Special: America votes – our analyses

The Bertelsmann Foundation North America (BFNA), an affiliate of the Bertelsmann Stiftung, has been serving as a transatlantic bridge promoting understanding between Europe and the US since 2008. Its work is predicated on the belief that sooner or later Europeans and Americans will face the same challenges and can learn from each other's solutions – and these days, that means learning how to strengthen democracy.

On its website, BFNA has compiled everything you need to know about democracy in the US. For the coming election, it has created an Election Hub. The digital platform contains a range of multimedia resources which provide key insights into the election and the post-election transition process. 

It also explains how presidential elections in the US actually work – for example, why some candidates win who do not get a majority of the votes. The reason is the Electoral College. Every state is allocated a different number of electoral college votes. Wining California, for example, gives a candidate 54 votes, while a victory in Delaware is rewarded with only three. Whoever gets at least 270 electoral college votes wins the election.

Hitting the Ground Running is an analysis of how Kamala Harris entered the race. In his blog post, Marshall Reid describes her forceful start, the record amount of donations made by her supporters and the tactics she wants to deploy to defeat Donald Trump in November.

Samuel George, expert at the Bertelsmann Foundation, explains in his vlog "Kamala Harris – The Dem's New Hope," why Kamala Harris had to replace Joe Biden as the Democratic presidential candidate. She's like "a shot of adrenaline when the Democrats needed it most," he says.

Anthony T. Silberfeld, director at the Bertelsmann Foundation North America, comments in a blog post on the speech made by Kamala Harris at the Democratic National Convention. His judgment matches that of former President Barack Obama: "Yes, she can". 

The election campaign is the time when candidates outdo each other with the promises they make to their voters. Young families are considered. People buying their first home, employees working overtime. And it's always about tarifs and taxes. In this  video, Samuel George, an expert at the Bertelsmann Foundation North America, analyses Trump's and Harris' election promises from an economic perspective - and says how much, or how little, of them can be kept.

The TV debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump was a spectacle that still occupies the media. The vice-presidential debate of J.D. Vance and Tim Walz was quite different. Objective, in a reasonable tone, informative. And with no clear winner. Marshall Reid provides a brief analysis of the evening

Beyond the Ballot is a podcast in which Bertelsmann Foundation experts are joined by guests to discuss various topics related to the election. In the sixth episode, Courtney Flynn Martino talks to Justin Levitt, professor of law at Loyola Marymount University and former White House political advisor, about election security.

Episode seven deals with the right to vote: It's never been easier to vote than it is today, says David Becker, founder of the Centre for Election Innovation and Research. He joins Courtney Flinn Martino on the ‘Beyond the Ballot’ podcast to discuss what has changed since the 1965 Voting Rights Act and what it means that nearly all Americans will be able to vote in November.

The podcast "How to fix Democracy" has been running for five years now. The current season examines the last 100 years of American democracy. Topics include immigration policy, democracy during the Cold War, the economic crisis of the 1920s, and the development of the Republican Party.

Say it with a graphic: What is on the minds of young people in the US who are eligible to vote in November? Surveys show that 53 percent are worried about inflation and the rising cost of living, while 28 percent are afraid their income won’t be sufficient to support their lifestyle. And 26 percent would like to see stricter gun control laws.

"Transponder" is the name of the magazine that BFNA publishes twice a year. Naturally, the latest issue is all about the election. Kenneth Martin describes how he spent the evening of the first election he was eligible to vote in as an adult: initially unsettled, then worried, then shocked and depressed. It was the 2016 election, the one that – surprisingly for many – Donald Trump won.

For more than 20 years, we have been using the Bertelsmann Transformation Index (BTI) to track how democracy is changing in emerging and developing countries. Today, there are only 63 democracies left, compared to 74 autocracies – as current figures from the BTI show. For the 10th time, the BTI has analyzed changes in political governance in 137 developing and transition countries. 

Since so many elections are being held in 2024, the BTI is offering another special service: the BTI Election Calendar, which provides a comprehensive overview of all the elections taking place this year. It shows the results of elections that have already been held and lists the dates of upcoming elections – paired with all the BTI information available on the relevant countries.

The European Union and the United States have the world‘s largest trade and investment partnership, making up one-third of global GDP. Launched in October 2021, the EU-US Trade and Technology Council (TTC) is the key forum for maintaining transatlantic economic cooperation. But the upcoming US elections on November 5 could threaten the TTC, especially if Trump is re-elected,

potentially leading to its dissolution. Our EU briefing describes how the Trade and Technology Council could be strengthened.

In addition, various episodes of the Bertelsmann Stiftung's podcast "Zukunft gestalten" (Shaping the Future) deal with the US election. Irene Braam, executive director of the Bertelsmann Foundation North America, and Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook, transatlantic expert at the Bertelsmann Stiftung, kicked things off on January 24 with the episode "Superwahljahr 2024: Trump, die USA und Europa" (Super Election Year 2024: Trump, the US and Europe).  On July 23, Ashbrook and Daniela Schwarzer, a member of our Executive Board, discussed the current president's departure from the race and Kamala Harris' candidacy in the episode "Der Rückzug von Joe Biden – eine Chance für die amerikanische Demokratie?" (Joe Biden's Withdrawal – An Opportunity for American Democracy?).

Disinformation – using fake news to influence voters – is an issue of growing importance, perhaps one of the most important in the current US election. Disinformation also plays a major role in Germany, as do the efforts to combat it. As a result, the Bertelsmann Stiftung, Stiftung Mercator and Germany's Federal Ministry of the Interior have launched the project Forum gegen Fakes (Forum Against Fakes). Between January and July 2024, some 424,000 participants used the online platform to contribute their opinions and ideas on the topic. They submitted more than 3,300 suggestions for how to combat disinformation online. A citizen council with over 120 participants used this input to discuss the most important points and develop recommendations for how to deal with misleading information.