Note: If you missed a day and want to go back to yesterday (or further back), use the "Previous report" button to the right of the map. The headlines at the bottom of the page now go to individual items so you can send them to friends or post them somewhere.

Also, we intend to live blog the election. Around 6 p.m. ET, the map will go white and then be filled in as Senate races are called. We'll also have running updates and commentary.

And on the subject of going back, there really was a mailbag yesterday, even if it was late. Hopefully you'll have a chance to take a look, if you didn't see it yesterday, as there was some good stuff.

Finally, if you care to weigh in with your guess as to how Congress will end up after the elections, the poll is still open. Results tomorrow!

Last Look at the Senate Races

Republican Senate polls have been flooding the zone of late, but they shouldn't be taken seriously. That said, the independent polls show that many of the races are very close. If this is genuinely true, there will probably be a red mirage, as in-person Election Day votes are counted first in most states and early votes and absentee ballots only later. Election Day votes tend to favor Republicans and other votes tend to favor Democrats.

However, we still don't know if: (1) there are a substantial number of Trumpists who refuse to talk to the pollsters and (2) pollsters have figured out a way to compensate for this. If not, there could be a red wave. However, if unexpectedly large numbers of women vote entirely based on the Dobbs decision, there could be a blue wave. In short, nobody knows what will happen tomorrow and anybody who says they do is making it up. As a rule of thumb, you can probably assume that any state with a white center in our map above could go either way. If you want to know each party's likely floor, add up the "Strongly Dem" and "Likely Dem" numbers to the right of the map or alternatively the "Likely GOP" and "Strongly GOP" numbers. Right now, the Democrats are likely to have at least 45 Senate seats and the Republicans are likely to have at least 48 seats. However, we don't think Washington is really in play, despite one InsiderAdvantage poll showing Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) only 2 points ahead, so the Democrats' floor is probably 46. The other six seats with a white center are up for grabs. Also, despite the most recent polls, we think Nevada and Ohio are in play. They are pink due to recent polls from InsiderAdvantage and Emerson College, both of which seem to lean Republican. Whether they got that right or not is something we won't know until Wednesday. So in out view, the real tossups are Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire. It's a very murky environment.

Here is Politico's final take on the Senate. Keep in mind, however, that Politico tends to put a lot of weight on the most recent poll and since each number in any poll is about ±4 points, that is a bit shaky.

• Arizona (Toss-up): Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) led all year over Blake Masters (R), but Masters has improved his image and along with it, his poll numbers. Some polls have put Masters' favorability in positive territory lately, but others still have it in negative territory. Keep in mind that historically, sitting senators have a big advantage over any challenger.
  
  
• Colorado (Lean Democratic): Politico cites the recent Trafalgar poll putting Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) at +2 over Joe O'Dea (R), but we don't put much stock in Trafalgar's polls. Maybe Politico just wants the race to be more exciting than it really is. We don't think Bennet is in danger.
  
  
• Georgia (Toss-up): Here the Republican polls and the independent polls are very far apart. In four recent polls by Republican firms, Herschel Walker (R) is leading Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) by 4, 3, 5, and 2 points, respectively. But five recent independent polls show, respectively a tie, Warnock +6, Warnock +2, Walker +1, and Warnock +3. However, if both candidates finish below 50%, there will be a runoff on Dec. 6. It is entirely possible that both come in below 50% because there is a third-party candidate on the ballot, even though he has withdrawn and endorsed Walker.
  
  
• Nevada (Toss-up): In three new independent polls this week, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) is tied or ahead of Adam Laxalt (R). In two Republican polls, Laxalt is ahead by 4 or 5 points. One independent poll also had Laxalt ahead. This one has been a squeaker since the start and could end up in a recount.
  
  
• New Hampshire (Toss-up): Last week, Politico had this one as "lean Democratic" but now it is rated as "toss-up." Don Bolduc (R) has been gaining momentum here and has one special factor going for him: There is no early voting, so Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) does not have any votes banked from the time she was ahead in October. If Bolduc pulls this one off, Democrats are in big trouble on Tuesday.
  
  
• North Carolina (Lean Republican): There has been limited polling here. Democrats keep hoping North Carolina will be the next Virginia, but it never seems to happen. Cheri Beasley (D) is Black but North Carolina doesn't have as many Black voters as Georgia, so that won't do the trick as she tries to knock off Rep. Ted Budd (R).
  
