Poll Suggests Sharp Decline in Support for Trump Among Republicans

One in four Trump voters say GOP candidates should break with the president to win in November, according to the latest POLITICO Poll, conducted by independent firm PF Global.

The findings underscore the degree to which even loyal Republicans understand President Donald Trump is a drag on the ticket. Persistent inflation, $4 gas prices, 7% mortgage rates, a quagmire in the Middle East and a trade war with Canada have given Republican candidates no shortage of opportunities to take the president to task.

Read the rest here.

Poll: Trump's Approval Rating Breaks Below 30%

It was received wisdom during President Trump’s first term that his hard floor of support sat somewhere around one-third of Americans. Those were the MAGA true believers, the die-hards, the folks who stood in line for hours to attend their fifth Trump rally of the year. That rule of thumb proved to be true. Trump’s approval was still hovering in the 40s before ending around 34 percent on Jan. 4, 2021.

Whatever truths we can glean from Trump’s trainwreck of a second term, it is clear the MAGA base is now deserting him in record numbers.

An American Research Group poll published this week found Trump’s approval at just 29 percent — a new low for his presidency and a flashing warning sign for the congressional Republicans being dragged beneath the waves by the president’s plummeting popularity. 

What is surprising are the circumstances of Trump’s collapse. The economy is certainly in better shape than it was during the height of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, when Trump’s approval sat in the 40s. Last month’s 3.5 percent inflation rate is bad but well below its peak. Perhaps, more than high gas and grocery prices, Americans have just had enough of politicians who don’t seem to care about their problems.

The best example of Republican apathy doesn’t even come from Trump, but from the very mild criticism delivered by Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.). In a Sept. 6 interview with “Meet the Press,” Kennedy admitted that congressional Republicans could act before the midterms to ease an affordability crisis that is crushing regular Americans.  

“These prices are gutting the middle class like a fish and they expect Congress to address them. And we should have started five months ago. We didn’t. But we need to start talking about it now,” Kennedy said. 

When asked by host Kristen Welker if Republicans had the power to address inflation, Kennedy was clear: “Sure, if we wanted to,” Kennedy replied. “We can do anything we want to in reconciliation and ask the House to come back and do it. I’m not saying we will do that. Certainly based on our record of the last five or six months, it’s not likely.” 

It is one thing for angry voters to hear Democrats complaining about Republican inaction on inflation. It’s quite another to hear a prominent Republican tell voters in no uncertain terms that the Republican Party just doesn’t care enough about them to address skyrocketing prices. Sure, your nearly $5 a gallon gas may be demolishing your family budget, but don’t expect your Republican elected leaders to lift a finger to help. 

The apathy on display among Republican leaders is baffling, given the scope of America’s affordability crisis. A Fox News poll conducted Sept. 11-14 found that more than two-thirds of voters — including one-quarter of Republicans — blame Trump for making the economy worse. Those voters also trust Democrats over Republicans to address the inflation crisis by a 15-point margin, one of the largest spreads to date.

Interestingly, that number is driven more by voter anger over Republicans’ failure to act (51 percent) than confidence Democrats’ plans will actually work (47 percent). Voters would rather try a solution that might not work than let an indifferent and ineffective Republican Party squander two more years of power. 

Read the rest here.

75% of Americans Say Tariffs Will Be Important to Their Vote in the Midterms

A new Cato Institute/​Morning Consult survey of 4,150 registered voters finds that three in four (75%) say tariffs will be important to their vote in this November’s midterm elections.

Nearly the same share—74%—say that Trump’s tariffs increased the prices of things they buy at the store, including 66% of Republicans and 84% of Democrats. Majorities say the tariffs are a tax on Americans (57%) and believe they have weakened the US economy (53%), while just 23% say the tariffs have improved their personal quality of life. 

Overall, 57% have an unfavorable opinion of President Trump’s handling of trade policy (an increase from 54% in March), while 43% have a favorable view. 

Together, these findings suggest tariffs could pose a political liability for Republicans in the midterms, particularly among independents and voters concerned about higher prices. The survey finds that a plurality of Americans plan to vote for the Democratic candidate for Congress over the Republican candidate by 47% to 42%, with 11% unsure. 

Read the rest here.

