New Delhi [India]: Arun Kumar Singh, former Indian Ambassador to the US, shared his thoughts on the 2024 US presidential election. “Each election is unique, but similarities exist with 2016 and 2020 campaigns, as Trump defined issues, highlighting America’s decline.”
Speaking to media on Tuesday, India envoy said, “Each election, of course, is unique, but I would say that to some extent, there’s a similarity to the kind of campaign that was there in 2016 and in 2020, when earlier also President Trump was a candidate, because he defined the issues in a certain way, trying to highlight as if America was not doing well, other countries had exported America, Americans were being exported by immigrants.”
“So he was painting all the negative dimensions of what was happening in the US, trying to project that he was not a part of the establishment, although he’s a very successful businessman himself, and therefore people should vote for him,” he added.
Further, Singh highlighted Kamala Harris’s historic candidacy as the first African American and Indian American woman to run for president. However, pre-poll surveys revealed unexpected trends, with many groups that were expected to support her not doing so.
“According to pre-poll surveys, the majority of African American males were not supporting her. Majority of Latino males were not supporting her. And if you look at the Indian American vote, again, according to pre-poll surveys. 80% had voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, about 70% had voted for Joe Biden in 2020. But this year, the expectation was that only 60% of Indian Americans would vote for her, although she is a person partially of the same ethnic origin.” he said.
“So these were some of the trends that were to be, were unexpected, but they were there. And I think this was a reflection of the fact that for the voting public, among the issues that were prominent were the issues related to the economy, inflation, jobs, where there was a sense that they were not doing well,” he added.
Singh stated that many pre-poll services suggested a large majority of Americans felt the country was headed in the wrong direction, which would negatively impact the Biden-Harris administration and Kamala Harris’s candidacy.
“And again, many pre-poll service suggested that large bulk of Americans felt that the country was not heading in the right direction. And therefore, if they felt that, then obviously they would take that, hold that against the current administration, the Biden-Harris administration, and then Kamala Harris naturally suffered as a result of that,” the envoy said.
Singh’s comments come as the US election reaches its climax, with Harris facing a tough contest against Donald Trump.
The election outcome remains uncertain, with multiple battleground states, including Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia, still up for grabs.
The voters in the US are heading to vote in one of their most consequential elections, which will decide the direction of not just the US but also have an influence on global geopolitics for the next four years.
The polling hours will vary across the states, but most locations will vote between 6 am and 8 pm on Tuesday (local time). Though exit polls will start coming once voting starts, the final results will come only after counting is closed in all states.
The first polls will close at around 7 pm ET (5:30 am IST) in six states, including Georgia. The final polls will close in the blue state of Hawaii and in the red state of Alaska at 12 am ET (10:30 am IST).
Total votes will close by 1 pm ET (11:30 am IST), following which counting will start. The results in small states can be projected soon after polling states; some key battleground states may take hours to project the winner.