The tone for this final stretch of the contest to become the 47th president of the United States was set last Sunday night in the gladiatorial setting of New York’s Madison Square Garden. At a rally for Donald Trump, speaker after speaker competed to whip up the 20,000-strong crowd. Keith Duggan was there to talk to Trump supporters and report on the event for The Irish Times.
As laid out by Kathy Sheridan later in the week, the language used was deliberately crude and offensive. But it was a joke cracked by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe about Puerto Rico being “a floating island of garbage” that went viral across social media platforms and, unusually, had Republicans scurrying to limit the damage. The reason? Puerto Ricans form a small but important voting bloc in several states, most importantly the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania.
Keith then travelled from New York to Washington, DC, where what was billed as Kamala Harris’s closing set-piece speech of the campaign was held on Tuesday in the very pointed location of the Ellipse, the same place where on January 6th, 2021, her electoral opponent had addressed the crowd of supporters who would go on to storm the Capitol building. The speech, he reported, “was a world removed from some of the dismal, boorish rhetoric bellowed out by guest speakers in Madison Square Garden on Sunday”.
But by the time Harris was speaking, the Democrats’ advantage over the “garbage” comment had been undermined by president Joe Biden, who mangled his answer to a question on the subject, appearing to describe all Trump supporters as “garbage”. Frantic attempts to walk back or rewrite the fumble didn’t prevent the Republicans exploiting the gift they had been given. By Wednesday, Trump was wearing orange garbageman’s overalls to his rally in Wisconsin.
Meanwhile, a thousand kilometres further south, Steven Carroll was at the National Barrel Horse Association world championships in Perry, Georgia, where attendees expressed their fury at the price of petrol and expressed their hopes for Trump’s return. In the swing state of Georgia, it’s issues like this that will decide the outcome of the election, along with the question of abortion rights. Georgia now has strict limits on abortions after six weeks and Steven heard how two tragic cases in the state have sparked debate about maternal mortality, particularly among black women.
Steven is travelling with award-winning Irish Times videographer Enda O’Dowd, who has been capturing the flavour of American life during the 2024 election season. You can read and watch their reports from the city of Phoenix and the Mexican border in Arizona.
On Saturday, Keith summed up the campaign. “Anger is the media sentiment most commonly attributed to the Maga phenomenon,” he writes. “But that is stupidly reductive. Speak to many of the perfectly pleasant Republican voters who show up at Trump rallies and you soon detect a kind of yearning for a lost golden period to which they want to return.”
Next week, we’ll be following the final stages of the election through the count on Tuesday night into Wednesday morning and possibly well beyond, with live updates from Keith and Steven in the US as well as podcasts, videos and analysis from our reporters and commentators. It may take some time for the result to be confirmed and, if the numbers are close, legal challenges and protests seem inevitable. Whatever happens, The Irish Times will be on the ground to cover it all.
Ruadhán Mac Cormaic
Editor
Five Big Reads
- The Derek Quinlan Files: Earlier this year, The Irish Times gained access to the UK bankruptcy files of Derek Quinlan, one of the most prolific Irish property investors of the Celtic Tiger period, who lost his fortune in the 2008-09 crash. Quinlan ended up with €3.5 billion of debts, making him the biggest debtor to Nama – the State agency set up after the crash to save the banking system. This major Irish Times investigation reveals how Quinlan still owes Irish taxpayers €403 million and why he was blocked from exiting bankruptcy last year.
- An interview with Eoghan Murphy: “There were some big mistakes or missteps that I made early on in housing. If I had done them properly, things might have happened more quickly”: Former minister for housing Eoghan Murphy has written a candid, unfiltered and utterly brutal account of his time in office. He spoke to Harry McGee about the impact the ministerial role had on his mental health, life in the public eye, and leaving politics behind.
- Cop29 - Can a bloated and cumbersome process undermined by self-interest deliver for our planet?: The Cop29 gathering of almost every country on Earth is gearing up for 12 days of intense climate negotiations from mid-November against a turbulent backdrop of geopolitical tension and a planet overheating beyond safe boundaries. Kevin O’Sullivan examined whether the annual conference is fit for purpose at a time when we need to be ramping up climate action.
- How I achieved nine H1s in the Leaving Cert: Robin Caren secured top grades in all nine of her Leaving Cert exams this year. From the best time of day to study to subject-specific advice, she shared the secrets of her success with The Irish Times.
- ‘There are times I regret having kids. They’re adults, and it’s now that I’m regretting it, which seems strange’: In the latest in our series on parenting taboos, Jen Hogan explored one of the biggest taboos of all - regretting parenthood, or wishing you hadn’t had some of your children.
November is Food Month at The Irish Times. Throughout the month you will find expanded coverage of food and drink on irishtimes.com and in the newspaper, including features, reviews and recipes for all tastes. To kick things off, we compiled a list of 100 great restaurants, cafes and places to eat in Ireland, from new openings to established favourites. Also this weekend, Mark Moriarty embraced the arrival of soup season with recipes for two delicious broths.
As we enter November and the temperatures start to drop, many will be worried about the cost of energy bills in the coming months. In this week’s On the Money newsletter, Conor Pope wrote about the ways people can make savings in this regard as winter approaches - including how to pay prices that are below the EU average. Sign up here to receive the newsletter straight to your inbox every Friday.
As always, there is much more on irishtimes.com, including rundowns of all the latest movies in our film reviews and all the latest in sport. There are plenty more articles exclusively available for Irish Times subscribers here.
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