It all comes down to this. We’ll all be sitting on pins and needles Tuesday night waiting for the networks to make their calls, so I’m setting aside the political commentary this week and offering this handy guide to help you make sense of the results as they start trickling in.
As you know, news agencies don’t need every vote counted before they can confidently declare a winner in a state. Instead, they rely on exit polls to get a sense for how voters are voting, compare those with the actual results, examine past trend lines from precincts throughout the state, and monitor how close the election is and how much of an outstanding vote remains before making an official call. We can kind of do the same by monitoring county-level results.
A word of warning before we get too far into this, however. Due to early and absentee voting, it’s not always immediately clear what an early lead for one candidate or the other means in some states. Historically, Democrats tend to vote earlier at higher rates than Republicans, who themselves tend to vote in greater numbers in person on Election Day. Some states count those early votes ahead of Election Day and announce those results all at once; those states should see Democrats jump out to early leads before the Election Day votes are tallied. Other states wait to count early votes after Election Day, which can delay the final results for days; in those states, it would not be surprising to see Republicans show strength early on. Complicating that even further, though, is that it appears Republicans this year are more willing to vote early than in years past. I also wouldn’t be surprised if more Democrats went back to day-of voting since the election isn’t being held in the midst of a pandemic (which itself could reduce the overall number of people voting early, which could in turn speed up the vote counting.) So don’t start panicking or celebrating before you have a sense for how long it will take a state to count its votes, which this handy article from the Washington Post can help you figure out.
In addition to watching the results come in on TV, I’d encourage you to follow along on a website that allows you to track county-by-county results in real time (i.e., the New York Times or CNN; hopefully those two sites won’t throw their coverage behind paywalls on Election Day. Otherwise, check NBC News.) Basically, you’re trying to spot trendlines: Are Harris or Trump somehow doing better or worse than in past elections? Consider percentages and margins as well as raw vote totals.
Below, I’ve listed dozens of counties I would pay attention to, along with how they’ve voted in the past four elections. I’ve focused on a few different types of counties:
Democratic strongholds: These tend to be large metropolitan areas or counties with large universities full of students and college-educated citizens. These counties contain huge pots of voters and a lot of Democrats. I want to know here if Democrats are turning out their voters or if there is any erosion in support for Harris.
Suburban counties: These counties used to lean Republican but are shifting in the Democrats’ favor. Given the large number of votes here, these counties could be difference makers.
Industrial/post-industrial small-city counties: Democrats used to fare well in these working-class counties, but Trump has drawn many of them into the Republican column.
Tossup counties: These are counties we can expect to be close on Election Day.
Bellwether counties: These are counties that for whatever reason often swing in the direction of whoever wins the national or state election. Similarly…
“Boomerang” counties: Counties that backed Obama twice, then backed Trump, then swung back to Biden.
One important thing to remember: Small, sparsely populated rural counties will also play a role in this election, as they can be expected to support Trump by wide margins. Their votes add up, too. There are too many of these counties to track, however, so I’m instead keeping the focus on the types of counties listed above. Just keep in mind that the turnout and totals in those rural counties need to be accounted for when assessing the results, particularly in close states. For example, if you see Harris doing better than expected in a heavily urban county yet still running neck-and-neck with Trump statewide, it might be because Trump is also doing better than expected in those small, rural counties.
For the record, here are the national results from the past four presidential elections:
Three observations/questions about that chart:
Notice how turnout in 2008, 2012, and 2016 was in the three-point 58.6%-61.6% range while turnout in 2020 was notably higher at 66.6%. What will turnout be like this year, and will a higher or lower turnout benefit one candidate over the other? My guess is Harris would like to see a slightly lower turnout than 2020, as that would suggest her more reliable voters got to the polls while Trump’s less dependable voters didn’t. Unless, of course, Trump voters surge to the polls, in which case Harris has to hope her own low propensity voters turn out for her. I would add this as well: If there’s a reason the polls are off this year, it may be because they’re basing their models on a pandemic-era election with 66.6% turnout when many states directly mailed ballots to their citizens.
Can Trump cross 47% in the polls or is that his ceiling?
Harris is a stronger candidate than Hillary Clinton, right? Does that mean she can crack the 50% mark? Can she match the Obama ‘12 and Biden ‘20 marks of roughly 51.2%?
So let’s get started. We’ll begin in an unexpected state:
KENTUCKY (6/7:00)
Why Kentucky? Not because it’s a toss-up state—Trump will definitely win here—but because its polling places start closing at 6:00 and are closed statewide by 7:00, making it one of the earliest states to report. (BTW, all times listed are Eastern time zone.) Kentucky also tends to count its votes pretty quickly, so we may be able to pick up on any trends that are bubbling up on Election Day. Finally, the state isn’t really contested and hasn’t been for a long time, so any trends we do spot may reflect broader national sentiments (although that could also skew results, since Kentucky voters will not have been influenced by battleground state messaging.)
The question for me is if Harris’s numbers come in closer to Biden’s or Clinton’s, and if Trump’s numbers slip at all. I would expect Kentucky to keep sliding to the right, but if Harris hangs tough, that could be a good early sign for Democrats. But let’s dig a little deeper. Let’s go to Jefferson County, which is coextensive with Louisville and Kentucky’s most populous county.
So the urban area of Louisville just keeps getting more and more Democratic. I’d keep an eye on those raw vote totals, too, just to get a sense for turnout. Let’s make one more stop in Kentucky in Fayette County, which is where the University of Kentucky is located. It’s the only other county in Kentucky that favored Biden in 2020.
The interesting thing here is that this college town favored George W. Bush in both 2000 and 2004. Now it looks pretty solidly Democratic, especially with Trump on the ballot. I’m not sure if the University had many students living on campus in 2020 during the pandemic, but it’s hard to explain a 20,000 vote jump otherwise. I’ll be interested to see if college students are turning out for Harris.
But enough with Kentucky, which is just there to bide our time until the battleground states start reporting, like
GEORGIA (7:00)
Georgia is a major toss-up, with the focus on the rapidly growing Atlanta metropolitan area. Biden won Georgia in 2020 by about 0.5%, becoming the first Democrat to win the Peach State since Georgia’s own Jimmy Carter. Georgians also sent two Democrats to the Senate that year, and re-elected one of them two years ago. But Republican Governor Brian Kemp—who has put some distance between himself and Trump—also won re-election in 2022. We’ll have to see if there is still a plurality of voters in Georgia who don’t want MAGA politicians in DC.
