In his New York Times op-ed article, “Presidential Small Ball,” Thomas B. Edsall nicely sums up the key demographic components of Clinton’s supporters: “Clinton held an 80-point advantage among African-Americans, but was unable to match Obama’s 87-point edge in 2012 or his 91 points in 2008. She won 65 percent of Latino voters, compared with the 71 percent who voted for Obama in 2012. She won 28 percent of non-college white voters to Trump’s 67 percent, the largest gap in this demographic since the early 1980s, according to Pew. Moreover, she lost whites with college degrees 49-45. Among millennials, she won 54 percent of voters aged 18 to 29, compared with 60 percent for Obama in 2012…Clinton’s heavy investment in building support among women produced a one-point improvement on Obama’s 2012 record: according to exit polls, she won women by 12 points (54-42), compared to Obama’s 11 points (55-44). Obama lost men by 7 points in 2012, 52-45, while Clinton lost them by 12 points, 53-41.”

Does the second popular vote win/electoral college defeat for Democrats in presidential elections in 16 years mean Dems should make direct popular vote election a priority? In a close popular vote presidential election like 2016, Democrats could just as likely have benefitted from the electoral college, and, in 2000 the Florida vote count and Supreme Court decision muddied the effect of the electoral college. So there is probably no built-in advantage for Republicans in the electoral college. The best argument for direct popular election of the President is a moral one: Majority rule should mean majority rule. We don’t need an 18th century filter to protect us from the will of the voters, and you could argue that in 2016 the electoral college actually served the worst instincts of the rabble the founders feared. For a good backgrounder/update on the movement for direct popular election, check out James Lartey’s post, “Hillary Clinton poised to win popular vote despite losing presidential race” at the Guardian.

Does the 2016 election indicate that voters want to reign in ‘free trade’ and globalism? When you look at the arc of rust belt states for Trump stetching from PA to WI, it’s hard to avoid that conclusion. Whatever the actual economic benefits to the U.S. of ‘free’ trade, NAFTA, TPP and the free ride for runaway plants, it is a very tough sell, which defies credible explanation and makes it’s proponents sound like elitists. Hillary Clinton’s inability to shake off the globalist stigma of her husband’s administration, Trump’s free trade-bashing and Bernie Sanders’s primary/caucus wins in 22 states as a critic of unbalanced trade agreements provide ample testimony that many voters believe trade has in recent years been more of a job-killer than a job creator. Be sure to read Edward McClelland’s Washington Post article on the topic, “The Rust Belt was turning red already. Donald Trump just pushed it along.” In one key graph, McClelland explains, “Clinton, on the other hand, seemed to take the Upper Midwest for granted, never campaigning in Wisconsin and finally making a panicky visit to Detroit on the Friday before the election. In the 1980s, Michigan was the forging ground of the Reagan Democrats: hawkish, socially conservative, suburban, blue-collar workers who ignored the United Auto Workers’ entreaties to vote for Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale. (Their heartland, Macomb County, just north of Detroit, voted for Obama in 2012 but gave Trump 54 percent of its vote on Tuesday.)”

In his article, “How the Rustbelt Paved Trump’s Road to Victory” at The Atlantic, Ronald Brownstein observes “those who did vote stampeded to Trump in insurmountable numbers. In particular, Trump beat Clinton among white voters without a college education by an astonishing 39 percentage points—a margin larger than Ronald Reagan’s against Walter Mondale in his 1984 landslide. Trump not only beat her by nearly 50 points among blue-collar white men, but by almost 30 points among non-college-educated white women. (Trump is president largely because white working-class women gave him double-digit margins in key states—a development that may occupy gender studies scholars for years.) Similarly, Trump captured more than three-fifths of rural voters nationwide; in the decisive Rustbelt states—Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and possibly Michigan—Clinton suffered death by a thousand cuts, as Trump improved over Mitt Romney’s 2012 performance almost everywhere outside the biggest cities.”

But don’t be fooled by the vast swatchs of red ink on election maps, which have more to do with geography than political preferences of voters. As L.A. Timess reporter Cathleen Decker puts it desribing Hillary Clinton’s electoral college shortfall, “A switch in three states of only about 50,000 votes out of some 120 million cast nationwide would have been enough to give her the victory.”

As you scan the post-mortems on the 2016 election, also have a gander at Naomi Klein’s critique, “It was the rise of the Davos class that sealed America’s fate,” also at The Guardian, which begins, “They will blame James Comey and the FBI. They will blame voter suppression and racism. They will blame Bernie or bust and misogyny. They will blame third parties and independent candidates. They will blame the corporate media for giving him the platform, social media for being a bullhorn, and WikiLeaks for airing the laundry…But this leaves out the force most responsible for creating the nightmare in which we now find ourselves wide awake: neoliberalism. That worldview – fully embodied by Hillary Clinton and her machine – is no match for Trump-style extremism. The decision to run one against the other is what sealed our fate. If we learn nothing else, can we please learn from that mistake?…The Democratic party needs to be either decisively wrested from pro-corporate neoliberals, or it needs to be abandoned. From Elizabeth Warren to Nina Turner, to the Occupy alumni who took the Bernie campaign supernova, there is a stronger field of coalition-inspiring progressive leaders out there than at any point in my lifetime.”

So how did Democrats do in the battles to win majorities of state legislative chambers? According to the National Conference of State legislatures, “Four chambers switched from Republican to Democratic control: New Mexico House; Nevada Assembly; Nevada Senate; and Washington Senate (Republicans, however, will have functional control as one Democrat will caucus with the Republicans.)…Three chambers switched from Democratic to Republican control: Kentucky House; Iowa Senate; and Minnesota Senate. …Two chambers will be tied: Connecticut Senate and Delaware Senate.”

