A former envoy said the tight US presidential race between US Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump could be decided by US voters living abroad in countries such as Canada.
Bruce Heyman, a Democrat who served as US ambassador to Canada during the Obama administration, says a large number of voters from vital swing states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin that could decide the November 5 election live across the border in Canada.
The latest FiveThirtyEight polling averages in those states and others It shows that Harris and Trump are separated by a fraction of a percentage point, making every vote count.
“I’m just pleading with Americans in Canada, please, if you’re registered to vote (and you get an absentee ballot), you need to get your ballot back, because with only one week to go we need to make sure you get it in the mail,” Heyman told Mercedes. Stevenson in an interview that aired Sunday Western bloc.
Heyman has worked with organizations like Democrats Abroad for years to boost the American expatriate vote. The head of this group in Toronto told Global News that only about five per cent of the estimated 700,000 US citizens who live in Canada permanently exercise their right to vote.
Heyman said it helped boost American voter turnout abroad by 73 percent in 2020 from four years ago, helping US President Joe Biden win some of the battlegrounds that are now being fought again.
“It was the American voter abroad — Canada, you — who won Georgia, who won Arizona, and who had a huge impact on many of the other battleground states that Joe Biden won,” he said.
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“We have dramatically ramped up this effort for the Harris campaign.”
Biden ultimately won the 2020 election by less than 45,000 votes in the states of Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin combined, helping him win enough delegates in the Electoral College, despite outperforming Trump by about seven million votes nationally. The situation was similar in 2016, as Trump beat Hillary Clinton by about 77,000 votes in key states, despite Clinton winning the overall popular vote.
While this year’s race looks tougher, Heyman says the United States has been bitterly divided for years, forcing Republicans and Democrats to fight on the sidelines of different groups, including Americans abroad.
Another key demographic is Republican women, to whom Harris was appealing by pointing to Trump’s rhetoric and his role in the overthrow of Roe v. Wade and the constitutional right to abortion. The US Supreme Court ruling led several states to adopt strict restrictions that denied women access to reproductive health care.
“That’s why the vice president is out with (former Republican congresswoman) Liz Cheney: They’re working with Republican women now on the sidelines,” Heyman said.
“Remember, it’s all on the margins. You don’t have to win them all. But if you can get 10 or 20 percent of Republican women who know Donald Trump for who he is, I think Kamala Harris will be in a good place on Election Day.”
Like many officials and analysts in Canada, Heyman is concerned about the impact a second Trump presidency might have on Canada and the global arena.
Trump has promised sweeping tariffs on foreign imports, mass deportations of illegal immigrants, and a transactional approach to alliances like NATO, which has already put Canada under pressure to miss its goal of spending at least 2% of GDP. On defense.
Trump said he would not come to the defense of allies who do not reach that threshold if they were attacked – a key NATO commitment – and suggested he would let aggressors like Russia “do whatever they want.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has promised Canada will reach 2 per cent by 2032, a timeline Heyman said Trump would likely disagree with.
Trump also did not commit to continuing US military and financial aid to Ukraine in its fight against the Russian invasion. Heyman added that Canada may have to step up its efforts “significantly” with Europe to try to bridge this gap.
He added that mass deportations may at the same time lead to an increase in the number of migrants at Canada’s borders.
“If we encounter anything like what we experienced in a small way during his last administration on Wroxham Road with the Haitians (immigrants seeking asylum in Quebec), this could be a major complication for that if he actually does what he says he’s going to do.” “Every day,” he said.
These and other issues make Heyman fearful for the future of the Canadian-American relationship as a whole under Trump.
“I believe that the greatest threat to Canada in the history of our country is Trump’s second term,” he said.
“It doesn’t mean a tsunami is coming, but if you know there’s a warning, you have a choice: You can sit down and order another pina colada on the beach or go to higher ground. And that’s a choice Canada will have to make after November 5.”
– With a file from Global’s Sean O’Shea
&Copy 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