On the Dangers of One Party Rule

...But what if we don’t actually have a competitive two-party system? What if our nation actually has two one-party systems, instead? And if the United States has two one-party systems, then that means that each way they turn voters are confronted with the arrogance, stagnation and corruption that almost always disfigures single-party rule.

The best illustration of this reality is found in state government “trifectas.” That’s the term for a state where one party controls the governor’s mansion and both houses of the state legislature. As of this month, there are 23 Republican trifectas and 16 Democratic ones. That leaves 11 states with divided governments.

Republicans may govern more states, but Democratic states tend to be more populous. As a result, a roughly equal percentage of Americans live under total red or blue rule. As of January, 39.1 percent of Americans lived in blue trifecta states, and 41.5 percent lived in red trifecta states, which means that less than 20 percent of the population lives in a divided state.

Combine trifecta state control with aggressive partisan gerrymanders, and you have exactly the situation in Congress that my colleague Tom Edsall described this week: “An overwhelming majority of House members run in districts that are safe in the general election, where the only threat to an incumbent is from a more ideologically extreme challenger in the primary.”

Another way of putting it is that the other side is so weak in so many states and congressional districts that politicians can build entire careers without having to appeal to voters on the other side of the aisle.

For example, even in a year of remarkable public discontent, in which the House may well change hands, the vast majority of members of Congress are completely safe. The Cook Political Report lists 186 districts as solid Republican and 182 districts as solid Democrat. There are only 18 tossup races. If you add in the 20 races that merely lean in one direction or the other, that gives you a grand total of 38 competitive races in a 435-member House of Representatives.

As a result, one-party politicians are often born in the parties’ bases and inept at reaching anyone even a few inches to their ideological right or left. In fact, the very effort to reach out to the opposition is usually interpreted as weakness, a misguided compromise against an uncompromising foe.

The art of compromise vanishes before our eyes. After all, generations of politicians now come from the roughly 80 percent of the country where compromise is almost always unnecessary. Compromises are internal only, as the party negotiates with itself. The opposition might as well not exist.

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For Frustrated G.O.P., Redistricting Fight Turns to Florida and the Courtroom

Frustrated Republicans looked Wednesday to rebound from another setback in a nationwide redistricting chess match, as the high-stakes contest turned to Florida and the courtroom.

A Democratic victory on Tuesday in Virginia, where voters approved a change to the state’s House map that could give the party up to four more seats in the midterms, left Republicans with little to show for a tit-for-tat they started last year in Texas at the urging of President Trump.

Republicans are holding out hope that Virginia’s top court might reverse Tuesday’s result. And they are eying a chance to gain ground by redrawing the House map in Florida, where they control the governor’s office and hold supermajorities in the Legislature. But there is growing doubt in the party about its broader strategy.

“The two sides spent hundreds of millions dollars to get back to where they started, and in general, it’s turned out to be a net loser for Republicans,” said C. Stewart Verdery Jr., a Republican consultant.

Read the rest here.

Hungary Is a Laboratory for Illiberal Nationalism. The Results Are In.

Last month, Donald Trump offered Viktor Orban his “complete and total endorsement” in a video message ahead of Hungary’s April 12 election. The statement continued the president’s habit of boldly weighing in on the internal politics of other nations. But in this case, he would have been wise to first check the sell-by date of the prime minister and his creaking project of illiberalism.

After repeatedly winning reelection since 2010, Orban and his ruling party, Fidesz, now face a genuine electoral challenge from Peter Magyar and his center-right Tisza Party, which has led in the polls for more than a year while running on an anti-corruption platform. The result will allow the world to gauge Hungarians’ discontent with Orban’s brand of politics. It will also provide an answer to whether it’s possible for an opposition with broad support to win after 16 years under a government that rewrote election laws to its benefit while bringing much of the media under its influence.

The president’s interest in Orban’s political survival is certainly due in part to their rapport, but there’s a deeper nexus, too. Many of Trump’s supporters and allies — including Vice President JD Vance — see Hungary as a bastion of conservative and Christian values in a liberal and secular European Union.

For them, the election carries added significance. Hungary has served as a laboratory for policies promoted by many self-described national conservatives in the United States who want government to positively promote conservative values.

But regardless of the outcome, Orban has already shown that his vision of illiberal nationalism is a dead end that made Hungary poorer and less free.

Read the rest here.

