US elections 2024

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      How will the outcome of the US election affect Australia, Aukus and our region?

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      More people have gone to a ballot box in 2024 than in any other year in human history. Billions have cast votes across scores of countries, including some of the largest, most powerful democracies on Earth.But America’s remains the world’s global election, the most forensically examined, the most consequential all over the world. America matters.“The US is still the most powerful actor in the international system,” Dr Michael Fullilove, executive director of the Lowy Institute, told the Guardian this week. “It is the richest company, with the biggest military, the biggest economy.“It is the only country that runs a truly global foreign policy, the only country that can project power anywhere on Earth.“It is the democratic, meritocratic superpower … it still attracts so many people around the world … the whole world is remarkably well-informed about the US election.”And Australia’s future is bound up in America’s electoral decision. As one of America’s closest allies – supporters might argue for “staunchest”, opponents might claim “uncritical” – Australia’s economic, security and multilateral landscape is tied to that of the US and the occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.How could the election of a second Donald Trump presidency impact Australia? Or how might the quasi-continuity of Vice-President Kamala Harris ascending to the White House?Trump, neccesarily, is the object of much of Australia’s focus. Harris, as Joe Biden’s vice-president, is the continuity candidate – promoting policy positions in line with the current administration – meaning a Trump victory would raise many more questions.The election too, will be keenly fought over a host of domestic issues which have no direct – though some peripheral – impact on Australia. This includes issues such as reproductive rights (the overturning of Roe v Wade by the supreme court and a mooted national abortion ban), migration (particularly on the country’s southern border), gun control and law and order – issues excluded in this piece.Watching the crescendo of an increasingly vituperative election campaign, Fullilove said that politically “America is running a high temperature at the moment”.“My real hope for the election is that there is a clear result, that the loser accepts defeat, that the transfer of power is peaceful – that might sound like a low bar – but it is critical, for America and for the world.”Values and democracyResponding to the unpredictability of Trump’s first presidency, Australian politicians repeated the refrain that the Australian-US alliance runs deeper than a president or prime minister and that it is one founded on shared values and democratic principles.Trump has said he would not be a dictator, “except on day one”. He said he would seek retribution on his political opponents: “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections”.As commander-in-chief, he said he would consider using the military to attack domestic enemies: “It should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by the national guard, or if really necessary, by the military”.Trump’s former chief of staff, Gen John Kelly, said this week Trump was a “fascist” who “certainly prefers the dictator approach to government”. Trump has repeatedly lied that he won the 2020 election and mused on “terminating” the constitution.He told a rally in July that if he was elected president again, “you won’t have to vote any more”.“In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not going have to vote.”Harris has denounced Trump as a “fascist” who wants “unchecked power” and a military personally loyal to him.In her speech to the Democratic National Convention, she cited the supreme court’s split decision in July stating Trump enjoyed broad immunity for official acts taken while in office.