May 1—As time moves forward, more and more is happening to sway voters come election day.
With Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders dropping out nearly a month ago on April 8, the Democrats are left with former Vice President Joe Biden as the final candidate for the nominee. President Donald Trump has totally overcome Bill Weld, the other Republican candidate, in all primaries, as well as winning delegates with Trump collecting 1,514 and Weld having only one (The Associated Press).
In their CNN article, “The Democrats’ delegate rules, explained,” Zachary B. Wolf and Adam Levy explain the delegate system: “The Democratic primary is not a race to win states, but to amass delegates. It’s delegates who pick the nominee at the Democratic National Convention, scheduled for [August] in Milwaukee.” Current delegates for the Democrats, before Sanders suspended his campaign, are Biden with 1,406 and Sanders with 974 (The Associated Press).
That isn’t the only thing happening in the race to the presidency. The current COVID-19 pandemic is weighing heavy on the American people. Rules of social distancing will have an impact on voter turnout if vote-by-mail isn’t ready by the election on Tuesday, November 3, 2020. In a NBC article from April 23, titled, “Did we order enough envelopes? Vote-by-mail advocates worry time is running out to prepare,” reporter Kevin Collier says, “Panelists cautioned that while voting by mail can be a safe and effective option for many Americans, preparations to do so take substantial investments of time and money, made more difficult by the fact that most election officials are working from home because of the coronavirus pandemic.”
The way Trump is handling the incoming coronavirus cases is not ideal according to the majority of voters. Journalist Giovanni Russonello reported in a New York Times article from April 29, 2020 titled, “Trust in Trump’s Virus Response Is Falling. What Does It Mean for November?”, “Most Americans are not convinced of the president’s position. Roughly seven in 10 said the federal government should be doing more to address shortages in personal protective equipment and medical devices, the CNN poll found. And by a 14-percentage-point margin, most respondents to that survey said the federal government had done a bad job of preventing the virus’s spread. (That is a significant change since last month, when back-to-back CNN polls found the public more split on the question.)” In the same article, Russonello says, “This robs Mr. Trump of what was supposed to be his greatest argument for re-election: the once-thriving economy, which had an enviable 3.5 percent unemployment rate before the pandemic. Just 48 percent of Americans said in the CNN survey that they approved of how the president was handling the economy; that tied his worst showing on this measure in more than two years.”
Along with collecting delegates, vote-by-mail, and the pandemic, another social issue has come into play, now with Biden at the helm. Biden has had rape allegations made against him from a staffer in 1993. NBC journalists, Ali Vitali and Mike Memoli, reported on it in an article titled, “Biden denies sexual assault allegation, calls for release of any records.” “During his “Morning Joe” interview, Biden expanded, saying, ‘from the very beginning, I’ve said believing women means taking the women’s claims seriously when she steps forward, and then vetted. Look into it,’ Biden said. ‘That’s true in this case, as well. In every case,’ he said, ‘the truth is what matters [sic]. In this case, the truth is the claims are false.’ ”
The election is still four months away with new data coming out every day.
Sources:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/03/politics/democrats-delegate-rules-2020-explained/index.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/us/politics/trump-polls-coronavirus.html