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Democratic presidential nominee and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris reacts as she attends a Labor Day campaign event, at IBEW Local Union #5 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S., September 2, 2024.
Can Harris hold onto her lead?
With just one week before the first debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, polling averages show Harris slightly ahead but statistically tied due to the nature of the electoral college. That means Harris needs voters where they count most — in her case, the vaunted Blue Wall of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
Harris hammered home her pro-worker message on campaign stops in Pittsburgh and Detroit for Labor Day on Monday, arguably the cities most identified with industrialization and the organized labor movement. She cast her rivals as anti-union scabs (those who cross picket lines) and promised not to return to the “failed policies” of tax breaks for the 1% or to repeal of social services like Obamacare.
Trump and his vice presidential nominee, Sen. JD Vance, didn’t clap back — the campaign scheduled no events for either candidate on the Monday holiday. However, Trump had an … eventful rally in Johnstown, PA, on Friday, where he labeled the media “the enemy of the people” and praised a supporter who allegedly tried to attack the press. He also praised his supporters for “allowing” their wives to attend his rallies without their husbands — notably at a time when Harris is leading among women by 13 percentage points — and called Florida Rep. Bryon Donalds, arguably his most prominent Black supporter, one of the “smart ones” without clarifying what he meant.Supporters hold placards as Democratic presidential nominee and US Vice President Kamala Harris visits North Western High School in Detroit, Mich., on Sept. 2, 2024.
Foreign policy tests lurk within the US election
By all accounts, the 47th president of the United States will have plenty on the domestic to-do list once they assume office on Jan. 20, 2025. The US continues to navigate a post-COVID hangover with inflation hovering higher than before the pandemic and a long-expected interest rate reduction remaining just beyond reach.
In the latest indicator of economic health, theUS Bureau of Labor Statistics revised downward its estimate of jobs created for the year ending in March 2024 to the tune of 818,000. These numbers matter to US voters, who are feeling it in their pocketbooks. Measures ofeconomic confidence have fallen through 2024, even as inflation, pricing pressures, and the economy continue to be top issues for voters.
Will isolationism win?
Yet, if the last four years have taught us anything, it is that developments abroad and the demands on US foreign policy are never dormant. Given the stakes, global leadership has been tracking former President Donald Trump’s words closely over the last year. Now, with Vice President Kamala Harris’ historically late entrance into the race, the world is left wondering if isolationism will win in November, or if something else (but what is it?) may drive the US approach to the world over the next four years.
Trump has never been one to shy away from the headlines. Earlier this year, he sent ripples across Europe when he claimed he would encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to any NATO member not paying their fair share on defense. Given prior reports that Trump contemplated pulling the US from NATO during his first administration, this warning focused the minds and dominated conversations across European security circles. His VP running-mate selection of Sen. JD Vance, an opponent of US security guarantees, has more recently exacerbated those concerns.
From promises to ending the war in Ukraine upon taking office by negotiating on favorable terms with Russia to apolicy platform that includes “building a great iron dome missile defense shield over our entire country,” Trump’s America First brand of foreign policy has become synonymous with a go-it-alone, pull-up-the-drawbridge isolationism.
With unresolved conflicts remaining (Ukraine, Israel, Sudan) and potential stressors lurking (South China Sea, the wider Middle East region, the Arctic), many allies and adversaries of the US await a Trump 2.0 with apprehension. President Joe Biden’s exit and Harris’ stepping into the 2024 campaign have represented a potential reprieve for these anxieties.
Glimpses of Harris’ vision begin to seep through
Despite plenty of reporting on the alternative, relatively little is known about what a Harris foreign policy agenda would look like. In her nomination acceptance speech at last month’s Democratic National Convention, Harris spoke at length about the US’ global role and the need to be “steadfast in advancing our security and values abroad.”
She touched on the range of ongoing territorial tensions – from China and Russia-Ukraine to the Middle East – as well as borderless challenges like artificial intelligence and space. In a particularly insightful, behind-the-scenes moment, Harris described meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky five days before Russia attacked Ukraine to warn him of the planned invasion.
While conventional wisdom suggests that Harris represents a policy continuity story for Democrats, there are early indications that as president she would chart her own course. In her DNC speech, Harris sought to associate herself with the Biden administration’s perceived successes (the global coalition for Ukraine), distance herself from its missteps (the Afghanistan withdrawal), and introduce daylight where she has apparent conviction. The clearest evidence of that daylight thus far has been on Israel, where Harris has projected a sense that she holds multiple difficult truths in parallel. In her first sit-down interview since accepting the nomination, Harris revealed little more of her plan for resolving the conflict, saying only that a deal must get done.
