| | | | | |  | | By Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer | Presented by Facebook | | | | |  | DRIVING THE DAY | | HAPPY MONDAY and welcome to election week! HERE'S SOMETHING YOU SHOULD REMEMBER going into Election Day: Candidates do not get to decide they won the election. Just like football coaches don't get to call the game at halftime (h/t @jaketapper), and like golfers don't get to call the match after one good hole. BUT IT IS CRITICALLY IMPORTANT to understand what President DONALD TRUMP is going to do, and AXIOS' JONATHAN SWAN took us inside his head Sunday night. He reported TRUMP has told people he plans to declare victory if he's ahead Tuesday. WE SPOKE TO A FEW PEOPLE IN TRUMP WORLD on Sunday who said that they will publicly try to make the point that states and localities should make a clear delineation between the ballots that come in before Election Day and the ones that arrive afterward. DECLARING VICTORY BEFORE THE BATTLE IS WON is silly and somewhat dangerous behavior, and should be taken with a mountain of salt, if you want to pay attention to it at all. A smattering of states -- including the all-important Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan -- could be unresolved by Tuesday night. TRUMP said Sunday that he will be going "in with our lawyers" "as soon as the election is over." JOSH SHAPIRO, Pennsylvania's A.G., tweeted this in response: "FACT CHECK: Our elections are over when all the votes are counted. But if your lawyers want to try us, we'd be happy to defeat you in court one more time." STATES RUN ELECTIONS, not candidates or television networks. Remember tfhat. JASON MILLER, Trump's spokesperson, said Sunday: "President Trump will be ahead on election night, probably getting 280 electoral -- somewhere in that range, and then they're going to try to steal it back after the election." BUT OF COURSE, THIS IS ALSO NONSENSE. As Utah Lt. Gov./GOP gubernatorial nominee SPENCER COX said Sunday: "Please ignore this type of garbage. The truth is that elections are never decided on election night. In Utah (and most states) it takes 2 weeks to finalize counting and certify results. It really doesn't matter who is ahead on election night." Former Paul Ryan aide BRENDAN BUCK (@brendanbuck): "The campaign is gonna do what it's gonna do, but I really urge my Republican friends, wherever you come down on Trump, not to give any legitimacy to BS that people who voted according to their local rules should not have their ballot count. Just don't go there." WE'VE KNOWN FOR MONTHS that this is an unusual election that could take time to sort out. Election Night is probably not the end. POLITICO'S BATTLEGROUND STATE WRAP … "Democrats sweat Trump's focus on Philadelphia," by Holly Otterbein in Philadelphia … "The 2 big bets that will decide Florida," by Marc Caputo in Miami … "'Arizona is clearly in play' for Biden," by Laura Barrón-López in Phoenix … "Margins matter for Trump in neck-and-neck N.C.," by Michael Kruse in Harrisburg, N.C. … … "'There's a big presence in this state that we didn't see 4 years ago,'" by Natasha Korecki: "Donald Trump's hopes of replicating his surprise, razor-thin win in Wisconsin appear to be dimming." … "Michigan spirals away from Trump," by Tim Alberta in Lansing … "Georgia Republicans bet it all on Election Day turnout," by Elena Schneider … "Why the math in Minnesota is more daunting for Trump than in 2016," by David Siders PENNSYLVANIA IS EVERYTHING … PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER'S JULIA TERRUSO and JONATHAN TAMARI: "Voters across Pennsylvania are bracing for 'an incredibly nerve-racking several days'" … NYT'S KATIE GLUECK and ANNIE KARNI: "In Dash to Finish, Biden and Trump Set Up Showdown in Pennsylvania" BOOKMARK IT … PLAY AROUND with the NYT's path-to-270 calculator. MORNING CONSULT has the makings of a JOE BIDEN romp. They have a poll of 4,451 in Florida, and BIDEN up 6 points. The poll | | | | A message from Facebook: A vote counted is a voice heard
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Explore the Voting Information Center now | | | DRIVING THE DAY -- TRUMP will travel to Fayetteville, N.C., Avoca, Pa., Traverse City, Mich., Kenosha, Wis., and Grand Rapids, Mich., for campaign rallies. VP MIKE PENCE and second lady KAREN PENCE will travel to Latrobe, Pa., Erie, Pa., Traverse City, Mich., and Grand Rapids, Mich., for campaign rallies. IVANKA TRUMP will be in Eaton Rapids, Mich., and Des Moines. BIDEN will travel to Cleveland, Beaver County, Pa., and Pittsburgh. JILL BIDEN will be in Erie, Pa., Lawrence County, Pa., and Allegheny County, Pa. LADY GAGA will perform at a drive-in event in Pittsburgh with them. Sen. KAMALA HARRIS (D-Calif.) will be in Luzerne