  
• Ohio (Lean Republican): Politico cites an Emerson College poll putting J.D. Vance (R) up 9 points but of the seven nonpartisan polls in October, Tim Ryan (D) has led in three and two were tied. Maybe Vance has momentum, but Emerson has had a strong Republican lean all year. If there is a red wave, Emerson will be cited as the new gold standard, but absent that, it will be seen as simply a failed attempt by a small college to make a name for itself in the polling game.
  
  
• Pennsylvania (Toss-up): Again here, the Republican, Mehmet Oz, is leading in the partisan Republican polls but from the independent pollsters, two of the three recent ones have Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D-PA) ahead. Based on nine recent nonpartisan polls, we have Fetterman up by one point. Politico really should know enough to take the recent flood of polls from Republicans with a barrel of salt. The big question here is whether the debate changed many votes and that is not known (but see below).
  
  
• Washington (Lean Democratic): Washington shouldn't even be on this list, since Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) has led Tiffany Smiley (R) by five points or more in 13 nonpartisan polls all year. Now there is one poll by InsiderAdvantage, which may have a Republican lean, showing Murray's lead is only 2 points. A different poll taken Oct. 25-26 has Murray up by 6 points, so Politico is giving one slightly suspect poll a lot of weight.
  
  
• Wisconsin (Toss-up): Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) has been leading for a while, but Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes (D-WI) has been moving up in the past week. Most polls have shown Johnson ahead 1-2 points, well within the margin of error, so calling it a toss-up is probably the right call.
  

The bottom line is that we just don't know what will happen. It could go either way. Sorry.

But maybe a few more words are called for here. On Friday, we had several items about polling. The other Nate (Cohn) wrote an article about polling on Saturday. He takes the current polls and applies the average polling errors of 2018 and 2020 to the current polls. Short answer, with the 2020 correction, New Hampshire is a tie, the Democrats win Colorado, and the Republicans win all the rest of the big marbles. With the 2018 correction, the Republicans take Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, the Democrats take Arizona, Nevada, and Colorado, while Georgia, New Hampshire, and North Carolina are ties.

However, Cohn also talks about something we have talked about recently: the sudden appearance of polls from questionable Republican-oriented organizations and the relative dearth of polls from more established organizations. For example, Quinnipiac University has run only one battleground state poll in all of October (Oct 7-10 in Georgia) and none in November. The result is that aggregators that just add up everything that comes along may be overweighting the partisan Republican pollsters simply because there has been less output from the nonpartisan sector.

As an example, Cohn notes, as we do above, that last week four partisan Republicam firms showed Mehmet Oz ahead in Pennsylvania, but this week two nonpartisan pollsters have John Fetterman ahead and one has the two of them tied. His conclusion is that to see what really gives, you have to look under the covers and see who did the polls. We have a simpler solution: Just ignore all the partisan pollsters working for either party. But we do include Emerson College and InsiderAdvantage, which are nonpartisan but do have a strong Republican lean. Maybe they are right. We don't know yet. (V)

Latinos Won't Save the GOP

Unlike The New York Times (see above), The Washington Post doesn't have a Nate to crunch the numbers. But it does have David Byler, who occupies the same ecological niche as The Other Nate. He just wrote an article that points out that the Republicans can't stop talking about their gains with Latinos. But he also notes that Trump won fewer new Latino voters than Biden won new college-educated white voters. This chart puts the Republicans' gains with Latinos in perspective:

Byler crunches the numbers and says if the Republicans merely hold their 2020 gains with Latinos but don't gain with some other major demographic group, they will continue to lose the presidential popular vote. Democrats still have the advantage with Latinos and Asians, which are growing groups, while the Republican base (the white working class) is shrinking. Even if Republicans won half of Latinos, which is a stretch, they would still lose the popular vote by 2 points. And since Latinos are concentrated in the Southwest, they don't put a lot of states other than Arizona (and maybe, but probably not, New Mexico and Nevada) in play.

Currently, Latinos make up 15% of all eligible voters. That is expected to grow to 19%, but not until 2036, which is a ways off. So to win the popular vote, Republicans need to increase their vote share among Black voters, Asians, or college-educated whites. Every Republican in the country could campaign in an Abraham Lincoln costume, but that won't budge the Black vote. Attacking China all the time probably won't help with the Chinese-American vote, and college-educated whites are definitely moving in the wrong direction for the GOP. But a party can always hope. (V)

Generic Poll Is Nearly Tied

A last-minute Washington Post/ABC generic poll shows that 48% of the voters will vote for a Democrat and 50% will vote for a Republican. Among independents, it is 45% for the Democrat 53% for the Republican. That very likely means the Republicans will capture the House. Given the large amount of gerrymandering, the Democrats would need a lead of maybe 5% or more to have a chance. Here are the results of the poll.