As I mentioned earlier, the outcome will likely hinge on Democratic turnout in the Atlanta area, which has about 6.3 million people, one-third of whom are Black. Obama flipped the Atlanta metro from red to blue in 2008, with the total area voting roughly 57% for Biden in 2020. What follows are the core counties in the Atlanta area:
Obviously, there are two different kinds of counties here. Fulton, DeKalb, and Clayton will vote overwhelmingly for Democrats, so pay attention there not only to the percentages but the total votes as well. Gwinnett and Cobb are counties that have transitioned from red to blue as more higher-income and diverse people (both counties are now minority-majority) have moved in, so watch to see if the margins in those counties keep exploding for Democrats.
Henry County isn’t a core county in Metro Atlanta, but it’s a suburban Atlanta county that, like Gwinnett and Clayton, is sliding sharply to the left:
Atlanta alone, of course, won’t determine the outcome of the election in Georgia. There are many counties with small cities that generate a lot of votes for Democrats, like Chatham (Savannah), Muscogee (Columbus), Richmond (Augusta), and Bibb (Macon). There are also numerous deep red rural and exurban counties that counter Atlanta. Slight gains or slippage in those counties could swing the election in either direction. Let’s just pick two to follow:
In Chatham, watch to see if Harris’s numbers are closer to Biden’s 58+% or Clinton/Obama ‘12’s 55+%. In Columbia County (adjacent to Richmond County, where Augusta is located) see if Harris is able to build on Biden’s 36% or if her numbers slip backwards into the low-30s.
From Georgia, let’s head south to
FLORIDA (7:00/8:00)
which Trump is expected to win but where we can find in the Tampa Bay area the boomerang county of Pinellas, whose largest city is St. Petersburg. (Pinellas County closes at 7:00, but polls remain open in the Florida panhandle until 8:00, so I’m not sure when exactly Pinellas will begin reporting its results.)
From Florida, let’s travel north along I-95 to
NORTH CAROLINA (7:30)
Like Virginia, Democrats have long hoped to flip North Carolina blue. It looked like that might happen when Obama barely won it in 2008, but Republicans have held on to the state by 2-3 points since then. Trump’s margin of victory in 2020 (about 1.3 points) was the narrowest for any state he won. Some Democrats believe Harris has a better chance to win North Carolina than Georgia this year. It certainly doesn’t help Republicans that their gubernatorial nominee—Mark “Minisoldr” Robinson—imploded in an outrageous pornsite scandal about a month ago.
We’ll begin with the three biggest counties in the Research Triangle region, which is home to the University of North Carolina, North Carolina State University, and Duke University, and, by extension, a lot of college students and college-educated voters. Wake County, in particular, is of critical importance. In 2004, it went for George W. Bush. Its population is now booming, and Democrats are flooding into the county and blowing up the margins.
I would also advise keeping an eye on Guilford County (Greensboro) the state’s third most-populous county, which Democrats have won with between 57.7%-60.8% of the vote over the past four elections; and Forsyth County (Winston-Salem, home of Wake Forest) which Democrats have won with between 53.0%-56.2% of the vote over the past four elections.
Next up is Mecklenburg County, the home of Charlotte, which has seen major growth over the past fifty years. Between 1992 and 2004, Mecklenburg was a toss-up county. Not any more. Democrats need to drive up their totals here.
The suburban/exurban counties around Mecklenburg are a different story, however, as they voted for Trump. The most-populous is Union County. As you can see, Republicans keep increasing their vote totals in Union every election, but their share of the vote has declined since 2012. Can Harris continue this trend in this suburban county this year? Keep watch on rapidly-diversifying Cabarrus County, too, another suburban Charlotte county, which Trump only won by high single digits.
A little further from Charlotte lies Anson County, a small, rural minority-majority county that is 44% Black. Interestingly, however, Democrats are losing ground in many of these types of counties in North Carolina.
Now let’s bounce over to New Hanover, County, which contains Wilmington. This county looks like a toss-up.
Finally, we’ll head back to western North Carolina, the heavily Republican region that was devastated by Hurricane Helene. I’ve picked two counties to follow: Buncombe, a Democratic stronghold that is home to Asheville, and Henderson, a county adjacent to Buncombe that favors Republicans. I would be interested to know if the hurricane affected turnout and, if so, if it affected one party more than the other.
Another state that closes at 7:30 is
OHIO (7:30)
although it is assumed the Buckeye State will be won by Trump. That doesn’t mean we can’t follow Montgomery County, which contains Dayton and is a boomerang county.
The 8 o’clock hour is when Democrats will really start to get nervous because that’s when two of the three “blue wall” states close.
PENNSYLVANIA (8:00)
Most assume Pennsylvania will be the tipping point in this election, the state that will deliver the 270th and decisive electoral vote to the winner.
There’s a lot to unpack in the Keystone State, starting with Philadelphia County, which is coextensive with the city of Philadelphia. Philly is the nation’s sixth-largest city, the largest city in Pennsylvania, and where about 1/6 of Democrats’ statewide total will come from. Philadelphia is a Democratic stronghold, but Trump actually improved his margins here in 2020, so analysts are watching to see if he can build on that.
Philadelphia’s suburban counties were once Republican strongholds, but that began to change in the 1990s. The cumulative increase in their votes for Biden in 2020 over their votes for Clinton in 2016 accounted for much of Biden’s margin of victory. Montgomery County is the most-populous suburban county; Delaware County’s results typically track closely with Montgomery’s.
Bucks County and Chester County are more closely-contested suburban counties. Bucks County, in particular, is often a focal point of campaigns given its suburban/exurban split. Chester County has only more recently begun favoring Democrats, but Biden was able to increase Democrats’ margin of victory there.
Before leaving the Philadelphia region, we’ll also take a stop in Lancaster County, an exurban area that favors Republicans. Trump improved his percentages here in 2020, but barely.
Now we’ll head out to the western part of the state and the Pittsburgh area. Pittsburgh was once the epitome of a working-class town, but it’s reinvented itself as a more white-collar community. The counties around it, however, still bear the imprint of the region’s Rust Belt heritage. We’ll focus on Allegheny County (which contains Pittsburgh) and two outlying counties: Beaver and Butler, the latter of which is where Trump was nearly assassinated this past summer. This chart doesn’t show it, but Beaver began supporting Republican presidential candidates in 2008. Butler has only supported a Democratic candidate once since 1880: Lyndon Johnson, in his 1964 landslide. Biden improved on Clinton’s performance in both counties but couldn’t match Obama’s peak.
