Elections in 2024

Several very important countries will hold elections next year. Their results hold enormous geopolitical consequences.

United States

Former President Trump at one of his signature rallies in Waco, Texas.

The United States will hold its presidential election on November 5th, as well as elections for all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 34 of the seats in the Senate. Several states will also hold gubernatorial and mayoral elections.

As of writing, it looks pretty likely that the presidential election will feature the same major party candidates as the 2020 election, with Joe Biden representing the center-left Democratic Party and Donald Trump representing the right wing Republican party. Candidates need 270 electoral votes to win, which are “points” roughly allotted to states based on population.

Since the 2020 election, many forces have changed the American political landscape. First of all, the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, a legal precedent protecting the right to abortion in all fifty states. Roughly half of the states have created new restrictions on abortion, including more than ten with total bans. Democrats, a mostly pro-choice party, used this issue to outperform in the 2022 midterm elections.

The economy has done decently well under Joe Biden. GDP growth was higher than in Trump’s and Obama’s presidential terms, and unemployment in the US reached the lowest level in decades. However, at the same time, inflation became the highest in over forty years, reaching over eight percent.

Other issues like immigration (particularly at the Southern Border), healthcare, guns and mass shootings, as well as Trump’s many criminal charges will shape the outcome of the 2024 election.

As far as the House of Representatives, Democrats have fought hard against the gerrymandering of Republican congressional districts, and have made political maps more in their favor in states like Alabama and New York. In 2022, Republicans only won a four seat majority, and Democrats could easily flip it in the next election.

The Senate is currently controlled by the Democratic party, but with only a one seat majority, as well as having many Democratic seats up for election in traditionally Republican-voting states, Republicans could easily flip the chamber.

Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia will most likely be the closest and most decisive states in the 2024 election.

United Kingdom

Rishi Sunak, the current prime minister of the United Kingdom, has indicated that next general election will be held sometime in the end of 2024. Sunak’s Conservative Party is trying to delay the next election as long as possible to get a more favorable result: the left leaning Labour party currently commands a twenty point lead in the polls.

More than half of Britain wants back in the EU

Conservatives have been in power since the 2010 election. Their reign has seen five prime ministers – David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and Rishi Sunak. In 2022 alone, there were three different prime ministers.

The most defining event of the decade-plus of Conservative rule was Brexit. In 2016, UK voters narrowly voted to leave the European Union. By leaving the world’s largest single market, the Britain’s economy has stagnated and the island has entered recession. It has the highest inflation rate in the G7, and the lowest GDP growth of any major European power, including internationally sanctioned Russia.

With its post-pandemic recovery, energy prices have soared, housing has become more and more unaffordable, and wages have not caught up with inflation: in fact the average Briton is now poorer than the average Pole.

All major political parties have ruled out joining the EU, but since the Liberal Democrats announced their agenda to rejoin to the EU customs union, their candidates have increased in the polls. This week, Labour and the Lib Dems flipped two out of three Conservative held seats in a special election, a bleak sign for the Conservative party.

The Labour Party is targeting many of the “Red Wall” seats it lost in previous elections. These are a group of constituencies in Northern England (the big chunk in the middle of the map) that traditionally vote Labour but were lost in the landslide 2019 parliament election. Many of these counties voted for Brexit in large margins, and many are home to large numbers of blue collar workers.

Mexico

Mexico’s 2018 election was a landslide for Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s left wing MORENA party. With a near 70% approval rating, AMLO’s party is likely to win another huge victory next summer. Presidential elections come every five years, and presidents are inelligible to run for a second term. MORENA has two candidates with a resonable change of getting the party’s nomination in September – Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo Marcelo Luis Ebrard Casaubón. Sheinbaum is the current mayor of Mexico City while Ebrard is the former secretary of foreign affairs.

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