A ripple, not a wave, will decide the US election

What can the 2020 and 2016 elections, the previous votes in which Donald Trump was the Republican nominee, tell us about today’s race for the White House?

There are three layers to a presidential election, only two of which really matter. The overall ‘popular’ vote only counts for bragging rights. Trump has never won it. The popular vote in individual states, however, is the critical second layer of the election. Trump won the 2016 election because he eked out slender popular pluralities in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona – four states that are battlegrounds this year as well – and in Florida, which since 2000 had been the biggest prize on the map where the winner couldn’t be taken for granted.

The third layer of the election is the arcane institution known as the Electoral College. Few Americans know much about how it works, and when anyone dares to challenge its workings – as Trump did when he called on his vice president, Mike Pence, not to ‘certify’ the results of the Electoral College vote on 6 January 2021 – there’s the potential for chaos or a constitutional crisis.