The Center for American Women in Politics notes that, despite Hillary Clinton’s popular vote win/electoral college loss, women do have some encouraging election gains, including: “Nine new women of color, all Democrats, will enter Congress: three in the Senate and six in the House. A total of 37 women of color will serve in the 115th Congress…A total of six women have won Senate races. The totals include four newcomers, all Democrats, and two incumbents (1D, 1R) winning re-election…The newcomers include two women who won open seats: Kamala Harris (D-CA) and Catherine Cortez-Masto (D-NV); and 2 women who defeated incumbents: Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and Maggie Hassan (D-NH)…A total of 10 new women (8D, 2R) have been elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, joining 73 incumbents who won re-election.” However, there will be one less woman in the House than the number currently serving.”

Lastly, presidential election post-mortems are understandably hard on the losing candidate. Putting her candidacy and career in politics in perspective, Hillary Clinton’s achievements and conributions are extraordinary. As a social change activist, First Lady, U.S. Senator and Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton has earned high praise for her tireless commitment to public service, her work ethic, policy acumen and genuine decency as a human being. The Republicans threw everything they had at her for decades, including the ugliest lies and innuendo any political figure has had to endure in our times, and she never flinched or retreated. And let’s not forget two of her historic accomplishments — as the first woman to win the presidential nomination of a major political party and the first woman to win the popular vote in a presidential election. If she never did anything else, her accomplishments so far provide a source of inspiration and encouragement — to young women in particular, who are considering a career in politics and public service — and to all American progressives.

From the CNN Exit Polls;

41 percent of men voted for Clinton, 53 percent of women

Clinton won 45 percent of voters over age 65, compared to Trump’s 53 percent

58 percent of white voters cast ballots for Trump, vs. 37 percent for Clinton

43 percent of white women voted for Clinton, vs. 53 percent for Trump

43 percent of whites, age 18-29 voted for Clinton, while 48 percent voted for Trump

65 percent of Latinos voted for Clinton, but 29 percent voted for Trump

28 percent of whites with no college degree voted for Clinton, 67 percent of them voted for Trump

45 percent of white college graduates voted for Clinton, 49 percent of them voted for Trump

34 percent of white, non-college women voted for Clinton, 62 percent for Trump

62 percent of unmarried women voted for Clinton, 33 percent for Trump

51 percent of union household voters chose Clinton, 43 percent picked Trump

52 percent of voters who said the economy was the most important issue voted for Clinton, vs. 42 percent for Trump

39 percent of voters who said terorism was the most important issue voted for Clinton, vs. 57 percent of them for Trump.

29 percent of those who had an unfavorable opinion of both Clinton and Trump voted for Clinton, while 49 percent of them voted for Trump.

36 percent of voters said that Clinton’s use of private email bothers them “not a lot” or “not at all,” while 45 percent of voters said it bothered them “a lot” and 17 percent of voters said it bothered them “some.”

39 percent of voters said Trump’s treatment of women bothered them “not much” or “not at all,” while 50 percent said it bothered them “a lot” and 20 percent said it bothered them “some.”

62 percent of voters said the economy was “not good” or “poor”

27 percent of voters agreed that their financial condition was worse today than four years ago.

62 percent of respondents said the country was on the “wrong track.”

In no particular order of historic accuracy:

“First things first: Hillary Clinton has a 70 percent chance of winning the election, according to both the FiveThirtyEight polls-only and polls-plus models. That’s up from a 65 percent chance on Sunday night, so Clinton has had a good run in the polls in the final days of the campaign. Clinton’s projected margin of victory in the popular vote has increased to 3.5 percentfrom 2.9 percent.” — Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com.

President – Clinton 322 EVs, Trump 216 EVs; Senate – 50 Democrats, 50 Republicans; House – 201 Democrats, 234 Republcians (Net Dem pick-up of 13 seats; Governors – 18 Democratic, 31 Republicans (no net pick-ups for either party). — Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik, and Geoffrey Skelley, Larry J. Sabato’s Crystal Ball.

Ed Kilgore: Clinton by 3 in popular vote, 307-231 in electoral votes.

“Our Senate forecasts — both polls-only and poll-plus — tipped toward Republicans late Monday, giving them about a 51 percent chance of maintaining their majority. While that technically makes the GOP a slight favorite, the fight for Senate control remains basically a coin flip. Still, our Senate forecasts have been inching in the GOP’s favor over the past several days, largely driven by a shift in the generic congressional ballot.” —Harry Enten at Five ThirtyEight.com.

Jonathan Chait: Clinton by five, 318 electoral votes.

“The presidential race may be inducing whiplash, but the House battleground remains relatively stable in the final week. We rate only 40 House races in Lean or Toss Up, and Democrats would need to sweep 35 of them to win control, so Republicans remain overwhelming favorites to hold onto their majority. But there is still plenty of uncertainty about the size of that majority: Democrats could gain anywhere from 5 to 20 seats.” — David Wasserman, Cook Political Report.

Eric Levitz: I like Clinton by five nationally.

“Most probable single outcome (shown on map below): Clinton 323 EV, Trump 215 EV…Median: Clinton 312 EV, Trump 215 EV. Meta-Margin: 2.7%…Mode (see histogram at right): Clinton 309 EV, Trump 229 EV…National popular vote: Clinton +4.0 ± 0.6%.” — Sam Wang, Princeton Election Consortium.

“Hillary Clinton has an 84% chance to win.” —  Josh Katz at The Upshot

“While we are moving two states in Donald Trump’s direction on this second-to-last day of the campaign, the overall map still clearly favors Hillary Clinton: She has 275 electoral votes solidly or leaning her way — five more than she needs to win the White House on Tuesday night. In fact, even if Trump holds all of the states either solidly or leaning his way and wins all three states currently rated as “toss-ups,” he is still seven electoral votes short of 270.” — “Hillary Clinton has enough electoral votes to win the White House in final Fix map” by Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake at The Fix.

