No headline theme today, because that takes time, and we're far behind schedule. Sorry!

The Final Argument: Demagoguery

We firmly dislike writing items like this one. However, we are also not going to look the other way and be party to normalizing such behavior. And so it is that we have a substantial item, for the second time this week, on the Trump campaign's demagoguery.

It is abundantly clear that the campaign has decided that leaning into the anger and hatred is where the votes are. Sometimes, as with the Puerto Rican joke on Sunday, Trump apologists say "Whaaaaaaaaaaat?" and claim that they are shocked that something like that happened. Other times, and this happens a lot, the apologists claim Trump is "going off script" or that "you can't take him literally."

We will point out three things that give lie to these protestations. First, if the candidate does or says something often enough, then that becomes the script, like it or not. The hateful and violent stuff emerges from Trump on a daily basis, it's the defining feature of his message. Second, J.D. Vance also regularly indulges in hateful and violent rhetoric. If Vance is anything, he's a loyal lapdog, and he does what he is supposed to do. If the "real" script was something else, he would stick with it. It isn't something else. Third, and finally, Trump campaign managers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles may not control the candidate, but they do control the ad buys. And virtually the only Trump commercials running these days are the vile ads that scapegoat trans people. It's not just your imagination, or ours; the campaign's total spending on anti-trans ads is now more than $65 million. We are not going to link directly to the ads, but if you want to see the one in heaviest rotation, it's called "Kamala and Transgender Athletes" and it's here.

The anti-trans ads are reprehensible for three reasons. First, of course, is that they pit Americans against other Americans in a hateful way. It's one thing to say "The other side's ideas are wrong." It's another thing entirely to say "The other side's very existence is wrong." Second, the ads are all very, very misleading, with quotes and video footage taken out of context, usually to tell a tale that isn't even true. For example, the commercials give the impression that then-California AG Harris was a radical when it came to making reassignment surgery available to prisoners. In fact, she was quite strict about doing what the law called for, and nothing more (keep reading for more on this). Third, and finally, it reflects very, very poorly on the Republican candidate that all he's got is "I will protect you from the scary trans people." Less than ½% of Americans are trans. Even if you believe that the presence of trans people, or that the availability of gender-affirming care, or that trans women's participation in women's sports is harmful, that simply cannot be among the 50 most pressing issues facing the country. Pretending otherwise is dangerously close to gaslighting.

Now, everything we've written about so far is old news. Time to move on to the new news. In just the last 24 hours, the Trump campaign has added plenty more hateful fuel to the hateful fire. Trump himself, as part of his campaign of xenophobia, floated the idea that if he returns to the White House, he will withhold federal funding for law enforcement unless police departments agree to participate in mass deportations. There is much of his proposed agenda that is just fantasy, but we have to note that this scheme could actually work. There are plenty of police departments out there that are very Trump friendly, and besides, law enforcement agencies can't afford to go without funding while lawsuits, etc. are worked through.

In addition to this, Trump (well, someone working for him, and presumably acting on his orders) filed a lawsuit yesterday against CBS. What is the claim? That, in airing the Kamala Harris interview, the network engaged in "partisan and unlawful acts of election and voter interference." What damages are being demanded? How about $10 BILLION dollars? By complete and total coincidence, the suit was filed in Amarillo, TX, where there is only one federal judge who hears cases: Trump's trained monkey Matthew Kacsmaryk. Maybe Trump's legal team just didn't know that CBS is headquartered in New York City.

From a legal vantage point, the suit has zero merit. First, CBS has enormous leeway here, per a little thing called the First Amendment, and did not come within a country mile of doing anything actionable. If you want to see a broadcaster who approaches that line much more closely and much more frequently, tune into Fox or NewsMax sometime. Second, Trump was given every opportunity to sit for his own interview, and chickened out. Third, and finally, 10 BILLION? Really? You never know what Kacsmaryk will do, but the suit should be summarily tossed, and the lawyers involved should be sanctioned for wasting the Court's time.

