five inhabited U.S. territories.

Besides, 33 members from the100-seat U.S. Senate (whose six-year term expires in 2024) are also up for elections. After these 2024 elections, the full membership strength of the 119th United States Congress (U.S. legislature comprising both – Senate and House of Representatives) will be complete for the next two years until 2026.

In addition, polls will also be held in American states and territories for choosing 27 state   governors. In addition, elections for numerous other state and local bodies will also be held simultaneously. It may, incidentally, be stated that every fourth year, i.e., 2024, after 2020 is termed as the national election year.

Currently, the nation’s utmost attention is centered and concentrated on the presidential race between the two national party presidential / vice-presidential candidates, such as, respectively, Kamala Harris --Tim Walz (Democratic Party) and Donald J. Trump--J.D. Vance (Republican Party).

Meanwhile, American voters seem to be especially engaged in campaigning this year. For, it is the first time in history that the country’s major national party has put up a woman is on the ballot; and that she is not a White woman: she’s from the Black minority, South-Asian community.  Also, it would surprise GK’s many readers to learn that on the voting day all schools, colleges and universities do not shut down; there is no holiday in government and local business offices, at all. Voting booths remain open for 12 hours, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

In fact, in many states, voters can cast their ballot earlier than the fixed voting date. Vote-by mail ballots can be returned by mail at mail-drop-off locations, county election office. Vote center also open for early in-person. This year the polling date is November 5, 2024, early voting has already started in some of the 50 states – but due to time difference, states have fixed voting hours accordingly.

Since the current global political landscape is disturbingly chaotic, and going from bad to worse, all eyes are focused on the Unites States presidential election, nearly 50 days away. The fact of the matter is, as witnessed in the past so many years, U.S. political view matters significantly and is heard with respect and receives utmost attention; it counts a great deal in overall international affairs and the global defence and security strategic perspectives. Therefore, both U.S. political parties are struggling to remain in limelight nationally to be able to capture global recognition.

Be that as it may, the 2024 Democratic Party’s presidential-vice-presidential nominees, Kamala Harris-Tim Walz, are at the center of global focus. Kamala Harris and her running vice-presidential mate, Tim Walz, are the Democratic Party’s nominees.  It’s the first time in the US 250-year history that woman has been nominated for president.

The current Vice-President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz are immensely popular among their respective national position they occupy. While Kamala Harris passionately espouses, defends and champions the women’s abortion rights. Tim Walz is a celebrated leader in his state of Minnesota. Having risen from humble origins of a factory worker to a college teacher-coach to a 24-year military career to U.S. congressman.

Since she entered the political arena, Harris has brilliantly moved from one public office to another rather rapidly. Recently, Harris’s activists have adopted ‘an aggressive position on climate change, call for a ban on fracking, a tax on carbon pollution and $10 trillion in spending to fight global warming.’ They reminded her a 2019 resolve ‘to cosponsor Green New Deal to the address climate change… and called for converting the electric grid to 100% clean energy.’

Meanwhile, Neil Chatterjee, the former energy adviser-bureaucrat of the Republican Party – the Grand Old Party, has suggested that Harris should go whole hog on the ‘abortion’ issue that Biden often abhorred. Now Harris needs to ‘seize the narrative on abortion.’  Which, The New York Times says ‘democrats have not fully capitalized,’ and adds, ‘could fundamentally change Americans’ reproductive lives and health…  Harris has a chance to overcome a problem that plagued Biden campaign: explaining what could be done to expand reproductive rights.’ Trump posed a threat to women’s reproductive rights. Harris, if elected, being the nation’s first woman president in history, could do much more for the American women’s welfare. The fact is that the Harris-team has a much better chance to win the 2024 White House race.

However, she ‘will seek her own voice, without breaking with Biden.’ For ensuing Democratic victory, Harris’s an advantage in her vice-presidential nominee, Tim Walz, who comes from the rural areas of the state of Minnesota, as The N Y Times opinion writer, Sarah Smarsh has averred: “Democrats have needed someone like Walz for decades.” Walz ‘embodies the earnest, humane, rural people who shaped the prairie populism that shaped the progressive foundations of the Great Plains.’ Kamala Harris’s vice-presidential running mate, Tim Walz, is a simple man, and as Sarah Smarsh further narrates, ‘when Walz smiles, and his eyes disappear into a good-natured squint…’

‘Mr. Walz’s rural background seems downright transgressive on the top ticket… Walz, raised in a small Nebraska town beyond ‘folksy’, since their language about his place of origin has for so long reflected geographic and class biases.’

Selecting Walz who is a member of the US House of Representatives, as a running mate Kamala Harris has changed the course of her party and perhaps our country, according to Sarah Smarsh. ‘At her side, a son of Midwestern farm country, can confidently and authentically speak the truths that neither Mr. Trump nor his running mate, J.D. Vance, will tell you: That for all the loud racism, homophobia and jingoism of today’s Republican Party- which indeed has dominated elections outside  metropolitan areas – the real rural America is diverse, full of immigrants, people of colour, gay and transgender people and native peoples, and even straight white folks who happily work and live alongside them.’

Walz will bring his people’s tales to people in big cities and metropolitan areas who may have never heard of such stories of their country, the U.S. All in all, Tim Walz’s tying up with Kamala Harris as vice-presidential nominee, will hugely bolster Democratic Party’s chances to win the 2024 presidential race.  The Harris-Walz poll rallies have attracted boisterous crowds.

On the other hand, Republican presidential team, Trump-Vance, has been heard losing attendances, ever since Joe Biden dropped out from the presidential contest. And its reverse effect has been twitched in the Harris-Walz rallies’ sizes. Moreover, the two alleged recent assassination attempts on Trump’s life have revealed and exposed the voters’ dislike for GOP policies for the next four years.

Besides voters’ dislike of the presidential team Trump-Vance’s pronouncements on universities. Incidentally, according to CNN television count, Trump is reported to have lied 33,000 times, had three wives and allegedly had uncounted sexual encounters with women. One of them, Stormy Daniels, whom Trump had paid $134,000 for keeping an encounter secret, successfully sued him for defamation. He has also been impeached twice and has had 34 criminal cases pending in various courts all over the country.

Meanwhile, media reports say that Mr. Trump continues questioning Kamala Harris’s racial identity whenever he addresses Black Groups’ meetings or press gatherings, or other gatherings. And, often, in response to which the Harris campaign has been mocking at fake crowds at Trump rallies. Donald Trump’s visible dissatisfactions on lean attendance at poll events has led to cancellations of speakers. The candidates fund-raising meets have been less productive.

Finally, a retired civil servant and an ace political observer, Kriss Davis, has said that former president Donald Trump “is unraveling … his rich donors are now concerned if he (Trump) is elected, he will tank the economy with tariffs which he mistakenly thinks the exports will pay, not consumers. If he doesn’t win, he will likely end up in jail. If he does win, he might get removed via the 25th amendment shortly, thereafter, leaving J.D. Vance as president, which the big money donors would really like.’’