“The Democrats have a 52% chance of winning the Senate” — Josh Katz at The Upshot

Charlie Cook: “There is a food fight un­der way among many of those do­ing pres­id­en­tial-elec­tion mod­el­ing… It’s not my style or ex­pert­ise to put a spe­cif­ic per­cent­age on Clin­ton’s chances of win­ning, but, suf­fice it to say, it’s a really big num­ber…The Sen­ate is tough­er to call. The strong like­li­hood of a Clin­ton vic­tory means that the Demo­crat­ic tar­get is 50 seats, a gain of four, with Vice Pres­id­ent Tim Kaine cast­ing a tiebreak­ing vote if ne­ces­sary. Right now, I think the odds are highest for a four-seat gain, next likely would be five seats.” — Taegan Goddard’s “Cook Sees a Clinton Win and Democratic Senate.”

“Trump will win Ohio and Iowa and outperform Romney in the course of losing Michigan and Pennsylvania. Elsewhere he’ll slightly underperform Romney en route to losing North Carolina, Florida and Nevada. The only major twist will be a Trump electoral vote from northern Maine. The popular vote will be Hillary 50, Trump 44. The Electoral College splitwill be 322-216. The Senate will be 50-50, with Tim Kaine as the decider.” — NYT columnist Russ Douthat

Next President Democratic – 89%, Republican 11 % — Prediction Markets at 3:12 a.m., Nov. 8.

“The HuffPost presidential forecast model gives Democrat Hillary Clinton a 98.2 percent chance of winning the presidency. Republican Donald Trump has essentially no path to an Electoral College victory…The Senate is likely to shift to a Democratic majority, with 51 seats, or 50 seats and Tim Kaine as the vice presidential tie-breaker. The HuffPost model says there’s a 66 percent chance Democrats will get 51 or more seats, and a 25 percent chance the chamber ends up with each party at 50 seats.” – “HuffPost Forecasts Hillary Clinton Will Win With 323 Electoral Votes:Democrats stand a strong chance of taking control of the Senate as well.” by Natalie Jackson

“It would be a mistake to call Trump’s current path to an electoral-college victory narrow. It is nonexistent.” — Stuart Rothenberg.

At CNN Politics Marshall Cohen reports that “Democrats take the lead in Florida early voting,” and notes that “More than 5.7 million Floridians have already hit the polls after about two weeks of in-person early voting. So far, 2,268,663 Democrats have cast their ballots and 2,261,383 Republicans have already voted…The numbers provide clues on who is voting and which party is turning out to vote. And while the numbers track voters’ party affiliations, not all Democrats are voting for Clinton, and not all Republicans are supporting Trump….The milestone is a boon to Hillary Clinton’s chances of carrying the Sunshine State and its 29 electoral votes — a prize so large that it would help her close off most of Donald Trump’s paths to victory…But it’s not all good news for Democrats: Their current lead is significantly smaller than the turnout advantage they had over registered Republicans at this point in 2008.” S.V. Date adds at HuffPo, “Of the early votes cast by Friday, close to one-third of the Hispanic voters had never voted in an election before. And polling makes clear that they are overwhelmingly voting for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.”

From “An early sign Trump is being out-organized: A big Democratic advantage in Nevada voting” by WaPo’s Philip Bump: “In 2012, Clark County made up more than two-thirds of all of the votes cast, and the county backed President Obama over Mitt Romney by 15 points — and by a margin of 101,000 votes. Clark County’s early vote and absentee turnout so far is 76 percent of the total votes cast in that county in 2012…More votes doesn’t necessarily mean more votes for the Democrat, of course. And in Clark County, the percent of early and absentee ballots cast by Democrats during the first two weeks dropped from 47.6 to 45.8 percent. The percentage of Republicans returning ballots, though, also fell, from 33.1 to 32.1 percent of the electorate. Over that period, the density of the parties in registered voter pools fell about the same amount — with the difference being an increase in nonpartisan voters. In 2012, that group made up 19 percent of the early/absentee vote; this year, it’s over 22 percent. As Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman notes, that’s a group that leans heavily young and nonwhite.”

At The Charlotte Observer Jim Morrill and Tim Funk report, “Democrats cast more early votes than any other group, but have not caught up to their 2012 numbers. Republicans, on the other hand, were running 11 percent above their 2012 performance, with nearly 100,000 more votes. Republicans credited the increase to efforts aimed at boosting GOP registration since 2012…But it is unaffiliated voters – who nearly match Republicans in registration – who have seen their early voting numbers jump the most: up 38 percent from four years ago…Who are they?…An analysis by Carolina Demography at UNC-Chapel Hill found that they tend to be younger. The median age of unaffiliated voters is 43. It’s 52 for voters registered with a party. And more than half first registered in North Carolina in 2010 or later.” However, adds Funk and Morrill, “African-American early turnout was also down 11 percent compared with 2012 as of Saturday afternoon. That’s a concern for Democrats.”

From the Dayton Daily News comes this nugget from “Ohio Democrats need to rethink strategy” by Thomas Suddes: “Two certain things about Tuesday: All 16 Ohioans with seats in the U.S. House will be re-elected thanks to rigged congressional districts. And U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, a suburban Cincinnati Republican, will win a second term by routing his Democratic challenger, former Gov. Ted Strickland…As for the Hillary Clinton-Donald Trump slugfest, it appears, at this writing, that Trump may join the Richard M. Nixon Club: As noted before, the Nixon Club is composed of GOP nominees, like Nixon in 1960 and Thomas Dewey in 1944, who carry Ohio but don’t win the presidency…Given how safe Ohio’s congressional seats are, you have to wonder why anyone donates to 16 foolproof Ohio congressional campaigns. Maybe it’s because nothing says, “take my calls – please,” like a big check sent to the campaign fund of a safe-seat legislator…In some parts of the world, agreed, that might be considered little better than paying-for-access. That’s why Ohioans are so fortunate that their members of Congress, like General Assembly members, display such lofty ethical standards and unfailing rectitude.”

