2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America

by Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager, Isaac Arnsdorf

In 2024, award-winning reporters Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager, and Isaac Arnsdorf bring us the definitive, inside story of the most tumultuous and consequential presidential campaign in our history.

“The whole world was against me, and I won,” said Donald Trump in an exclusive interview, ten days before his second inauguration. Nearly four years after Trump’s first turbulent presidency concluded in a violent attempt to overturn the election, he made a political comeback on a scale that stunned the nation. How did the first U.S. president to become a convicted felon regain control of the White House? And at what cost? 2024 is the explosive account of how Trump and his advisers overcame a dozen primary challengers, four indictments, two assassination attempts, and his own past mistakes to defeat the Democrats, and pave the way for a second term that would be far more aggressive and ruthless than the first.

Drawing on extraordinary access to the Trump, Biden, and Harris teams, 2024 takes readers beyond the speeches, rallies, and debates to reveal the innermost workings of the Republican and Democratic presidential campaigns. Beginning in August 2022 with the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago for classified documents, and Trump’s subsequent decision to run once again for president, Dawsey, Pager, and Arnsdorf chart how Trump stifled the rise of Republican opponents, including Ron DeSantis, and how his campaign, led by Susie Wiles, landed on a winning strategy. They reveal in unrivaled detail how Joe Biden and his team brushed off concerns about his age, ignored polling numbers, and held off the next generation of eager Democratic hopefuls—even as Biden was dealing with his own special counsel investigation and the trial of his son Hunter. After his disastrous debate performance forced him to withdraw, Biden anointed Vice President Kamala Harris as the candidate and tasked her with running the shortest presidential campaign in modern U.S. history. With only 107 days to distinguish herself from the past four years, Harris lacked the time or space to outrun Biden’s shadow—a challenge in and of itself, but one which Biden would make even more difficult. On November 5th, 2024, Trump was elected the nation’s forty-seventh president, and would return to power vindicated, emboldened, unrestrained, and burning for revenge.

Gripping, revelatory, and deeply reported, 2024 is the s

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, History, American History, Audiobook, American, Journalism

416 pages, Hardcover

Published July 8, 2025

Reviews

[allen merrill · Rating 3 out of 5]

I kind of wish I had not purchased this book. It seems like a waste of my time to read it. If I had researched the authors beforehand, I most likely would not have. The 3 authors are all current or former reporters for The Washington Post, a newspaper that I have little or no trust for. However, I did buy it and I did read it. There was little in their "reporting" that was not already known to me and they seemed to be unable to resist letting their liberal biases show. For instance, in the chapters on Trump's campaign, the writers seemed unable to give the accurate bases for actions by Trump or some of his campaign officials, but instead used smarmy and sardonic descriptive phrases, typical of those anti-Trump factions at the Washington Post. Then, when describing actions or conditions on the part of Biden or Harris, or their campaigns, they seemed almost hyper vigilant about avoiding any corruption or incompetence, of which the public was apparently and infinitely more aware than these writers.

[Imlac · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good, solid account of the 2024 election. It covers much the same ground as Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House, Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History and Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again. Dawsey et al., however, start earlier than any of these books in 2022 with Trump's decision to run for reelection, and they end later with Trump's first weeks in office.

Allen's and Parnes' Fight is fresher, more dramatic, and funnier. Whipple's Uncharted is almost totally worthless. Tapper's Original Sin has interesting moments, but is focused mainly on Biden and his court. If journalism is the first draft of history, then Dawsey, Pager and Arnsdorf's 2024 is a particularly good starting point. It is sober, measured, and decently written. Also, about half of it is consumed with minutely referenced notes, allowing readers to fact-check for themselves.

[Jane McNerney · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a more partisan view…..

