Spotlight on America

The name Grover Cleveland may not be immediately familiar to British readers - but there's a good chance you'll know all about him over the next two years. Cleveland - a Conservative icon of his time - is the only US President to serve twice in the top job, coming back after being defeated in 1888 to win in 1892. So confident was he and his coterie of returning to the White House, in fact, that his wife is reported to have told staff in the building as they were leaving not to do too much renovating.

The defeated Donald Trump of course did not leave the White House with a blast of light humour, but with an almighty tantrum and at least partial responsibility for the Capitol riots. Neither, so far, appear to have dulled his desire to bring his and Melania's unique style of interior decor back to the Presidential residence. Could Trump really come back and take away Cleveland's unique historical place?

The upcoming mid-terms will tell us a fair bit about his prospects, and indeed about how well his successor Joe Biden is managing to craft his own narrative - always of interest to even the most seasoned political comms professional.

A PERFECT STORM 
Biden and his fellow Democrats are not exactly sailing with the wind as we head into this month's mid-term elections. Highly charged, these determine control of the House and the Senate and are invariably used as referendums on the performance of the President and his (for it has, still, always been his) party. With the Senate split 50-50 (Vice President Kamala Harris has the deciding vote) and the House skewed in favour of Democrats, ‘success' for Biden would be clinging onto the Senate and limiting losses in the House. 

Few campaign strategists would argue that a politically divisive pandemic, high inflation and energy costs, and culture wars are an ideal scenario with which, then, to enter the race. Democrats have been bracing themselves for heavy losses for months but recent polling suggests things could be on the swing.

For one, Biden got something done: the passage of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act is a $750bn package of measures on everything from healthcare to welfare that has given Dems across the country something to shout about on the stump. And the US economy is turning into something akin to the parable of the one-eyed man in the world of the blind: though it is hardly firing on all cylinders, it's doing an awful lot better than its global competitors. 

The reasons for that are chiefly twofold: one, the US produces most of its domestic energy, and so has been able to avoid the worst of the energy shock; and two, China seems insistent on shooting itself in the foot on a semi-regular basis with Covid-19 lockdowns the moment somebody has a runny nose. Britain's former ambassador to the US, Lord Kim Darroch, expects that economic boom to continue. 

"Economically, they'll have ups and downs but it's a very, very strong economy with a very strong spirit of  entrepreneurism and (they've cornered the market) in future tech. "People talk about the challenge from China, but my money would be on America," he said. 

That economic optimism is clearly shared by some. Biden's approval ratings are slightly higher than they were three months ago. But Trump, and the Republican Party he's all but taken over, still has a powerful argument about a two-speed America, with the so-called "flyover" states still lagging behind those states on the coasts on almost all indicators. In 2016 he successfully weaponised the left behind - and though his economic policies didn't do a huge amount for them the last time, in 2024 he is sure to come back around to those legitimate grievances.

THE CULTURE WAR
Since Donald Trump outmanoeuvred the "Never Trump" wing of the Republican Party he has barely looked back, and much of his party has followed. It is now difficult, if not impossible, to be elected a GOP candidate in most states without effectively pledging allegiance to The Donald's brand of politics: a strange combination of protectionism, traditional values, ever so slightly lower taxes and a distrust of all things liberal.

A sign of how far the party has moved can be found in Florida, where Charlie Christ - who led the State as a Republican Governor as a Republican and was once talked about as a potential presidential candidate - is now running as a Democrat. In Utah, the chief opponent to the Trump-favoured candidates is also a former Republican now running as an independent, with the Democrats sitting the race out to allow for a two-horse race.

But few saw a curveball hitting the election quite like the Supreme Court's decision to reverse Roe vs Wade and effectively allow individual states to ban abortion. Trump is blamed, or praised, for the decision: it came about largely as a result of the deeply Conservative picks he made for the Court during his time in the Oval Office. But the electoral maths are interesting: those who were deeply anti-abortion were largely already voting red, but vast swathes of America's voters considered the issue effectively dead. 

Few saw a curveball hitting the election quite like the Supreme Court's decision to reverse Roe vs Wade.

And Democrats have been quick to capitalise on this: one blue candidate won a tightly fought special race in upstate New York this week largely on a platform of protecting what rights women have left. Joe Biden has said that Trump and the Supreme Court have awoken a "powerful political force in America: women." It may have been delivered in Biden's usual clunky way, but he may be right. These midterms could not just be a referendum on Biden and Trump, but on the abortion decision, too. 

IS THAT A CLASSIFIED DOCUMENT IN YOUR POCKET OR ARE YOU JUST PLEASED TO SEE ME?
The other X-Factor as we head into this election cycle are the numerous court cases and investigations swirling around the former President, not least the recent raid of his Mar-A-Lago residence which according to reports turned up a host of documents which should very definitely have stayed at the White House.

Trump is seemingly immune to scandal and this appears to follow a similar path: rather than damning him, he's successfully turned his guns on the legal authorities as a branch of a liberal takeover of America. Richard Hofstadter, the acclaimed American political theorist, once said that the US had a paranoid streak: that is certainly true of Trump and his supporters, many of whom have used the raid as evidence that their leader's failures as President were the fault of liberal fifth-columnists. Trump's approval rating among his own voters has gone up. As politics resembles ever more a team sport, it seems the first response to attack is to attack back.

But, reckons Lord Darroch, there is still the chance of charges being filed that stop Trump from running, or that an insurgent within the Party manages to topple him. "The one Trump will be really worried about is a man called Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida, who is quite right-wing, but also much younger than Trump. He is making speeches about the future, whereas all Trump ever talks about is his grievances and how the election was stolen," says the diplomat. DeSantis polls well in key battleground states, able to appeal to Trumpish Republicans but without the baggage that can put swing voters off. 

SO WHERE DOES IT LEAVE US?
In short, the Democrats would consider a small reversal as something like a success considering the fundamentals of the election, the state of the economy, and the fact that America has a healthy habit of giving newly elected Presidents a good kicking halfway into their term. Should that happen, it's unlikely Trump would see it as a rebuke to him or his ideology; we know enough about him now to know that. 

The overarching theme is uncertainty - which presents a challenge for anybody poking their head into US politics anytime soon. As one senior PR bod told me, there are "few wins" in using politics as part of campaigns and marketing over the coming, almost certainly divisive two years. "You'll piss one side off, or you'll piss the other side off, and you'll definitely piss the client off. It's just not worth it."