The VP wouldn’t be where he is today without the patronage of the Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel. But with voters becoming more and more concerned about the firm’s surveillance tech, could that relationship affect his chances?

The US is the land of the free and the home of the world’s most expensive, and most excruciatingly drawn-out, elections. In most democracies, the election cycle lasts just a few weeks or months. In most democracies there are strict laws regulating how long politicians can campaign, and how much money political parties can accept. But the US is not most democracies.