| | | | | |  | | By Tim Alberta | Presented by |  | | | With help from Renuka Rayasam and Myah Ward MARCH MADNESS, MEET NOVEMBER NUTTINESS — You're going to see a lot of red-and-blue maps shared on social media over the next 24 hours, as armchair election forecasters take turns predicting who wins the Electoral College and how. Some very informed people will get it wrong; some very uninformed people will get it right. And that's OK. Think of it like a March Madness pool. Some people know so much about college basketball that their brackets demand attention, regardless of whether their predictions pan out. They've got sufficient credibility, sufficient experience, that we take their picks seriously. Tonight, on the eve of Election Day, we bring you four such people. For the past 18 months, I've conducted a running roundtable with four strategists who tried and failed to take down Donald Trump. Each of them served as a campaign manager during the GOP's 2016 presidential primary: Danny Diaz (Jeb Bush), Beth Hansen (John Kasich), Jeff Roe (Ted Cruz) and Terry Sullivan (Marco Rubio). The idea was to draw from their experiences competing against the president, and against each other, to handicap the Democratic primary and discuss which candidate might have the best odds against Trump in November 2020. In the grand finale of what we call our "Smoke Filled Zoom," I put these four campaign aces on the spot: They had to predict overall turnout, which party wins control of the House and Senate, which candidate wins the popular vote and which candidate wins the Electoral College. They also had to give state-by-state picks to provide me with a total number of electoral votes.
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| Here are the highlights: CONTROL OF THE HOUSE "I'll be looking for something that portends a trend. … I think Missouri-2 and Oklahoma-5 are both really interesting. They're suburban seats. One held by [Republican] Ann Wagner, one held by Kendra Horn, a Democrat. Both are tight seats and suburban seats. I think it will tell us a lot. I'm trying to pick something in an Eastern time zone so we can look at it early and figure out what kind of night is coming. But I think those two seats are pretty indicative. Two suburban seats, one held by a Democrat, one held by a Republican, both with Republican tilts." — Roe "South Carolina-1, Mark Sanford's old district, is held by a Democrat for the first time in a long time, Joe Cunningham. He's up for reelection the first time. … If a Democrat can hold onto that seat a second time, that's really going to send a signal that the Southern states aren't just as solid red as they once were." — Sullivan Predictions: — Hansen: Democrats, 245 seats — Diaz: Democrats, 240 seats — Roe: Democrats, 227 seats — Sullivan: Democrats, 255 seats CONTROL OF THE SENATE "In Colorado, I don't think [Cory] Gardner comes back. Biden's going to win the state and I think [Democrat] John Hickenlooper is going to win. I think Trump is going to pull at least one electoral vote out of Maine, and I think Susan Collins comes back. But I don't think Martha McSally's coming back; I think [Democrat] Mark Kelly wins Arizona. I wonder about Joni Ernst and her ability to come back." — Hansen "This is the perfect example of the corrosive effect that Donald Trump has had on the Republican Party. If you look at the swing states from four years ago: Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, those Senate candidates outperformed him by 2, 3 points, and in many cases, drug him across the finish line. … All politics is national now. None of these candidates, in the swing states anyways, are outperforming Trump. And they're underperforming him. He's really done damage to them." — Sullivan Predictions: — Hansen: Democrats — Diaz: Republicans — Roe: Republicans — Sullivan: Democrats TOTAL VOTES CAST FOR PRESIDENT "I think you'll probably have about a 15 percent increase. I'll just say 157 million, somewhere in there." — Roe "There are states like Texas that are already at 100 percent of their 2016 turnout. I think we're pushing past 150 million." — Sullivan Predictions: — Hansen: 148 million — Diaz: 150 million+ — Roe: 157 million — Sullivan: 151 million POPULAR VOTE MARGIN "I think it's going to be 52-45, Biden. He wins by 8 million." — Hansen "I think Biden wins probably by 6 or 7 million. And if you take out the top four counties, then it's a wash." — Roe Predictions: — Hansen: Biden by 8 million — Diaz: Biden by 6 million — Roe: Biden by 6 to 7 million — Sullivan: Biden by 9 million ELECTORAL COLLEGE WINNER Read the story to find out! (Hey, we've got to get clicks somehow.)
