Election Day is 12 days away. Every day of the countdown, Times Insider will share an article about how our election coverage works. Today, a reporter covering the Trump campaign shares the unique challenges of covering the former president.

Last weekend, former President Donald J. Trump made an unlikely stop on the campaign trail: a McDonald’s kitchen.

Michael Gold, a political correspondent for The New York Times, had a front-row seat to the colorful political stunt in suburban Philadelphia, where the former president shoveled fries into red cartons, worked the drive-through window and handed bags of food to effusive (preselected) customers.

It was yet another noteworthy stop for the Republican presidential candidate’s campaign, which Mr. Gold has been following since the fall of 2023.

“When I started this, I didn’t think we’d have one candidate survive an assassination attempt at a rally,” Mr. Gold said in a recent interview. “No one knew how Trump’s indictments would play out. No one knew what the trial schedule would be, let alone that the former president would be convicted on 34 felony counts. So much was unpredictable.”

Mr. Gold previously reported for the Metro desk; in 2023, he helped expose the many falsehoods peddled by Representative George Santos, Republican of New York. The opportunity to cover stories beyond New York City led him to the Politics desk later that year.