The Endgame Election? European Views on the United States Elections of 2024

List of tables

List of figures

Acknowledgements

List of contributors

1. The 2024 U.S. Presidential Elections as the Endgame Elections

Philipp Adorf and Maciej Turek

2. The Prize: Competing Over the Presidency and the Future of U.S. Democracy

Jon Herbert

3. Biden and Beyond: The Democratic Party and Its Candidate Selection in the 2024 Elections

Sarah Wagner

4. MAGA Strikes Back: The Completion of the Republican Party’s Nativist Turn of the Beginning of the Trumpist Rainbow Coalition?                            

Philipp Adorf 

5. Voter Suppression as an Electoral Strategy of 2024 Presidential Election

Iga Machnik and Maria Lindén

6. Mathematics of the Electoral College

Daria Boratyn and Dariusz Stolicki

7. The Coach, Cat Ladies, and the American Dream: The Veepstakes of 2024

Maciej Turek

8. The U.S. Presidential Election of 2024: The Triumph of Populism in a Polarized Nation

Christian Lammert

9. Republican Advantage: Stakes and Outcomes of the 2024 U.S. Senate Election

Ludivine Gilli

10. A House (Narrowly) Divided: Understading the 2024 House Elections

Mike Cowburn

11. U.S. Media in the 2024 Presidential Campaign

Malwina Popiolek and Aleksandra Seklecka

12. Citizen Musk: Financing the 2024 Election

Alix Meyer

13. Race, Class, and Changing Voter Coalitions in 2024

Richard Johnson

14. Foreign Policy Issues and the 2024 Ballot Box: The Election Campaign, Voting Behavior, and the New President’s Approach to the Russian-Ukrainian War

Tomasz Pugacewicz

15. The Legacy of the 2024 Elections: Implications for American Democracy

Jared Sonnicksen

Biography

Maciej Turek is an assistant professor at the Institute of American Studies in Polish Diaspora of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. His academic interests lie in American politics, including U.S. political institutions, elections, campaign finance system, and the state of contemporary U.S. democracy Dr. Turek authored books about the American Vice Presidency and presidential primaries, and co-authored to other about the U.S. campaign finance system and legal aspects. He also co-edited, with Renata Duda, a volume The Crossroads Elections. European Perspectives on the 2022 U.S. Midterm Elections (Routledge 2024).

Philipp Adorf is a research associate at the University of Bonn, specializing in the Republican Party and the influence of demographic changes on its radicalization and electoral dynamics in the United States. His scholarly work includes How the South Was Won and the Nation Lost, which examines the history and political consequences of the Republican Party's Southern Strategy, and Die Republikanische Partei in den USA, a comprehensive German-language history of the party. He has also analyzed the rise of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the success of right-wing populist parties among the white working class. Additionally, he has co-edited compendiums on U.S. democracy (Die USA—eine scheiternde Demokratie?) and right-wing populism (Aufstand der Außenseiter).

The Endgame Election examines the 2024 U.S. election from the perspective of qualified European scholars who analyse the campaign, presidency, congress, courts, political parties, media, and voters while exploring the possible demise of traditional American democracy and its impact on the international system. The book covers a topic of vital importance and presents its evidence and conclusions in an accessible style that will engage readers and challenge them to think about the implications of Donald Trump’s re-election.

Aubrey Jewett, Associate Director and Associate Professor, University of Central Florida

This book provides a unique European perspective on the 2024 American presidential election, and how it may signal the end of over 200 years of American democracy. Taking a broad perspective on the election, each chapter examines evidence that the United States has entered a period of democratic decline, and potentially a transition to a new authoritarian style of government.

David J. Andersen, Associate Professor of United States Politics, Durham University