County, Pa., and Lehigh Valley, Pa. DOUG EMHOFF will be in Lancaster, Pa., Ephrata, Pa., and Montgomery and Bucks counties, Pa. Harris and Emhoff will attend a drive-in event with JOHN LEGEND in Philadelphia. DEMOCRATS ARE PRAYING … HOUSTON CHRONICLE: "Experts wonder who is left to vote on Election Day after record early turnout" HERE'S A QUESTION: WILL THE RECKONING ever come for House Republicans? We have a pretty good idea what Tuesday is going to look like in the House: Republicans are bracing for a whooping. Most suggest a net loss of between seven and 15 seats. Will anyone in the House GOP leadership get held responsible? Will there be any reflection? -- SOME REALITIES: No one has the stones -- or infrastructure -- to try to take out KEVIN MCCARTHY for leader. No one really wants to take out STEVE SCALISE (R-La.). But there's one target that everyone is talking about: LIZ CHENEY (R-Wyo.). House GOP Conference chair is a thankless job, but CHENEY has feuded with TRUMP backers and her House GOP colleagues, so keep an eye on this. -- AFTER LOSING MORE THAN TWO DOZEN SEATS, it would be tough for TOM EMMER of Minnesota to make a case that he's the right guy for the NRCC. Keep an eye on ELISE STEFANIK of New York, who ran Elevate PAC this time around. She can make the argument that the GOP needs more women in leadership and one running the party's campaign arm -- she'd be the first female NRCC chair. TRUMP FIRING FAUCI? … WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING, via NYT's MATT STEVENS: "Mr. Trump spoke well past midnight at the Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport in Florida at his fifth and final rally of the day. At one point, he began reciting a familiar complaint about the news media's continued coverage of the virus. His grousing led the crowd of his supporters to begin chanting, 'Fire Fauci! Fire Fauci!' Mr. Trump listened in silence for a few moments before remarking: 'Don't tell anybody, but let me wait until a little bit after the election. I appreciate the advice.'" -- NOTE: Fauci is a civil servant, so technically Trump can't fire him directly, though in theory he could order a political appointee to do so. POLITICO'S POLITICAL UNIT -- led by STEVEN SHEPARD -- has made changes to its election forecast: BIDEN has 279 electoral votes in the likely/lean/solid category, which means TRUMP needs to run the table in toss-up states and pick off a lean Democratic state. Georgia is now a toss-up in the presidential race. -- SHEPARD has the Senate at 48 Dems, 47 Republicans, with FIVE toss-ups. (He has moved the David Perdue/Jon Ossoff Georgia race to toss-up here, too.) -- HOUSE DEMS are poised to pick up between five and 10 seats, and SHEPARD has moved DCCC Chair CHERI BUSTOS' Illinois seat to lean Democratic from likely. Election Forecast site NYT'S MAGGIE HABERMAN: "To Trump, 'the Polls That Matter' Point to Victory. The Rest Are 'Fake'": "When President Trump talks about polling, his focus is very much on survey-takers that he thinks are good for him. Polls that show him trailing Joseph R. Biden Jr. — virtually all national polls — are simply 'fake news.' "The president's blinkered view has created something of an alternate universe, one not governed by polling averages or independent analysis but by declarative statements that, at times, feel as if they are coming out of nowhere." HISTORIC … WAPO'S CHELSEA JANES: "Kamala Harris could be quietly on the brink of a historic leap": "Harris, who could be voted the nation's first female vice president this week, never made 'pinkie promises' telling little girls they could be president, like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). She did not have a gender-conscious slogan like Hillary Clinton's 'I'm with her.' She did not center her campaign's message on women's equality like Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.). "But in her own, quieter way, Harris has embraced her presence on the cusp of history. Her potential to become the first woman so close to the presidency has gotten less attention than previous female candidacies — in part because of the crises gripping the nation, in part because of other firsts that Harris embodies as a Black and Asian American woman, and in part because of her relatively low-profile way of grappling with gender." UNDER THE DOME … BURGESS EVERETT: "Trump threatens Senate GOP — now and in the future": "A female fighter pilot. A 'new kind of Republican.' The only woman in Senate GOP leadership. And veteran lawmakers who've been in the mix on most every major bipartisan deal over the past decade. These are a few of the Republican senators President Donald Trump has put at risk this November, through his divisive style of politics, handling of the pandemic and close alliance with the Senate GOP. "It's not just Trump who is on the ballot on Tuesday, but the present and future of the Republican Party. 