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Trump and Biden are scheduled for a rematch this fall, and the stakes couldn’t be higher.
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Still, some voters will likely sit out the election for a variety of reasons.
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These include anger about the war in Gaza and dissatisfaction with both choices.
President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are set for a rematch in November — and most Americans aren’t happy about it.
A Pew Research Center poll in April found that 49% of voters would replace both candidates if they could. Poll after poll has shown that the battle at the national level is essentially even.
The stakes of the elections could not be higher. Voters face a choice between a continuation of the status quo — and perhaps a more aggressive set of progressive reforms, if Democrats regain control of both chambers of Congress — and a radically different vision of America that will lead to mass deportations and fewer restrictions on the executive branch could lead. . Some believe that American democracy itself is at stake.
Still, many voters are unlikely to choose either candidate in November, either casting protest votes for third-party candidates or staying home altogether.
Voter apathy and non-voting are very common
We have never had an election where the turnout was 100%.
In the last six elections since 2000, between a third and a half of eligible voters have failed to cast their vote, either because they chose not to, because they forgot, or because they did so for some reason. Couldn’t do it for another reason.
It’s difficult to make generalizations about why some Americans don’t vote, but there are some broad theories that could apply. One theory from the 2017 book “The American Nonvoter” is that a sense of uncertainty, especially caused by a national crisis like a pandemic, plays a key role in motivating less committed people to vote.
This year’s election presents a scenario that is relatively rare: Both Biden and Trump have been president, they have both been fairly unpopular, and everyone knows who they are.
More importantly, almost every voter — aside from the most recent immigrants — has an idea of what life in America is like when one or the other is in power.
While a Trump versus Biden presidency has enormous implications, some Americans may not feel particularly affected in their daily lives by who sits in the Oval Office.
Some are deliberately silent about the war in Gaza
Apart from the pre-existing reasons of voter apathy, some voters are deliberately planning to stay home in protest.
The biggest driver of such protests this year is left-wing voters who would otherwise support President Joe Biden but want to protest his support for Israel’s war in Gaza, which has killed more than 35,000 people and created dire humanitarian conditions.
During this year’s Democratic presidential primaries, hundreds of thousands of voters cast “indeterminate” ballots to express their displeasure.
Depending on whether a ceasefire agreement is reached before the elections, these voters could be absent in November, at least at the presidential level. And more radical groups like “Abandon Biden” are already pushing for voters to do just that, no matter what happens between now and then.
These voters, many of whom are Arab or Muslim Americans, say they know what a Trump victory would mean for them. The former president has long scapegoated Muslims for his brand of politics, and has vaguely promised to expand the so-called “Muslim ban” he issued when he was president.
Yet they are preparing to stay home anyway, arguing — in the words of Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud — that “a genocide outweighs all of this.”
Read the original article on Business Insider