Let’s cut back across the state again but make a stop in the Harrisburg metro area. Obama flipped Dauphin County, a former Republican stronghold containing Harrisburg, to the Democrats in 2008. The more interesting county, however, is Cumberland, a growing, affluent county to the west of Harrisburg with lots of college-educated voters. It hasn’t voted Democratic since 1964, but its edge for Republicans appears to be slipping. On the other hand, York County is trending more Republican.
Let’s travel now to the northeastern part of the state and Luzerne County (Wilkes-Barre) and Lackawanna County (Scranton.) Joe Biden has spent much of the past five years reminding Americans he was born in Scranton, and his candidacy was based on his ability to appeal to voters in Rust Belt regions like this. Can Harris continue to win the voters Biden considers his base? That may already be a lost cause in Luzerne (a blue-collar county Obama was able to win over and that Biden was able to do slightly better than Clinton in); let’s see what happens in the more blue-hued Lackawanna.
It would be remiss of me not to mention blue-collar Lehigh County, which is halfway between Scranton and Philadelphia. It’s the home of Allentown, which has a large Puerto Rican population. Did Trump’s recent Madison Square Garden rally drive that community toward Harris?
Finally, let’s consider two counties on opposite sides of the state: Erie County (which borders Lake Erie and contains the city of Erie, which is located halfway between Buffalo, New York, and Cleveland, Ohio) and Northampton (containing Bethlehem in the Lehigh Valley on the border with New Jersey.) Why focus on these two traditionally blue-collar counties? Because they’re boomerang counties. (For its part, Erie has matched the winner in Pennsylvania since 1992.) It wouldn’t take much to flip either of them to Trump.
From Pennsylvania, it’s on to
MICHIGAN (8:00)
another of the Blue Wall states that will likely determine the outcome of the election.
We start, of course, in Wayne County, the home of Detroit (which Trump smeared a few weeks ago.) Democrats are somewhat worried about Wayne this year. They’ll certainly win it, but it will test their support among the Black, Muslim, and Arab communities that call the county their home. Democrats are also a long way from replicating Obama’s 2008 vote total, a concerning development given the growth of the Republican vote in the county.
Let’s also check in on Oakland County, which contains most of Detroit’s northern suburbs. Oakland County used to be reliably red, but that began changing during the Clinton administration. It’s now reliably blue, and Harris would like to run up the margins here.
We’ll also slide over to Macomb County, also north of Wayne and directly east of Oakland. Suburban Macomb is the historical home of the “Reagan Democrats,” the White blue-collar workers who helped propel Ronald Reagan to the White House and were forerunners of Trump’s working-class base. Macomb isn’t like other suburban counties in the nation in that it has a more working-class population, but that’s beginning to change. The question is if Trump can hold on to his margins in this battleground county, which delivered more votes to Trump than any other county in Michigan.
Next, we’ll drop in on Washtenaw County and Ingham County, the homes of Ann Arbor (the University of Michigan) and Lansing/East Lansing (Michigan State University). Democrats obviously want to run up the score here.
We’ll just continue moving west across the state to Kent County, the home of Grand Rapids and former president Gerald Ford. Few other counties in the nation better represent how Trump’s nationalist/populist politics turn off voters in areas once represented by moderate Republicans.
Two more stops in Michigan. The first is Genesee County, where the blue-collar town of Flint is located, along with the nation’s median congressional district. These are the sort of counties Democrats hope to hold on to as Republicans make a play for working-class voters. Genesee is one of those blue-collar counties where Biden failed to improve on Obama’s 2008 total.
The last stop is Saginaw County, home to Saginaw. It’s another boomerang county. Saginaw County has voted Democratic in every election since 1988 except in 2016. Can Trump win it again?
There are two states in New England that also close at 8:00:
MAINE and NEW HAMPSHIRE (8:00)
Analysts assume both states will be won by Harris (but if New Hampshire appears in play, it may turn into a bad night for Democrats). There are boomerang counties in both states: Kennebec County (Augusta) in Maine and Hillsborough County in New Hampshire, where the state’s two largest cities, Manchester and Nashua, are located.
By 9:00, we should have an inkling for where the night is headed. One state that closes at that hour is
Wisconsin (9:00)
which is the last of the Blue Wall states. Wisconsin was the tipping point state in 2020.
We will begin in Dane County, a Democratic powerhouse that is the home of Madison and the University of Wisconsin.
From there we’ll head east down I-94 to Milwaukee County, which should deliver the most votes for Democrats on Tuesday night. It’s one of the rare counties where Obama in 2012 outperformed his 2008 totals.
Milwaukee’s WOW suburban counties (Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington) are unique, however, in that they have not yet shifted to supporting Democrats. In fact, during the Obama years, the Milwaukee metro area was perhaps the most polarized region in the United States, with Milwaukee overwhelmingly Democratic and the WOW suburbs overwhelmingly Republican. But that’s beginning to change somewhat, and it will be interesting to see if suburban voters’ disdain for Trump manifests itself in the WOW counties. Harris doesn’t have to win these counties, but cutting into the margins would be huge, particularly in Waukesha.
South of Milwaukee along Lake Michigan and halfway to Chicago are the counties of Kenosha and Racine. These more working-class counties are interesting in that you see a gradual slide to the right even as Biden recovered from Democrats’ 2016 slump. Recall that Kenosha is where Kyle Rittenhouse shot and killed two protesters during unrest following a police shooting of a Black man in 2020. Could that event have buoyed Trump’s support in these two counties that year?
Shifting over to the Driftless region in southwestern Wisconsin, let’s focus on La Crosse County and Monroe County. The Driftless region—which includes areas of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois near the Mississippi River—was critical to Obama’s success in the Midwest. Since then, however, this mostly rural area has drifted in Trump’s direction. La Crosse in La Crosse County is the major (small) city in the region; it has consistently supported Democrats by safe but shrinking margins while Republicans struggle to gain their footing. Monroe County is a rural county adjacent to La Crosse that backed Bill Clinton and George W. Bush twice and Obama once. Since then, however, like many rural counties throughout the United States, it has moved decisively to the right.
Brown County is the home of Green Bay. The city itself is Democratic, while the surrounding communities and rural areas are Republican. Harris may not win the county, but she wants to keep it close.
We’ll finish in Wisconsin with Sauk County (near Madison) and Door County (northeastern Wisconsin), both of which have supported the winner of the national presidential election over the past four elections.
