[Issue Plus] U.S. presidential vote begins...Until the end of the competition week, it's a "confrontation."

■ Host: Lee Yeo-jin, anchor Jang Won-seok
■ Starring: Min Jeong-hoon, professor of American Studies at the National Diplomatic Institute,

* The text below may differ from the actual broadcast content, so please check the broadcast for more accurate information. Please specify [YTN News PLUS] when quoting.

[Anchor]
The main vote for the U.S. presidential election began at 2 p.m. today in our time.

As the unprecedented ultra-thin situation continues, the results are difficult to predict. Let's take a look at the flow, outlook, and variables of the U.S. presidential election with Min Jeong-hoon, a professor of American Studies at the National Diplomatic Institute. Welcome.

It's the most intense race in U.S. history that I can't predict an inch ahead of me. Are there any candidates you can expect?

[Minjeonghun]
As you said, it's very close, so we're watching because it's not a strange trend no matter which candidate wins in the current situation. According to the results of the recent seven competing states, the average results show that they are tossing and turning. However, who can secure 270 votes for the electorate, among the seven competing states, Harris is Rust Belt, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. And isn't it a close advantage in Nevada in the Sun Belt? And since Trump has close advantages in North Carolina, Georgia and Arizona, isn't there a better chance that Harris will secure 276 votes? So I think I have a higher chance of winning.Ma is so close that someone will easily win. It's a difficult situation to say this.

[Anchor]
Pennsylvania is the biggest winner right now, right? Biden's reversal was also held during the 2020 presidential election, so please explain the current situation here.

[Minjeonghun]
If you look at a site like Pennsylvania that has a poll average, it says it's him, a tie. Former President Trump is 0.23 percent ahead, and if you look at the polls conducted in fact, Pennsylvania is the hardest state to know because it's a poll where Trump wins by 2 to 3 percent, a poll where he's tied or Harris wins by 1 to 2 percent. Of the seven contending states Pennsylvania mentioned, a total of 93 votes are up for grabs in seven contending states, with 19 votes for Pennsylvania. That's why the two candidates are working hard to get into the White House because who wins 19 of these 93 is the most important thing, and it's very hard to predict the winner as it's the best mystery ever.

[Anchor]
So, didn't the two candidates hold another campaign rally side by side in Pennsylvania until the end of yesterday? What I just showed you on the map shows that Trump is leading in five of the seven major New York Times opinion polls, and now leads Pennsylvania by a very small margin of 48:49. A few hours ago, it was a 48:48 tie, but now I see that Trump is a little bit ahead with 49.

[Minjeonghun]
That's right. So, it can't be meaningful because each poll result goes back and forth within the margin of error. That's why I think we have to wait and see. I'm paying attention to how successful the candidates are in mobilizing their supporters, how much Republicans in Pennsylvania and Democrats are in mobilizing their Democratic supporters, because this can make a slight difference. As you said, Trump led Harris by 1 percentage point this time, and the previous poll showed Harris leading again. That's why it seems clear that the direction of this presidential election is determined by who takes Pennsylvania.

[Anchor]
In the meantime, the results of the poll are hard to predict. I think early voting can also be a variable right now, what do you predict?

[Minjeonghun]
Since early voting is now said to have been decided by more than 82 million voters, about 150 million are expected to actually vote, so as you said, more than half of the voters have already voted. That's why the key is which party supporters came out more in the early voting. So, assuming that the total number of voters who can vote does not change much, more than half of them have already voted, and now less than half of them go out and vote on the day of voting. So, the votes of pre-voters who have already exceeded half will play a very important role.

However, traditionally, if you look at the election results, there are studies that show that early voting is advantageous for the Democratic Party and progressive parties, and the actual voting results are the same. But this time, the Republican Party also encouraged early voting, so it narrowed the gap considerably, and because of this analysis, how much Republicans have narrowed the gap with Democrats in early voting, this is going to be very important. Because statistics show that more Republican supporters come out during the main vote. That's why how much Republicans will be able to make up for the main vote by doing well in the early voting. And will you be able to move on? Since this part will determine the result, we open the pre-voting ballot box to see what the result will be, and the trend is very interesting.

