Kate Linthicum
Kate Linthicum reports on politics for the Los Angeles Times with a consistent focus on how power struggles in Latin America collide with people’s daily lives. She covers national leaders, regional alliances and U.S. foreign policy, but anchors those stories in what political decisions mean on the ground. Her work often traces the path from a high‑level statement or sanction to the streets, homes and borders where the consequences show up.
Latin American power struggles and U.S. policy
Linthicum spends much of her time on the shifting balance of power between Latin American governments and the United States. In coverage such as her story on Cuba warning that the U.S. risked “bloodshed” if it abandoned dialogue for war, she treats official rhetoric as a starting point, then unpacks the history, alliances and strategic calculations behind it. She is especially attuned to how Cuban, Venezuelan, Mexican and other regional actors read Washington’s intentions — and how that shapes their own moves.
Her political stories rarely stop at a single capital. She follows how decisions in one country reverberate across the region, whether through economic pressure, security cooperation or diplomatic isolation. She explains complex arrangements and rivalries in plain language, laying out who gains, who loses and how the balance could shift next.
Elections and the everyday impact of politics
Another through‑line in Linthicum’s work is close coverage of elections and democratic backsliding in Latin America. She reports on campaigns, ballot disputes and constitutional changes, but her distinctive angle is how ordinary voters understand these moments. Her election pieces often move between polling stations, campaign rallies and private homes, letting readers see how political promises intersect with inflation, crime, corruption and inequality.
She gives space to voices that are often flattened in national narratives — small business owners, public‑sector workers, young activists, rural communities — and uses their stories to test what political slogans actually mean. That approach lets her show not only who wins and loses on election night, but what those outcomes feel like in workplaces, schools and neighborhoods.
Migration, borders and human stories
Linthicum’s political coverage frequently follows the routes of migrants moving within and beyond Latin America. She has reported on caravans, border crackdowns and changing asylum rules as political stories, but she tells them through families in transit, people waiting in shelters and communities transformed by departures and returns. Policy in her pieces is never abstract; it is measured in nights spent in camps, wages lost, and choices forced by violence or economic collapse.
Her border reporting pays equal attention to the states that make the rules and the networks — smugglers, local officials, humanitarian workers — that operate around those rules. She shows how political decisions in distant capitals reshape the map of safe and unsafe routes, and how quickly people on the move adapt. The result is coverage that connects immigration debates to the lived realities that are often missing from official statistics.
From local beats to regional conflict zones
Before focusing on regional politics, Linthicum reported on crime, public safety and local government, experience that now informs her coverage of institutions and impunity. She is skilled at reading police reports, court documents and bureaucratic records, and at asking how systems that look orderly on paper function in practice. That background helps her dissect official narratives around security, corruption and reform in Latin American countries.
In conflict‑tinged stories — protests that turn deadly, crackdowns on dissent, confrontations between security forces and armed groups — she combines that institutional knowledge with field reporting. She looks for the chain between a cabinet‑level order and the actions of a soldier, police officer or local official, and for what that chain reveals about who truly holds power. Across her work, the constant is a clear, unvarnished style that favors direct observation and well‑chosen voices over sweeping generalization.
4 more politics journalists.
Adam Daly
Adam Daly covers politics for amNewYork with a focus on the inner workings of city and state government and the low-profile forums where power is exercised and negotiated. He reports on commissions and panels that shape how New York is governed, treating charter reform and government efficiency as central political terrain. His coverage of moves to replace an Adams-era charter commission with a new government efficiency panel foregrounds mandate, authority, and what “efficiency” means in practice for agencies and services. He tracks who gains and loses influence when one commission supplants another and which constituencies are being answered to. Daly explains dense procedural questions in clear, reader-facing terms, using specific institutional details and occasional wordplay to connect jargon-heavy reforms to public spending, service delivery, and mayoral power.
Alex Swoyer
Alex Swoyer covers national politics through the lens of the law, treating court cases and filings as core political documents rather than a separate legal niche. She reports for the Washington Times on the Supreme Court, federal courts and the justice system’s intersection with campaigns, Congress and the presidency. Her coverage follows political disputes as they move into courtrooms, focusing on cases that affect elections, executive power, immigration, religious liberty and gun rights. She explains opinions, dissents and procedural moves in plain language, grounding stories in briefs, oral arguments, orders and government records, then pairing them with reaction from officials, strategists and advocacy groups. She also reports on election rules, January 6 prosecutions, politically sensitive investigations, Republican Party dynamics and campaign‑trail narratives, using straight news, explainers and roundups to show how law, institutions and political ambition meet.
Alexander Mallin
Alexander Mallin stands out for turning dense Justice Department and federal court actions into clear, step-by-step reporting for ABC News. He covers politics through law enforcement and the courts, with a core beat on special counsel investigations, federal prosecutions, and clashes between the executive branch, Congress, and federal prosecutors. His reporting tracks interview transcripts, subpoena fights, indictments, plea deals, trial outcomes, and other court filings, especially in cases tied to President Joe Biden, the January 6 attack on the Capitol, and other high-profile political conflicts. He also covers transparency fights over investigative records and explains the statutes, rules, and institutional mechanics behind grand juries, redactions, and special counsel appointments. His stories are document-heavy, restrained, and focused on what prosecutors, defense lawyers, and judges are doing on the record.
Allie Kelly
Allie Kelly is a politics reporter at Business Insider who treats US politics as a story about personalities, performance, and the internet. She covers the intersection of political figures, online culture, and how power is exercised in public. Her work follows elected officials and rising players across parties, focusing on how they brand themselves, test messages, and respond to scrutiny. She often writes about memes, viral moments, and tools like meme coins as real campaign tactics and communication strategies. Her reporting explains how digital culture shapes electoral politics, party tensions, and governance. She favors short, accessible pieces built around vivid examples, like a lawmaker launching a DOGE-style coin, to explain broader trends. She uses clear, plain language, grounding each story in who holds power, what they are doing, and why their online choices matter.