“I do not know where to start with this man. He called the civil rights movement crap. Called LGBTQ people filth. Self-identified as a Nazi. Suggested bringing back slavery. Now, I shouldn’t have to really get into all this. I think it’s fair to say you do not need a governor who makes Donald Trump look almost normal.”
— Barack Obama, talking about North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson (R).
While almost half the country sees former President Donald Trump as a fascist, according to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll published Friday, some who believe that say they’ll still vote for him.
Among registered voters who regard Trump as a fascist, 8% support him regardless, the poll found.
“Republicans are appealing a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision that would allow voters to still vote if their mail ballot is rejected, potentially rocketing a consequential case in the most important swing state to the U.S. Supreme Court on the eve of the election,” Politico reports.
“Cases over whether ballots can still be counted if voters do not return them correctly — such as by not including them in secrecy envelopes, or not dating the mailing envelopes when returning them — have bounced around in state and federal court for years. Broadly, ballots are not counted if voters do not follow all the instructions.”
House Democrats’ campaign arm is warning colleagues not to “get comfortable” in the final weeks of the 2024 election, citing internal polling that shows nearly two dozen races within a few percentage points, Axios reports.
“A federal appeals court Friday ruled invalid a Mississippi law that allows election officials to count mail ballots that arrive after Election Day as long as they are postmarked by then,” the Washington Post reports.
“The ruling came less than two weeks before the Nov. 5 presidential election and could have implications for other states with similar laws.”
Former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele announced that he voted for Kamala Harris for president.
Said Steele: “I choose the love of my country over my party. I choose the noble responsibility of my civic duty. I choose my conscience because it reminds me of what I value as a citizen. I choose to stand with my neighbors against those who would lie to them, undermine their freedoms, turn neighbor against neighbor for the sake of one man. I choose a leader who, despite our political differences, values us more than herself.”
“CBS Evening News” anchor Norah O’Donnell will interview Vice President Kamala Harris in Michigan this weekend.
O’Donnell will join Harris on the campaign trail to provide viewers with an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the final days of her campaign.
Jake Tapper sets the record straight.
“With less than two weeks until Election Day, law enforcement officials are confronting a rising wave of threats to election workers and political activists in a presidential contest hurtling toward a bitterly contentious coda and a potentially unsettled aftermath,” the New York Times reports.
“The Army on Friday released the report from a controversial August incident between the Trump campaign team and an Army staff member working at Arlington National Cemetery, in which the campaign staffer made contact with the Army official ‘with both hands,’ according to the heavily redacted document,” Politico reports.
“The release, which identifies the incident as ‘simple assault,’ comes amid fresh scrutiny over Trump’s treatment of veterans, including comments by former chief of staff John Kelly, who said the former president disparaged wounded and fallen troops.”
Jonathan Last: “These guys can hear the music. They’ve seen the sides being chosen: Elon Musk and Peter Theil assembling with Trump’s gangster government in waiting. They see Mark Zuckerberg praising Trump as a ‘badass.’ And now they see Bezos getting in line, too.”
“What’s remarkable is that Trump didn’t have to arrest Bezos to secure his compliance. Trump didn’t even have to win the election. Just the fact that he has an even-money chance to become president was threat enough.”
“Or maybe that’s not remarkable. One of Timothy Snyder’s rules for resisting authoritarians is that ‘most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given.’ People surrender preemptively much more often than you might expect.”
“Two weeks ago, Ian Bassin and Maximillian Potter wrote what might be the most prophetic essay of the year. They warned about “anticipatory obedience” in the media. Seventeen days later, Bezos made his demonstration.”
“In case you needed reminding: The ‘guardrails’ aren’t guardrails. They’re people.”
“And they’re already collapsing. Before a single state has been called.”
Donald Trump posted a threat to his political opponents, warning that he will seek mass arrests of anyone he believes is involved in “cheating” or “skullduggery” in the presidential election.
He specifically singled out lawyers, political donors, political operatives, election officials, and illegal voters.
He added: “Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our country.”
For members: Trump’s Use of Fear Is Working
“With just days until Election Day, Kamala Harris is leaning into a closing argument centered on attacking Donald Trump as a danger, an approach campaign officials believe will help her both win over remaining undecided voters and motivate her base,” NBC News reports.
“Donald Trump expressed support for Israel’s offensives against Hamas and Hezbollah in a recent call with the country’s prime minister — a position that could complicate his campaign’s outreach to Arab Americans claiming he opposes the war,” the Washington Post reports.
Said Trump to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “Do what you have to do.”
Semafor: “There’s less incentive to get involved thanks to a more sophisticated polling audience and greater costs of failure.”
“We’re now well over a decade into the era of the star election forecaster, led by Nate Silver and his rivals and proteges. His biggest influence may be teaching most news junkies to turn to curated averages of polls rather than fret over each one.”
“This has created a bit of a Heisenberg effect, in which observing something — in this case, that the best analysis comes from mixing together lots of polls with a sophisticated model —might actually change it. What’s the point of shelling out five-figures on a horse race poll if it’s just going to get tossed into an average by an audience trained to scoff at individual surveys?”
“Chinese hackers who are believed to have burrowed deep into American communications networks targeted data from phones used by Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance,” the New York Times reports.
“The type of information on phones used by a presidential candidate and his running mate could be a gold mine for an intelligence agency: Who they called and texted, how often they communicated with certain people, and how long they talked to those people could be highly valuable to an adversary like China.”
“That sort of communications data could be even more useful if hackers could observe it in real time.”
“This is cowardice, with democracy as its casualty. Donald Trump will see this as an invitation to further intimidate owner Jeff Bezos (and others). Disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for courage.”
— Former Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron, on X, on the newspaper’s decision to not endorse in the election
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.