From 7-11 October 2024, Bruce Stokes travelled through the cities of Berlin, Kaiserslautern, and Kiel to talk about the geographical characteristics of the U.S. electoral system, in particular the Electoral College, swing states and urban-rural contrasts. He also highlighted potential challenges to democracy in the context of electoral processes and institutions.

In a total of 11 events, Mr Stokes reached up to 203 participants consisting of transatlantic experts, students and other interested parties.

Bruce Stokes is highly qualified in this field. He is currently a Visiting Senior Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. In 2022 and 2010-2012 he participated in the influential ‘Transatlantic Trends’ survey. He was previously a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (2017-2020) and remains a member and Associate Fellow at Chatham House. From 2012 to 2019, he led the Global Economic Attitudes team at the Pew Research Center and was an international economics correspondent for the National Journal for 23 years.

Bruce Stokes’ speaker tour began on 7 October with an intensive exchange with students from the Cosmopolitan School Berlin, where he highlighted the importance of swing states and the latest poll results and gave the young audience insights into the dynamics of the US elections. In the afternoon, he met with young professionals from the Young DGAP network, where they discussed the potential impact of the election outcome on transatlantic relations and international politics in general. This was followed by a public event at the former Amerikahaus in cooperation with the Berlin State Centre for Political Education.

One highlight was the discussion entitled ‘Mapping the Electoral Pulse – Public Opinion and Electoral Narratives in the United States and Europe’, organized with the European Academy Berlin, in which experts from the Berlin political scene took a closer look at the polling data from the current and past presidential elections. Stokes then gave an insight into trade policy at an event at the Hertie School Berlin before travelling to Kaiserslautern.

In Kaiserslautern, Stokes continued his journey and spoke to local journalists from the RLP media organization in Speyer, together with the hosts from the Atlantic Academy Rhineland-Palatinate. Another highlight was his guest lecture for 10th and 11th grade students at Burg Gymnasium Kaiserslautern, where he informed the young generation about the challenges and opportunities of the American electoral system.

At the end of his tour, Stokes made a stop in Kiel, where he spoke to pupils from the Toni Jensen School and the Max Planck School. In total, more than 150 students had the opportunity to learn from Stokes and ask questions – an exciting exchange about the electoral system and the current election cycle that encouraged the students to take a closer look at US politics and their own role in the democratic process.

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