[Anchor]
We started at 0:00 local time and 2:00 p.m. local time at Dixville Notch, a mountain town in New Hampshire. Voting will be held for 25 hours by region until 3 p.m. tomorrow. But it takes longer for the results to come out. This is because of the influence of early voting, right?

[Minjeonghun]
That's right. Since there is a mail-in voting during early voting, when the mail-in voting comes, we have to sort it again and open it again to see the signature and count again. These parts take a lot of time physically. In addition to that, there is a possibility of a recount. In any case, because it's a very close election, any scenario that delays the time we can expect can all be realized, so it's very cautious. When will we know the outline of the winning candidate, I'm looking at it like this. Personally, in the case of 2020, there are reports that it actually took four days, but it took four days for the media to officially declare that Biden won, but if I recall, it was outlined to some extent the next day after the count began.

However, it took time because there was a very sensitive part to officially announce it in the media, so we took some time to check it out in Georgia. So this time, it may take more time because it's much more ultra-thin than four years ago. And I think that's going to take a lot of time because there's a lot of mail-in voting, but if Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Rust Belt had more gaps than we expected and we had that kind of outline, regardless of the remaining votes, we would have traditionally counted votes sooner than expected and we would have the winner by the dawn of the next day. It will take a little longer than that, but I think the possibility of outline coming out to some extent by the next day cannot be ruled out.

[Anchor]
The high early voting rate is also considered a variable, but where white women will vote now is also a variable now, isn't it? How do you view it?

[Minjeonghun]
That's right. If you look at white women, demographically, voters' voting tendencies, that includes race and gender. Ethnically, white and non-white voting tendencies are slightly different, the preferred party. In the case of white people, 55 to 60 percent support Republicans, and in the case of non-white people, nearly 90 percent support Democrats, and 70 percent of Hispanics support Democrats. But if you look at the percentage of American voters, about 67% are white voters. That's why how much white voters can get will inevitably affect the outcome of the election.

So white men had a little more Republican support and white women were relatively weak, but more than half supported Republican candidates, and they did so in 2016 and 2020. But in 2022, the Supreme Court dropped a historic ruling that guarantees the abortion rights of American women. And they gave the state the right to decide on abortion rights individually. Then very strict anti-abortion laws were passed around conservative southern states. Female voters are angry about this.

So, women's votes were very important for the Democratic Party to do well in the 2022 midterm elections, and the issue of abortion rights has been maintained until now. As you know, Harris pushed very hard on abortion rights and showed a win on the issue of abortion rights. On the other hand, former President Trump has been very reserved in women's votes, so I think it will be very important to determine how much white female voters will support Harris and Harris, who are women, in favor of abortion rights, and how much the abortion rights Harris emphasized would have helped her win the election.

[Anchor]
When Julia Roberts, a well-known actress to us, voted for Harris without her husband's knowledge, she made headlines by advertising hidden Harris, but in fact, wasn't Shy Trump a very variable during the 2016 presidential election? Shy Trump vs Hidden Harris, how much are you watching?

[Minjeonghun]
It will be difficult to know the exact number. However, based on speculation, why Shy Trump appeared in 2016. If you look at why the word Hidden Harris appeared in 2024, in 2016, a candidate named Trump was elected as the presidential candidate of the Republican Party, whose political outsider is a traditional conservative party. There was a lot of antipathy from mainstream Republican supporters about that, and there was a lot of distrust. That's why there were quite a few people who didn't express their support until the day of the vote. However, when I opened the ballot box, 93-94% of Republican supporters eventually voted for Trump. So, there was no choice but to be a gap between the results of the poll and the results of the vote.

