Campaign Notebook, International Edition

One of the most fascinating things about US presidential elections is the contrast between the power bestowed upon the victor and the places where that victory is won.

These small towns and hamlets are often remarkably shielded from the real and pressing debates about whether democracy can survive a second term of Donald Trump. Most just worry about household bills and job security. It can be a jarring experience to travel between these two worlds—the practical and the theoretical.

I have spent the past two elections crisscrossing rural Pennsylvania—which is again likely to be the state that decides this race—meeting the voters who will choose the president. 

In 2020, and many times after, I visited Johnstown, a former steel town built in a river valley on the Appalachian Plateau, and found that Donald Trump’s lip service in support of the dwindling coal industry in the region had ensured he remained popular there. 

I saw Joe Biden make his pitch to those same voters by telling the story of his own middle-class upbringing in Pennsylvania, his voice echoing in the darkness as he spoke to a crowd outside the town’s Amtrak station into the evening. 

This year, both candidates are again reaching out to these rural and small-town voters across the state in slightly different ways.

I followed Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’s running mate, as he was dispatched on a “barnstorming” visit to Lancaster County to deliver his folksy pitch to rural voters. He fed a calf with a bottle and wore his signature camouflage hunting cap—all of it was designed to send the message: I’m just like you.

In Scranton, I asked the city’s first woman mayor if Harris could win in Joe Biden’s hometown without him on the ticket. 

“We could spend all day talking about foreign policy and abortion and the Senate, everything, but people care if they can afford this cup of coffee and this breakfast sandwich. Can they afford to take their family off to breakfast on Sunday morning after church?” she told me.

In Indiana County, I met crowds of young MAGA supporters at a Trump rally who spoke of their worries about inflation and their ability to find work when they left college. 

Being a foreign correspondent here in the US forces you to have two audiences in mind: the readers back home, and our audience here in the US. Back home, in the UK, most readers want to know how Trump still commands so much support after all the scandals, January 6, and impeachment. Here in the US—a country so divided that supporters of both parties view the other side’s victory as an existential threat—they really want to know who is going to win.

Before moving to the US I was a correspondent in the Middle East. Decisions made in the White House are a matter of life and death there, as made clear by US support for Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon. It is strange to think that the price of gas in places like Dawson, Pennsylvania, may decide their fate. 

Richard Hall is The Independent’s senior US correspondent. He moved to the US in 2020 from his previous posting, in Beirut, where he was Middle East correspondent. He reported from across the region on the Syrian civil war, the rise and fall of the Islamic State, and the 2015 refugee crisis.

I’m working for Initium Media, a Singapore-based Chinese-language digital media outlet. Our election reporting spotlights Chinese Americans who have not traditionally been very active in US elections, perhaps for reasons of historical racism or cultural difference.  

This has changed in recent years as more Chinese Americans are engaging in local politics, advocating for issues like urban development and judicial justice. For example, I covered protests by Chinese residents in Brooklyn against the construction of a homeless shelter, which reflect a growing political awareness that is also seen in increased voter participation.

The key issues we hear over and over again from the Chinese American voters are the economy, immigration policy, and security. Some told us they were disappointed by inflation and increasing taxes during the Biden administration. Others mentioned asylum restrictions, the rise of homelessness, and guns as key issues.  

We’ve also covered how both parties have adjusted to win over AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islander) voters. We spoke to the AAPI spokesperson from Kamala Harris’s campaign, and saw TV ads related to working visas and anti-Asian hate, whose topics specifically targeted the Asian community. We also investigated Chinese Republican supporters canvassing votes in Pennsylvania’s Amish community. 

They are a group of self-organized first-generation Chinese Christians who call themselves “Trump Sis,” and they chose the Amish because the community is religious, conservative, and had limited access to information. They focused on topics including abortion and LGBTQ rights, and they found a receptive audience.  

Tiffany Weiyang Le works for Initium Media (端傳媒) in New York, where she covers the US election and the Chinese diaspora.

Iran is usually part of American presidential campaigns. In the first presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain, in September 2008, Iran was mentioned thirty times by the two candidates. The pattern is the same this time, perhaps with greater urgency. Kamala Harris told 60 Minutes she believes Iran is America’s “greatest adversary.”

I’ve reported about the chances of Iran and the United States striking a fresh nuclear deal with a reformist president coming to power in Tehran. And I’ve written about the significant rise of pro-Trump sentiments among Iranian Americans. To better communicate the pulse of a nation facing an imperative choice, I keep talking to American voters. 

That work has been in English, for non-Iranian outlets. Media-savvy Iranians still find it. They have to. Because Iran-based news organizations, with a couple of exceptions, don’t have a US presence. The government’s official news agency, IRNA, has a correspondent accredited to the United Nations, but they are only permitted to do UN reporting. The state’s English broadcaster, Press TV, has a couple of reporters covering America, but the once-serious station doesn’t have much credibility at home.

