“The Biden administration’s new sweeping student loan forgiveness plan is temporarily blocked again, a day after a federal judge said he would let a restraining order against the relief expire,” CNBC reports.
“As a result, the U.S. Department of Education is now barred from forgiving people’s student loans until Judge Matthew Schelp, an appointee of Republican former President Donald Trump, rules on the case.”
Tara Palmeri: “Meanwhile, some Trump allies are getting nervous about falling behind in the final sprint for donor money—a precious resource in the expensive, last leg of the race. The Trump campaign announced on Wednesday that it had raised $160 million in September, and has $283 million cash on hand (including money raised in coordination with the R.N.C. and authorized committees). But the campaign remains significantly behind the donor waterfall lavished upon Harris, who has outraised Trump every month since President Biden dropped out…”
“Harris hasn’t released her September numbers, but she raised $47 million within 24 hours of her debate triumph. In August, her campaign and coordinated committees raised three times as much as Trump’s team… Indeed, Republican money is drying up across the board, with Democrats easily outraising their opponents in the majority of competitive House and Senate races, too.”
Said a Trump campaign source: “There’s a lot of stress about money.”
“Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign is targeting red and rural counties in the final sprint to Election Day, according to campaign aides, with her appearance in Ripon, Wisconsin, on Thursday just part of a strategy to compete everywhere and narrow Donald Trump’s margins in those counties,” CNN reports.
“We won. We won. We did win. It was a rigged election. It was a rigged election.”
— Donald Trump, quoted by the New York Times, at a campaign rally in Michigan.
“The International Longshoremen’s Association, the union that has been on strike since early Tuesday at ports along the East and Gulf Coasts, and the management group representing shipping lines, terminal operators and port authorities have reached a tentative deal on wages, ending the work stoppage,” CNN reports.
“President Joe Biden is again signaling he wants Congress to come back into session to pass a storm supplemental spending bill,” Punchbowl News reports.
“Speaking to reporters in Georgia this evening, Biden was asked to respond to Speaker Mike Johnson’s comments about the storm. Johnson has said the House will take up a disaster aid bill when it returns after the election.”
Said Biden: “We can’t wait. We can’t wait. People need help now.”
“Senior Hill aides said they didn’t know if Biden was signaling a new approach or just riffing. At this point, no one in leadership in either chamber wants Congress to return now.”
Donald Trump said that if he thought he lost the 2020 presidential election, he wouldn’t be running again, NBC News reports.
Said Trump: “It was a rigged election. You have to tell Kamala Harris that’s why I’m doing it again. If I thought I lost, I wouldn’t be doing this again. You know where I’d be? Right down on the beaches of Monte Carlo, baby, or some place having a nice life.”
Bruce Springsteen endorsed Kamala Harris for president in a video, calling Donald Trump “the most dangerous candidate for president in my lifetime.”
A new Napolitan News Service poll in Florida finds Donald Trump barely ahead of Kamala Harris, 50% to 48%.
Silver Bulletin: “As of today, our model gives Kamala Harris a 21% chance of winning Florida’s 30 electoral votes. Now, a one-in-five chance isn’t bad, but it isn’t great either. For perspective, this scenario is about as likely as Harris winning Alaska. So let’s be clear: Harris is the definite underdog here. There are however a few things that make the race more interesting than the 21% win probability would imply.”
“Donald Trump and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp will receive a briefing on hurricane destruction in the battleground state on Friday — the first joint appearance by the two men since 2020,” Politico reports.
“Trump, who spent much of the last four years denigrating Kemp for not helping him overturn Trump’s loss in Georgia during the last presidential election, changed his tune in recent months as the current race for president became increasingly close.”
A new Highpoint University poll in North Carolina finds Kamala Harris and Donald Trump tied among likely voters, 48% to 48%.
Here’s what Donald Trump said at a rally in Michigan: “They stole the FEMA money like they stole it from a bank so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them this season.“
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) “wore blackface as part of a Halloween costume when he was a college student almost two decades ago,” the New York Times reports.
“The images, taken around October 2006, show a 20-year-old Mr. Lawler at a campus social gathering dressed as Michael Jackson. He is wearing a black shirt and a red jacket and, in one photo, is striking a signature Jackson dance pose. His face has also been visibly darkened.”
“The images may come into play in Mr. Lawler’s fight for re-election this fall against Mondaire Jones, a Black former congressman, in a suburban swing seat.”
Bloomberg: “Pressure is building as courts handle the surge of litigation targeting voting processes before the Nov. 5 election, particularly in swing states like North Carolina.”
“Officials say that amid the normal flurry of pre-election activity, they’re preparing as best they can for legal developments that could force a sudden pivot.”
A judge sentenced a former Colorado county clerk to nine years behind bars for leading a voting system data-breach scheme inspired by the rampant false claims that fraud altered the 2020 presidential outcome, the Denver Post reports.
Tina Peters was found guilty by a jury in August for allowing a Donald Trump supporter to misuse a security card to access to the Mesa County election system in order to promote false claims that voting machines were manipulated to steal the election from Trump.
Peters was immediately taken into custody after the judge rejected her lawyer’s request that she remain free.
Former Gov. Larry Hogan (R), who is running for Senate in Maryland, attacked Sen. J.D. Vance’s refusal to acknowledge Donald Trump’s 2020 election defeat as “crazy”, and warned it puts Republicans running for Congress at risk of losing their races, the Financial Times reports.
Said Hogan: “It’s crazy, I mean, Trump obviously lost the election. I was the first Republican in the country to congratulate Biden and to say to Trump that he should concede, and I was the first to send state troopers and the National Guard to the Capitol on January.”
A new Mitchell Research poll in Michigan shows Donald Trump and Kamala Harris tied among likely voters in a multi-candidate field, 47% to 47%.
In the U.S. Senate race, Elissa Slotkin (D) leads Mike Rogers (R), 49% to 44%.
Former Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton told CNN he won’t vote for Donald Trump but he may now write in Ronald Reagan for president instead of Dick Cheney.
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.
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