Hungarian Strongman Victor Orban Concedes Election

After sixteen years in power, the pro-Kremlin ruler was ousted in parliamentary elections. 

Trump is trying to play dictator with the elections

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order to create a nationwide list of verified eligible voters and to restrict mail-in voting, a move that swiftly drew legal threats from state Democratic officials as the president demands further limitations on voting ahead of this year’s midterm elections.

The order, which voting law experts say violates the Constitution by attempting to seize the power to run elections from states, is the latest in a torrent of efforts from Trump to interfere with the way Americans vote based on his false allegations of fraud.

It calls on the Department of Homeland Security, working in conjunction with the Social Security Administration, to make the list of eligible voters in each state, according to the text of the executive order released Tuesday. It also seeks to bar the U.S. Postal Service from sending absentee ballots to those not on each state’s approved list, although the president likely lacks the power to mandate what the Postal Service does.

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Draw the Line Now Against a Trump Election Takeover

“Pro-Trump activists who say they are in coordination with the White House are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that claims China interfered in the 2020 election as a basis to declare a national emergency that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting,” reports the Washington Post. The executive order would decree various changes to election law that Trump has been conspicuously unable to convince Congress to enact. These could include a ban on no-excuse mail voting, “requiring voters to register anew for the 2026 midterms with proof of citizenship,” and giving various federal agencies answerable to the president “a role in identifying ineligible voters.”

It won’t work. Measures of this sort, assuming there is no other problem with them, have to be enacted by Congress using its Article I, Section 4, powers. Under our constitutional order, changes to election law cannot be imposed on states by executive whim, whether or not some supposed national-security rationale is proffered. 

Per the Post’s reporting, the draft executive order is being pushed by some eccentric characters who have previously promoted conspiracy theories about the 2020 election that have been uniformly rejected by courts and disproved by impartial investigation. In most administrations, such conspiracry theories wouldn’t get an audience at all; however, Trump is an obvious exception, as one of the nation’s leading promoters of election falsehoods and as one who has hired bitter-end “Stop the Steal” officials to fill key jobs relating to election policy. He has also repeatedly floated the idea of attempting at least a partial election takeover without going through Congress. 

To paraphrase a high official of this administration: We can do this the easy way or the hard way. 

Read the rest here.

How Virginia's top court might decide Democrats' gerrymandering fate

Virginia Democrats are moving forward with plans to gerrymander their way to four more congressional seats — but they need help from the state’s top court.

After a lower court blocked Democrats’ efforts to amend the state Constitution and redraw federal congressional lines ahead of this fall’s midterm elections, the Virginia Court of Appeals requested the Virginia Supreme Court weigh in.

That puts the fate of the map — and potentially congressional control after the 2026 midterms — in the hands of a group of justices that observers say can be hard to predict.

Political and legal experts in Virginia agree the state Supreme Court is not overtly ideological, with many describing it as “small-c conservative,” leaning heavily on tradition and precedent rather than handing down ideologically right-wing rulings. And many observers say the court is wary of wading too heavily into political fights. But this time, it’s unavoidable.

“It’s kind of a state Supreme Court tradition to stay away from political matters whenever they can. They like to leave the legislating to the legislature. So this is going to be a really interesting test of that tradition,” said Carolyn Fiddler of the Democratic Attorneys General Association, who attended William & Mary Law School in Virginia and worked in state politics.

Read the rest here.

Trump Calls on Republicans to "Nationalize" Elections

President Donald Trump said Monday that Republicans should nationalize elections, continuing to double down on false conspiracy theories about widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

The suggestion — which runs contrary to the Constitution’s delegation of election administration to state governments — comes less than a week after the FBI raided an elections office outside Atlanta, seizing ballots and other voting records from the 2020 election.

“The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over. We should take over the voting in at least 15 places.’ The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting,” he said during an appearance on former Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino’s podcast, which he relaunched Monday.

The president repeatedly insisted that he won the 2020 election “in a landslide,” alleging without evidence that people “voted illegally” in the election. He also nodded to the FBI’s raid in Fulton County, Georgia, teasing that “you’re going to see some interesting things come out” in Georgia.

Dozens of challenges to the results of that election yielded no credible evidence of widespread voter fraud, and both a statewide audit and a recount requested by the Trump campaign verified that former President Joe Biden won the state.

