The Run-Up

Warning: this episode contains strong language and mentions of sexual abuse. Since 2019, our host, Astead Herndon, has been reporting on Kamala Harris — from her campaign for the 2020 Democratic nomination to her time as vice president. Over the years, the same questions have swirled around her. What does she stand for? How does she make decisions? Was she only selected as President Biden’s running mate because of her race and gender? Today, Ms. Harris is the presumptive Democratic nominee after Mr. Biden decided to withdraw from the 2024 race. Americans are once again looking at Ms. Harris as their potential president. And on “The Run-Up,” we wanted to play two excerpts from conversations that get at those essential questions. One is with a longtime friend of Ms. Harris. And one is with the vice president herself. On today’s episode: Senator Laphonza Butler, Democrat of California Vice President Kamala Harris

When it finally happened, it felt both inevitable, and unfathomable. President Biden was out of the 2024 presidential race. Shortly after making that announcement, he threw his support behind his vice president, Kamala Harris, to be the next Democratic nominee. Mr. Biden had finally fulfilled his promise to be a bridge to the next generation — albeit under enormous pressure. Ms. Harris issued a statement later in the day, saying that she was honored to have received President Biden’s endorsement and that she intends to “earn and win” the nomination. Today, in a special episode of The Run-Up, a top democratic donor discusses what ultimately toppled the Biden campaign and a colleague gives us an inside look at where Democrats go next. On today's show: Robert Wolf, a Democratic donor Reid Epstein, a politics correspondent for The New York Times. Do you have a question about the 2024 election? We want to hear from you. Fill out this form or email us at therunup@nytimes.com

Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.” has become former President Donald J. Trump’s unofficial theme music on the campaign trail. Here at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, the song was performed live by none other than Mr. Greenwood himself, as Mr. Trump walked into the arena on Monday. The anthem, released in 1984, is essentially a song about togetherness and the diversity of the United States. And it’s now become tied to a candidate who has often represented division and chaos. As Mr. Trump is set to deliver the culminating address at the convention today with a newfound message of unity, we explore that message — through the song that has become his soundtrack. We talk to Republicans, including Mr. Greenwood, about what defines American values and whether those values are reflected in the candidacy of Mr. Trump. On today’s episode: Lee Greenwood, country music star Do you have a question about the 2024 election? We want to hear from you. Fill out this form or email us at therunup@nytimes.com

On the second day of the Republican National Convention, a collection of Donald Trump’s former challengers took the stage. There were people who ran against him in 2016 — like Ted Cruz, Ben Carson and Marco Rubio. And people who just challenged him this year — Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy. No matter how fervently, or recently, they had criticized him, all voiced their support for him and emphasized a message of unity. For analysis of Night 2 of the R.N.C., and this parade of Trump rivals turned boosters, Astead is joined by his Times Audio colleague Michael Barbaro, host of “The Daily.” Do you have a question about the 2024 election? We want to hear from you. Fill out this form or email us at therunup@nytimes.com

Republicans had a big day on Monday. Donald Trump picked J.D. Vance as his running mate. Two days after surviving an assassination attempt, he officially became his party’s presidential nominee. And the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee got underway, with a festive mood among the delegates. The Run-Up is here in Milwaukee for the occasion. In special episodes this week, we’ll tell you what we’re seeing — and what that tells us about Trump’s Republican Party. To kick things off, Jess Bidgood, who writes the On Politics newsletter, joined Astead to analyze key moments from Night 1. Do you have a question about the 2024 election? We want to hear from you. Fill out this form or email us at therunup@nytimes.com

You’ve seen the image by now: Former President Donald J. Trump has blood running down the side of his face. He’s being escorted off his rally’s stage by the Secret Service, and he pauses to look at the crowd, his fist proudly in the air. It’s too soon to know how the attempt on his life on Saturday in Pennsylvania will affect the outcome of the race. But Trump’s allies have already made the shock of the assassination attempt, and the violence, part of a clear political message. To hear them tell it, Trump and his party are under attack. This sense of persecution has long been core to Trump’s message. And the events of the weekend will only amplify that. Today, as the Republican National Convention gets underway, we’re digging into that message with the Trump supporters who most embody it. And we’re doing so from their unlikely headquarters, where they gather every evening in Washington D.C.: outside the D.C. Jail. Do you have a question about the 2024 election? We want to hear from you. Fill out this form or email us at therunup@nytimes.com

President Biden is telling people to Google it. Former president Donald J. Trump is distancing himself from it. Even the actress Taraji P. Henson talked about it onstage at the B.E.T. Awards. Project 2025. It’s a blueprint for an incoming conservative president — presumably Donald Trump — spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. And now it is everywhere in this tumultuous moment of the 2024 presidential race. But what is it? Is it a guide to a possible second Trump administration? And why are Democrats seizing on it now, as Mr. Biden struggles to quiet doubts about his ability to defeat Mr. Trump? This week, we’re working through those questions. On today’s episode Jonathan Swan, who covers politics and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign for The New York Times. Representative Ro Khanna, Democrat of California.

