The 2020 presidential race will most likely be decided by voters in the suburbs, one expert said at a Blank Slate Media forum held over Zoom last week.
Moderator and editor Steven Blank was joined by panelists Robert Zimmerman, co-president of international experience media relations company ZE Creative Communications; Bruce Blakeman, Republican councilman for District 3 of the Town of Hempstead; Tracey Edwards, Long Island regional director of the NAACP and commissioner of the New York State Public Service Commission; and Lawrence Levy, executive dean of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University.
In his opening statement, Levy said that the country’s suburbs “have determined the winner of every presidential race, with the possible exception of one in 2012.”
“The winner in the suburbs has gone on to win the White House and the party that has won more suburban seats in Congress goes out to control the gavel there,” Levy said. “So this race is really about who can take the suburbs.”
He added that although Long Island was “the quintessential United States suburb,” its votes don’t count like other suburbs, due to New York’s status as a blue state.
“[The Trump campaign is] looking for voters who are similar demographically, ideologically, politically to those in rural areas where he did very, very well,” Levy said. “So I’m keeping my eye on the suburbs. People like Long Islanders all over the country are going to decide this pretty much in about five states. And unfortunately, our votes won’t count in terms of who goes to the White House.”
Edwards said that for most voters, the pandemic would be dominating how they voted.
“This race has come down to three things: COVID, COVID and COVID,” Edwards said. “But it’s how the voters in this country, particularly in the swing suburbs, outside of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, outside of Milwaukee, outside of Detroit, the Maricopa County, Arizona, suburbs, a handful of them – it’s about how they see COVID.”
Zimmerman agreed, saying that he thought that Trump and his administration had mismanaged the pandemic.
“We saw how the mismanagement of coronavirus has not only spread massive, massive infections and disease in it, and death, we now have a new number of 85,000 a record in one day the past 24 hours, 85,000 new infections of coronavirus, a record but because of his mismanagement of this pandemic,” Zimmerman said.
Edwards said that another issue on the ballot was race relations, as highlighted by the Black Lives Matter movement.
“I think our humanity is on the ballot,” Edwards said. “We want to make sure that we elect someone that’s going to bring us together because we have been divided more than ever before. We have divided so much that it is fear that’s on the ballot, our race relations have been challenged. We have been pushed and pulled between deciding whether you are pro-police, or against police brutality. You can be 100% pro-police and 100% against police brutality. But somehow, this nation has gone to the point where you need to choose, and you don’t need to choose … My fear is if the president is elected, which I do not believe he will be, but if the president is elected, we will go further and further away from each other. And that’s not where we need to be. We need to be coming closer and closer together.”
Blakeman said that the Democratic Party had turned into a “far-left socialist party that is going to destroy the American economy.”
“Socialism hasn’t worked anywhere throughout the world throughout history, and yet [the Democrats] have been constantly moving in that direction with respect to Donald Trump,” Blakeman said. “Donald Trump is not a career politician. Donald Trump is a business person. He’s results-oriented. Bottom line, let’s talk about race. Joe Biden was in government for 47 years, he had the opportunity to fix things he had the opportunity to do things. There’s only one segregationist in this race. And the segregationist is Joe Biden.”
He cited the Criminal Reform Act, which he said allowed “kids who were buying or selling nickel bags of pot” to avoid a criminal justice hearing and incarceration.
“The Republican Party wants African-American people to be successful,” Blakeman said. “That’s why the president passed the Criminal Reform Act, that’s why the president has brought down African-American unemployment.”
Most of the panelists said they were wary that the election could be decided by the courts should a margin be too close.
“I guarantee you, they’ll be challenged on absentee ballots, it will go to the courts,” Zimmerman said.
“It depends on whether one side or another and how extensively they decide to challenge the election, through the courts or even on the streets,” Levy said.
Edwards cited the massive early voting turnout as citizens wanting to decide the elections themselves.
“People want to vote, people want to decide this election, not have the courts decide the election for them,” Edwards said.
“I think people want the people to decide the selection the way they want it to go,” Levy said. “And depending upon how it turns out, a lot of those people who want to let the people decide, including Democrats, may take umbrage in the courts as well.”
