With simply days till the 2024 presidential election, there’s nonetheless a variety of uncertainty. However Vox is right here that can assist you navigate via it.
Final week, we requested in your lingering questions in regards to the upcoming election. We then turned to senior correspondent Eric Levitz and senior politics reporter Christian Paz to reply 9 of them. Right here’s what they needed to say:
The polls make it look like there’s going to be a variety of split-ticket voting this 12 months. How frequent is that traditionally, and would the size indicated by polling be unusually excessive this 12 months, or is it fairly commonplace?
Break up-ticket voting — when a voter chooses candidates from one get together for a statewide or nationwide race and one other get together for different down-ballot contests — has been on the decline over the previous few many years due to polarization. As much as 2020, ticket-splitting was getting rarer — however then we noticed surprisingly excessive ranges of it in 2022, with voters selecting otherwise between governor and Senate candidates, or between these statewide races and native down-ballot races.
This 12 months, if polls are to be believed, we’d see extra of it in particular swing states, like in Arizona and North Carolina. In North Carolina, ticket-splitting is extra of a norm — they’ve a historical past of electing Republican presidents however Democratic governors.
Yeah. That mentioned, there was sufficient ticket-splitting in 2020 to have actually huge penalties. Like, Biden gained Maine comfortably however so did Susan Collins.
How will Harris’s and Trump’s insurance policies impression the worth of groceries?
—Pam from Jackson, Wyoming
There’s some speak about Harris going after worth gouging? However Trump’s tariffs…
If Trump implements his proposed 10 p.c common tariff — which he would have the ability to do with out Congress — it is going to improve the costs of each foreign-grown/produced meals product. So bananas and avocados would instantly develop dearer.
In the meantime, if he pursues Stephen Miller’s plans for mass deportation, that may create a labor scarcity within the agricultural sector and dramatically improve costs. Surprisingly, Elon Musk — one in every of Trump’s greatest donors — has admitted as a lot in current days, saying that there can be short-term hardship from Trump’s agenda.
If Dan Osborn, an impartial, wins his Senate race in Nebraska, he says he gained’t caucus with both the Democrats or Republicans. How will he get committee assignments? What clout will he have? Do you assume he’ll change his thoughts after/if he wins?
—Pleasure from Rockville, Maryland
Nice query. Most likely a ton of clout, however undecided how the committee course of would possibly work! Eric, would he basically be like Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema? Or extra like a Bernie Sanders?
That’s an important query. Clearly, if Osborn wins, he can have achieved so with the tacit assist of Democratic donors and officers, and in defiance of the Republican Get together.
One would possibly assume that this might lead him to caucus with Democrats — significantly if doing so would give them an efficient majority — in order to safe committee assignments. However provided that his marketing campaign/PAC is at the moment airing advertisements aligning him with Trump and calling him the “true conservative” within the race, I think that he sees direct affiliation with the Democrats as politically suicidal. So, I don’t know. Possibly he’s capable of commerce his vote on a single high-profile piece of laws for a committee task from whichever get together holds the efficient majority. However yeah, Christian, I feel he can be a extra pro-labor Manchin.
I’m questioning what measurement victory constitutes a “landslide”? It looks as if it may be as little as a 1 p.c margin. That doesn’t precisely invoke a landslide. What’s the deal?
—Kevin from Portland, Oregon
I assume there’s a distinction right here between an Electoral School landslide and a “landslide” as colloquially understood. If Trump had gained the favored vote by 1 p.c in 2020, he would have most likely swept each swing state (as a result of the Electoral School was closely biased towards the GOP that 12 months).
However it could be slightly deceptive to name that an electoral landslide, given that just about half of the nation would have voted towards him in that alternate situation. I feel that, resulting from polarization, real landslides like Reagan’s 1984 reelection are now not doable.
Yeah, it’s useful to divide between fashionable and Electoral School vote right here. I don’t know if the landslides we used to see in both class are doable anymore, but when polling error works out in Harris’s or Trump’s favor this 12 months, we’d see an “Electoral School landslide” that isn’t truly consultant of how the general public feels. Both candidate might theoretically sweep the battleground states this 12 months and that may lead to 312-226 or 319-219 — not that a lot totally different than in 2020 or 2016. And we wouldn’t actually name these years landslides, would we?
What in regards to the federal finances deficit? How has it affected the economic system in the course of the earlier administrations of Obama, Trump, and Biden, and what are the candidates’ plans for the longer term, in the event that they’re even pondering/speaking about it?
—Kirk from Austin, Texas
The federal finances deficit was largely economically helpful in the course of the Obama and Trump years. When the federal government spends more cash into the economic system than it takes out via taxes, that will increase general demand for items and companies — and thus, employees.
