THE ELECTION: A General Analysis & Thoughts

America has been through a pretty rough ride these past four years, what with a business tycoon taking over as President, the blatant racism that continues to happen despite being in the year 2020, and several other urgent issues that are not being properly addressed and taken care of. Thankfully, the 2020 elections were the very thing needed to start repairing our broken country. Let's take a look at the two candidates and a closer view of the entire election process.

The Candidates:

In every election, two candidates are selected, one from each political party. For the Republicans, current President Donald Trump was chosen by his party to run again in the hopes of serving a second term in office (Presidents can serve as long as two terms, each term is 4 years.). For the Democrats, former Vice President Joe Biden was chosen as their candidate. Each of these candidates gets to choose a running partner who would assume the position of Vice President if chosen. Donald Trump stuck with his current Vice President, Mike Pence, while Biden went for a completely different approach, choosing Kamala Harris, who will be the first woman Vice President and the woman who holds the highest position in office. She will also be the first woman of color to be elected Vice President. It's clear that this choice paid off.

Donald Trump:

Donald Trump, a former business tycoon and owner of Trump Towers, has been interested in politics for a long time. What many people don't know, however, is his constant party-switching. In 1987 he registered as a Republican in Manhattan before switching to the Reform Party in 1999 and then becoming a Democrat in 2001 before finally going back to being a Republican in 2009. In 1999, Trump attempted to become a presidential candidate with the nomination of the Reform Party. A poll conducted that same year showed him with only seven percent support against George W. Bush and Al Gore. Trump did eventually drop out of the race, despite actually winning some primaries.

There was a lot of speculation on if he would run the next year, however Trump decided to lay low all the way up until 2016. At the time, his political ambitions were not taken seriously, with Obama even joking about his possible future presidency at the White House Correspondent's Association Dinner in April 2011:

Despite the public's general dismissal, Trump announced his candidacy for President at Trump Towers in Manhattan in 2015. This is where his famous campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again." was first debuted. Trump soon rose to the top of public opinion polls and in the spring of 2016, was declared the Republican nominee. Trump soon began his campaign for the general election against Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee. Due to an FBI investigation over some of Clinton's emails, a mistake that most likely cost her the election, Trump began gaining popularity and the lead in the polls. On July 15th, he announced the selection of Indiana Governor Mike Pence as his running mate.

On November 8th of 2016, Trump received 306 electoral college votes next to Clinton's 232 (before defections were discovered), making him the President of the United States. This revelation stunned observers, as most polls had shown Hillary in the lead. He is married to Melania Trump, his third wife, mother of his son Barron Trump, and the current First Lady of the United States.

Mike Pence:

Mike Pence was sworn in as the 50th governor of Indiana on January 14th, 2013 after a heated race. He was unopposed as he began running for a second term, however he soon filed to end his campaign in July of 2016 after Trump chose him as his running mate. Pence was the most conservative vice-presidential candidate to run in the last 40 years. After winning the election, Pence was appointed chairman of Trump's transition team and is now the sixth vice-president from Indiana. In February of this year, Trump named Pence the leader of the "White House Coronavirus Task Force". During the time of the pandemic, Pence is responsible for not following the rules including not wearing a face mask during a visit to a hospital. He is married to Karen Pence, a schoolteacher who is currently the Second Lady of the United States.

Joe Biden:

Elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972, Joe Biden has been on the political scene for over forty years. After holding a long membership with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he soon was promoted to chairman and eventually also chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee where he led the effort to pass Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and the Violence Against Women Act. Joe oversaw six U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings. In 1988 and 2008 he ran for the Democratic presidential nomination, unsuccessfully. He was re-elected to the Senate six times before he resigned to be the running mate of Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election, which they soon won. In 2012, they were re-elected and in 2017 Obama awarded Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In April 2019, Joe announced his candidacy which has since proven to be successful. He is married to Dr. Jill Biden, former Second Lady and soon-to-be First Lady of the United States.

Kamala Harris:

A graduate of Howard University, the University of California, and Hastings College of the Law, Harris began her prosperous career in the Alameda County District Attorney's Office before being recruited to the San Francisco District Attorney's Office and later the City Attorney of San Francisco's office. In 2003, she was elected district attorney and in 2010, despite the polls showing otherwise, she became the Attorney General of California, getting re-elected in 2014 as well. Kamala has served as the junior United States senator from California since 2017. She is the second African-American woman and the first South Asian American to serve in the United States Senate. Her national profile includes pointed questioning of the Trump administration during Senate hearings. Harris, too, began running for the Democratic presidential nomination, however ended her campaign on December 3rd, 2019. She announced herself as Biden's running mate on August 11th of 2020 and the race was soon called in their favor. She is married to Doug Emhoff, a fellow lawyer and soon to be the first ever Second Gentleman of the United States.

