How Do Foreign Correspondents in the United States Cover the Upcoming Midterm Elections?

A closely watched midterm election cycle ends on Tuesday, November 8. On that day, millions of Americans will head to the polls to determine whether the Democratic Party will retain congressional control or if Republicans will take power instead. At this moment, polls give Republicans the edge.

Thomas Watkins

Both parties have fallen victim to disinformation efforts that have only underscored how fraught American political polarization continues to be nearly two years after a mob of former President Donald Trump’s supporters attacked the United States Capitol on the false premise the 2020 general election was stolen.

Foreign correspondents have their work cut out for them in this environment, often working with fewer resources and connections than their American-born counterparts. Nonetheless, they work hard to give readers in the United States and around the world the information they need to navigate this politically tense time.

Journalist Vanessa Jaklitsch—a successful foreign correspondent in her own right who is a board member of the Club of the Association of Foreign Press Correspondents in the United States (AFPC-USA)—spoke with two other correspondents to learn more about how they are covering this midterm election. They are Thomas Watkins, the Bureau Chief for The National who works with a team of 12 talented journalists in Washington and elsewhere in the U.S., and Pablo Pardo, the U.S. Bureau Chief for El Mundo who has been in Washington, D.C. since 2002.

Pablo Pardo

Prior to joining the The National in 2021, Watkins spent nearly 20 years as a beat reporter and bureau chief, primarily with the news agencies AP and AFP. Currently, he is also a board member of AFPC-USA. 

Pardo covers the U.S. and leads a team of two correspondents in Atlanta and Los Angeles. All of his professional career has been in the field of International Politics and Economics, first in Spain (where he worked for Expansión, the largest Spanish financial newspaper) and then in the U.S. He has a M.A. in International Relations from SAIS-Johns Hopkins and a Ph.D. in Communications from the University of Navarra (Spain). 

The following interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Tell us more about your media and your role in it.

WATKINS: My role is to oversee day-to-day coverage from the U.S. and the Western Hemisphere. Our audience is largely based in the Middle East, so my focus is primarily on foreign policy stories that impact that region, particularly when it comes to diplomacy, defense and national security. We also cover the big domestic stories of course, particularly when it comes to political news, elections and “Weird America.” My role is to assign and coordinate coverage in all formats, as well as to edit and write text articles and to make sure the bureau’s team is efficiently assigned so we can optimally cover a vast region with a relatively small staff.

PARDO: El Mundo is Spain's second-largest daily newspaper by sales and online visits, and we are expanding our international coverage. I coordinate and cover the U.S., and my areas of expertise are economics, finance, and politics. 

How would you describe a normal day in your life?

WATKINS: My work includes assigning and editing stories from a network of freelancers as well as staff journalists. I have to coordinate with colleagues in bureaus in London, Abu Dhabi and beyond and need to make sure we are always looking for angles that speak to our audience. There’s not really a “normal” day for me as so much of my time is decided by the top stories of the day. We recently have returned to working in our office three days a week after the pandemic and I am also responsible for the day-to-day admin of our newsroom, which is located just across from the U.S. Capitol.

PARDO: Usually, I send emails and WhatsApps late at night, so in Madrid they know what we can expect the following day and what happened in the U.S. during the evening. We start talking around 8 a.m. to coordinate the day. The print edition closes at 3 p.m. and the rest of the day goes either into preparing longform pieces or covering the news (if there anything relevant) for El Mundo's website.  

What is your specific role in this midterm election? How do you prepare for it?

WATKINS: As mentioned above, my role in these upcoming elections includes assigning stories and working with the team to make sure we are really covering as much of America as possible. In Washington, it is easy to develop an “inside-the-Beltway” mentality that refers to journalists and political folk becoming cloistered here and disconnecting from the rest of the country. We are trying to showcase rural America, swing states, and Arab-American politicians. Like anything, we prepare for it by planning.

PARDO: I identify the topics, discuss them with the newsroom in Madrid, and produce them (with the help of the other two persons that work for El Mundo). My biggest preparation is my experience since this year we are doing very little coverage of the election. I am relying on press conferences by both the Biden administration (particularly the State Department) and think tanks, and also on contacts that I have developed in other parts of the U.S., so I can call them and know how their candidates are going. 

Have you covered midterms before? In that case, according to your own experience, how would you compare previous midterm cycles with this one?

WATKINS: This will be my first time covering midterms as an editor in America. The last time I was here for the midterms I was a beat reporter at the Pentagon in 2018. At that time, the Democrats won control of the House of Representatives and we started to see the Trump administration face some scrutiny after two years of Republican-only rule. The same thing is likely to happen this time, but the other way round. The Republicans will retake the House and start calling President Joe Biden to account over some of his perceived failings, including the disastrous end to the war in Afghanistan.

PARDO: I have been covering them since 2006, and the interest is the lowest I have seen, mainly because of Ukraine. I am not planning any trip to cover the races, and I am relying mainly on interviews and coverage from D.C. In 2006 I had the chance to interview Karl Rove during the midterm campaign but this time I am afraid everything will be much more settled. 

Why are these elections— as experts say—more important than ever before?

WATKINS: It is easy to overstate the importance of midterms, as they almost always swing in favour of the party not in power. This time does feel a bit different though, as so many Republican candidates in key races such as governor and secretary of state are openly perpetuating Donald Trump’s lies that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen.” This is troubling, as we will likely see a further degradation of American democracy.

PARDO: The U.S. has entered a time of protracted civil strife marked by political, racial, and religious violence. In that context, every election is important, particularly one when the control of the legislative is at stake. The U.S. is becoming trivialized, and political entrepreneurs are taking advantage of that. For the first time since I came to the States, and possibly for the first time since 1860, one of the two political parties that count is openly embracing an anti-democratic, authoritarian policy that, if successful, would mean the end of democracy in America. The 2022 elections will not be the decisive moment—that will be 2024—but, still, will be a decisive moment to know if that will happen.  

What is the most challenging as well as the most interesting part of being a foreign correspondent covering the midterms?

WATKINS: The hardest part is learning which races to pay attention to. With 435 Congressional districts, a lot of races are super local and of no interest to an international reader. It is important to pay attention to broader issues and trends and not get lost in the minutiae. The most interesting part of the midterms is watching to see the issues that actually matter to America. As the world’s primary superpower, what happens in elections here has massive repercussions overseas. But most Americans aren’t following foreign policy debates or even care about what happens abroad. The media landscape here has grown deeply divisive, with news networks pushing to make every issue a polarizing crisis. These differences are exaggerated.

PARDO: I always say that being a journalist is being a witness of history. In the U.S., that is more relevant, since this is the world's only superpower, and what happens here determines the future of the whole world. Journalism is "the first draft of history" as Philip Graham said, and this is the point of being a journo. That being said, of all the midterms I have covered since 2006 this is by far the most ignored one in Spain, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. So, the most challenging part of my job in this election is to convince my readers that this really matters. It is a really funny situation, given what it is at stake (American democracy).