Of course, Trump is not actually after the money. Consistent with the campaign of hate and fear, he's: (1) villainizing the media (and, as an added bonus, Harris), and (2) putting media outlets on notice that if they don't adopt the party line, he'll come after them with all his might if he becomes president again. We tend to doubt that it was planned, but it's certainly very interesting that there's news of Vladimir Putin engaging in similar shenanigans this week. Alphabet (Google), which owns YouTube, has blocked the Russian government and its propaganda outlets from posting their content to the site. This gave Putin the sads, so he told a Russian court to hit Alphabet with a big fine. How much? $20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. That's 20 DECILLION dollars, or 180,000,000,000,000,000,000 times the entire annual economic output of the whole planet.

Again, we are guessing that the timing between the Russian case and the Trump case is a coincidence. If so, it speaks to how very similar the Putin mindset and the Trump mindset are when it comes to viewing the media as an enemy to be punished. If it is not a coincidence, then it means that Trump is either taking inspiration from Putin, or that he's taking marching orders from Putin. None of the three possibilities discussed in this paragraph reflect well on the former president.

Anyhow, that's two demagogic things from Trump himself in the last 24 hours or so. The third comes from his running mate. Vance sat for an interview with Joe "I pretend to be nonpartisan, but I'm really a Republican shill" Rogan yesterday, and unspooled all sorts of anti-trans rhetoric, indulging in conspiracy theories about gender reassignment surgeries being performed on 9-year-olds, and proposing that many young people who claim to be trans are just faking it to get into Ivy League schools (hmm... did we inadvertently just reveal a bit too much about how we got into Yale, J.D.?). In case the anti-trans stuff wasn't enough, Vance also dabbled in some Islamophobia, entertaining Rogan's notion that Muslims might just try to implement sharia law in one or more U.S. States.

And please note, this is not even an exhaustive list. It's just that there's only so much time, and one can take only so many downer news stories at once.

When the two guys at the top of the ticket go back to the well of violence and hatred, over and over, their supporters do tend to notice. And so, yesterday there were also plenty of stories about rank-and-file Republicans who decided to mimic their Dear Leader. To take one example, there was a parade in a small town in Pennsylvania yesterday, and one of the participants decided to include a Kamala Harris impersonator, bound and pulled behind a golf cart, in a manner reminiscent of the American slave system. Not only was the creator of the float thinking that way, but the audience witnessing the parade apparently approved, as nobody said anything to local officials until the event was over.

And the consequences of the conspiratorial, angry, scapegoating rhetoric go far beyond just outlandish bigotry theater. No, the words of Trump, Vance, et al. are doing all sorts of harm. We've saved up a number of stories on this front, largely because we just didn't have it in us to write them up, but it would seem that now's the time, whether we like it or not. So:

• During and after the hurricanes that battered the southeast, Trump and other Republicans implied (or outright said) that the events were the work of the federal government. This "they control the weather" conspiracy led to doxxing of, and death threats against, local meteorologists, on the theory that they were part of the coverup.
  
  
• Trump was coy about the government-run hurricanes, but said outright that the government is giving aid to Democratic areas and withholding it from Republican areas. This led some relief workers to be evacuated, for fear they would be attacked by armed militias.
  
  
• Just about everyone who is working a polling place, or who is running with a (D) next to their name, has already been warned to be careful on Election Day, and to be ready for the possibility of violence.
  
  
• Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold (D) was central to the effort to remove Trump from the Colorado ballot. This has made her Public Enemy #1, as far as the MAGA crowd is concerned (admittedly, there are many people tied for that "honor"). Consequently, Griswold now has a permanent security detail. And recently, due to a perceptible uptick in credible threats, the detail had to be expanded... while Griswold was in the hospital giving birth. What kind of person even HINTS at violence against a pregnant woman, much less one who is in the middle of delivery?

Those are some of the national news stories; we thought we'd round it out with something more "local" (in a manner of speaking) and more personal. Again, the major thrust of the Trump campaign right now is transphobia. And reader A.B. in Wendell, NC wrote in yesterday with a comment we'd like to share:

I have HAD IT with these horrible ads Trump is putting out, attacking my community. All trans people are family to me, in a way even my supportive flesh-and-blood relatives never can be... we have been through the crucible together!

