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The New Statesman's World Review podcast with Emily Tamkin and Jeremy Cliffe.
More ballots have already been cast in Texas than were cast in that state for Donald Trump alone in 2016.
Critical race theory has been denounced by Donald Trump and by the Conservative Party – but what does it stand for?
Though the US president interrupted far less than in the first debate, he was even more misleading.
If he triumphs in the election on 3 November, Biden’s approach could come as a rude awakening for some Europeans.
Non-college educated white voters helped secure the 2016 Republican win. Will they remain loyal?
Voters in the midwestern state are more aware, informed, energised and empowered than they were in 2016.
A New Statesman Media Group special on the decoupling of America and China.
Under Obama, Biden spoke of transforming Sino-American relations with trade – but now he talks of “getting tough” on China.
The US president seemingly believed that Twitter had closed its entire social network in order to prevent negative coverage of Biden from spreading.
A tale of two candidates.
Both principles and pragmatism are at play in the region ahead of the presidential contest.
Why Democrats are pinning their hopes on Joe Biden’s running mate.
The Democratic presidential hopeful and veteran insider could end the Trump era on 3 November. If he succeeds, will he set the US on a path to renewal?
Even if Joe Biden does triumph on 3 November, this should not be mistaken for a restoration of some temporarily disrupted order.
Why 2016's oversights are unlikely to be repeated.
The New Statesman's model, forecasting the upcoming US presidential election.
How an ultra-conservative mother of seven rose to become Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee.
The US president appears intent on getting his Supreme Court nominee on the bench as early as possible.
The New Statesman's World Review podcast with Emily Tamkin and Ido Vock.
A new City Monitor report explores the ways in which young Americans see local politics as democracy's future.
Though polling points to victory for Joe Biden and the Democrats, they must contend with some of the most extreme gerrymandering anywhere in the country.
The men were also apparently plotting to overthrow the US government.
Mike Pence was calmer and more decorous than Trump, but no more connected to the reality of his record in government.
Live video and commentary on tonight's debate between Senator Kamala Harris and Vice President Mike Pence in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Pretending things are fine when they are not is the American way. It is time for the president, and the rest of the nation, faced up to reality.
President Trump may have thought attacking Biden on law and order would boost his base. It did the opposite.
The US has a long history of concealing poor presidential health, but not in the case of infectious diseases.
Polling on Boris Johnson in the UK and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil shows that public opinion shifts toward neutrality, but not endearment.
The contempt for international law shown by both nations is a betrayal of the postwar order they helped to create.
In the environment of “alternative facts” that the president has helped to create, many are asking why they should believe that he has Covid-19.
Why we should be both sympathetic and critical.
That which is necessary to appeal to the US president’s current base makes it harder to expand it.
America's political and social divisions have spread to its tech sector, with far-reaching implications.
The New Statesman’s World Review podcast with Jeremy Cliffe and Emily Tamkin.
The Democratic candidate’s commitment to the Good Friday Agreement is a matter of principle, not electoral politics.
The US president’s call for the fascist Proud Boys movement to “stand back and stand by” was a deliberate threat to voters.
The US president said the problem of violent extremism was almost entirely a left-wing one.
On the eve of the first presidential debate, nine states are within a three-point margin of error for the leading candidate.
Why a report revealing the president’s tax details might not harm his re-election campaign.
Emily Tamkin writes:
The New York Times has obtained years of President Donald Trump's tax return data, covering not just the president but his companies. The president famously broke precedent by not making this information available to the public, but the Times has. The paper found that, for 11 of the 18 years its reporters examined, the president paid no federal income taxes. In 2017, the year he became president, he paid just $750. He achieved this by declaring losses and claiming tax deductions on, for example, aircraft and hairstyling. One such measure, a $72.9 million tax refund, is under audit by the Internal Revenue Service. The Times has said it will publish more related to Trump's taxes. It remains to be seen whether this, like so many prior scandals, will bounce off the president or infuriate voters, the majority of whom pay more in taxes than the president. Trump has dismissed the reporting as "fake news."