“Consider the power he [Trump] will have, especially after the United States supreme court ruled he will be immune from prosecution,” she said. “Imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails.”ClimateClimate change is “one of the greatest scams of all time”, Trump said last month. “We will drill, baby, drill,” he told the Republican National Convention when accepting the party’s nomination. “We will do it at levels that nobody’s ever seen before.”He has said he would prohibit, by executive order, all offshore wind projects on the first day of his presidency, saying they kill whales.In his first term, Trump withdrew from the Paris agreement (the US rejoined under Biden). But his campaign has indicated a second Trump presidency might re-abandon the Paris agreement, as well as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which underpins it. 198 countries have committed to the UNFCCC: none has left it.The withdrawal of the US – the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas emitter and the country that has contributed the largest share of historical emissions – would increase political uncertainty around the transition to net zero and deter investment. It would weaken the influence of the so-called umbrella group – of which Australia is a member – and give succour to climate laggards, such as the petrostates, to further slow global reduction efforts.Some have argued that much of the impetus and funding for global emissions reductions is locked in and emissions reductions efforts are working on timescales far longer than a four-year presidential cycle.But Michael Mann, distinguished professor of meteorology at Pennsylvania State University, has argued “a second Trump term is game over for the climate”.Harris has called climate change an “existential threat”. As attorney general in California, she prosecuted oil companies for breaches of environmental laws. As vice-president, she was the tie-breaking vote in the Senate to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, which provided about US$370bn to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 40% below 2005 levels by 2030.But during Harris’s vice-presidency, the US produced and exported the most crude oil of any country at any time in history, according to the US Energy Information Administration’s figures. Crude oil production averaged 12.9m barrels a day in 2023, breaking the previous global record of 12.3m, set in 2019.Trade and the economyTrump is a fierce economic nationalist, hostile to free trade and intensely focused on America’s trade deficit, which he regards as a sign of weakness. He has pledged to impose a 10% tariff on all imports to the US, with a 60% tariff on all Chinese imports and a 100% tariff on Chinese cars.Economists argue the policy will lead to higher prices and lower growth. The nonpartisan Peterson Institute for International Economics estimated the proposed tariffs would lower the incomes of an average American household by US$1,700 a year: poor Americans would be more affected than the rich.In September, Trump said: “Together, we will deliver low taxes, low regulations, low energy costs, low interest rates and low inflation so that everyone can afford groceries, a car and a home”. He has promised to reduce regulation and cut taxes, but some economists argue his tax cuts would benefit America’s wealthiest while hurting the poorest.Australia is not dependent on direct trade with the US, but the majority of Australia’s trade is with China. If China’s economy, already weak, is damaged further by a trade war with America, Australia will be exposed.Harris has criticised Trump’s tariff policies, arguing they would act as a “sales tax on Americans” and lead to higher prices and inflation. But the Biden administration – of which she has been vice-president – has extended Trump-era tariffs and used tariffs to influence trade on industries it sees as strategic – particularly in relation to China. The administration extended tariffs on solar panels in 2022, and in May this year, increased tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles to 100%.As a senator, Harris opposed the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a free trade agreement (involving Australia) negotiated by President Obama and from which Trump withdrew.Defence and AukusWhile Trump has been critical of Nato, he has not criticised Australia as a military ally or the Aukus deal, a tripartite agreement (between the US, UK, and Australia) for Australia to acquire up to eight nuclear-powered submarines between now and the mid-2050s, the first in the 2030s.Australia’s deputy prime minister, Richard Marles, said his government believed Trump would honour the agreement: “Every engagement we’ve had with the Trump camp in the normal process of speaking with people on both sides of politics in America, there is support for … Aukus,” he said.

