Nate Cohn: “Trump still needs something more than 2016. Mr. Trump’s modest consolidation of presumably disaffected Republican-leaning voters doesn’t do much to change the big picture. As I wrote this morning, he still needs a bigger polling miss than in 2016. While Mr. Biden would win a clear national and Electoral College victory if the polls were as wrong as they were in 2016, the race would still be fairly competitive, in a certain sense. Pennsylvania, Arizona, Florida and Georgia would all be decided by about a point or less. If the polls were off by a bit more, Mr. Trump would claim the narrowest of victories in the Electoral College, despite a significant deficit in the national vote. Still, that’s not a great path.”

“Electoral College edge. The real reason Mr. Trump still has an outside shot is simple: As in the final tallies of 2016, he still has a relative advantage in the states likeliest to decide the election compared with the nation as a whole. If you go down the list of states from best to worst for Mr. Biden, you’ll find that his 270th electoral vote would come from Pennsylvania, where he leads by just over five points. That’s a serious deficit for Mr. Trump, but it’s a lot better than his eight-plus-point deficit in the national vote. If Pennsylvania was Biden plus-8, like Michigan or the nation, it would be really hard to see a path for the president.”

According to the COVID Tracking Project, the number of Americans hospitalized with coronavirus has risen by more than 5,500 people in the last week, increasing the total to more than 48,400 patients.

At least 83,000 people were confirmed with coronavirus Monday according to the aggregator.  Worldometers.info recorded nearly 89,000 cases for Monday.  Between 470 and 520 people died of the coronavirus Monday.

With 8,300 positive tests, Texas recorded 30% more cases than the next highest state, Illinois, on Monday.

The seven-day moving average for new cases jumped to 86,000 cases, its highest since the pandemic began.

Twitter has labeled a tweet by incumbent republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has been flagged by the social media platform as misleading.

The Supreme Court decision on voting in Pennsylvania is a VERY dangerous one. It will allow rampant and unchecked cheating and will undermine our entire systems of laws. It will also induce violence in the streets. Something must be done!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2020

Trump also promotes “violence in the streets” in an explicit endorsement of rioting in the event he loses.

“‘I was provoking thought there. Like, ‘Hey, this is some crazy stuff. What’s going on here? Check this out,’’ he said. ‘I’m not telling nobody to believe that word for word.’ Instead, Masvidal asked listeners harboring doubts to conduct their own investigations” – Politico describing some UFC dipshit spreading Coronavirus conspiracy nonsense.

This is basically the same thing as “people are saying”. What is with these assholes? Why can’t they just take ownership of the bullshit they’re putting out there? I’m genuinely curious about it. That’s what’s provoking my thoughts right now.

As important as the presidential race is, control of the Senate will be the key to enacting the Democratic changes needed to undo the damage of the Trump legacy.  Without a majority in the Senate, republicans will be able to block every measure presented to the Senate, from judicial nominees to naming post offices.

In yesterday’s JackCast, I gave Biden a clear path to victory, both in the Electoral College and the popular vote.  Turning control of the Senate over to Democrats can be seen as a mandate to Democrats to enact their policies, and it will be a thorough rejection of not just Trumpism but McConnellism as well.

There are a number of safe seats on both sides of the aisle, which I won’t bother to list, but there are 14 seats that are at risk for flipping, which we’ll look at here.

Washington Post: “Montana on Monday became the third state to have already had more votes cast in 2020 than were cast in 2016, and it’s not even Election Day. More than 517,000 ballots have been cast in Montana already, far outpacing both ballots cast before Election Day (298,000) and total votes (516,900) in 2016. The state is one of many that expanded access to mail-in voting, and also features contested races for the Senate, governor and an at-large House seat. Last week, Texas and Hawaii saw their early vote totals surge past their total vote marks from 2016.”

This would be Joe Biden's America pic.twitter.com/qCILb8SMNo

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) November 2, 2020

AP: “As the traditional Election Day closes in, Americans are exhausted from constant crises, on edge because of volatile political divisions and anxious about what will happen next. Their agony is not in deciding between President Donald Trump or his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden. Most made that choice long ago. Instead, voters arriving in record numbers to cast early ballots say basic democratic foundations feel suddenly brittle: Will their vote count? Will the loser accept the result? Will the winner find a way to repair a fractured, sick and unsettled nation?”