This is the 3d book I’ve read about the 2024 election. It is the most partisan by far. Clearly, the authors lean left. In the process, they are less factual and detailed along the way. They miss or gloss over some key points, some key flaws of Harris and Biden both - and their teams. They either lacked sources or perspective. Either way, they it results in a poorer telling of the story of the election of 2024.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why revisit the trauma that was the 2024 election? Because I’m a political junkie who can’t help myself, and there’s no question we lived history. I chose this one because of the award-winning journalists attached to it, and the book is indeed very deeply reported, compelling and easy to read, and overall thorough and generally fair. There’s zero accounting for the media who helped lower the bar for Trump while raising it for Harris, nor for the media turning coverage into horse race poll chasing rather than substantive coverage of what the candidates were saying and proposing. As usual, some of Harris’s negative moments are given more attention and some of Trump’s are addressed but glossed over (the YMCA dancing rally where he refused to answer questions is literally given a footnote), and when they talk about Harris’s town hall with CNN they neglect to mention that she did it when it was supposed to be a CNN debate that Trump chickened out of…and of course they mention her dominant performance at that debate but without any clear specifics. They don’t talk about her convention speech at all. The Puerto Rico garbage comments from the white nationalist rally at Madison Square Garden are covered, but more attention is given to Biden’s garbage gaffe than all the other white supremacist bile that was spewed and accepted at that rally, which isn’t mentioned at all. Overall, despite some of those glaring moments, the book is fair and deeply reported with good and credible sources, so if you want a narrative that paints the big picture and broad strokes of what happened on both sides of the 2024 campaign, this one is an overall good choice.

[Peggy Page · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing. I didn’t learn much that I didn’t already know by following news coverage during the election. No real analysis of why the election turned out as it did.

[David Allwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

Donald Trump left the presidency in disgrace in early 2021, and returned triumphantly to the White House in early 2025. Regardless of personal judgements of Trump, his retaking of the presidency was astonishing. ‘2024’ by journalists, Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager, and Isaac Arnsdorf is a page-turning retelling of this critical election year in which, against all odds, Trump was thrust back in the presidency. Although familiar recent history, ‘2024’ provides entry into the very unfamiliar back rooms where the real plotting and planning occurred. This is the true nub of the story behind the facades of public rallies, debates, and town halls. Presidential elections are won not by nominees but by clever strategists, powerful donors, and canny statisticians, and this book exposes it all. Based on comprehensive insider research and a detailed chronology of the activities of both parties, it is a riveting climatic thriller with a strange and troubling aftermath we are now forced to ultimately live with and within.

[Russell Hughes · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s a pretty good recap into last year’s election with some good insights especially into both Trump’s/Biden’s//Harris’ campaigns. Most notably it tells a story of a slow train wreck with multiple mistakes and poor campaign decisions possibly costing Democrats the election which I guess depending on your party is either satisfying or depressing :/

[Caleb Ringger]

A competent chronology of the most insane election since at least 1968, if not even earlier. Trump's constant-firehose-of-chaos strategy, known in some corners as "flooding the zone," has been cranked up to a million in his second administration. This has shortened all of our memories, causing events that would once dominate the news cycle for months or even years to fade away in just days. That's why it's important to record, recall, and retell recent history--today's horrors, however shocking, can't be allowed to paper over yesterday's.

The most comforting part of this generally uncomfortable book is its stark exposure of Democratic incompetence. Democrats didn't lose in 2024 despite their best efforts. They didn't get overwhelmed by an authentic popular movement. The book shows that they were led by a senile, bumbling buffoon, head stubbornly in the sand, and his gaggle of squabbling sycophants. That's comforting, because it's fixable. Their opponent, incidentally, is also a barely coherent, rapidly aging buffoon, surrounded by his own sycophants, most of whom, despite last year's victory, appear just as incompetent. So despite it all, I have high hopes for 2028.

[Csparrenberger · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ll be brief and to the point: If you are interested in American politics from the period of 2020-2024, then this is your book. This is an excellent look at this period in time. A+.

[Matthew Cox · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this in 24 hours. Definitely the most in depth account of the two campaigns I’ve read

[Kirk Bado · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably the most comprehensive look at the 2024 presidential election.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

"We're gonna have a great rally as long as they don't shoot me again."

This is the--checks notes--fifth 2024 election book I've read now. Most of 2024 consists of anonymous sources regaling tales about how a prominent figure acted like an abusive jerk, followed by a spokesman for said person saying "Mr. so-and-so has no recollection of this event." If anything, the most interesting thing about this book is how it compares to the others written about the election. Therefore, this review will be broken into three parts: new things I learned, claims that conflict with other reports, and some closing thoughts.