In his post, “What to watch in Virginia on election night,” Graham Moomaw of the Richmond Times-Dispatch writes “Most polls indicate Clinton will follow in the footsteps of President Barack Obama by putting Virginia in the Democratic column for the third straight presidential election…But the race appears to be tightening in the campaign’s final stage, giving Republicans hope for a more interesting night with Trump potentially in position to grab the state’s 13 electoral votes…Recent Virginia polls showed Clinton with a 6- to 7-point lead. In 2012, Obama won the state over Republican Mitt Romney by roughly 4 points…With growing, increasingly diverse populations, Loudoun and Henrico counties are perhaps the best barometers of Virginia’s political winds…As microcosms of a purple state trending blue, both counties were once reliable GOP territory but went to Obama in 2008 and 2012. Four years ago, Obama won Henrico by nearly 12 points, and Loudoun by around 4.5 points. Democrats will want those margins to grow, while Republicans will want to see them fall back into more competitive territory…The numbers coming out of Chesterfield County, a key GOP stronghold, will serve as an indicator of Republicans’ enthusiasm for their nominee…A big Trump vote in Chesterfield, typically among the earliest to report results on election night, could signal strong Republican turnout and help offset Clinton’s gains in large Democratic localities. Weakness in Chesterfield would suggest Republicans are in for a disappointing night.”

In Colorado The Denver Post’s John Frank observes, “The University of Denver poll released Wednesday found Clinton and Trump deadlocked at 39 percent in a four-way race, in a survey of registered likely voters conducted Saturday through Monday…The third-party candidates combined for 15 percent with another 8 percent undecided. The poll’s margin of error is plus-or-minus 4.2 percent…The DU poll used live interviews on landlines and cellphones. It featured fewer Latino voters than expected to cast ballots and also less unaffiliated voters…Two other polls in recent days show the race closing in Colorado with Clinton holding a three-point lead within the margins…Among voters who already cast ballots, Clinton sits in a much better position at 45 percent to 38 percent for Trump — a number that appears to support early voting figures showing Democrats with a 23,000 ballot advantage.”

“The most dramatic shift has been in Pennsylvania. Polls long showed a tossup between incumbent Republican Pat Toomey and Democratic challenger Katie McGinty, but the race is clearly tilting in McGinty’s direction now. Our polls-plus forecast gives her a 74 percent chance of winning, and McGinty hasn’t trailed in a poll in over two weeks and has opened up her largest lead in the FiveThirtyEight polls-plus forecast for the entire year…Voters in Pennsylvania appear to be treating the presidential and Senate races as one, as Hillary Clinton and McGinty have about equal chances of winning the Keystone State. That’s bad news for Toomey, who was always an odd fit in Pennsylvania: He’s very conservative; the state leans blue. Toomey was elected in a midterm year; such elections have had more Republican-friendly electorates of late, and that was true in 2010, when Toomey won amidst a national GOP wave nationally. He was always going to have more trouble in a presidential election cycle.” — from Harry Enten at FiveThirtyEight.

In Wisconsin:

I’m a little skeptical about the notion that GA is a swing state this year. For one thing, two Democratic dynasty candidates named Nunn and Carter both lost state-wide races by 8 points in 2014. Granted, mid-term elections have a built-in Republican edge, but still, 8 points is a lot. On the other hand, Sean Colarossi’s post, “Clinton’s Superior Ground Game Could Put Her Over The Top In Neck-and-Neck Georgia” at PoliticusUSA.com makes an interesting point: Not only are Clinton and Trump in a stat tie in the latest NBC News/WSJ/Marist poll; By all reports, Democrats have mobilized an impressive GOTV effort, and Trump has an exceptionally-weak ground game in the peach state. As Colarossi puts it, “With Trump’s operation far worse than Romney’s was four years ago and certainly inferior to Clinton’s, it’s conceivable that the Democratic nominee could outperform the polling by even more.”

“Five days before Election Day, the margin between the candidates is narrow, with 45 percent of likely voters supporting Mrs. Clinton, the Democratic candidate, to 42 percent for Mr. Trump, the Republican nominee. The difference is within the poll’s margin of sampling error…Fewer than one in 10 likely voters say they may still change their minds about whom they will support on Tuesday, and both candidates have about equal support among their party’s voters. Political independents, who backed President Obama in 2008 and Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee, in 2012, are currently split…At this point in the 2012 campaign, Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney were deadlocked in polling averages, and Mr. Obama went on to win the election by a four-point margin.” — from “Hillary Clinton Still Leads a Tighter Race, Times/CBS News Poll Shows” by Megan Thee-Brenan.

At The Upshot Nate Cohn explains why “Early Vote in North Carolina Seems Consistent With a Clinton Lead.” Cohn observes, “So far, nearly 600 of our respondents have voted early — basically a full poll’s worth of early voters. For this analysis, we’ve weighted this subsample of validated early voters to match the demographic characteristics of early voters by age, race, party, sex and 2014 vote history…Over all, Mrs. Clinton leads among these early votes by 51 percent to 39 percent in the three-way race, and by 53-39 in the two-way race.”

More evidence that Clinton’s batleground states ground game gives her an edge: “Mrs. Clinton has a considerable lead over Mr. Trump among newly registered voters in Pennsylvania, Florida and North Carolina combined, 47 percent to 31 percent,” writes Cohn in another Upshot post exploring why “Donald Trump Can’t Count on Those ‘Missing White Voters” Cohn adds “Democrats have a modest advantage among voters who registered since 2012, 34 percent to 28 percent…But the newly registered voters nonetheless solidly lean toward Mrs. Clinton, based on our polling data and voter records. They’re disproportionately young and nonwhite…Newly registered voters who aren’t affiliated with a major party lean to Mrs. Clinton over Mr. Trump by 42 percent to 21 percent; Gary Johnson runs a close third, with 20 percent.”

Watch the Nevada Senate race, where one of the most impressive Democratic candidates Catherine Cortez Masto, is running against Rep. Joe Heck, who outgoing Sen. Harry Reid calls “an absolute stooge for these right-wing nut cases.” The Koch brothers are heavily bankrolling Heck’s campaign, and a win by Cortez Masto would signal a strong pro-Democratic trend in the west and launch the first Latina U.S. senator. The New York Times editorial board has a good update on this key race.

