Election suspense

Alejandra Yañez  | THE RIDER

Election Day is over, but Americans wait in suspense as the ballot count continues to determine the winner. 

President Donald J. Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden also keep the election compelling.

In the last two days, Trump has threatened to “stop the count” and publicly proclaimed, “Frankly, we did win this election,” even though the counting of the ballots has not been completed. 

“It ain’t over till every vote is counted, every ballot is counted,” Biden countered. 

As of 8 p.m. today, the popular vote count showed Biden with 73,219,927 and Trump with 69,456,187. In the Electoral College, Biden was ahead of Trump, 264 to 214 votes, according to the Associated Press. 

To win the election, a candidate needs 270 electoral votes.

In Cameron County, with all 103 precincts reporting, Biden and vice presidential running mate Kamala Harris led Trump and incumbent Mike Pence by a vote of 63,732 to 48,834.

With all 255 precincts reporting, Biden led Trump in Hidalgo County by a vote of 127,391 to 89,925.

Early on during election night, Texas appeared to be swaying Democratic. However, as the night progressed the state flipped back to red. 

UTRGV political science Associate Professor Daniel Chomsky attributes this to a low voter turnout among people of color in Texas.

“[People of color] vote in relatively low numbers,” Chomsky said. “Some of the major cities in Texas like Houston for example, and the [Rio Grande] Valley seem to have been quite light.”

He said another contributing factor to Texas staying Red is that the Republican Party made it difficult to vote in Texas. Other factors include voter hostility and not giving Texans a reason to come out and vote.

“I would emphasize that the Democratic Party did not give a reason for the people of the Rio Grande Valley to come out and vote for them,” Chomsky said. “By failing to give people a reason to vote for Democrats, people won’t vote Democrat.”

The election resulted in a record voter turnout for Cameron and Hidalgo counties.

Asked if he expects this trend to continue for future elections, Chomsky replied, “No, I do not. In fact, I strongly anticipate that the turnout in the midterms, coming in just two years, is gonna be low. The American system discourages voter participation. We make it hard for people to vote and, therefore, they don’t vote. It’s going to take extraordinary circumstances to get Americans out to vote in very large numbers.” 

He said now more than ever, the stakes for voting have gone up due to a larger gap between parties.

“The stakes of voting have gone up and they’ve gone up because the differences in the parties have gotten greater,” Chomsky said. “In particular, what has happened is the Republican Party has become much more of an extremist party, with picking the far right on a variety of issues having to do with economic equality and on the environment.”

He said the difference does not lie between ordinary citizens, but rather between the parties.

Asked how the presidential election helped statewide and local elections, Chomsky replied, “Voters know extremely little about where their interests lie in state and local elections.”

As a result of this, there is very little representation at the ballots, according to Chomsky.