America heads for divided government

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One outcome is certain on November 5, America will continue in divided government. Control of the legislative chambers may switch, from Democratic to certain Republican control of the Senate, the upper chamber.

In the lower chamber, there is an outside chance, the chamber will flip control to the Democrats. The White House, don’t hold your breath, with few exceptions follows the House. In 1980 and 1984, Ronald Reagan rode two big victories, difficult to duplicate in modern times, sweeping 44 states and later 49 states.

Bill Clinton won a three-way race in 1992, the last time a third party, the Reformists denied Republicans victory, more than one doing it again in 1996. Obama found a comfortable Democratic House majority waiting for him in 2008, so did Joe Biden in 2020.

Similarly, Donald Trump found a Republican majority waiting for him in 2016.The tight battle for control of the House runs through a small sliver of seats, Democrats lost to Republicans in New York in 2022 (3), California (2) lopsided redistricting gains by the Republicans in North Carolina (7), a single seat in Georgia, to the Republicans advantage a pattern repeated across the country.

Kamala Harris has stopped the haemorrhaging of the Democrat fortunes. She is holding narrow margins in the battleground states, especially Wisconsin, Georgia and Pennsylvania, but she is tied with Trump in Michigan and trails him in Arizona and Nevada where Trump in a populist move in Las Vegas “Sin City”, where I sat for a few days, last week attending a Mass Torts Made Perfect conference is proposing not to tax tips again. Tipped employees are paid a lower minimum wage than other workers and rely on tips for most of their income.

People feel richer when they keep their tips. Consultants, image makers and broadcasters are laughing all the way to the bank. 2024 is a very rich election. Even billionaire Trump is crying out loud, he needs money.

Nothing of the self financed situation that drove him past Hillary in the electoral college in 2016. Google, the information communications behemoth has picked up $50 million in political advertising, a big slice of advertiser dollars that are shared between television, radio and the internet.

Behind him, Elon Musk, the owner of “X” formerly Twitter has pitched camp in Pennsylvania as well as offering Candidate Trump free advertising on his platforms. Candidate Trump began the election with his own social media operation Truth Social that listed on the stock exchange in July shoring up his cash.

Pressed to the wall by back-to-back court setbacks, Trump avoided losing control of his empire when New York’s appellate courts handed him a reprieve allowing him to appeal judgments against him. He also seems to have found a favourite listening ear at the New York Court of Appeals.

Divided government will mean gridlock over taxes, - no major changes will happen, deficits will continue to grow. More capital will continue to flow into the American economy. The rest of the world will continue to chafe at a stronger dollar.

Higher costs of international debt service have already pushed the IMF to reduce loan approval and loan servicing charges. French President Emmanuel Macron says the EU better be careful or it will become irrelevant if it doesn’t have an answer to American hegemony and Chinese dumping soon.

Mr Trump is already promising less conflict, looser ties with NATO and a closer relationship with Russia. Many in America’s intelligentsia are worried in the aftermath of January 6, 2021 what this will mean for domestic politics. “Lock them up” goes Trump with images of his opponents, Hilary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and Kamala Harris all dressed up in orange prison jump suits! The reality of the situation is that Republican politicians can hardly afford to challenge him, without ending their careers.

The world will be glued for early signals in three weeks time. Look for early signs in early to declare states North Carolina, Michigan. Presidential battlegrounds, Arizona, Georgia will declare much later having chosen to return to manual tabulation of votes.

If Trump carries Arizona and Nevada, he is back in the White House. If Kamala carries Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania keeping them from Trump, she will be America’s first woman president.

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