From Wisconsin, let’s travel west to
NEBRASKA (9:00)
and specifically Douglas County, the home of Omaha. Nebraska awards an electoral vote to the winner of each of its three congressional districts, and it is expected that Harris will win the congressional district dominated by Omaha. That could prove pivotal: If Harris wins the Blue Wall states, loses the battleground Sun Belt states, and wins every other state she is favored in, Nebraska’s one electoral vote will net her 270 electoral votes, which is the bare minimum needed to become president. Douglas County has historically favored Republicans, but that began to change with Obama’s presidential run.
Crossing the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains, we arrive in
Arizona (9:00)
the second-closest state in 2020. Biden was the first Democrat to carry the state since Bill Clinton in 1996, and, before that, Harry Truman in 1948. Biden narrowly defeated Trump by turning out Latino, Native American, and young college-educated voters. Arizona will test Harris’s appeal with Latino voters.
The biggest prize in Arizona is Maricopa County, the home of the Phoenix metro area and where 62% of the state’s population resides. Whoever wins Maricopa tends to win Arizona (the one exception: Clinton in 1996). The Phoenix metro area is unique in the US as it has long been a conservative stronghold. Will Maricopa swing back to Republicans this year?
In a close election, however, other counties will also play a role in deciding who wins Arizona. First up are Pima County (Tucson) and Coconino County (Flagstaff), both of which lean Democratic.
On the other hand, Yuma County (Yuma) and Pinal County (which includes suburbs of both Phoenix to the north and Tucson to the south) lean Republican. Pinal is interesting, as it used to be a bellwether county, but the sprawl south from Phoenix has made its politics more conservative.
We’ll keep tabs on two more counties in Arizona. Santa Cruz County is a border county where over 80% of the population is Latino. Trump was able to cut into Biden’s margins here, although Biden still drove voters to the polls and performed as well as Obama.
Finally, there’s Apache County, which is about 70% Navajo.
Two states with boomerang counties close at 9:00:
COLORADO and MINNESOTA (9:00)
Democrats are virtually a lock to win both states. Nearly 40% of the voters in Pueblo County in Colorado, where the small city of Pueblo is located, are Latino. It has a long history of supporting Democrats. There are numerous boomerang counties in Minnesota, including Blue Earth and Nicollet County, but that’s where Mankato, which Tim Walz calls home, is found, so those two counties may not be the best to follow. Instead, we’ll track Winona County in the Driftless region, a swing county in the latter-half of the twentieth century that started to lean blue in the twenty-first century. Republicans have been making a comeback, though.
The final battleground state on the map, closing at 10:00, is
Nevada (10:00)
where the old Harry Reid political machine (with the help of the Culinary Workers Union) hopes to keep working its magic for Democrats. Of the states that voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, Nevada came the closest to voting for Trump in 2020.
Nevada is the easiest state to monitor. Two-thirds of all voters live in Clark County, home of the Las Vegas metro area. Democrats need to drive up the vote here in order to counter the heavily Republican vote in the rural parts of the state.
Washoe County, where Reno is located, has tracked very closely with Nevada’s final state results since 2004 and has sided with the in-state winner every time since then.
I’ll throw in two more counties to monitor: Douglas County (Lake Tahoe) and Elko County (Elko/northeastern Nevada) which favor Republicans.
Let’s wrap things up by venturing northwest to
WASHINGTON (11:00)
and journey to Clallam County, which covers the northern expanse of the Olympic Peninsula. Not only is this where the Twilight novels were set, and not only is it a boomerang county, but Clallam has also correctly predicted the winner of every presidential election (although not the popular vote) since 1980. That’s a ten-election streak!
For good luck, I’m just gonna call Clallam County for Harris right now.
The Race for Congress
As you probably know, Congress is closely divided between the parties. Republicans hold a 220-212 majority in the House with three vacancies. Over in the Senate, 47 Democrats and 4 independents who caucus with the Democrats constitute the majority, with 49 Republicans in the minority.
I’ll start by looking at the House. I won’t get too in-depth with an analysis, but according to the most recent assessment by the New York Times and the Cook Political Report, 366 of 435 House seats will almost certainly be won by either a Democrat or a Republican, with Republicans expected to win 192 of those seats and Democrats expected to win 174 of those seats. That leaves 69 competitive districts. I’ve listed those seats below based on whether they are “Likely” Democratic or Republican seats, “Lean” Democratic or Republican seats, or “Toss-ups.” As you’re watching the results roll in Tuesday evening, just keep track of the districts listed below. Should a party have a good night, they should win a number of the toss-ups and begin taking seats in their opponent’s “Lean” column. If you would like to learn more about the nation’s individual House districts (it’s always interesting to study their shapes) you can search Wikipedia for either “[State’s name]’s congressional districts” or “[State’s name]’s [x]th congressional district”.
Democrats believe they can reclaim the House majority simply by knocking off a handful of Republicans in New York and California. But there aren’t many pickup opportunities beyond the twenty-two toss-ups listed below, so Republicans feel if they can play some defense, they could retain control and even possibly expand their majority.
Note: CPVI references the Cook Partisan Voting Index, which measures the partisan lean of a district (“R” for Republican, “D” for Democratic) compared to how much more that district leans “R” or “D” than the national average of the past two presidential elections (about 49.3% for Democrats and 46.5% for Republicans). The lower the number, the more competitive the district. The median district in the United States is about one point more Republican (R+1) than the national average. A true toss-up district—one that would split its votes close to even between the Democratic and Republican candidate—would be somewhere between an R+1 and an R+2. And for the record: The most Democratic district in the nation—California’s 12th district, encompassing the East Bay area around Oakland and represented by Barbara Lee—is a D+40 district, while the most Republican district—Alabama’s 4th district, based in the northern part of the state and represented by Robert Aderholt—is a R+33.
The Senate is more straightforward. Democrats can’t lose more than two seats if they want to stay in control of the chamber, but they’ve already all but conceded West Virginia’s open seat to Republicans. That means they have no room for error, which is highly problematic since things don’t look good for them at all right now in Montana while Ohio is dicey. Their only pick-up opportunity is in Texas, where Republican Ted Cruz is struggling against Democratic Rep. Colin Allred, although it should be noted that while public polls have indicated the race is close, none have shown Allred ahead. If Democrats have a bad night, they could lose additional seats in the presidential battleground states. Also, keep an eye on Nebraska, where incumbent Republican Deb Fischer is in a tight race with independent Dan Osborn (no relation to former Nebraska football coach and member of Congress Tom Osborne.)
