America’s future is in the balance – this result could impact generations to comepublished at 10:31 Greenwich Mean Time
Anthony Zurcher
North America correspondent
Sometimes lost in all this electoral map strategising and gameplay is the historic significance of this presidential election.
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump represent two very different views of the US – on immigration, trade, cultural issues and foreign policy.
The president for the next four years will be able to shape American government – including the federal courts – in a way that could have an impact for generations.
The Republican Party of a decade ago looked very different to the populist one that Trump now leads, which has far more appeal to blue-collar and low-income voters. The Democratic Party’s base still rests on young voters and people of colour, but it now relies more on the wealthy and college educated.
Today’s results may offer additional evidence of how these tectonic shifts in American politics, only partially realised over the past eight years, are reshaping the US political map. And those shifts could give one side or the other an advantage in future races.
It wasn’t too long ago – in the 1970s and 1980s – that Republicans were viewed as having a unassailable lock on the presidency because they consistently won a majority in enough states to prevail in the electoral college.
This election may be a 50-50 contest, but that doesn’t mean this is the new normal in American presidential politics.