Perhaps the biggest indicator to follow is personal, or personnel. It has long been believed that current national security advisor Jake Sullivan would not stay on through a second Biden administration. With Harris being guided by a separate set of policy strategists, including her national security advisor Philip Gordon, the major architects of Biden’s foreign policy – Biden himself, Sullivan, Sec. of State Antony Blinken and Sec. of Defense Lloyd Austin – may all be out of the Situation Room.
Greater understanding of both Harris’ foreign and domestic policy priorities will be filled in over the coming weeks, including with the first Harris-Trump debate currently set for Sept. 10. Given Trump’s warm embrace of isolationism, there is a growing sense abroad that only a Harris presidency stands between the world as it is and a very different – and more precarious – geopolitical trajectory.
Lindsay Newman is a geopolitical risk expert and columnist for GZERO.
Attendees of Germany's Alternative for Germany (AfD) campaign event for the Saxony state elections leave, as counter protestors stand in the background, in Dresden, Germany, August 29, 2024.
Immigration backlash to boost populists in Germany’s local elections
Populist opposition parties of the right and the left are set to make big gains in local elections in two key eastern German states this Sunday.
The far-right Alternative for Deutschland party is the front-runner in Saxony, eastern Germany’s most populous and prosperous state, and is expected to lead in neighboring Thuringia as well.
The staunchly anti-immigrant party — which is under investigation for ties to right-wing extremists — has surged in popularity over the past decade, especially in the former East Germany, where incomes continue to lag behind the former West. Meanwhile, the newish hard-left Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, which also seeks to reduce immigration, is also positioned to do well.
This weekend’s election comes as the national coalition government led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s establishment, center-left SPD faces a growing backlash over immigration. The recent stabbing rampage by a Syrian refugee in the western German city of Solingen has exacerbated those concerns.
No “Alternative” path to power: Even if it comes in first, the AfD would need a coalition partner to govern, and there is no obvious match. The mainstream center-right CDU — currently in opposition nationally — is polling second in both states and has ruled out a tie-up. But a CDU alliance with Wagenknecht Alliance remains possible in Saxony. In Thuringia, the Left Party, which currently oversees a minority coalition government, is likely to suffer a defeat but could still be a kingmaking coalition partner for either Wagenknecht or the CDU.
The bigger picture: Misgivings over immigration continue to be a major factor in the slow-motion erosion of Germany’s centrist establishment parties.U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith makes a statement to reporters about the 37 federal charges returned by a grand jury in an indictment of former U.S. President Donald Trump on charges of unauthorized retention of classified documents and conspiracy to obstruct justice, as Smith speaks at his offices in Washington, U.S. June 9, 2023.
Special counsel drops new Trump indictment
Special counsel Jack Smith filed a new superseding indictment in former President Donald Trump’s election interference case on Tuesday. Smith aimed to conform with the Supreme Court’s ruling granting broad immunity to presidents for official acts. The new indictment removes charges associated with Trump allegedly directing his Justice Department to conduct phony election fraud investigations and choose fraudulent electors, as the high court ruling protects them as official acts.
Smith filed the indictment just ahead of the DOJ’s “60-day rule,” which discourages filing politically sensitive cases near elections. He said in a written notice to the court that the indictment reflects the finding of “a new grand jury that had not previously heard evidence in this case.”
Smith will not seek to have Trump re-arraigned, and it’s highly unlikely that the case will be resolved before the election.
What does this mean for the campaign? It may not move the needle much, says Eurasia Group’s Clayton Allen.
“Voters will have a hard time keeping [Trump’s] different cases separate, and we've seen them recede as important factors in polling and public opinion,” he says. “Basically, the criminal stuff has been overshadowed by, well, everything that has happened in the last couple of months.”
Still, the ongoing legal actions could have significant implications for Trump. “The dogged attempts by federal prosecutors," says Eurasia Group US managing director Jon Lieber, "make the stakes of this election clear: If Trump loses, he's probably going to jail.”
