Thayer Consultancy Background Brief:

ABN # 65 648 097 123

Carlyle A. Thayer
A Layman’s Guide to U.S.
Elections 3 November 2020
August 11, 2020

The U.S. Political System

The United States federal political system is composed of three co-equal branches: the
Executive (president), Legislative (Congress) and the Judicial (Supreme Court).
The U.S. Congress consists of two chambers, the House of Representatives and the
Senate. The House comprises 435 members and the Senate 100 (two from each of the
fifty states).
Term in Office
Members of the House of Representative are elected to a two-year term. There are
no limits on how many times they are re-elected.
Members of the Senate are elected for a six-year term, and elections to the Senate
are staggered. One-third of the Senate is elected every two years. There are no limits
on how many times they are re-elected.
The president is elected for a four-year term up to a maximum of two terms.
U.S. Federal Elections
The presidential election is held on the first Tuesday in November.
This year three federal elections will be held on 3 November – House, Senate and
President.
Each member of Congress represents a single member district. The number of
representatives from each state is determined proportionally by its population.
Each member of Congress is elected directly and the person who gets the highest
number of votes wins.
Electoral College
The president is elected indirectly. Each of the fifty states and the District of Columbia
are allocated electors on the basis of the number of representatives in Congress plus
two Senators.
Each state legislature determines how electors are chosen. The most common method
is nomination by the state party committee. Most states have a law that requires an
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elector must pledge and vote for the presidential candidate of the party that
nominated them.
To make matters simple, a voter who wants to vote for Donald Trump will actually
vote for the slate of electors nominated by the state branch of the Republic Party and
approved by the state legislature. With the exception of Nebraska and Maine, the
candidate who wins the majority of the vote in a state and the District of Columbia
wins all the electors. In Nebraska and Maine electors are picked on the proportion of
vote their candidate received.
There are a total of 535 electors (representing 435 representatives and 100 senators).
The electors cast a single vote each in their state legislature in mid-December. The
president is elected if he/she receives more than half of the electoral votes or 270
votes.
It is possible for a president to be elected who wins a majority of the electoral votes
but does not win the majority of the popular vote. In 2016 this was the case. Nearly
three million more Americans voted for Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump. Trump
won narrowly in enough states to gain more electoral votes than Clinton.
The president will be sworn into office on 20 January 2021.
Voting Patterns
Voting in the United States is not compulsory.
Based on past voting patterns, American commentators call states that traditionally
vote Republican the red states. States that vote traditionally for the Democratic Party
are called blue states.
The other states are called swing states because they are electorally competitive and
could go either way. These states will be the battle ground as each party attempts to
build a winning coalition.
Voting depends on multiple variables, including but not limited to the following:
• Party affiliation – more Americans are registered as Democrats than Republicans
but a greater percentage of Republicans turn out to vote than Democrats
• Urban (Democrat), suburban (swing voter) and rural voter (Republican)
• White (split between the two parties), Afro-American (Democrat) Hispanic
(divided but favour Republicans) and Native Americans
• Male -v- female (more males support Trump, while more women support Biden)
• College/University educated (Democrat) -v- persons with a secondary education
or little education (Republican)
• Blue collar worker (split between the parties but favoured Trump in 2016)-v- white
collar professional, teachers (Democrat)
• Religion – Evangelicals vote for Trump, Catholics who oppose abortion vote for
Trump, those of Jewish faith are inclined to vote liberal thus the Democratic Party
All the above demographic factors vary from state to state.
The election result will depend heavily on motivating people to get out and vote. A
high turnout historicaly favours the Democrats. It is also winter and bad weather
depresses voter turnout disadvantaging Democrats.
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This year the coronavirus pandemic has added a new element of uncertainty. There is
a move to vote by mail in some states that is being strongly contested by President
Trump and his supporters. There are two major concerns, voter fraud and a delays in
sending and receiving ballots due to alleged inefficiencies in the U.S. Postal Service.
Public Opinion Polls
Polls are a snap shot of how voters feel on a particular day.
All public opinion polls have a margin of error.
Public opinion polls can be misleading if they are conducted on a national level. There
is also a tendency to average several national polls from different organisations to
determine the main trend. National polls and an average of national polls do not
account for variation in individual states. This happened in 2016 when polls showed
Hillary Clinton in the lead. State polls in swing battle ground states are better
indicators than national polls.
At the moment the national polls put Biden in a winning position by a large margin
including in some battleground states. It is necessary to look at the margin of error.
Trump is losing the support of suburban white women and older retired Americans
who supported him in 2016.
Biden must win over the young progressive supporters of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth
Warren and motivate them to vote. Biden must perform a balancing act as going too
far to the left will alienate middle of the road Democrats. A centrist position by Biden
could attract Republican voters who are disenchanted with Trump.
Biden beats Trump on handling of the coronavirus, but Trump still retains support for
his handling of the economy by his core base – less educated working-class Americans
who feel marginalized by the Washington elite (Hillary Clinton).
Start of the Campaign
The presidential campaign has not formally begun. The Democratic Party will hold its
convention from 17-20 August, followed by the Republican Party convention on 24-27
August. Due to the coronavirus pandemic these conventions will be virtual affairs.
Each convention will formally nominate candidates for president and vice president.
It is a forgone conclusion the Democrats will nominate Joe Biden and the Republicans
will nominate Donald Trump.
Joe Biden has picked Senator Kamala Harris as his Vice President. Mike Pence should
be Trump’s running mate.
There should be a series of three to four nationally televised presidential debates; but
these are unlikely to change people’s minds except perhaps for those who are
undecided. It is up to a candidate to do something awful and lose the debate.
The two vice presidents are also scheduled to hold a debate.
Trump is excellent at large indoor rallies but these are uncertain due to COVID-19.
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Suggested citation: Carlyle A. Thayer, “A Layman’s Guide to U.S. Elections 3 November

2020,” Thayer Consultancy Background Brief, August 11, 2020. All background briefs
are posted on Scribd.com (search for Thayer). To remove yourself from the mailing list
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