Trump has intensified his efforts to undermine the results of the 2020 election in recent months, vowing in January that “people will soon be prosecuted for what they did” with regards to the election. His Justice Department has also sued roughly two dozen states, demanding access to their statewide voter registration rolls.

Trump’s latest threat to nationalize voting harkens back to a promise he made last summer to sign an executive order bringing “honesty” to the 2026 midterm elections.

“Remember, the States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes,” he wrote in an August social media post. “They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do.”

Read the rest here.

Democrat wins solidly red Texas Senate seat in special election upset

Democrat and machinist union leader Taylor Rehmet won the special election Saturday to represent a solidly red Texas Senate district that President Donald Trump carried by 17 points in 2024, a stunning upset that injected a fresh and urgent sense of a panic into the GOP from the Texas Capitol to the White House heading into November’s midterm elections. 

With ballots tallied from all but a handful of voting centers, Rehmet had 57% of the vote, besting the 43% for his GOP opponent, conservative activist Leigh Wambsganss, who vastly outspent Rehmet as Republicans including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick mounted a furious funding push in a bid to tilt the election in their favor in the final days. 

Patrick, the Senate’s powerful presiding officer, had raised alarm bells about the race and urged Republicans to turn out — as did Trump, who posted three separate get-out-the-vote messages on social media in the 48 hours preceding the election.

The win will be short-lived for Rehmet, a first-time candidate who will serve out the roughly 11 months remaining in the term of Republican Kelly Hancock, who vacated the seat to become Texas’ acting comptroller. But the outcome serves as a warning shot for Republicans that will likely embolden Democrats as they angle for other red-leaning seats across Texas — and the country — in November. 

Read the rest here.

The Tennessee Special Election

Today's special election to fill a recently vacated congressional seat in Tennessee has been getting a lot of attention. Normally it would be a non-story given that the district is as Republican as San Francisco is Democratic. President Trump carried it by 22 points. But polls have been showing a shockingly close race. This has gotten Democrats excited and Republicans nervous. All of which said, I doubt the Democrats will pull it off. The polls still show the Republican candidate with a modest lead and those same polls have a history of undercounting conservative voters. There's a lot of debate about the hows and whys of that, but it remains true nonetheless. The latest poll showed around 5% of voters as undecided. In that district they almost always break Republican. And there was a margin of error of ~4%. Democrats are hoping that will break their way, but again, history does not suggest that is too likely. Add to that, the Democratic candidate is not a centrist. She is way to the left by Tennessee political standards and has in the past staked out all kinds of really lefty positions like supporting trans/alphabet people etc., pro-abortion, pro-wealth redistribution and so on. That may play well on the left coast and in New York City, but in Tennessee... I'm not seeing it.

In both parties there is a certain class of professional operators who live and breath politics. When they are eating lunch, they are scanning their phone for the latest stories that could impact broad public opinion. They go to bed at night reciting poll numbers and when they dream it's about which districts will need how much money for the coming off year elections. These people are watching this race not to see who wins, but to see how close it is. The serious people in both parties know that flipping the seat is highly improbable. But what has Democrats giddy and Republicans sweating is how close will it be. If the GOP holds the seat, but the margin is single digits, you are going to see alarm among Republicans and elation among Democrats. It will signal a major threat to swing district Republicans and that money will have to be spent defending at least some districts that would normally be considered safe seats. It would likely add to the steady flow of Republican congress people who have announced their plans not to seek re-election. The party leadership would also have to contend with members feeling more free to criticize the administration. Make no mistake, Donald Trump is on the ballot in this election and the forthcoming off year elections. 

The above aside, what if lightning strikes and the Democrats actually manage to flip the seat? In political terms that would be the equivalent of a tactical nuclear weapon going off in the middle of MAGA country. A district Trump won 13 months ago by 22% in a functionally one party state going Democratic, by even a paper thin margin, might well portend a 2026 election wipe out rivaling those of 1974 and 1994. Democrats will be popping champaign corks from Seattle to South Carolina. For Republicans it would be Katie bar the door. 

Democrats run the board, winning by wide margins

Nov 4 (Reuters) - The 2025 off-year elections in Virginia, New Jersey, New York City and California provided an early barometer of how some U.S. voters view President Donald Trump's second term and the Democratic Party's efforts to revive its political fortunes.