As you can see, men heavily favor the Republicans. Women heavily favor the Democrats, but not as strongly as the men favor the Republicans. If it were the other way, the Democrats would have a much better chance.

But as usual, turnout is everything. Here, the poll says that Republicans have an advantage. Among Republicans, 80% have already voted or say they are certain to do so. Among Democrats it is 74%. The attention gap also favors the Republicans, with 48% following the election closely vs. 37% of Democrats. It's an old story. Democrats, especially young voters, get interested in elections in September of a presidential election year and lose interest by the next February. Republicans are in it for the long haul.

Also noteworthy is that 86% of Democrats but only 63% of independents and 55% of Republicans believe the votes will be counted accurately. Nearly all the rest do not believe the votes will be counted accurately. No doubt this relates to the hundreds of Republicans running for office who explicitly or implicitly do not believe the results of the 2020 election (except for those races a Republican won).

Joe Biden's approval rating is at 43%, with 53% disapproving. Among Democrats, 82% approve and among Republicans it's only 9%. That is simply a partisan reflex at this point. If someone pinned the Republicans down and asked what exactly has Biden done that they disapprove of, a large number would say something like: "He's a socialist." (V)

Fetterman Didn't Blow It at the Debate

Several months after having a stroke, Lt. John Fetterman debated Mehmet Oz on television. Fetterman's performance was rocky and many Democrats are worried that it would cost him the election and the Democrats control of the Senate. A new analysis of the polling data by The Washington Post's Aaron Blake (who, like David Byler, is also not named "Nate") suggests that the debate probably didn't alter the fundamentals of the race.

Basically, the trustworthy nonpartisan polls haven't changed much since the debate. A post-debate Monmouth University poll has Fetterman ahead 48-44, almost the same as Monmouth's pre-debate poll of 48-43. A Fox post-debate poll has Fetterman up 45-41 vs. 45-42 pre-debate. A Marist College post-debate poll has Fetterman ahead 51-45 vs. 51-44 in September. Emerson College has it as 47-48 now vs. 45-43 in September, but, as noted above, Emerson has a clear Republican lean this cycle.

Another aspect to consider is how many voters think the debate mattered, even in a minor way. Fox asked this and it was only 51%. And those who said it mattered were mostly Republicans and were probably not going to vote for Fetterman even if he had wiped the floor with Oz. Just 4% of Democrats and 5% of independents said the debate was the most important factor in deciding their vote.

Fox also explicitly asked if Fetterman's health might prevent him from doing his job. About 40% said it would, but that group also skewed very heavily Republican. Seventy percent of 2020 Trump voters thought that, too. Only 9% of Democrats thought that. If a pollster had asked: "Did the color of Fetterman's tie make you more likely or less likely to vote for him, it is guaranteed that an overwhelming majority of Republicans would say "less likely."

But the debate isn't the whole show. More independents (40%) are concerned about the fact that Oz lives in New Jersey than are concerned with Fetterman's health (30%). If Oz pulls this off, it will be more a matter of Republicans who didn't vote for Oz in the primary coming home and supporting "their" nominee than anything about Fetterman's health. (V)

Who Are the Biggest Donors This Cycle?

Election spending is up by $2 billion compared to 2018. Big donors are a big part of that. Open Secrets estimates that half a billion dollars of campaign money came from just 10 very rich individuals. Most of the money went to super PACs, which then spent it on (typically, negative) ads. Here is the list:

• George Soros (D), $129 million: Hedge fund manager Soros gave $129 million to his own PAC, which then doled it out to Democratic super PACs. A donation of $10.5 million went to a super PAC controlled by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). Planned Parenthood also got money. He also gave money to support democracy in his native Hungary, which led the country's authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to attack Soros, who is Jewish, with antisemitic tropes. Soros is now worth only about $8 billion (because he has already given away most of his money), but he is also 92 years old, so he is not in danger of running out of money before he runs out of... well, time.
  
  
• Richard Uihlein (R), $81 million: Uihlein is an heir to the Schlitz beer fortune and also the co-founder of a successful shipping-supplies company. He shuns the spotlight but his donations get him publicity, whether he wants it or not. He gave $23 million to the Club for Growth, a top conservative group. He also gave $3.5 million to Ron Johnson's PAC.
  
