The fat lady might not sing on election night

Millions of Americans will draw a profound sigh of relief when the bitter 2024 election campaign finally comes to its well-deserved and much anticipated conclusion. But don’t expect the electoral carnage to end on Nov. 5.

The fat lady might not sing on election night. Chaos and confusion rule the land and still will reign supreme after the big day. The presidential contest is virtually tied, and has been so for a month nationally and in most of the battleground states. With voters deeply divided, neither Donald Trump nor Kamala Harris has been able to gain a significant advantage over the other.

Barring an early November surprise and a run on the table for one of the contestants in the electoral combat zone, the deadlock might tie our legal and political systems in knots for days, weeks or even months.

The week after Halloween, the ghosts of the 1876 presidential contest cast a dark shadow over the 2024 race. That year, the Democratic governor of New York, Samuel Tilden won the popular vote, but the electoral vote tally was so close that a special commission convened to settle the outcome.

The Republican candidate, Rutherford Hayes, emerged victorious after the GOP cut a deal with Southern electors to throw their support his way in return for his promise to end Reconstruction and withdraw federal troops protecting newly freed African Americans from their former masters in the former Confederacy. The nefarious deal led to the rise of Jim Crow and the continuation of legal discrimination in the South for almost a century.

In a similar circumstance, what would Trump bargain away for privilege of living in the White House for four years? Whose rights or freedoms would he sacrifice on the altar of political expediency?

Legal challenges to a close result could linger in state and federal legal limbo for months. Holy hanging chads Batman! We could have another Florida 2000 on our hands. Could another Supreme Court, dominated by Republicans, hand over the White House to Donald Trump like it did for George W. Bush back then? Will there be another MAGA invasion of the Peoples’ House to prevent certification of the electoral vote by disgruntled and violent Trump acolytes like there was on Jan. 6, 2021? Inquiring minds want to know.

The outcome of races in the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives hang on the same slender thread. Senate races in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Texas are very close. Even deep blue bastions, California and New York contain numerous closely contested House races. Nationally, there are a couple dozen House races that are up for grabs. It is unclear which of the two parties will control that body after Election Day.

Recycled squeals of “Stop the Steal” will resonate if Trump loses his desperate bid to return to the White House and stay out of prison. The felonious former president still hasn’t accepted the decisive results of the 2020 presidential campaign when he lost the popular and electoral tally by a large margin to Joe Biden. Trump’s rhetoric, this year on the stump strongly suggests that he will not gracefully accept defeat in a close contest this year like Richard Nixon did in the razor thin finish to the 1960 presidential campaign.

Now that Trump’s close confident and partner in crime, Steve Bannon (fortunately, no relation to me) is out of prison, he can mastermind and manhandle “Stop the Steal 2.”

Harris’s recent speech on the Ellipse near the White House was the dramatic closing argument for her campaign and an epilogue to the inflammatory speech that Trump gave to egg on his acolytes for the violent invasion of the U.S. Capitol.

The vice president will have a front-row seat when she presides over Congress for the certification of the electoral vote on Jan. 20, 2025. Heaven only knows if she will have to contend with slates of phony electors or the death threats that confronted her predecessor, Mike Pence, four years earlier.

This is no way to run a railroad and certainly not a democracy. The best way to establish some certitude is a simple and straightforward solution. Award the White House to the winner of the national popular vote. The best expression of democratic sentiment is the will of all Americans. Republicans will dig in their heels to protect the unfair and outmoded Electoral College since the party has such a difficult time winning the national popular vote.

Fortunately for the GOP, it’s even harder to amend the Constitution than it is to get Trump to admit he lost the 2020 election or apologize for the racist comments made by a comedian at his recent Madison Square Garden rally. Remember, the founding document of our great republic starts with the words, “We the people,” not "We the States."

Brad Bannon is a Democratic strategist, CEO of Bannon Communications Research which polls for Democrats, labor unions and progressive issue groups. He hosts the popular progressive podcast on power, politics and policy, Deadline D.C. with Brad Bannon.