Here are some takeaways from election night:

New Jersey Governor-elect Mikie Sherrill and Virginia Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger may have provided a blueprint for how Democrats can get their mojo back in next year’s congressional elections.

They have much in common. Each was first elected to Congress in 2018, during the midterms in Trump's first term. This year, they both ran as problem-solving moderates with backgrounds in national security and laser-focused their campaigns on affordability issues while positioning themselves as bulwarks against Trump.

To a party starved for good news, Sherrill, a former Navy helicopter pilot, and Spanberger, an ex-CIA officer, provided it. While their wins were not huge surprises given that their states tend to support Democrats more than Republicans, their broad margins of victory may bolster the argument that their approach could work in next year’s midterms, when Democrats hope to wrest back control of Congress.

With votes still being counted, Sherrill appeared to have bested her opponent, Jack Ciattarelli, by a greater margin in New Jersey than Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris beat Trump there last year. There were also signs that Spanberger was outperforming Harris in Virginia.

Sherrill and Spanberger, along with New York mayoral winner Zohran Mamdani, promoted affordability as a central campaign theme.

Spanberger’s “Affordable Virginia” plan focused on lowering healthcare, housing and energy costs, and she vowed to make tech data centers pay “their fair share” of electricity costs. Sherrill’s “Affordability Agenda” targeted similar concerns. She pledged to declare a statewide energy emergency and freeze electricity rates.

Joel Payne, a Democratic strategist, said that while it’s always tricky to determine how off-year election results might play in the next year’s midterms, Democrats can take some lessons away from Tuesday.

“If Trump keeps taking a sledgehammer to people’s pocketbooks, that is an easy thing for Democrats to run on,” Payne said.

Read the rest here.

The New York City Mayoral Race

It's all but over. Now comes the fun part. A socialist mayor in charge of the beating heart of global capitalism, in a country with a far right authoritarian president who is almost certain to suggest Manhattan as the first site for his planned revival of nuclear weapons testing.

Argentina: Libertarians score decisive legislative election win

BUENOS AIRES — Argentines woke up to a politically emboldened President Javier Milei after a dramatic victory in midterm elections on Sunday.

The libertarian president and staunch Donald Trump ally secured more than 40% of the popular vote, and solidified his hold on power in the National Congress, where he had previously struggled to push parts of his agenda through.

The scope of the victory surprised even Milei. His La Libertad Avanza party earned roughly 9 points more than the left-leaning Peronist opposition, and also eked out a victory in the powerful province of Buenos Aires, where Peronists usually dominate. Just over one month ago, the president's party had lost badly in legislative elections in the province of Buenos Aires.

But the story Sunday was very different, and sent a clear message following two years of austerity measures that drastically cut public spending, and helped drive down chronically high inflation. Corruption scandals, and a wild few weeks of economic instability did not dampen the support that he maintains among a sizable part of the population.

The value of the Argentine peso also strengthened considerably on Monday, a show of confidence from the markets after Milei's victory.

Read the rest here.

The gerrymandering wars is a flashing warning light for US democracy

After the extraordinary scene of Texas Democrats fleeing their state to forestall a rare mid-decade gerrymander, Texas Republicans nevertheless moved this week to approve a new congressional map. It is designed to give their party five additional seats in Congress in next year’s midterm elections, as requested by President Trump. 

California Democrats responded this week by rushing to advance their own plan to draw a new congressional map to counter Texas Republicans. Red and Blue states across the country are now predictably threatening to join this bare-knuckle political brawl. 

Although partisan gerrymandering has sadly become a routine practice pushing us further into tribalism and dysfunction, the current crisis should be seen for what it is: a flashing red warning light for our democracy. 

Indeed, if this race to the bottom continues, every aspect of our democratic system of governance could be captured by extreme partisanship, and every last vestige of trust necessary for that system to work could soon be lost. At that point, it may well be too late to change course. 

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) has proposed the best way out of the current standoff: a federal bipartisan embrace of independent commissions to draw electoral maps so that voters can choose their politicians rather than self-interested politicians cynically rigging the system to their partisan advantage.

That would solve the immediate crisis, but we must also confront the larger issue of extremism dominating our politics.

