The razor-thin U.S. presidential race between U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump could be decided by American voters living abroad in countries like Canada, a former envoy says.
Bruce Heyman, a Democrat who served as U.S. ambassador to Canada under the Obama administration, says a large number of voters from vital swing states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin that could decide the Nov. 5 election live just across the border in Canada.
The latest FiveThirtyEight polling averages in those states and others show Harris and Trump are separated by a fraction of a percentage point, making every vote consequential.
“I’m just appealing, please, Americans in Canada, please, if you have been registered to vote (and have received an absentee ballot), you need to get your ballot back, because with just one short week to go we need to make sure it’s received in the mail,” Heyman told Mercedes Stephenson in an interview that aired Sunday on The West Block.
Heyman has worked with organizations such as Democrats Abroad for years to boost voting from American expats. The Toronto chair of that group told Global News just about five per cent of the estimated 700,000 U.S. citizens who live in Canada permanently exercise their right to vote.
Heyman said he helped increase turnout from American voters abroad by 73 per cent in 2020 from four years earlier, which helped U.S. President Joe Biden win some of the battlegrounds that are now in play once again.
“It was the American voter abroad — Canada, that’s you — that won the state of Georgia, that won the state of Arizona, and had significant impact on many of these other battleground states that Joe Biden won,” he said.
“We’ve ramped up that effort significantly for the Harris campaign.”
Biden ultimately won the 2020 election by less than 45,000 votes in Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin combined, which helped him win enough delegates in the Electoral College, even though he topped Trump by about seven million votes nationally. It was a similar situation in 2016, where Trump beat Hillary Clinton by about 77,000 votes across key states, despite Clinton winning the overall popular vote.
While this year’s race appears to be even tighter, Heyman says the U.S. has been bitterly divided for years, forcing Republicans and Democrats to battle within the margins of various groups, including Americans abroad.
Another key demographic is Republican women, who Harris has been appealing to by pointing to Trump’s rhetoric and his role in the fall of Roe v. Wade and the constitutional right to an abortion. The U.S. Supreme Court ruling has led to several states adopting strict restrictions that have stripped women’s access to reproductive health care.
“That’s why the vice-president is out with (former Republican congresswoman) Liz Cheney: they’re working the Republican women right now at the margins,” Heyman said.
“Remember, everything’s at the margins. You don’t have to win them all. But if you can get 10 or 20 per cent of Republican women who recognize Donald Trump for what he is, then I think that Kamala Harris is going to be in a good place on Election Day.”
Like many officials and analysts in Canada, Heyman is worried about the impact a second Trump presidency may have on Canada and the world stage.
Trump has promised blanket tariffs on foreign imports, mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, and a transactional approach to alliances like NATO, which has already put Canada under pressure for not meeting its target of spending at least two per cent of GDP on defence.
Trump has said he would not come to the defence of allies that don’t meet that threshold if they are attacked — a key NATO commitment — and even suggested he would let aggressors like Russia “do whatever the hell they want.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has promised Canada will reach two per cent by 2032, a timeline Heyman said Trump will likely take issue with.
Trump has also not committed to continuing with U.S. military and financial aid for Ukraine in its war against Russia’s invasion. Canada may have to step up “significantly” along with Europe to try and fill that gap, Heyman added.
The mass deportations, meanwhile, could lead to a surge at Canada’s borders, he said.
“If we experience anything like we experienced in a small way during his last administration on Roxham Road with the Haitian (migrants seeking asylum in Quebec), this could be like some large multiple of that if he actually implements what he says he’s going to do every day,” he said.
Those issues and others have Heyman fearing the future of the Canada-U.S. relationship as a whole under Trump.
“I think the greatest threat to Canada in the history of our country is a second Trump term,” he said.
“It doesn’t mean a tsunami’s coming, but if you know there’s a warning, you have a choice: you can sit and order another pina colada on the beach or go to higher ground. That’s a choice that Canada will have to make after Nov. 5.”
—With a file from Global’s Sean O’Shea