The public’s disillusionment with the media has been so endemic that, in a nation of about 90 million people, the print circulation of Hamshahri, the country’s most-read newspaper, stands at 180,000 copies daily. Subscription isn’t a tradition, and the newspapers’ websites aren’t viewed millions of times monthly. People have little faith in domestic outlets, as they appear to have lost their relevance under rampant censorship.

Those who are interested have cultivated their own ways of learning about the world. Despite an official ban on satellite dishes, news consumers routinely tune in to Persian-language broadcasters in London and Los Angeles. They dig through X and Instagram and scroll Telegram channels—defying a government recognized as an “enemy of the internet.”

The news matters, because so much of what will happen in Iran hinges on the November polls: Will there be negotiations to remove the sanctions? Will Iran’s chronic isolation end with a diplomatic opening? Will an all-out war drag the country into chaos? A social media meme going around is that Iranians pay more attention to who goes to the White House than who goes to Tehran’s Pasteur Street office.

I get questions from fellow Iranians asking how they can untangle that complexity, and what the likely scenarios are. I don’t have all the answers, but I’ve followed the campaign with an eye on the “Iran aspect” of the discourse, seeking to inform as objectively as I can. I tell them that Donald Trump has pledged to institute a tougher version of his 2017 Muslim ban, which featured Iran at the top of the blacklist. He said he would blow Iran to “smithereens” if it threatened a presidential candidate. Kamala Harris has said Iran is the “dangerous” force of the Middle East. The vice presidential debate on CBS News started with a question on Iran when the moderator Margaret Brennan asked Tim Walz if he supported a preemptive strike.

At the end of the campaign, my overwhelming feeling is concern that none of the dominant narratives seem to signal peace.

Kourosh Ziabari is a journalist and media studies researcher and a contributor to Foreign Policy and New Lines Magazine. In 2022, he received the Professional Excellence Award from the Foreign Press Correspondents Association.

I am writing this in mid-October on the flight to Atlanta to cover a Trump rally and a Harris rally. This is my third visit to the Peach State in this election cycle. The focus of my reporting is why Trump seems to be courting young male voters. In general his strength in the 2024 presidential election is perplexing for many Japanese readers, who remember the turmoil of four years ago. I will attempt to unearth some possible theories.

I have visited Iowa and New Hampshire about a dozen times each. That is because, of course, these two states have been the first to hold presidential primaries every four years. Locals in towns like Davenport, Iowa, or Nashua, New Hampshire, often ask me why a Japanese reporter is interested in speaking with them. I respond, “Well, because people like you choose the next president of the United States, who will make decisions that affect my country and others in the world.”

I started covering presidential campaigns in 2004. They give us journalists great opportunities to examine the issues of the nation, as well as societal and cultural shifts. Some of them, like inflation or jobs, are familiar to our Japanese readers. But some issues require us to add additional historical or cultural background.

Abortion, for example, has never been a political issue in Japan. We have to explain why this issue is so divisive in the US, citing the role of religion, how some politicians have used the issue to mobilize certain groups of voters, and so on. For readers who live in a country with one of the strictest gun laws in the world, we repeatedly need to write about the Second Amendment, its historical background, and political power of gun lobbying. And I have written so many explainers about the complexities of the Electoral College.

Sometimes we struggle with translation more literally. A good example is Trump’s tweets. My colleagues and I often have serious discussions about how to translate words and phrases like “Crooked Hillary,” “lowlife,” and “grab them by the pussy” into Japanese. We don’t want nuance to be lost in translation. At the same time, we simply don’t have equivalent expressions in our language.

The focus of our reporting sometimes differs from American national media. Our readers want to know more about candidates’ positions on trade and foreign policy than the child tax credit, for example. When Trump or Harris comments on Nippon Steel’s bid to acquire US Steel, it makes a big headline in our paper.

I often join canvassing with campaign volunteers—campaign canvassing is illegal in Japan, by the way. I find it a great way to show American democracy in action. I am always amazed how involved and enthusiastic American young people are in politics. That is one of the aspects of American elections I want to report to our readers in Japan, hoping that it may encourage the young generation to participate more, too.

Tomoko Ashizuka is a senior correspondent for Nikkei Newspapers and Nikkei Asia of Japan. She’s worked out of Nikkei’s Washington, DC, bureau since 2002 and has covered US politics, foreign policy, social issues, culture, and the Supreme Court.

Whether Haitians are living in the United States, on temporary immigration benefits, or on the island of Hispaniola (where the US is the leading financial backer of a multinational armed security force led by Kenyan police to help combat violent Haitian gangs), there’s a lot at stake for us in who wins this year’s elections.

Former president Donald Trump and his vice presidential running mate J.D. Vance have put the community squarely in the center of an immigration debate. They have made Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, the target of repeated, malicious, racist, and xenophobic attacks. They have been dehumanized, sacrificed on the altar of an anti-immigrant campaign strategy. It remains uncertain whether this will pay off for the Republican ticket.

But what is certain is that the shock wave caused by Trump’s lies, falsely accusing Springfield Haitians of eating their neighbors’ dogs, cats, and other pets during the debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, has spread far beyond Ohio.

In Miami, Boston, and New York, Haitians have demonstrated and expressed their anger. They’ve also mobilized and—as is the case in Miami’s large Haitian American community—called on voters not to vote for Trump. 

Interviews and conversations with Haitians in Springfield, Miami, and New York also indicate a high level of anxiety. Haitians living in the United States under Temporary Protected Status, which allows immigrants of countries in conflict to live and work temporarily in the US, or the humanitarian parole program instituted a year ago for nationals of Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, fear the cancellation of these protections and deportation to Haiti in the event of Trump’s election. 

Haiti is currently experiencing one of the worst crises in its two-hundred-plus year history. More than 3,300 people have been killed between January and September, according to the United Nations, and gangs control more than 80 percent of the capital, Port-au-Prince. Meanwhile, some 5.4 million Haitians are going hungry and the country has just experienced six consecutive years of negative GDP growth.

Historically, the outcome of an American election has always had an impact on Haiti. Former president Jimmy Carter’s election loosened the stranglehold of the nearly thirty-year Duvalier family dictatorship and ushered in human rights.

Ronald Reagan’s election on November 4, 1980, was celebrated by the dictatorship, which carried out a twenty-four-day roundup and expulsion of journalists, intellectuals, and politicians, until November 28, 1980.

The first democratically elected president in modern times, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, overthrown by the military in a bloody coup d’état, was returned to Haiti on October 15, 1994, by then-president Bill Clinton, following the deployment of 19,000 American troops in mid-September.

There is no shortage of examples. The influence of the United States, a military, economic, and diplomatic power—before and after the Monroe Doctrine of the early nineteenth century, before and after the American occupation of Haiti between 1915 and 1934, before and after its interventions of 1994 and 2004—has not waned.

On Le Nouvelliste’s Magik 9 morning show, which I cohost, we discuss cooperation between Haiti and the United States, the mistakes made, the stubbornness in its refusal to stop experimenting with the same bad solutions to solve political problems, the failures attributable both to the US and to Haiti’s elites to imbue a progressive national ambition while developing a partnership that is mutually beneficial. 

We’re also highlighting the importance of the Haitian diaspora becoming more involved at all levels in American politics. Haitians need to organize, get involved, and have a say in local and federal elections. That’s how minorities can influence policies that are best for them. 

Roberson Alphonse is head of national news at Le Nouvelliste newspaper, newsroom director at Magik 9, and producer of the Dèyè Kay program on Tele 20. He is the recipient of the Percy Qoboza Foreign Journalist of the Year Award 2024 from the National Association of Black Journalists.

The beauty of this job lies in the combination of unpredictability and the opportunity to talk about different topics. But the most relevant part occurs every four years, has a very predictable schedule, and focuses on one topic only: the United States presidential election.

Nowadays, in a globalized society, Brazilians understand that this election, with its particularly complex and difficult electoral system, will affect the whole world. And as our own presidential elections happen every four years—always two years after the US elections—Brazilians tend to see what’s going on in America as a possible path for us in the future. 

As in 2016 and 2020, Brazilian viewers are especially interested in this polarized race and the possible scenarios for a close dispute. They want to know the way the electoral system works, and how the campaigns are dealing with a toss-up race. The design department helps us explain the election scenario with easy-to-understand illustrations, such as a set of poker chips.

But international viewers need to really feel the situation to better understand it. And that means traveling around the United States to meet voters is essential. In 2016, we took a train from New York to Los Angeles, and stopped every day in a different state to showcase a challenge that would be faced by the next president. 

This year, I was able to meet voters in western Pennsylvania in July, right after the assassination attempt against former president Trump. In Pittsburgh, I met Harris supporters who told me they were concerned for democracy if Trump was reelected. One hour away, in Butler, in a more religious section of the state, there were houses and cars with MAGA flags and people wearing Trump campaign logos. There, I was told that it was Kamala Harris who was the existential threat. 

It’s a high-stakes political show that only the most powerful country on the planet, with the most expensive election in history, can showcase to the world.

Felippe Coaglio is a Brazilian reporter based in New York City who works as an international correspondent for TV Globo, the largest broadcaster in Latin America.

