Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Today’s news is filled with coverage of tomorrow’s elections. Early voting turnout is amazing here in Lousyanna. Black voters are voting in record numbers. Democrats and Independent voters in general are turning out like crazy here. But we’re not alone. Even a rainy day in Floriduh did not stop voters. It’s happening far and wide. This makes for some striking headlines.
I can’t help but gloat a bit reading this Bill Kristol headline in The Bulwark. “It Won’t Be a Blue Tsunami. It’ll Be an Orange Crush. Is this the decisive repudiation of Trump we’ve been waiting for?” We find out tomorrow evening.
We are on the cusp of a thoroughgoing defeat for Donald Trump, his administration, and his party. That is not something we could have taken for granted. On key occasions over the last decade, we’ve fallen short. In 2018, Democrats picked up forty-one seats and flipped the House—but Republicans gained two senate seats and strengthened their hold on that body. In 2020, Trump was defeated, but not in a landslide, and Republicans gained thirteen House seats. Then, following the insurrection and Trump’s impeachment, the Senate failed to convict him. And while Democrats did relatively well in the 2022 midterms, Republicans still managed to regain the House.
And about 2024, the less said the better.
In other words: Since Trump entered national politics in 2015, there’s never been a decisive electoral repudiation of him. This year looks likely to be that.
Now I’ll hasten to stipulate that 2026 is only a midterm election, and that presidential elections matter most. Still, 2026 is an unusually significant midterm. Think of what it would mean for our future if Trump had remained popular over the last two years, if his policies were viewed with relative approval, and if he were about to suffer only a minor midterm setback. Trumpism would still be an ascendant political movement.
That is not where we are. Instead, 2026 looks as if it will be a clear repudiation of Trump and Trumpism. Democrats are very likely to flip both the House and the Senate and, indeed, are likely to end up with comfortable majorities in both chambers.
For example, the final New York Times/Siena polls released last night of seven battleground Senate states—Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Ohio, and Texas—show Democrats ahead in six of those races, and effectively tied in the seventh. As the Times notes with some astonishment, Democrats hold sizable leads in Texas, which has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1988, and Kansas, which has not elected one since 1932.
As Nate Cohn put it: “In today’s polarized era, there’s no precedent for a party to fare this well in so many states that are generally safe wins for the other side.” He cautions judiciously that the polls may be overstating Democratic strength. But as he also explains at some length, they may well be understating it.
A question we all might be asking is this one answered by ProPublica. Exactly how safe and secure will this election be for voters? ““Chaos” in the Air: Five Ways Voting Could Be Disrupted on Election Day. The Trump administration has initiated a string of unprecedented actions to assert more federal control over elections. While courts have thwarted most of the plans, voting experts remain concerned about potential problems at the polls.” This a really long article but it’s worth the time to read. Jen Fifield and Peter Elkind share the lede.
As Americans head to the polls on Tuesday, voting experts are watching to see how the Trump administration’s unprecedented efforts to assert more federal control over elections will play out.
Since President Donald Trump retook the White House, his administration has tried to force states to turn over their unredacted voter rolls and to restrict mail-in voting. The Department of Homeland Security has used its resources to identify and prosecute noncitizen voters, an effort that has unfolded alongside the agency’s massive crackdown on immigrants.
The president has justified these steps by claiming, without evidence, that American elections are beset by fraud and that illegal voting is tipping the scales in favor of Democrats.
Courts have thwarted most of the administration’s plans to date, but Trump and his top deputies have kept up the pressure. Most recently, they’ve threatened to prosecute election officials who don’t reject ballots from people that the federal government has identified as likely noncitizens.
The administration hasn’t explicitly ruled out sending federal agents to the polls or seizing ballots or voting machines.
Election experts say the cumulative effect has been to ramp up anxiety about the midterms and to erode voters’ trust in the system.
“The administration has been creating a lot of noise, a lot of confusion, a lot of doubt,” said Ben Hovland, whom Trump fired as a commissioner for the bipartisan Election Assistance Commission earlier this year. He said he worries that this will make voters “sit it out” and “throw their hands up.”
