Predicting tomorrow’s U.S. election result is an extremely difficult task. The polling is all over the place and the betting markets are far from stable.
Even when early results start to roll in late Wednesday morning Australian time, it could be a long wait before we know with any certainty who is victorious.
While it is likely that the Democrats and Kamala Harris will win the national popular vote, winning enough votes in the key states will decide the outcome.
That’s the Electoral College vote, designed to ensure that smaller states aren’t forgotten in presidential campaigns.
Donald Trump needs to win back states he won against Hillary Clinton back in 2016 but lost to Joe Biden four years later when he was ousted as president.
The critical Blue Wall states, as Democrats like to call them – Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – all supported Biden in 2020, but are no certainty of backing a Harris presidency. The polls in each of them have been extremely tight.
Whatever happens, there will be significant implications not just for Americans but for the rest of the world too.
Australia, as a longtime ally and trading partner of the U.S., will be heavily impacted by who wins the race for the White House.
Whatever happens tomorrow, there will be significant implications not just for Americans but for Australians and the rest of the world
For Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, a Harris presidency would bring about a more predictable U.S. foreign policy
Trump wins: Hip pocket pain for Aussies – followed by an economic boom?
If Trump returns as president, he has pledged to increase tariffs to protect American industries. It’s a popular policy in working-class states.
Such a move could see a rise in trade protectionism right around the world.
Australia has always been a trading nation: we produce many more goods than we need domestically, so an increase in global protectionism will hit us harder than many other countries.
Trump has refused to exempt Australia from his tariff plans, meaning that our second-biggest trading partner will, to some extent, close its doors to our goods.
At the very least they will become more expensive compared to locally produced American products, forcing some exports to look for new markets abroad. If they can’t find them, Australian producers may take an economic hit.
This is a concern if Trump wins – but it isn’t the whole story. There could be an upside to Trump’s likely first move as president.
While the U.S. is our second-biggest trading partner, China is our largest, and growing. It has been holding off announcing a major fiscal stimulus package to help its ailing economy.
That’s because it wants to see what the outcome of the U.S. election looks like before taking decisive actions.
If Trump does win, there is a good chance China will inject significant government stimulus into its domestic economy to help offset the impact of U.S. tariffs.
It has done so before, when Trump raised tariffs during his first term as president.
Such a move could be a boom for Australian miners exporting to China. A domestic Chinese stimulus package would increase demand for our iron ore, for example, as well as other goods.
The Australian government has only recently reopened trade with China in the wake of it putting its own trade barriers in place, impacting wine, beef and seafood exports, among others.
Awkwardness for Albo, uncertainty in Asia
Another consideration if Trump wins is what happens to the geopolitical stability of the Asia-Pacific region where we live.
It’s no secret that Trump talks tough when it comes to China. This will put Australia in a difficult position, wedged between our key military ally and our largest trading partner at a time when the U.S. is becoming more trade-protectionist.
It is also difficult to know how the Albanese government will go dealing with a Trump presidency. Diplomatic relations might be strained if Albo sticks to his commitment to retain Kevin Rudd as our Ambassador in the U.S.
Rudd has been highly critical of Trump in the past, labelling him ‘nuts’ and ‘a traitor to the west’.
Trump didn’t mince his words in response, recently describing Rudd as ‘not the brightest bulb’ and even suggesting he might refuse to deal with him.
That would be a disaster, perhaps so much so that Albo would need to backflip and replace his man in Washington.
It all depends on what sort of president Trump decides to be if re-elected for a second term.
His running mate, JD Vance, was highly critical of Trump in the past – even comparing him to Hitler – but still made it onto the Republican ticket by kissing the ring.
Rudd would need to do the same, but even then it might not be enough.
Kamala Harris wins: More of the same – unless she radically changes direction
A Harris victory is likely to simply be more of the same – an extension of the Biden presidency, only shifting to a new generation.
She would likely keep the AUKUS submarines deal safe, from an Australian perspective, and continue to support social liberal policies at home such as more accessible health care and funding for education.
Much of President Harris’s attention will be on carving out a bold new domestic agenda at home, rather than abroad – so voters see her as more than the underwhelming vice president she has been for the past four years.
That sort of Harris presidency could see America drift leftwards, further isolating one-time Trump voters, and further polarising the nation as the Harris approach becomes all about appealing to the base rather than the centre.