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Flags blow in the wind at a rally for President Donald Trump at Wilkes-Barre Scranton International Airport in Pennsylvania on the eve of the presidential election. | M. Scott Mahaskey | POLITICO | Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. This duet is the salve my soul needs right now. Reach out at talberta@politico.com and rrayasam@politico.com, or on Twitter at @timalberta and @renurayasam.
| | A message from Care in Action: Right now, children are crying for their parents, because our government said "we need to take away children" - cruelly plotting to separate babies from their parents. How do we explain to our kids that families were separated on our watch? We need to reunite every family. Now. | | | | | | WHAT POLITICOS WILL BE WATCHING — Like you, we've spent the last few months inside, doomscrolling, reading the latest polls, trying to figure out if a suddenly popular TikTok dance will have an effect on turnout. The 2020 presidential election was always going to be tough to digest. Add in a pandemic seeming to peak right around Election Day, and even Londoners would say the fog around the race is thick. Nightly reached out to the sharp political minds across POLITICO with a simple request: In the length of a tweet, tell us what will you be focused on during Election Day. From congressional and state-level races to specifics on how to interpret the early results for Biden vs. Trump, here's what our newsroom is watching:
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Matt Wuerker | "What's the margin in Macomb County, Mich., white middle-America's unofficial national capital? Obama won it twice. Trump carried it by 11.5 percent. If he can't pull out a double-digit win again, he'll struggle to win Rust Belt states: MI, PA and WI." — Zack Stanton, digital editor, POLITICO Magazine "All things Pennsylvania. I'll monitor turnout and any allegations of voter intimidation that arise, something Democrats fear will be orchestrated by the Trump team. During a non-Covid race, I'd also go to Famous 4th Street Deli, a pol hotspot. Alas." — Holly Otterbein, national political reporter "Will the president claim victory at the end of the night even without final results being announced? Are people (including cable news) really prepared for a non-definitive election night?" — Carlos Prieto, audio producer "If Oregon Democrat Peter DeFazio loses the seat he's held for 30+ years, the House Transportation Committee loses its wonky and passionate chair, and the Democrats lose the engine behind their ambitious, climate-forward infrastructure plan." — Tanya Snyder, transportation reporter "Looking at two California health-related initiatives: Prop. 23, the union power play with the kidney dialysis industry, and Prop. 14, the $5.5 billion bond measure to continue funding the state's stem cell research agency." — Victoria Colliver, California health care reporter "Will Trump's white working class support hold up in the absence of a clear 'win' in his trade wars? And will Biden's strategic ambiguity on trade allow him to win some of those voters despite his free-trading past?" — Gavin Bade, Morning Trade co-author
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Matt Wuerker | "The next Montana governor could determine abortion rights for the state, especially if the Supreme Court moves to limit reproductive health." — Dan Goldberg, health care reporter "Everyone is focused on white suburban voters, but don't underestimate how Black voter turnout in swing state cities like Milwaukee, Cleveland, Orlando, Atlanta, Dallas, Durham, Philly and Detroit could run up the score for Dems early." — Marty Kady, editorial director, subscriptions "I'm looking at turnout among two demographics: Black and Asian American voters. Early vote numbers have exploded among these groups, but I'm wondering if it's enough to put Biden-Harris over the top." — Maya King, politics reporter "House Agriculture Chairman Collin Peterson is fighting to get reelected in a district Trump won in 2016. Challenged by Michelle Fischbach, a GOP recruit, the rural Minnesota Democrat could get kicked out of Congress after nearly 30 years." — Liz Crampton, agriculture reporter "Can Donald Trump beat the polls and run the table again à la 2016? The Trump campaign tried to make inroads with Latino and Black voters. Did it pay off? And at the end of the night, how will Trump respond to news about the race, win or lose?" — Meridith McGraw, White House reporter "California ballot initiatives, including landmark gig economy and tax fights; major Los Angeles district attorney race; can California GOP flip Dem House seats? And state legislative fights." — Jeremy B. White, California Playbook co-author "Will be watching Pennsylvania and Texas for any indication that Trump's focus on fracking makes any difference in the final vote in states where oil, gas and renewables are a complicated mix." — Ben Lefebvre, energy reporter