The Framing of Kamala Harris
Happy Thursday. We just are hours away from Kamala Harris wrapping up the Democratic National Convention with the biggest speech of her life. Here’s what is on our podium today:
- Vital signs: The ticking health care time bomb
- Bye-bye, asylum-seekers
- Rail shutdown threatens supply lines
- DNC vibes & partisan fervor
- Plus: Brace yourself for record-breaking hurricane season
But first, it’s Harris’ moment to lead the Democratic Party, and what she does tonight will shape the campaign over the next 75 days. What are her goals? How will this set up the rest of the campaign? And is the most surprising political battle of this cycle about which party really owns the word “freedom”?
Harris has three jobs as she takes over the ticket:
1. Unite the party: Check
Any thought there was lingering bitterness after Joe Biden was, um, Nancy Pelosi’ed to step down, has been banished. Harris has raised over $300 million and is currently fracking Bakken Formation–levels of enthusiasm from what many thought were dry Democratic wells.
Democrats will emerge from the convention — as Republicans did from the RNC — with big momentum, flush with money and a sense of hope and possibility that was nowhere to be seen when Biden was starring in the political version of “Thelma and Louise,” driving the party off an electoral cliff.
Hope matters in politics because it fuels volunteers to drive the get-out-the-vote machine, boosts fundraising, and resonates with key voting blocks like suburban women, Black and Latino voters, and young people, the core of the blue machine.
Harris’ biggest challenge remains connecting with white, working, and middle-class male voters in the seven swing states. The gender gap is a significant element of the campaign, and Democrats have been losing these voters by the bale load. Enter vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, whose folksy pep rally speech last night ditched virtually any mention of his years in Congress in favor of focusing on his military service, his hunting, and his football coaching career. Walz doesn’t bring a swing state like Pennsylvania with him, but he does bring the regular dad-in-flannel authenticity factor meant to move middle-class and working-class men back to the Democratic Party.
2. Define herself before the opposition can define her: Check
Elections are about framing three kinds of narrative. First, frame the narrative about your own candidate, then frame one around your opponent to create contrast, and, finally, frame the ballot box question urging a call to action.
The Obama folks used to call this Public Narrative theory, based on the work of a guy called Marshall Ganz. The idea is to first tell the “story of self” — why you are here and what your purpose or mission is all about. Then tell the “story of us,” which is why we all have a common cause in the mission, and end the campaign with a call to action, the fierce urgency of the moment, which Ganz calls the “the story of now.”
You can track the four days of the DNC by how they hit these three key objectives, showing that the Ganz book is still very much the DNA of the party with Harris at the top.
Harris is essentially new as a presidential candidate, which means she is balancing both the celebration of Biden’s record and taking credit for its successes while distancing herself from it enough to introduce herself as an agent of change.
This is why she starts with the story of self. Ironically, Harris is helped by the fact that she was a somewhat invisible vice president, even if she was very present on the abortion issue. Her lack of public persona began as a shield issue (Who is she? What did she accomplish in three and half years?), but now it’s very much a sword. Harris is a blank slate, so her team has been able to define her with the story of a joyful warrior, a protector, a prosecutor, and someone who fights for the middle class. Tonight, she will try to set that frame in stone — and then put one around the Trump campaign, as her running mate, Tim Walz, started to do last night. Trump as “weird,” Trump as “felon,” and Trump as only about Trump.
The framing issue is bedeviling Trump, who until now has been a master at it. “Crooked Hillary.” “Sleepy Joe.” Those adolescent nicknames have worked because they have a ring of truth for his audience. Biden really is, well, kinda sleepy. On Wednesday, Trump admitted he’s having a really hard time trying to frame Harris. “I think her name will be Comrade,” he said, going off script. “Because that is the most accurate,” he continued, thinking out loud. “You know, I’ve been looking for a name, and people have been saying, ‘Sir, don’t do it' — you know, all my names, they have all worked, they have all been very successful — and I really didn’t find one with her!”
So far, “Comrade Kamala” is not sticking, though the strategy of calling her and Tim Walz radical communists is the playbook. But until Trump can figure something out, Harris has time to set her own frame.
Why hasn’t it worked for Trump?The "Commie" stuff is a stretch because it’s not the 1950s anymore. The Red Scare is generationally out of touch — and, besides, it’s Trump who has closer ties to Putin than the Democrats. Harris also has put out so little policy to date — a weakness in many ways but an asset in this instance — that there is no hook on which to hang the name. Meanwhile, the Harris team has adopted a kind of “haters-gonna-hate, shake-it-off” vibe, and instead of ignoring Trump (they’ve hopped off the “they go low, we go high” bandwagon), they have countered with a name of their own: “Weird.”