James Hohman argues that “College-educated white women are Hillary Clinton’s firewall” at The Daily 202: “One in five voters in 2012 were college-educated white women. Mitt Romney won them by 6 points, according to exit polls…Our fresh Washington Post-ABC News Tracking Poll, which has Hillary Clinton ahead by just 2 points among all likely voters nationally, finds that Donald Trump is losing college-educated white women by 27 points…If the Republican nominee was anywhere close to Romney’s 52 percent support level among this traditionally Republican-leaning constituency, he would likely win the election. But drilling into the crosstabs of our polling and reviewing credible, state-level data demonstrates how highly unlikely it is that this constituency will waver in the final days. It is one of the reasons that, even though the race has tightened pretty dramatically, Clinton retains a significant structural advantage.”

Regarding the so-called ‘enthusiasm gap’ cited in recent polling, Hohman also notes, “In The Post/ABC tracking poll, enthusiasm for Clinton is back on par with enthusiasm for Trump after a drop off. Over the weekend, after the FBI announcement, 43 percent of Clinton supporters in our tracking poll said they were “very enthusiastic,” below Trump’s 53 percent. Trump’s advantage in enthusiasm has shrunk to only two points in the last two days of interviewing. Now 48 percent of Clinton supporters call themselves “very enthusiastic,” compared to 50 percent for Trump.”

Philip Bump writes in his polling update at The Fix: “Polls, as we say again and again, are snapshots — and belated ones at that. Like a Polaroid of a horse race taken in the home stretch that we would have to wait to see develop. The race has moved on, but we can make guesses about where it’s going from where it was. The short version is that Clinton is still poised to win. The medium-length version is that the race seems as of it will be a lot closer than it looked two weeks ago. The long version, implied above, is that continued movement away from Clinton and toward Trump nationally could solidify those 265 electoral votes for Trump — and maybe open up some options for those other five he needs.” In other words, Trump has some closing momentum, but time may be on Clinton’s side. And, of course, no polling can gauge GOTV prep, and by all accounts, Clinton’s team has bigger groud game.

It pains me to admit that Republican Sen. Rob Portman’s ad is very well-done, even though he is more likely to cost Ohio jobs with his economic policies, than protect them. Here Portman projects his understanding of Trump’s strongest messaging issue “protect American jobs,” tweaks it for Ohio, shows concern for working people at their workplace and wraps the whole damn thing in the flag. Dems could do worse:

The Democratic ad that is getting the most positive buzz has to be Missouri senate candidate Jason Kander’s “blindfold” spot. In the ad, Kander confidently assembles an AR-15 assaul rifle blindfolded, while touting his military experience, patriotic service and his support of background checks, all the while demonstrating his energetic persona. The ad has been credited with giving Kander a solid boost in the race and may bring another potential Democratic rising star:

The final week of campaign 2016 will undoubtedly set new records for broadcasting political ads, which may or may not have much influence. Late-breaking news, however, may actually have more influence on voter turnout.

Comey’s October nothingburger dominated the first days of the closing week. But now the scandal-hungry media is looking elsewhere for stories to capture the attention of growing numbers of Americans who are bored by the mere mention of the word “emails,” and new revelations about Trump’s lies, sleazy  business ethics and corruption give them plenty of fodder. As Michael Tomasky writes at The Daily Beast, “what happened Monday was that Trump was hit with three big stories”:

1. CNBC reported—based on one source, it must be said—that earlier in October, Comey had argued privately that it was too close to the election for the U.S. government to name Russia as the hacker of Democratic emails. That disclosure was made by the government, just without the FBI’s name on it. Obviously, it was a disclosure that caused some discomfort for the Trump campaign, tied as the candidate is to Russia. The obvious question, if this story is accurate: Why was Oct. 7 too close to the election for the FBI to help create a news story that might have been bad for Trump, while Oct.28 was not too close to the election for the FBI to single-handedly create a news story that was bad for Clinton? Inquiring minds want to know.

2. NBC News reported the FBI has launched a preliminary investigation into former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort’s ties to Russia. Manafort, of course, is not the candidate and is no longer affiliated with the campaign. So this isn’t necessarily an A-1 bombshell. But the existence of NBC News’s “law-enforcement and intelligence sources” who wanted to put this out screams to us that there’s a civil war brewing in federal law-enforcement circles and that for every pro-Trump leak, we can expect some countervailing pushback.

3. And finally, breaking just after 9 p.m. Monday night, the big one: The New York Times detailing how Trump used a questionable tax-dodge technique to “avoid reporting hundreds of millions of dollars” in what was supposed to be taxable income. This is a complicated one, but, according to the Times, as far as the IRS is concerned, a dollar of canceled debt is the same as a dollar of taxable income; tax must be paid on the canceled debt. But Trump used a maneuver that allowed him to avoid paying federal tax on the canceled debt—he avoided paying as much as $50 million a year for 18 years, the paper said. And it was a maneuver that his own attorneys said was dodgy. The article quotes numerous tax experts as saying that what Trump did here was outrageous.

As Tomasky concludes, summing up Trump’s legacy, “his entire adult life has been spent cheating everyone who had the misfortune to cross his path.”

Add to these three stories new revelations, such as Trump being caught on tape lying about his votes for President Bush. From Andrew Kaczynski’s CNN post, “Trump said in 2005 that he voted for George W. Bush. In 2009, he claimed he never did“:

As recently as January of this year, Trump said he voted for Bush in both the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections…Speaking with Imus in February 2009, Trump said, “You know how I feel about Bush, and I think you got to feel that way, also.”

“I never voted for him,” responded Imus. “I never voted for him, Donald.”…”You’re good, then. I didn’t either, by the way,” Trump said, “You’re good. I just thought that guy was a dimwit. You looked at it, and he just didn’t look like he was all there…You look at his eyes, I mean he’d make a speech and you’d look at him and you’d say, ‘Does he even know what he’s reading?’ This guy, he was a horrible president,” said Trump.