“‘I just can’t wait until the whole thing is over. And I think it’s long from over, even after Tuesday. There’s just so much anxiety,’ said [Michigander Diane] Spiteri, who voted last week for Biden. ‘I am hoping that there wasn’t too much damage done in the last four years that it can’t be undone.’ Here in Macomb County and across the country, some say the stress has made them physically ill. Others have obsessively tracked polls to soothe their nerves, or bought guns, or researched moving abroad, or retreated to a cabin in the woods. Tension has ratcheted up, sometimes within families, as each side believes the other threatens to usher in the end of America as we know it.”

New York Times: “With absentee ballots flooding election offices nationwide, the officials processing them are tentatively reporting some surprising news: The share of ballots being rejected because of flawed signatures and other errors appears lower — sometimes much lower — than in the past. Should that trend hold, it could prove significant in an election in which the bulk of absentee voters has been Democratic, and Republicans have fought furiously, in court and on the stump, to discard mail ballots as fraudulent.”

“In Fulton County, Ga., home to Atlanta, just 278 of the first 60,000-odd ballots processed had been held back. In Minneapolis, Hennepin County officials last week had rejected only 2,080 of 325,000 ballots — and sent replacement ballots to all of those voters. In Burlington, Iowa, the number of rejected ballots on Monday was 28 of 12,310. And of 474,000 absentee ballots received in Kentucky, barely 1,300 rejects remain uncorrected by voters, compared to more than 15,000 during the state’s presidential primary in June. The number of rejections could fall further. In those jurisdictions and many others, voters are notified of errors on ballots and can correct their mistakes, or vote in person instead. There is no shortage of caveats to those and other upbeat reports from state and local election officials, which are far from comprehensive. In some states, including battlegrounds like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, regulations prevent early processing of millions of mail ballots, and it is impossible to know how many will be turned down.”

¡Mi #AmericanDreamPlan es una promesa para los hispanoamericanos de impulsar una economía próspera, proveer oportunidades de educación para todos, preservar la libertad y apoyar la fe, la familia y la comunidad! https://t.co/RSuEyIFQ0W

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 2, 2020

“A Draft Kings Election Pool update posted on the eve of Election Day showed that a majority of participants in 49 states believe that President Donald Trump will emerge as the victor in the presidential election. Draft Kings’ official Twitter account posted a ‘DK Election Pool Alert’ for its $100,000 pool on Monday, reporting that a majority of people in every state, with the exception of those in Colorado, predicted Trump would win the presidential election. The entries topped 373,000 as of Monday afternoon.”

“Democrat panic appears to be the emerging theme as the election draws closer, with progressives sounding the alarm over former Vice President Joe Biden’s prospects in Minnesota — which has not flipped red in 48 years — as well as his status in battleground Pennsylvania, where Trump has attracted tens of thousands of enthusiastic supporters over the last few days. Democrats have also signaled concern over Democrat turnout in Florida, particularly in Miami-Dade County. While Democrats hold a 108k ballot advantage in the Sunshine State moving into Election Day, Republicans outpaced Democrats in early voting, dramatically narrowing the overall gap. Additionally, reports indicate that Hispanic turnout has been greater for Republicans than Democrats in Miami-Dade” – Breitbart.

The 28th named storm of the season, the most since 2005, Hurricane Eta is set to make landfall in Central America as a Category 4 hurricane, AccuWeather reports.

The storm continues to gather strength and could read Category 5 status before it hits Nicaragua and Honduras.  The storm is already producing high waves along the shore, with a possible storm surge of 18 feet.  High altitudes in the mountains of the region could see 30-50 inches of rain, causing flash flooding in lower-lying areas.

Eta is just the fifth Atlantic storm in modern times to maintain hurricane status in November.  Lenny in 1999, Michelle in 2001, and Paloma in 2008, as well as a hurricane that hit Cuba in 1932, were the others.

“On September 10, Nora Dannehy resigned as the deputy to John Durham, the federal prosecutor investigating the government’s probe into the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election. Dannehy left her post and the Justice Department in part because of Attorney General William Barr’s pressure on Durham to release a report on his investigation’s findings before Election Day, according to a person familiar with her thinking. Trump had long been hoping a report out this fall would damage Democrats, including Joe Biden, and help him win reelection… Durham and Dannehy were also troubled that Barr had purposely misrepresented their work in numerous public comments. According to two sources familiar with the probe, there has been no evidence found to support Barr’s claims that Trump was targeted by politically biased Obama officials to prevent his election. There ‘was no evidence … not even remotely … indicating Obama or Biden did anything wrong,’ as one person put it.”

