The Lincoln Project is out with a powerful ad aimed at men.

“During a campaign season in which President Trump has been criticized for using federal resources for his political benefit, House Republicans on Wednesday said they are leading an inquiry into Joe Biden’s use of an Amtrak train to campaign last month,” the Washington Post reports.

The Biden campaign responded that “anyone can charter a train with Amtrak. Last time we checked, no one can charter the White House South Lawn for a political convention.”

Ross Douthat: “Donald Trump can still win the 2020 presidential election; something that has a 10 percent or 15 percent chance of happening can certainly transpire. But even more than in 2016, if the president wins this time, we will have to attribute his victory to the workings of divine providence (don’t worry, I have that column pre-written), because what we’re watching is an incumbent doing everything in his power to run up his own margin of defeat.”

Ryan Lizza: “As the likelihood of Trump losing the election has grown, the quantity of misinformation has increased exponentially. Trump’s greatest frustration is that this sealed info bubble that he has created is no longer amplified by traditional media. Just in the last few days Trump has described the press as ‘dumb bastards,’ ‘sleaze,’ ‘crooked,’ and ‘real garbage.'”

“But at a Trump rally, the most privileged spot is reserved for national TV networks, which are afforded a riser in front of what the campaign seems to regard as the second-class media outlets that cover local news. Fox has started carrying the events live again, but other networks rarely do, which enrages Trump, who, even before his fundraising troubles, has needed the larger audience that cable TV brings him.”

President Trump told Outkick that he wanted to be kinder during a second term.

Said Trump: “I think the answer is yes. I want the answer to be yes, but when I first came here, there was so much to do. I didn’t have time to be totally and politically correct. People don’t like me. But, you know, the softer side is good.”

He added: “The answer is yes, I think so. And I want to bring it all together. And what brings it together is success.”

New York Times: “For many Democrats, election night in 2016 unfolded with the sickening trajectory of a horror movie in which the teenage protagonists break out the beer and party on, unaware that the serial killer they thought they had vanquished is looming outside the window.”

“The watch parties, the pantsuits, the balloons, the blue-tinted cocktails, the giddiness, the sense of history, the electoral projections showing that Hillary Clinton would surely defeat Donald Trump — to Democrats, these now look like quaint snapshots from some credulous prelapsarian world. And now, with the next presidential election approaching and Joe Biden well ahead of President Trump in the polls, the traumatized, anxious Democratic voters of 2020 are not making the same mistake again.”

Tim Alberta: “Generations of pollsters and journalists have fixated on the question of which candidate voters would rather have a beer with—a window into how personality translates into political success. Here’s the thing: Americans have been having a beer with Trump for the past four years—every morning, every afternoon, every evening. He has made himself more accessible than any president in history, using the White House as a performance stage and Twitter as a real-time diary for all to read. Like the drunk at the bar, he won’t shut up.”

“Whatever appeal his unfiltered thoughts once held has now worn off. Americans are tired of having beers with Trump. His own supporters are tired of having beers with Trump. In hundreds of interviews this year with MAGA loyalists, I have noted only a handful in which the person did not, unsolicited, point to the president’s behavior as exhausting and inappropriate. Strip away all the policy fights, all the administrative action (or inaction), all the culture war politics, and the decision for many people comes down to a basic conclusion: They just do not approve of the president as a human being.”

A new Gallup poll finds 56% of registered voters believe President Trump does not deserve to be reelected, while 43% say he does.

From Civiqs:

• PENNSYLVANIA: Biden 52%, Trump 46%

From SurveyUSA:

• MINNESOTA: Biden 48%, Trump 42%

From Morning Consult:

• ARIZONA: Trump 48%, Biden 47%
• FLORIDA: Biden 52%, Trump 45%
• GEORGIA: Biden 48%, Trump 48%
• MICHIGAN: Biden 52%, Trump 44%
• NORTH CAROLINA: Biden 50%, Trump 47%
• OHIO: Trump 49%, Biden 47%
• PENNSYLVANIA: Biden 52%, Trump 43%
• TEXAS: Biden 48%, Trump 47%
• WISCONSIN: Biden 54%, Trump 42%

Aaron Blake: “If you had said at the start of the election that a president like Trump would have close to a majority — or even a majority, period — on both the economy and the are-you-better-off question, the conventional wisdom would have held that he would be a strong favorite for reelection.”

“The fact that he’s decidedly far from that is merely the latest evidence that Trump may have squandered what should have been a winning hand in his reelection campaign, if he could just have avoided all the noise. And it provides the latest evidence that perhaps we should readjust our political assumptions in the Trump era.”

“Can you imagine if I had had a secret Chinese bank account when I was running for re-election?”

— Barack Obama, while campaigning for Joe Biden in Pennsylvania.

“Senior advisers to Joe Biden are preparing for the possibility that the Trump administration will throw up roadblocks to Mr. Biden’s transition to the presidency if he wins the election,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Mr. Biden’s transition team, a low-profile group of policy experts tasked with making sure the former vice president is ready to take office, has crafted alternative plans if President Trump—who has given mixed messages on whether he would commit to a peaceful transfer of power—refuses to comply with requirements that a president-elect’s team be allowed into federal agencies ahead of Inauguration Day. The team is also planning for a scenario in which the Trump administration declines to share resources or provide briefings seen as crucial for a smooth transition of power.”

The Atlantic endorses Joe Biden for president.

“The president of the United States poses a threat to our collective existence. The choice voters face is spectacularly obvious.”

Prominent Republican pollster Frank Luntz blasted President Trump’s campaign the worst he’s ever seen and saying the president’s advisers should be “brought up on charges of political malpractice,” The Hill reports.

Said Luntz: “It is the worst campaign I’ve ever seen and I’ve been watching them since 1980. They’re on the wrong issues. They’re on the wrong message. They’ve got their heads up their assess… Your damn job is to get your candidate to talk about things that are relevant to the people you need to reach. And if you can’t do your damn job then get out.”

New York Times: “Interviews with 21 Republican and Democratic strategists, many of whom have worked for other presidential campaigns over the past 30 years, suggest that Mr. Trump will need some 11th-hour disruptions in the race. That might include a bad stumble by Mr. Biden in the debate on Thursday or on the trail; court rulings or Republican tactics that suppress the Democratic vote; and a G.O.P. ground game that turns out voters who may not have been counted by pollsters.”

“And Mr. Trump will need to bring discipline to the campaign trail that has so far eluded him, the strategists say. That will mean presenting a forceful and uncluttered appeal that he is better able than Mr. Biden to rebuild the economy, while trying yet again to draw a contrast between himself and an opponent he has sought to portray as ideologically too far to the left to run the nation.”

Associated Press: Trump’s best path to victory hinges on Florida and Pennsylvania.

A bipartisan group of six former secretaries of Commerce has endorsed Joe Biden for president, CNBC reports.

The group includes Carlos Gutierrez, who served under President George W. Bush; Penny Pritzker and Gary Locke, who served under President Barack Obama; and Bill Daley, Norm Mineta and Mickey Kantor, all of whom served under President Bill Clinton.

“Robert O’Brien, President Trump’s national security adviser, said Wednesday that Trump would accept the results of the election if he loses on Nov. 3,” Politico reports.

Said O’Brien: “If he loses the election, I’m certain the president will transfer power over, but we’ve got to make sure there’s no fraud in the election and we need to make sure it’s a free and fair election, just like we demand of other countries overseas, we need to make the demand of ourselves.”