Trending towards Trump, say Arthur Sinodinos, former Australian Ambassador to the United States

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The US election will come down to a few swing states, but it is trending towards Trump, say Arthur Sinodinos, former Australian Ambassador to the United States.

Transcript

00:00I'm with Arthur Sinodinos once again, the former Australian ambassador to the United

00:05States.

00:06No great surprise.

00:07A bit like Canberra, isn't it?

00:08Washington, where Canberra always votes- Bigger and with more to do.

00:11Exactly.

00:12And a few bigger monuments too.

00:13I'm keen for your thoughts at this point of the evening, what you're seeing so far.

00:17It's looking a lot more like, as we've been saying for a long time, we're going to come

00:20down to Michigan, Wisconsin, Central America- It's trending Trump's way, North Carolina

00:24and Georgia, particularly Georgia looking that way.

00:27I agree coming down to the three states.

00:30It could come down to Pennsylvania, if that's the case.

00:34In which case we may not have the full result tonight.

00:38Interesting Arizona, let's just reserve judgment on Arizona.

00:42But I think Joe Biden, if he's watching tonight, will be thinking, well, there's some of these

00:47areas where actually my vote is higher than Kamala Harris's vote.

00:52He'll be thinking and he'll be- You might scratch his head and think maybe

00:54I shouldn't have listened to all the critics.

00:57You wonder.

00:58But I think what's happening is the economy question may well be playing more significantly

01:04in some parts of the country than perhaps people have estimated.

01:07But you can flip that around too and say maybe he should have gone earlier and maybe Kamala

01:10Harris should have done more to distance herself from Biden.

01:13Possibly.

01:14Look, no one's writing anybody off.

01:15And on a night like this, you've got to worry about blue mirages and red mirages.

01:19Sure.

01:20No, you do.

01:21Because there are clumps of votes still to come in various jurisdictions.

01:23But certainly the trend would be with Trump, you would think.

01:27And that's why it comes down to those three states in the blue wall.

01:31One interesting thing Casey pointed out in parts of Florida with big Latino communities

01:36and I think parts of Texas as well, we are seeing a shift to Trump and the Republicans

01:40amongst that community.

01:42Why is that, do you think?

01:45Conservative values, I think, is part of it.

01:47The economy would be part of it.

01:48And also if you've come as a legal migrant, you'll say, well, I came legally, why should

01:54other people be allowed to come illegally?

01:57So there's a lot of this playing.

01:59Also those communities are starting to go further and further up the income scale as

02:03well.

02:04And that can impact on political views.

02:07And look, we touched on the economy and earlier on in the evening, you said on abortion, Dutton,

02:13the Libs should run a million miles from that.

02:15But what about on the economy?

02:16This line, as several people have pointed out, that Trump gives at the start of every

02:20rally.

02:21I went to one of his rallies in Michigan last week and he starts the rally with, do you

02:24feel better off than you did four years ago?

02:26Because he took advice at some stage during the campaign to stick to that one economy

02:33message, which is Ronald Reagan's message about the Jimmy Carter years.

02:36I should point out the rest of the speech then rambles off in all sorts of directions.

02:39And this was the problem, maintaining the discipline.

02:42And that was what his advisors were saying, stick to the economy and immigration.

02:46It's the Ronald Reagan line in the Australian context.

02:49It's the same thing.

02:50Are you better off than you were three years ago?

02:52But that then begs the question, but what comes next?

02:54Yeah.

02:55Well, I mean, so we already are hearing a bit of this from Peter Dutton.

02:57You would expect in the Australian context, we will hear the opposition really start to

03:01mount that line a lot more if it proves to be the winner for Donald Trump.

03:06But the difference in Australia is that there is also a lot more scrutiny about what are

03:09your plans to do whatever.

03:12Here the economic debate is much more diffuse.

03:15Well, I mean, his plan is to jack up tariffs, as we've been talking about.

03:20Is that only going to make inflation worse here?

03:23Costs go up, inflation goes up.

03:24The costs of tariffs are always borne by your own consumers and the other industries whose

03:29inputs may go up in price.

03:30So those who are shifting to the Trump column are really rejecting the Biden-Harris approach

03:35more than embracing his alternative.

03:38It's interesting.

03:40The economy is quite strong, but inflation has been very strong and that has reduced

03:44real incomes.

03:45And that's why people are feeling not as well off.

03:48But the reality is the economy, Trump era, Biden era, very strong and will continue to

03:53be very strong.

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