Joe Biden may hit another bump on his way to getting on a state’s presidential ballot, with Alabama’s top elections official asserting Tuesday that the president and vice president will miss the deadline to be certified as nominees in the state come November given the timing of the Democratic National Convention.
I mean, even if so, it’s extremely unlikely to affect the overall outcome of the general election.
The US presidential electoral system has two important aspects:
It is federal.
It permits states to determine how to allocate their votes.
Because of those aspects, states (which tend to be controlled by one party or another at the state level) have almost universally said that they want to use a winner-takes-all mechanism for votes in the presidential election, where whoever wins the majority vote in the state gets all of the state’s votes. That strengthens their vote for their “team”.
However, it also means that voters for “the other party” in the state have zero impact on the outcome of the overall election. Their votes are only up for grabs if a candidate can alter the majority in the state.
The result is that only votes in “battleground states”/“swing states” really affect the outcome.
The expected swing states in the 2024 general presidential election are:
Nevada
Arizona
Wisconsin
Michigan
Pennsylvania
Georgia
Alabama isn’t on the list.
Alabama is already expected to vote for the Republican candidate in the 2024 general election; one could simply omit Biden from the Alabama general ballot, and it would be very unlikely to alter the outcome of the overall election. Even if one imagines a scenario where Alabama did vote for the Democratic candidate – like, Biden does something that Alabamans really like or Trump does something that they really dislike – chances are pretty good that enough other Trump-favoring states would switch to Biden by that point – because whatever that thing that was done is would also affect voter opinion in other states – that the election would be a foregone conclusion and Biden votes in Alabama still wouldn’t matter.
The two states that presently don’t use winner-take-all are Nebraska and Maine.
Now, if Biden weren’t on the general election ballot in a state expected to vote Democratic in the presidential election, or wasn’t on the ballot in a battleground state, or maybe in Nebraska or Maine, that’d potentially have an impact. But for Alabama, it probably doesn’t matter, at least in terms of the outcome of the election.
I mean, even if so, it’s extremely unlikely to affect the overall outcome of the general election.
The US presidential electoral system has two important aspects:
It is federal.
It permits states to determine how to allocate their votes.
Because of those aspects, states (which tend to be controlled by one party or another at the state level) have almost universally said that they want to use a winner-takes-all mechanism for votes in the presidential election, where whoever wins the majority vote in the state gets all of the state’s votes. That strengthens their vote for their “team”.
However, it also means that voters for “the other party” in the state have zero impact on the outcome of the overall election. Their votes are only up for grabs if a candidate can alter the majority in the state.
The result is that only votes in “battleground states”/“swing states” really affect the outcome.
https://www.270towin.com/
The expected swing states in the 2024 general presidential election are:
Alabama isn’t on the list.
Alabama is already expected to vote for the Republican candidate in the 2024 general election; one could simply omit Biden from the Alabama general ballot, and it would be very unlikely to alter the outcome of the overall election. Even if one imagines a scenario where Alabama did vote for the Democratic candidate – like, Biden does something that Alabamans really like or Trump does something that they really dislike – chances are pretty good that enough other Trump-favoring states would switch to Biden by that point – because whatever that thing that was done is would also affect voter opinion in other states – that the election would be a foregone conclusion and Biden votes in Alabama still wouldn’t matter.
The two states that presently don’t use winner-take-all are Nebraska and Maine.
Now, if Biden weren’t on the general election ballot in a state expected to vote Democratic in the presidential election, or wasn’t on the ballot in a battleground state, or maybe in Nebraska or Maine, that’d potentially have an impact. But for Alabama, it probably doesn’t matter, at least in terms of the outcome of the election.