New Information

- Several members of Trump's team were ex-DeSantis staffers. Susie Wiles was fired after DeSantis accused her of leaking a story about him accepting illegal gifts. He made so many enemies that Trump's team talked him out of swapping him in for Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary. Trump also didn't like the "pudding fingers" ad because he thought it was too gross.
- Trump wasn't sure if he wanted to run again and ultimately decided to because of his legal woes. He often wondered aloud what his parents would think of him being indicted.
- Hunter Biden wanted the DNC to pay his legal fees.
- Both JD Vance and Tim Walz missed the phone call offering them the VP slot. Trump got on the phone to have a conversation with Vance's seven-year-old son when he did.
- Vance's hard right turn was allegedly sparked by seeing how wealthy liberals were using his memoir to demonize the rural poor.
- Biden had a portrait of Hillary Clinton in his home office for some reason.
- Stephen Spielberg encouraged Biden to make faces while Trump was talking during the debate to convey how "crazy" what Trump was saying was to the audience.
- Other Democrats don't believe Nancy Pelosi likes powerful women. She and Hillary only became friends after Hillary lost in 2016.
- Kamala Harris only worked at McDonald's for two or three weeks in college.
- Trump and Harris met for the first time at their debate.
- Many podcasts declined to interview Harris, including Bill Simmons and the Kelce brothers.
- The Trump campaign was taken aback by the positive reception he received after winning the election. Unlike in 2016, the Inauguration events were all packed. When taking the oath, Trump made sure that moguls like Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg were standing in view.
- Trump took back the boxes that were seized from his home by the Justice Department in 2022. He says they'll eventually be added to his presidential library.
- Lots of details on Trump's extensive security detail following the assassination attempts, Elon Musk's labyrinthian ad campaign, and plenty of (boring) courtroom drama.
-Trump consulted Kellyanne Conway at one point. She gave solid advice but, unlike Corey Lewandowski, she refused to badmouth the campaign.
- Walz told Harris during his interview that he was a bad debater. After the VP debate, his wife told him he could have done better.
- Walz's drink of choice is Diet Mountain Dew.

Conflicting Information

- Chuck Schumer and Chris Coons are credited with pressuring Biden to withdraw from the race, not Nancy Pelosi (although the authors concede that she and Biden are no longer friends). No mention is made of Biden's falling out with Obama.
- Harris' team cancelled the Joe Rogan interview, not the other way around.
- Trump banned Laura Loomer from his plane after his team showed him some of her craziest takes. (Other writers have claimed it was because he found out she had plastic surgery.)
- Contrary to every other report, Hunter is alleged to have encouraged Biden to drop out because he "wanted his father back."
- Trump reportedly said he had "no respect" for Harris. Another book claimed Trump had gained respect for Harris after Rosalynn Carter's funeral, since Harris was one of the only people there who didn't snub Melania.

Final Thoughts

- This book, like all the others, is unwilling to touch certain pieties that millions of Americans could see clearly, but no journalist has the cojones to put in print. One is the possibility that rather than just being unlucky, Kamala Harris was not a good presidential candidate, nor was she a good choice for vice president. Another is the that rather than being stubborn and narcissistic, Biden was the victim of egregious elder abuse on behalf of his family and advisors (if the man lacks the faculties to sit through an interview, then how can be expected to decide on something as momentous as whether or not to run for president?) Yet every flub of Harris' is either brushed over or pinned on someone else, and Biden's inner circle gets off scot-free. And you can sure as hell bet there's no reflection on the role the media played in perpetuating any of this.
- While Trump's most ardent supporters probably still won't like it, 2024 continues the trend of treating Trump more like an ordinary Republican candidate and less like a conduit for Satan. That said, Trump himself had also changed considerably since he first ran for office in 2016. Go back and look at some of the coverage if you don't believe me.
- One thing all these books share, bar none, is a fascination with Susie Wiles.
- There is something Homeric about Trump and Biden's trajectories as two aging former presidents battling for their lives. Trump pulled off the greatest political comeback in American history, surviving the initial loss of the White House, being abandoned by his party and left for dead by conservative media, dozens of lawsuits and indictments, and two assassination attempts. Biden, after a lifetime of tragedy, was ultimately betrayed by his own body and forced to accept defeat. The full story is much more nuanced and complicated, but the poetry is hard to miss.
- 2024 wasn't bad, but it was forgettable compared to the other slew of election books released this year. I'm not sure why a book needs three authors, but it didn't ultimately lead to any great new insights or arguments.