Within the wake of the Nice Recession, demand was excessively low for a very long time, as households and employers pared again their spending. Deficits beneath Obama and Trump helped to compensate for this demand shortfall, finally yielding a 2019 economic system during which unemployment was close to historic lows but inflation was negligible.
Underneath Biden, the impression of deficits is extra debatable. The American Rescue Plan’s stimulus spending spending helped forestall a rise in poverty in the course of the Covid disaster, after which spurred a traditionally robust labor market restoration afterward. Nevertheless it additionally most likely contributed to inflation slightly on the margin. I personally nonetheless assume that this was very a lot a internet optimistic: America’s restoration has been stronger than different developed nations, whilst we’ve seen comparable worth will increase. However since we’ve additionally seen inflation, folks can fairly object.
I don’t assume Harris or Trump has articulated a plan for correcting America’s long-term fiscal imbalance, which is pushed by the mix of child boomers retiring and medical advances — each extending life and rising senior residents’ consumption of well being care companies and low tax charges.
I feel it’s debatable how huge of an issue the long-run deficit is, however our colleague Dylan Matthews makes the case for concern effectively right here.
I might solely add that their plans for the longer term would each contain extra deficit spending, including to the nationwide debt, although by totally different levels. This evaluation comes from a extra fiscally conservative assume tank, however even the very best spending plan endorsed by Kamala Harris would nonetheless be about even with Trump’s medium-spending plan.
If Kamala wins, how might she get extra Democratic seats on the Supreme Court docket?
She would wish to eke out a Democratic Senate majority, after which a conservative Supreme Court docket justice would wish to retire or die.
Court docket-packing is off the menu, and there seemingly gained’t be a sufficiently big Democrat Senate majority if they may get one to start with.
Proper now, it seems to be extra seemingly than not that the GOP will win the Senate. That is an space the place Osborn might make a distinction although. He’s pro-abortion rights, so he would most likely assist Harris’s Supreme Court docket nominees.
What does the way forward for public schooling appear to be beneath every candidate’s potential presidency?
—Dave from Bend, Oregon
Effectively, Trump needs to do away with the Division of Training, so there’s that. I feel his advisers most likely would do that by draining it of cash and directing public funds to different causes.
I feel the fundamental intention is to cut back federal oversight of public schooling, devolve energy to highschool districts, and promote vouchers that allow dad and mom to defect to non-public colleges. Though some folks in Trump’s orbit additionally kinda wish to improve oversight of public universities — to get the “wokeness” out of there.
Yeah, and apparently it might require congressional approval to really do away with an company, and it’s unclear if he’d have the votes to try this.
Nearly definitely, he wouldn’t. Most likely simply finances cuts.
So it could contain extra forms to make the job tougher to do.
Now, for Harris, she is messaging extra funding for public colleges and a lift in pay for public faculty lecturers. The Democrats have additionally referred to as for common free pre-Ok and funding of Head Begin, the federal program that helps low-income children and their households.
She additionally favors mass pupil debt forgiveness, and has opposed makes an attempt by conservative states to limit how America’s historical past of white supremacy is taught, though it’s unclear how that stance would translate into federal coverage.
Which candidate as president can be extra seemingly to assist Ukraine win the warfare towards Russia? Proper now they each appear equivocal.
—Mike from San Rafael, California
Harris is unquestionably extra supportive of Ukraine than Trump. In my nonexpert opinion, nonetheless, I’m skeptical that Ukraine can win the warfare within the sense of recovering management over all its authorized territory. Russia’s benefits in manpower and munitions give it the higher hand in a warfare of attrition, I feel. Hopefully the subsequent administration may help Ukraine safe favorable phrases in an eventual peace treaty, although.
Yeah, agreed. Trump likes to speak about how he would resolve the warfare in a day, however hasn’t offered a plan or proposed a imaginative and prescient for the way. Wouldn’t it contain territorial concessions? Would the Ukrainians conform to that?
What down-ballot questions might result in important adjustments? I do know we’re poised to have over half the inhabitants now dwell in a spot the place weed is authorized, however what different vital points are on numerous state ballots?
—Evans from Kilauea, Hawaii
Weed and abortion are two huge points on state poll measures this 12 months. We now have some minimal wage improve poll measures in California, Arizona, and some different states. Additionally in Arizona is a poll measure aimed on the state’s conservatives and immigration hawks to additional criminalize unauthorized border crossings and permit police to arrest unlawful immigrants.
Nevada is voting on a constitutional modification requiring voter ID. Although beneath state legal guidelines, they would wish to move the measure a second time sooner or later for it to take impact.
