The windows of a restaurant are boarded up in preparation for possible election related protest in Washington, D.C., the United States, Oct. 31, 2020. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)
by Matthew Rusling
WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- As the United States gets battered by COVID-19 and a deep economic slump, this year's elections have blown past previous record to become the most expensive one in U.S. history, while experts have said the results will still likely be decided by a few battleground states.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is leading by 7.8 points in RealClearPolitics' average of national polls as of Saturday, but that does not guarantee he will clinch the White House. In 2016, former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton led incumbent U.S. President Donald Trump in the national polls, but ended up losing in the Electoral College.
In the United States, the voting system assigns each state a number of Electoral College votes. Experts said just a handful of battleground states may well determine the outcome of this historic election next Tuesday.
"This race is far closer than some of the punditry ... would suggest," Biden campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon was quoted as saying earlier this month in U.S. media. "In a number of critical swing states we are fundamentally tied."
RECORD SPENDING AMID PANDEMIC
The total cost of the 2020 U.S. elections, including presidential and congressional, will near 14 billion U.S. dollars, a sum more than what was spent during the last two election cycles combined, according to an estimate from the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP).
Democrats have spent the lion's share of that total so far, consuming 6.9 billion dollars, compared to 3.8 billion dollars spent by Republican candidates and groups, the data showed.
"Donors poured record amounts of money into the 2018 midterms, and 2020 appears to be a continuation of that trend -- but magnified," said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics.
Biden is poised to become the first candidate in history to raise 1 billion dollars from donors, after his campaign brought in a record-breaking 938 million dollars through Oct. 14. Trump raised 596 million dollars, according to the estimate.
"Ten years ago, a billion-dollar presidential candidate would have been difficult to imagine. This cycle, we're likely to see two," Krumholz said.
OpenSecrets, part of the CRP, said in a press release that the influx of political donations in the final weeks leading up to the Nov. 3 election day was driven by the partisan fight over the now successful Senate confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court and "closely watched races for the White House and Senate."
While former President Barack Obama, when doing a phone banking for Biden, urged a mother of an eight-month-old to turn out and vote in what will be "a really close election," Trump reportedly told GOP donors that it will be "tough" for Republicans to continue holding the majority in the Senate after the congressional election.
With Trump and Biden vying for the White House, all of the 435 seats in the House and 35 of the 100 Senate seats are up for election this year.
BIDEN AHEAD IN BATTLEGROUND STATES, BUT IT'S NOT OVER
With such a historic number of Americans voting -- an estimated 90 million have already cast early ballots -- the election results may not be readily available on election night.
Clay Ramsay, researcher at the center for international and security studies at the University of Maryland, told Xinhua that the most important battleground states are North Carolina, Florida and Ohio.
The primary reason is that each of these states is organized to count rapidly and efficiently, and probably can report their complete totals before Wednesday morning. So these states are the early indicators, Ramsay said.
As of Saturday, Biden was ahead in North Carolina by 1.2 points, in Florida by 1.2 points and the two candidates are tied in Ohio, according to RealClearPolitics' average of polls.
If North Carolina, Florida and Ohio all have majorities for Biden, the odds of a clear national Biden victory are very high. If they are a mixed bag, then Arizona -- which is also expected to count efficiently -- Iowa, and Michigan will be the next group of indicators, Ramsay said.
Trump led in Arizona by a slim margin of 0.6 percent and Biden was ahead in Iowa by a slim 1.2 percent and in Michigan by a hefty 6.5 percent.
If these too are mixed, then very late reporting states, notably Pennsylvania, will be quite important, Ramsay said.
MAJOR DIFFERENCES IN STRATEGIES
Trump's major strategy has been the traditional, door-to-door campaigning, while Biden's team has shied away from that method due to coronavirus concerns.
Since August, Trump's campaign has said its volunteers knock on more than 1 million doors per week nationwide, while the Biden campaign just launched its door-to-door campaign earlier this month.
Trump's campaign has bet that in-person contact will give the president an advantage, whereas Biden's campaign has been reluctant to put the 77-year-old out in public due to concerns over the pandemic, which disproportionately impacts the elderly.
That reflects a basic difference in philosophy over the virus, with Trump and many of his supporters believing Americans must not allow the pandemic to rule their lives, while Biden and many supporters favoring hunkering down at home.
Still, both candidates have been hitting the campaign trail in the final days of the critical race.
Biden will hit stops in Michigan and Pennsylvania on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
After a brief hospitalization earlier this month due to COVID-19, Trump has been pounding the campaign trail hard, visiting state after state.
Trump plans to make four stops in a single state on Saturday, hit five different states on Sunday, and five additional states on Monday. Enditem