  
• Kenneth Griffin (R), $69 million: Griffin is worth $31 billion, making him one of the wealthiest megadonors. He gave $18.5 million to the super PAC of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and $10 million to the super PAC of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). With close relations with McCarthy and McConnell and lots of money, he is going to be a force in Republican politics for years to come. Also noteworthy: He is tired of Donald Trump and can't wait until Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) runs for president. Consequently, if DeSantis decides to jump in after the midterms, money won't be a problem.
  
  
• Jeff Yass (R), $47 million: Yass is not as widely known as some of the other donors. He is the founder of the quantitative-trading Susquehanna International Group and vice chair of the libertartian Cato Institute's board. He favors candidates who advocate for low taxes. He gave $15 million to the School for Freedom Fund, which attacked Democrats for closing schools during the pandemic and for allegedly allowing schools to teach critical race theory (which very, very few K-12 schools do). He also gave $5 million to a super PAC supporting Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and $2 million to the Crypto Freedom PAC.
  
  
• Timothy Mellon (R), $40 million: Mellon is the grandson of banking tycoon Andrew Mellon and was chairman of a company that bought freight rail giant CSX this year. He gave $10 million to Kevin McCarthy's super PAC and $5 million to a super PAC that used it all to attack Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ). During the Trump administration, he gave $53 million to a fund trying to build a wall on the Mexican border.
  
  
• Sam Bankman-Fried (D), $40 million: Bankman-Fried is new to the list. He is founder and CEO of crypto exchange FTX, so new money. He gave $28 million to Democrats facing progressives in primaries. At one point he said he would put $1 billion into the elections, but has come nowhere near that.
  
  
• Fred Eychaner (D), $36 million: Eychaner, who owns radio stations and newspapers in Chicago, is a long-time Democratic donor and supporter of LGBTQ+ causes. He gave $8 million to the House Majority PAC and $8 million to the Senate Majority PAC. He also maxed out on donations to the DNC and all the Democratic committees.
  
  
• Stephen Schwarzman (R), $36 million: Schwarzman is CEO of Blackstone, one of the world's largest private equity firms. He's been a top-10 donor in each of the past three elections cycles. This year he gave $10 million to both the House and Senate super PACs.
  
  
• Peter Thiel (R), $33 million: German immigrant Thiel, who co-founded PayPal, and who wants the country to clamp down on immigration, is an emerging Republican donor. He gave $15 million each to super PACs supporting Blake Masters and J.D. Vance in the primaries, but not much since then.
  
  
• Larry Ellison (R), $31 million: Oracle chairman Ellison with worth about $100 billion, making him the wealthiest donor on the list, but also the stingiest of the top 10. He gave $20 million to a super PAC aligned with Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC).
  

One noteworthy omission is Charles Koch, who doesn't seem to have gotten involved in politics this cycle. The other half of the fabled Koch brothers, David Koch, also wasn't active in politics this year, but he has a better alibi: He died in 2019. (V)

RNC Won't Pay Trump's Legal Bills after He Announces His Candidacy

Various sources are predicting that Donald Trump will announce his 2024 candidacy on Nov. 14, 2 years before the election. He might do that to complicate life for AG Merrick Garland, who might be leery of indicting a presidential candidate. He might also do it to start the next round of grift. Finally, he might do it because he was getting bored sitting around in Florida and once the midterms are over, will have no one to campaign for.

However, there is also a downside to an early announcement. Yesterday, RNC Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel confirmed that the RNC is paying Trump's legal bills, but as soon as he announces, it will stop and he will be on his own. As his legal troubles mount in New York, Georgia, and D.C., the legal bills could be fierce. Trump is notorious for stiffing his lawyers, so he is going to have to pay all of them up front with his own money. If he were to delay his announcement until, say, next summer, the RNC would pick up most of the bills.

McDaniel said to CNN's Dana Bash: "We cannot pay legal bills for any candidate that's [sic] announced." As long as Trump is just a former president being attacked from all sides, McDaniel is happy to pay his bills, but once he is officially a candidate, that will stop. She didn't explain why, but most likely the RNC has a long-standing rule not to take sides until a candidate has been officially nominated. Paying his legal bills might also run afoul of campaign finance laws.

