The Monocle Minute

The US presidential candidates’ recent itineraries – with prominent stops in New York, Houston, the Coachella Valley and Washington – harken back to an era when elections were fought across the length and breadth of the country, rather than narrowly contested in a handful of battleground states. That political reality has not changed: in effect, only seven states are up for grabs for Donald Trump and Kamala Harris tomorrow. But the candidates’ travel schedules suggest that many political operatives are questioning the conventional wisdom that the best way to win is simply to shake every Michigander’s hand or kiss all of North Carolina’s babies.

Harris chose Washington for her campaign’s “closing argument” speech not because she wanted to court the locals but for its symbolic potential. (After all, the District of Columbia offers only three electoral votes and past results indicate that any Democrat could secure more than 90 per cent of the popular vote.) She made her case about Trump’s dangerous pursuit of power while standing at the very spot where he marshalled his supporters to storm the Capitol. She did something similar in Texas: the state’s draconian laws banning abortion allowed her to highlight the issue for a national audience.

Meanwhile, Trump picked New York’s Madison Square Garden and a polo club in the California desert – both in states that Harris will comfortably claim – because he wanted to send a message that he was a different type of Republican, eager to make inroads with working-class voters of colour. It also doesn’t hurt that Republicans need to win New York and California seats to maintain control over the House of Representatives. The two states are bases for national journalists who are running out of fresh ways to cover rallies on Pittsburgh-area airport tarmacs too.

Those routing decisions indicate that campaign strategists are acknowledging a new reality for the country’s media environment. Local television news, regional magazines and big-city papers have lost their reach and sway, and small-town word of mouth has been supplanted by borderless social media. These days, the best way to grab the attention of swing states is to make a splash elsewhere.

Sasha Issenberg is Monocle’s US politics correspondent. Tune in to Monocle Radio for special broadcasts, including our US election series onThe Monocle Daily, from our correspondents stationed in Washington and Atlanta.

As election day looms, North Carolina is one of the pivotal battlegrounds to watch. Once a Republican mainstay, the Tar Heel State’s increasingly diverse and urbanised electorate has made it far less predictable than in previous decades.

Both main parties are pulling out all the stops in a bid to win its 16 electoral votes: Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have made their pitches there in recent days. Local concerns are expected to play a decisive role. Economic issues, from employment to the cost of living, are key voter priorities; education, healthcare and environmental resilience will also be pivotal. Tomorrow, the state will show whether tradition or change holds sway.

Originally slated to open in 2005, Warsaw’s Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej (MSN) has been a long time coming. After such a long wait, the only appropriate way to celebrate its launch was with a three-week-long party. In October the MSN’s curators held more than 160 events over 16 days, including performances by US musician Kim Gordon and Lebanese contemporary artist Tarek Atoui. Festivities will carry on until the full opening in February, when visitors will be able to see the full extent of the collection, which focuses on art made since 1989.

For now, only the museum’s ground floor is open to the public. It serves as a handy short cut to where the city is building a performing-arts theatre and a park. “Poland was the best student in the class after 1989,” says Sebastian Cichocki, the MSN’s chief curator, referring to the country’s embrace of capitalism after the fall of the Iron Curtain. “But it always lacked a magnet.” It might be a few decades overdue but Polish art might finally have one.

For more on Poland’s new contemporary art museum, pick up a copy of Monocle’sNovember issue, which is available now.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, thousands of Finns are learning to fight, mindful of their country’s 1,300km border with its bellicose eastern neighbour. Monocle joins some of these volunteers on exercises near Helsinki, where an independent defence organisation calls the shots.

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This week we speak with Sérgio Dávila, editor in chief of Brazil’s largest daily newspaper, Folha de São Paulo, on the paper’s redesign and its coverage of the US election. Plus: Vehicle, a new magazine with a fresh approach to transportation.