US Elections: Galway’s American lecturers are in agreement that the race is on a “knife-edge”

“In Harris, we have someone with no affinity whatsoever, not alone with Europe but to Ireland as well.”

“I think that will necessitate some serious outreach because we’ve been very fortunate to have Biden in the White House, someone for who Ireland is a big priority because of his heritage, and Harris obviously doesn’t have those same sort of ties.”

Those were the words of Larry Donnelly, a native of Boston, Massachusetts, and law lecturer at University of Galway. He was speaking about the implications of a Kamala Harris victory in the US presidential election on Ireland.

While he expressed how there could be step-change as we move from an Ireland-friendly Biden administration to a potential Harris administration, his thoughts on a second Trump presidency were much starker.

“If Trump wins I think the implications are very serious and very dangerous.”

“Trump has made no secret of the fact that he wants to repatriate American jobs and, as he sees it, American taxes to the United States, given how dependent we are upon the multinational sector.”

His thoughts were echoed by Iowa-born political science lecturer at UG, Professor Kevin Leyden, who said that Trump is “certainly suggesting more tariffs”.

“This time around he is definitely talking about reducing taxes in America and making up the difference with tariffs. He’s always talked about lowering taxes, but the idea that it’s all going to be made up by tariffs is a new one and an unusual one.”

They are referring to Donald Trump’s plans to increase tariffs. His proposals have varied but it seems that he intends to raise tariffs across the board by 10-20% and on China by even more.

Prof. Leyden stressed a difference in this between the two main candidates.

“In general, the democrats tend to have a more positive perspective [on]the European Union and Ireland. I don’t see at all the same kind of tariffs going on between a Harris administration and Ireland.”

With the whole world watching the election on Tuesday November 4, pollsters, commentators, spectators, and even Galway’s American lecturers are in agreement that the race is on a “knife-edge”.

“We’re looking at tea leaves at this point,” said Prof Leyden. “When things are so close we don’t know exactly, it’s all going to depend on turnout.”

As is the case with all US election, most of the attention is on the swing states. These are the states that change from election to election – they sometimes vote Democratic, they sometimes vote Republican. And with only a bit of early voting data in, we are restricted to polling to tell us what is going on.

“In 2016, 2020, 2022, they were all really off the mark,” said Larry Donnelly. “But they are the only barometer we have and they are showing a very close race.”

The case of Iowa

Over the weekend an election poll with Harris ahead in Iowa, an under-polled state as it is not a swing state and has been consistently Republican since 2012, was a big surprise.

One theory is that it is a response to the introduction of stricter abortion regulations in the state, a consequence of the overturning of Roe v. Wade seen in many conservative states.

“We’ve seen a poll from just over the weekend from Iowa that says Harris is in position to win there, and if there is anything to that then she is going to win this thing [the election] and perhaps win it comfortably,” said Larry Donnelly.

“But it is just one poll, my reminder to people would be to not get too excited with one poll.”

“The best case scenario for Harris is that American women are angry about abortion and they’re also, I think, fired up about Donald Trump’s lack of character, [and] the fact that he’s been found liable in civil court for sexual assault.”

Polling

Polling has been off before in the US elections, as Donnelly said.

In 2016 and 2020 Trump’s chances were underestimated, but in the 2022 mid-term elections the Democrats were expected to lose large amounts of House seats. This did not materialise on the scale that was expected.

“Increasingly its become harder and harder to get a random sample of registered voters or likely voters,” said Prof Leyden.

“It seems sometime that in certain elections they under-sample key constituencies. In 2016, they seemed to miss, to some degree, the Trump supporter.”

Another theory on Trump’s previous unpolled support is that there exists a “shy Trump voter”, someone who is not willing to admit that they are supportive of the former President.

Donnelly said this election also offers the possibility of a “shy Harris voter”: “There could be some, particularly women, who feel their rights have been eroded and that Trump is responsible for it and they mightn’t voice it out loud but they may vote for her in the end.”

Paths to victory for this election

Both lecturers stressed the immense importance of the seven key swing states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin) and the demographics that the candidates need to win over.