Bash also asked McDaniel about the midterms, specifically: "When the process is played out and the votes are canvassed and certified—every one of your Republican candidates, will accept their results, even if they lose?" McDaniel answered: "They will." That remains to be seen. As you might have noticed, the RNC and its Chair exercise very little control over Republican candidates. In Arizona, gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake has been asked that question by reporters many times (including by Bash), and she has always refused to answer. McDaniel did bring up the fact that Stacey Abrams (D) never conceded in her 2018 loss to Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) in the race for governor of Georgia to make the point that failure to concede a loss isn't something only Republicans to. It's a bipartisan thing is the point she's trying to make, although the Abrams situation is pretty different from, say. the Trump situation. Among other things, there was actual evidence that the votes in Georgia were not counted fairly in Abrams' case. (V)

Trump and DeSantis Have Been Avoiding Each Other

Former president Donald Trump and wannabe president Ron DeSantis (R-FL) both campaigned in Florida yesterday. And they were nowhere near each other. In fact, they were hundreds of miles apart and both wanted to keep it that way. Trump is stumping for Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and DeSantis is stumping for himself. Trump did not invite DeSantis to come along and DeSantis did not invite Trump to come along. Trump thinks he owns DeSantis, but the governor doesn't see it that way. They are potential rivals in 2024 and neither one wants to do anything to help the other one.

If Trump announces a run on Nov. 14, as some people expect him to do (see above), all eyes will be on DeSantis as probably the only candidate who could successfully challenge Trump for the presidential nomination. But DeSantis is much smarter than Trump and will look very closely at the 2022 results before trying to challenge the throne. If Trump's candidates up and down the line all win, DeSantis may decide that Trump is too strong and he will have to wait until 2028. However, if Trump's candidates do badly on Tuesday, DeSantis may conclude that Trump isn't that powerful after all and could mount a challenge.

Neither has criticized the other in public yet, at least not directly. However, Jared Kushner has criticized the airplane flights of immigrants from Texas to Florida and then to Martha's Vineyard, saying that the immigrants were "political pawns." Kushner should be taken seriously here; he's an expert in using immigrants as political pawns. On the other hand, a GOP strategist close to DeSantis said Trump "is Dr. Frankenstein coming to Florida to try and kill the monster that has gotten out of control."

On the other hand, Trump has now found a way to insult DeSantis. He has a nickname for him: Ron DeSanctimonious. Actually, the former president didn't think it up. Trump doesn't know words that big. Roger Stone thought it up. Trump gave the new nickname a tryout in a speech on Saturday, saying. "Trump at 71. Ron DeSanctimonious at 10 percent. Mike Pence at 7—oh, Mike Pence doing better than I thought." To us, this indicates that Trump is worried that DeSantis will indeed challenge him for the presidential nomination. It is probably true that Trump leads by a lot now, but that is because DeSantis is not so well known outside Florida. However, DeSantis has $200 million in his campaign account and that could go a long way to making him better known nationwide if he decides to run in 2024. And one 5-minute phone call to Ken Griffin could run that up to $400 million in a jiffy. He would pitch himself as the next generation of Trumpism, but without the baggage.

This somewhat under-the-radar back and forth has made other Florida politicians nervous, as they may be forced to pick sides, something none of them want to do since although Trump is the gold medal winner in grudge-holding, DeSantis is the silver medal winner. But maybe they need not be so nervous. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) said of them: "I don't think the prizefighters care about the undercard." (V)

Abortion Is on the Ballot

On Tuesday, millions of voters in three states—California, Michigan, and Vermont—will get to vote on propositions that, if passed, would make abortion a constitutional right in their states. Meanwhile, voters in Kentucky will get a chance to do the exact opposite. Montana also has a ballot proposition, but it is unlike either of the above. If passed, it would make it a crime for health providers to fail to try to save the life of a fetus born alive, even after an attempted abortion. People convicted of the crime could face 20 years in state prison. Medical providers have fiercely opposed the measure.

Michigan currently has a law passed in 1931 that bans all abortions. If Proposal 3 passes, the law would become unconstitutional and thus void. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) supports the measure. Her opponent, Tudor Dixon (R), opposes it. In Kentucky, the reverse scenario is playing out. Abortion there was legal until trigger laws cut in after the Dobbs decision. There is a court fight about them now in progress. If the state Constitution were to explicitly ban abortions, that would end the court fights. If the amendment fails, the court fights will go on.