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      But John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser – now a fierce critic of the former president – said of Aukus: “I think it could be in jeopardy”.Fullilove asked Trump’s vice-presidential candidate JD Vance this year for his position on the agreement. Vance replied he was “a fan of Aukus”.“I suspect that Aukus would be safe under Trump too,” Fullilove told the Guardian.“Australia is an example of an ally that is contributing to deterrence and contributing to the US industrial base. You could imagine Trump threatening to unpick it, but my conclusion is it is safe.”Aukus was signed by the Biden-Harris administration. The administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy commits to the deal, but does not give a timeline: “Through the Aukus partnership, we will identify the optimal pathway to deliver nuclear-powered submarines to the Royal Australian Navy at the earliest achievable date.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAirbases in Australia were used for US airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen this month. The defence department confirmed Australia provided support for the US strikes “through access and overflight for US aircraft in northern Australia”.Israel-GazaBoth Trump and Harris have declared their support for Israel and reiterated support for a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine.The US continues to supply Israel with billions of dollars of weapons and munitions as Israel carries out its bombardment of Gaza, Lebanon, and, this week, strikes on Iran.The US is, by far, the largest supplier of arms to Israel: 69% of Israel’s imports of major conventional arms between 2019 and 2023 came from America, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The US has signed an agreement to provide Israel with $3.8bn in annual military aid under a 10-year-agreement.1,200 Israelis died in the 7 October 2023 attacks by Hamas. More than 42,000 people have died in Gaza since, including more than 16,000 children.Trump has expressed his support for Israel’s invasion and bombardment of Gaza. He has also urged Israel to “finish up” the war because it is losing support.“You have to finish up your war … you’ve got to get it done,” he told Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom. “We’ve got to get to peace. You can’t have this going on, and I will say Israel has to be very careful because you are losing a lot of the world. You are losing a lot of support.”Trump said of Harris: “She hates Israel. If she’s president, I believe that Israel will not exist within two years from now.”In his first term, Trump released a peace proposal he called a blueprint for a two-state solution: it would not have created an independent Palestinian state and was seen as strongly favouring Israel.“Israel has a right to defend itself,” Harris said in September’s presidential debate.She continued: “How it does so matters. Because it is also true far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. Children. Mothers. What we know is that this war must end. It must end immediately, and the way it will end is we need a ceasefire deal and we need the hostages out.”Harris has consistently reiterated support for a two-state solution.The war in UkraineNearly three years on since Russia invaded Ukraine – and a decade since its initial assault on Crimea – the US remains the largest backer of Ukraine’s war effort. It is by far the single biggest contributor of money and materiel, outspending the next largest contributor, Germany, by five to one.Trump has made it abundantly clear he wants the war over – or, more precisely, he wants to stop paying for it.He told a rally: “I think [Ukrainian president Volodymyr] Zelenskyy is maybe the greatest salesman of any politician that’s ever lived. Every time he comes to our country he walks away with $US60bn.”Influencing Republican allies in Congress, Trump stalled the last funding package from passing for months while Ukrainian forces – critically short of ammunition and artillery – struggled to hold back Russian advances. Trump’s manoeuvring was criticised as essentially backing Vladimir Putin’s irredentism.Trump has also repeatedly claimed if re-elected he would end the war in a day – “I’ll have that done in 24 hours” – without detailing how. It is presumed a deal to stop the conflict would involve the ceding of Ukrainian territory to Russia.Trump’s disposition towards Ukraine has broader implications for the collective security principle underpinning Nato. Trump has compared Nato to a protection racket and said he would not protect “delinquent” allies.“In fact, I would encourage them [the Russians] to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay! You gotta pay your bills.”Trump has repeatedly upbraided European countries for failing to live up to their commitment to spend 2% of their GDP on defence.Harris has pledged to continue Biden’s support for Ukraine and for the Nato alliance. She said as vice-president “I helped mobilise a global response – over 50 countries – to defend against Putin’s aggression.“And as president, I will stand strong with Ukraine and our Nato allies.”Harris, however, has wavered on Ukraine being admitted as a member to Nato, saying the question was among the “issues that we will deal with if and when it arrives at that point”.China“Trump and Kamala Harris are two bowls of poison for Beijing. Both see China as a competitor or even an adversary,” Prof Zhao Minghao, from the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University, told the Financial Times.Trump was hawkish towards China in his first term, confronting Beijing over what he argued were a suite of unfair practices and abuses such as intellectual property theft, currency manipulation and economic espionage. He pledged to “completely eliminate dependence on China in all critical areas,” including electronics, steel, pharmaceuticals, and rare earths. And he has flagged new laws to stop US companies from investing in China and a ban on federal contracts for any company that outsources to China.His first administration rejected Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea, condemning Beijing’s “campaign of bullying” of other countries.Harris spoke on China in September, saying her government would work to ensure the US “is leading the world in the industries of the future and making sure America, not China, wins the competition for the 21st century”.“China is not moving slowly … if we are to compete, we can’t afford to, either.”She condemned Trump as having “constantly got played by China” and said his administration shipped advanced semiconductors to China, allowing them to upgrade their military.“I will never hesitate to take swift and strong measures when China undermines the rules of the road at the expense of our workers, our communities, and our companies.”The PacificClimate change is an urgent existential threat for the islands of the Pacific. Trump does not mention the climate crisis in his platform, nor is it mentioned in Agenda47.The Heritage Foundation – the conservative thinktank behind the Trump-linked Project 2025 – has urged for partnership with the Pacific islands, but on American terms and in its interests. “The US must adopt a clear-eyed approach about putting American interests and objectives in the Pacific islands first,” it said.The Biden-Harris administration have held two Pacific islands-US summits which have been big on ambition – with commitments of more than $1bn to resilience regionalism and sustainable development – but seen as lacking, so far, in application and results.The 2022 US-Pacific partnership declared a shared vision for “a resilient Pacific region of peace, harmony, security, social inclusion, and prosperity”.Fullilove said while Harris sits within the mainstream traditions of US foreign policy over recent decades, “it’s hard to get a really accurate fix on what she thinks about the world”.“At a broad level, she believes in American leadership, she believes in alliances, she prefers democracy to dictators, she more pro-trade than Trump. But beyond that, it’s very hard to know how she will approach Asia, the part of the world Australia is in, because she hasn’t been a prominent foreign policy voice in the Biden administration.”Read more about the 2024 US presidential election:

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      Harris and Trump policies

      What to know about early voting More

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      Five days out, Arab Americans are split on Harris v Trump: vote ‘strategically’ or ‘morally’?

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      It’s a Saturday afternoon at Al Madina Halal market and restaurant in Norcross, Georgia, and the line is four people deep for shawarma sandwiches or leg of lamb with saffron rice and two sides.A television on the wall by a group of tables has Al Jazeera correspondents reporting from several countries on a split screen about Israel’s attack on Iranian military targets the day before.Mohammad Hejja is drinking yogurt, surveying the bustle in the store he bought in 2012. There are shoppers and employees from Sudan, Ethiopia, Iran, Pakistan, Morocco and other countries – a clear sign of what makes surrounding Gwinnett county, with nearly a million residents, the most diverse in the south-east.Hejja has Jordanian and US citizenship, but his family is Palestinian. Soldiers of the nascent nation of Israel drove his grandparents out of Palestine in the 1948 Nakba – the Palestinian catastrophe caused by Israel’s creation.Asked about how he expects his community to vote when Americans head to the polls next week, he says: “Everybody is confused about this election.” His No 1 concern is to “stop the war”, referring to Israel’s ongoing bombardment of Gaza and recent attacks on Lebanon.The issue is top of mind for Arab American voters nationwide. Some polls suggest Arab Americans could abandon the Democrats in droves over the Biden administration’s support for Israel; elsewhere, advocates and community leaders are urgently organizing to prevent a Donald Trump victory, warning about impacts in the Middle East and on domestic issues such as immigration if the GOP candidate is re-elected.Less than a week from 5 November, one thing is certain: “You cannot assess Arabs as a coherent voting bloc,” says Kareem Rifai, a Syrian-American graduate student at Georgetown’s Walsh School of Foreign Service. Rifai, who co-founded the University of Michigan Students for Biden chapter in 2020, calls himself a “foreign policy voter”, and is sticking with the Democratic candidate this cycle due to the party’s “strong stance on Russia”.Rifai weighed in on the Arab American vote on X recently, saying he was “pulling out my Arab Muslim from Metro-Detroit card” to let non-Arabs know that people hailing from across the Arab world have differing takes on the upcoming election.“Pro-Hezbollah socially conservative Arab community leaders … are not representative of Arab Americans in the same way that secular liberal Arabs or Christian anti-Hezbollah Arabs, etc, etc, are not representative of all Arab Americans,” Rifai wrote.At the same time, before this year, Arab Americans were clearer in their preference for Democrats – at this time in 2020, Joe Biden led Trump by 24 points, and exit polls showed that more than 85% of Arab American voters backed Democrats in 2004 and 2008.Today, Arab American voters seem more willing to look past Trump’s ban on travel from certain Muslim-majority countries – and his vow to reimpose a ban if re-elected – as well as his staunch support for Israel.Michigan, Rifai’s home state, is home to an estimated 392,000-plus Arab Americans – one of 12 states in which 75% of the nation’s estimated 3.7 million Arab Americans live.But as if to underscore its swing state status, dueling endorsements of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have come from Michigan in the last week alone. Over the weekend, a Yemeni-American organization upheld Trump as capable of “restoring stability in the Middle East”. The following day, a group assembled at the American Arab Chamber of Commerce in Dearborn, Michigan, to back Harris, calling her “the first to call for a ceasefire and also to call for Palestinian self-determination”. (The statement also noted that “Arab Americans are not a single-issue people, we care about the environment, an existential issue for families and children, workers, rights and a fair wage, civil rights, women’s rights and so much more.”)Also in the last week, dozens of “Palestinian, Arab, Muslim and Progressive” leaders in Arizona issued a statement backing Harris, underlining that support for an arms embargo on Israel and a ceasefire in Gaza has mainly come from Democrats. “In our view, it is crystal clear that allowing the fascist Donald Trump to become President again would be the worst possible outcome for the Palestinian people. A Trump win would be an extreme danger to Muslims in our country, all immigrants, and the American pro-Palestine movement,” the statement says.Arizona is home to an estimated 77,000 Arab Americans, according to the Arab American Institute.Meanwhile, back in swing state Georgia – with its estimated 58,000 Arab Americans – the staterepresentative Ruwa Romman spoke about her choice to vote for Kamala Harris.Romman is the first Muslim woman elected to the Georgia statehouse and the first Palestinian to hold public office in the state’s history. Speaking with fellow Muslims and Arabs about this election “feels like talking about politics at a funeral”, she wrote in a recent article for Rolling Stone.She believes that organizing for a ceasefire in Gaza and an arms embargo would be easier under a Harris administration. “I don’t know how advocating for Palestine would survive under Trump,” she said, adding that many of her constituents – including immigrants – would suffer if he were re-elected.Over at Al Madina, owner Hejja was arriving at a different conclusion. His wife has aunts in Gaza; she had not been able to reach them in three weeks. “The minimum thing we can do is pray five times a day,” he said.As for the election, he said: “If the president of the United States wants to stop the war, he can – with one phone call to Israel. He has the power.” Hejja believes “if Trump wins, Netanyahu will stop the war … [Trump] said he wants peace, and I believe him.”About 12 miles south-west, at Emory University – site of some of the harshest police responses to pro-Palestinian protests early this year – the Syrian-American senior Ibrahim had already sent an absentee ballot to his home state of Kentucky, marked for the Green party’s Jill Stein. “I see it as an ethical decision,” he said of his first time voting for president.“Voting for an administration that is supporting genocide crosses an ethical red line,” he added, referring to Harris.Fellow student Michael Krayyem, whose father is Palestinian, said he would “probably be voting down-ballot” on 5 November, but not for president. “I can’t support Kamala Harris because of what her administration has done to my people,” he said.Romman says she feels this dilemma facing fellow Arab Americans deeply. At the same time, she says: “Ultimately, in this election, I view voting as a strategic choice, and no longer a moral one.” More

