Opinion: why democratic legitimacy remains at stake in the US election

Polls suggest that, whatever the outcome of the US election, large numbers of Americans will see their new leader as illegitimate - a challenge to democracy in which Trump is more a symptom than a cause, argues Dr Nadia Hilliard (UCL Institute of the Americas). Even as millions of votes in key battlegrounds were being counted, Donald Trump incorrectly declared victory in the US presidential race. The US will sit in limbo until the results from swing states are in. The Trump campaign has committed to pushing this political battle into the courts should he lose, and the Biden campaign has promised to meet the challenge. Throughout the 2020 campaign, polls suggested that whatever the outcome, significant parts of the US would see their new leader as illegitimate. Regardless of whether Trump or Joe Biden is ultimately inaugurated as their 46th president, millions of Americans will see the outcome as "the end of democracy". The apocalyptic tenor of the election reflects deeper, foundational challenges to the legitimacy of American democracy of which Trump is a symptom more than a cause.