An article summarizing the time rhythm and core points of the US election, and looking forward to the subsequent impact.

Original author: @Web3 Mario

In the next week, there is no doubt that the global focus will be on the US election. So I took some time to carefully sort out the upcoming nodes and core points, and look forward to the subsequent impact. Generally speaking, from Tuesday, November 5th, the election results will be announced one after another in the next week, and during this period, the progress of the announcement of the results will continue to affect asset prices.

Depending on the different election policies of each state, the results of the U.S. presidential election will be announced for about a week.

When chatting with fren around me, I found that everyone is not clear about the rhythm of the next week. Everyone thinks that the results will be announced on the evening of November 5th (morning of November 6th Beijing time). In fact, due to different policies of various states in ballot processing, counting rules, and mail-in ballots, there are differences in the announcement of the results. So first of all, I would like to talk about the timing of the U.S. presidential election. Let’s start with the overall election rhythm, which is as follows in the coming period:

1. Election Day: The presidential election day in the United States is usually set on the Tuesday following the first Monday in November. Voters will cast their votes for presidential and vice presidential candidates on this day. This is an indirect election, as voters are actually voting for members of the Electoral College in their respective states.

2. Electoral College voting: The United States uses the Electoral College system. The number of electoral votes in each state is determined by the number of congressmen in that state (number of representatives + number of senators), for a total of 538 electoral votes. Most states use a winner-takes-all rule, whereby winning a state’s majority earns all of the state’s electoral votes (with the exception of Maine and Nebraska). A presidential candidate needs at least 270 electoral votes to win.

3. The Electoral College officially votes: Members of the Electoral College vote on the second Monday of December to officially select the President and Vice President. The voting results will be sealed and submitted to Congress for certification.

4. Congressional certification: In early January of the following year, the new Congress will convene on January 6th to officially tally the Electoral College’s vote. If there are no objections, the election results for the President and Vice President will be confirmed.

5. Inauguration: The elected president and vice president will be sworn in on January 20th and officially become the new president and vice president, beginning a four-year term.

So on next Tuesday, November 5th, US time, most swing states will start voting from 6:00 am and continue until 7:00-9:00 pm. After the end of the voting, it will immediately enter the vote counting phase, but due to different policies in each state, the time of announcing the results is different. Here is a summary of the announcement of results in some key states, and the following states often announce the results later:

1. California: California allows for a longer period for receiving mail-in ballots. As long as the mail-in ballot is postmarked on election day and arrives within the specified timeframe, it will be counted towards the total votes. Due to the large population of the state and the allowance for more time to count the votes, California is often one of the last states to announce complete results nationwide.

2. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania usually begins to process mail-in ballots on election day, which leads to a slower counting process, especially in years with a high number of mail-in ballots. And as a key swing state, also known as a “battleground state,” Pennsylvania’s votes are usually highly followed, but the counting process is relatively late. Therefore, the final results are announced several days after election day.

3. Michigan and Wisconsin: Both states also process mail-in ballots on election day, and as swing states, a small margin of votes can lead to a longer counting time to ensure accuracy. Typically, ballot processing may not be completed until the following evening.

4. Nevada: Nevada allows mail-in ballots to arrive within a few days after Election Day, so the results may have a latency of several days, especially in presidential election years and in cases with a large number of ballots.

5. North Carolina: North Carolina allows mail-in ballots to be received within 9 days after Election Day, as long as the ballot is postmarked before or on Election Day. This often leads to a latency in the final results announcement time in the state, which usually takes about a week after Election Day.

You may find that, except California as a solid Democratic stronghold, most of them are swing states. Among them, Pennsylvania is a key battlefield state. Therefore, in fact, the entire election game will reach its climax in the few days after the general election.

The House of Representatives election is also very important because it determines the implementation of the future fiscal policy of the United States.

In addition to the presidential election, the results of the US House of Representatives election are also equally important. We know that in the federal government of the United States, the President, the Senate, and the House of Representatives collectively constitute the core structure of the separation of powers. The President holds the executive power, while the Senate and the House of Representatives (together known as Congress) jointly hold the legislative power. These three branches are both independent and closely related to achieve checks and balances and oversight. The House of Representatives, as the lower house of Congress, has the following main powers:

Legislation: The House of Representatives drafts and votes on bills, working together with the Senate to fulfill its legislative function.

l Fiscal power: The U.S. Constitution stipulates that all fiscal and tax bills must be first proposed by the House of Representatives to ensure that taxpayers have direct representation.

