Daniel Rey

Ten years ago this week, Barack Obama announced the historic US rapprochement with Cuba. Alongside Obama during years of secret negotiations was Joe Biden – then Vice President, and a trusted advisor on foreign affairs. But while Obama’s policies reduced Cubans’ reliance on the communist state, President Biden’s actions have done the opposite: spurring extreme hardship and a huge wave of migration to the US. Time and time again Cuba has had an outsized influence on US elections After four years of Donald Trump’s hardline stance, Biden entered the White House in 2021 with a pledge to ‘reverse the failed Trump policies that inflicted harm on Cubans and their families’. But rather than overturn Trump’s stringent measures, Biden added to them.

When it comes to the economy, Americans typically trust the Republicans. They’re the party traditionally aligned with big capital; and their policies – low taxes and minimal government interference – sound sweet in a believer’s ear. Donald Trump, leading the GOP for the third election in a row, is a famous businessman; and the party’s previous nominee, back in 2012, was Mitt Romney – the co-founder of one of the largest private equity firms in the world. The Republicans, you might think, are a safe pair of hands. However, despite the Republicans prioritising the economy, it’s the Democrats who have the far superior record.

Watch or attend one of Donald Trump’s rallies, and you may well see something surprising: an electronic billboard encouraging people to vote by post. It’s a big u-turn for Trump, who has spent years maintaining that postal votes are manipulated. Ahead of the 2020 election – which took place in the pre-vaccine era of the pandemic – Trump's White House even blocked additional funding for the Postal Service, fearing that Democratic voters were more likely to avoid going to a polling station. Following the election, one of his many claims of voter fraud was predicated on supposedly corrupted postal ballots. 'Mail-in voting is totally corrupt,’ Trump said So why the sudden endorsement of postal voting?

Tonight, Donald Trump and Joe Biden face each other in the first of two presidential debates. With about ten per cent of the electorate undecided, the debate – the first between a current and a former president – could change the momentum of the race. Both candidates want to debate. Trump thinks he can trounce the rival he has often dubbed ‘Sleepy Joe’. Biden, a doddery octogenarian, urgently needs to persuade voters he is not too frail for office.   Tonight’s debate helps cement the choice as Biden or Trump Debating against a much more dynamic candidate might seem like a risk for Biden. But in fact, it’s a good idea. Trump is ahead in the polls, and the perception is that the president is weak.

Joe Biden is a pragmatist. With just five months to go until his rematch against Donald Trump, the veteran Democrat is making political decisions based on an electoral calculation. These decisions, intended to undermine Trump’s appeal among wavering voters, cross into economic, domestic and foreign policy. They are taking him closer to the views of his Republican opponent. A case in point is immigration – one of Trump’s electoral strengths, and one of Biden’s biggest weaknesses. Biden, who is lagging behind Trump in the polls, has just signed an executive order denying asylum to migrants who enter the United States illegally.

With Donald Trump confirmed as the Republican nominee, a group of NeverTrump conservatives have tried to hit the former president somewhere vulnerable: the musicals of Andrew Lloyd Webber. The Lincoln Project, an organisation led by old-school Republicans, has released a video parodying one of the tunes most associated with Trump’s rallies – the theme song from The Phantom of the Opera. Trump has a profound love of musical theatre, particularly the work of Andrew Lloyd Webber. Since 2015, songs like ‘The Music of the Night’, ‘All I Ask of You’ and ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ have been part of his pre-speech soundtrack. He revealed in Think Like a Billionaire that he saw a production of Evita six times.

There's only a year to go until the most complex and consequential US presidential election ever. Ukraine, the Middle East, geriatric candidates, big-name independents, the criminal charges against Trump, a new House speaker (who must ratify the outcome) who didn't recognise Biden’s victory in 2020 – the complexity is staggering.  The two main candidates, Biden and Trump, are both unpopular. Biden’s approval rating stands (or rather, squats) at around 37 per cent. Polls indicate he is losing support among two traditional bastions of the Democratic party: African-Americans and young voters. Meanwhile Trump, who has still to secure the Republican nomination, lost the popular vote in his two presidential campaigns. In last year’s midterms, the Trumpist candidates were routed.