Prof Leyden said, “It’s important that is Harris is going to win that she makes sure she gets the African-American vote out. It’s important that she makes inroads into the working class in general, and white voters without a university degree.”

“She’s got to not only bring the cities, but bring more rural people and more suburban people in her direction.”

Larry Donnelly explained that there is a risk for the Harris campaign that they could lose votes from “middle America” due to a shift to the left on cultural issues.

“Democrats talk about ‘reproductive rights’ and ‘reproductive freedom’. For a lot of American those labels are offensive because they don’t just view it as an issue of ‘reproductive rights’ and ‘reproductive freedom’, they see and unborn child within a mother, that there are two lives at stake not just one.”

“People actually vote on these issues, people vote on the culture wars and the people who do tend to vote from a right-wing perspective.”

“If Harris-Walz win this election I don’t think it will be because of cultural liberalism, I think they’ll win it despite the cultural liberalism and I think the victory will be a product of widespread revulsion at Donald Trump and not really a ringing endorsement of Democrats when it comes to social issues.”

Another critique of the Democrat’s campaign he brought forward was their embracement of non-Trump voting Republicans, such as Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney.

“Somehow Democrats have now elevated Liz Cheney and her father, her father who is a war criminal, there is no other way to describe him, they have now elevated them to the status of senior states people simply because they don’t like Donald Trump and I think that is a terrible shame.”

On the Trump campaign Donnelly says that he, “to put it colloquially, ‘made a balls of it’”, given that the “fundamentals” such as the electoral college and the issues of inflation and immigration favoured him.

“Instead of just hammering relentlessly away at inflation and immigration he went way over the top; ‘they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the dogs’, he sanctioned a rally at Madison Square Garden where there were racist comments, among other things, [and] he has [been] distinctly unpresidential at every opportunity.”

Transfer of power

Given the insurrection seen on January 6 following the last election, both Donnelly and Prof Leyden expressed concern over the possibility that there is not a peaceful transfer of power following the results.

“I would hope we would have a peaceful transfer of power, but there’s a lot of emotion out there,” said Prof Leyden.

“Both Trump and Harris have made discussions about democracy and fairness, the fairness associated with counting votes, important to their campaigns. So I can see a lot of raw emotion being expressed either way, but I hope it doesn’t lead to any kind of violence of any sort.”

Donnelly expressed similar ideas and said that he hopes the result is “clear-cut” so that we don’t see events similar to that of January 6. He also stressed the importance of the incumbent president.

“The last time around Donald Trump was still the President, Donald Trump was still the Commander-In-Chief, but this time around Joe Biden is the President, Joe Biden is the Commander-In-Chief.”

“If there is any, and I certainly don’t want to see this and don’t want to predict this, kind of uprising then I have every faith and confidence that President Biden will deploy the forces of government up to and including the US military to quell and civil unrest that might arise.”

Predictions

Lastly, when asked for their predictions the scholars gave similar answers. Prof. Leyden said Harris was most likely to win the popular vote, but was slightly less confident about her winning the electoral college.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if Harris won the popular vote. The problem is that a lot of that popular vote is overwhelmingly [concentrated] in certain states like New York, California, or Illinois.

“The electoral college vote, that comes down to those seven states. So can she do it? I think she can actually.”

“I think she’s going to win because I think people have probably have had enough of Mr Trump, I mean, this is his third time running for President, they know what he is.”

Donnelly was more secretive: “What I’ll say is in the last days I think that Harris and Walz have the momentum, the question is ‘is it going to be enough to get them over the line? Especially when the fundamentals of the race favour Trump.”

“If you put a gun to my head, I’d say that it will.”

Donnelly finished with one last caveat: “Whether we like him or hate him, Trump has a very deep connection to very many Americans, not all of them say it, not all of them go to the rallies, an awful lot of them vote for him for ruthlessly transactional reasons because they think he’s better for them personally.”

“Whether they [the Democrats] can overcome that, I’m not 100% sure.”

Read more about how the US elections operate here on Galway Pulse.