US Presidential Debate 2020

US Presidential Debate with representatives from Republicans Overseas and Democrats Abroad and moderator, veteran pollster, Sir Robert Worcester   

In association with the Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library

 

 

Please note this is a past event. View upcoming events and all past virtual talks here. 

Just weeks away, the contentious 2020 US presidential election between incumbent Donald Trump and challenger Joe Biden is set against deeply divided ideological lines and a global pandemic.  Veteran pollster, Sir Robert Worcester, will ask Greg Swenson, representing Republicans Overseas and Bill Barnard, representing Democrats Abroad why each believes their candidate is best placed to lead the United States over the next four years.

Sir Robert Worcester is the founder of opinion research firm, MORI. He spearheaded the 800th Anniversary Commemoration of the Magna Carta and is a governor of the Ditchley Foundation. He is Chairman of the Emeritus Governors and Honorary Fellow, LSE; Visiting Professor and Fellow, King’s College London; Honorary Professor, Warwick and Kent (former Chancellor); Adjunct Professor, University of Kansas; Deputy Chairman, Magna Carta Trust; Vice President, former Chairman, Pilgrim Society; Vice President, International Social Science Council/UNESCO, United Nations Association, European Atlantic Group; Governor, English-Speaking Union; past Member, Fulbright.

Greg Swenson is a member of Republicans Overseas and a founding partner of Brigg Macadam Ltd, an emerging market investment banking firm in London. He has over twenty years of banking, alternative investments, and global markets experience.  He spent his first eleven years in the industry at Lehman Brothers, holding several positions in the fixed income area from 1992 to 2003. Greg holds an undergraduate degree from Boston College and MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management of Northwestern University and is a frequent business and political commentator on BBC, CNBC, CNN, Fox News and other media platforms.

Bill Barnard is university professor and author of Dixiecrats and Democrats. Former Chair of Democrats Abroad UK, and former international Treasurer of Democrats Abroad, the official arm of the Democratic Party of the United States. He attended five Democratic conventions (two as a member of his state delegation and three as a political analyst and commentator for state-wide public television) and two Republican conventions as an analyst and commentator.  Bill says he was a Democrat by inheritance, passing out flyers for Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and “a Democrat by persuasion by 1960,” campaigning for John F. Kennedy in the deep south at the age of 18.