Politics with Nolan: Waiting for Election Day
By Nolan Cleary, Managing Editor
From a worldwide pandemic, protests for racial justice, to U.S. President Donald Trump contracting COVID-19, to say the 2020 election is like no other election in American history would be the biggest understatement since 2000. Now, with America more divided than ever, America could win a brutal fight at the ballot box, a fight that could span as long as December.
The election has been making headlines since day 1, when Donald Trump was officially sworn into office as the 45th President of the United States on January 20, 2017.
On his first day in office, President Trump officially registered to be a candidate in the 2020 Presidential election, becoming the first President in history to file for re-election on his first day in office.
Democratic candidates John Delaney and Andrew Yang also made early entrances, joining the race nearly three and a half years in advance.
By early 2019, the Democratic race for President had become nothing short of packed. 29 candidates registered to run on the Democratic side for President of the United States, a record number.
Among those candidates, the top contenders included progressive favorites like Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren.
Fresh newcomers like California Senator Kamala Harris and South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg made a mark. However, it was ultimately former Vice President Joe Biden who was on top throughout the campaign.
From the get go, Biden positioned himself as the safest, and least controversial chance for Democrats to defeat President Trump. However, those more leftist argued that moderation wasn’t enough to energize a progressive base of voters.
Politics with Nolan covered the primary early on in the column’s run, when we asked students about their thoughts on New York’s own Senator, and Albany native Kirsten Gillibrand running for President.
While most media coverage covered the Democrats throughout, a breaking development late in 2019 involving the President changed the state of the race.
In late 2019, on a phone called with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, President Donald Trump asked if Zelensky had any information on an alleged scandal involving Joe Biden and his son, Hunter in regards to illegal business dealings with the Ukraine.
Many viewed it as trying to get information from a foreign power, and the incident led to Trump’s impeachment by the Democrat controlled U.S. House of Representatives. In early 2020, Trump was acquitted by the Republican controlled U.S. Senate.
Towards the beginning of the Democratic primaries, Bernie Sanders appeared the front runner, winning the popular vote in the Iowa caucuses and coming first in New Hampshire and Nevada.
After a comeback in South Carolina, and a big win on Super Tuesday, Biden took the lead again, and Sanders eventually dropped out, thus making Biden the nominee.
Then, COVID-19 hit America. An economic downturn, millions of lives lost and society changed possibly irreparably suddenly became the focal point of the 2020 race.
Campaigns were suddenly changed too. In-person rallies temporarily disappeared. Campaigning was mostly by the internet. When rallies did return, they were vastly different. The pandemic made 2020 one of the strangest elections in history.
Then, in May, a black man named George Floyd was killed on camera by a white officer named Derrick Chauvin. The event led to a resurgence in the Black Lives Matter movement and made race a key issue of the campaign.
As the Summer winded down, Biden announced his former rival in the Democratic primaries, Kamala Harris would be his running mate.
Just a short time later, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg died, leading Donald Trump to appoint Amy Coney Barrett in her place. Barrett’s nomination cemented a conservative supermajority on the court.
Now, with just one day until Election Day, America remains extremely divided with many fearing the results further could cause a split.
Whatever the outcome, many fear the social unrest that could occur from a Biden or Trump victory, in a nation that couldn’t be more polarized in its beliefs.