I have been the US correspondent for the Corriere della Sera, the largest Italian newspaper, since 2022. I had covered elections before, but this election cycle was the first time I have been in the story every single day. 

I started with the midterm elections; then came Trump’s trials and his rallies, Biden’s trips both domestic and abroad, the caucuses in Iowa, the primaries, Super Tuesday at Mar-a-Lago, Kamala Harris’s first campaign events after Joe Biden’s withdrawal, the conventions, and the debates. 

In Italy, there is a tendency to focus on characters. When Biden came to Italy for the G7, people could not believe how old he was. Everything that has to do with Trump resonates. And when Kamala Harris replaced Biden, there was a sudden interest in knowing who she was, and the drama behind the scenes: Who persuaded Biden to step aside? Would there be open primaries? There was a constant rumor in Italy that Michelle Obama was going to run, and I had to repeatedly explain why it wouldn’t happen.

In the last month I took several trips to Pennsylvania and other swing states, including North Carolina after the hurricane and the swing district of Nebraska. In the latter, Italians were amazed that a blue dot in a red sea could determine who goes to the White House. Of course, what resonates is putting people at the center of my stories—they create a connection with readers and help them understand political phenomena that can otherwise be abstract. When I was in Detroit for the Democratic primaries, I contacted the Pink Pistols, an LGBTQ+ group that has started to arm itself after the Pulse nightclub shooting, and I think it helped my readers understand that some gun owners are Democrats and thus later why Harris decided to say that she is a gun owner.

Being an international correspondent is different from being a beat reporter. I have a very open field: the entire country, which brings hard choices but also the possibility to see many different facets, and to understand the realities I am trying to portray in a deeper way.

Viviana Mazza is the US correspondent for Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. She covers US national and international politics as well as culture and society. She is the author of The Girls of Revolution Street, a book based on her reporting in the Middle East, and several books for young adults.

I have been in America, observing the final weeks of the election, and speaking with as many Americans as I can. I came, in part, to discuss challenges in Hungary—the ways authoritarian tendencies threaten to stifle press freedom and free speech. At a panel discussion, I and journalists from Brazil, Denmark, and India shared firsthand accounts. And then, when the Q&A began, someone from the audience instantly launched into a monologue about Israel, Hamas, and the war in Gaza. He didn’t even pretend he wanted to engage with anything we said. It wasn’t offensive or intimidating to us; it was simply a one-man show that intentionally and completely ignored our discussion. 

During my stay I’ve noticed the same attitude, regardless of the topic. The American public, as a unified whole, no longer seems to exist. Instead, increasingly fragmented audiences are diving even deeper into their own rabbit holes. At the end of the tunnel, their perception of reality is so different from that of other groups that they become trapped in their own worlds. It seems more significant than the last time I was here for an extended period, in 2017. 

I just smiled as one Uber driver launched into a long, animated monologue about Kamala Harris secretly being transgender. Then there were claims about the deep state plotting to sideline Bernie Sanders, or that COVID is a biological weapon deployed by the American government. A few days later, a fellow Hungarian journalist also touring the US messaged me about her similar conversations—involving witches and extraterrestrials. 

The United States has long been a model for independent journalism and freedom of speech worldwide, particularly for Central European countries that regained independence and democratic freedoms after the collapse of Soviet influence in 1989. In Hungary, the introduction of press freedom and the elimination of censorship for the first time in history marked a monumental shift. With no government control over them, Hungary’s media slowly began to embrace principles of transparency and accountability—hallmarks of twentieth-century American journalism.

Then, more than a decade ago, we slowly began to revert to a Soviet-style system, with the government working to limit our reach to wider audiences and hindering journalists’ ability to inform the public. Viktor Orbán’s regime, the staunchest ally of Russia and China within the EU, uses proxies to buy up media outlets, accuses us journalists of being foreign agents working either for Soros or the CIA—and sometimes even installs military-grade spyware on our phones. Meanwhile, despite Donald Trump’s embrace of Orbán and the desire of many of his supporters to achieve Orbán’s firm grip on the media, it always seemed that press freedom in the US was doing relatively fine.

But it seems that a country once known for its patriotism, rock-solid First Amendment, and world-class legacy media has voluntarily allowed its national public to fragment into echo chambers run by shady oligarchs, tycoons, and foreign business interests—sometimes openly, sometimes covertly influenced by Russia or China. 

As a Hungarian investigative journalist, I no longer have a unified national audience to address back home due to the government’s media capture. I hope that once this government grip and the media firewall dividing the Hungarian audience are somehow dismantled, things will improve. But, examining America before it votes, I don’t have the faintest idea what should be done.

Szabolcs Panyi is a Hungarian investigative journalist and editor covering national security, foreign policy, and Russian and Chinese influence in Central Europe for nonprofit investigative platforms VSquare.org and Direkt36.hu.