So I want to set the record straight about some of the things in these ads. When I see a guy screaming that he does not want his tax dollars paying for sex changes for prisoners, I scream back at him: "Tough sh**, the SUPREME COURT says it must be!"

And when they claim Kamala Harris was the first to help pay for an inmate surgery, they are completely spinning that. Look up the case of Norsworthy v. Beard sometime. In that case, Kamala, as California AG, OPPOSED the surgery for Michelle Lael Norsworthy—the person referred to in one of the Trump ads, though not by name. Kamala LOST that case, because the Supreme Court had already ruled.

To Kamala's credit, unlike some of our SPINELESS Democratic so-called allies—who, in the face of this onslaught, have backed away from support for my community—Kamala hasn't. By her actions, she is showing she has evolved since Norsworthy. While I would like more full-throated support from Kamala, I understand why, in the current political climate, this is not possible. It's a crappy reality, but these days, activists like myself, and our allies are forced to fight a rear-guard action, trying to stop harmful legislation, instead of further advancing our rights and dignity we deserve as humans and Americans.

Now then... the Supreme Court! Yes, SCOTUS has ruled on the issue—as early as 1976, in fact. In the case Estelle v. Gamble (1976) the "deliberate indifference standard" was set. In that decision, Thurgood Marshall wrote that it was a violation of Eighth Amendment rights to deliberately fail to provide an inmate with necessary medical care.

Then, in Wilson v. Seiter (1991), SCOTUS created the "identifiable human needs" standard for determining Eighth Amendment violations. The Court asserted that the prisoner must show that the institution has denied a basic need (burden of proof on complainant, and the three mentioned items were food, warmth, and exercise—leaving the lower courts to determine what other items, if any, fell into this category).

Because of the Estelle ruling, prisoners have a well-established right to adequate medical care. "Adequate" has since been determined to be a level of care comparable to what the inmate would receive if not behind bars. In short, if, on the outside, a person displaying certain symptoms would be afforded gender-confirming surgery, an inmate displaying those same symptoms should be afforded that same care and, if they are not, it is an Eighth Amendment violation.

And so THAT is the real truth. Kamala did not initially support inmate gender-confirming surgeries—in fact she fought it in Norsworthy v. Beard and lost. To her credit, she has evolved since then, and, as I said, while not voicing full-throated support for my community, at least she has stood firm and refused to back away from support for us, unlike some cowardly Democrats I could mention. I may not like the political realities, but I do understand them and, by not backing away from support for us, Kamala shows a courage I wish all Democrats had.

Damn, am I tired of being the favorite whipping girl every 4 years! I am tired of being demonized, villainized, otherized and scapegoated. I am hurting nobody by just trying to live my life in the best way I can. I am violating no laws. In fact, I am currently a Criminal Justice major with a 4.0 GPA... while also working a full time job. Some may dislike and disparage people like me, but to them I say that if my very existence is troubling to you, then it is YOU who have the problem, and you don't get to turn your hangups into MY problems. The Constitution NEVER gave you or anyone else the right never to be made to feel a little uncomfortable. As former Associate Justice Louis Brandeis was wont to say: "Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins."

Thanks for this, A.B.

Let us close by noting that this entire item, all 3,000 words of it, has a very sharp tone. We usually dial it back, in an effort to keep things as fair and as dispassionate as we are able. But this item isn't about political differences at all. It's not about what the correct tax rate is, or whether the government should fund lunches for children, or if marijuana should be legalized. No, this item is about human decency vs. human indecency. And so, we're not going to bite our tongues, or in ANY way imply that both sides have a point. What Trump, Vance, and their various supporters and enablers are doing right now is absolutely vile and has no place in a civil society. We would think 100% of people would agree with that, though obviously that is not the case. (Z)

Today in Endorsements

It's "now or never" time, when it comes to endorsements. Actually, we would argue that "now or never" time really arrived a couple of weeks ago, when early voting really kicked in. But in any case, with just 4 days left to the election, would-be endorsers are out of time if they're going to speak up. And there have been a few interesting endorsements in the last 24 hours or so.

