Three terrifying questions loom over the 2024 election

Few years have been as chaotic, dramatic and unpredictable as 2024. And we still have four months and a bit left to go. 

No one knows how 2024 will turn out. But answers to three big and scary questions may provide an idea of what lies ahead.

First, what will Nov. 6, the day after the election, bring? Second, what about Jan. 21, the day after the inauguration? And third, is it Donald Trump’s election or Kamala Harris’s to lose?

Most analysts say the election is too close to call. Fifty thousand to 100,000 votes in a handful of battleground states and districts could determine the next president. That means both sides will have reasons to contest the vote in several districts. 

 If Trump loses, he will claim the election was rigged. As in 2020, Trump will use the courts to reverse the vote tying up the legal system.

On Nov. 6, the nation may awake to one of the most contested elections in America’s history. Unlike 2000, in which the presidency rested on 527 votes in Florida, suppose that not only several states but also Nebraska's first Congressional District are challenged and subject to judicial review.  

This would be an electoral, judicial and political nightmare. And the threat of violence always looms.

If things unfold as they did in 1876, when the Electoral College was not able to reach the majority vote required to choose the president, Jan. 21 could find the newly elected Speaker of the House serving as the acting president. 

The Constitution’s 12th Amendment and the Electoral Count Act of 1887 direct that the House selects the president, and the Senate chooses the vice president. Depending on which party controls each House, it is not inconceivable that President Harris could have JD Vance as her vice president, or that Trump could be matched with Tim Walz. 

Although this has never happened, given the extraordinary events of 2024, is anything now unthinkable?  

And what about another, even more violent version of Jan. 6? Under these conditions, is it Trump’s election to lose or is it Harris’s?  

In the days since Harris received the nomination, her campaign has been nearly flawless. Buoyed by record numbers of Democrats who genuinely feared Joe Biden was unelectable, a tsunami of support has exceeded any level of even reasonable expectations. Fundraising and volunteers have swelled.  

Although the selection of Tim Walz as Harris’s running mate was well received in some quarters, allegations of “stolen valor” in claiming wartime service and efforts to avoid service in Iraq by retiring from the Army National Guard to run for Congress in 2010 have surfaced.

Harris’s enthusiastic, optimistic style of campaigning has gone over well so far. Harris is attractive. And her smile is a refreshing alternative to Trump's glower. This has put Trump on his back foot.

Experienced Republicans have persuasively argued that to win, Trump needs to focus on policy and the record, not on his familiar attacks to demean and belittle his opponents. Name-calling may have worked in 2016, but today, voters are tired of the insults.  

Trump’s base will remain loyal, but independents and traditional Republicans may decide that Trump’s bombast is no longer tolerable.

Trump’s performances before the National Association of Black Journalists, press conference at Mar a Lago and interview on X with Elon Musk reflected the old Trump — bullying and negative. If this continues and Trump is unable to change his tactics and strategy, it appears he could be defeated in November. Hence, it makes sense that this is Trump’s election to lose.

But is it not Harris’s to lose as well? Harris has not been tested. She has ducked all interviews and press conferences. She has not posted any specific policies on her web page, although, given the suddenness of her elevation to the top spot, this may be understandable. What happens when she is faced with tough questions or the allegations against Walz take hold?

For over three years, Harris has been accused of speaking in word salads with circular arguments that made little sense. She has flip-flopped on many major issues. Will this continue?

Two conclusions: First, both candidates can lose the election. Second, all the makings of a disastrous electoral outcome are in place to make 2025 even scarier than 2024. 

Harlan Ullman Ph.D., is a senior advisor at the Atlantic Council and the prime author of the “shock and awe” military doctrine. His 12th book, “The Fifth Horseman and the New MAD:  How Massive Attacks of Disruption Became the Looming Existential Danger to a Divided Nation and the World at Large,” is available on Amazon.