The Bulwark: “The Trump campaign is making a concerted effort to reach swing and disaffected voters not by espousing more centrist policies, but with messaging that sounds like it has been ripped from a progressive playbook circa 2004, 2008, or 2012.”

“It’s a different formula for trying to build bipartisan coalitions—less a play for the middle and more an attempt to connect the ends of an ideological horseshoe. And, in this universe, Blue MAGA’s messengers double as the message itself: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is the first pair of former Democratic presidential candidates to tour multiple swing states with each other on behalf of the Republican nominee they both endorsed.”

“Donald Trump’s economic proposals could inflame the nation’s debt burden while ultimately raising costs for a vast majority of Americans, according to a pair of new economic analyses that are among the most in-depth studies to date of the Republican nominee’s plans,” the New York Times reports.

“The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan group that seeks lower deficits, found that Mr. Trump’s various plans could add as much as $15 trillion to the nation’s debt over a decade. That is nearly twice as much as the economic plans being proposed by Vice President Kamala Harris.”

“And an analysis from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a liberal think tank, found that Mr. Trump’s tax and tariff plans would, on average, amount to a tax increase for every income group except the top 5 percent of highest-earning Americans.”

“House Democrats’ campaign arm is leaning hard into Project 2025 in the final stages of the election, launching billboards in more than two dozen districts blasting the conservative blueprint for a second Trump presidency,” Axios reports.

“Democrats have increasingly tried to tether Republicans to the plan as their polling shows it to be one of the most potent attacks on the GOP.”

A Punchbowl News survey finds 72% of senior Capitol Hill staffers predicted that Kamala Harris will win the November presidential election.

Most — 77% — of the respondents say the Democratic Party has more momentum than the GOP as Election Day draws nearer. Interestingly, 55% of Republican senior staffers who responded to the survey agreed.

“Republicans backing Donald Trump are threatening Deloitte, a consulting firm that is one of the federal government’s largest business partners, with the loss of billions of dollars in contracts because an employee shared messages from 2020 in which GOP vice-presidential nominee JD Vance criticized the former president’s record,” the Washington Post reports.

Associated Press: “In the election’s final weeks, people in North Carolina and Georgia, influential swing states, are dealing with more immediate concerns: widespread storm damage…”

“Residents wonder where are missing friends and relatives, is there enough food and water to last until new supplies arrive and how will they rebuild.”

“The focus is on survival, not politics — and may remain that way for weeks.”

Washington Post: Hurricane Milton aims at Florida as Helene recovery continues.

“In the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, arguably no state became as central to former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his election loss as Georgia — the state Joe Biden stunningly won by just over 11,000 votes, flipping it blue for the first time in nearly three decades,” ABC News reports.

“Now, four years later, election officials in the state are preparing for another high-stakes election — this time under the cloud of threats, conspiracy theories, and distrust in the system.”

New Jersey U.S. Senate candidate Curtis Bashaw (R) appeared to have medical episode during a debate with Andy Kim (D).

Kim was the first to check to see if Bashaw was alright — even before his own aides.

John Heilemann: “One result of this utterly unimaginable, genuinely bonkers chain of events is that both the Harris and Trump campaigns, the press, and voters are already hyper-attuned to the outlandish craziness of this election year and have been conditioned, in a way, to consider stunning, unprecedented turns of events par for the course in 2024. Against the backdrop of what’s already happened in the presidential race, an October without an October surprise—or several October surprises—would be the only real surprise.”

“Thus both campaigns are buckled down, carefully planning rallies, media interviews, grinding it out with their ground games, each seemingly of the belief that they’re in the lead, not wanting to rock the boat. But, at the same time, everyone is on high alert, eyes peeled for the appearance of black swans, flash hurricanes, or other signs of ominous glitches in the matrix.”

Gov. Tim Walz will be virtually sitting down with the SmartLess podcast Monday, Deadline reports.

“Walz, who is also appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live tomorrow, will hold a Zoom conversation with the popular podcast hosts, actors Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett. The interview is set to air sometime in the next week or so, according to sources.”