We'll start with a few folks who have now climbed on board the S.S. Harris. On Wednesday, Arnold Schwarzenegger became the latest prominent Republican to back the vice president. He explained that he does not much care for the Democratic Party or its policies, but noted that "I will always be an American before I am a Republican," and said that he finds Donald Trump and what Trump represents to be reprehensible. It's not much of a secret that Schwarzenegger and Trump loathe each other, but now the Terminator has taken care to remind everyone. His support is at least a little bit meaningful, because by approval rating, he's the most popular Republican in America (and the second most popular politician overall, behind only Jimmy Carter). Jesse Ventura had already endorsed Harris, so the Democratic nominee now has a monopoly on the 80s-action-stars-turned-state-governors vote.

Harris also picked up another grudging endorsement, also of the "we don't love her, but the alternative is far worse" sort. This one is from The Economist. The publication's editorial board remarked that Harris certainly has shortcomings, but "none of them are disqualifying." On the other hand:

Tens of millions of Americans will vote for Mr. Trump next week. Some will be true believers. But many will take a calculated risk that in office his worst instincts would be constrained. If Trump wins the election, Americans would be gambling with the economy, the rule of law and international peace.

The Economist is British, of course, but it has a fairly substantial American readership. It's also got a reputation for thoughtful analysis and for calling balls and strikes. So, the endorsement could cause a few folks to sit up and take notice.

The final big-time Harris endorsement yesterday was an obvious one, one we thought had already been given. However, NBA star LeBron James actually waited until the Thursday before the election to make it official:

What are we even talking about here?? When I think about my kids and my family and how they will grow up, the choice is clear to me. VOTE KAMALA HARRIS!!!

That tweet was accompanied by a video that juxtaposed racist/violent comments from Trump (and from some of his favorite comedians) with scenes from the Civil Rights movement. James is well known for being politically involved and for being a Democrat, so again, nobody should be surprised by his announcement. That said, the hardest group to get to the polls is younger voters. And the kiddies don't read The Economist (unless they are Alex P. Keaton) and most of them don't know who that 77-year-old guy with the Austrian accent is. So, James' endorsement, even though it was obvious, could end up being the most important of the three. We just don't know; we can see a case for any of the trio we discuss here.

Meanwhile, Trump also picked up a pretty good endorsement, from a person who has a fair claim to being America's greatest living hero. That would be 94-year-old Buzz Aldrin, who is the last living member of the three-person team that made the first trip to the moon. Aldrin announced on Wednesday that he would be voting for Trump, and that he encouraged others to do the same. Aldrin later added that the reason he supports Trump is because of the former president's backing of space exploration.

This is actually kind of interesting, and is worth examining. On the surface, Trump was very pro-space (very spacey?). He "created" the U.S. Space Force while president, and he also talked a lot of talk about sending a manned expedition to Mars. If that did happen, it would be a pretty clear bookend to what Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins did back in 1969.

That said, looked at through another lens, Trump wasn't actually pro-space at all. The Space Force was good theater, but it really was just taking a piece of the Air Force, and spinning it off into a separate service. Nothing much changed, except some new uniforms. Similarly, talking about going to Mars is like talking about building a wall. Talk is cheap; actually following through is somewhere between "unbelievably difficult" and "impossible."

Further, Trump was actively anti-space if you dig down a bit and look at his budgets and his other actions. He tried to put an end to NASA's study of climate change. He cut the budget of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which often works with NASA, and wants to get rid of the agency entirely if reelected. The former president also tried to kill several satellite-based missions, like the PACE Mission, which put a satellite in orbit to monitor the oceans.

Our default assumption is that Buzz Aldrin knows more about space policy than we do. So, maybe he took a look at everything, and decided the pros (the new frontier!) outweighed the cons (what climate change?). Alternatively, maybe at 94, and well over 4 decades removed from his time as an astronaut, he's not really on top of space policy anymore, and he's just being impressed by theatrics. A third possibility is that Aldrin, well known as a conservative Republican, was going to endorse Trump no matter what, and the space stuff was a convenient way to explain that without having to answer questions about the less savory aspects of Trumpism. This is a pretty good case study of the question that is raised by the support of a lot of Trumpers: Is it based on actual policy, on perceptions of policy, or something else and the policy is just an excuse? (Z)

PollWatch 2024, Part XI: Shy Harris Women?