More likely, Harris would look to promote herself as a next-generation champion for mainstream America, perhaps by following Trump’s isolationist tendencies and focusing on domestic renewal in battleground states. Albeit while modernising social policies in cautious incremental ways.
Albo would breathe a big sigh of relief if Harris won – but Trump could STILL cause trouble
Whatever way you cut it, the Labor government would find it easier to deal with a President Harris, assuming Albanese is still around after his own electoral showdown by next May.
A Harris presidency would certainly be less volatile than a return of Trump, but she is an untested leader on the global stage.
How she might deal with China in the context of its regional ambitions is an unknown, and what happens in that geopolitical space is all important to Australia.
Democrats have worked hard to paint a Trump comeback as something that must be stopped, suggesting he would be a threat to democracy itself.
They said similar things about Trump back in 2016, yet after four years as president the democratic system voted him out.
Anthony Albanese would find it easier to deal with a President Kamala Harris – who comes from the same side of politics
Not without complaint, however. The January 6 Washington, D.C., riots and claims by Trump and his supporters that the 2020 election was ‘rigged’ haven’t abated, and will flare up again if he loses this time around, too.
The volatility that will cause will be substantial within the U.S., but may turn out to be more of a spectator sport for the rest of the world.
One of the risks for Australia in the longer term is that the U.S. turns more and more inwards in the coming years, irrespective of who wins the presidency. It is arguably a more likely scenario if Trump wins, but the way this presidential election campaign has played out suggests it is a live option either way.
Meanwhile, the AUKUS deal is slated to be the largest defence build in Australian history.
Both major parties in the U.S. say the deal is safe, but Trump moreso than Harris has speculated that what’s been agreed to could be open for renegotiation if he wins.
Again, how true that is, compared to the rhetorical claims being made, will only be known once we get a sense of what a second Trump administration looks like if he wins, and who he appoints to key cabinet positions such as Defence and Secretary of State.
What to watch for after the polls close on Wednesday AEDT – and how Australia’s system differs
Americans head to the polls on Tuesday, which is a matter of hours from now with the time difference.
For us, that means counting won’t commence until late Wednesday morning, with the picture of which candidate is best placed to win becoming more apparent throughout Wednesday afternoon, Australian time.
If Trump is successful, the implications of Biden’s refusal to step aside and let Harris run in his place will come into view.
If Harris wins, she’ll become the first female President in American history. Her task will be to try to bring Americans together, but that aim will be hammered by irate Trump supporters and the man himself, who is already laying the foundations for discontent if he does lose.
Trump has already changed the nature of modern politics since his victory in 2016. Populism has long been a feature of politicking in democratic nations, as you would expect.
But he has shifted the dial on that reality in ways that make it harder to call out bluff and bluster.
It would be a mistake, however, to assume that Trump losing will bring that era to a close. That’s because he’s been more of a symptom of popular discontent with traditional politics than the cause of it.
Mainstream voters in the U.S. feel left out of policymaking and left behind. Trump has tapped into that sentiment, stylistically and with many of the policies he’s promoted.
Even if he loses, the disconnect many Americans feel from the political process won’t go away, and that sentiment will continue to shape political debates there and here.
Trump has trailed in the polls to a far greater extent at previous presidential showdowns than he is now, suggesting that unless pollsters in the U.S. have corrected how they sample voters, he could be well-placed to win.
That reality sits in contrast to the challenge Trump faces overcoming concerns that his position on the issue of abortion could see women’s rights get further eroded if he makes a successful comeback.
True or not, that fear could drive more Americans to polling booths to vote against Trump than has been the case in the past. That is the biggest threat to his comeback in 2024.
Australians watching the results come in tomorrow need to remember the U.S. has a very different electoral system compared to here.
We have compulsory voting and preferencing; the U.S. has neither. In America, on average, only half the eligible voting population bothers to cast a ballot.
Which is why ‘getting out the vote’ is a crucial part of campaigning in the U.S., but not here.
The Democrats do that better than Republicans, which is an advantage for Harris. But can Harris inspire enough people to turn out to vote, or will she only rely on an anti-Trump vote?
We know Trump voters have been motivated to turn out to support him personally in the past, but is that belief as strong after the riots in D.C. when he lost in 2020? Or, with Biden now out of the picture, is Trump seen as the ageing candidate, someone who should be left out to pasture rather than returned to the epicentre of power?
This time tomorrow we will have a much better idea which way Americans have decided to go.