Debate: How to vote in the “safe” states

What should we call on voters to do in safe Democrat states in the USA’s Presidential election? It perplexes me that, despite repeatedly being asked, those in Workers’ Liberty who are for a Democrat vote, have ignored this question. They have instead treated the question as a simple national one, as if the President were directly elected.

The president is elected by Electoral College. All states bar Maine and Nebraska have a winner-takes-all voting system for delegates in the electoral college. If, as predicted, Harris gets over 60% of the vote in California, and Trump gets under 40%, all 54 of California’s 54 presidential electors will vote for Harris. If Harris were to receive 51% or 91%, the outcome would be the same: all 54. Why call for a vote for Democrats outside of swing and plausibly swing states?

This is not a fringe consideration or theoretical question. Vermont is predicted to vote 70% for Harris against under 30% for Trump. Many of the safe Democratic seats are seats where the left, and unions, have most hearing.

Maybe in fact the call needn’t extend to really safe Democratic states. But then is the need to keep open space for independent working-class politics too obvious to affirm? Or would the message of “vote Democrat in X states” be too complicated?

Last time around, the majority in Workers’ Liberty favoured “a vote for the Green candidate, the socialist and trade unionist, Howie Hawkins”, while recognising his campaign’s serious limitations. A minority called for a vote for Biden against Trump. Unfortunately, Hawkins is not running this time.

The hurdles for ballot access in the US Presidential elections are outrageously high. We have been right to dismiss (Green) Jill Stein and (independent) Cornel West as so politically bad as to be unsupportable as “propaganda candidates”.

Partial

But it is possible to get “partial ballot access”, to be a candidate in some but all states. Other nominally left candidates have this: the nominally Trotskyist SWP (US) and SEP (US), the eclectic SP USA, the US Pirate Party, and the Maoist PSL. All deeply politically flawed, probably none supportable. Still, future moves towards a working-class party or genuinely socialist candidates would likely start with partial ballot access.

I fall — or vacillate — between a position close to that of Ben Tausz, a critical call for a Democrat vote; and that of Katy Dollar 1 2, Simon Nelson 1 2 and others, not calling for a vote.

I am alarmed at the continual slide of some vocal champions in Workers’ Liberty of advocating a Democrat vote. The desperation of some straw men from that side — false suggestions that Dollar, Nelson, etc. don’t see Trump as worse than Biden, or as a serious threat — hasn’t helped either. The failure to either justify or drop their call in very safe Democrat states leaves another leaking hole in their case.

Championing a level of support for the Democrats far beyond that plausibly necessary to keep Trump out of the White House for now suggests a softening of a critique of the Democrats.