We have a bunch more polling-themed items we want to get to, but boy howdy, do they take a long time to compile and write. So today, in view of the time crunch, we're going to do something that we would say is polling-adjacent.

For at least a couple of months, there has been much chatter about the possibility of women voters who publicly say they are going to vote for Donald Trump, so as to keep their husbands happy, but who really plan to vote for Kamala Harris. Is this because of abortion policy, or is it because Harris is a woman? We would tend to assume the former, and yet there was little talk of this phenomenon while Joe Biden was the Democratic candidate. And, in theory, he would have been as much a protector of abortion as Kamala Harris promises to be. So maybe it is because she's a woman.

Whatever the case may be, we've been wondering about this storyline, and whether or not there might be a real phenomenon here. On one hand, it certainly seems plausible that women in "traditional" households might talk one way, and vote another, so as to keep the peace. On the other hand, it could also be a Democratic pipe dream, not unlike the quadrennial hopes that this is gonna be the year that Texas goes blue.

We tried to think of a way that we might somehow squeeze some information out of the available numbers, but we just couldn't come up with one. However, something's happened in the last day or two that makes us think the phenomenon might just be for real. It's still a gut-feel kind of thing, but at least one backed with some evidence (albeit indirect evidence).

Here's what happened. The actress Julia Roberts recorded a pro-Harris commercial:

It is only 30 seconds, but if you don't care to watch, the basic plotline is that a Trumpy-looking woman arrives at her polling place, accompanied by her even-more-Trumpy-looking husband. He tells her to make sure to vote correctly, she goes to the voting booth and votes for Harris, and then says "yes" when her husband asks if she made "the right choice." Roberts' voiceover makes clear to (women) viewers that their choices are private, and they don't need to tell the truth about how they voted to their husbands.

Now, perhaps we are Pollyannas or something, but if someone implied that one of us had demanded that our significant other vote as we ordered them to vote, our response would be: "What? That would not happen. How dare you even suggest such a thing." Compare that to the angry responses from many, many Republicans yesterday. Here, for example, is Charlie Kirk:

I think it's so gross. I think it's so nauseating where this wife is wearing the American hat, she's coming in with her sweet husband who probably works his tail off to make sure that she can go you know and have a nice life and provide to the family, and then she lies to him saying, "Oh, yeah, I'm gonna vote for Trump," and then she votes for Kamala Harris as her little secret in the voting booth.

Or, here is Newt Gingrich:

And so, for them to tell people to lie is just one further example of the depth of their corruption. I mean, how do you run a country where you're walking around saying, "Wives should lie to their husbands, husbands should lie to their wives"? I mean, what kind of a totally amoral, corrupt, sick system have the Democrats developed?... Instead of having a dignity and patriotism and a sense of morality, these are really sick people.

Newt Gingrich, paragon of moral virtue.

Maybe we're reading too much into this, but the difference between our instinctive response and these remarks was striking to us. Instead of "How dare you suggest we would do something like that," it is "How dare you suggest that women mislead their patriotic, caring, sweet husbands who work so hard to put food on the table." If anything could convince us that the "shy Harris voter" dynamic is real, short of actual numbers, then this attitude, expressed so unhesitatingly by so many Republicans, is it. (Z)

What Do Readers Think?

We will have our predictions for the election next week. Right now, it's time to get YOUR predictions. We're also going to take this opportunity to get a little better handle on the demographic breakdown of the site readership.

Here is the survey we've put together. You'll be asked to answer about 15 demographic questions, then to give your projections for the presidential election, the seven swing-state presidential races, the total number of electoral votes Kamala Harris will win, all the close Senate races, and for the total number of Senate seats the Republicans will control. The last question allows you to share any comments you have on the election. Note that you can skip any question you prefer not to answer. The site that we use for surveys estimates the survey will take about 10 minutes to complete, and that was about what it took us, when we were testing and troubleshooting.