The truth is our democratic system has been completely hijacked to yield outsized power to the partisan fringes. These voters on the far left and right of the political mainstream view politics as an existential tribal struggle that must be won at all costs, and they thus demand that their elected officials engage in tribal warfare and scorched-earth politics. 

Read the rest here.

The New York Mayoral Election

Ok, we have five guys running. One of the contenders Jim Walden, has no chance of winning, but could collect maybe five percentage points worth of votes. Mamdani has a lock on the progressive vote, but it's unclear what percentage that will translate to in the general election. Then you have Cuomo and Adams, both of whom have tarnished reputations but who are likely to split the bulk of the moderate Democratic vote. And tempting as it might be to overlook them, around 1 in 5 New Yorkers are actually registered Republicans. Their candidate, Curtis Sliwa, actually got ~27% of the vote in the 2021 election. 

Right now, I don't see Cuomo or Adams winning. The former is deeply unpopular and seen as just plain creepy. Adams is tainted by credible allegations of corruption. My guess is that it will come down to how many New Yorkers are prepared to roll the dice on an avowed socialist as mayor of a city that is also the beating heart of global capitalism. And we also need to consider the Jewish vote, which typically breaks heavily Democratic. I just can't see Mamdani carrying anywhere near a majority of the Jewish vote with his pro-Palestine record. In a normal election I'd say Curtis Sliwa's odds of being elected mayor of New York City were slightly worse than winning the Powerball. But in a five way race, if he holds that 27%, he's got an outside shot. In last year's election Donald Trump actually got 30% of the vote in New York City. If Sliwa gets the Trump voters, he goes from long shot to credible candidate. If he can pick up another 5-10% from disaffected Democrats and independents, we could... maybe... just possibly see one of the biggest election upsets in the city's history. 

How Biden’s Inner Circle Protected a Faltering President

The people closest to President Biden were well aware that he had changed. He talked more slowly than he had just a few years before, needed to hoist himself out of his seat in the presidential limousine and walked with a halting gait.

“Your biggest issue is the perception of age,” Mike Donilon, the president’s longtime strategist, told him in mid-2022, according to three close aides who heard it. That bit of feedback, delivered repeatedly by Mr. Donilon, was the sort of blunt talk that did not often make its way to a man who had spent a half-century in politics prizing loyalty and deference.

Mr. Biden acknowledged the concerns, but the warnings only ignited his defiant, competitive streak. In April 2023, without convening his family or having long deliberations with aides, he announced he was running again.

Now, as President-elect Donald J. Trump heads back to the White House, demoralized Democrats debate what might have been had the president bowed out in time to let a younger generation run. Mr. Biden, 82, has at the same time made the extraordinary admission that he might not have made it through a second term. “Who knows what I’m going to be when I’m 86 years old?” he said in an interview with USA Today on Jan. 5.

The president’s acknowledgment has put a new spotlight on his family and inner circle, all of whom dismissed concerns from voters and Mr. Biden’s own party that he was too old for the job. And yet they recognized his physical frailty to a greater degree than they have publicly acknowledged. Then they cooperated, according to interviews with more than two dozen aides, allies, lawmakers and donors, to manage his decline.

They rearranged meetings to make sure Mr. Biden was in a better mood — a strategy one person close to him described as how aides should handle any president. At times, they delayed sharing information with him, including negative polling data, as they debated the best way to frame it. They surrounded him with aides when he walked from the White House to the waiting presidential helicopter on the South Lawn so that news cameras could not capture his awkward bearing.

Read the rest here.

The Paths to 270 for Trump & Harris

A good examination of how each side could win in 19 maps. 

(Spoiler: The math and the maps favor Trump, but not by a huge margin.)

A few quick observations. 

* The undecided vote is still(!) believed to be around 4-6%. How they break could be decisive. 

* Disaffected voters could swing the election either way. But the risk is greater for Harris given the extreme rancor in the political left over Israel and Gaza. There are also a lot of Muslim Americans in Michigan. Right now, I'd say that Jill Stein is a dagger pointed at the heart of the Harris campaign. 

* The most likely path for a Harris victory (MI, WI and PA), especially if she wins them by very slim margins, could see her elected while losing the popular vote nationally. That would be flipping the usual script as Republicans generally believe the Electoral College gives them an edge in elections. It's how Trump won in 2016. But if this happens for Harris, expect MAGA world to erupt.