[Steve Peifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve read so many accounts of the 2024 elections. The question is this: If Trump was a threat to democracy, why in the world would you allow Biden to run for a second term?

This book gives the best explanation. After the debate, Biden still believed he could win. Whether it was his mental acuity or narcissism, the fact that his staff allowed it to go as far as it did is absolutely terrifying.

It’s a well written book. It’s the most depressing book of the year.

[Dave Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Besides being a political junkie, I love books that share the tick-tock behind stories. This could be one of my favorite books of the year, and I hated it when it ended.

2024 shows how the race between Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Donald Trump slipped off course long before voters cast their ballots. The authors reveal a campaign shaped by small choices, old grudges, and constant denial. They show how Biden’s team sank into a bunker mind-set, weighed down by the belief that Washington never took them seriously. No one close to him pressed the hard question of whether he should run again. His age, his slips in speeches, fading donor support, and Hunter’s legal troubles all pointed to clear danger, but his staff stayed silent.

Trump’s campaign had its own chaos, but it also had drive. After his first indictment, his team tightened its strategy and made sharp calls. They understood the stakes and acted like they wanted to win. The book also shares odd and darkly funny details from inside both operations, like Trump dropping Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from VP talks for being “too crazy,” or staff designing memos to soften Trump’s ego about past losses.

The turning point came with Biden’s weak debate performance. Party leaders pushed him to step aside. Chuck Schumer told him most Senate Democrats wanted a new nominee. Biden seemed stunned but soon faced the truth: he had no path forward. Polls showed him behind in every key state. He couldn’t deliver the messages voters needed to hear. Even his campaign leaders admitted the problem was the messenger, not the message.

The assassination attempt on Trump made the race even harder for Democrats. Trump gained sympathy and momentum. Some of Biden’s aides hoped the event might give him a chance to speak as a unifying leader, but the public had already lost trust. Biden caught Covid, went home, and finally decided to step out. When he called Harris to tell her, she urged him not to let anyone push him out. He said he was sure. He backed her right away to avoid a messy fight.

2024 ends with Harris jumping into the race with more spark, but she still carries the weight of the collapse that came before her. The book makes a clear point: the election was not a straight line. It was shaped by hesitation, pride, fear, and slow reactions. It shows how a campaign can lose its way when leaders avoid hard truths, and how that silence can change the course of the country.

Key Takeaways
• Biden’s team avoided hard conversations and slipped into denial, which blocked real decision-making.
• Trump’s campaign acted with stronger focus and drive, especially after his first indictment.
• Biden’s age, speech slips, donor drop-off, and Hunter’s legal issues created constant drag on his campaign.
• The weak debate and grim internal polling proved Biden had no workable path to victory.
• Harris entered the race with energy, but she inherited deep problems caused by months of slow action and missed warnings.

[Lonnie Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

A meticulously reported, and well-written account of the 2024 election. It is less interested in salacious gossip and dropping heretofore unreported bombs than most of the other retrospectives of the election cycle.

There is an obvious attempt to take the classic journalistic approach of objectivity calling of balls and strikes. Dawsey et al. are largely successful in this even if it is a tad frustrating at times. They at least have the integrity to call lies, lies. An admittedly low bar to clear, but it is cleared.

At one point in the epilogue the authors state the down ballot successes of ‘24 for Democrats were candidates who ran to the right. I haven’t dived deep into each race, but that seems to be perhaps a step beyond the data. Perhaps the sources in the notes provide more details. In the same portion epilogue they do (correctly) point out that as long as Trump sets the rules of the game, the Dems be starting all fights from a losing position.

One of the strengths of the book is its demonstration of just how much the Biden camp mirrored Trump’s. Biden positions himself as the decent man in contrast to the crass conman of Trump, but throughout the book his actions show him to be an equally petty, vindictive, and paranoid old crank.

It is difficult to relive the election. To see the train crash slowly over 400 pages. If you want to relive it all in one spot, this is as good as you can probably get in the written-for-a-general-audience political retrospective world.