We will share the results, alongside our predictions, next week. Thanks for your assistance! (Z)

This Week in Schadenfreude: When the News Breaks, We Fix It

We've already had an item about how people are canceling their Washington Post subscriptions by the bushel. As of our piece on Wednesday, the total was 200,000 cancellations. As of now, it's passed 250,000, and will presumably continue to climb. That's 10% of the entire subscriber base.

And with that well-deserved pushback comes some good news. By and large, people aren't just taking their money and going home. No, many of them are rerouting it to publications that do not have to put their billionaire owner's needs first and foremost. The British paper The Guardian struck particularly fast and particularly effectively, sending out this fundraising pitch, under the name of U.S. editor Betsy Reed:

The L.A. Times and the Washington Post both have a tradition of issuing editorial endorsements, but in this most consequential of contests for our country, they have chosen to sit on the sidelines of democracy and not alienate any candidate. Something these two papers have in common? They both have billionaire owners who could face retaliation in a Trump presidency.

It has never been clearer that media ownership matters to democracy. The Guardian is not billionaire-owned; nor do we have shareholders. We are supported by readers and owned by The Scott Trust, which guarantees our editorial independence in perpetuity. Nobody influences our journalism. We are fiercely independent and accountable only to you, our readers.

The paper has brought in over $2 million from American readers since that e-mail blast. Other large, metropolitan newspapers have seen an uptick in subscriptions, among them The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Boston Globe.

Incidentally, there is an argument going around, expressed in this piece from Slate, among many other places, that people who want to stick it to Jeff Bezos should cancel their Amazon Prime subscription and not their Washington Post subscription. The basic point is that hurting the Washington Post, where finances are already shaky, just hurts a lot of hardworking journalists, while increasing the chances that the Post goes under.

We see the argument, but we don't buy it. First of all, Amazon employs people, too. And we're not sure that someone busting their rear end all day for something not much better than minimum wage is somehow less a concern than a reporter is. Beyond that, the Post is now deeply, and perhaps fatally, compromised. Its only real hope of coming back from this is if the billionaire owner goes away, and leadership ends up in the hands of a person or entity that is not scared of Donald Trump. In turn, the only way to communicate that is to cancel one's Post subscription. If 200,000 people bail on Amazon Prime tomorrow, nobody's even going to notice, much less interpret it as a message about The Washington Post.

So yes, it's a shame that there is some collateral damage here. But again, the good news is not only that Bezos is getting vast blowback for his choices, but also that support is flowing to other, actually independent journalists and newspapers. (Z)

This Week in Freudenfreude: Takin' It To the Streets

There has been a fair bit of democracy inaction in the news this week, and even in this posting today. So, we thought we'd use this space for a report about democracy in action, as some small counterbalance. Reader A.R. in Los Angeles has been in Phoenix this week doing some door knocking, and agreed to send in a report:

I thought I'd offer a glimpse into the ground game of the Harris campaign and the groups working to get out the vote in swing states. I decided to canvass in Phoenix with Seed the Vote, an umbrella organization that connects people to local organizing groups in swing states. I was part of a 70-person "pod" that was connected up with Worker Power, a local Arizona group mostly made up of union workers, like UNITE HERE.

Worker Power is a well-oiled machine, having been formed to combat racist sheriff Joe Arpaio, eventually unseating him. They have built up an infrastructure that exists outside of presidential elections so it's already in place for critical times like this.

We were targeting low-propensity voters, as well as Republicans and Independents. A full 30% of Arizona voters are registered independents. We were also told that voter persuasion continues, even as we're working to get supporters to the polls.

But what's even more interesting about this group is their approach to getting out the vote. They don't stop with checking a box on an app if the person says they're voting. They want us to ask not only about their plan to vote but that they text a picture of their "I voted" sticker or one of them dropping off their ballot to prove they've voted. And the bigger ask is for people with mail-in ballots to fill them out right then and there, while we wait. Then, we're asking them to drop that ballot off immediately, and offering them a ride to do it.

