By Ashok Nilakantan Ayers (Washington) aka TN Ashok
The United States goes to elections on November 05 this year with about 37 million registered voters’ spread over 50 states walking to booths in cooler climes to choose the new occupant to the famed White House. The term will be for four years 2025 to 2028.
The main contestants to the elections are: Ms. Kamala Harris from the Democratic party and Mr. Donald Trump from the Republican, also referred to as the Grand Old Party. (GOP) The Party’s symbols are the Donkey for the Democrats and the Elephant for the Republicans. (The symbols were drawn in a cartoon sometime in the 19th century by the famed cartoonist Thomas Nast and both parties soon adopted them as their election symbols.)
Roert Kennedy Jr, grand nephew of former President John F Jennedy, was the 3rd candidate who contested as an independent. After months of campaigning, he withdrew his nomination and publicly endorsed Donald Trump for the presidency. 
Now there are five candidates for the presidency, but the contest is mainly between Ms Kamala Harris, handpicked by Joe Biden, president, who quit the race in the 3rd week of July following a faulty performance in his debate with Trump sponsored by the media network CNN at Atlanta, Georgia, one of the 7 battleground states which could lean either way. (But Gallup polls show that Harris is leading six of the 7 battlegrounds excepting Nevada, where Trump has a strong hold because of the majority white right-wing population.) Also, after the successful Democratic National Convention on August 19th in Chicago where Harris accepted the nomination, her ratings have gone up further.
Biden won all the seven battlegrounds in 2020 by very narrow margins ranging from 11,000 votes in Georgia to 100,000 votes in Pennsylvania. But he won the electoral college handsomely 306 to 232 of Trump, a difference of 74 seats. He won a massive 81.1 % of the popular vote surpassing Barack Obamas 68% vote, and becoming the first president to touch the magic figure. Biden-Harris team defeated Donald Trump – Mike Pence.
A recent report from the leading publication USA Today suggests that Nebraska may flip this time as people have been found to be sporting Blue Dots in their front porches, Blue Dot as in representing the Democrats.
How they vote : People vote simultaneously for the president and their candidates for the house in the rank of first preference and 2nd preference. The votes are counted and they form the electoral college to elect the president finally. Popular vote is the direct vote for the president.
The votes for candidates to the house representing the electoral college are counted for the presidency to reach the figure of 270 to choose the president.
In the senate: Democrats are a majority with 51 seats and republicans 49. In the event of a tie the presiding chair of the house (Kamala Harris as Vice President) casts her vote as a tiebreaker. A senator’s term is for six years. While that of a Representative or Congressman is limited to just 2 years – elected once along with the Presidential election and again in the mid-term of the presidency, thus called the midterms, also in November.
What’s happens when you have such a wafer-thin majority: It becomes difficult to pass the appropriation bills in the house and the government has been locked down as Republicans have blocked the passage. A shut down means employees have to be furloughed (taken off the employment rolls, albeit temporarily) as the treasury does not have access to monies to pay salaries. But bi partisan approach with support from the new speaker of the house Johnson from Louisiana state has passed the budget.
The US congress faces a peculiar situation: A bill passed by the house of reps can be blocked by the Democrats in the Senate where they have the majority leading to a deadlock. In such a situation, the bill is passed by a bi partisan approach where both the parties agree.
There are also independent candidates who remain in the fray: Jill Stein of the Greens Party, Oliver Chase and Cornel West. Chase Russell Oliver (born August 16, 1985) is an American political activist and nominee of the Libertarian Party for the 2024 United States presidential election. [1] [2] [3] Oliver was the Libertarian candidate for the 2022 United States Senate election in Georgia.
Jill Stein :
Jill Ellen Stein (born May 14, 1950) is an American physician, activist, and politician. She is the Green Party’s nominee for president of the United States in the 2024 election, and was previously its candidate in the 2012 and 2016 elections. She was the Green-Rainbow Party’s candidate. Cornel Ronald West is an American philosopher, theologian, political activist, politician, social critic, and public intellectual.
The Republican National Convention (RNC) in July approved the candidature of Donald Trump, who has contested the presidency three times, having once in 2016 and lost once to Barack Obama’s Vice president Joe Biden in 2020. This is the 3rd time he is contesting.