[Zoe Zeid · Rating 4 out of 5]

Listened to this as an audiobook and what I walked away thinking is really how much the Democrats royally screwed up in this process. Why were they letting Biden run if Trump was such a real threat? It was clear that he was too old and facing health concerns. How did so many people let this happen? Also, since I run in more left-leaning circles, I definitely thought the race was closer than it was before Election Day. This book really shows how Trump really had it in the bag, especially since Kamala's campaign didn't start until 3 months before Election Day. Although I haven't read/listened to other accounts on the 2024 election, this one seemed to be well researched and did a good job telling the story.

[Alex Hooper · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you like political play by plays, this is the one for you. Focusing almost exclusively on the Trump, Biden and Harris campaigns, the authors pack an impressive amount of detail into the storyline. I was impressed by the level of research and concentration this book kept, mostly sticking to the timeline and not trying to be too broadly focused or analytical.

[Shelley]

This is a well written and reliably documented accounting of the 2024 presidential election. The behind the scenes reporting goes a long way to explaining so much that seemed to make little sense at the time as news headlines failed to write about the events that were actually shaping history and chose instead to cover what led to increased readership and revenue. It is sobering to realize how much that is significant fails to be the focus of what now passes as mainstream news but is little more than partisan rhetoric meant to further divide and manipulate the public.

[Hugo Collingridge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very depressing but necessary. The list of mistakes that the Democrats made is a long one. But mostly they just seemed to me as an outsider to just assume that voters would agree with them about Trump. Also I remember thinking at the time that the celebrity rallies were a mistake. Rallies with enthusiastic crowds do not necessarily equate to lots of voters across the country. I hope they have learned their lesson for next time and I hope the left and centre left in this country have too, when it comes to beating Farage. And, on an unrelated note, telling potential Reform voters that they're racists isn't going to work if we're going to win any of them back.

[Jackson Richling · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thorough account of the 2024 election and how each campaign was two inches away from falling apart.

[Sue Larson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a solid account of the presidential campaigns of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Donald Trump. It was fascinating and eye-opening to learn more about the inner workings of each campaign. No matter your political persuasion, I think that you’ll enjoy reading this interesting book.

[Michiel Vandenberghe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a very thorough political analysis of the election outcome, but some interesting and distressing behind the scenes of both the Trump and Biden/Harris campaign

[Christian Goeselt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very solid and entertaining recap of the 2024 election but there were no revelations or things I didn't already know.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Explicit exposition of the behind the scenes of the 2024 Presidential election cycle.

Why do I keep listening to this stuff? I'm addicted!

[David Allen Hines · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of several books to relate the 2024 presidential campaign, the problem with almost all of these books are they are written by frankly liberal mass media who generally oppose Trump and report very biasedly on him. For example, Arnsdorf, one of the authors of this tome, also wrote a book against Trump called "Finish What We Started: The Maga Movements Ground War to End Democracy" hardly an unbiased book. Pager and Dawsey both wrote for the liberal Washington Post.

Yet this book does better than most I have read so far on the 2024 election. It is well written and the authors clearly obtained some inside access to all 3 campaigns. What comes across in this book is Trump was determined and had a serious plan to win again, as compared to his rather disorganized 2020 reelection effort. And as related in many other accounts, the political weaponization of the federal justice departments and state level attorneys in New York and Georgia much motivated him to that end, totally backfiring on the liberal Democrats who instigated them. Jack Smith, the federal prosecutor who urged the FBI to raid Trump's personal residence, ended in humiliation after similar records were found in Joe Biden's garage. The Georgia prosecutor was found to be the beneficiary of trips, loans and presents from her lover, her staffer who was earning huge amounts of overtime investigating Trump at her direction. The New York cases ended up with Trump being sentenced to nothing after the public reelected him.

What this book does reveal more than some others also is the deep impact the assassination attempt in Butler, PA had on Trump and his staff. While appearing bravado, Trump and his people were clearly shaken, and the way he interacted with the public was forever changed. The motivations of the mysterious assassin, killed at the scene, remains unexplained to this day.