So it's a phenomenon that happened because you don't know Trump very well, you have distrust and you don't have confidence, that's what I see. As it comes to 2016, 2020, and 2024, some established perceptions and evaluations of Trump have been established, so in 2024, it is still difficult to attract Shy Trump, of course, those living in rural areas, to the polls. Nevertheless, compared to 16 years ago, eight years later, Shy Trump would have disappeared, so I think there are much more Republican supporters who say they support Trump. On the contrary, in the case of Hidden Harris, he was just Biden's second-in-command, which is not well known.

But suddenly, when Biden resigned, I said it was a political fate, but I became a presidential candidate. So, among the Democratic Party's supporters, they are rallying to prevent Trump from coming back to power anyway, but a small number of Democratic supporters still have doubts. You're not sure. Because of that, as the election day approaches, Trump's supporters have gathered faster, and a week before the election day, they have been showing their return to Harris' support, so I think there will be more hidden Harris voters in this election than Shy Trump, and how much that part is reflected on the voting day, so it can determine the votes, so I think that the results of the vote can be determined.

[Anchor]
There are reports that American voters are under a lot of stress about this election. I think one of those things is the case of disobeying the presidential election four years ago, but do you think there is a possibility that former President Trump will express that kind of nuance if he loses again this time?

[Minjeonghun]
It's highly likely. So the possibility of disobeying the election, so if Trump wins, he won't. So it was a beautiful election by law. I would say this, but if the ultra-thin situation leads to the vote and loses in an ultra-thin race, then of course I would object to that. In fact, there was a custom that the U.S. presidential election ended when you had to accept it, but that custom was broken in 2020. It could be another example of breaking such customs.

Of course, in the case of the riot on January 6, 2020, we believe that such a terrible situation is unlikely.Ma can't be ruled out completely. Instead, we believe that such political moves that cause legal litigation and political turmoil will continue, so as you said, we are concerned that it will be an opportunity for American voters to become politically confused, if less so, in 2020 and 2024, to be skeptical about the greatness of their democracy once again.

[Anchor]
If the U.S. presidential election now secures 270 electoral votes, which is the majority of the total 538 electors, it will win. But since 538 is an even number, what happens if it's 269:269 and it's tied like this?

[Minjeonghun]
We can't rule out that possibility completely, because it's super-tight. Then the Federal House of Representatives decides the winner without re-election. The reason why the House of Representatives, not the Senate, decides is that in the political history of the United States, when the United States first established itself and then decided how to elect members of the House and Senate, the House of Representatives voted by voters and the Senate indirectly elected people recommended by the state. That's why the House has better political legitimacy than the Senate. Why, voters choose for themselves. It's what made the House of Representatives make such an important decision in this area.

That's why the Federal House of Representatives will hold a special election in early January next year. If so, the new parliament will open on January 3rd, so if you look at that, you can see who is advantageous depending on where the new parliament is going. Because each state will have one vote. The vote is repeated until a candidate who exercises and secures a majority. But if Republicans take control of the House, if Democrats take control of the House, wouldn't it be clear which candidate they would vote for? So, in addition to the presidential election, there's another reason to pay attention to the federal congressional election.

[Anchor]
Then, which party do you think will be more dominant in the House and Senate elections like this presidential election?

[Minjeonghun]
For now, if you look at the current federal composition of the federal Senate, the Senate has a Democratic majority and the House has a Republican majority. But if you look at the ongoing race and look at the results of the polls, Republicans are likely to win the Senate. The House is really close. I don't know because it's a premarital, so I think I really need to open the lid. Because only a few dozen districts are contested states, it's really hard to know the consequences because there are more diverse interests intertwined than the presidential election. So, I think we can also see such an interesting scene where the president can change if it becomes 269 to 269 according to which party controls the House of Representatives.

[Anchor]
I see. This was Min Jeong-hoon, a professor of American Studies at the National Diplomatic Institute, explaining the U.S. presidential election. Thank you.