The Democrat outpaced President-elect Donald Trump by almost 2.9 million votes, with 65,844,954 (48.2%) to his 62,979,879 (46.1%), according to revised and certified final election results from all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
In 2020, Joe Biden, who was vice president to President Barack Obama for eight years 2008 – 2012 and 2012 – 2016 won big in the electoral college, winning by narrow margins in the seven battleground states. Biden won the electoral college handsomely.
The Democratic ticket of former vice president Joe Biden and the junior U.S. senator from California Kamala Harris defeated the incumbent Republican president, Donald Trump, and vice president, Mike Pence.
The election took place against the backdrop of the global COVID-19 pandemic and related recession. The election saw the highest voter turnout by percentage since 1900, with each of the two main tickets receiving more than 74 million votes, surpassing Barack Obama’s record of 69.5 million votes from 2008. Biden received more than 81 million votes; the most votes ever cast for a candidate in a U.S. presidential election.
In the electoral college Biden won 306 seats and Trump 232 seats. A difference of 74 seats and yet Trump called it a stolen election alleging that the democrats rigged the postal ballots as majority of them voted in that manner during covid 19.The courts threw out of the case saying there was no shred of evidence to back the claims.
The issue at stake in 2024 elections: Restoration of Abortion rights, Stricter Gun licensing, border crossing in Southern Borders, Ukraine funding and Ceasefire in Gaza where IDF is fighting a relentless war against militant outfit Hamas backed by Hezbollah in Lebanon and Youthis in Yemen, both are allegedly armed and trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
The democrats led by Kamala Harris are campaigning high on restoration of abortion rights which was scrapped by the Supreme Court with three of Trump appointed judges forming the majority over others appointed by Obama and Biden.
A 70-year SC verdict known famously as the Roe vs Wade case was reversed, throwing the nation into turmoil. Republicans are conservatives who are driven by the religious orthodox beliefs of Catholicism that a child’s life begins at the fetal stage and it shall not be terminated. The democrats are for termination of pregnancy only on selective grounds as child borne out of incest, rape, and physical deformities up to the 22nd and upper limit of 26th cycle of pregnancy. 
Ukraine funding: Democrats want to fund Ukraine because they believe if the Russians are not stopped and win, they will advance into Poland and Eastern Europe and try to gain all of the lost states of the erstwhile Soviet Union during the 90s when then soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev dismantled it.
The Republicans are not in favor of funding Ukraine as they see that as an external issue and want the funding to be diverted to the southern borders in Texas and Arizona where the country has seen an unprecedented flow of undocumented migrants from central America and south America and north America.
People have fled Venezuela rocked by political instability and alleged autocratic rule that suppresses public dissent. People have fled Mexico in North America following political oppression against dissidents and failure to control the Narcos kings who lobby senators in the Mexican government.
The middle east war: Biden’s staunch support for Israel and not calling for a ceasefire cost him his ticket to the presidency as the traditional vote bank of Arabs and Palestinians turned away.
But course correction with his dropping out of the race and replaced by moderate Harris is bringing back the Muslim voters. Harris has promised the Arab voters that she would be strident on an immediate ceasefire with Israel and getting the remaining 100 odd hostages released. She is advocating a two-state solution to permanently solve the problem – the state of Palestine existing alongside Israel.
But this is vehemently opposed by Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu who wants to rush the Hamas completely and police the Gaza strip to prevent their rush. There is a huge Jewish lobby in the Congress.
Gun Licensing: Democrat ruled states already have severe background checks before guns are licensed and sold to citizens. But republicans are lobbied by the National Rifle Association (NRA) which wants gun sales to be up and lesser background checks and they are invoking the 2nd amendment to the constitution. America evolved from the Wild West where utter lawlessness prevailed, and gunslingers and horse rustlers ruled the roost.
But the rules framed in the 17th century are archaic in today’s context of a homeland security policing the streets for citizens’ security. The mass shootings at Uvalde school in Texas and the shopping mall in Buffalo in New York have upset the Americans and they want safety in public places and hence strict gun licensing.
In America, they say, it’s easier to buy an automatic rifle such as an AK 47 than a prescription drug from a pharmacy.
The 2nd amendment allows American citizens to procure guns and carry them concealed in public places for their own safety and to be used in self defense.
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