Signals and Noise
BREAKING: I try to avoid sharing polls, but this one is too big to ignore. The Des Moines Register’s Iowa Poll—conducted by Ann Selzer, considered the best in the business—has Kamala Harris with a 3 point lead (47-44) over Donald Trump in Iowa. This is a shocker, as Iowa, which went by 8 points to Trump in 2020, is not considered in play for Harris this year. (Selzer, by the way, had Trump with a 7 point lead the weekend before Election Day 2020 when many thought Biden could win Iowa.) If this poll is accurate, Democrats could romp on Tuesday.
By Josh Clinton and John Lapinski of NBC News: “A Lot of State Poll Results Show Ties. So Are They Tied Because of Voters — or Pollsters?” (“But the fact that so many polls are reporting the exact same margins and results raises a troubling possibility: that some pollsters are making adjustments in such similar ways that those choices are causing the results to bunch together, creating a potential illusion of certainty — or that some pollsters are even looking to others’ results to guide their own (i.e., “herding”). If so, the artificial similarity of polls may be creating a false impression that may not play out on Election Day. We could well be in for a very close election. But there’s also a significant chance one candidate or the other could sweep every swing state and win the presidency somewhat comfortably, at least compared to the evenly balanced picture in the polls.”)
By Nate Cohn of the New York Times: “So, Can We Trust the Polls?” (“It’s hard to overstate how traumatic the 2016 and 2020 elections were for many pollsters. For some, another underestimate of Mr. Trump could be a major threat to their business and their livelihood. For the rest, their status and reputations are on the line. If they underestimate Mr. Trump a third straight time, how can their polls be trusted again? It is much safer, whether in terms of literal self-interest or purely psychologically, to find a close race than to gamble on a clear Harris victory.”)
Democracy Watch
By Jake Traylor and Vaughn Hillyard of NBC News: “Before Election Day, Trump is Increasingly Sowing Doubts About the Results” (“Trump has long inaccurately claimed that he is the legitimate winner of the 2020 election, and false claims of Democratic meddling have been a centerpiece of his campaign this cycle. But by pre-emptively raising doubts about the results, Trump is setting the stage to possibly challenge the outcome and throw the electoral system into chaos again.”)
Charlie Warzel of The Atlantic writes about how Musk has turned Twitter/X into a “political weapon” and a “bullshit machine.” Warzel describes one MAGA/Q-adherent on Twitter who was upset election officials in Philadelphia placed his completed ballot in a ballot box. The author focuses in particular on Musk’s so-called “Election Integrity Community—a feed on the platform where users are instructed to subscribe and ‘share potential incidents of voter fraud or irregularities you see while voting in the 2024 election.’ The community, which was launched last week by Musk’s America PAC, has more than 34,000 members; roughly 20,000 have joined since Musk promoted the feed last night. It is jammed with examples of terrified speculation and clearly false rumors about fraud.”
CNN reports that election officials in the battleground states cannot keep up with the stream of falsehoods about the integrity of the election spread by Elon Musk on Twitter/X. The Wall Street Journal reports Twitter/X is feeding its users a steady stream of posts supporting Trump and questioning the integrity of the election even when users express interest in non-political topics.
The Wall Street Journal looks at how Pennsylvania has become ground zero for election disinformation.
CNN reports about how MAGA activists are preparing to undermine the election if Trump loses.
By Anne Applebaum of The Atlantic: “Trump Wants You to Accept All of This as Normal” (“In the final week of this election season, the Republican Party is running two different campaigns. One of them is an ugly and angry but conventional political enterprise. … Last night, in New York City’s Madison Square Garden, we caught a glimpse of the other campaign. This is the campaign that is psychologically preparing Americans for an assault on the electoral system, a second January 6, if Trump doesn’t win—or else an assault on the political system and the rule of law if he does.”)
By Peter Baker of the New York Times: “Amid Talk of Fascism, Trump’s Threats and Language Evoke a Grim Past” (“While presidents have pushed the boundaries of power, and in some cases abused it outright, no American commander in chief over the past couple of centuries has so aggressively sought to discredit the institutions of democracy at home while so openly embracing and envying dictators abroad. Although plenty of presidents have been called dictators by their opponents, none has been publicly accused of fascism by his own handpicked top adviser who spent day after day with him in the Oval Office.”)
By Michael D. Shear and June Kim of the New York Times: “Once Top Advisers to Trump, They Now Call Him ‘Liar,’ ‘Fascist’ and ‘Unfit’” For more, see my article from last week:
By Sidney Blumenthal of The Guardian: “We Are Witnessing the Making of a Fascist President in Real Time” (“Trump’s years in office showed him on a learning curve of fascism. He saw democracy as a plot against him that he had to break down.”)
“I’m not a Nazi. I’m the opposite of a Nazi.”—Don Trump
After the Washington Post (owned by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos) declined to make an endorsement in the presidential election (even though it’s made endorsements in other races this year) Benjamin Wittes (a former Post editorial board member) writes in The Bulwark “The Washington Post Bends the Knee to Trump”. (“[I]f ever there were an incident that stands for the proposition that democracy, and journalism, cannot rest on the shoulders of oligarchs, this is it. Bezos did a lot of good for the Post when he first took it over, but the consent of the billionaire is not a stable structure for newspapers or magazines in an authoritarian era. Eventually, they can be counted upon to protect themselves, and that may sometimes mean not speaking the truth—either by lying or, as here, just by not speaking at all. I have no solution to the problem of media financing, save to note that my own publication funds itself on a nonprofit model that eschews overdependence on any one funder. In an era when a fundamental role of journalism may be robust dissent, financing dissent is going to be a challenge. Don’t look to Jeff Bezos to meet it.”)
By Chuck Todd for The Atlantic: “Jeff Bezos is Blaming the Victim” (“There are many legitimate criticisms of contemporary journalism, but Bezos didn’t level any of them. Instead, he wrote that media outlets suffer from a ‘lack of credibility’ because they ‘talk only to a certain elite.’ He betrayed no awareness that he was parroting a right-wing talking point, revealing his ignorance of the 50-year campaign to delegitimize the mainstream press—which arguably began when conservative supporters of President Richard Nixon vowed revenge for the media’s exposure of the Watergate crimes. What Bezos failed to acknowledge is that a legion of right-wing critics—most notably the longtime Fox News CEO, Roger Ailes—spent decades attacking media outlets, repeating the charge that they are irredeemably biased. For Ailes and others, it proved a lucrative approach—when you hear something over and over, you tend to believe it. Trump and his team have used the same strategy, building their appeal by attacking the press.”)
