The night before last, Vice-President Harris appeared on a CNN town hall, in the time slot that would have been the third and final Presidential debate had Trump not declined to participate.

Around that same time, word started to leak that Harris will hold a major speech one week before the election in D.C. at the Ellipse, the same spot where Trump’s January 6th rally was held. This will come two days after Trump hosts a major rally at Madison Square Garden; collectively, these two events appear to be the two final significant public events of the campaign.

The big news of the week has been the decision made by General Kelly, the longest-serving of Trump’s chiefs of staff, to go on the record with the New York Times in his criticism of Trump, including calling Trump a fascist. This echoes recent reports in Bob Woodward’s new book that General Mattis, who had been Joint Chief under Trump, also believes Mattis is a fascist. In the wake of these developments, Harris is now also publicly calling Trump a fascist, starting at the aforementioned CNN town hall.

Another recent development that I’ve not previously discussed is Elon Musk’s efforts on behalf of Trump. He has appeared at rallies with Trump, and by this point he appears to have given $119 million to a Trump-aligned super PAC as well as $12 million to other super PACs supporting Republican Senate candidates. He has also controversially offered a $1 million daily lottery prize offered only to individuals who are registered to vote in a swing state and have signed a petition expressing support for (Musk’s interpretation of) the 1st and 2nd Amendments; this project appears to be illegal.

Polls have continued to drift slightly in Trump’s direction of late. Silver’s model as of yesterday has Trump at 54% to win the electoral college, with Harris’ popular vote margin down to 1.9%.

The Bezos-owned Washington Post announced that it would no longer make endorsements in presidential elections, returning to its pre-1976 policy. This comes in the wake of the L.A. Times’ new owner’s recent decision to block its editorial board from endorsing Harris, prompting its editorials editor to quit.

I’m going to go and early vote here in a few minutes. Guess I need to make up my mind. 🙂

It’s getting close enough to the election that I’ve now realized that all the “Day -NN” numbers used in previous blog posts were off by one – I should have been truncating up, not down, from the countdown clock that I’d been using to determine the title of each post. The election is two weeks from tomorrow, so today needs to be Day -15, not Day -14.

My enthusiasm for blogging about the election has waned recently, largely out of a feeling that there’s not really anything new to say. By all appearances, the election remains extremely tight and uncertain. Silver’s model has ticked a little back in Trump’s direction recently, with Harris’ chances now at only 47.0%, but we’re still talking about coin flip territory. The reality appears to be that there is not going to be any clear favorite going into Election Day. I still don’t understand how it can be true that this is where we’re at, but every indication is that it is indeed where we’re at. Better to save up my energy for blogging once the vote has started to be counted.

Four years ago, I had started my Election 2020 series of blog posts 5 days before the election. In hindsight things then did not look nearly as close or uncertain as they turned out to be, or as they appear to be now. That election took 4 days for the major media organizations to call the result of the Presidential election (and 10 days for the last states to be called), and 7 days to determine which party would be in control of the House. While I could be wrong, I suspect it will take longer to make both calls this year. And, of course, there’s the possibility of post-election shenanigans, as discussed in a recent Politico article entitled “The Very Real Scenario Where Trump Loses and Takes Power Anyway.”

One amusing piece of recent legal news: The federal public defenders representing the man accused of lying in wait outside Trump’s Florida golf course to assassinate Trump have filed a request that Judge Cannon recuse herself, on the grounds that her appointment by Trump, as well as her actions in U.S. vs. Trump (Florida edition) and Trump’s endorsement of those actions, together have created an appearance of impartiality towards Trump and hence against their client.

The Vice-Presidential debate took place four days ago. In many ways it was like a time machine took us back to the politics we used to have: A debate that was primarily about policy rather than personal attacks, and where the candidates often had complimentary things to say about one another.

But in other ways it was a reminder of what our politics have become. Vanity Fair’s headline perhaps put it best: “JD Vance Won The Debate–If You Ignore The Facts”. Vance was, as one might expect from a Yale Law grad, a very accomplished debater. The problem is, he painted a world in which Trump peacefully transferred power on January 20th without fuss; in which the real threat to democracy was the Biden Administration’s efforts to stop the spread of misinformation on social media about COVID-19; in which Trump saved Obamacare; and in which illegal immigration is a major driver of the housing crisis. (As somebody tweeted: “Love the idea of immigrants crossing the border and immediately outbidding a white couple for a 3 bed/2 bath in suburban Virginia.”) Perhaps the most memorable line of the debate was Vance’s retort to a rare interjection from the moderator: “The rules were that you guys weren’t going to fact check.”

Vance may have won the debate, but narrowly if so; and life rapidly moved on.

The next morning, Judge Chutkan released a redacted version of Special Counsel Smith’s 165-page brief on how the SCOTUS presidential immunity framework from Trump v. U.S. ought to, in the government’s view, impact proceedings in U.S. v. Trump (Jan 6th edition). The redactions were surprisingly modest, basically just replacing names with numbered codes for co-conspirators (CC), other persons (P), and companies (C); however in most cases it is pretty clear who or what the codes represent.

The day after that, former co-chair of the Jan 6th Committee Liz Cheney campaigned with Vice-President Harris in the Wisconsin town of Ripon (in which the Republican Party was first formed in the early 1850s), under signs reading “Country Before Party”.

Earlier in the week Hurricane Helene wrecked devastation in Florida, Georgia, and especially western North Carolina. As of today the death toll is up to 227, making Helene the deadliest storm in the mainland U.S. since Katrina in 2005. And just today it appears that another storm, Milton, could strike Florida on Wednesday as a Category 3 hurricane. The political ramifications of these storms in swing states remain unclear.

Port workers struck in midweek, and there were concerns this strike could create severe havoc leading up to the election; however, the strike was settled fairly quickly, and without President Biden having to invoke the Taft-Hartley Act.

Today Trump returned to Butler, Pennsylvania, the site of the July assassination attempt, without incident. And in other assassination attempt news that I had missed last week: The federal case against the man who was hiding in the bushes outside Trump’s golf course allegedly seeking to kill him was randomly assigned to, of all people, Judge Cannon. I wonder how fast she’ll move that case along.

Nothing has changed this week in the polls’ assessment of the race; today Silver’s model is at 56.1% for Harris, on a national vote share of +2.7%, virtually unchanged from last week.