President Donald Trump has announced his nominee to replace the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Despite Ginsburg's dying wish that the seat not be filled until after inauguration, and more to the point despite the fact that Senate Republicans refused to give President Barack Obama's nominee, Merrick Garland, a hearing with over 200 days to go before the election, Trump has nominated Amy Coney Barrett. Barrett is a federal appellate judge and Notre Dame law professor. She has referred to abortion as "always immoral" and has an anti-abortion judicial record and is a vocal opponent of the American Care Act, or "Obamacare," the very existence of which could be decided by the Supreme Court this fall. Some Republicans, like Senator Marco Rubio, have painted critisim of her as anti-Catholic, despite the fact that Democratic nominee, Vice President Joe Biden, is himself Catholic, as are five justices currently on the court (one, Neil Gorsuch, is now Episcopalian but was raised Catholic). It is true, though, that there has been some press focus on the fac that Barrett is a member of the group People of Praise, in which married women count their husbands as their "heads," or spiritual advisors. But so, too, has there been some focus on what Barrett said about Merrick Garland back in 2016, when she argued that Obama filling the late conservative Antonin Scalia's seat in an election year could "dramatically flip the balance of power" on the court. Four years later, the same can now be said not by Barrett, but of her.
There is such a thing as fairness. It's just that some people get to decide who sees it, and others never see it at all.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday refused to say whether he would leave office if he loses the presidency. "Get rid of the ballots and you'll have a very — there won't be a transfer, frankly, there'll be a continuation," the president told members of the press, apparently referring to mail in ballots. Relatedly, both the president and Vice President Mike Pence have encouraged the Senate to quickly confirm the president's as yet unnamed Supreme Court nominee so that there are nine justices, not eight, on the bench in the event that the election is decided at the Supreme Court. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell appears to have the votes to confirm a nominee before the election, which is in 41 days and for which early voting has already started.
The people of the United States are weary of military intervention abroad; they want their leaders to start fighting for them.
The late Supreme Court Justice was not always progressive, but the US is unquestionably a more equal, equitable country than it would have been without her work.
How a rule intended to curb speculation about political leaders’ mental health has left many psychiatrists questioning their professional body.
Democrats might hold off a Trump nominee for Ginsburg's Supreme Court seat until the election – but will struggle thereafter.
The political fight over Ginsburg’s replacement in the US Supreme Court will define a generation.
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died this evening at 87 from complications releated to pancreatic cancer. Ginsburg was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1993, the second woman ever to serve on the court. Ginsburg was known of a champion of gender equality law before she was appointed to the court. It now remains to be seen whether the Republican-controlled Senate, which argued that they needed to wait for a presidential election and refused to seat Obama's nominee to the court, Merrick Garland, in 2016, will seat Ginsburg's replacement. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell previously said that the Republicans would indeed fill a seat if one were to open in 2020 and came out with a statement on the night of Ginsburg's death to say that Trump's nominee would receive a Senate vote, since the Senate and White House are controlled by the same party.
Trump’s nickname for Clinton conceptualised all that she was to a lot of Americans. The same cannot be said for “Sleepy Joe”.
The New Statesman’s World Review podcast with Jeremy Cliffe and India Bourke.
The US professor warns that the climate crisis, the threat of nuclear war and rising authoritarianism mean the risk of human extinction has never been greater.
Driving through some of the most desolate reaches of the continental US, our writer hoped to find places untouched by Covid-19. What he saw instead was the true reach of the American government.
Demographics have shifted over time, but that doesn’t mean voting patterns have changed with them.
A progressive contender in the race to chair the House Foreign Affairs Committee is already changing the conversation.
To win re-election, the US president needs to unite his “red wall” core vote, while sowing doubt among Joe Biden’s.
Veteran journalist Bob Woodward has a new book on Trump coming out, which is called Rage. Fittingly, that is what many Americans felt when they learned that Woodward, with whom the president agreed to speak 18 times for the book, had Trump on tape in February saying that he knew how dangerous the novel coronavirus was. Then, in March, Trump told Woodward that he was downplaying the severity of the virus so as not to cause panic. We are learning about this now, in September, after roughly 190,000 Americans died of COVID-19.
Ben Walker writes:
A slew of new polls in the aftermath of the Republican National Convention record a number of shifts, but not necessarily, as yet, trends. The first is that voter certainty and confidence in both Joe Biden and Donald Trump have drifted somewhat, particularly among minorities and non-college educated whites respectively. In Florida, a new survey shows Joe Biden leading Latinos, but with a much reduced lead from what Hillary Clinton had in 2016.
Similar surveys elsewhere bump up Trump’s chances in Florida, Pennsylvania and North Carolina; but reduced enthusiasm among non-college educated whites has gifted Biden with larger leads in Michigan and Arizona.
We’ll need one more week of surveys to gauge whether we’re seeing the beginning of a sustained shift, or just a bit of poll noise. Nonetheless, the New Statesman model has upped Trump’s chances of keeping control of the White House from one-in-ten 50 days ago to now near one-in-five.
