As America Awaits a Winner, So Do Business and the Economy
Under either Biden or Trump, gridlock in Washington will make major initiatives almost impossible.
People watch election returns projected on a building in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 3.
Photographer: Sait Serkan GurbuzPolitical scientists like to say campaigns are decided by personality more than policy. That’s never been truer than it is this year. President Trump ran for reelection on his track record and on being his own fabulous self, scarcely laying out a second-term agenda. “He has no economic plan. I don’t mean that I don’t like it. It doesn’t exist,” says Glenn Hubbard, a Columbia University economist who was chairman of President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers.
Former Vice President Joe Biden, Trump’s Democratic challenger, does have an agenda, but it came second during the campaign to his message of reconciliation—hence his promise to “govern as an American president,” he said on Nov. 4. But when it’s all over but the shouting, policies will matter again, especially for businesspeople who have political preferences but who most of all just want to know what kind of environment they’ll be operating in for the next four years.