The latest national poll from The New York Times and Siena College shows former President Donald J. Trump leading President Biden by nine percentage points among registered voters — a pretty big shift in his direction in the week since the presidential debate. It has become clear in the past week that there is no obvious path to replacing Mr. Biden as the Democratic Party’s nominee. But there is a strong desire among Americans for something different. We heard that directly from voters we met last week in Kenosha, Wis., at a gathering of a group called Braver Angels. It’s a nonpartisan organization that finds common ground across political divisions, and it proved a perfect focus group after the debate. We asked these deeply engaged citizens, who had chosen to spend their free time debating policy and politics, how they were feeling about their options for president in November. Their perspective reinforced the gap that this unique political moment has exposed between voters and party leaders. The questions are: Has Mr. Biden’s debate performance made the continuation of his campaign untenable? And what, if anything, should happen next? Do you have a question about the 2024 election? We want to hear from you. Fill out this form or email us at therunup@nytimes.com

As you may have heard, Thursday night was the first debate between President Biden and former president Donald J. Trump. In short, it was not a great night for Mr. Biden. The president’s debate performance triggered significant panic among top Democrats, who for months have been dismissing concerns about Mr. Biden’s age. So, how is this happening? Despite all the concerns polls showed about age, how has the Democratic Party arrived at this moment? That’s a line of inquiry The Run-Up has been putting to senior Democratic leaders for the past 18 months. And we wanted to revisit some of those conversations now in a special episode. They include selections of our interviews with Vice President Harris, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro, Democratic National Committee chair Jaime Harrison and Ron Klain, Mr. Biden’s former White House chief of staff. Do you have a question about the 2024 election? We want to hear from you. Fill out this form or email us at therunup@nytimes.com

We don’t know exactly what will happen when President Biden and former president Donald J. Trump take the debate stage in Atlanta tonight. We do know, however, that the first debate between the major party candidates is happening earlier in the election season than usual. And we also know that we’ve seen a version of this show before. Their past matchups have featured bitter insults, constant interruptions and were political spectacles judged more on optics than on substance. This year, considering that the candidates are offering radically different visions for the country, it’s hard to imagine an election in which the substance would matter more. So, today, at least on “The Run-Up,” there’s no buzzer, no microphone muting and no debate-stage theatrics. Instead, we call four Times colleagues to talk about what the candidates are actually promising for a second term on four key issues: the economy, immigration, abortion and foreign policy. On today’s episode Jim Tankersley, a reporter covering economic and tax policy. Zolan Kanno-Youngs, a White House correspondent. Lisa Lerer, a national political correspondent. David E. Sanger, a White House and national security correspondent. Do you have a question about the 2024 election? We want to hear from you. Fill out this form or email us at therunup@nytimes.com

For decades, the mainstream Republican position on abortion rights was clear: Overturn Roe v. Wade and send the issue back to the states. But since June 2022, when the Supreme Court’s conservative majority did exactly that, Republicans have faced a question that few seemed to consider beforehand: What comes next? In Arizona, that question is especially important. In that battleground state, Democratic groups have already mobilized to put a citizen initiative on the November ballot that would enshrine abortion rights in the state’s Constitution and help increase President Biden’s chances at re-election. So this week, after spending time with organizers who support the ballot measure on the last episode, we are meeting its opponents and exploring the anti-abortion movement in Arizona, which finds itself fractured along new fault lines. On today’s episode: Matt Gress, a Republican state representative in Arizona Jeff Durbin, pastor of Apologia Church, in the greater Phoenix area Elizabeth Dias, national religion correspondent for The New York Times

Arizona is a battleground state that both parties are desperate to win in November. And right now, supporters of abortion rights in the state are in the midst of gathering signatures to ensure that, along with the presidential race and a competitive Senate contest, enshrining the right to abortion in the state’s Constitution will be on the ballot this fall. The measure has broad support in the state, and Democrats are banking on that to drive a wide range of people to the polls to vote on the ballot measure — and, they hope, for Mr. Biden. But there’s no guarantee that will happen. For the next two weeks, we’re going to focus on how abortion rights could shape the 2024 election in Arizona. This week: We’re with volunteers around the state — at a trailhead outside Phoenix and at Bunco night in Bullhead City — who are working to get the measure on the ballot, and we spoke with the people who were supporting their efforts. Do you have a question about the 2024 election? We want to hear from you. Fill out this form or email us a voice memo at therunup@nytimes.com

In the days since a Manhattan jury found Donald Trump guilty of 34 felony counts, people have mostly been asking one big question. Will this matter in November? Over the past few days, our colleagues at The New York Times and at the Siena College Research Institute have been trying to answer that question. They spoke with 1,900 people they had previously polled to find out how they are currently thinking. Most people have not changed their mind. But some have — and they are moving away from Mr. Trump. This week, Astead speaks with voters about how they are thinking about the presidential race after Mr. Trump’s conviction, including with people in one significant group: Trump supporters who said in October that if he were convicted and sentenced, they would back President Biden. He also talks with Ruth Igielnik, who helps oversee polling at The Times, to understand the latest data and who is still on the fence in the race. Do you have a question about the 2024 election? We want to hear from you. Fill out this form or email us a voice memo at therunup@nytimes.com

