Donald Trump has once again won the election to become the 47th President of the United States of America. This election has been unusual and interesting. Although there is still time before he takes the oath on January 20, 2025, the whole world is speculating about his future presidency.

US elections are different. Though the people vote directly for their choice for the president, the winner is not decided on the total accumulated vote, or the popular vote. There are 50 states in the USA, and each state is allocated certain electoral votes based on the population of individual states. There are a total of 538 electoral votes, and the candidate who wins 270, i.e., more than half the electoral votes, is declared the winner. It is, therefore, possible that a candidate wins more popular votes and even wins in more states and yet loses the presidential race.

This needs to be understood. The candidate who wins in a certain state gets all the electoral votes of that state (no matter what margin he/she wins). The total count of electoral votes of all the states won by a candidate is the final vote won by that candidate. For example, if a candidate wins a state with a lesser population, such as Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, etc., he/she will get only 3 electoral votes against one state. However, if the candidate wins California, he/she will get 54 electoral votes for one state, which is better than winning many states with fewer electoral votes.

This election has also been unusual in a way that all the surveys were predicting a very close contest between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Some even put Harris in the lead. But Trump not only won both the electoral votes and the popular votes, but won by a big margin as well. This shows that the media and surveys cannot be entirely trusted—they have their own biases and inaccuracies.

It also appears from the results of the elections that the voters vote primarily on internal/domestic issues; foreign policy matters less to the voters. Although it can be said that the Ukraine and Palestine conflicts may have dented the prospects of the Democrats.

The main election promise that seems to have given Trump the advantage is the economy. Trump........

© The Spine Times