What Happens If the General Election Is Pushed past January 2021?

[Sloumeau]

(Because the purpose of the Democratic Primaries is to choose a candidate for the General Election, I believe that a discussion of how delays in the Democratic Primaries might lead to one or more delays in the General Election is appropriate for this forum)

When individual states started talking about delaying their State Democratic Primaries to choose a nominee for President, and then actually started doing it, I was concerned. I was not so concerned about the delays themselves--I believe that the guy I like, Joe Biden, will win the nomination no matter how much the State Democratic Primaries are delayed. No, what concerned me was how a series of events might unfold:

1. Imagine that for the next few months, because the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic continues to rage throughout our country unabated, that all of our State Democratic Primaries are delayed to at least June, and then at least after July 16, the current end of the Democratic National Convention.

2. Imagine that because of the delays in the Democratic State Primaries, the Democratic National Convention is pushed back a few months to September or October in order to allow the state primaries to finish before the Democratic National Convention.

3. Now imagine that before November, Republicans insist that the November Elections be pushed back in order to be sure that the primaries take place before the General Election. Just how far back can the General Election be pushed back? A new President is supposed to be inaugurated by the end of January. What exactly happens if, through one or more pushbacks in time, the General Election gets pushed back beyond the January 2021 inauguration date? Who exactly is President then? Let's look at several possibilities:

Scenario A: Let us assume that, as of the end of January, if no new election for President is held by then, Donald Trump and Mike Pence cease to be President and Vice President. If this is true, who would then be President? Succession should go next to the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, but Nancy Pelosi is also scheduled to get re-elected in November 2020. If a General Election is not held until after January, Speaker Pelosi's term will have expired, as well as every member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and about a third of the Senate, including Senate leader Mitch McConnell, who would normally succeed after the Speaker of the House Pelosi. Because of this possible scenario, I have a question: Can California hold their election for Nancy Pelosi, and in fact for all California U.S. House of Representatives members in November, even if the Republicans insist on no Presidential Election in November? Can the Democratic-leaning states around the country insist on their Congressional and Senate elections be held in November, even if the Republicans do not want the Presidential Election to happen in November? I ask this because in order for Nancy Pelosi to actually be Speaker of the House, she does need a majority in the House, which means that Democrats need enough states to hold the U.S. House of Representative elections before the end of January 2021 in order for Nancy Pelosi to hold a majority when Trump's and Pence's terms expire.

Also, can Nancy Pelosi maintain her majority if enough Red states do not hold their Congressional Elections? Can enough Blue states hold their Congressional elections in November separate from the Presidential Election to allow Nancy Pelosi to maintain her speakership?

Now, this whole discussion may seem academic to some people, except that some people are saying that we may be dealing with Coronavirus for 18 months, and except for the fact that Trump is barely lifting a finger to help end this pandemic. In addition, the fact that Rasmussen recently took a survey asking if voters actually supported a delay in the November presidential election. Rasmussen has been effectively operating as an arm of the Republican Party for years now, producing slanted surveys that always seem to grade Donald Trump higher than all of the other polls. If Rasmussen is asking questions about delaying the November elections, you can bet that the Republicans are thinking about it.

[link:https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/disease/25_are_ready_to_postpone_november_election|]

25% Are Ready to Postpone November Election

Thursday, March 19, 2020

One-in-four voters are prepared already to postpone the November presidential election – for the first time in U.S. history - if the coronavirus threat continues. Support is much higher for delaying upcoming primaries.

Scenario B: What if the Republicans argue that, because of the Coronavirus epidemic, and "because it is not fair to have Trump leave office without getting a chance for reelection" that Trump should simply remain in office until America gets around to having a Presidential election--even if that election is after January 2021? I could definitely see Republicans doing that. Will Republicans be able to both get a delay in the November elections and also manage to get Trump to remain in office past January even if his term has expired? How will we get Trump out of the White House if Republicans insist on this line of thought?

Scenario C: Here's something else to think about. What if one of the reasons that Trump is sitting on his ass so much and not doing much to help get out massive amounts of COVID-19 tests, and not forcing factories to make ventilators and masks, is that he hopes that a massive COVID-19 pandemic situation, still raging by November 2020, is his ticket to avoid getting defeated at the ballot box in November, and to stay in office past January? What if Trump actually has a huge motivation to *NOT* to fix the coronavirus pandemic because he thinks to let the pandemic rage will let him stay in office? What if the thing that most proves that Trump should be booted out of office, his nonaction on the pandemic, turns out to be the very thing that allows him to stay in office? Wouldn't that be ironic, don't ya think? Wouldn't that be horrific?