Politics

Suburban women are understood to be one of the most crucial demographic groups in the presidential election on November 3. Many pollsters currently predict that President Donald Trump will lose due to his unpopularity with that category of voters. But have the Democrats really reclaimed the suburbs? Or are there more likely Republican voters than the polls suggest? The Spectator tracked down a series of so-called ‘closet Trump’ voters, women from the suburbs who would never publicly voice their support for the President for fear of recrimination in their social circles. These are their stories. Suburban women are understood to be one of the most crucial demographic groups in the presidential election on November 3.

Late on June 23, 1953, Winston Churchill had a stroke. As the great bulldog recovered, his advisers made the bold decision to keep his illness a secret. Officially, the prime minister was resting because of an arduous schedule. His doctors’ diagnosis of a ‘disturbance of the cerebral circulation which has resulted in attacks and giddiness’ was struck from the records.In public, John F. Kennedy shone with youthful health and vigor. Behind closed doors, he was a mess. As Robert Dallek has written for the Atlantic, JFK suffered from ‘ulcers and colitis as well as Addison’s disease...terrific back trouble...urinary-tract infections and depression.

The media is ablaze with worry. Thanks to COVID, Americans, especially Democrats, are voting early and absentee in record numbers. The press is convinced that states will be swamped by this flood of votes. As a result, the theory goes, Donald Trump will be ahead on the night of November 3, only to see his lead erode over the coming days and even weeks, fueling skepticism of the electoral process. The uncertainty will motivate street violence and a constitutional crisis. While there are some reasons for concern, these worries are overblown. States will do a better job tabulating votes than the received wisdom holds and, if past elections set the precedent, Americans will behave themselves.

It’s rather difficult to dissect or analyze policy areas from last night’s horrendous debate. But Freddy Gray and I attempt to do so on the latest episode of his Americano podcast — and considering today’s economic updates, I’ll give it another go.Even in a debate that spent most of its time in the gutter, both President Trump and former vice president Joe Biden had moments of cut-through. For Biden, his call for unity in America felt like a rare throwback to a form of traditional campaigning that tends to play well with watchers at home. For Trump, his most persuasive moments came early in the debate, when he was speaking about the economy.

The first presidential debate in Cleveland was a disaster, to put it bluntly. After 90 minutes of crosstalk, petty jabs, and 'c'mon man’s it's hard to believe many undecided voters will come out of the night with a clear candidate in mind. Most will be begging for presidential politics to stop rather than racing to the polls. In fact, judging from social media, many undecided voters are already saying this debate convinced them not to vote at all. President Trump's performance was perhaps his worst in a major debate so far because he squandered numerous opportunities to let Biden hang himself with his own words.

President Trump and Joe Biden will face off in the first of a series of presidential debates on Tuesday night. Team Trump says he has been preparing by watching videos of Biden and by regularly squaring off with unfriendly press, while Biden is reviewing Trump's tweets and engaging in practice sessions with a group of aides and strategists at his home in Wilmington, Delaware. The President's rather informal preparations have apparently worried the campaign, which is now trying to raise expectations for the candidate that they've repeatedly painted as cognitively impaired. 'We’re prepared to see the same Joe Biden who won his vice presidential debates in 2008 and 2012 on stage versus President Trump.

The compulsive and self-righteous bellicosity of the Democratic leaders in Congress over the Supreme Court vacancy has opened an opportunity for President Trump to strike decisively. It is admittedly controversial for a president to fill a high court vacancy starting six weeks before a presidential election, but it is entirely constitutional. What’s more, it has applicable precedents, including most conspicuously the elevation of Chief Justice John Marshall by President John Adams after he had been defeated in the 1800 election. This is not a provocation to justify the extreme belligerency of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Suburban women are understood to be one of the most crucial demographic groups in the presidential election on November 3. Many pollsters currently predict that President Donald Trump will lose due to his unpopularity with that category of voters. But have the Democrats really reclaimed the suburbs? Or are there more likely Republican voters than the polls suggest? The Spectator tracked down a series of so-called ‘closet Trump’ voters, women from the suburbs who would never publicly voice their support for the President for fear of recrimination in their social circles. These are their stories.CaliforniaBefore Donald Trump arrived on the political stage, I felt like I was living in an alternate universe, politically speaking.

Here we go again. President Trump has announced a big healthcare proposal that amounts to none at all. If anything, it will have a positively insalubrious effect upon the health of Americans.On Thursday Trump declared, ‘The historic action I'm taking today includes the first-ever executive order to affirm it is the official policy of the United States government to protect patients with pre-existing conditions. This is affirmed, signed, and done so we can put that to rest.’Umm, no. The fact is that Trump can’t simply issue a healthcare ukase and expect that it will have any practical effect. He can’t force insurers to provide coverage unless he wants to nationalize them.

Joe Biden's presidential campaign called another early morning press lid at 9:20 a.m. on Thursday, leaving strategists and reporters wondering what the hell is going on. It was the ninth time this month that Biden had no public events on schedule and thus told the press before lunchtime that they would not be needed for the rest of the day. It's downright bizarre that a campaign would squander nine perfectly good days that could be spent on the trail just two months out from the election. What was Biden doing during this time instead? Sitting at home with his wife in Wilmington and hopping on the occasional Zoom event? Sam Stein, who is a Daily Beast reporter and purportedly not a campaign spokesperson, insisted that Biden must have been prepping for Tuesday's debate against Trump.

Montana’s Republican state auditor Matt Rosendale and Democratic former state legislator Kathleen Williams meet tonight in their first debate for the Treasure State’s sole House seat. The moderators should ask Williams about her suspicious use of campaign funds, despite her many statements denouncing the very behavior in which she seems to be engaging.Williams presents herself as a paragon of personal virtue and fiduciary probity.‘Reforming our broken campaign finance system will be a top priority for her in Congress,’ her campaign website declares. ‘She leads by example and never forgets who she’ll work for — you.