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Republicans are shifting course in their attempts to seize victory from the jaws of potential electoral defeat.
I think there’s something to this. From TPM Reader JK …
I know that this hasn’t necessarily been an active debate on the site, but I remember reading recently a comment suggesting impeachment was not worth it. I know it was not the explicit goal of impeachment, but there can be no doubt that the impeachment proceedings have been a tremendous benefit to Biden (and probably Democrats in general) in this election. The impeachment proceedings provided the Democrats a chance to educate the country on the ratfuckery Trump was up to with respect to manufacturing those incomprehensible allegations against Biden and Hunter Biden. I believe those proceedings gave the media a preview of the bullshit that was coming their way and it allowed them to have their guards up when it inevitably did get pushed. And when the nasty bile did come their way, they mostly laughed it off. In my mind, it was the impeachment proceedings that made that happen.
TPM Reader TB looks to some advantages if Democrats do well on Tuesday …
Thanks for your coverage of the campaign and of the Trump Presidency over the last 4 years. Like you and your readers, I have spent most of the last 4 years being dismayed and deeply concerned about the country with Trump in the White House. There have been many moments, however, when I have felt like Emperor Palpatine in Return of the Jedi when he said “everything that has transpired has done so according to my design”. That specifically related to Palpatine himself leaking the location of the shield generator to the Rebels, thus leading them into a trap. If the election goes well like the polls currently predict, there is an argument to be made that the Dems couldn’t have designed a more devious plan for 2020.
Looking at the totality of the polls, the big story still seems to be an essential stability. In our conversation with Guy Cecil of Priorities USA yesterday, he said that their internal polls showed much more stability than the more scattershot public polls. But even those public polls seem quite consistent. The thing you see in these last few days is that the density of polling is so great that a lot of the randomness and bounciness created by different pollsters with different methodologies and house effects releasing polls at different times gets washed away. The picture doesn’t necessarily change but it can come into clearer focus.

With the help of his Senate Republican lackeys (mostly Mitch McConnell) President Trump has shoved through not only a record number of judges to lifelong appointments, but he’s done it at an unprecedented pace — more than lapping his predecessor.
We are truly in the time that tries everyone’s nerves. Most of the indicators look very promising for Joe Biden and Senate Democrats; House Democrats will almost certainly expand their majority. But elections are inherently unpredictable, especially in this election whether novel and improvised ways of administering elections create inherent uncertainty and one side is placing its hopes on making voting as hard as possible.
A few thoughts on what I’m seeing.


Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh needed, among other things, a copy editor while writing his concurring opinion on the Supreme Court ruling this week on mail-in ballot deadline extensions in Wisconsin.

This has been building for a while. But it’s really something and fully out loud now, an embattled President openly mocking and deriding a loyalist Senator struggling to defend her seat in state critical to the President’s own electoral fortunes. “You got one minute! One minute, Martha! They don’t want to hear this, Martha. Come on, Martha. Let’s go. Quick, quick.” Zoë Richards has the story.
I got asked yesterday what Trump’s deal is with McSally. I think he’s told us, ironically about another Arizona Senate. As he said, he likes heroes who don’t get captured. Yes, McSally has awkwardly tried to separate herself from some of the President’s most extreme antics. And Trump had various sources of bitterness with John McCain. But neither really captures this part of Trump.