The campaign manager for the amendment, Rachel Sweet, led the successful campaign for the pro-choice side in the Kansas referendum and is hoping she can make lightning strike twice. Preventing the state constitution from being amended to ban abortion would be a signal to the Kentucky politicians that the voters do not want abortion banned. However, even a big victory for "No" would not make abortion legal in Kentucky unless the state Supreme Court throws out the current law that makes nearly all abortions illegal. (V)

More than 40 Million People Have Already Voted

NBC News is reporting that, as of yesterday at 5 p.m. EST, 41,348,158 Americans had already voted. In Georgia, for example, 2.5 million people have already voted, setting a new record. Of them, 49% are Democrats and 41% are Republicans, but it is normal for more Democrats than Republicans to vote early, so that says little about who will win. Other swing states with lots of early voting include Arizona (1.4 million votes cast), Nevada (556,000), North Carolina (2.0 million), Ohio (1.4 million, Pennsylvania (1.0 million), and Wisconsin (628,000).

Does this early surge indicate that more people will vote in 2022 than in 2018? Prof. Michael McDonald of the University of Florida, an expert on voter turnout, doesn't think so. He notes that voter turnout as a percentage of the voting eligible population was 67% in 2018, the highest in over 100 years. He doubts that record will be broken. He does note, however, that higher turnout correlates with intense polarization. When people believe that the other party will destroy the country, they come out and vote in droves. However, the effect depends on whether there is a high-profile race locally. He thinks if the Democrats narrowly lose the House it will be because many Democrats in California didn't think it was necessary to vote in the races for governor and senator and stayed home, which depressed turnout for House races the Democrats desperately needed to win. (V)

Twitter Is Suffering a Massive Loss of Advertising Revenue

On Friday, Twitter owner Elon Musk admitted that the change of management has not been good for the company. He said: "Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists." What Musk was referring to is the decision by multiple brands to "pause" their Twitter ads at least until the dust settles. Companies and brands that have stopped advertising on Twitter include General Mills, General Motors, Audi, Bentley, Porsche, Pfizer, and Carlsberg. Ad buying group Interpublic Group, which works for Unilever and Coca-Cola, also urged its clients to stop advertising on Twitter to avoid reputational damage. Many activist groups are urging other companies to stop advertising on the platform as well, so there could be more desertions on tap. For completeness sake, we note that we were advertising the site on Twitter in the pre-Muskian days, but our ads there have now stopped.

Musk is probably not helped much by Joe Biden's remark on Friday that Twitter "spews lies" around the globe.

Musk has only himself to blame. When he took over, he instantly fired the top management team and set in motion plans to fire half the employees. He also posted some noxious tweets, some of which he later took down. Companies don't like to be associated with unstable company in freefall whose CEO spreads misinformation and conspiracy theories. And this is before the true hate speech and child porn hits. Musk has also acted like he doesn't care about advertising, even though that currently pays most of the bills. He recently announced a category of paid membership where for $8/mo, where a member gets a blue checkmark next to his or her tweets and a few other perks. Whether that can replace the ad revenue remains to be seen.

Musk loaded the company with so much debt when he bought it that it needs to pay $1 billion/year just to service its loans. With advertising collapsing and membership revenue uncertain, his business acumen will be sorely tested.

What Musk promised to do, but has not yet done, is to let Donald Trump back. There's isn't any time before the midterms to do that, but he could shortly thereafter. However, if Trump comes back and starts spewing lies and hate, even more advertisers may pull out, further reducing the company's revenue. The downward spiral may be hard to stop and the company could easily end up in bankruptcy. (V)

"Where Are We a Week Before the Election?": Readers Who Think We Were Right

Last Monday, we had an item where we proposed that the country, as a whole, has moved to the right since 2008 while the Democrats have been moving to the left. If true, that would explain some of the blue team's high-profile failures in the past decade or so.

We got a lot of response to that item. Today, we will run six responses from folks who generally agree with our assessment. Later in the week, we will run six responses from readers who disagree, and then six responses from readers who have other theories/thoughts. For now, the "we agree" responses:

• J.D.M. in Cottonwood Shores, TX: I think your multi-point explanation of the electoral shift to the right in U.S. politics is a decent beginning. Backlash to the election of a Black president? You betcha. Backlash to recent moves in society to the left? Yes, but I think those moves have been cultural more than political and they have been more global than national. I would refer you to this excellent Ezra Klein podcast. Of course, it is the Republicans' super-power that they can turn these cultural changes into political issues.
  