In an emailed response to questions, a DHS spokesperson said Immigration and Customs Enforcement “is not planning operations targeting polling locations,” adding that the agency would only arrest people at the polls to address a safety threat as part of “intelligence-driven targeted enforcement.”
The DHS and the Justice Department “are laser focused on identifying, prosecuting and removing aliens who vote and dilute the votes of U.S. citizens,” the spokesperson added. “Our message to aliens who vote in American elections is clear: we will find you, arrest you, and you will face the consequences — including criminal charges and deportation.”
Before and on Election Day, it’s typical for the major political parties to mount poll-watching operations, but both Democrats and Republicans say they’ve expanded these activities in this pressurized midterm.
Republicans will focus on issues such as voter eligibility and voter-roll accuracy, according to Ally Triolo, the Republican National Committee’s election integrity communications director. Democrats will concentrate on voter intimidation and other hurdles to voting, Angelo Fernández Hernández, a Democratic National Committee spokesperson, said.
The authors elucidate 5 issues that are worrying voting rights experts. Again, go to the link to read the details There are quite a few articles up specifically on possible election problems at Propublica. This research focuses on Trump’s obsession with noncitizen voting. “Inside Trump’s Futile Hunt for Noncitizen Voters. Claiming that hundreds of thousands of noncitizens were voting illegally, Trump tasked agents who usually investigate cross-border crime with uncovering proof. We followed along to find out: How many of these voters could there actually be?”
President Donald Trump has claimed that hundreds of thousands of people who are not U.S. citizens have been illegally voting in our federal elections, tipping the scales for Democrats. If there was massive fraud, reporters at ProPublica wanted to uncover it. So they followed along as federal investigators set out to find and prosecute these voters. How many were there, really?
ProPublica has researched many issues with this years elections including one JJ sent me. “Ballot Rejections Soared in Rural Counties After USPS Reduced Mail Service.” These articles are long, but you will face tomorrow more informed as you head to your polling place.
But a ProPublica data analysis shows that delays resulting from the U.S. Postal Service’s cost-cutting measures have endangered the validity of ballots cast in rural areas, not only in Washington, but across the country.
Over the past three years, as mail volume continued to plummet and annual deficits ballooned, the Postal Service started consolidating the processing of first-class mail at larger regional plants instead of at smaller hubs closer to local post offices. Then, in a little-noted switch that mostly took effect after the 2024 election, the agency cut the frequency of mail pickups in half at many post offices 50 miles or more from these processing plants, from twice daily to once.
The changes often added a day or more to delivery time and, most importantly for ballots, pushed back postmarking, which doesn’t happen until mail reaches the regional centers.
In this year’s primary, the effects of the cuts were clearest in five states that make detailed data on mail-in ballots available: Washington, California, Ohio, North Carolina and Oregon. All have or recently had grace periods allowing ballots to count if they come in after Election Day as long as they’re postmarked by the deadline.
Despite all of this, the numbers geeks are still saying the Democratic candidates have the advantage and the momentum. I’m still largely fixated on the senate race but watching NW Lousyana kick out Mike Johnson and thus, end his speakership, would make me happy too. This is from the New York Times. “Democrats Show Strength in Final Days of Race for the Senate, New Polls Find, Democrats are up in Michigan, Texas, Kansas, Maine and Ohio, have an edge in Alaska and are effectively tied with Republicans in Iowa, new New York Times/Siena polls found.” Shane Goldmacher and Ruth Igielnik share the lede.
Democrats are ahead of Republicans in almost all of the seven battleground states that will determine which party controls the Senate, according to the final set of polls from The New York Times and Siena University before the midterm elections.
The surveys found that Democrats hold sizable leads in Texas, which has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1988, and Kansas, which has not elected one since 1932.
To win a Senate majority, Democrats need to defend all the seats they currently hold and flip at least four seats that are currently held by Republicans. It has been seen as an uphill battle because many of the seats they need to win are in Republican strongholds.