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Matt Wuerker | "I'm watching whether voters in Louisiana and Colorado approve ballot measures restricting abortion access — a policy fight with much higher stakes after Barrett's confirmation gave conservatives a 6-3 supermajority at the Supreme Court." — Alice Miranda Ollstein, health care reporter "I know what I won't be looking out for. Four years ago, Tommy Vietor had some choice words about the value of exit polls — in sum: They're terrible and so often wrong. His assessment will likely ring even more true this year." — Ruairí Arrieta-Kenna, assistant editor, POLITICO Magazine "I'll be watching for shifts in how winners and losers talk about the Covid-19 pandemic — especially mask wearing, social distancing and testing — with cases, hospitalizations and deaths rising." — David Lim, health care reporter "Four members of the Senate Banking Committee are in competitive races: One Democrat, Doug Jones, and three Republicans — Martha McSally, David Perdue and Thom Tillis." — Zachary Warmbrodt, financial services reporter
| | | | EXCLUSIVE: "THE CIRCUS" & POLITICO TEAM UP TO PULL BACK THE CURTAIN ON THE MOST UNPRECEDENTED PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN HISTORY: It's been the most unconventional and contentious election season of our lifetime. The approach taken by each candidate couldn't be more different, yet the stakes couldn't be higher as we cross the finish line. Join POLITICO's John Harris, Laura Barrón-López, Gabby Orr and Eugene Daniels in a conversation with John Heilemann, Alex Wagner, Mark McKinnon and Jennifer Palmieri of Showtime's "The Circus" on Thursday, Nov. 5 at 8 p.m. EST for an insiders' look at the Trump and Biden campaigns, behind-the-scenes details and nuggets from the trail, and the latest on where things stand and where they are heading. DON'T MISS THIS! REGISTER HERE. | | | | | | | | HOW BUSH V. GORE COULD DECIDE THE 2020 ELECTION — If Tuesday's presidential election results are close, the decision could get thrown to courts with the outcome of the looming legal war hinging on unresolved issues from the Supreme Court's 2000 Bush v. Gore decision. Already this year more than 300 challenges have been brought to the fast-changing election processes put in place to help people vote during the pandemic. Without a decisive winner on Nov. 3, the Supreme Court may step in to decide whether millions of ballots cast under those changes are legal. POLITICO's Josh Gerstein emails us to explain the legal arguments on each side, and how new Justice Amy Coney Barrett might rule: The biggest open questions are how closely do election officials have to follow state law and who decides if they've strayed too far as they address the ongoing pandemic. That was the crux of a legal fight that took place at a Houston courtroom this morning over a GOP request to throw out nearly 127,000 ballots Texans cast using drive-through voting over the past two weeks. The judge threw out the case on procedural grounds, but the question remains: Do state legislatures alone make election law? Or can local election officials, with the consent of state courts, also make changes? Two decades ago, then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote a concurring opinion in Bush v. Gore with the endorsement of Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, arguing that federal courts should step in to make sure that the desires of state legislatures are being scrupulously followed — even if state courts disagree. The reasoning: The Constitution explicitly names the legislature as the body that determines how each state appoints its electors for the Electoral College. But liberal justices counter that state election officials have always had wide discretion to implement voting processes, especially in a crisis. This year's election law changes came in a variety of ways: emergency legislative sessions, county officials scrambling to keep Covid cases down and courts responding to lawsuits from civil rights groups to expand voting access, sometimes implementing agreements that voting rights groups struck with state officials. The current Supreme Court is split on whether many of those changes are legal. In Pennsylvania the court was evenly divided, 4-4, on whether the state supreme court could extend the absentee ballot deadline, to allow ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted, even if they were received up to three days after Election Day. Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court's liberal wing in siding with state court and state election officials who said they had the latitude to make such changes. The liberal justices also tend to see more of a role for the state courts and state constitutions, which are effectively swept aside by the originalist view of legislative supremacy, in interpreting election law. Democrats have also prevailed for now in ballot-extension fights in North Carolina and Minnesota, but both could be reprised soon after Election Day, with new Justice Amy Coney Barrett a potential swing vote. Barrett, who was a junior lawyer on the Bush side of the Bush v. Gore showdown, chose to bow out of a series of emergency decisions the court issued last week on election matters. But she hasn't pledged to recuse herself from other election matters that could come up this week or thereafter. Barrett, who called Scalia her mentor, might side with the four justices who argued either in the Pennsylvania case or a separate Wisconsin case, that only state legislatures can make election law changes. But there's another wild card: Would Barrett join some or all of those GOP-appointed justices on the constitutional point, but still allow voters' cast ballots to count because of their good-faith reliance on what they were told were the rules? Her past writings suggest she might decide to enforce the principle over the practical, but her potentially critical stance on that question is tough to predict. EARLY BIRDS HEAD TO THE POLLS — As of today, U.S. voters have cast 69.2 percent of the total votes counted in the 2016 general election, according to data collected by Michael McDonald at the University of Florida.
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Patterson Clark | POLITICO | LES MIS REFERENCES ARE BANNED — With just one day to Nov. 3, POLITICO Dispatch hit the road with chief Washington correspondent Ryan Lizza as he traveled across the Sun Belt, where states that were once Republican strongholds are up for grabs.
| | | | | | |   | | | | | | THE CHANCELLOR WHO SAVED CHRISTMAS — Angela Merkel appealed to Germans to obey expansive new restrictions throughout November, holding out the prospect of more freedom in the run-up to Christmas if the second coronavirus wave is pushed back. "If we stick it out for one month, that can be a barrier in this second wave," Merkel said during a news conference today as bars, restaurants and gyms closed across the country to tackle a surge in coronavirus infections and hospital admissions. "It is up to everyone to make this November a success, a turning point," she said. "If we succeed, then we can have a bearable December with more freedom."
| | | | SPEND ELECTION NIGHT WITH POLITICO FOUR SQUARE: People have been voting for weeks, but Election Day is finally upon us! Join us for a special election night episode of POLITICO "Four Square," where host Eugene Daniels will break down the latest developments from across the country with Chief Political Correspondent Tim Alberta, Chief Washington Correspondent Ryan Lizza, and one of our top political reporters and CNN contributor Laura Barrón-López. Joined by colleagues from across the newsroom throughout the show, expect the group to share the latest exit poll readouts, analyze the closing Trump and Biden campaign strategies, and to share their favorite moments of this long and winding election. Tune in at 9:00 p.m. EST here. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | HOW TO SPEND ELECTION NIGHT WITH POLITICO — Election night, for the political junkie, usually doesn't begin until you've popped open a results map, cracked open a drink of choice, and started panic texting your friends and family. Except for the drink, we have you covered. POLITICO has a slew of pages to will help you digest what's happening: — Results: Not only do our results pages have maps and numbers with the latest updates, but head to the "Ways Left To Win" section of the presidential page to play around with remaining possibilities for Biden and Trump. Presidential | Senate | House | Governors | Key ballot measures — Election threats: POLITICO has a great user guide to the legal, technological and voting hurdles threatening Election Day and the many weeks after. And if you've had a problem voting, tell us what you're seeing. We're partnering with Electionland to track voting issues. — How POLITICO is tackling the election: For an inside look at how POLITICO's newsroom is tackling the night, watch editor Carrie Budoff Brown outline how we're approaching results and the candidates as we move through Tuesday:
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| | | A message from Care in Action: Right now, children are crying for their parents, because our government said "we need to take away children" - cruelly plotting to separate babies from their parents. "I always tell my kids to treat others the way you want to be treated. How do I explain to our kids that families were separated on our watch?" We can make this a nation we're proud to leave our kids. We need to reunite every family. Now. | | | Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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