'The president has represented a departure from more traditional mainstream philosophy. And that's probably affected the races of a number of my colleagues,' said Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who opposes Trump's reelection. "Senate Republicans enter Election Day with an outside shot at protecting their 53-seat majority, particularly if Trump can overperform expectations in Senate battlegrounds. But even a surprise hold will probably sweep away some prominent Republicans that otherwise might have had a better chance if Trump were a more conventional president. That both rising stars and longtime senators are threatened underscores how far-reaching the damage could be." POLITICO | | | |   | | | ON THE LEGAL FRONT -- "Biden camp quietly raises money for post-election court brawl," by Elena Schneider and Natasha Korecki: "Joe Biden's campaign fundraising efforts have quietly turned toward raising additional money for a possible post-Election day legal fight with President Donald Trump that could stretch through November. "In recent calls, Biden allies and donors discussed preparations to counter potential lawsuits from Trump and his campaign, and they detailed how close results in key states could set off prolonged, expensive legal fights, according to two people who participated in those calls. If vote totals are close or contested, the funds would support the efforts of dozens of lawyers working for Biden's campaign, including some who have already deployed to key battleground states as part of voter protection programs." -- "Lines, lawsuits and Covid: 5 big questions confront election officials before voting ends," by Zach Montellaro | | | | NEW EPISODES OF POLITICO'S GLOBAL TRANSLATIONS PODCAST: The world has long been beset by big problems that defy political boundaries, and these issues have exploded in 2020. Are world leaders and political actors up to the task of solving them? Is the private sector? Our Global Translations podcast, presented by Citi, unpacks the roadblocks to smart policy decisions and examines the long-term costs of the short-term thinking that drives many political and business decisions. Subscribe for Season Two, available now. | | | | | | | PLAYBOOK READS | | | 
PHOTO DU JOUR: A long line snakes toward Hickory Regional Airport in North Carolina on Sunday for one of President Donald Trump's final campaign rallies. | Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images | TOP-ED … GOP elections lawyer BEN GINSBERG in the WAPO: "My party is destroying itself on the altar of Trump" BEYOND THE BELTWAY -- "How Stacey Abrams convinced Biden to take Georgia — and her — seriously," by Ryan Lizza in Atlanta: "If there is one person who is both most responsible for Georgia's emergence as a competitive state, and most likely to benefit from a Democratic victory here, it is Stacey Abrams. The 2018 Democratic gubernatorial candidate's near miss — she lost by 1.4 points — made Georgia the new North Carolina: a recently red Southern state undergoing dramatic demographic change that has made it competitive for the foreseeable future." | | | | A message from Facebook: Explore Facebook's Voting Information Center
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Explore the Voting Information Center now | | | CORONAVIRUS RAGING … There are currently 48,000 Americans hospitalized for Covid-19. … States reported more than 74,000 people tested positive for the virus Sunday. -- AP/BERLIN: "Germany launches 4-week partial shutdown to curb virus": "A four-week partial shutdown has started in Germany, with restaurants, bars, theaters, cinemas and other leisure facilities closing down until the end of the month in a drive to flatten a rapid rise in coronavirus infections. "The restrictions that took effect Monday are milder than the ones Germany imposed in the first phase of the pandemic in March and April. This time around, schools, kindergartens, non-essential shops and hairdressers are to remain open. But leading officials decided last week that a 'lockdown light' was necessary in light of a sharp rise in cases that has prompted many other European countries to impose more or less drastic restrictions." -- "Doctors Begin to Crack Covid's Mysterious Long-Term Effects," by WSJ's Sarah Toy, Sumathi Reddy and Daniela Hernandez: "Nearly a year into the global coronavirus pandemic, scientists, doctors and patients are beginning to unlock a puzzling phenomenon: For many patients, including young ones who never required hospitalization, Covid-19 has a devastating second act. "Many are dealing