Trump’s answer on Imus is a direct contradiction to what he told Bill O’Reilly in January 2005, the day before then-president Bush was to be inaugurated for his second term…”All right. You didn’t vote for Bush, did you?,” O’Reilly asked Trump.

“Actually, I did,” said Trump…I voted for Bush because I think he’s got certain things that are excellent, including a tax policy that’s excellent and going to prove to be excellent,” Trump said. “But I am not a big fan of the war in Iraq, and I’ve let a lot of people know about it, and perhaps that’s being proven to be correct.”

For a well-reasoned take on the latest Clinton email distraction, read Ed Kilgore’s New York Magazine post, “The Latest Phase of the Clinton Email Brouhaha Won’t Save Trump,” in which he writes” “the underlying “story” of the emails isn’t some sort of bombshell, and the odds are that the negative attention and any lingering substantive concerns among voters will be too little, too late to make much of a difference.”

I’m wondering if Comey’s election meddling could backfire by re-energizing Clinton supporters, some of whom may have been lulled into not voting by her strong polling and also by causing some of the few remaining undecideds to be disgusted by Comey’s October nothingburger. As Vice President Walter Mondale once put it, “Where’s the beef?”

Washington Post reporters Robert Costa and Abby Phillip note, “According to the latest Washington Post-ABC poll, a majority of all likely voters is unmoved by Comey’s decision, which has spurred a fierce backlash from Clinton backers.” As for clues about what the candidates’ best internal polling is indicating, Phillip and Costa note that Trump is heading for Wsiconsin and Michigan today, while Clinton is focusing on Ohio, Florida and North Carolina.

Meanwhile, Senate Minority leader Harry Reid has written to F.B.I. Director James Comey warning “Your actions in recent months have demonstrated a disturbing double standard for the treatment of sensitive information, with what appears to be clear intent to aid one political party over another,” the letter says. “I am writing to inform you that my office has determined that these actions may violate the Hatch Act,” which bars government officials from trying to influence elections. As Pete Williams and Tom Stelloh write at nbcnews.com, “Reid also accused Comey of shielding Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump from scrutiny over his connections to Russia, saying “it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination” between Trump and his advisers and the Russian government.” It sure looks like Reid is right, but it would be very hard to prove. The F.B.I. director can, however, be fired by the President or impeached by congress.

“Early Turnout Tilts Toward Democrats in Swing States,” report Jeremy W. Peters and Matt Flegenheimer at The New York Times. “At least 21 million people have voted so far across the country. In the states that are most likely to decide the election — among them Florida, Colorado and Nevada — close to a quarter of the electorate has already cast ballots. While their votes will not be counted until Election Day, registered Democrats are outperforming Republicans in key demographics and urban areas there and in North Carolina, where extensive in-person voting began late last week and which has emerged as one of the most closely contested battlegrounds for the White House and control of the Senate.”

Will some progressive sugar-daddy/mama concerned about young voter turnout please fund projects like this in every state: USC “Students Develop New App to Increase Voter Turnout,” reports Sofia Bosch at the Daily Trojan. “Andrew Jiang, Michael Lim, Lucas Johnson, Alex Teboul and Arush Shankar won Spark SC’s Futurethon, a 48-hour hacking competition, with BallotView. The free and nonpartisan app allows voters to preview their state’s local ballot, learn details about each measure and candidate and save a receipt of their choices to take to the polls.”

At Campaigns & Elections, Laura Packard has “5 Cost-Effecive GOTV Plays,” a good read for Democratic campaigns with a little extra cash on hand.

You want a bipartisan consensus? Try Ariel Edwards-Levy’s “Most Americans Think Voting Should Be Easy” at HuffPo, which notes “Democrats say by a 68-point margin, 80 percent to 12 percent, that the government should work to make voting easy; Republicans agree by a much slimmer 11-point margin, 51 percent to 40 percent. Independents fall in the middle, saying by a 28-point margin, 53 percent to 25 percent, that painless voting should be a goal, with the remainder unsure.”

Democrats, here’s your Halloween scare for the day: “Perhaps the most egregious [NC] county is Guilford, a county of 517,600 people, of which 57.9 percent is White, and gave Obama 58 percent of the vote in 2012. The county opened 16 in-person early voting locations in 2012, but has only their central election office open in 2016. The number of in-person voters on the first Thursday and Friday was 21,560 in 2012, but was only 3,305 in 2016, a decrease of 18,255 or 85 percent.” — from Nico Pitney’s HuffPo article, “This Is What Actual Voter Suppression Looks Like, And It’s Appalling: In one county, a reduction in polling places has helped cut early voting by 85 percent.”

Greg Sargent’s Plum Line post, “The GOP has a new strategy to hold Congress. Here’s how Democrats will fight it” previews dueling messaging for the final two weeks of the presidential campaign. As Sargent explains,

Republicans scrambling to salvage control of Congress amid Donald Trump’s downward tailspin have hit on a new message: A GOP-controlled House and Senate are necessary to act as a check on President Hillary Clinton. The message basically argues for divided government as a way to prevent her from going too far, in effect admitting that the presidential race is a goner.

But Democrats insist that this message will be a non-starter, and they shared new internal polling with this blog that they argue backs up their claim. Dems say they can rebut the Republicans’ line of attack by pointing out that they are openly, explicitly promising more obstruction in Washington, something swing voters and independents despise.

Sargent notes that pro-Republican PACs have ads loaded that are designed to gin up fear of a ‘rubber stamp’ congress ready to Give HRC free reign. He notes that Democratic internal polling, with all of the appropriate caveats, indicates voters in 30 contested House districts are more inclined to vote for the Democratic congressional candidate by a margin of 50 to 40 percent.

Further, adds Sargent, “66 percent of respondents expect Republicans to try to block Clinton even if it means more gridlock and inaction in Washington, while only 23 percent think they will work constructively with Clinton, meaning they’re prepared to believe GOP control means more obstruction.”