Trump has managed to avoid being defined by opponents because he’s always the one on offense, but the Harris folks have sidestepped him, effectively using the extreme parts of the Trump movement and his own bizarre conspiracy theories to push him out of the mainstream and marginalize him. Right now, she is winning the framing battle.
3. Set the ballot box question: The toughest task ahead for both Harris and Trump
This is the story of now, and what this campaign is all about. Trump is counting on the salience of issues like immigration, the economy, security, and the culture wars against “woke-ism” to define his campaign. He is back to his American carnage, “Après moi, le déluge” phase. It’s ominous stuff, but it works for him, and he is still very much in play in this election. But Trump’s support is not growing. Harris is pushing issues like abortion, anti-corporate greed, and anti-Trump to define her campaign. She wants the election to be about Trump because Dems believe he is an increasingly volatile liability, especially as he deepens his dive into conspiracy theories, comments about her racial identity, and simply lies about what he says are her AI-generated crowds.
There is one more fascinating framing battle going on: the battle over the word "freedom." Freedom has classically been the rallying cry of the right — freedom from big government, freedom to bear arms, freedom of the individual against the tyranny of Big Pharma, Big Tech, the Deep State, etc. It is the cornerstone of the victimization narrative and what is supposed to underpin the “fight, fight, fight” rallying cry.
“The right has traditionally owned patriotism and freedom in both its narrative and in how people view parties on the right or center-right,” pollster and CEO of Abacus Data David Coletto told me. “But I think freedom likely means different things to different people, which is why I think it’s smart for the left to try to gain some share back on it. This is especially true in the US, where abortion rights and freedom to make decisions about one’s life are salient.”
That’s why the Democrats have openly tried to yank back the word and flip the script. As you heard Walz last night repeat his Minnesota slogan, “Mind your own damn business,” the Dems argue that it’s Republicans who are infringing on freedoms for women and the LGBTQ community and infringing on the right to health care. On a more meta level, they are arguing that Dems will protect the institutions that are there to protect freedom — like safeguarding the US Capitol from an insurrection.
While Biden focused his campaign on the word “democracy,” under Harris, everyone from Walz and Oprah to Obama to Shapiro to Buttigieg has made sure the word “freedom” has been front and center. A recentWashington Post article pointed out that “at 100 campaign events since launching his reelection in April 2023, Biden referenced “democracy” 386 times and “freedom” about 175 times. By comparison, in nine campaign rallies since Biden dropped out, Harris referenced “freedom” nearly 60 times and “democracy” around a dozen.
“The fight over the word matters,” says Coletto. “As the world has become more insecure, and as people witness the return of authoritarianism, we are less likely to take freedom for granted. I think the concept is on the ascendency again as people contrast their own lives and how they want to live with how they see others living in less free countries.”
At this moment, who protects freedom and who curtails it is not the ballot question — likely the economy will still be the decider for independents — but the freedom debate is the proxy war here.
As she speaks tonight, expect Kamala Harris to try to hang the “freedom” frame around the campaign.
Jousef Shkoukani and his wife, Yara Rashad, join other protesters in Chicago's Union Park on Monday, Aug. 19.
DNC protesters urge Harris to stop sending arms to Israel
Protesters incensed over US support for Israel amid the war in Gaza gathered in Chicago’s Union Park on Monday as the Democratic National Convention kicked off just blocks away in the United Center. They accused the Biden administration of enabling “genocide” in the enclave by continuing to provide Israel with arms amid a devastating war that’s killed over 40,000 Palestinians.
The protesters carried signs that said both Democrats and Republicans have “blood on their hands” and called for an end to US aid to Israel. Some sold t-shirts with pro-Palestinian slogans for $25, pledging to donate the money toward relief in Gaza.
“It’s incredibly important that we get a cease-fire, at the very least,” protester Jousef Shkoukani, 29, told GZERO Media.
“For Palestinians, it’s incredibly important that people start to recognize that we’re not just numbers and that we’re dying in large quantities based on Israel’s indiscriminate bombing,” added Shkoukani, a Chicagoan whose father immigrated to the US from Palestine.
Shkoukani, one of thousands who protested on Monday, said that he previously knocked on doors for President Joe Biden but now identifies as an independent. He said the Democratic Party has “talked the talk but never walked the walk with respect to its policies on Middle Eastern affairs,” adding that what the protesters are looking for from Vice President Kamala Harris and Democrats is “a commitment to a permanent cease-fire if elected.”