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      Yes, Bidenomics is working here in Pennsylvania. But it might not be enough to win the White House | JoJo Burgess

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      Where I come from, “the economy” isn’t just about lines on a graph or numbers on a screen. It’s about how much money people have in their pockets and how much their groceries cost. It’s about how many shops are shuttered on their high street and whether they can afford to make the rent.In Pennsylvania, when voters go to the polls next week, the economy will be weighing very heavily on their minds. Our state will probably decide who becomes the next president of the US, and how we vote will also be a test of Joe Biden’s policies. The economy is one of the top issues for voters in our state. Many of them will be asking: am I in a better place now, compared with where I was four years ago?I come from a family of steelworkers near Pittsburgh. My father was a steelworker in the city, and so is my son. I’m also a rep for United Steelworkers, one of the largest unions in our country. As you can imagine, the most important issue in town right now is the steel deal. The Japanese steelmaker Nippon has been trying to buy US Steel for the past year, and though the company has promised to honour US Steel’s agreement with our union, we have many reasons to be doubtful.Not only is steel integral to our national security, raising questions about foreign takeovers, but there’s nothing to stop the company from cutting union jobs a few years down the line. The CEO of US Steel stands to walk away with $70m (£54m) if the deal completes. It’s the same pattern that repeats again and again: the money stays at the top, while people at the bottom are forgotten about.I’m glad that Kamala Harris has committed to blocking the sale. And I’m glad that the Biden administration has questioned the value of takeovers like these. Look at the Chips Act, or the Inflation Reduction Act: both were about spurring investment in our economy and building up productive capacity in the US.For too long, globalisation has meant a race to the bottom, with firms outsourcing labour and offshoring production to the places where it’s cheapest. Most employees have been working harder but getting paid less: from 1973 to 2013, the hourly wage for a typical worker rose just 9%, while productivity increased by 74%. No wonder so many people are exhausted and struggling to keep their heads above water.Here’s the thing: Donald Trump says he gets it, but he doesn’t. He talks about inflation killing our country under Biden, but he never says that record corporate profits are one of the drivers of inflation. He talks about the housing crisis, but then he blames the lack of affordable housing on immigrants. He is a master at spinning simple answers to complex problems, but he has no real solutions.I think most people are smarter than Trump gives them credit for. Most people have a sense that the reason daily life has become so expensive isn’t just because of the war in Ukraine or supply-chain bottlenecks. It’s because corporations got greedy, and started using inflation as cover to raise prices. If I can sell you a cup of water for $10, why would I drop the price to $7? The Democrat Pennsylvania senator Bob Casey has been campaigning explicitly on “greedflation”.It feels as though the message is cutting through, but I know plenty of steelworkers will still vote Trump, though almost all the unions have backed Harris. Where I live is rust belt territory. It’s a place that once boomed on coal, steel and cars. It’s a place that struggled to reinvent itself after the decline of the manufacturing industries, and lost a lot of jobs.View image in fullscreenSince the pandemic, we’ve been suffering. I live in Washington, a town south of Pittsburgh, where I’m also the local mayor. I’ve seen how the shift towards working from home has damaged some of our small businesses, and how our healthcare workers suffered from Covid-19.But I can also see the positives that “Bidenomics” has brought to our community, and I’m hoping these will cut through. One of the biggest complaints I hear now from residents is: “Why is there so much construction? We can’t cross the road!” Thanks to a huge boost in federal spending, with the Inflation Reduction Act earmarking billions of dollars to support infrastructure projects, there are many more cranes than there used to be.I always say, that’s infrastructure money working for us. When the Fern Hollow bridge collapsed in Pittsburgh, it was rebuilt in record time. Pennsylvania is particularly well placed to benefit from federal investment because it’s the second largest producer of energy in the US after Texas, and we need that climate spending if we’re going to transition to a clean energy economy. I’m just hoping that other voters feel the same way.