  I would offer some additional ideas for your readers' consideration.
  
  First, I must take your staff statistician to task for a horrendous take on Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-VT) popularity with American voters. I will do so with this simple example: The spring game for the UCLA football team was attended by "several hundred fans."" Let's be generous and say it was 515 persons. The Princeton home game against Havard was attended by 10,033 fans. So the Bruins, by your methodology, are only 5.13% as popular as the Tigers. We will never know how Bernie would have done in the regular election, but using his vote totals from the primary (where Hillary Clinton only got 16 million votes of her own) is statistical malpractice. Apparently, Trump pollsters thought he would have had a better chance to win than Hillary.
  
  What is a better way to measure the popularity of what Bernie is selling? Well, it is no secret that he is selling Medicare-For-All (69% approval), a $15/hour minimum wage (62% approval), and the Green New Deal (60% approval). All of this support has increased since he started campaigning based on his program to return a fair share of our prosperity to the working and middle class.
  
  So here is where I would offer some additional ideas to explain our current political predicament. As you yourselves noted, John Fetterman seems to be doing well with more liberal policy positions since he is mixing that with authentic concern for the working/middle classes. I would posit that the problem for Democrats is not too much liberal policy, but rather, not enough support for the working masses. Biden didn't win because he was more moderate than Clinton (he wasn't), but because he cultivated the aura of his working class roots. With the stench of NAFTA clinging to her, Hillary supported the TPP until she was forced to change her position late in the campaign. Trump scored big points in their debates on this issue.
  
  The second idea is a question, really. How do you increase the turnout of your supporters? I think that the elusive moderate independent voter may not actually exist in very large numbers. So, would a campaign that excites young voters enough to go to the trouble to vote work better? It seemed to work for Obama, but then his campaign excited a lot of voters. And in addition to a long history of poor turnout by younger voters, new voter ID laws have made it a lot harder for college students to vote. Do you really want to change your driver's license every time you change dorms?
  
  Then there is the problem that a stunning percentage of our voters are very poorly informed. When you are the party of ideas and policies, it is hard to sell yourself to people who aren't paying attention.
  
  And finally, as always, it is the messaging. I cannot think of a worse slogan in all of my fifty years of political activism than "defund the police."" The policy idea is not so radical: Let's have trained social workers be the first responders when the problem is someone having a mental health episode instead of armed police officers who are (rightfully) trained to be alert to threats to their lives. But, OMG, the slogan...
  
  
• D.R. in Massapequa Park, NY : I was thinking a lot about what you wrote: "Young Democrats who are disappointed that Biden didn't carry out the program of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) often go off and sulk and don't vote." I have been very vocal for years that this attitude will catch up to them and the Dobbs decision is just the tip of the iceberg. Gay rights, transgender rights, birth control, freedom of any religion (besides a Handmaid's Tale version of Christianity) are all on the chopping block. Do you really think you're "sending a message" by refusing to vote for the Democrat who "uses the wrong pronouns"? Wait till the GOP rams through legislation to strip the LGBTQ+ community of all rights and possibly humanity You think you're "sending a message' by not voting for a democrats who don't back 100% forgiveness of your student loans? Wait till the GOP lets banks charge interest rates that would make the Gambino family a better option to borrow money from. While you are too pure to vote for anything half a step to the right of Bernie the GOP will gladly make things worse for you all in the name of your purity. It's a marathon not a sprint; the GOP bided its time for 50 years to overturn Roe. You on the far left might need to learn from their patience.
  
  
• D.R. in Kensington, MD: My original reaction to your post about the country moving to the right was that the Electoral College moved to the right. And the gerrymandered House also moved to the right.
  
  But then I looked at the Senate, starting in January 2009. These states had two Democrats:
  
  
  • Arkansas
  • Montana
  • North Dakota
  • West Virginia
  
  Democrats also had at least one senator from:
  
  
  • Alaska
  • Iowa
  • Florida
  • Louisiana
  • Missouri
  • Nebraska
  • South Dakota
  
  So I think you're right, something has changed, something has shifted—Democrats used to win in states where they probably can't break 40% anymore. But I seriously struggle to see how voting for Obama (they had to know he was Black as a candidate), and then voting for Obama again (really, they must have known he was Black by then) would cause someone to vote for Trump because (shock!) Obama was Black.
  
  
• P. K. W. in Chicago, IL: I have long said that Obama winning the presidency was the equivalent of shoving a fire hose down a rat hole; it forced the rats into the light.
  
