Friday Briefing: The ‘roller coaster’ U.S. presidential race
Good morning. We’re covering the U.S. presidential race at a crossroads and the security failures that led to the assassination attempt against Donald Trump. Plus, combating gender violence in Spain with software.
The ‘roller coaster’ presidential raceThe U.S. presidential race has reached a pivotal moment. Donald Trump is poised to formally accept the Republican presidential nomination in an arena packed with supporters, less than a week after he survived an assassination attempt. His opponent, President Biden, is recovering from Covid-19 at his beach house as calls for him to drop out grow louder. For some insight, I spoke with my colleague Jess Bidgood, who writes our On Politics newsletter and is at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. Dan: It’s been a wild ride this week. Where do you think the race stands now? Jess: Up until Biden’s bad debate performance about three weeks ago, it was a fairly steady race between two familiar candidates. Now, after weeks of Democrats wringing their hands and an assassination attempt against Trump, I think American voters suddenly feel like they’re on a roller coaster. What’s happening to Biden’s campaign? Biden is attempting to draw a contrast between himself and Trump. But as much as Biden is trying to make this race about Trump, he’s almost running against his party’s increasingly negative perception of him, and that is a really difficult position.
Can he do anything to recover? What would happen if he dropped out? Biden has sought to demonstrate his fitness with campaign events, interviews and a news conference, but he hasn’t been able to tamp down his party’s concerns. In 2020, the reason the Democrats picked Biden was because they saw him as electable; they saw him as somebody who could beat Trump. As he slips behind Trump in the states he needs to win, that electability argument has seemingly vanished. There has been a lot of speculation in recent weeks about which Democrats might be interested in stepping into Biden’s place. The most straightforward option is Vice President Kamala Harris, but there is also a pretty deep bench of talented Democratic governors. I think a lot of those governors have their eyes on 2028, though, and it’s not clear to me how many of them would want to jump into this now, particularly when it could lead to a messy fight. What’s the mood at the Republican convention? Republicans feel like everything is going their way. There has been a lot of talk about unity, but it sometimes seems to be more about unity among Republicans than it does about building unity in the nation as a whole. I spoke to a delegate who was attending his 12th convention here. He said to me that the Republican Party has not felt this confident since 1980, which is the year that Ronald Reagan won in a landslide. Follow our live coverage of the campaign.
Before an assassination attempt, several security lapsesAbout an hour before Donald Trump took the stage at a rally in Butler, Pa., on Saturday, police officers spotted a young man acting oddly. They notified the Secret Service but lost track of him. Not long after, he scaled a rooftop, opened fire at Trump and left one person dead. The Secret Service did not stop Trump from taking the stage, and now the agency is facing intense criticism. It is also under scrutiny for excluding a building within rifle range from its secure perimeter, creating a blind spot close to the former president that the gunman exploited. The F.B.I. said that the gunman had searched for information on Trump, Biden and other prominent officials before the attack. No clear motive has emerged. Watch our visual investigation on how law enforcement failed to protect Trump.
The era of soaring Chinese emissions might be endingChina, the world’s biggest source of planet-warming greenhouse gases for most of the past two decades, appears to be on the verge of plateauing its emissions. The biggest factor: Renewable sources of electricity are replacing coal, the most polluting fossil fuel. |