Chicago has been bracing for major protests surrounding the DNC for months amid the continued fighting in Gaza, particularly after divisive demonstrations at US college campuses earlier this year. There’s a heavy, palpable police presence in the city. And while Monday’s protests were largely peaceful, a small group of demonstrators broke through a barrier near the convention, and several were reportedly detained by police.
Though the mood inside the United Center was far more celebratory, the war was also an inescapable topic. Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York praised Harris’ support for a cease-fire in Gaza in her remarks to the convention and was met with loud applause. Later on, Biden said his administration was working around the clock to bring the hostages home from Gaza and secure a cease-fire to end the war. He went on to say that the protesters out on the streets of Chicago had “a point,” adding that “a lot of innocent people are being killed, on both sides.” But most of the prominent Democrats who took to the convention stage largely used their time to tout Harris’ qualifications for president while blasting former President Donald Trump as a convicted felon and danger to democracy.
More Gaza-related protests are planned for this week, and the beginnings of an encampment could be spotted in Union Park — next to a sign that read “PIG FREE ZONE.” We’ll be watching to see how the demonstrations play out, and whether they influence the tone and direction of the convention in the days ahead.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida attends a press conference to announce that he will not run for the Liberal Democratic Party's presidential election in September at the Prime Minister's office in Tokyo on August 14, 2024. As a result, PM Kishida will retire from Prime Minister after a new LDP president is elected in next month.
Japanese PM Kishida steps aside
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced early Wednesday that he will not stand for another term as leader of the Liberal Democratic Party in September, which will clear the way for a new PM. The move is a surprise, though perhaps not a shock, given Kishida’s perennially abysmal approval ratings amid struggles to balance a plummeting yen in a sluggish economy.
Kishida’s departure now will give whoever comes out on top of the LDP’s internal party hierarchy about a year’s runway before the next general elections, which must be held in October 2025. The LDP’s dominance in the Diet is legendary — it has ruled with only two brief interruptions since 1955 — but the new PM will need to use every minute of the next year to make his case to voters.
For all his unpopularity at home, Kishida won admirers in Washington with his efforts to ramp up Japanese defense spending and improve relations with other US allies like South Korea and the Philippines. We’re watching how his successor tackles security strategy, and if that endears him at all to Japanese voters.
A man holds a laptop computer as cyber code is projected on him in this illustration.
How Iran is messing with the US election
Iranian-linked groups have been trying to disrupt the 2024 US presidential election, according to a recent report from Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center.
On Aug. 10, former President Donald Trump’s campaign claimed that Iranian actors had hacked, stolen, and distributed its internal documents. While the Trump campaign provided few specifics, the claim came a day after Microsoft issued a report detailing Iranian attempts to sow discord online around the upcoming election. The Trump campaign hack appears to line up with what Microsoft called a “spear phishing email” sent from an Iranian-linked group to a “high-ranking official on a presidential campaign.”
Further, Microsoft found that the Iranian group, called Storm-2035, set up four fake news websites, disguised as legitimate American news outlets, with the intention of polarizing American voters on political issues, including LGBTQ rights and the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. The group used generative AI-based tools, the report said, to write article headlines and rephrase stolen content to boost traction with search engines. They also used AI tools to plagiarize existing US publications, the report said, but didn’t offer additional specifics.
Microsoft said that while they have seen malicious actors from China, Russia, and Iran trying to incorporate generative AI into their operations, “recently many actors have pivoted back to techniques that have proven effective in the past — simple digital manipulations, mischaracterization of content, and use of trusted labels or logos atop false information.” AI isn’t a breakthrough technology for these groups just yet — though they’re clearly trying to incorporate them into their operations.
Clint Watts, who runs the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center, said Iran’s goal is different from Russia’s past attempts to affect US elections. “Russia is very different. They're very focused on shaping the outcome of the election,” he told NPR. “Iran is focused as much on just breaking the ability of an election to occur" and interrupting the mechanics of voting. In 2021, the US Justice Department indicted two Iranian nationals who sent threatening materials to voters and spread disinformation about election integrity in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election.
Microsoft has previously reported that Russia is actively seeking to undermine US support for Ukraine through online influence campaigns. CNN reported on Aug. 12 that the FBI is investigating the breach.