Remarkably, many voters will do just that. And remember, these are low-propensity voters. I was amazed at how many people were willing to text me a picture of their sticker after they voted. What that means is these votes are definitively banked. I've never been a part of this type of operation.

According to the organizers, they've banked more than a thousand votes this way since voting began. I, myself, had an experience where a voter invited me in to wait while he filled out his ballot. I entertained his little brother, who he was watching while he completed it. And this ballot is long! Over two pages, with multiple state ballot measures put on by the state legislature to override Democratic governor Katie Hobbs' veto. It took him 15 minutes to fill it out. This voter texted me a picture the next day after he dropped off his ballot.

We also know this long ballot will take longer to count, so we were encouraging people to vote as early as possible to minimize issues. This article explains how the ballot length could cause delays in reporting.

We canvassed many neighborhoods in Phoenix and Scottsdale and didn't see anyone from the Trump campaign. We saw plenty of Trump signs but no one from the campaign or any other Republican group.

If this is the kind of sophisticated operation the Harris campaign and others are running, it's very impressive. And there are more people volunteering and enthusiastically fanning out to get those votes than any other group I've seen. I'm not sure how you measure this enthusiasm and these results in a poll.

Please be clear, we run this as an illustration of civic engagement, and people getting excited about the democratic process. Yes, this item also happens to contain a partisan angle, but that's not what qualified it for this space.

And, on that note, have a good weekend, all!

Today's Presidential Polls

We got a couple of questions about why we and others are not treating New Hampshire like a swing state. The answer is: Because it isn't. The Republicans there, even today, tend to be more in the Rockefeller Republican mold than the Trumpublican mold. For that reason, there's been one close poll of the state since July, and in the 10 or so others, Harris was leading by 5+ points. (Z)

State	Kamala Harris	Donald Trump	Start	End	Pollster
Arizona	47%	48%	Oct 28	Oct 30	Noble Predictive Insights
Georgia	47%	48%	Oct 23	Oct 28	SSRS for CNN
Georgia	47%	49%	Oct 17	Oct 25	The Citadel
Michigan	47%	46%	Oct 24	Oct 28	George Mason U.
Michigan	49%	45%	Oct 16	Oct 24	U. of Mass.
Michigan	51%	48%	Oct 27	Oct 30	Marist Coll.
North Carolina	45%	47%	Oct 16	Oct 23	U. of Mass.
North Carolina	48%	47%	Oct 23	Oct 28	SSRS for CNN
New Hampshire	50%	43%	Oct 10	Oct 23	U. of Mass.
Pennsylvania	48%	47%	Oct 16	Oct 23	U. of Mass.
Pennsylvania	50%	48%	Oct 27	Oct 30	Marist Coll.
South Carolina	42%	54%	Oct 17	Oct 25	The Citadel
Wisconsin	50%	48%	Oct 27	Oct 30	Marist Coll.

Click on a state name for a graph of its polling history.

Today's Senate Polls

Remember that if a candidate really is at (or above) 50%, they have reached a version of the promised land. That means their opponent cannot just win by winning undecideds, they have to actually steal away some decideds. The latter task is considerably tougher than the former. (Z)

State	Democrat	D %	Republican	R %	Start	End	Pollster
Arizona	Ruben Gallego	48%	Kari Lake	44%	Oct 28	Oct 30	Noble Predictive Insights
Michigan	Elissa Slotkin	48%	Mike Rogers	39%	Oct 16	Oct 24	U. of Mass.
Michigan	Elissa Slotkin	48%	Mike Rogers	45%	Oct 24	Oct 28	George Mason U.
Michigan	Elissa Slotkin	52%	Mike Rogers	46%	Oct 27	Oct 30	Marist Coll.
Pennsylvania	Bob Casey*	48%	David McCormick	42%	Oct 16	Oct 23	U. of Mass.
Pennsylvania	Bob Casey*	50%	David McCormick	48%	Oct 27	Oct 30	Marist Coll.
Wisconsin	Tammy Baldwin*	51%	Eric Hovde	48%	Oct 27	Oct 30	Marist Coll.

* Denotes incumbent

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---The Votemaster and Zenger