Government reach: David Boaz

Cato Institute executive vice-president and author of The Libertarian Mind: A Manifesto for Freedom

David Boaz. Photograph: Cato Institute

In 2014, people were talking about a “libertarian moment” in US politics. An election in which the leading candidates have been a protectionist nationalist, an avowed socialist and a Democrat who can’t explain how she is not a socialist has put an end to such talk. Still, Gallup finds rising numbers of libertarian-leaning voters in the electorate, which should put some constraints on the next president’s agenda.

Eight years after the financial crisis, Barack Obama’s policies of more taxes, debt, and regulation have understandably kept GDP growth very slow. Neither Donald Trump’s promise of trade war and immigration cutoffs nor Hillary Clinton’s doubling down on Obama’s policies will help. Meanwhile, Washington hawks think that Obama, who has bombed seven countries, hasn’t been aggressive enough. They’re looking forward to a more assertive Clinton foreign policy. But Trump proved that you can get the Republican nomination by opposing the Iraq war and global interventionism, and that may lead to more resistance to endless war and more congressional constraints on presidential war powers.

Supreme court: John Malcolm

Director, Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation

John Malcolm. Photograph: David Hills

There is no question that the future of the supreme court is on the ballot. In recent years, the court has been closely divided on a number of contentious issues: the first and second amendments (Citizens United, Heller); religious liberty (Hobby Lobby); voting rights (Crawford); racial preferences (Fisher I); same-sex marriage (Obergefell); and the death penalty (Glossip), among others.

With the exception of Obergefell, the late justice Antonin Scalia cast a pivotal vote with the majority in each of these cases. The stakes are therefore quite high in terms of who will fill his seat. Beyond that, three other justices – Ginsburg, Kennedy and Breyer – have already surpassed the average life expectancy for men and women in this country. Additional vacancies are thus likely to occur over the next four to eight years.

And who sits in the Oval Office makes a big difference. Ronald Reagan looked for judges who would “protect the integrity of the constitution, not … add to it or subtract from it – certainly not … rewrite it”. Barack Obama views the “quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with people’s hopes and struggles as an essential ingredient for arriving at just decisions and outcomes”.

As the former attorney general Ed Meese stated: “No president exercises any power more far-reaching, more likely to influence his legacy, than the selection of federal judges.”

Economy and trade: Will Marshall

President and founder, Progressive Policy Institute

Will Marshall. Photograph: Will Marshall

Despite Donald Trump’s description of the American economy as a “disaster”, the evidence shows that it is finally starting to pick up steam and spread its rewards to working-class people. Median incomes have gone up and the poverty rate is falling. People are not wrong that there has been a long period of economic stagnation and increasing inequality, but we seem to be turning a corner. This is exactly the wrong time to adopt policies that are going to throw the economy into a tailspin.

Threatening to shut down trade negotiations or promising to renegotiate settled trade agreements, for example the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), makes no sense if the imperative is to build on the gathering momentum of the US economy. The case for the TPP has as much to do with America’s political influence and interest in Asia as it does with economics. Abandoning the TPP would be a huge gift to China. The other Asian countries will make accommodations to China, and America’s influence will plummet.

That is the situation Hillary Clinton will inherit if she wins. The question, then, is how to reconcile the need to tap into those growing Asian markets with her shift on trade during the campaign.

Middle East: Anthony Cordesman

Arleigh Burke chair in strategy, Center for Strategic and International Studies

Anthony Cordesman. Photograph: Center for Strategic & International​ Studies

The next administration will confront serious security challenges across the Middle East. Some are obvious and longstanding: the rise of Islamic State, the impact of the US invasion of Iraq, the fighting and instability in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen.

It is also true that by the time the next president takes office, the game will probably have a changed. If Isis is defeated in Iraq, which it may well be by the time the next administration is in place, that immediately means he or she will have to decide how to secure Iraq and how to proceed in Syria.

Isis has never been the only – or even the dominant – terrorist threat in the region. In 2015, estimates indicate that Isis accounted for about 20% of the terrorist incidents in the region. So when Isis is defeated as a proto-state, we will have to consider new threats. Do people migrate to other extremist movements? Do we see al-Qaida, which has made serious gains in Yemen and has a strong affiliate in Syria, grow? Does this expose new sectarian, ethnic or tribal tensions?

There is a need to restructure US-Arab cooperation, with a consideration toward creating lasting civil stability. The Arab spring showed how civil forces – poor governance, lagging economic development, high youth unemployment – exacerbated regional upheaval and violence. There will not be security in the Middle East without stability.