By John Harris of Politico: “Ben Bradlee’s Posthumous Advice to Jeff Bezos: You Need to Sell The Washington Post” (“The job of a news organization, and especially Washington-based ones, is to cover power. Bezos is too powerful — and has too many diverse interests across too many spheres — for any news organization he owns not to be plausibly compromised in the minds of its employees and its audience.”)
By Ian Bassin and Maximillian Potter writing last month for the Columbia Journalism Review: “On Anticipatory Obedience and the Media” (“This, it seems to us, is what Timothy Snyder, the Levin Professor of History at Yale University, calls ‘anticipatory obedience.’ In his book On Tyranny, Snyder, who is also an adviser to our organization, writes: ‘Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.’”)
The Philadelphia District Attorney has filed a lawsuit to stop Elon Musk from awarding $1 million to registered voters in swing states. Musk’s lottery likely violates campaign finance laws.
By Megan Garber of The Atlantic: “What Orwell Didn’t Anticipate” (“Trump’s words often do this; they imply very much while saying very little. They are schooled, like the man himself, in the dark art of plausible deniability. In them, Orwell’s doublespeak—that jargon of purposeful obscurity—gets one more layer of insulating irony: The former president says whatever he wants, and reserves the right not to mean it. … The constant uncertainty—about the gravest of matters—is one of the ways that Trump keeps people in his thrall. Clear language is a basic form of kindness: It considers the other person. It wants to be understood. Trump’s argot, though, is self-centered. It treats shared reality as an endless negotiation. The words cannot bear the weight of all this irony. Democracy is, at its core, a task of information management. To do its work, people need to be able to trust that the information they’re processing is, in the most fundamental way, accurate. Trump’s illegibility makes everything else less legible, too.”)
The 2024 Campaign
From the New York Times: “Trump at the Garden: A Closing Carnival of Grievances, Misogyny and Racism” (“Donald J. Trump’s closing rally at Madison Square Garden on the second to last Sunday before the election was a release of rage at a political and legal system that impeached, indicted and convicted him, a vivid and at times racist display of the dark energy animating the MAGA movement. A comic kicked off the rally by dismissing Puerto Rico as a ‘floating island of garbage,’ then mocked Hispanics as failing to use birth control, Jews as cheap and Palestinians as rock-throwers, and called out a Black man in the audience with a reference to watermelon. Another speaker likened Vice President Kamala Harris to a prostitute with ‘pimp handlers.’ A third called her ‘the Antichrist.’ And the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson mocked Ms. Harris — the daughter of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father — with a made-up ethnicity, saying she was vying to become ‘the first Samoan-Malaysian, low IQ former California prosecutor ever to be elected president.’ By the time the former president himself took the stage, an event billed as delivering the closing message of his campaign, with nine days left in a tossup race, had instead become a carnival of grievances, misogyny and racism.”) MORE: By Meridith McGraw and Lisa Kashinsky of Politico: “Trump’s New York Homecoming Sparks Backlash Over Racist and Vulgar Remarks”
“The love in that room. It was breathtaking. It was like a lovefest, an absolute lovefest. And it was my honor to be involved.”—Don Trump, on the Madison Square Garden rally
While the Trump campaign disavowed Hinchcliffe’s racist jokes, the line about Puerto Rico was pre-loaded into the teleprompter, indicating his comments were likely vetted by the Trump campaign in advance. Marc A. Caputo of The Bulwark reports the Trump campaign nixed a line calling Harris a “cunt.”
As he often does when someone in his circle crosses or embarrasses him, Trump claimed not to know Hinchcliffe. A sense of responsibility is too much to ask of the man. Nothing is ever his fault.
The chairman of the Puerto Rico Republican Party has demanded an apology from Trump. The Archbishop of San Juan said Trump should personally apologize.
By Seth Masket: “Race is the Theory of the Campaign (The MSG Rally Makes It All Plain as Day)” (“It is said that once is happenstance, twice is a coincidence, and three times is a pattern. The Trump campaign has now provided many, many more data points than that demonstrating their theory of the campaign, and today’s rally in Madison Square Garden makes it abundantly clear: they want to make sure the racists turn out to vote. … Based on his experiences from 2016 and 2020, he knows that a lot of mainstream Republicans and Republican leaners will complain quite a bit about his rhetoric and behavior, and maybe threaten to vote for someone else, but when it comes down to a choice between him and a Democrat, they’ll still show up for him. And anyone who really has a problem with him probably left the Republican Party years ago. Instead, he treats the moderate Republicans as his reliable base, and wants to make sure that the extremists are exercised enough to show up on Election Day. The racist comments at Madison Square Garden are designed to do exactly that. … We’ll see whether this theory holds.”)
By David A. Graham of The Atlantic: “This is Trump’s Message” (“‘Stay on message,’ pleaded Representative Anthony D’Esposito, a New York Republican in a tight reelection race. That’s ridiculous. This—all of this—is the message of Trump’s campaign. Other Republicans may cringe at the coarseness of these comments [made at the Madison Square Garden rally], or worry that they will cost votes, but they made their choice long ago, and have stuck with them despite years of bigotry and other ugliness.”)
By Hannah Allam and Sarah Ellison of the Washington Post: “Trump’s New York Rally Reflects a Party Where Hate Speech Has Become Mainstream”
My thoughts, briefly, on the rally: It’s proof Trump isn’t running a campaign aimed at winning an election; he’s hosting a roast of everyone conservatives despise.
By Philip Bump of the Washington Post: “Another Night at the Garden: How Trump’s Rally Echoed One in 1939” (“On Feb. 20, 1939, an earlier iteration of Madison Square Garden hosted a political rally that bore some striking similarities to Trump’s. You’ve probably already heard about that 1939 event, thanks to the Academy Award-nominated short film, ‘A Night At The Garden.’ Organized by a group called the German-American Bund, the event was ostensibly a celebration of George Washington’s 207th birthday. In reality, it was a celebration of the ascent of Germany’s Third Reich and an excoriation of the purported nefarious influence of Jewish people in the United States.”)
“‘Well, I‘m going to do it whether the women like it or not. I’ve gotta protect them.”—Convicted sexual abuser Don Trump, explaining how he replied to advisers who cautioned him about presenting himself as women’s savior and “protector.”