      JoJo Burgess is a steelworker in Pennsylvania and a member of the United Steelworkers union. He is also the mayor of Washington, Pennsylvania

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      Opinion polls have Harris and Trump locked in a tight race. ‘Gambling polls’ say otherwise

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      Most gamblers might want to sit out the US election. It’s too close to call with Kamala Harris and Donald Trump neck and neck, according to official polls. But the former president’s campaign has latched on to signs he says prove he’s actually “leading”.In a close race, Trump and his allies claim some “gambling polls”, as he described them last week, put him significantly ahead of Harris. “Like, 65 to 35, or something like that.”The irony of touting an apparent lead in betting markets at a Believers and Ballots campaign event in Georgia aimed at Christian voters was not lost on Trump. “But nobody here gambles,” he continued. “Does anybody here gamble? No, no, no, no. Great Christians don’t gamble, do they? Oh no.”The “gambling polls” Trump cited are forecasts generated by several election betting platforms, which put his chances of regaining the White House markedly ahead of his Democratic rival’s. With many questioning the accuracy of political polling, supporters including Elon Musk, have started to claim such estimates are more accurate.As of Wednesday, Polymarket, one leading service, put Trump’s chances of winning back the presidency at about 67%, with Harris at 33%. Another, Kalshi, put Trump at 62% and Harris at 38%.And while Trump’s audience last Tuesday was not interested in gambling on the result of the presidential election, many others appear to be getting involved. High-profile legal battles, promotion by the likes of Musk and Trump, and growing media coverage, have helped propel the activity into the spotlight as the campaign gathered steam.Interest around betting on this election is “orders of magnitude larger” than previous ballots, according to Thomas Gruca, a professor of marketing at the University of Iowa, and director of Iowa Electronic Markets, an election-focused futures market first established in 1988.America’s gambling boom, led by the legalization of sports betting, “has increased the number of people who like to throw away their money on things they don’t understand”, said Gruca. “People think, ‘I picked the Raiders-Jets game, therefore, I can pick a president.’”He also pointed to opinion polling errors at previous elections, and how many polls this time around suggest the contest is extremely tight. “I haven’t looked at the polls in the last 15 minutes, so I don’t know who’s winning. In previous years there was a lot of clarity.”In the magazines and newspapers section of Apple’s iPhone store, Polymarket has reigned supreme in the top spot, leaving the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and, yes, the Guardian, in its wake. Another platform, Kalshi, has likewise surged up the store’s chart of financial apps.“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that these markets have been becoming more popular as trust in the media has been declining,” said Harry Crane, a professor of statistics at Rutgers University. “The public wants information and is looking for sources of information it can trust.”

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      Should you have turned to, say, Polymarket, on Wednesday and bet on Trump, you would receive $1 for every 67 cents you wagered if he wins the election. If you bet on Harris, on the same platform, on the same day, you would receive $1 for every 33 cents wagered if she wins.These bets are bids on political futures contracts. Buying a contract drives its price – or the perceived probability of it happening – higher.This ecosystem spans far beyond the race for the White House. Other markets on Kalshi include the margin of victory in the Senate, which state will have the closest presidential election result and what the Federal Reserve will do with interest rates two days after the election.View image in fullscreenBut how reliable are the headline figures? “I think you should take them seriously,” said Grant Ferguson, political scientist at Texas Christian University. “The people who bet on these markets largely think they know more than the average person as to how things are going.”Leading platforms put Hillary Clinton ahead on election day in 2016 (she did win the popular vote if not the presidency), and Joe Biden in the lead in 2020, “but by less than the polling, in both cases”, said Ferguson. 2024 will be the biggest test of these predictions so far.“Broadly these markets are actually quite efficient – particularly they’re quite good at things that are 50:50, 60:40,” said Eric Zitzewitz, professor of economics at Dartmouth College. “In the sort of circumstance we’re in right now … I take that pretty seriously.”Provided a market is run “efficiently, or with good rules, the prices before the event happens will reflect what the smart people think, and not just random people”, suggested Gruca.The Iowa Electronic Markets allows participants to bet up to $500 on a given contract, and PredictIt, run out of Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, has a $850 limit. But other platforms do not have such tight restrictions, and big bets may have moved the odds in Trump’s favor.Polymarket, which did not respond to requests for an interview, confirmed last week that one person – a French national – was behind four accounts which had placed bets on Trump worth around $28m, but insisted to the New York Times this was “based on personal views”, rather than an attempt to manipulate the market.“Without limits,” said Gruca, “you can have prices move away from what they should be.”If one person tries to tilt the odds toward their favored candidate, those betting would quickly back the other if their odds slipped too low, Ferguson suggested. “Does it probably happen? Yeah,” he said. “But I’m not real worried about it.”There is a small, but significant, difference in the question at the heart of election surveys, and election bets. While poll respondents are indicating which candidate they want to win, those gambling on the contest are saying who they think will. Veterans of the space like to say that polling participants focus on their heart, and bettors use their head.The betting markets “are asking the more relevant question”, argued Crane. “The polling information is in the markets. The people who are in the markets know what the polls are, but they have other information.”Regulators are not happy. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which fined Polymarket $1.4m in 2022 and ordered it to exclude US users as part of a settlement, has tried to shut down PredictIt and Kalshi.But Kalshi was recently cleared to take US bets on election outcomes, when a federal appeals court ruled that the CFTC had failed to show how the agency or public interest would be harmed by its event contracts.While the CFTC is appealing, the legal breakthrough appears to have set the stage for a further increase in bets placed on who will prevail in the presidential campaign – by both individual betters, and large institutions. Polymarket is also scrutinizing activity on its platform to ensure users are outside the US, amid reports of domestic usage.“The markets are only as smart as the people trading in them,” said Gruca. “If you are dumb as a rock and have a lot of money, you can move the markets in whatever direction you want by simply moving money.” More