The Election:

With rallying going on nationwide for both Biden and Trump, they were both very busy campaigning during the months leading up to the election. During this time, Biden and his team kept their rallies and fundraisers safe with masks required for all. However, Trump did not do the same, and many people arrived at his fundraisers with no masks whatsoever. This did spark more outbreaks, especially at super-spreader events such as at his election party. On October 1st, Trump and his wife, Melania tested positive for COVID-19. Trump was briefly admitted to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda for a short time. He was discharged on October 5th. Some of his secret service staff have anonymously complained about Trump's lack of protective equipment against coronavirus since his return. On October 7th, the vice presidential debate was held at the University of Utah, where sheets of plexiglass separated Pence and Harris. Afterwards, roughly 60% of voters said that Kamala had won the debate and only around 30% were in favor of Pence, although it was quite difficult to focus on what was being said what with that fly on Pence's head. ;)

During the campaigning in October, former president Barack Obama held a couple of drive-in rallies for Biden. These were unusual and special events considering that it is unusual for former presidents to participate in elections. Of course, there were also a couple presidential debates as well, in which there were many interruptions. By Election Day on November 3rd, both parties had exhausted all their campaigning options and had only to wait for the votes to be counted. By 11:20 pm Fox News projected that Arizona, a former Republican/Trump state would be the first to flip for Biden. Trump was furious with this announcement, since only 73% of the votes had been counted, however Fox News proved to be true as the state did indeed flip.

During the following days, Trump made many accusations and went so far as to file lawsuits attempting to stop the counting of mail-in ballots. At 6:00 pm on November 4th, the Associated Press projected that Biden had 264 electoral votes after winning both Michigan and Wisconsin, more states that had been red the year before. Soon, on November 7th, many major media networks including Fox News and the Associated Press called Pennsylvania for Biden, which meant he had reached over the 270 electoral votes needed to win the election. Trump continued to call "voter fraud" and filed more lawsuits. He has yet to concede to the outcome of the election and has been spotted taking his anger out on the golf course. Biden and Harris, meanwhile, have already started putting together plans for their administration.

My Thoughts: As many people who know me know, I will be the first to say that I am a proud non-supporter of Donald Trump. In my opinion, he is rude, arrogant, selfish, crazy...the list goes on. I followed the primaries and watched as Biden was elected as the Democratic presidential nominee. At the time, I was a little worried. America has been under the influence of a misleading leader for a while now, and we needed someone who could reach across the spectrum and gain the votes of some Republicans as well. We couldn't have someone who was too far left, as you would lose those votes from Republicans who don't want to vote for Trump and from some people in the middle of the spectrum. For this, Joe Biden was a good fit. He was able to connect with all voters as Americans, not just as Democrats and Republicans, and was therefore able to flip some key swing states that had been for Trump in 2016. I was a little disappointed to see Biden as the nominee, especially since there were so many diverse people running on the Democratic side this year. We had a few women, a member of the LGBT+ community, and some younger faces. Unfortunately, once again another old, white, Christian man was chosen*. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Joe Biden, (or his faith, I myself am a Christian) it was just a little disappointing to see a lack of change. At the same time, though, I knew it would have been nearly impossible for any of these diverse candidates to have been elected (as sad as that is) because America was still under the influence of Donald Trump and his ideas. Either way, I watched with anticipation and eventually great excitement when Kamala Harris was chosen as his running mate. Kamala is a great, accomplished woman who knows what she's doing and generally wants a better life for all Americans. It was also exciting that a woman had been chosen. My family and I sat by the TV for the next few days, anxiously awaiting any new news about the election. We cheered as Arizona flipped, and then as Michigan and Wisconsin followed suit. We watched in suspense as we waited for the final outcomes from Nevada, Alaska, Georgia, North Carolina, and the indecisive Pennsylvania. Thankfully, the American people were able to use their votes to make their voices heard and decide on a better future for generations to come.

Unfortunately but not surprisingly, Donald Trump and Mike Pence have yet to concede to the election results and we can only wait to see what happens (my guess is he'll start some sort of news network). Hopefully, the government will take care of him and Biden and Harris will be inaugurated in January, and with them, the start of a better chapter for America and the American people. Kamala has already stated that parts of their plan include interest-free student loans, gun bans, and making healthcare available to all, free or with much lower costs. She said that no student should have to worry about being shot at when they should be focusing on learning and that no family should have to suffer without healthcare because of the increasing costs. All in all, it sounds like a version of America I would want to live in, one that I could be proud of again.

*I do not mean any offense to anyone and I have nothing against Joe Biden, I am simply expressing the lack of diversity America has with presidents.

Hi everyone!

I hope you enjoyed my article covering the suspenseful election this year! I realize that publishing my opinions may upset some people, so if you have a problem with the article, just avoid it :)

Looking forward to the next four years!

XOXO,

Lorelei