Impeachment Power: The House of Representatives has the power to impeach the President or federal officials, but the trial power belongs to the Senate.

Therefore, it can be said that the distribution of the House of Representatives determines the difficulty for the president to implement his own economic policies. A president who does not have a majority of seats is usually called a “minority president”, and it is generally very difficult to pass bills. House of Representatives elections are held every two years, and in election years, House elections and presidential elections are usually held on the same day, typically the first Tuesday of November in every even-numbered year. On this day, voters will vote for the president and all 435 seats in the House of Representatives. Therefore, in general, the results of the two elections will be gradually announced in a similar time frame, but the specific order may vary. However, usually, due to the smaller size of the House districts, the vote counting speed is faster, so the results are announced earlier.

The subsequent impact of the election results

In previous articles, we have analyzed the economic policies of both parties. Here’s a brief review. The Democratic Party’s Harris mainly focuses on ‘opportunity economics’ as its core economic strategy, which in summary means increasing government investment and raising taxes, aiming to improve the income levels of middle-class families in housing, medical care, education, and daily necessities. The general market expectation is that Harris’s economic policies will further increase the government’s financial burden, further undermine the credit of the US dollar. At the same time, the significant point shaving will help to push up inflation due to the wealth effect, but because it adopts government intervention in controlling prices of daily necessities, I believe that inflation will be in a gradually accelerating rising trend.

In terms of economy, Trump can basically be summarized in the following three dimensions, first of all, low domestic tax rates, high external tariffs, secondly, through interest rate cuts and other means to drop the exchange rate of the dollar to major manufacturing countries, and finally oppose the new energy industry, advocating to boost the traditional energy industry; This policy is closely linked to the interest group behind it, the blue-collar class in the Rust Belt. Although isolationist and protectionist policies have been effective in cracking down on foreign products and revitalizing low-end manufacturing in the United States, the implementation of these policies will take time and will be accompanied by high inflationary pressure, given the current industrial structure of the United States. Even Trump must consider how to use the dollar’s hegemony to mitigate these problems. There are some indications that he may choose to achieve this through BTC, and the reason for saying this is because Trump has repeatedly expressed his follow-up to “US BTC capacity”. He advocated for ensuring that the remaining BTC would be produced in the United States. Considering his support for traditional energy industries such as oil, stimulating the energy-consuming industry of BTCMining Pool will help increase oil demand and increase the added value of the industry. Second, Trump’s perception of BTC has changed markedly during his current term, moving from not recognizing the value of BTC to acknowledging its value as a commodity. The logic of this shift is still related to the dollar’s pricing power advantage. Since the current Liquidity of BTC is mainly maintained through stablecoins pegged to the US dollar, the US dollar actually holds the pricing power of BTC. By identifying BTC as a commodity and actively promoting this Consensus on a global scale, USD capital can build an advantage in this area, thereby reaping benefits.

Therefore, in conclusion, I believe that if Harris is elected, the ‘Trump trade’ will quickly disintegrate, and the BTC price will quickly pull back. But then it will enter a volatile pump phase, and other altcoin assets in the form of security tokens will be affected by the wealth effect and reappear in a bull market, similar to the overall rise after the point shaving in the 21st year of the pandemic. If Trump is elected, the BTC price will also experience a short-term phenomenon of ‘Sell the truth’ and certain take profit locking operations. But in the following cycle, the BTC price will quickly enter a rising channel, and the altcoin market is not likely to have a comprehensive bull market. Instead, it will mainly benefit from the wealth effect brought by the appreciation of BTC, and funds will rotate between multiple hot zones, similar to the market situation after the end of 23rd year.

Of course, if elected, the situation will become more complicated as the ‘minority president’, and it will be necessary to continue to follow the game between the two parties on economic policies. The proposal of any bill will undergo intense market games, at which point the Volatility will significantly increase.