While the political world waits for a verdict in Donald Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan, we wanted to take a moment to remember how we got here — especially the broader political context of the fall of 2016. Mr. Trump is charged with falsifying business records related to a hush-money payment to the adult film actress Stormy Daniels as part of a scheme to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. Back in 2016, Mr. Trump was down in the polls and worried about losing support from women voters, who would, the thinking went, punish him at the ballot box for the lewd “Access Hollywood” tape and anything Ms. Daniels might make public. That of course is not what happened. And in the years since, assumptions about how women vote have come to feel more complicated. To discuss this, we turn to two women who have spent many years thinking about what women want when it comes to politics and everything else. Kellyanne Conway was Mr. Trump’s campaign manager in 2016 and senior counselor to him from 2017 to 2020. Celinda Lake was one of the lead pollsters for the Biden campaign in 2020. In 2005, they wrote a book together called “What Women Really Want,” which argued that politicians needed to take seriously the particular desires of women, who make up more than 50 percent of the electorate. So this week we ask: What’s changed since 2005? And do Ms. Conway and Ms. Lake still agree on what women really want?

As he runs for re-election, President Biden is talking about one specific issue a lot: the economy. He emphasizes the nation’s low unemployment and slowing inflation, and even rolled out a catchy nickname for the good numbers: Bidenomics. The problem for Biden is that few Americans seem to agree that the economy is strong. They think the opposite. This week, we explore the gap between the good economy, as described by the president, and the not-so-great economy, as felt by so many Americans. And we do it in Dayton, Ohio, where activists are working to get increasing the minimum wage on the ballot in November. It’s a view of Biden’s economy from the bottom up. Do you have a question about the 2024 election? We want to hear from you. Fill out this form or email us a voice memo at therunup@nytimes.com

If the 2024 presidential election were a road trip, we would now be at the part where you start to wonder: Are we there yet? The matchup is set, but there’s still such a long way to go until November. And one of the things we’ve noticed about the questions that you’ve been sending in is that you’re starting to mix it up. You want to know what Donald Trump’s possible vice-presidential picks are, how down-ballot races are shaping up, and what difference celebrity endorsements could make. This week, we’re answering your questions by setting the main characters of 2024 aside and talking about the people who aren’t named Donald Trump or Joe Biden. Some are candidates and public officials. Others are a little farther from politics. But they all could have an impact on the election come November. Do you have a question about the 2024 election? We want to hear from you. Fill out this form or email us a voice memo at therunup@nytimes.com

Here’s what we know when it comes to the antiwar protests on college campuses and electoral politics: President Biden does seem to have a problem with young activists on the left. The disapproval only intensified in the days after the president spoke critically about the protests. But whether or not he has a larger problem with young voters in general remains to be seen. Which is why one statement from a more mainstream group, saying the administration is on a “mistaken route,” is worth considering. That group? The College Democrats of America. That’s an organization that is closely aligned with national party leadership, and the leaders of the group are delegates to the Democratic National Convention. Which means, they’re the young people who would seem most likely to support Mr. Biden. So over the past few days, we reached out to a bunch of leaders within the College Democrats to get the inside story of how that statement came to be — and to understand what it might mean for November.

For years, Wisconsin has been one of the most heavily gerrymandered states in the country, with legislative districts that overwhelmingly favored Republicans. In fact, the maps were so one-sided that, even though the state has a roughly equal share of Democrats and Republicans, Republicans were able to lock in large majorities in the State Assembly and Senate. But earlier this year, the state adopted new maps, which have significantly changed the political landscape in the state for Democrats. They are newly optimistic. So after months of hearing about President Biden’s problems motivating the Democratic base, we traveled to the critical battleground state of Wisconsin to ask: Have new maps led to new energy for Democrats, up and down the ballot?

The stakes of the 2024 presidential election could not be more serious. But in this matchup of two old, largely unpopular candidates, there is no shortage of material for comedians. This may be bad news for voters. However, it’s good news for the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner — essentially the Super Bowl of political comedy — which takes place this Saturday in Washington. The president typically attends the dinner and gives a speech, while also trying his hand at some jokes. But the main event is a set from a comedian. Last year, Roy Wood Jr., a veteran performer who was then a “Daily Show” correspondent, did the honors. Today, we talk with Roy Wood Jr. about that gig and political comedy in 2024. What’s it like to roast the president to his face? And what is there to laugh about in an election that doesn’t seem funny at all?

In a close election, every vote matters. But in the 2020 presidential race, there’s a good argument that young voters mattered a lot — and helped tip the scales for President Biden. This year, though, things seem much less straightforward. Polling data shows that Mr. Biden’s approval rating has tanked among young Americans. Polls also show that he continues to be hounded by the perception that he is too old for the job. And young activists are creating a public-relations nightmare for the campaign as they protest for more direct action on climate change and demand a permanent cease-fire in Gaza. In this episode, we speak to young voters. We also talk with two leaders of Democratic groups that are focused on young people: Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, the executive director of NextGen America, which just conducted a poll of young voters, and Santiago Mayer, the founder and executive director of Voters of Tomorrow.