- On Twitter, Donald Trump indicated his wish to postpone the presidential election scheduled for November, to protest against the generalization of postal voting in the face of the threat of the coronavirus.
- This position responds to a political strategy, while the polls are not favorable to the American president.
- For Marie-Cécile Naves, director of research at Iris, Donald Trump "exploits the health crisis to stigmatize the democratic opponent".
We are starting to get used to it: it was again through a tweet that Donald Trump spoke on Thursday. This time, he raised the idea of postponing the US presidential election. The reason for his dissatisfaction? Postal voting, which could be made more accessible, in order to limit the spread of Covid-19 in the country.
"2020 will be the most INACCURATE and FRAUDULENT election in history," Donald Trump tweeted. “It will be a great embarrassment for the United States. Postpone the elections until people can go and vote properly, safely ??? ". An unusual request for a president, less than four months before the vote.
For Marie-Cécile Naves, research director at IRIS and author of Geopolitics of the United States (ed. Eyrolles, 2018), this request is not surprising on the part of a Donald Trump in decline in the surveys. It even responds to a political strategy that he has been using for four years.
Can Donald Trump really postpone the US elections?
No, he cannot postpone the elections by his will. It's more complicated than that: to postpone the date of the election, he must pass a vote of Congress and modify the fundamental law, which fixes the end of a presidential term on January 20 of each year. For that, it needs a bipartisan agreement in Congress, but it's off to a bad start because this body is very divided, even on the side of the Republicans, who seem to be against it.
One of the reasons is that they are accountable to their constituents and do not want their own political careers in jeopardy. The second reason is that they are the guarantors of the proper functioning of institutions: as much Trump does not care, as these professional politicians, seasoned, who have not finished their political career, want to leave an honorable mark. They have no desire at all to undermine institutions for a president with whom they disagree and who is losing momentum in the polls. We see that, fortunately, the institutions are resisting Donald Trump.
What makes him think the elections will be fraudulent?
Nothing. There is nothing tangible in the history of the United States to suggest that postal voting may be fraudulent. But this is not surprising, because he used the same fraud argument before in 2016. He has said several times, when the polls were bad back then, "If I don't win, it's because Democrats cheat ”. This time, there is an instrumentalisation of the health crisis to stigmatize the democratic opponent.
What strategy do these words correspond to?
It's the “without me, it's chaos” strategy. He stigmatizes his opponent by attacking him on everything except his program: the opponent is a sore loser, an anti-democratic… These are words that are very often found in Trump. The accusations to which he may be the subject, he turns against the Democrats.
This speech is not so surprising because the polls are increasingly bad at the national level, and it is also given lost in states acquired to the Republicans like Texas. It's getting worse, the dynamics are bad. And this, while his opponent Joe Biden hardly campaigns anymore!
The polls were also bad in 2016, and yet he was elected. Can we really give him a loser this time around?
You have to be very careful. His statements on the fraudulent election can for example galvanize his voters who will go to vote because the polls are not good. We cannot give him the loser. In 2016, no one believed him in his victory. This year, we know very well that he can be re-elected.
By the Web
What is the “QAnon” movement, Trump's major support on the Internet, decided to have him re-elected?
World
US presidential election: Donald Trump has only 100 days to reverse the trend
- Video
- World
- Donald trump
- US presidential election
- United States