The Economist

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September 24th 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

A Republican state legislator scuppered his own party’s plan to ensure Nebraska’s five electoral-college votes went to Donald Trump. Since 1992 two of the state’s votes have gone to the winner of the statewide popular vote, and one to the winner of each of its three congressional districts. That allowed Barack Obama to pick one vote up in 2008, and Joe Biden to get one in 2020. A proposed change would have made all five winner-take-all, and all but guaranteed them to the Republican Party in the conservative state. But Mike McDonnell (pictured), who switched from Democrat to Republican this year, refused to go along with it. Mr Trump criticised Mr McDonnell for getting in the way of a “great Republican, common sense, victory”.

At a rally in Pennsylvania Mr Trump griped about the “fake news” for suggesting he was unpopular with women. He painted himself as a “protector” of women, and claimed that if he is elected they won’t “be thinking about abortion”. Kamala Harris’s campaign has worked hard to push reproductive rights to the top of the electoral agenda, as have grassroots pro-choice activists.

Despite Mr Trump’s insistence (repeated at the rally in Pennsylvania) that crime is rampant, the FBI reported that violent crime decreased by 3% in 2023 compared with the year before. The most serious crimes dropped by a bigger margin: murder and non-negligent manslaughter fell by 11.6% and rape by 9.4%. Preliminary numbers suggested that trend was continuing into 2024.

Ryan Routh, the man accused of attempting to kill Mr Trump on September 15th, was denied bail pending trial. On Monday prosecutors submitted a handwritten letter, written months earlier and allegedly given to a witness by Mr Routh, apologising for failing to “finish the job” and offering $150,000 to anyone who can “complete” it. They allege that Mr Routh stalked the former president for a month before the incident.

Oregon struck more than 1,200 non-citizens off its electoral rolls because state employees had accidentally registered them to vote when they applied for driving licences. Only ten of those have voted since 2021. One was confirmed to have become a citizen in the interim; whether the others had is unclear. Republicans have warned repeatedly about the possibility of non-citizens casting ballots.

“Woke” no more

Like the Puritans of old, adherents to the new gospel of “woke” focus less on workable ideas for reducing discrimination than on publicly rooting out sinful attitudes in themselves and others (especially others). But according to analysis by The Economist, woke peaked in 2021-22 and has since receded. Read our briefing on the decline, and our leader about what’s next.

A view from elsewhere

Mr Trump is “never boring”, wrote René Pfister in Der Spiegel, a German magazine. But Mr Trump’s “poli-tainment” is “like a drug, whose dose must always be increased”. Mr Trump already calls Ms Harris “Marxist, communist, fascist” and migrants from Venezuela “cannibals reminiscent of the horror movie ‘The Silence of the Lambs’”. “The opportunity for Harris is the longing for tranquillity, perhaps even boredom.”

Figure of the day

$40m, the amount of money that Republican Voters Against Trump is spending in swing states to air testimonials from former MAGA voters, a four-fold increase from 2020. Read our story about the never-Trump movement in 2024.

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 welcome your feedback on this newsletter.

Editor’s picks

Our latest US coverage

A little secret, the Robinson affair

Mark Robinson has hijacked his own campaign in North Carolina

Who will go down with the would-be Republican governor?

Admit it

What is the effect of the Supreme Court’s affirmative-action ban?

Making sense of the drip-drip of admissions data from American universities

The centre did not hold

Understanding the Republican Party’s rightward march

Remember the two R’s of Republican history: Rockefeller and Reagan

Today’s forecast

Kamala Harris has pulled ahead in national polls. But because candidates must win the electoral college, not the popular vote, our forecast reckons that she and Donald Trump have nearly equal chances of becoming president.

Daily quiz

From Monday to Thursday we’ll quiz you on all things American. Diplomats descend on New York City this week for this year’s session of the United Nations General Assembly. Our questions for you are on UNGAs of yore.

Tuesday: During his UN General Assembly address in 2017, Donald Trump said that America was ready to “totally destroy” which country?

Monday: Which American president gave a speech named “Atoms for Peace” to the UN General Assembly?

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.

Heard on MSNBC

He is white supremacy in blackface.

—Raphael Warnock, a Democratic senator from Georgia, criticises Mark Robinson, the lieutenant-governor of neighbouring North Carolina, for allegedly describing himself as a “black Nazi” on a pornographic website many years ago. (Mr Robinson denies posting the comment.)

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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The world goes to the polls

By the end of the year more than 70 countries, representing half the world’s population, will have voted on their future. Join our editors as they analyse what’s at stake on Tuesday September 24th at 11:30pm BST / 6:30pm EDT / 3:30pm PDT.

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