Can foreign policy tip the US presidential election?

Historically, domestic issues have played a greater role in US elections. But this year, foreign policy might be key.

It is usually said in United States elections that “bread and butter” issues are what drive people to vote and shape their choices, with concerns about economic factors like inflation and the cost of living regularly topping the lists of voters’ priorities.

Further-from-home issues like foreign policy, the wisdom goes, do not decide elections. As one adviser put it in the lead-up to Bill Clinton’s election in 1992, “It’s the economy, stupid”. At the time, then-President George HW Bush had just ousted Iraqi forces from Kuwait, a foreign policy “win” that did not secure Bush victory at the polls. The notion has since become a staple of election cycles — but historians and analysts warn it is only partially true.

Foreign policy does matter in US presidential elections, they warn, especially those tight enough to be decided by extremely narrow margins, as the current one promises to do.

With a protracted war in Ukraine and a widening one in the Middle East, both of which the US has spent heavily on and is growing more embroiled in, as well as foreign policy-related concerns like immigration and climate change that are at the top of many voters’ priorities, it’s clear that the economy won’t be the lone factor determining how Americans vote next month.