Donald Trump will be inaugurated next week. Readers will be unsurprised to know that I've spent a significant amount of time in the past two months analysing last year's United States presidential elections. The more time I spend the more, I realise how hopelessly inadequate was every analysis I read in Australian newspapers over that period. I think I can do better, so here goes.
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For Barack Obama's second win, the dates were November 6, 2012, for the popular vote and December 17, 2012, for the electoral college vote. For Trump's win, the dates were November 8, 2016, for the popular vote and December 19, 2016, for the electoral vote. Democratic Party candidates won both popular votes. In 2012, there were 65,915,796 votes for Obama (51.06 per cent), 60,933,500 (47.2 per cent) for Republican Mitt Romney and 2,236,178 (1.74 per cent) for others. In 2016, there were 65,834,793 botes (48.31 per cent) for Hillary Clinton, 62,946,472 (47.19 per cent) for Trump and 7,508,332 (5.5 per cent) for others. The 2012 results are final while those for 2016 are 99.99 per cent finalised.
Of course, Americans don't elect their president: they merely take part in the choice of presidential electors. For that reason, these events should be seen strictly in two-candidate terms. Consequently, I say (and every academic analyst agrees) that, in 2012, there were 2,236,178 votes thrown straight into the rubbish bin and in 2016 that number was 7,508,332. Therefore, the Obama vote in two-candidate terms was 51.96 per cent while that for Clinton was 51.12 per cent. Thus, the swing to the Republican Party in 2016 in the popular vote was a miserable 0.84 per cent.
However, here are the electoral votes won by the four candidates. In 2012, Obama won 332 while, in 2016, Clinton won 232. In 2012, Romney won 206 while, in 2016, Trump won 306. Exactly 100 votes transferred from one party to the other consequent upon such a miserable popular-vote swing! Notice that both elections summed up to 538 votes in all. From these statistics, I draw three conclusions:
- This is a truly horrible system.
- Clinton was incredibly – repeat, incredibly – unlucky.
- Trump was very good at gaming the system.
Back when I taught American politics to Australian Defence Force Academy cadets, I used to defend this system in much the same way I still defend Australia's constitutional monarchy. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." I should have known better. After all, I knew that, in 2000, the equivalent popular votes were 50,992,335 (50.26 per cent) for Al Gore and 50,455,156 (49.74 per cent) for George W. Bush. But, of course, that was universally recognised to be a very, very close election. By contrast, 2016 was not close, neither in the popular vote (won easily by Clinton) nor in the electoral college, which Trump and his supporters said was a landslide vindication for him and a mandate for all his policies.
The defence I used to give was that the system favoured the big states and, for a variety of reasons, that was a good thing. So, in analysing the 2016 result, I begin with the six most populous states. Here they are ranked by size, giving the electoral votes for each: California 55, Texas 38, New York 29, Florida 29, Illinois 20 and Pennsylvania 20. That's 191 of the 538 votes. Obama lost Texas but won the others; his electoral vote in these states was 153 while Romney's was 38. In 2016, Clinton's vote improved on Obama's in California, New York and Illinois, making them even more solidly Democratic. She also improved on Obama's vote in Texas, turning it from very solidly Republican in 2012 to very competitive for the Democrats today. At the same time, Florida and Pennsylvania flipped from very narrowly Democratic in 2012 to very narrowly Republican in 2016. So, at this election, Clinton won only 104 votes from these states while Trump won 87.
The interesting exercise is to add up the two-candidate popular votes in these six states. For 2012, they were 25,895,692 for Obama (55.36 per cent) and 20,879.329 for Romney (44.64 per cent). In 2016, they were 27,644,992 for Clinton (56.03 per cent) and 21,693,564 for Trump (43.97 per cent). So there was a popular vote swing to Clinton of 0.67 per cent in the six most populous states combined.
Many commentators see a likeness between Trump and Brexit. I couldn't disagree more. I admit that, if I had been British, I would have voted "remain", as did my sister, two sons and daughter-in-law. However, I am quite glad Brexit won. It won fair and square with a 52-48 popular vote win over remain. That is British democracy for you. I approve of British democracy, which is majoritarian in concept, and I approve of the way Prime Minister Theresa May is implementing the British people's will.
My main thought on the anachronistic US system is that it's supposed to be semi-democratic – and it is that. It's also based on the theory of checks and balances. Yet, for the next four years, it will have the Republican Party running all four branches of government. In the House of Representatives and the Supreme Court, that will be so because they will be rigged that way. In the Senate and the office of President, that will be so because of the rules the founding fathers set in 1787. In practice, therefore, the "majority" party, the Republicans, will dominate over the "minority" party, the Democrats. The checks and balances will operate in one direction only and not according to the theory that "ambition must be made to counteract ambition" (James Madison in The Federalist Papers, 1788). So much for political theory!
On Friday week, I shall wear a black armband – to mourn how such a modern people as the Americans can tolerate the system that gives them president Donald Trump.
Malcolm Mackerras is an honorary fellow at the Australian Catholic University. malcolm.mackerras@acu.edu.au
