"Donald Trump proved much stronger than the polls said"
"The Republicans have responded to the great electoral mobilization of the Democrats with a massive counter-mobilization. And right now I see him as the favorite." The analysis by Mario Del Pero, professor of the history of US foreign policy at Sciences Po
In the aftermath of election night on November 3, the United States still does not know who its next president will be. Donald Trump, during a press conference, claimed the victory of the Republican party despite the vote counting in some important states in the balance and still missing the count of those arriving by post in key states such as Pennsylvania, with its 20 great voters up for grabs. To understand which scenarios will open in the next few hours in front of the two candidates, we interviewed Mario Del Pero, professor of the history of US foreign policy at Sciences Po, the Institute of Political Studies in Paris
The first certainty of this election is the defeat of the Democrats in Florida, was this to be expected or is it news that takes you by surprise?
“Florida is a particular state with its own reality: a mix of Hispanic and Cuban minorities, a young electorate in some areas and retirees in others. Therefore it is a sui generis state that cannot be grouped together with other groups of swing states, such as those of the Midwest or the Southwest. Perhaps this was to be expected, but it was a sign that Trump was certainly much more competitive than many polls indicated. So Florida could have been lost, but this has opened a dynamic that for the moment seems to benefit Trump and that has greatly restricted the possible options for Biden, to reach the fateful 270 electors ».
Another finding is that Trump seems to have withstood the Democratic attack better than expected. What do you think?
«Trump seems to have fared much better than expected. We will then have to evaluate the data calmly once we have the overall information. But the very strong impression, also confirmed by Florida and Texas, is that the Republicans have responded to this great electoral mobilization of the Democrats with a massive counter-mobilization. There had been some signs: in the last few days if we look at the number of voters who were going to vote, either face-to-face or by postal vote, there has been a great growth in Republican voters who have used a tool that, it was thought, would benefited only the Democrats. So the first important and indicative data is that there has been a massive mobilization of the Republican electorate, an electorate less divided, less heterogeneous, even less contentious than the Democratic one and this probably also explains Trump's good result in Florida and others. States".
What is, in the current state of the count, the most plausible path for each of the two candidates to reach the 270 electors needed to become president?
“Everything passes, once again, through the de-industrialized Midwest. Now comes information on Georgia in which, by ballot, Trump would be far ahead but still more than 1/5 of the ballots that for various reasons seem to be concentrated in the counties of Atlanta or neighboring, a large metropolitan or sub-urban area that should greatly benefit the Democrats. The New York Times still has Georgia up for grabs, but the route goes through the Midwest. Because if Arizona - as it seems - went to the Democrats, Biden can win by taking over Pennsylvania and one between Wisconsin and Michigan. Or even losing Pennsylvania and winning Winsconsin and Michigan: in this case we would have a draw, a nightmare. But there are Nebraska and Maine that have different electoral systems, they assign two big voters to whoever wins the whole state and then the remaining big voters are elected to the constituencies of the House of Representatives. Two of these seats, one in Maine and one in Nebraska, are contestable so that we would have an equal situation - if Biden wins in Arizona, Michigan and Winsconsin - which could be changed if he wins Nebraska 2 or Maine 2 college. But for Biden it is really an arduous path, a bottleneck, and I don't know what its real possibilities are. If I were to get out of balance a little, it seems to me that Trump is definitely the favorite right now. "
In which states have votes yet to be counted by post and where are they likely to change the situation the most?
«The game is played a lot in Michigan and Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania postal vote could have a very heavy impact. Michigan and Winsconsin were far ahead of the polls in Biden but it remains to be seen if they will be confirmed. Pennsylvania minus, there are some worrying indicators for Democrats. In many de-industrialized Ohio counties, some Indiana counties, which are comparable to the ideal county type of these states of Michigan and Pennsylvania, Trump fared even better this year than four years ago. And this is a strong wake-up call for the Democrats, because it means that Trump has managed not only to preserve it but also to expand it ".
How do you see the performance of the two parties in this election?
"There is a high rate of electoral participation, so obviously the two sides have been able to mobilize their voters. It seems that in some parts of the South and Southwest - such as Florida and Texas - Trump has fared better than expected with the segments of the Hispanic electorate, which is often conservative in terms of culture and so-called "ethical issues" . And it seems that a piece of that electorate there, Trump managed to capture him. It certainly captured the Cuban-Americans of Florida, which was not to be taken for granted, because it is an electorate that has changed over time and has become younger and less tied to a Cold War logic, to the mythology of the exodus from Castro island. A young electorate who had supported, for example, the opening of Obama in Cuba in 2016, but which seems to have returned to moving to very conservative positions ".
What do you think of Texas initially considered a contestable state?
“Texas is the contestable state every time next time. And the result in Texas seems to have fared very badly for the Democrats compared to expectations. It is a particular state: it is dynamic, it has large sub-urban metropolitan conglomerates with strong university settlements such as Houston or Austin, which are fully integrated into a national and global economy of advanced services and, in these metropolitan areas, the Democrats win big. But the rest of the state remains tenaciously conservative, indeed, it almost seems to become even more so in reaction to these liberal, cosmopolitan and globalist elites - as their critics would say - concentrated above all in these metropolitan areas ».
What about Arizona's transition to the Democrats?
"Arizona is the paradigm of a south-west that changes but changes with an exasperating slowness for the Democrats, and that does not give the electoral return that is hoped for. Of a southwest that becomes more California. More California in terms of economy, larger metropolitan areas in terms of massive Hispanic voting presence and more California in terms of large college settlements. However, Arizona has a strong peculiarity: more than 60-65% of the population is concentrated in a single county and weighs on a few urban centers, the most important of which is Phoenix. Therefore it is a territory with very low population density but with a very high concentration of population in metropolitan and sub-urban areas. Which is an advantageous condition for Democrats, more so than Texas, for example, which has a more complex profile ».