For more on Biden's chances of securing the presidency, see my analysis here.
If Biden wins he will inherit an economic crisis and divided society. He should seize the chance to build something better than what we had before Trump.
Joe Biden has to walk a difficult tightrope if he is to win back the surburban women living in the US swing states.
Nearly 60 per cent of Biden supporters say their vote is directed against Trump rather than for the Democratic nominee.
Jeremy Cliffe writes:
The big question in this US election is: will Joe Biden or Donald Trump win? But another, just as important and related one, also looms over the campaign, election day and its aftermath: in what state will American democracy emerge from the coming period? So the New Statesman has asked four contributors to assess the ways in which the next weeks and months could permanently damage the institutions and norms that govern the US.
New Statesman US editor Emily Tamkin writes on the Trump Factor: how the president could underine American democracy by undermining the legitimacy of the result before and after polling day.
New Statesman special correspondent Sophie McBain writes on how a polarised media environment gets in the way of an informed and open debate
Nina Jankowicz, author of How to Lose the Information War, writes on how disinformation, possibly sponsored by outside powers, could distort the campaign
Theodore R. Johnson of the Brennan Center for Justice writes on the danger of voter suppression amid the Covid-19 pandemic
Individuals will be the main line of defence against online misinformation.
In an era of hostility towards the press, strong investigative reporting is harder than ever.
In almost every major poll, Joe Biden is leading Donald Trump in the polls. But the longer version is more complicated. A new Monmouth poll out this week has Trump and Biden virtually tied in Pennsylvania. Men, in particular, have changed their minds in favour of the incumbent: Trump now has a 19 point lead with men, compared to a two point lead in July. Biden has also lost some of his lead with voters under 50 in that state, from a 29 point advantage two months ago to a nine point lead now. And, at least in Pennsylvania, Trump's warning about the loss of the "suburban lifestyle dream" and crime coming to the suburbs (which aren't wholly based in reality, but no matter), are working: 39 percent of independent voters in the state are apparently worried about people moving into the suburbs who "may bring in crime and lower property values." Pennsylvania is, of course, just one state. But it's important to remember that, for Americans, the reality is that the election is decided not by who wins more votes, but who wins more votes in a handful of states, which is probably why betting markets are now putting their money on Trump.
Follow the New Statesman's poll tracker here.
Lower turnout in the 2020 race for the White House could play to the Republicans’ advantage.
Sarah Churchwell, professor of American Literature and Public Understanding of the Humanities at the University of London, has an essay in this week's issue of the New Statesman on the fascist tradition in American politics. Churchwell sees elements of that tradition in Donald Trump's America.
"Trump is closing what is a very vicious circle, and tightening it into a noose."@sarahchurchwell on the long lineage of American fascism: https://t.co/cSAMPfdDn6 — New Statesman World (@StatesmanWorld) September 3, 2020
"Trump is closing what is a very vicious circle, and tightening it into a noose."@sarahchurchwell on the long lineage of American fascism: https://t.co/cSAMPfdDn6
She writes:
"Whatever one’s opinion of Donald Trump, there is no denying that his political success to date represents its own kind of triumph of the will, one built on a political carnivalesque. Trump’s manifest need for the adoration of his crowd, his desire to exhibit to the world the cheering hordes of his political rallies, may seem like an ersatz copy of the authentic rallies of fascist leaders of yore. The fact that show business is at the heart of Trump’s unstable political project sometimes leads to the argument that Trump isn’t fascist, but merely an entertainer. Fascism was always about entertainment, however: the deep root of its poison was that it made hatred entertaining."
You can read her full essay here and listen to her discuss her arguments, and review the US presidential election campaign, on this recent episode of our World Review podcast.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has sent a letter to governors to prepare to distribute a vaccine by November 1. Given that that is two days before the presidential election, some have expressed concern that the Trump administration is rushing a vaccine's distribution for political reasons, ultimately undermining the effectiveness of a potential vaccine in the process.
The greatest threat to American norms in this presidential election is the president himself.
In a culture of hyper-polarised political identities, Americans now wear their politics on their faces.
Conspiracy theories are a symptom of a failed status quo – the left must offer progressive alternatives.
Representative Joe Kennedy III has conceded to Senator Edward Markey, ending a heated primary race for Markey's Massachusetts Senate seat.
I am filled with hope for the future of our country and our planet because of the young people who are rising up to demand a Green New Deal. — Ed Markey (@EdMarkey) September 2, 2020
I am filled with hope for the future of our country and our planet because of the young people who are rising up to demand a Green New Deal.