But the new polls found Democratic candidates ahead in five states that now have Republican senators and effectively tied in a sixth. They hold leads in Kansas, Maine, Ohio and Texas and a narrow edge in Alaska. They are effectively tied in Iowa.
In Michigan, the lone top Senate battleground already held by Democrats, the poll found the Democratic candidate leading by double digits. (It was conducted before a Democratic feud erupted in Michigan this weekend.) The surveys did not include North Carolina, where polls have long found the Democrat leading and Republicans have pared back their campaign spending.
Dissatisfaction with President Trump and frustration over his management of the economy are dragging down Republicans, according to the polls. Just 38 percent of likely voters approved of the president’s job performance in the seven states in the poll, a strikingly low figure given that Mr. Trump had won five of the states by double digits just two years ago.
The newfound Democratic strength was powered by growing trust in the party to handle the economy — the key motivating issue for voters this year. Democrats hold a nine-point advantage on the cost of living across the battlegrounds, and they led on this crucial measure in every single state.
If the polls are accurate and these trends hold, Democrats would win control of the Senate.
Like I said, I’m wondering if that huge surge of black voters up in the NW corner of Louisiana will manage to dethrone Mike Johnson. This is from the Federal News Network. Terry Gerton interviews Mitchell Miller the story. “Election results decide who holds power. What comes next determines how they’ll use it. “Clearly a lot of potential political drama here on the GOP side after the results come in,” said Mitchell Miller, a Capitol Hill correspondent from WTOP for his take.
Terry Gerton All right, tomorrow is election day. Everybody’s been watching early voting and polling, trying to anticipate who will win, but I actually want to talk about another set of horse races and those are for congressional leadership positions. After the election is over and we have a sense of the results, walk us through what actually happens inside the parties before the next Congress will convene.
Mitchell Miller Well, this is going to be a very interesting time and one that’s going to make a lot of people nervous, obviously, because everything is going to unfold over the next 24 plus hours. Of course, the election results will probably continue to spill out throughout the rest of the week, particularly on the Senate side. But let’s start with the House. The House Republican leadership has said that a week from election day, they will hold their internal elections. And decide who is going to remain in what positions. Now, this is really fascinating because House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has repeatedly said that they are going to defy history. Republicans are going to maintain a very small majority, but they are gonna maintain the majority. Now, if that were to happen, of course, then things are pretty straightforward, mike Johnson would likely retain the House speakership, especially because this would be so rare that he would actually have the Republicans hold the lower chamber. However, if, as many people expect, that the Republicans lose power to the Democrats, then everything starts to shift. And there’s a lot of talk about whether Mike Johnson would still try to become the minority leader, which I have to say just basically doesn’t happen after a large loss, if that’s what happens in the House. Virtually every House speaker, once there was a defeat, left that position and did seek the house minority position and in fact usually the party doesn’t want them in that leadership role after that, despite all the campaigning that Johnson has done. So who does that leave? Then you have current House Majority Leader, Steve Scalise (R-La.), who was, of course, considered for House Speaker when all that wild gyrating happened after Kevin McCarthy (R-Ca.) Was forced out. And you also have the House Judiciary Committee Chairman, Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who has indicated he might be interested in a leadership position. So we’ll have to see what happens when things shake out. Now, if you move down the roster of leadership, the House majority whip is Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), and he has indicated he wants to stay in that position no matter what happens. And it doesn’t seem like anybody else wants to push him on that position, so he will likely stay there. So clearly a lot of potential political drama here on the GOP side after the results come in.
So, that’s all I can take reading and writing on today! We’ll see you tomorrow and hopefully with enough steam to keep a live thread going between us all! I’ll leave with a little bit of economics truth. Its a bit higher today, btw. $40,596,030,180,635 and ticking upwards every minute. Every word this man speaks is basically a lie.
— Paul Marvin (@paulmarvin.bsky.social) 2026-11-02T01:52:52.876Z
What’s on Your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today? If you didn’t early vote, I hope Voting will be on your Action list tomorrow. It certainly will be on mine!
Leave a Reply