Vice-president for European Union and special initiatives, Atlantic Council

Francis Burwell. Photograph: Atlantic Council

This election will mark a shift from Europe being a partner in US foreign policy to it instead becoming itself a focus of foreign policy. This shift has been under way for some time but will be more marked in the coming years.

The No 1 challenge a President Trump or a President Clinton will face is Russia. Mr Trump thinks he can get a “deal” but there is reason to believe that will prove far more challenging that he anticipates, and in the process he could upend a lot of relationships with US allies.

For Secretary Clinton, given the series of hacks on the Democratic party and her campaign, she will probably take a very different position. The question then is: how much tougher will she get and how specifically she will engage with Russia? This will probably result in much more of an emphasis on countering disinformation and lead to much more intelligence gathering in collaboration with Europeans.

Another major challenge for the US will be to get Europe to focus on something other than its own internal affairs: Brexit, slow economic growth and domestic politics, which have taken a sharp turn to the right.

Next year, the Netherlands, France and Germany hold elections. If Mr Trump is elected, I believe there is more of a chance that rightwing parties will come to power. In a sense, his election gives permission to these movements to become more anti-American, creating a political dynamic in Europe that is more rightwing and more hostile to the US.

Brexit has put the US in a position of trying to remain friends with both parties in a messy divorce. The US will have to build new relationships with Europe and with the UK, and this will take effort.

Women’s healthcare: Heather Boonstra

Director of public policy, Guttmacher Institute

Heather Boonstra. Photograph: Guttmacher Institute

Abortion has been legal throughout the US for more than 40 years, but it remains one of the country’s hottest political flashpoints. Donald Trump certainly has stumbled on the issue, especially when he said in a TV interview that if abortion were made illegal, women seeking one should be criminally punished – a statement that he later tried to reframe as “pro-life with exceptions”.

The Republican platform, however, is quite clear: it affirms “that the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed” and it supports a human life amendment to the constitution. The Democratic platform supports a woman’s ability to obtain an abortion “regardless of where she lives, how much money she makes, or how she is insured”.

In addition to abortion, access to contraceptive services and reproductive healthcare generally is also at stake. The Republicans have called for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act and have also targeted the Title X national family planning program and Planned Parenthood health clinics. Hillary Clinton is a lifelong champion for the reproductive health and rights of women. We should recall that she coined a now famous phrase “women’s rights are human rights”.

Poverty: Caroline Ratcliffe

Senior fellow and economist, Center on Labor, Human Services and Population at the Urban Institute

Caroline Ratcliffe. Photograph: Urban Institute

Almost 14% of all Americans, and nearly 20% of American children, are poor. Child poverty can have lifelong consequences for health, education, earnings and more. Addressing the needs of poor young children and their parents is key.

Hillary Clinton’s proposal to double the investment in Early Head Start would expand the reach of educational and other supports for younger children and their families, such as home-visiting programs for new mothers. Increased investment in childcare subsidies would make work pay for mothers of young children and ease the financial burden. And expanding the child tax credit and making it refundable would help struggling families. Donald Trump has spoken about improving childcare subsidies, but the benefits would tend to flow to higher-income families.

Child poverty costs the US an estimated $500bn annually in lost productivity, crime, and poor health – substantially more than the estimated $77bn annually it would take to lift 60% of the country’s poor children out of poverty. Investing in poor children and families can deliver high returns to the US public.

Climate change: Cathleen Kelly

Senior fellow, Energy and Environment team, Center for American Progress

Cathleen Kelly. Photograph: Center for American Progress

There is a lot at stake in this election for climate change policy, for the health and safety of our planet, and for the wellbeing of people around the globe. The next president will face a pressing to-do list and we are sadly running out time to prevent unmanageable climate change.

Whoever wins the election will need to move quickly to meet the US commitment under the Paris agreement on climate change to reduce emissions by 26-28% from 2005 levels by 2020. He or she will also need to put forward an even more ambitious national climate goal. The next president will also have to set a foreign policy agenda that will reduce the risk of conflict and migration in a warming world.

The question before us this election is: who is the most fit to take these crucial domestic and international steps? Hillary Clinton understands the very real and costly threat of climate change. She has committed to implement an “aggressive response” that will support clean energy innovation and jobs in the US.

Donald Trump, on the other hand, believes extreme weather does not hurt people and that climate change is a “hoax” created by the Chinese. He has also said he would “cancel” the Paris agreement and aggressively pursue fossil fuel extraction.

The US and the world need an American president who will continue to lead domestic and international efforts to prevent dangerous climate changes. Clinton plans to do this and is the best candidate to curb the high risks of a warming planet.