By Shawn McCreesh of the New York Times: “‘I’m Not Supposed to Say This,’ Trump Says. But Then He Does.” (“Since the beginning of Mr. Trump’s political rise, this sort of flourish has been a feature of his political oratory. He builds up to something he is apparently not supposed to say, delighting his crowds when he says it anyway. His own staff often functions as the straw man in these scenarios, the overly cautious and overpaid stiffs he is defying in order to keep it real at all times. Mr. Trump did become president by ignoring the advice of political hacks and doing whatever his gut told him to. But nearly a decade later, what he presents as acts of untamed spontaneity are often actually quite deliberate. It’s all part of the routine by now. And yet, this ability to convey that he is doing or saying something daring or novel even when he is not remains part of his appeal with some voters.”)
Tatum Hunter of the Washington Post reports Trump’s Access Hollywood tape—in which he brags about grabbing women by their genitalia—has gained a second life on TikTok, where millions of first-time voters (who were 10-14 years old in 2016) are encountering it for the first time.
Trump completely lost it when he experienced technical difficulties with his microphone during a rally in Milwaukee. Trump said the only thing he ever asks for when he holds a rally is a good mic, yet somehow that’s something this powerful man can’t get. Given the way this manbaby reacted to a bad microphone, just imagine how he’ll react when receiving bad news in the White House.
Daniel Dale sums up Trump’s proclivity for lying: He lies about subjects big and small, does not change his rhetoric when his lies are exposed, and lies at a much greater rate than other politicians.
The American Immigration Council estimated Florida would lose one million people if Trump carried out his mass deportation plan. The population of Florida would shrink by between 4-5%.
Zach Beauchamp of Vox examines how a second Trump administration would turn civil rights law on its head by using statutes designed to protect minorities to instead fight so-called “anti-White” discrimination and shield police officers from prosecution.
Carl Hulse of the New York Times considers the broad power a Republican Congress would grant to a President Trump. (On a side note, I cannot recall an election in which the media has paid less attention to congressional races.)
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson is promising massive health care changes if Trump wins. Trump himself has said he would like to reopen the fight over Obamacare, although his proposals to do so have only reached the “concepts of a plan” stage.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., said Trump has promised him control of the Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services.
Speaker Johnson also said a Republican Congress would try to repeal the CHIPS and Science Act.
The New York Times reports some of Trump’s advisors are encouraging Trump to bypass traditional government background checks if elected president and grant his appointees immediate security clearances.
Trump adviser Elon Musk—whom Trump has said he would task with reviewing government spending—proposed slashing the United States budget by $2 trillion, which would require gutting many social welfare programs and inflicting deep cuts on defense and Social Security spending. Musk admitted his plan would involve “temporary hardship” for Americans and that the “market will tumble” as a result.
David J. Lynch of the Washington Post reports companies are already planning on raising prices on goods should Trump win and jack up tariffs. From the article: “‘We’re set to raise prices,’ Timothy Boyle, chief executive of Columbia Sportswear, said in an interview. ‘We’re buying stuff today for delivery next fall. So we’re just going to deal with it and we’ll just raise the prices. … It’s going to be very, very difficult to keep products affordable for Americans.’” And: “‘If we get tariffs, we will pass those tariff costs back to the consumer,’ Philip Daniele, CEO of AutoZone, said on a recent earnings call. ‘We’ll generally raise prices ahead of — we know what the tariffs will be — we generally raise prices ahead of that.’”
On Tuesday, Trump’s social media company ended the day with a higher market value ($10 billion) than Elon Musk’s Twitter/X ($9.4 billion), which is crazy considering that Twitter has 644 million monthly users while TruthSocial has 607,000.
Jake Lahut of Wired relays a strange story out of Michigan, where people working as canvassers for Musk’s get-out-the-vote effort were flown to the state, driven around in the back of a UHaul truck, and told they would have to pay for their own hotel rooms if they didn’t meet canvassing quotas. One paid door knocker was even shocked to find they were working to elect Trump.
Maryland Republican Senate candidate Larry Hogan touted Trump’s endorsement during a private fundraiser. Hogan has stated he didn’t want Trump’s endorsement.
Zachary Basu of Axios notes billionaires have poured at least $1.9 billion into the 2024 election. About 150 billionaires account for 18% of all money raised. Billionaires have given close to 4.5X as much money to Trump and Trump-allied groups as to Harris.
This Week in “WTF is Wrong with JD Vance?”
“I haven’t seen the joke. Maybe it’s a stupid racist joke, maybe it’s not. I’m not going to comment on the specifics of the joke, but I think that we have to stop getting so offended at every little thing in the United States of America. I’m just I’m so over it.”—JD Vance, telling people of color to just roll with the casual racism of White people. BTW, this is the language of an abuser; “maybe it hurts, maybe it doesn’t, but you need to get over it.” I also wonder how Vance would respond if someone called his hometown of Middletown, Ohio, a “giant pile of garbage.” (Maybe he wouldn’t care; two weeks ago, Trump called the United States a “garbage can.”)
But then,
After President Biden commented on the Puerto Rico slur by saying, “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters” (which the White House said referred to the speaker’s comments, not Trump supporters generally) Vance responded on Twitter by posting, “This is disgusting. Kamala Harris and her boss Joe Biden are attacking half of the country. There’s no excuse for this. I hope Americans reject it.”
JAKE TAPPER of CNN: You said ‘I guarantee John Kelly talked with Harris’s campaign.’ People close to Kelly and the Harris campaign say that’s not true. So where did that come from?
VANCE: I’m highly skeptical of that.
TAPPER: So you made it up?
“If you are a middle class or upper middle class, white parent and the only thing you care about is whether your child goes into Harvard or Yale, obviously that pathway has become a lot harder for a lot of upper middle class kids. But the one way those people can participate in the DEI bureaucracy in this country is to be trans. Is there a dynamic that’s going on where if you become trans that’s the way to reject your white privilege? That’s the only social signifier, the only one that is available in the hyper-woke mindset, if you become gender non-binary.”—JD Vance to Joe Rogan. Yes, kids are becoming trans to get into Ivy League schools even though doing so means having to put up with the mountains of hate that come from people like Vance.
“Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if me and Trump won just the normal gay guy vote, because again, they just want to be left the hell alone.”—JD Vance
“At first I was so pissed, but then I go into like fight or flight mode. I grab my kids up, throw them in the car, go home and load all my guns. And basically stand like a sentry in our front door, and that was my reaction to it.”—JD Vance, who was not yet Trump’s VP nominee, on how he reacted to news of the first assassination attempt on Trump.