The tragedy of Joe Biden is revealed: how his staff and family covered up his failing physical and mental health to the point you have to ask who was really running the country, and most disastrously revealed when he failed miserably debating Trump and a federal special prosecutor refused to charge him with stealing secret files calling him a "well meaning elderly man with memory problems."

But what is shocking is how the Democratic party leadership turned on this man so quickly and harshly after his literally decades of service. It portrays the Democratic party leadership very badly and there is just no way even these liberal writers can spin it and they don't try to. The bitterness of Joe Biden comes through time and time again, but Biden also badly hurt himself and his reputation trying to defend his drug-addicted criminally convicted son Hunter who also seduced and drug addicted his dead brother's wife. It remains indefensible that Biden and his wife to this day refuse to have any relationship with Hunter's young daughter by one of his girlfriends, which DNA tests proved is their granddaughter. What comes across in this book is that Biden time and again put family ahead of his duties as president.

Obvious to everyone from the onset was the ludicrousness of the Democrat leadership and elite in hand-selecting Kamala Harris to replace Biden when she had not won a single primary election and likely would not have. They seemed totally tone deaf to the insanity of hand-selecting their chosen candidate without any input from the rank and file Democrat voters or even an open convention while at the same time attacking Donald Trump for being "undemocratic." Not to mention that every poll showed Kamala even more unpopular than Biden. Kamala also found it impossible to disagree with Biden even when she disagreed with his stances or the public had clearly rejected his policies such as on inflation and Democrats aligned with Palestine not Israel when war broke out yet Biden backed Israel. Kamala lacked a message and hid from the media and general public when she desperately needed outreach and a message far more than just she was not Donald Trump nor Joe Biden. Somehow she spent literally a billion dollars and went into campaign debt yet massively lost both the popular and electoral vote to Donald Trump.

The election outcome is the one point this book falters badly. The writers simply cannot put on paper the reality that Trump won every swing state and easily won both the popular and electoral vote. More importantly, Kamala underperformed Joe Biden's 2020 vote totals in literally every county in America. For dollars spent for votes earned she may have had the worst record of any candidate in history. And Trump also gained ground among Hispanics and even African Americans. The rejection was decisive and absolute but you won't read that in this book.

The end of this book is perhaps the most surprising: Trump's meeting with Biden shortly after the election on the transition. After appearing so ill and feeble, Biden apparently discussed important foreign affairs matters at length, in detail, without notes or aides to assist, leaving Trump stunned that this was the same man who had failed so miserably in the debate. We now know Biden was suffering from prostrate cancer that had spread to his bones that was amazingly "discovered" just weeks after he left office having denied he was ill. But had Biden stayed on the ticket and done a Ronald Reagan 1984 style campaign with a lot of rest and carefully managed appearances, could he have actually done better than Kamala? It's hard to imagine he would have done worse.

An interesting, well-written book, but the definitive account of the 2024 campaign must still await a writer who is not biasedly liberal or biasedly MAGA.

[Duncan · Rating 4 out of 5]

If 2024 were a book, it would be a sprawling, genre-blending novel—part political thriller, part technological manifesto, part climate diary, and part Olympic drama. It would not sit neatly on one shelf. It would demand several.

A Year Framed by Democracy

One of the dominant “chapters” of 2024 centered on elections. In the United States, the rematch between Donald Trump and Joe Biden gave the year the pacing of a tense courtroom drama. The campaign cycle felt less like a seasonal ritual and more like an extended referendum on democratic norms, institutions, and political fatigue.

Beyond the U.S., voters across the globe—from India to Mexico—participated in elections that collectively made 2024 one of the most politically consequential years in recent memory. As a “book,” this section reads dense and argumentative, filled with speeches, rallies, court rulings, and the ever-present hum of social media commentary.

Technology as Protagonist

If democracy was one main character, artificial intelligence was another. The rapid evolution of AI tools—led in part by companies like OpenAI—gave 2024 a speculative-fiction undertone. What had once seemed experimental felt embedded in everyday life: classrooms, offices, art studios, and coding environments.

This chapter would be written in sharp, fast-moving prose. It would ask unsettling questions about authorship, employment, creativity, and truth. It would include moments of awe—machines composing music, generating images, assisting research—alongside moments of anxiety about regulation, misinformation, and labor displacement. The tone would oscillate between utopian and cautionary.

