Dr Paul Craig Roberts, an American economist and former assistant secretary of the Treasury for economic policy under President Ronald Reagan, believes that the key state to watch in this election is Michigan which can determine who will be handed the win in this dramatic presidential race.
Sputnik: The presidential race is now down to three key battleground states - Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania. How would you assess each candidate's chance of securing a win in these states?
Paul Craig Roberts: Well, I think Trump will win Pennsylvania and Biden will win Wisconsin. And the key state is Michigan, currently out of five million votes. Biden leads by 11,000. So that is a very, very tight race. And the outcome of that race, I say, will determine the election. If Biden wins that state, I think he will win. If Trump wins that state, he will win because the other states seem clear as to who is going to win and who isn't. Michigan is the key state, as far as I can tell.
Sputnik: We see that Trump and Biden are neck and neck in the other states which haven’t counted all the votes yet. What does this tell us about how US politics and society are divided at present?
Paul Craig Roberts: Well, I don't think they are neck and neck in other states. Trump is leading clearly in North Carolina and Georgia and Alaska, and Biden is leading clearly in Nevada, Arizona and Hawaii. What we see in the vote is that the Democrats strength is the West Coast, three states of California, Oregon and Washington and the north-east - New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut. These are the heavy population centers.
And so these very small areas and small number of states have a disproportionate effect on the popular vote. And because of the high populations of New York and California, they have a disproportionate effect on the Electoral College vote. And what we see in this election and the previous election is that these two areas of the country, the West Coast and the north-east coast, are solidly Democrat areas except for Pennsylvania. So the rest of the country, which is the vast bulk of the landmass and the vast number of states, ends up essentially governed by the two coasts. And this division appears to be permanent.
Sputnik: In Pennsylvania, where Biden was raised, Trump has a big lead - more than 11 points after 75% of the votes have been counted. What does this mean for the election and Trump’s campaign ? What actually happened in Pennsylvania?
Paul Craig Roberts: Well, according to the current information 76 per cent of the vote has been counted. But Trump has a lead of about 55 per cent to 44 per cent. So that is a large lead. That's an 11 percentage-point lead. And unless something very unusual happens in the remaining 24 per cent of the votes are unlikely to eliminate that lead. But, of course, you never really know. But if you just look at it now, Biden is way, way down in Pennsylvania. But you see, like in Michigan, there's only 11,000 votes between them. In other words, it’s almost equal 49 and 49.In Wisconsin Biden has seven-tenths of a 1 per cent lead. Again in Georgia, Trump has a 2.2 percentage-point lead. So it's really I'd say I mean, unless they've not counted, say, the votes from Philadelphia, which is the big city with a very large black population - if those votes have not been counted and it's possible Biden could overcome such a large deficit, you know, his 11 percentage points down. But other than that, unless the Philadelphia votes are not counted, I would say that the outcome will depend on Michigan, where it is very, very close.
Sputnik: Donald Trump in his post-election speech claimed that Democrats are "trying to steal the election" adding that he might challenge the election outcome in the Supreme Court. From your perspective, would the election's result be decided in the Supreme Court? How likely is it that we will witness a repeat of 2000?
Paul Craig Roberts: Well, this race seems a bit closer than 2016. It seems here that Biden has a better chance because currently he's leading in both Wisconsin and Michigan. And that's enough to give him the victory along with Nevada and Arizona.
So whether or not it goes to court, I think it depends on whether some of the states count the votes. Past the deadline there, the deadlines in the states differ on the mail-in voting. Some states do not have to legally count the votes until 12 November. Which is about a week away. Other states have to have had the votes counted by 3 November - by midnight yesterday. So the court case will depend on whether some states don't follow the rules for that state. And count votes longer than legally allowed. There'll be a tendency to do that if the election is so close that somebody can cheat a little bit and win.
Both parties are capable of doing that. But I think the Democrats are more experienced at it and have more protection from the media. If the Republicans steal a race, the media will be all over them. But if the Democrats steal a race, the media will approve because they want Trump out. So if there is voter fraud, the Democrats are likely to get away with it, whereas the Republicans would not be able to get away with it.
Trump has to have a case for it to go to the court. I mean, either candidate could end up taking it to court if the election depends on a state that counted votes past the legal deadline. And do those legal deadlines vary by state? You can't predict now what would happen. But let's take Michigan, for example. I don't know what the deadline is for Michigan counting its mail-in votes. But it's so close. So you could see either party take the Michigan vote count to court. I don't know that that will happen, but that's the sort of situation that would end up in court.
As for fraud, we've never had, I think, mail-in voting on such a scale. Yes. In this election. And this was a feature the Democrats engineered. So I assume they thought it would favour them. But it's also a scheme since it is new. All the avenues of fraud that can be employed are not yet known. And so the mail-in voting is more subject to fraud because the experience with it is not as complete as with the in-person voting. And so there could be a lot of fraud involved in the mail-in voting. But it can be very difficult to prove. And whatever allegations Republicans make or Trump makes, the Democrats may count on allegations. And so, you know, it's a situation where mail-in voting is just more susceptible to fraud and harder at this time to prove or establish.
Sputnik: 3 November marked not only the crucial presidential elections but the race for Congress and Senate as well. In your view, how high are the chances that Republicans would keep the Senate, and to what extent could the Democrats keep Congress? How can the balance of power shift?
Paul Craig Roberts: Well, if Trump wins and the Republicans lose the Senate, he will be isolated in the government because the Democrats would control both houses of Congress so they could defeat all his policies. Of course, the impeachment would get going again. The Democrats would not have a sufficient majority in the Senate but the House would go through it again just to keep your moment defensive. So if Trump wins but Republicans lose the House and Senate, it will be a stymied presidency. He won't be able to do anything. It will be frustrating if Biden wins and the Democrats win the House and the Senate. Well, it will be terrible for the red states. There will be retribution against the vast majority of the landmass. Federal aid to the red states will be cut. There'll be various kinds of false prosecutions to teach people a lesson.
It'll be a very dangerous situation for Trump supporters if the Democrats take complete control of Washington because they are very self-assured that they are morally right and that the Trump supporters are fascists. And so it could be a very brutal situation for the red states and Trump's supporters. I don't know how the House races are developing, though. I did see an early report from Democrats that they had lost 15 seats that they thought they were going to win. So it'll be strange, for example, if Biden wins the presidency and the Democrats lose the House, the Senate, that would that would be a very unusual result. But all I have seen so far is the Republicans still have a small majority in the Senate, though all the votes are counted and the Democrats have lost seats. They didn't expect to lose, but they had a large enough majority that they might still stay in control the House just with a much smaller majority.
