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August 26th 2024

A sharp round-up of the most important political news

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The US in brief

A sharp round-up of the most important political news

PHOTO: eyevine

The Harris campaign said that it has raised $540m in the past month, including $82m during the Democratic National Convention last week. Nearly a third of the money given during the DNC was from first-time donors, suggesting that Kamala Harris is generating enthusiasm among previously disengaged voters. In July the Democrats out-raised the Republicans by a factor of three to one.

Donald Trump appeared to threaten to pull out of the presidential debate scheduled to take place on ABC on September 10th. Mr Trump cavilled about a “ridiculous and biased interview” on ABC with Tom Cotton, a Republican senator from Arkansas. “Why would I do the Debate against Kamala Harris on that network?” he continued on Truth Social, the social-media site he owns. The ABC date is the only one that has been agreed upon between the candidates.

Mr Trump is due to speak at the conference of the National Guard Association of the United States in Detroit on Monday, during his seventh visit to Michigan, a decisive swing state, this year. Mr Trump and J.D. Vance, his running-mate, have accused Tim Walz, the Democrats’ vice-presidential candidate, of exaggerating his service in the Army National Guard and abandoning his unit before it deployed to Iraq. In fact, according to PBS, their deployment notice came after Mr Walz had retired from the service.

Max Kennedy said he was “heartbroken” that his elder brother, Robert F. Kennedy junior, had endorsed Donald Trump. Writing in the Los Angeles Times, the younger Mr Kennedy said that Mr Trump “was exactly the kind of arrogant, entitled bully my father [Robert Kennedy senior] used to prosecute”. The father was running for president when he was assassinated in 1968. His namesake son, an environmentalist and anti-vaxxer, pulled out of the presidential race last week.

Correspondent’s dispatch: the northern border

Annie Crabill
News Editor

If I wanted to speak to migrants, I was told, I could find them in Plattsburgh, in upstate New York near the Canadian border, waiting for a bus to take them onwards, deeper into the United States. I had trekked there because the Border Patrol unit that covers a vast area of New Hampshire, New York and Vermont had logged nearly 19,500 encounters with migrants crossing illegally since last October 1st, up from roughly 900 in 2021.

People who live right on the Quebec border frequently see migrants walking or driving from Canada across their property. For others, the issue is largely invisible. Unlike at the southern border, there are no shelters, NGOs or infrastructure to make the surge obvious—except in Plattsburgh. There, migrants stand for hours at a time on a little patch of grass near the city hall, sometimes in scorching temperatures. There are no toilets. A local resident, Soraya Seiden, has been dropping off water and snacks. Soon, she reminded me, it will be bitterly cold.

KAL flashback

Every Monday we will republish a cartoon by KAL from the archive. September is coming. American teenagers soon will hang up their aprons, put down their burger flippers and go back to school. But a summer job is not the rite of passage it once was. Back in 2017 KAL provided the drawing when Lexington went to Dixon, Illinois—where Ronald Reagan was a lifeguard—to find out what became of the traditional American summer job.

A view from elsewhere
Donald Trump was trained by a long television career to appreciate brevity, and once presented himself as an “alternative to ‘wordy’ politicians”, wrote Gian Antionio Stella in Corriere Della Sera, an Italian newspaper. Now he “seems to be gradually drifting off” and becoming more long-winded. If he keeps it up, he can “aim high”—Fidel Castro once spoke for seven hours and 14 minutes.

We want to hear from you
Readers are sending us lots of thoughtful emails so we’ve decided to publish some. If you have views on what is happening in America drop us a line at usib@economist.com. And, of course, we still welcome your feedback on this newsletter.

Editor’s picks

Our latest US coverage

Checks and Balance newsletter

The alternate-reality Democratic National Convention

What if Joe Biden were still the nominee?

Weekend profile

Jerome Powell, chairman of the Federal Reserve

Neither market turbulence nor Donald Trump’s stormy bombast can ruffle the Fed’s calm pilot

Checks and Balance

How would Kamala Harris govern?

Our weekly podcast on democracy in America. This week, we report from the Democratic National Convention

Today’s forecast

Our forecasting model finds that Kamala Harris has a slight edge over Donald Trump, with almost a three in five chance of winning the election.

Daily quiz

From Monday to Thursday we’ll quiz you on all things America. This week’s winner is Sonia Barrad in Long Beach, California. The answers were:

Monday: The official name of the “Sears Tower” is the Willis Tower.

Tuesday: Electricity had its American debut at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. So too did the incandescent lights and ferris wheel it powered.

Wednesday: In John Hughes’ “Ferris Bueller’s day off” the eponymous character pretends to be ill to go on a tour of Chicago with his mates.

Thursday: McDonald’s founded Hamburger University.

From Monday to Thursday we’ll quiz you on all things America. This week’s winner is Sonia Barrad in Long Beach, California. The answers were:

Monday: The official name of the “Sears Tower” is the Willis Tower.

Tuesday: Electricity had its American debut at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. So too did the incandescent lights and ferris wheel it powered.

Wednesday: In John Hughes’ “Ferris Bueller’s day off” the eponymous character pretends to be ill to go on a tour of Chicago with his mates.

Thursday: McDonald’s founded Hamburger University.

From Monday to Thursday we’ll quiz you on all things America.

Monday: Camp David, a 125-acre retreat in Maryland, is the official presidential country residence. Which president named it (in honour of his grandson)?

See how to take part in the quiz at the bottom of this page.

If you enjoyed this week’s quiz, play Dateline, The Economist’s new history game.

Figure of the day

37, the number of states that have rules to stop firms from implementing “excessive” price rises. Read our story about why America’s anti-price-gouging laws are too piddling to be communist.

Seen on ABC

You would have thought watching the Democratic convention last week that the Democrats are not in office, that they’re not in power, that they’re campaigning against an incumbent Republican.

—Tom Cotton, a Republican senator, on the mood-shift since Kamala Harris replaced Joe Biden.

Read all of our recent coverage of the 2024 election. Confused about a term? Check out our A-Z of American politics.

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