“Shortly after the resignation of his prized deputy and with the election looming on the horizon, Durham phoned Barr. He forcefully told the attorney general that his office would not be releasing a report or taking any other significant public actions before Election Day, according to a person with knowledge of the phone call. Dannehy’s resignation constituted an implied but unspoken threat to Barr that Durham or others on his team might resign if the attorney general attempted to force the issue, according to a person familiar with Durham’s thinking. After hearing from Durham in September, Barr informed the president and allies that there would be no October surprise, causing Trump to lash out” – New York Magazine.

New York Times: “President Trump arrives at Election Day on Tuesday toggling between confidence and exasperation, bravado and grievance, and marinating in frustration that he is trailing Joseph R. Biden Jr., whom he considers an unworthy opponent. ‘Man, it’s going to be embarrassing if I lose to this guy,’ Trump has told advisers, a lament he has aired publicly as well. But in the off-camera version, Trump frequently exclaims, ‘This guy!’ in reference to Biden, with a salty adjective separating the words. Trailing in most polls, Mr. Trump has careened through a marathon series of rallies in the last week, trying to tear down Mr. Biden and energize his supporters, but also fixated on crowd size and targeting perceived enemies like the news media and Dr. Anthony Fauci, whom he suggested on Sunday he might try to dismiss after the election.”

“At every turn, the president has railed that the voting system is rigged against him and has threatened to sue when the election is over, in an obvious bid to undermine an electoral process strained by the coronavirus pandemic. It is not clear, however, precisely what legal instruments Mr. Trump believes he has at his disposal. The president, his associates say, has drawn encouragement from his larger audiences and from a stream of relatively upbeat polling information that advisers have curated for him, typically filtering out the bleakest numbers.”

The offices of the Democratic Party in Harris County, Texas were vandalized overnight, a day after the Texas Supreme Court declined to uphold a republican move to invalidate 127,000 votes in the county, KTRK ABC-13 News reported.

“Election No, Revolution Yes,” was spraypainted on the front of the building, along with “Don’t Vote” with a Soviet-era hammer and sickle symbol.  Also, the locks on the doors were filled with superglue.

“This is what happens when Republicans are losing,” said Lillie Schechter, Harris County Democratic Party Chair, in a statement. “They use scare tactics and intimidation to scare voters.”

The Democratic county offices are in leased office space, meaning that the landlord of the property will have to incur the costs to remove the graffiti and repair the locks.

A federal judge in Harris County, Texas has thrown out a republican complaint to invalidate 127,000 ballots cast by voters using a drive-in voting system set up by election officials, KTRK ABC 13 in Houston reports.

After yesterday’s decision in the state Supreme Court, this ruling appears to put a nail in the coffin for republican attempts to invalidate the ballots, which were collected by election workers stationed in tents at ten locations around Harris County, which is home to Texas’ biggest city, Houston.

The process was set up to help people vote safely in the age of the coronavirus. 

You can read the story here at the BBC if you really want to, but I think the headline says it all.

ProPublica: “At a September campaign rally in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the president encouraged his audience to be poll watchers. ‘Watch all the thieving and stealing and robbing they do,’ he said. ‘Because this is important.’ But the poll-watching army that the Trumps have tried to rally hasn’t materialized. Although there’s no official data, election officials across the country say that they have seen relatively few Republican poll watchers during early voting, and that at times Democratic poll watchers have outnumbered the GOP’s. In Colorado and Nevada, where the Trump campaign was particularly active in recruiting poll watchers, its efforts largely petered out.”

“Jordan Fuchs, the deputy secretary of state in Georgia, ­a swing state experiencing a record voter turnout, said both county governments and political parties can supply poll watchers in Georgia. Most are showing up in Fulton County, whose seat is Atlanta. ‘I am receiving reports of a few thousand poll watchers from a variety of left-leaning groups. There are very few poll watchers from right-leaning groups,’ she said. ‘The Trump campaign is simply calling for additional poll watchers because they know there is a dearth of right-leaning poll watchers.'”