War and Uneasy Continuity

Not all sections of the book would be forward-looking. The ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine continued to cast a long shadow, lending the narrative a somber, unresolved quality. Similarly, tensions in the Middle East added urgency and grief to the global storyline.

These passages would be written with restraint—less spectacle, more human consequence. They would remind readers that history does not pause for innovation or elections. The “plot” here resists tidy resolution.

Climate: The Relentless Subplot

Climate events threaded through the year like a recurring motif. Heat records, extreme weather, and environmental debates made 2024 feel like a sequel to warnings long ignored. This chapter would be atmospheric in the literal sense—dense with heatwaves, storms, and wildfire smoke.

Unlike the dramatic spikes of election night or tech announcements, climate change reads as slow-burning tension. It builds quietly but persistently, shaping every other storyline in subtle ways.

A Moment of Global Stagecraft

Then came the spectacle: the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. For a few weeks, the narrative shifted tone. The prose brightened. The pacing quickened. Nations gathered not for debate or conflict, but for competition and ceremony.

In literary terms, this was the festival scene—the temporary truce in a complicated epic. It did not erase the year’s tensions, but it reframed them, reminding readers of shared humanity and global interconnection.

Style and Structure

As a book, 2024 would not be elegant. It would be fragmented—structured like a collection of interlinked essays rather than a single, clean arc. Its “voice” would alternate between alarm and adaptation. It would rely heavily on digital marginalia: tweets, livestreams, AI prompts, and viral clips functioning as footnotes to major events.

Critically, it would not offer a satisfying conclusion. Instead, it would end mid-sentence, handing its unresolved tensions to 2025.

[Michael Reilly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a close-up nuts and bolts narrative of the political machinations in the 2024 Presidential election. The authors have talked to all of the campaign managers, PR people, pollsters, elected politicians, candidates and their family.

Thye give us an almost day by day story of the advertising plans, the rallies, the public statements and the constant spin. They give a good picture of the ping-pong cycle of each candidate constantly trying to respond to the other.

It is the political equivalent of the sports page recap story the day after the big game. They give us the strategy, the big plays and the final score. That is a good model for a story about a ball game. That is all that is important because it is just a game. Elections are different.

The book is very good at what it sets out to do. They clearly had access to great sources, and they understand the nuances of national political campaigns.

That having been said, there is a lot missing. For example, court trials loomed over the campaign. Hunter Biden was criminally convicted. Trump had criminal charges pending in New York, Georgia and D.C. The authors discuss the political spin both sides put on these trials, but they never really explain what the evidence was or express an opinion on where the truth lies for the issues in the trial.

The American people are off stage in this book. Ads aimed at them are being designed. Debate strategies to woo them are being practiced. Heated arguments about what they want are going on. But this book gives no sense of who actually supported each candidate or why. We don't hear from anyone who actually changed their mind because of the huge effort that went into the election.

I know that, at one level, it is unfair to criticize authors for not writing the book I wanted them to write. This is a very deeply reported and interesting telling of the political campaign in 2024. I hope some equally talented author gives us a broader perspective on the story.

Two interesting thing I learned.

According to the authors, it was US Senator Chuck Schuman who convinced Biden, in a one-on-one blunt conversation, that he should not run for a second term. Biden told Schumer, "You've got bigger balls than anyone I ever meet."

Trump hated having Secret Service with him when he golfed because it made it harder for him to cheat. "I hit a ball down the fairway; it's in a little rough. I go like this (kicks his leg) nobody would know the difference and there's a guy standing behind the tree. I can't because he is standing there."

[kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

i wish this dived into political analysis a bit more. it’s a very thorough account of the campaigns for donald trump, joe biden, and kamala harris leading to the 2024 election.

the authors don’t really dive into any grand analysis of the campaigns which makes this read feel quite lacking. they sprinkle in some points but don’t try to connect them into any larger conclusion. also there was no breakdown on how voters swung in 2024 election— why did kamala lose? did less democrats show out or did they vote trump, third party? it doesn’t actually go into voter demographics so i don’t have the full picture for a takeaway.

