Syndicated columns

In 2016 and 2020 Donald Trump lost the popular election by several million votes. But in 2016, he won in the Electoral College with slim majorities in several toss-up states. That is the only way he can win the looming election, a contest all the polls show is too close to call. Once again, it is entirely possible that we will elect a president whom a majority of American voters reject.

With days to go before the election, Kamala Harris has yet to come up with a compelling rationale for her candidacy, other than to accuse her opponent of being a fascist. Ask her a question to which she doesn’t have a canned answer and she struggles for a coherent response. The most notable difference between her current presidential bid and her previous one in 2019 is that she has repudiated many of her past views. Is it because she’s hiding her real convictions – or because she has few real convictions at all?

Blended families or bonus families (also known as stepfamilies), whether they are formed through parents’ remarriage or living together, are common. More than 10% of minor children in the United States live with a stepparent at some point.

Vladimir Putin is suffering grievous manpower losses as a result of his illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine. He has lost around 200,000 killed, double that number wounded, and at least 500,000 young men fleeing the Russian Federation to avoid the draft: a butcher’s bill of more than 1 million.

Americans are blessed to have the First Amendment, with its prohibitions against government abridging freedom of speech and of the press.

Donald Trump has always been a con man. As an entrepreneur, he left behind a trail of investors who lost money in failed ventures even as he profited, students who paid thousands for worthless courses, unpaid contractors and more. Even amid his current presidential campaign, he has been hawking overpriced gold sneakers and Trump Bibles printed in China.

Near the end of the 2016 presidential campaign, the world learned about the “Access Hollywood” tape in which Donald Trump bragged about groping women.

The Electoral College. White racism. Black sexism. President Joe Biden.

Something is clearly happening with Donald Trump. Even a year ago, I don’t think he would have begun a rally with 12 minutes of rambling remarks about late golfer Arnold Palmer, concluding with a discussion of the size of Palmer’s penis.

For more than a year, as I’ve talked to Black men and voting organizers, I’ve picked up on discontent with the Democratic Party from some Black men, but I wasn’t sure what to make of it or how widely that sentiment stretched.

I’ll never forget the first time I heard my oldest daughter’s heartbeat. My wife was experiencing trouble in the first three months of pregnancy, and we were worried she was miscarrying. We rode together to her doctor’s office, full of anxiety. And then we heard the magical sound – the pulsing of our little girl’s tiny heart. We didn’t know if she would ultimately be OK, but there was one thing we knew: Our daughter was alive.

“If Donald Trump were just to shut up for a few days, he would be elected president,” but he just doesn’t understand that, pollster Frank Luntz said last week. And he said if Kamala Harris and Tim Walz “would just get real with the American people, that would ensure their election, but they’re too afraid.”

According to Tim Sheehy, the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in Montana, young people have been “indoctrinated” on the issue of abortion.

With North Carolina still reeling from the aftermath of Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton landing in Florida, it is natural to ask: What is the best way to help the victims of these storms, and how can society best protect itself from such damage in the future? As an economist, I realize that I come at these questions with a bit of a different perspective.