In Other News…
Greg Ip of the Wall Street Journal looks at a factor that will likely shape the presidency of whoever wins the election Tuesday: The economy is exceptionally strong.
Nicholas Lemann of The New Yorker writes about how Bidenomics is transforming America without anyone seeming to notice.
Ronda Kaysen and Ethan Singer of the New York Times look at partisan patterns of internal migration in the United States and how Democrats and Republicans tend to sort themselves into like-minded communities.
Cassandra Jaramillo and Kavitha Surana of ProPublica write about a woman in Texas who died after a hospital refused to intervene in her miscarriage out of concern that they would violate Texas’s abortion laws. More than a dozen doctors described her death as preventable. Also from ProPublica: Lizzie Presser and Kavitha Surana write about a pregnant Texas woman who died after three hospitals didn’t treat serious symptoms related to her pregnancy. She was only admitted to the third hospital after two ultrasounds confirmed a miscarriage.
The Commonwealth Fund released a report showing that the rate of firearm deaths in several American states is similar to places around the world experiencing civil unrest and gang violence. For instance, Mississippi’s overall firearm death rate is twice that of Haiti’s.
Abdallah Fayyad of Vox writes about how burdensome administrative paperwork makes it difficult for poor people to access government assistance.
International News
Alex Horton and Serhii Korolchuk of the Washington Post write about life in Kherson, Ukraine, where the nearby Russian military is using drones to target civilians and drop mines in the city.
The Taliban has banned women in Afghanistan from reciting the Quran or praying in the presence of other women.
Kemi Badenoch became the first Black woman to lead a major political party in the United Kingdom when the Conservative Party elected her their leader.
Vincent’s Picks: Disclaimer*
“Beware of narrative and form,” we are advised near the beginning of Disclaimer*, a seven-part television series directed by Alfonso Cuarón (Children of Men, Gravity, Roma) currently streaming on Apple TV+. “Their power can bring us closer to the truth, but they can also be a weapon with a great power to manipulate.” In other words, how a story is told—who tells it, what details are left in or out or emphasized or embellished, the way ideas and information are presented to the audience—can be used to shape our understanding of the story.
These words are spoken in praise of documentarian Catherine Ravenscroft (Cate Blanchett) who is receiving an award for work that challenges the “deeply held beliefs and the judgments we make” to “reveal something more problematic and profound: Our own complicity in some of today’s more toxic social sins.” When Catherine returns home later that evening, however, she receives something else that shakes her charmed life to its core: A novel titled The Perfect Stranger that begins with a disclaimer reading “Any resemblance to persons living or dead is not a coincidence.” Catherine is mortified when she discovers the novel is about her.
The Perfect Stranger was authored by schoolteacher Stephen Brigstocke (Kevin Kline), or, more accurately, his wife, Nancy (Lesley Manville), who finished it ten years ago before dying of cancer. Nancy spent the last ten years of her life estranged from Stephen following the death of their son Jonathan (Louis Partridge) who drowned while vacationing in Italy. The manuscript was one of the things Stephen found while ridding his home of his wife’s personal effects; another was a set of erotic photographs taken by his son of Catherine in Italy during his son’s fateful vacation. (I’ll mention here Disclaimer* is a sexually explicit television series.) The Perfect Stranger is not only the story of Catherine and Jonathan’s affair, but blames Catherine (played as a younger woman in flashbacks by Leila George) for his death.
Stephen plans on using the novel to exact revenge on Catherine and her family for the dissolution of his own family. He surreptitiously slips a copy of the book to Catherine’s son Nicholas (Kodi Smit-McPhee), who had accompanied his mother on the trip to Italy when he was four. Stephen also sends a copy to Catherine’s husband Robert (Sacha Baron Cohen) along with duplicates of the scandalous photographs. I won’t go any further into the details of the plot other than to say that Robert’s receipt of the photographs sends his and Catherine’s marriage into crisis.
After reading the novel, Catherine certainly acts guilty: She throws up, attempts to burn the book, admits to Robert the story is about her, and asks him if she is a “good” person. The photographs are damning evidence of her complicity. The flashback scenes portray her as a cold-hearted villain. Perhaps they even explain why she has struggled as a parent; after all, as many are quick to assume, good women are good mothers.
Yet beware narrative and form. As we watch, we sense Disclaimer* is holding something from us. While consumed by guilt and shame, Catherine never gets the chance to completely explain herself. George’s portrayal of Catherine as a sex-crazed seductress is based on the Catherine found in the pages of the novel, which was written by a grieving Nancy and centered on Jonathan, and feels at odds with the way Blanchett plays the character. Even the book’s title seems to confess that Catherine is a “stranger” who is not fully known to Nancy or Stephen. Those photographs, however—so intimate and vivid—seem to reinforce the veracity of the book and Nancy’s portrayal of Catherine as a no-good “whore.” Yet while Catherine is the subject of those photos, we should also remember she is simultaneously the object of a man and his camera.
Cuarón also hints to viewers that we shouldn’t leap to judgment. His scenes often end with an iris wipe, a stylistic choice that draws attention to the cinematic form. And Catherine’s scenes in the present-day are narrated not by Blanchett but by Indira Varma, suggesting even Catherine’s story isn’t quite her own. Even the asterisk at the end of the series’ title leads us to scrutinize the novel’s disclaimer: Does this work of fiction bring us closer to the truth, or is it a departure from it?
Blanchett, who has played morally compromised characters to acclaim in the past in films like Notes on a Scandal and Tár, is perfectly cast here. Cohen (most famous for his comedic role as Borat) turns in an unexpected performance as Catherine’s bourgeois husband. The real surprise, though, is Kline, who I haven’t seen on film in what seems like ages but steals the show as a burnt-out, frumpy English schoolteacher burning with grievance. We’d like to root for him, but Kline makes sure we see traces of maliciousness in Stephen’s victimhood.
There’s a lot of duplicity in Disclaimer*. Robert, for instance, is trying to make the non-profit he runs appear more upstanding than it actually is. That’s just another reason to hope Stephen gets his revenge and exposes the Ravenscroft narrative for what it really is: Elitist good fortune sustained by secrets and lies. But perhaps that is the sort of narrative that comes too easy to us, that we should beware of. Disclaimer* will air its seventh and final episode this Friday. I suspect there are other secrets and narratives it has yet to share.