with symptoms weeks or months after they were expected to recover, often with puzzling new complications that can affect the entire body—severe fatigue, cognitive issues and memory lapses, digestive problems, erratic heart rates, headaches, dizziness, fluctuating blood pressure, even hair loss. "What is surprising to doctors is that many such cases involve people whose original cases weren't the most serious, undermining the assumption that patients with mild Covid-19 recover within two weeks. Doctors call the condition 'post-acute Covid' or 'chronic Covid,' and sufferers often refer to themselves as 'long haulers' or 'long-Covid' patients." NYT'S BEN SMITH … MEDIA EQUATION COLUMN: "It's the End of an Era for the Media, No Matter Who Wins the Election" | | | | 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. | | | | | | | PLAYBOOKERS | | Send tips to Eli Okun and Garrett Ross at politicoplaybook@politico.com. SPOTTED at a 45th anniversary celebration for the National Italian American Foundation honoring Anthony Fauci on Saturday: former President George W. Bush, U.S. Ambassador to Italy Lewis Eisenberg, Italian Ambassador Armando Varricchio, Pat Harrison, Anjelica Huston, Linda Roth, Robert Carlucci, Joe Mantegna, Maria Bartiromo, Mario Andretti, Anita McBride, Joe Piscopo, Massimo Ferragamo, Bob Johnson, Neil Sedaka, Bret Baier, Franco Nuschese … … Jonathan Karl, Mary Ann Esposito, Michael Douglas, Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Martin Scorsese, Tony Bennett, Giuliana Rancic, Dionne Warwick, John Turturro, Leon Panetta, Francis Ford Coppola, John Salomone, Isabella Rossellini, Andrea Bocelli, Dion Dimucci, Marisa Tomei, Bono, Joseph Lonardo, Patti LuPone, Connie Francis, Alan Alda, Susan Lucci, Sharon Rockefeller, Frankie Valli and Kristin Chenoweth. TRANSITION -- Alejandra Soto has joined Planned Parenthood Federation of America as director of Latino media and comms. She previously was a national spokesperson for Mike Bloomberg's presidential campaign. WELCOME TO THE WORLD -- Lori Moylan, public policy manager for external affairs at Facebook, and Andrew Moylan, EVP at the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, welcomed Eamon Charles Moylan on Friday. He came in at 7 lbs, 8 oz and 19.5 inches, and joins big brother Seth and big sisters Mia and Rose. Pic BIRTHWEEK (was Sunday): Cami Bissen, Chippewa County, Wis., field organizer for the Biden campaign (h/t dad Bob) BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Kevin Cirilli, chief Washington correspondent for Bloomberg TV and Bloomberg Radio. How he got his start: "Growing up outside Philly in an Irish-Italian Catholic family, I was born a news junkie. I'd get off the kindergarten bus and watch the O.J. trial with my mom. When I got to Penn State, my dad told me to try out for the student newspaper. I took his advice (but of course didn't tell him). Those kids were smart. I didn't think I'd make the cut. I did. And here we are more than a decade later." Playbook Q&A BIRTHDAYS: Playbook's own Eli Okun … David Sirota is 45 … Pat Buchanan is 82 … former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is 53 … Dougie Simmons … Katie Hogan … Jonathan Stahler, COS for Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) … Jen Dlouhy … Makan Delrahim is 51 … WaPo's Ava Wallace … Roger Dow, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association … RNC's Cam Cawthorne … AARP's Bill Walsh is 56 … Christopher Graves … John Sampson, managing director of government affairs for Microsoft Azure … Celeste Lavin of HuffPost … Melanie Tiano, director of cybersecurity and privacy at CTIA … Anthony Zurcher, senior North America reporter for BBC … Aaron Weinberg (h/t Jonah Adams) … … Adam Kushner, WaPo Outlook editor … Alana Mounce, Nevada state director for the Biden campaign … Jay Solomon, senior director at APCO Worldwide global solutions … Sheyla Asencios … Natalie Johnson, press secretary for Sen. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) … Catherine Lyons … Steven Capozzola … Sarah Greenwalt … Daniela Pierre Bravo … Larry Fink is 68 … Patty Judge (h/t Teresa Vilmain) … Tony Fazio … Barbara Surk … Kayla Benker of Civis Analytics … Aaryn Kopp … Sarah Elliott, chair of Republicans Overseas U.K. … Warren Hoemann … Raynel Knight … Paula Zellner … Alan Abbey … William Haldeman … Monique Jenkins … Anna Landmark … Emily Davol … Reenie McCarthy … Caitlin Heising | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook family Playbook | Playbook PM | California Playbook | Florida Playbook | Illinois Playbook | Massachusetts Playbook | New Jersey Playbook | New York Playbook | Brussels Playbook | London Playbook View all our political and policy newsletters | | Follow us | | | | |