Recent history indicates that split-ticket voting in presidential election years is declining. The Republicans hope that 2016 will prove to be an exceptional year and the Democratic nominee will prove to be more of a drag down-ballot, but statistical evidence of that happening is scant at best. If Clinton is a drag down-ballot, Trump is a leaden anchor.

“Republicans want this argument to be about whether Congress will stand up to overreaching President Hillary,” says Sargent, “while Democrats want it to be about whether Washington is going to function again or whether we’re going to see more of the same gridlock and dysfunction that GOP control of the House meant during the Obama years.”

The Republicans have already done a thorough job of branding themselves as the party of obstruction, as most recently demonstrated in John McCain’s comments. As Jonathan Bernstein notes at Bloomberg View,

We’ve heard hopeful claims lately that the Republican Party could be a normal, healthy, functional political party if it hadn’t accidentally nominated Donald Trump. But John McCain has reminded us that this is not the case.

McCain, speaking in support of Republican Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, said: “I promise you that we will be united against any Supreme Court nominee that Hillary Clinton, if she were president, would put up.”

It’s probably too much to hope that McCain will pay the appropriate price for his nakedly obstructionist comments, even though Clinton is doing better than expected in Arizona. Democrats need only to remind voters of other GOP leadership comments openly urging endless gridlock, and they’ve got plenty of examples. If American voters are genuinely fed up with Republican obstruction, the GOP has a very tough sell two weeks out.

The implicit message behind the GOP strategy is an admission that their presidential candidate is going to lose, which may further depress turnout of Republican voters, or drive many of them to vote for a third party candidate, like Gary Johnson. “Ultimately,” concludes Sargent, “a lot of this may end up being determined by how big a margin Clinton runs up in victory.”

Democrats have every reason to be optimistic about winning back Senate control. A net Democratic pick up of four senate seats is not that much of a stretch, particularly with such a deeply-flawed presidential candidate providing the face of the G.O.P.

I’ve seen estimates that Dems will win back the House speakership on Clinton’s coattails, if she wins the popular vote by 7 percent to double-digits. “The House of Representatives was thought to be out of play because it is so affected by partisan redistricting as to require a seven-plus-point swing to Democrats for them to net the more than 30 seats required to recapture the chamber,” writes David Malet at The Conversation. But such ‘rules of thumb’ matter a lot less down-ballot than which party cranks up the better GOTV effort. In that regard, early voting indications, weak Republican turn-out operations and other signs point to a bad outcome for the Republicans.

For your response, the next time some Trump defender charcterizes the Republican nominee as some sort of champion of working people: “…Trump often portrays himself as a savior of the working class who will “protect your job.” But a USA TODAY NETWORK analysis found he has been involved in more than 3,500 lawsuits over the past three decades — and a large number of those involve ordinary Americans…who say Trump or his companies have refused to pay them…Trump’s companies have also been cited for 24 violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act since 2005 for failing to pay overtime or minimum wage, according to U.S. Department of Labor data. That includes 21 citations against the defunct Trump Plaza in Atlantic City and three against the also out-of-business Trump Mortgage LLC in New York. Both cases were resolved by the companies agreeing to pay back wages…n addition to the lawsuits, the review found more than 200 mechanic’s liens — filed by contractors and employees against Trump, his companies or his properties claiming they were owed money for their work — since the 1980s. The liens range from a $75,000 claim by a Plainview, N.Y., air conditioning and heating company to a $1 million claim from the president of a New York City real estate banking firm. On just one project, Trump’s Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, records released by the New Jersey Casino Control Commission in 1990 show that at least 253 subcontractors weren’t paid in full or on time, including workers who installed walls, chandeliers and plumbing.” — from USA TODAY exclusive: Hundreds allege Donald Trump doesn’t pay his bills.

It’s not enough to sell our candidates to the public. We must also work on improving the party’s image. If Dems won’t define the party, Republicans will. This is an OK start, but Democrats need a continuous series of ads that define what the party has accomplished and what it means to be a Democrat.

More required reading for Democrats: “Here’s how to fight Trump’s ballot bullies” by WaPo columnist Colbert King, who writes, “Trump has called for his supporters to stand watch at polling places in “certain areas,” a tactic that could be aimed at intimidating and suppressing the votes of African Americans and other minorities…“And when I say ‘watch,’ you know what I’m talking about,” Trump said at an Ohio rally in August. “Right? You know what I’m talking about.”…Expect Trump’s vigilantes to hover at the polling places of people who don’t look like them. They will be taking a page from their forebears, who used poll taxes, literacy tests and violence to challenge and suppress the black vote…Trump and his posse make GOTV all the more urgent…National civil rights groups, led by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, intend to come out in force nationwide with volunteers trained to serve as a first line of defense against the intimidators…Pastors have to take to their pulpits and preach on exercising this basic right. Closer to home, the influential Metropolitan AME Church is spearheading “Ready, Set, Vote” to stir up voters, especially millennials, to go to the polls…National organizations such as the Links Inc., a group of nearly 14,000 professional women of color in 41 states and the District, are devoting the month to mobilizing voters.”

In their Washington Post article, “Buoyed by rising polls, Clinton shifts to a new target: the House and Senate,” Philip Rucker, Ed O’Keefe and Mike Debonis write “Hillary Clinton is pouring $1 million into Indiana and Missouri in the campaign’s final weeks — not because the Democratic presidential nominee thinks she can carry those reliably Republican states, but because she believes that, with an extra push, Democrats can win the Senate and governors’ races there…In Michigan, the Clinton campaign is propelling a late surge by Democratic state legislative candidates to regain their House majority. In parts of Maine, Nebraska, Virginia and other states, Clinton volunteers are touting Democratic congressional candidates in their phone calls and fliers to voters. And as Clinton rallied supporters across Pennsylvania on Saturday with running mate Tim Kaine, she touted Senate hopeful Katie McGinty and attacked her GOP opponent, Sen. Patrick J. Toomey, as beholden to presidential nominee Donald Trump…“As we’re traveling in these last 17 days, we’re going to be emphasizing the importance of electing Democrats down the ballot,” Clinton told reporters Saturday night.”