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      Why are so many women hiding their voting plans from their husbands? | Rebecca Solnit

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      Lots of memes and tweets and posts and videos are popping up, assuring women that they can keep their votes secret from their husbands and boyfriends. The unspoken assumption is that lots of women are bullied, intimidated or controlled by their partners, specifically in straight couples when she wants to vote for Harris and he supports Trump. The messages assure these intimidated voters that they can vote in peace and privacy at a polling place. But a lot of Americans now vote by mail, which generally means they fill out their ballots at home, where that privacy may not be available.On the one hand, I’m glad there’s outreach to those voters. On the other, the way these messages are framed seem to regard the grim reality that a lot of women live in fear of their spouses as a given hardly worth stating outright, let alone decrying. I get that right now we’re fighting for the future of democracy in America, the public version in which rights and norms and the rule of law are preserved – as the Washington Post humor columnist Alexandra Petri put it: “I am endorsing Kamala Harris for president, because I like elections and want to keep having them.”But a lot of households are not democracies; they’re dictatorships. This may impact public life, in that it seems to generate a meaningful amount of voter intimidation and suppression. As in previous election cycles, people doing door-to-door outreach to voters are encountering men who prevent their wives from even conversing at the door or who believe their registered-Democrat wives are Republicans and women fearful of speaking or of disclosing their party and chosen candidates.One Pennsylvania man who has been canvassing for several weeks told me: “So many times we … have knocked on doors and when both husband and wife or boyfriend and girlfriend have come to the door together, after hearing what we were there for so often the man stayed and the woman walked away ‘to do other things’, or the man came out to talk to us. Often the woman would come out by herself and say or whisper: ‘I’m with her and he doesn’t know it.’” Another friend reached a voter by phone, who told her that because her husband wasn’t in the car, she could admit she was voting Democratic. Coercive control is an issue in households of all races and political orientations, but only this configuration – Maga man, Democratic-leaning woman – seems to impact the right to vote in such a visible and potentially impactful way. Fox News host Jesse Watters asserted that his wife “secretly voting for Harris” was like having an affair and it would be “D day,” the d presumably standing for divorce.A Lincoln Project video shows a clutch of spectacularly mainstream white couples (they look like they fell out of a real estate brochure or are going to the golf course) entering a polling place. One of the men asks a second man who his wife is voting for. “She doesn’t like him but she’s voting for him,” he replies, and the first says: “Same with mine.” It’s followed by footage showing three women casting furtive glances at their husbands and each other as they choose Harris. It’s a hostage video. Another version of the video is narrated by Julia Roberts, who declares: “You can vote any way you want. And no one will ever know.” It’s not just that the party eager to deny women bodily autonomy is full of husbands eager to deny their wives political autonomy. It’s also a reminder that democracy and its opposites exist at all scales.

      Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. She is the author of Orwell’s Roses and co-editor with Thelma Young Lutunatabua of the climate anthology Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility More

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      in US Politics

      An excess of billionaires is destabilising politics – just as academics predicted

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      The concept of “elite overproduction” was developed by social scientist Peter Turchin around the turn of this century to describe something specific: too many rich people for not enough rich-person jobs. It’s a byproduct of inequality: a ton of poor people, sure, but also a superfluity of the wealthy, without enough positions to house them in the influence and status to which they think themselves entitled. In a modern context, that would mean senior positions in the government and civil service, along with the top tier of finance and law, but Turchin tested the hypothesis from ancient Rome to 19th-century Britain. The names and nature of the contested jobs and titles changed; the pattern remained. Turchin predicted in 2010 that by the 2020s it would be destabilising US politics.In the UK in recent years the phrase has been repurposed in the wildest ways – to mean an excess of people at university creates unwanted activism (my précis); or, in the Economist (paraphrasing again), landslides create too many mediocre backbench MPs, who can’t hope for preferment so make trouble instead. And while the second proposition might be true, the first is basic anti-intellectualism. Turchin didn’t specify exactly how much wealth puts you in a situation with an overproduced elite, but he didn’t mean debt-laden students; he didn’t mean MPs; he meant, for brevity, billionaires or the top 1%. When a lot of your media are billionaire-owned, those media sources become endlessly inventive in taking the heat off billionaires, nipping criticism in the bud by pilfering its vocabulary and throwing it back at everyone.But put a pin in that for a second, because elite overproduction in its true sense is hitting global politics square in the jaw. Elon Musk has inserted himself into the US election by means long term and short, above board and below it. His impact on X (formerly Twitter) since he bought it was mired for a while in comical cackhandedness, but over the past few months the real purpose has crystallised. Paid-for verification removed any faith in trusted sources that couldn’t be bought; Republican accounts flourish, Democratic ones languish. Musk himself has amplified lies and conspiracy theories. He has directly given $75m to his America PAC (political action committee), which has an X account and a yellow tick (whatever the hell that means) – it peddles xenophobic bilge. Musk opened a $1m Philadelphia voter giveaway that may be illegal earlier in the month.Musk also spoke at the Madison Square Garden rally, but left the “ironic” fash posting (derogatory language about places and races) to others. He made one promise: “We’re going to get the government off your back.” He fleshed out what small government meant, in a telephone town hall (like a radio phone in, except the radio phones you, the constituents) over the weekend: ordinary Americans would face “temporary hardship” as welfare programmes are slashed in order to restructure the economy, but they should embrace the pain, as “it will ensure long-term prosperity”.It’s not the worst thing to come out of Trump’s camp in these last, nail-biting few days, and it’s by no means the worst thing Musk has said, but it is the cleanest image yet of what elite overproduction looks like: Elon Musk could never have got himself elected into office in the US. But as the cost-cutting tsar, a made-up role Trump has promised him, he would exert extraordinary power to cause pain, with the only choice left to citizens being whether or not to hug it. Another billionaire donor, John Paulson, has been floated for the treasury secretary job, and Trump has a track record of rewarding big-ticket donors with a seat at the table – the billionaire Stephen Schwarzman boasted in print about his role in the new North America Free Trade Agreement negotiations in 2018, and as part of Trump’s “strategic and policy forum” during the 2017 administration.Inconveniently, more billionaires (21) have donated to Kamala Harris’s campaign than to Trump’s (14); this is a problem for mature democracies everywhere. All political parties court high net worth individuals. It creates an atmosphere of equivalence – if a rich man buys your clothes, how is that different to his buying you a social media platform, except that you’re a cheaper date? If a rich man quashes an endorsement of your rival, but doesn’t endorse you, does that pass the sniff test? If a rich man creates a thinktank, which devises an ideological scheme that people are medium-sure that you, in government, will adopt wholesale, whose proposals are recruiting ideologically loyal civil servants, collecting data on abortions and limiting the use of abortion pills, is that any different to a money-bags with a pet peeve buying a tennis match with a political leader at a charity auction?And what about the billionaires who keep a finger on both scales, donate to both candidates because why not, it suits them to stay friends and it’s chicken feed to them anyway? Is all this just the same game?Qualitatively, yes: all billionaires are bad news in politics; all bought influence is undemocratic. But as billionaires line up behind a neofascist, you can see that this is a new phase in which they’re looking for more bang for their buck. They’re not trying to protect their commercial interests; they don’t need more money. They don’t even seek to shore up their own political influence – rather, to neuter any influence that may countervail it. Delinquent elites are in an open crusade against democracy, which, yes, does appear to be pretty destabilising.

      Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist More