Rather than stay in the Freedom Caucus’ cage, Mike Johnson has used it to govern. Instead of simply accepting the lot of a frozen House, he has assembled those majorities by reaching across the aisle to Democrats.
Joe Biden’s best chance – and 2024’s biggest wildcard – is the pro-abortion ad drop in October.
Trump has promised the “largest deportation programme in American history”. To citizens it sounds sensible: current polling shows the idea is backed by Republicans, independents, and Democrats alike.
There are eight months to go. Most of the fundamentals still look better for Trump than Biden. But the President made himself interesting again last Thursday.
Imagine Conservative Party Conference but with more red hats, less drinking, and people actually attending the main speeches (unless Liz Truss is on stage).
Voters of all persuasions were downbeat about the state of the country and its immediate prospects: nearly two thirds in my 10,000-sample survey said they thought America was heading in the wrong direction.
Amidst all the sound and fury prompted by Trump on both sides of the Atlantic, the highly inconvenient truth is that he is correct. In the defence context, too many European countries have been delinquent for decades.
Despite European NATO’s technological superiority over Russia, we will struggle to defend against a Russian attack: only Finland and Poland have land equipment on the necessary scale.
His stubbornness – which made him President – may now be his undoing.
The sovereignty of Parliament, as the representative of the people, has been eroded, and power handed to an increasingly assertive bureaucracy.
Estonia’s government has, in a White Paper that rightly calls for Russia’s defeat, estimated it could be done at a cost merely of 0.25 per cent of Western GDP over four years.
The fundamentals of our democracy are strong: voters continue to take pride in their community, to respect their neighbours, and to want Britain to be an outgoing, self-confident country that plays its part on the world stage.
For him and his team, the border will be a key priority. It could be the thing that propels them to the White House. In the last month alone, there were an estimated 300,000 illegal crossings across the southern border.
If you are an Atlanticist, a supporter of NATO, an ally of Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression, it would be truly extraordinary to support him over Biden.
Travelling around America, it is always interesting to meet and listen to Trump voters who are not straight out of the liberal conception of MAGA central casting.