Though incumbents normally win their elections, there was something more at play in the Bay State. Kennedy started the election polling ahead of Markey by double digits. And there was a reason he was expected to win: no Kennedy had ever lost an election in the state of Massachusetts, the state that birthed the careers of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Ted Kennedy. It looked like he would oust Markey, ending his over four decades in Congress.
But though Markey was not known as a progressive per se for the majority of his career, he was the Senate co-sponsor of the Green New Deal, progressive superstar Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's House bill, and a supporter of Medicare for All. He hit Kennedy on the very thing that made him popular: his family name. "Tell your father right now that you don't want money to go into a super PAC that runs negative ads," he said in one debate. Perhaps most famously, he concluded one ad, which stressed his roots as the son of a milkman, flipping JFK's most famous line on its head. "It's time," the senator said, "to start asking what your country can do for you."
Kennedy, meanwhile, struggled to articulate to voters why, exactly, he wanted the job. To say "generational change" wasn't enough when younger voters themselves were some of the strongest supporters of Markey, and it is harder to argue that one's opponent is out of touch with the common man and woman when one is literally a Kennedy. A Kennedy ad toward the end of the campaign stressed the family name. "He reminds me of Bobby and Jack and Teddy," Ethel Kennedy, the candidate's 92 year old grandmother, told the camera. But, even in Massachusetts, that isn't enough anymore.
It is unlikely the United States has seen the end of political ambitions from the Kennedy family or even Joe Kennedy III individually. He may be leaving Congress in January, but he became a congressman in his early thirties and is still only 39. That he ran for the Senate at all suggests that he has dreams of bigger, more powerful things. But for at least one election, Massachusetts voters chose the son of a dairyman over a dynasty.
The suburbs are more diverse, more foreign and poorer than Republican hyperventilation allows.
This year's RNC showed that in place of a policy platform, the Republican Party is relying on personality and power.
US liberals who compare the president with the Nazi leader are externalising responsibility for their country’s failings.
For the first time, the New Statesman has built a model to forecast the outcome of a presidential election.
With little over two months to go until Americans choose their president, as well as 435 representatives and 35 senators, it is clear that the elections on 3 November will be unlike any others in modern US history. Not only has Donald Trump’s presidency upended myriad norms of American politics - a trend that will likely continue in the final run to polling day - but the campaigning and voting will take place during a global pandemic that has infected and killed more people in the US than any other country. The term “unpredictable” is often used at political crossroads like this one, but rarely has it been more apt. Polls, debates, rallies, turnout and even something as fundamental as whether the president would accept a defeat are all wreathed in uncertainty.
To help New Statesman readers make sense of the twists and turns in the weeks building up to 3 November, on election night itself, and in the potentially turbulent period afterwards, we are bringing all of our coverage and analysis together in one place: our US 2020 elections hub.
- All the latest from the New Statesman's US editor Emily Tamkin, leading our US coverage in Washington, DC and on the campaign trail
- Commentary and analysis from the whole New Statesman international team, New Statesman magazine contributors such as Sarah Churchwell and Gary Younge, and from sector experts across the New Statesman Media Group
- Our regularly updated results model and the numbers behind it
- Polling trends, maps and analysis from the New Statesman’s data team
- Special data features telling the mega-stories behind the election
- Notifications from our World Review newsletter
- US election episodes of our World Review podcast
- Our 3 November election night live blog, where we will be analysing the results as they come in
This launch is the latest step in the New Statesman’s international growth. Since the spring we have expanded our coverage of global affairs (including the politics, culture and geopolitics of the US), added new team members and launched a new international homepage, newsletter and podcast. (For unlimited access to all of our journalism you can subscribe here at a special introductory rate.) On this hub, as elsewhere, we will cover not just the headline news but also the trends, forces and ideas behind it. So bookmark this page to keep informed about what really matters in this remarkable US election season with the New Statesman.
A Pew Research Centre poll of 14 countries shows that nations hit hardest by Covid-19 are more likely to judge their governments' performance poorly.
What would a mass, peaceful protest movement against the theft of an election look like?
There are three key reasons to question the new consensus that Joe Biden will become president.
The Democrats will soon learn whether their big tent strategy can hold dramatically different desires.
How the arrest of Trump’s former adviser on fraud charges highlights a wider culture of political manipulation.
Biden is not a natural progressive, which makes it hard for the Republicans to demonise him as an America-hating radical.
The story of how the former Confederacy capital turned blue is one of demographic shifts, a Democratic political machine and Donald Trump.
