VIDEO

Election Watch
with special guest Mark Textor

Did you miss the latest installment of Election Watch our monthly US politics web series with the Perth USAsia Centre? In this episode, CEO's Professor Simon Jackman and Professor Gordon Flake were joined by former ABC US correspondent Zoe Daniel and special guest Mark Textor, the political strategist behind John Howard, Boris Johnson and Tony Abbott. For the latest analysis on the race to November, watch the full discussion HERE.

Catch this and other recent webinars on the USSC YouTube channel!

NEWS WRAP

Fire, fury and foliage

• West coast locked in a familiar fight
  The west coast of the United States has been subjected to the apocalyptic red and smoke choked skies that became commonplace in Australia last summer. More than 20,000 square kilometres have already burned, predominantly in California and Oregon. President Trump visited California, but brushed off claims during a face to face meeting with experts that the severity of the fires was due to climate change, saying “it will get cooler, you just watch”. READ MORE HERE 
   
• UAE, Bahrain normalise relations with Israel 
  Both the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have signed agreements to normalise relations with Israel, becoming only the third and fourth Arab states to do so. During a ceremony at the White House, President Trump touted the agreement as “the dawn of a new Middle East”. Palestinian leaders, however, say the agreements mark the death of the Arab peace initiative. READ MORE HERE
   
• US ambassador to China to step down 
  The US Ambassador to China will step down in a sudden move following a recent row over a rejected opinion article. The US embassy in China submitted an article penned by Ambassador Terry Branstad to the People’s Daily Newspaper, requesting that it be published unedited on 4 September. Chinese officials said the article “wantonly attacks and smears China”. The departure marks the latest development in a volatile period of diplomatic relations between the two countries. READ MORE HERE 
   
• Bolton under criminal investigation ​
  The US Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation involving President Trump’s former National Security Advisor, John Bolton. The inquiry will investigate whether Mr Bolton unlawfully disclosed classified information when he published his memoir, The Room Where It Happened. Bolton, who appeared in a recent USSC webinar, has denied any allegations of wrongdoing. READ MORE HERE 

ANALYSIS

Presidential debates matter and can create momentum​

Stephen Loosley, AM
Non-Resident Senior Fellow

This is an excerpt from an article originally published in The Canberra Times. To read the full article, click the link below.

The contest for the soul of America, between Trump and Biden, is going to begin seriously with the two men facing off in Cleveland.

Donald Trump eschews debate preparation, relying upon his instincts, which are both sharp and formidable, and his comfort zone in television studios. He can be expected to employ bluff and bluster in the debates, and to endeavour to ride roughshod verbally over his opponent.

Trump's focus will be on law and order, a strengthening American economy and a vaccine for COVID-19, which the president will argue will arrive just in time, like the cavalry in John Ford's classic western Stagecoach.

Foreign policy and economic policy will be interlocked and the focus of both will be China. Joe Biden will be painted as generally weak, but particularly weak on China, which has assumed villain status in Washington DC among both major parties.

For his part, Vice-President Biden will seek to be more presidential than partisan, judging by his campaign to date, although he will seek to hold the Trumpian feet to the fire on mismanagement of the pandemic and the dramatic collapse in the US economy. The pandemic is returning to centre stage, given Trump's own revelatory interviews in Bob Woodward's new book, Rage.

On the military, Biden will unquestionably be emotional, given the claims in The Atlantic of Trump's disparagement of American war dead and the service of Biden's son Beau. This election may be different, with military issues playing better for the Democrats. Climate change will be injected into the debate, but overall, the vice-president will seek to ensure that this election is a referendum on the Trump administration, especially attempts to dismantle Obamacare.

Trump will not be able to elbow Joe Biden aside as he did his opponents during the Republican primaries of 2016. Nor will he be able to seek to intimidate the former vice-president by hovering around on the stage, as he did with Secretary Clinton.

Biden is far too experienced, as he demonstrated in vice-presidential debates against Governor Sarah Palin in 2008 and Speaker Paul Ryan in 2012. On both occasions he won comfortably, whether it be by virtue of dismissing Paul Ryan's claims or refusing to follow Sarah Palin down every ideological crevice on offer. The Biden campaign tends to be disciplined; Trump far less so.

Famous presidential debates have produced great moments of theatre and clear campaign momentum.

President Ronald Reagan demolished former vice-president Walter Mondale in 1984 after his advanced age had been raised as an issue, declaring: "I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience."

Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas, running with Governor Michael Dukakis on the Democratic ticket in 1988, annihilated Republican senator Dan Quayle of Indiana, who had claimed as much governmental experience as Jack Kennedy with the rejoinder: "Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."

The cameras miss nothing. Governor Ronald Reagan walked across the stage to shake hands with President Jimmy Carter and was applauded for his courtesy. President George H. W. Bush was caught glancing at his watch during his debate with Governor Bill Clinton and earned much criticism.

For diverse reasons, these debates matter.

VIRTUAL EVENT

Law, the courts and free and fair elections in the United States

What to expect in 2020​

Less than 50 days before the 2020 presidential election, the contestation groundwork is already being laid, with President Trump casting doubt over vote by mail while his opponents argue the struggle to access the polls is a threat to voter rights and democracy itself. Meanwhile, interest groups allied with both sides of politics are at the ready, launching or preparing for post-election litigation in multiple jurisdictions. 

What constitutional and legal arguments are being deployed? And for the eventual winner, will their victory and governing authority be accepted as legitimate by the American people and the world?

To discuss these issues, please join us for a webinar event featuring Ruth Greenwood, Co-Director of the Voting Rights and Redistricting Program at the Campaign Legal Center in conversation with United States Studies Centre CEO Professor Simon Jackman.

WHEN:
Thursday, 24 September 2020 10am AEST
Wednesday, 23 September, 8pm EDT (Washington, DC)

COST: 
Free, but registration is essential

BY THE NUMBERS

The decline of the undecided voter

2016: 8%  |  2020: 1%

One of the biggest differences about the 2016 polls compared to previous years was about double the usual number of undecided voters. These voters broke for Trump by a surprising amount in key swing states – a 30 per cent lead in Wisconsin, and a 17 per cent lead in Florida and Pennsylvania. On this point, 2020 is markedly different. There are only a fraction of the number of undecideds at this stage, significantly decreasing the risk of polling errors this far out from the election. 

Read more in the USSC report The perils of pre-election polling. 

THE WEEK IN TWEETS

#WhichJoeWillShow?