US election fever has hit UK media more than ever before

Opinion

For one of the most dramatic election campaigns in US history — or possibly even in all our lives — the UK media has taken distinct editorial approaches and came up with wildly different answers. At least we’ll know who got it right soon.

Even by the normal, often bizarre, standards of The Daily Telegraph, the splash on the day that the US went to the polls in the 2024 presidential election was strange.

It featured the Reform MP for Clacton — or should that be member of Mar-a-Lago — giving advice to would-be US president Donald Trump in an interview during a visit to the former president’s home in Palm Beach, Florida.

According to Nigel Farage, if there was “a clear and decisive” win for Kamala Harris, then maybe it would be time for Trump to go and play golf at Turnberry rather than contest the result.

Naturally, Farage added that he was only speaking hypothetically and he was certain his “friend” would win.

Curious angle

It was less clear what Trump is meant to do if the loss is a close one.

Farage, who attended the final, poorly attended Trump rallies in the key state of Pennsylvania, also has advice for Harris. If she wins, she should, in the interests of national unity, pardon Trump — despite his multiple convictions and the many court cases still waiting in the wings.

Strange that the Telegraph should approach one of the most dramatic days in US history — and possibly for all of us — through the eyes of the leader of the Reform party, rather than that of a more substantial British figure, if it wanted to promote a local angle to a US story.

Anyone who has seen The Apprentice or the current film about the early days of Trump’s business career — when he learned to never apologise or admit defeat, whatever the circumstances — will know there is no chance of Trump accepting Farage’s advice, however heavy the defeat.

And Harris, a former public prosecutor, has indicated that she has no intention of pardoning Trump if she gets into the White House.

No ambiguities

The Times handled a tricky situation rather more elegantly. There was no leader on election day, but there was a carefully chosen contribution from former Conservative party leader Lord Hague of Richmond.

With Hague, there is no ambiguity — the pro-immigration, pro-free trade, pro-democracy and pro-Nato Republican party of Ronald Reagan is dead and has been replaced with the Trump personality cult. To him, Trump is “a serious danger” and Hague warns that “whatever our past affiliations, we should all be Democrats tonight”.

It is not clear whether the word from the Rupert Murdoch-owned Times has made it to the Murdoch-owned Sun, where its political editor Harry Cole has been remarkably rude about vice-president Harris.

“Harris,” he said this week, “is a third-rate candidate, with a [Joe] Biden-shaped ball and chain around her ankle and an inability to capitalise on decent economic numbers.” Although “decent” is a strange word to use for an economy hitting record highs.

Cole claims that no-one has “a bloody clue” about what is going to happen. “The fundamentals of politics will go out the window if Harris wins this race from such a poor position,” he says, before hinting at a different outcome. “Stranger things have happened but, under all the noise, the clues are there…”

Too close to call?

There is unprecedented wall-to-wall coverage of the election across all sections of the media in the UK, not just newspapers, radio and television, but emerging media that had little impact four years ago, such as podcasts and newspaper-generated television coverage.

Rightly so. There has never been a political story like it — the first convicted felon to run against someone who could became the first woman president.

Yet, despite such an unparalleled outburst of coverage, a single tune is being played with monotonous regularity: that the race is too close to call.

It’s reflected in the final polls that gave Harris a 1% lead nationally, with the lead split across the seven key states that will probably determine who ends up with a majority of the electoral college votes.

As millions of votes are cast, the central question is whether the polls are getting it right. They were wrong in 2016 and far from perfect last time.

Ignored trends

Broadcaster and former Conservative Rory Stewart has argued throughout the campaign that the polls, worried about getting it wrong, have been herding together for comfort and failing to pick up on a couple of important trends — and that Harris will win comfortably.

These trends include the unprecedented number of young voters, who skew heavily in the direction of Harris, and the possibility that Republican women might be reluctant to tell pollsters that they plan to vote for Harris because of Roe v Wade.

The high level of enthusiasm and attendance at Harris rallies compared with the increasing number of empty seats at Trump performances might also offer a clue, as does the groups that Trump has upset, ranging from Puerto Ricans and Hispanics to Ukrainians, Poles and black voters.

Plus, a high turnout has traditionally favoured the Democrats.

Disruption ahead

At the weekend came an unusual poll from Ann Selzer, who has provided political polls for years for The Des Moines Register in Iowa, traditionally a Republican state where Trump has had large leads in the past.

Selzer found that in Iowa Harris had a lead of three percentage points.

A rogue poll that can be ignored? Except Selzer has a track record of calling elections for the presidency, Senate and House of Representatives in her state with great accuracy.

The Iowa poll appears so outrageous that it has had little impact except on Tuesday’s Today programme on BBC Radio 4, it was at last given the attention it deserved.

But there are other serious issues that might help to explain the closeness of the polls, as well-expressed by Andrew Neil for The Mail on Sunday.

If Trump wins, according to Neil, he will owe it to one issue above all others — illegal immigration is something that has the power “to disrupt settled ways” for democracies across the globe.

It is now about to do the same, Neil argues, for a country created by immigrants. “It might still not be enough to return Trump to power. But without it, he’d probably have no chance of a second triumph,” Neil notes.

At least we should soon know the answer one way or another.

Raymond Snoddy is a media consultant, national newspaper columnist and former presenter of NewsWatch on BBC News. He writes for The Media Leader on Wednesdays — bookmark his column here.