The chair of the London, Ont., chapter of Democrats Abroad Canada and the head of Republicans Abroad Canada are both pulling for their respective parties as they await the results of Tuesday’s election south of the border.
The organizations both promote voter registration and the casting of absentee ballots by Americans living in Canada. According to Democrats Abroad, of “the estimated 650,000 to 1-million Americans in Canada,” only 33,000 cast a ballot in the 2016 general election.
Gena Brumitt, chair of Democrats Abroad Canada’s London chapter voted out of Virginia and says she has family there and in Colorado.
“I feel pretty safe here in Canada, but I have heart palpitations quite often for fear for my family and friends there. I have normally driven into the U.S. and visited the U.S. pretty often. But besides COVID, I just haven’t liked the feeling of shifting sands in the U.S.,” she told Global News.
“I’ll be really glad when we have a clear winner. I think if it’s not a clear winner, we’ll have to batten down the hatches.”
According to a poll released Monday, former vice president Joe Biden held a double-digit national lead over President Donald Trump, a final NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found.
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However, Brumitt says she’s “not going to count (her) chickens before they hatch.”
Mark Feigenbaum, chairman of Republicans Abroad Canada, believes there is a pathway for President Donald Trump to be re-elected.
“I think it’s going to depend on a very few states, though, as it did last time. If we remember in 2016, three states — Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania — had less than 80,000 votes, cumulatively, deciding the election. So every vote is definitely gonna count this time.”
He’s guessing that a winner won’t be declared until Friday but he’s not feeling anxious, rather he enjoys watching the process unfold.
“My favourite (is) doing the math on the Electoral College map and things like that. I mean, I’m kind of happy I don’t have that barrage of advertising. I can only imagine being in Florida right now,” he said.
“I look at it more from the policy and science standpoint, so I don’t get personally anxious or distressed by it.”
While Feigenbaum is feeling calm, many Canadians are “watching in fear,” according to a new poll from Leger and the Association for Canadian Studies.
According to the poll, 75 per cent of those surveyed in Canada are worried about the election with 68 per cent fearing that the United States will suffer a breakdown of its systems marked by “social chaos” if no clear winner emerges.
That fear is being driven by the assumption that U.S. President Donald Trump won’t accept defeat if he is in fact defeated, or may prematurely declare victory on election night before all votes, including mail-in ballots, can be legally counted.
The survey of 1,516 Canadians selected from an online panel was conducted from Oct. 30 to Nov. 1. Polls conducted this way do not come with a margin of error, since they are not considered random.
–With files from Global News’ Katie Dangerfield and The Canadian Press’ Mike Blanchfield
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