You are not alone

  Sixty-five percent.

  That’s the percentage of votes Donald Trump got in Alabama on Election Day.

  And that’s how democracy works. The person with the most ballots wins. Even if a single voter shows up.

  But as we move into this man’s second term and steel ourselves for what’s ahead, remember this number: 63%.

  That’s the share of Alabama’s nearly 4 million adults — 2.5 million people, to be precise — who did not opt for this. Either because they voted for Kamala Harris or a third-party candidate, or because they didn’t vote.

Why we don’t get actual presidential campaigning in Alabama

  Donald Trump’s appearance in Tuscaloosa last month was less a campaign stop than an extended cameo. He appeared before thousands of Crimson Tide fans in a tie with the red of the University of Georgia; he left before halftime. As far as I can tell, he said nothing public about the campaign or plans for Alabama.

  That’s what happens in our state during presidential elections. We’re lucky to get a hand wave from the national campaigns.

  But there was one exception.

An unseen problem with the Electoral College – it tells bad guys where to target their efforts

  Over the past four years, Congress and state governments have worked hard to prevent the aftermath of the 2024 election from descending into the chaos and threats to democracy that occurred around the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

  A new federal law cleaned up ambiguities that could allow for election subversion. New state laws have been enacted across the country to protect election workers from threats and harassment. Technology experts are working to confront misinformation campaigns and vulnerabilities in election systems.

Politicians often warn of American decline – and voters often buy it

  Presidential candidates talk about national decline while campaigning. A lot. This was front and center during the June 2024 debate between former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden.

  “Throughout the entire world, we’re no longer respected as a country,” Trump said, as he has repeatedly.

US voters say they’re ready for a woman president − but sexist attitudes still go along with opposition to Harris

  Since President Joe Biden exited the presidential race on July 21, 2024 and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic presidential nominee, Harris’ campaign has generated widespread enthusiasm and attention. She quickly became the official Democratic presidential nominee and erased Donald Trump’s lead over Biden in national and swing-state polling.

  Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, have also drawn tens of thousands of supporters to their recent rallies in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, and Nevada.

JD Vance is no pauper − he’s a classic example of ‘poornography,’ in which the rich try to speak on behalf of the poor

  JD Vance has climbed to his current position as former President Donald Trump’s running mate, in part, by selling himself as a hillbilly, calling on his Appalachian background to bolster his credentials to speak for the American working class.

  “I grew up as a poor kid,” Vance said on Fox News in August 2024. “I think that’s a story that a lot of normal Americans can empathize with.”

  Indeed, the book that brought him to public attention was his 2016 memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy.” In that book, he claims his family carried an inheritance of “abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma.”

  “Poor people,” he proclaimed in a 2016 interview with The American Conservative, are “my people.”

  But there’s a bit of a shell game going on when it comes to Vance’s poverty credentials.

Climate change matters to more and more people – and could be a deciding factor in the 2024 election

  If you ask American voters what their top issues are, most will point to kitchen-table issues like the economy, inflation, crime, health care, or education.

  Fewer than 5% of respondents in 2023 and 2024 Gallup surveys said that climate change was the most important problem facing the country.

  Despite this, research that I conducted with my colleauges suggests that concern about climate change has had a significant effect on voters’ choices in the past two presidential elections. Climate change opinions may even have had a large enough effect to change the 2020 election outcome in President Joe Biden’s favor. This was the conclusion of an analysis of polling data that we published on Jan. 17, 2024, through the University of Colorado’s Center for Social and Environmental Futures.

Why rural white Americans’ resentment is a threat to democracy

  Rural white voters have long enjoyed outsize power in American politics. They have inflated voting power in the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House, and the Electoral College.

  Although there is no uniform definition of “rural,” and even federal agencies cannot agree on a single standard, roughly 20% of Americans live in rural communities, according to the Census Bureau’s definition. And three-quarters of them – or approximately 15% of the U.S. population – are white.

Yes, sexism among Republican voters helped sink Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign

  Following multiple defeats in the Republican presidential primary, including in her home state of South Carolina, Nikki Haley suspended her bid for the Republican presidential nomination on March 6, 2024.

  Barring unforeseen events, Donald Trump will be the GOP candidate in November’s election.

  Haley’s failure to pose a more serious challenge to Trump may be puzzling to some. After all, she was a formidable candidate with notable political experience in both federal and state government. She had outlasted prominent Republican officials, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, in the GOP primary.

1 good thing about the Iowa caucuses, and 3 that are really troubling

  Every four years, the Iowa caucuses find new ways to become a problematic part of the presidential nomination process. Democrats have abandoned the Iowa-first tradition, at least for 2024, but Republicans went full speed ahead with the caucuses on Jan. 15, 2024.

  If they were being honest, most politicians and political experts who are not from Iowa – and not planning to curry favor with Iowans someday – would concede that this caucus-first system is far from the best way to start to select a presidential nominee, especially considering the low voter turnout in an overwhelmingly white state. But changing old, familiar processes is never easy, particularly during these highly contentious times.

How the Iowa caucuses became the first major challenge of US presidential campaigns

  The first and most visible test of Republican candidate support in the 2024 presidential election is the Iowa caucuses, which take place on Jan. 15, 2024.

  This year, even though Democrat Joe Biden is not facing a serious challenger for renomination, the Democrats had already decided to move their first test to South Carolina on Feb. 3, 2024.

  While Iowa does not control who becomes the candidate of each party, Iowans’ choices almost always end up matching the rest of the nation.

Governors may make good presidents − unless they become ‘imperial governors’ like DeSantis

  Many people believe governors make good presidents. In fact, a 2016 Gallup Poll found that almost 74% of people say that governing a state provides excellent or good preparation for someone to be an effective president. As a result, many political commentators have tried to explain why Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is stumbling in his campaign for president.

  Some say it is because he is stiff or awkward on the campaign trail, or his path to the nomination is not really to the political right of former President Donald Trump, or he needs to step up and directly confront the former president.

How the news media – long in thrall to Trump – can cover his new run for president responsibly

  Now that he’s in the 2024 presidential race, the media circus that is Donald Trump is returning for a new season.

  Trump is still newsworthy. He’s been weakened by his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, his attempt to overthrow its result, and the underperformance of Republican candidates in the 2022 midterms. Nevertheless, Trump is more than a party leader. “Make America Great Again,” known colloquially as “MAGA,” is a political movement. Trump has a legion of diehard followers.