  
• S.P. in Harrisburg, PA: I agree with your comments that the Democrats have gone too far to the left. Joe Biden won in 2020 partly by running as a centrist, and partly by a negative reaction to Donald Trump's mean, late night tweets.
  
  One other point, though, is that no other administration in a generation has had such a negative impact on people's standard of living in such a short amount of time. With inflation hovering at about 8 percent, gas prices way up, and groceries up about 13 percent in the last year, increases in people's expenses are far exceeding their increases in salaries. Wait until heating season really starts and see how much more people need to spend on heating their homes. During this administration, people's quality of life is worse than under Trump, from a purely economic standpoint. Under Trump, the economy was great up until COVID. People voted against Trump because they did not like his demeanor, his personal style. But if you turn off the TV and stop following his tweets, it absolutely does not affect you.
  
  You assert that the Republicans have no platform to run on, but I would claim that they do not need one in this election—they just need to say they will stop this administration. I predict a huge red wave.
  
  
• P.L. in Denver, CO: I think you are spot on with your analysis. I should tell you I am an urban westerner but I grew up in the mills and mines culture near Pittsburgh, PA. So, I am familiar with blue-collar points of view.
  
  I know some very smart people from there that have bought the MAGA line. It baffles me to some extent, but I know of a few themes that go into their thinking. First, it is a 100% gun culture. Second, they hate political correctness and love the tough-guy image. Third, the increasing diversity of our population bothers them. Fourth, while the city of Pittsburgh and some of the surrounding areas have prospered, the area is also littered with run-down dying towns. This certainly breeds anger.
  
  Now for a bit of a weird observation.
  
  I just returned from a 12-day trip to Uzbekistan that included a day trip into Tajikistan. We were a group of four ladies (two in their sixties and two in their seventies). We had a private tour. We found the people to be super friendly and helpful. Our guide in Tajikistan was a very nice 36-year-old man. When we took a lunch break, we were chatting with him. Somehow we wandered into the subject of Trump where we had a friendly exchange. Here are some highlights from that conversation:
  
  
  • He asked us if we liked Trump. The four of us (retired, professional ladies) immediately said "NO!."
  • He asked why. We peppered him with a few things.
  • He brought up that Biden seemed to be too old and was out of it.
  • Then he told us he liked Trump! We asked why?
  • He then tells us that Trump takes no grief, trashes the media, he was a tough guy.
  • We asked him where he gets his news. He said they get only Russian TV there. But, he watches YouTube!
  
  Later on, we were talking about sports. He did not care for soccer, but he loved boxing, judo, and karate (martial arts are a big thing in Central Asia).
  
  My friends and I were discussing this later. It occurred to me that our guide probably shared some of the characteristics of the MAGA-loving guys in the U.S. They take no offense to Trump's nasty and inappropriate behavior. And they like that he will put people in their place and be tough.
  
  Incidentally, we were also told that 50,000 Russians had gone into Uzbekistan to run from the war. They indicated that the government and people were supportive of this, but the influx has caused some problems and also housing prices have gone up. I met an American girl teaching English in Tblisi, Georgia. She had similar comments about the influx of Russians, which I believe is much higher in Georgia.

Thanks to the six of you! The plan is to run the "you are wrong" set on Wednesday. We have something else planned for tomorrow that is very timely. (V & Z)

Today's Senate Polls

The University of New Hampshire is certainly nonpartisan and when two other pollsters kind of agree with it, maybe Don Bolduc has closed the gap with Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH). This suspense is killing us, but at the moment it looks like there will be a lot of cliffhangers tomorrow night. As they say, stay tuned. (Actually, that is completely obsolete because modern televisions do not have a tunable analog filter to select out one frequency and Websites don't have anything tunable. But people still talk about "an interview taped earlier," "miles of footage," "you sound like a broken record," "it's a carbon copy," "upper-case letters," and "hang up the phone.") (V)

State	Democrat	D %	Republican	R %	Start	End	Pollster
New Hampshire	Maggie Hassan*	48%	Don Bolduc	48%	Nov 02	Nov 05	Wick
New Hampshire	Maggie Hassan*	49%	Don Bolduc	48%	Nov 05	Nov 05	InsiderAdvantage
New Hampshire	Maggie Hassan*	50%	Don Bolduc	48%	Nov 02	Nov 06	U. of New Hampshire

* Denotes incumbent

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