there was some interesting stuff about the primaries. sad to know there were some better democrats looking to run for president who would’ve had a better chance to beat trump, but biden wanted to run again so they stood to the side (the authors try to point out he didn’t specifically say he would be a one term president, so he didn’t lie. but it was still heavily implied). interesting perspectives from those who worked on the campaigns as well.

the book lightly covers trump’s fall from grace and reemergence within the GOP. i expected some more depth here as well, to be honest. i think a lot of the book lacked a deeper connection or depth that made the whole thing feel so surface level. i think more focus on the assassination attempt(s) too and how that absolutely impacted the election. i would’ve loved to see more details on how the public was reacting and how it was impacting polls.

it’s so crazy and infuriating that democrats fucked another one and proved they somehow still don’t know how to deal with donald trump, spawning this beautiful quote “even more people were frustrated it took until october, less than a month before election day, to fully settle on an attack against the opponent democrats had been running against since 2015”.

but yes would’ve loved a good analysis attached. it’s an incredibly dry read, straight facts and a lot of name dropping— but i don’t particularly know who all these people are and i’m getting them mixed up in my head… was also pretty boring at parts and i don’t feel that /all/ the information mentioned was particularly necessary to include. lots of information but not analysis, which this could benefit from.

[Nate Hooper · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Kamala Is for They/Them. President Trump Is for You.”

A great in depth play by play of each campaign, I found the strategies of all 3 campaigns, which varied wildly, most fascinating. This book is so readable and fast paced in the best way. What also struck me is how much showmanship, money, careful politicking, and agendas are crafted to target and win over a slight majority of swing voters in swing states, about 300,000 people- 0.09% of the population.

Hindsight is 20/20 but it really is miraculous that Trump despite all the odds won considering where he started in 2021.

Did Harris lose because she's a woman, or because she was a person of color? Maybe. But based off this book I would attribute it to other numerous factors- being the VP of a President with an intensely low approval rating, rising inflation, no democratic primary, only a few months to build a campaign, or maybe most poignant and damning of all, when asked if she would change anything from Biden's first term she said "Nothing comes to mind."

What's fascinating is how Trump dominated by finding natural ways to engage with voters in non political settings- podcasts, sports, etc. He would go anywhere and talk to anyone about almost any topic. (as long as he wasn't fact checked in real time). The more voters saw of Trump, they more they liked him which is exactly what Harris's campaign bet against.

Obama told Harris her campaign provided many reasons to not vote for Trump, but almost none to vote for her. A textbook example of playing to win vs playing not to lose.

"The Democratic congressional candidates who ran stronger than Harris in battlegrounds did so by distancing themselves from the rest of their party and more closely resembling Republicans."

Trump to Biden: "In another life,” he told the president, “we would be friends and go golfing.”

"Every prisoner should have access to gender-affirming care, as well as every illegal immigrant." -Kamala Harris

[Ed Bernard · Rating 5 out of 5]

What compelled me to listen to this book, I don’t know, because few things have pissed me off more than the 2024 election, but I took the plunge anyway. There’s not a lot here I didn’t already know, but having it presented as a full narrative provides a kind of clarity. I will never in my life understand how Donald Trump got re-elected, after stating some of the many things he said he would do (and has since done), such as pardoning the January 6 rioters — whatever you think about his politics, you cannot look at that as anything less than an undermining of everything the country is based on. The election was not stolen, I doubt even he actually believes it was, but there he is exploiting it for his own personal gain. One thing he DID know, re-election was his best chance to stay out of prison, which the book makes clear he understood. Then there are the Democrats, who continued to support a guy who, after an effective first two years in office, was clearly not up to the job and certainly wouldn’t have been four years later. Then, when Biden finally was convinced not to run (at least the Democrats didn’t continue to support him for cynical reasons like the GOP), he never gave Harris a shot to win, telling her not to distance herself from his administration. At the time and since, I’ve felt that his best move, if he actually cared about the country more than himself, would’ve been to resign, let Harris run as the sitting President, which would let her created her own platform to work from. But Biden’s aides were never truly honest with him. Meanwhile, Susie Wiles masterminded Trump’s campaign brilliantly and delivered the most dangerous leader in American history. The book, meticulously researched and masterfully told, brings all this to light fully and is just about a perfect example of a campaign retrospective. What the campaign says about the state of the United States is, sad to say, just as revealing.

Grade: A