If you’re already feeling nervous about the upcoming US election – and the sizeable, immediate and profound impact another Trump presidency would have on the world – well, we feel you. Capsule talks to TVNZ political reporter Jack Tame on covering his third Trump election, what feels different to the 2016 election race and what it means for NZ, either way.
If the coin-toss of an election between possibly the first ever female US president versus Donald Trump is bringing you a sense of PTSD from 2016, spare a thought for Jack Tame, who was at Hilary Clinton’s campaign party on the night when global politics took a soap-opera turn for the worst. Exactly how bad were the vibes there on the night, eight years ago?
“Oh, unbelievably bad,” Jack says on the phone from New York. “So sour, so miserable.” His defining memory of the evening was sitting under that famous glass ceiling, lovingly built to symbolise how Hilary had broken the last glass ceiling in America by becoming the first-ever female president.
In the end, the glass ceiling stayed intact – both literally on the night, and emotionally ever since. “I was looking up at the glass ceiling when Hilary’s campaign manager came out and said, ‘she’s not going to be coming out tonight…’ and it was like, it’s over. She’s lost.”
There are several factors that make 2024’s US presidential election different to that fateful one, but the Trump factor has been a consistent one for three of the four US elections that Jack has covered. As a journalist, he says, it is incredibly exciting to be on the ground in the run-up to November 5.
“From a professional sense, there is nothing more exciting than being in the middle of the biggest story in the world, and that is undoubtably what the US election is,” he says. “That’s not to say there isn’t also a little apprehension, because obviously things are so polarised here. People are so tribal in their beliefs, that clearly, the spectre of political violence is not totally inconceivable.”
As he points out, there have already been multiple assassination attempts against Trump in the past few months. And the explosion of violent protest that happened on January 6, 2021 when Trump supporters stormed the US capital after he lost the election show just how volatile the state of American democracy has become.
“January 6 was a bit of a wake-up call for a lot of people and you can foresee scenarios, come the day of the election or when the result is finalised, where there will be tens of millions of unhappy people. And it’s hard to know what will happen if that is the case.”
Jack was based in the US for many years as the US correspondent and is now in America, working alongside current US correspondent Logan Church, covering what many are referring to as ‘the election of our lifetimes.’
The polling shows that Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are currently neck-and-neck. While the polling hasn’t been accurate in the reality of past two elections, Jack agrees that this is shaping up to be an incredibly close election. “It’s anyone’s guess,” he says.
“Of all the elections that I’ve covered here – and I’ve done 2012, 2016 and 2020 – I’ve never gone into one where there wasn’t someone who wasn’t at least a bit of a favourite. Whereas this is a true toss-up… This is, honestly, like flip a coin. No-one, I think, can say with absolute confidence who they think will win. And we haven’t had an election like that in the US for a long time.”
To the outside world, this can seem, frankly, insane. Kamala Harris is not a perfect candidate – particularly in the handling of the ongoing atrocities in Gaza and the supply of weapons from the US to Israel – but she is smart, capable, respectful; with a long track record of public service. The same cannot be said for Donald Trump.
“It’s inconceivable to many people that the Republican Party would have a candidate who has been accused of sexual assault, who has been married multiple times, who has been declared bankrupt multiple times, who has all of these links to foreign governments, who is a convicted felon,” Jack says.
“But like many in the media – and us in New Zealand, with our distant perspective, we probably missed some of the changes that made it more likely that a character like Donald Trump would come through – and I absolutely include myself in that; I remember when Trump became the candidate, I thought he would last a week.”
But hindsight is 2020, Jack says. A huge economic shift in large swaths of America had watched the industries that powered their local economy dry up, with nothing to replace them, meaning that there is an entire generation in some parts of the country who are now poorer than their parents ever were.
“They grew up thinking, ‘All I need is a high school diploma and I’ll be able to get a really good job in a factory, that will securely employ me for the rest of my working life. I’ll be able to have a good, middle-class life; I’ll be able to have health care, I’ll be able to afford a house, I’ll be able to live a dignified life.’ And all of that was taken away from them.”
The key changes this time around, versus 2016, aren’t to be underestimated, though. Firstly, abortion is a huge issue in America – the overturning of Roe vs Wade, which protected the legal right to abortion, could be enough to sway a lot of older women, who may have voted for Trump in 2016. And it’s definitely helped radicalise younger women, who have watched their right to abortion access come under threat just as they reached voting age.
Secondly, while Kamala Harris would be the first female president – and the first woman of colour president – she is not campaigning on either of these things. Unlike Hilary, who ran her “I’m with her” campaign based heavily on the historical significance of her possible presidency, Kamala is steering clear of that path.
“It’s really noticeable to me, how little Kamala’s campaign is touching on identity politics,” Jack says. “Strategically, it’s very wise – but if Kamala was to win, and become the first female president, and the first female of colour president, what an extraordinary, historic achievement that would be! But they’re not touching it. And it’s a really noticeable distinction.”
And lastly – and this is not a feel-good point, like the last two – back in 2016, people were more reluctant to admit they were voting for Trump, which is why the predictive polls were so different from the voting reality. As Jack points out, “It’s very easy to forget that people on the inside of Trump’s campaign said he had no expectation that he was going to win, and when Trump did win on election night, he was more shocked than anyone.”
But this time around, that reticence is gone. People are far, far more likely to be out-and-proud Trump voters. So, whether that means the toss-a-coin polls can be trusted for the actual votes in a week’s time… who knows?
For Jack and Logan, the lead-up to election night means schlepping around various swing states, with Jack doing double duty reporting for both One News and also Q and A, filing stories across different time zones and having to be flexible as hell as the news changes on a dime. Low on sleep, high on adrenaline.
This is particularly true if the race is as close as predicted. Rather than a fast turnaround, this may well be a case of the numbers inching towards who will get to 270 in the electoral college votes first. Which will potentially mean another drawn-out affair like the 2020 election, which took five days for the results to come in.
And if it’s another Trump presidency, the ripple effects will have an impact around the world very quickly. “Donald Trump has said he will end the Ukraine war in one day… he would likely force Ukraine to negotiate with Russia immediately which would have a significant impact on security in Europe,” Jack says. The relationship that Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have with Israel – and their views on the conflict in Gaza – are also significantly different, he says, so the stability of the Middle East is also at play.
The news also isn’t great for New Zealand. “Donald Trump has said that he wants to put a 10% tariff on all imports, so basically everything that we sell to America is now going to have a 10% tariff – that will have an economic impact overnight.”
It would also have ramifications for leadership in the Pacific, and America’s expectations of New Zealand, Jack says. And then there’s also the candidates’ different policies on climate change – the ever-growing, ever-more terrifying elephant in the room.
“Who the US president is, at this moment in history, is of enormous significance to the global order and to life in New Zealand,” Jack says. There are a lot of times when journalists lean a little too hard into hyperbole. But this isn’t one of them, he says. “For all of the big chat about ‘this being the most significant election in history’… it really does live up to that billing. We’re not hyping it up more than it needs to be. It absolutely lives up to that title.”
The Q+A U.S election specials air at 9am on Sunday 3 and Sunday 10 November, TVNZ 1. Jack and the 1News team will have election stories running across Breakfast, 1News at Six, TVNZ+ and 1News.co.nz
