With election day upon us, the battle between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump is on a knife-edge and could produce the tightest result in recent history.
As I was Ambassador in Washington through much of Trump’s time in the Oval Office, I am often asked for an assessment of him. How to explain his continued popularity, despite legal woes that would have downed any other politician?
My advice about Donald Trump is not to underestimate his skillset as a politician. Behind his brashness lurks an instinctive electoral talent without parallel in our time.
To size up his achievement, you only need to recall how he came back from the abyss after the storming of the Capitol in January 2021, when practically the entire Republican establishment turned against him.
Yet he went on to win this year’s Republican Primary in a canter against impressive opponents in Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis who, in the pre-Trump era, would have wiped the floor with him.
Trump has skilfully played the role of unorthodox insurgent ever since he became a presidential candidate in 2015. Raging against elites turned out to be electoral gold dust as many Americans proved to be surprisingly receptive to his showman/strongman persona.
Even as president, he doubled down on being Donald Trump, behaving throughout his time in the Oval Office as if he were still on the campaign trail.
At the beginning of the Covid pandemic, I recall him saying that he had been headed for a landslide re-election, but that the virus might complicate things for him. His erratic handling of Covid did indeed damage his chances, but it did not prevent him from increasing his vote tally in 2020, while being soundly beaten by Joe Biden.
Absent the pandemic, I have no doubt that Trump would have won a second term in 2020.
In what has become a dead heat race against Kamala Harris, Trump draws strength from a number of quarters.
The first is the Republican Party’s support base. Political loyalty remains strong among Americans and there are lots who have only ever voted Democrat or Republican, and could not bring themselves to switch sides. Many Republicans would have preferred an alternative candidate, but most will reluctantly ‘come home to Trump’.
The second and most curious aspect of the Trump phenomenon is the support he commands from America’s evangelical community.
I have often been in run-of-the-mill towns in provincial America dotted with small independent churches. I suspect those congregations know that Trump is not genuinely religious but they believe he has done ‘God’s will’ by appointing conservative judges who overturned the long-standing abortion rights enshrined in Roe v Wade.
Most evangelicals and many Catholics will suppress their doubts about Trump’s character and vote for him in the hope of more conservative judges being appointed to help uphold their Christian values.
A third and most fervent group of Trump voters are those who genuinely relish his abrasive political brand, are nostalgic for a bygone America, and resent the fostering of diversity and racial equality.
Trump has positioned himself as their unrelenting champion and they are wedded to him. Part of the blame must go to Democrats for failing to nurture their traditional demographic base in the ‘blue wall’ states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, leaving them susceptible to Trump’s raw appeal.
A final part of Trump’s constituency consists of those who may detest his political style, but believe that he will be good for their pocket book.
Although the Biden administration’s record has objectively been positive, rising prices have shaped perceptions of its performance. Driving through run-down areas in rural America festooned with Trump signs made me realise that he has skilfully capitalised on the unhappiness of those who see themselves sidelined by economic change. There is an obvious parallel with the Brexit referendum in 2016.
Kamala Harris also has a formidable coalition at her back – the Democratic Party base, suburban women, ‘never Trump’ Republicans who view him as a threat to democracy, and those who are concerned about healthcare and reproductive rights.
In the campaign’s closing stretch, bitter accusations and recriminations have spiked. Both sides truly believe that their version of America will be existentially imperilled should their opponents prevail. That is not a good place to be for a democratic society.
For its own sake, America needs to find a way of calming down after this season of fevered exchanges. What are the chances of the winning candidate being gracious in victory and knuckling down to heal America’s divisions? We can only look on – and hope.
:: Daniel Mulhall is a former Irish Ambassador to the USA and author of Pilgrim Soul: W.B. Yeats and the Ireland of his Time (New Island Books, 2023).