Politico’s Scott Bland illuminates Democratic funding strategy to win a House majority, and observes: “To date, more than a dozen Democratic challengers are benefiting from such “hybrid” advertising, getting extra hundreds of thousands of dollars apiece from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The technique has been a small but consistent part of Democratic strategy in recent years, but new legal guidance has also allowed Democrats to share costs on ads linking their opponents to Trump on policy…“You have a historically unpopular Republican presidential nominee, which increases the appeal of doing this sort of thing,” said a Democratic operative. “If you can find a way now that you only have to pay 50 percent of an ad, and link your opponent to Trump, and that makes strategic sense in the district, that’s a no-brainer.”..The cost-sharing has turned into a critical tool for the DCCC, as it suddenly tries to compete in more districts and support little-known challengers made unexpectedly viable by Trump’s late slide.”

Less than three weeks from the election, there is a stat tie for the presidential race in GA, with Trump at 44, Clinton at 42 and Gary Johnson at 9, according the the Atlanta Journal Constitution poll released October 21st.

The third presidential debate was not likely a game-changer, but early polling indications suggest that it added momentum to Hillary Clinton’s candidacy.

As Glenn Thrush put it at Politico:

CNN’s quickie post-debate poll gave Hillary Clinton a solid but decisive edge – 52 to 39 percent – not good for a guy who needed a big win, but not fatal either. The problem is one of narrative: Every single sentient being in the press watching the debate, and not currently on the payroll of the Trump Organization, knew instantly that his refusal to accept the results of the election (foreshadowed by a similar feint during the primaries) was the moment of the debate, and quite possibly the most important moment of the campaign.

At The Independent Feliks Garcia reports:

…The latest YouGov poll also declared Ms Clinton the clear winner on Wednesday night. Out of 1,503 registered voters who tuned into the debate, 49 per cent of participants said Ms Clinton came out on top. Thirty-nine per cent of voters argued that Mr Trump won the contest while 12 per cent claimed it was a tie…A large majority, 68 per cent, of those surveyed said that the candidates should “pledge to accept the result of the election” – which included 51 Republicans. Only 14 per cent opposed such a pledge, while 18 per cent did not know…When it came to temperament and fitness, Ms Clinton dominated. Sixty-nine per cent said that Ms Clinton demonstrated “excellent” or “good” knowledge of policies, as opposed to Mr Trump’s 40. Some 59 per cent of viewers surveyed also found Ms Clinton presidential, while Mr Trump only earned 40 on this point.

Former RNC Chair Michael Steele called Trump’s implicit threat to discredit the results of the election if he didn’t win was “a disqualifying moment” during Chris Matthews post-debate discussion at MSNBC. In his Washington Post column, Dana Milbank wrote,  “The refusal to accept this bedrock principle of democracy was shocking, even for a candidate who had told audiences about a “rigged” and “stolen” election. And it should pour hot lava on any notion that Trump is going to revive his candidacy in the final 20 days.”

“Clinton’s core claim is that Trump is a dangerous man who lacks respect for American institutions and American democracy,” concludes E. J. Dionne, Jr. in his syndicated column. “On this central issue, Trump chose to prove Clinton right.” In her New York Times column, Gail Collins agreed, noting “O.K., two critical takeaways. Trump won’t promise to concede if he loses, and if he wins, he gets control of the nukes. These are the only things you need to think about for the next two and a half weeks.”

Worse, Trump has put his fellow Republicans in a bit of a trap, as Ed Kilgore notes at New York Magazine,

…In effect, Trump was saying he’d only accept the election results if he wins…This posture is not going to win over any swing voters, and we can only hope that a segment of his base is horrified as well. At a minimum, he has opened the door to a wholesale declaration of independence by down-ballot Republican candidates. Maybe Trump cannot win, but many of them can, and it’s hard to imagine they will refuse to accept the integrity of their own elections.

Trump blundered on other topics, as well. In one of Clinton’s strongest moments she eviscerated Trump’s history of demeaning women and adroitly used the opportunity to underscore her vision,

“He goes after their dignity, their self-worth, and I don’t think there is a woman anywhere that doesn’t know what that feels like. So we now know what Donald thinks and what he says and how he acts toward women. That’s who Donald is. I think it’s really up to all of us to demonstrate who we are and who our country is and to stand up and be very clear about what we expect from our next president, how we want to bring our country together, where we don’t want to have the kind of pitting of people one against the other, where instead we celebrate our diversity, we lift people up, and we make our country even greater.”

Considering all three debates as one long one, it is clear that Trump had almost no moments where he showed the maturity and measured judgement he needed to inspire confidence that he has a more compelling capacity for world leadership. If Trump’s gambit was to persuade the few remaining fence-sitters that he was more prepared, he failed miserably. If Clinton’s end goal was to show that she alone had the skill set and vision to be a credible President of the United States, she succeeeded impressively.

At Vox, Ezra Klein wrote,

The polling tells the story. As Nate Silver notes, on the eve of the first presidential debate, Clinton led by 1.5 points. Before the second, she was up by 5.6 points. Before the third, she was winning by 7.1 points. And now, writing after the third debate — a debate in which Trump said he would keep the nation “in suspense” about whether there would be a peaceful transition of power, bragged about not apologizing to his wife, and called Clinton “such a nasty woman” — it’s clear that Trump did himself no favors. Early polls also suggest Clinton won…And it’s not just the presidential race. Betting markets now predict Democrats will win the Senate. Polls have started showing Democrats in striking distance of the House. The GOP has collapsed into a mid-election civil war, with the party’s presidential nominee openly battling the speaker of the House.

The hope for Democrats is that Trump’s divisive messaging and the GOP’s civil war will damage prospects for Republican down-ballot candidates. This morning there is even more reason to believe that hope will become a reality.