10 Election Day Reads

My Get out and vote! morning reads:

• My Journey to the Center of America’s Political Spam Text Hell: I’ve gotten nearly 2,000 campaign fundraising texts that were meant for someone else. I tried to find out why—and uncovered a labyrinth of politicians, data brokers, and shady tactics. ​A Wired writer in New York who has never donated to anyone has replied STOP 49 times since 2021 to texts meant for a relative in California. The political fundraising industry cannot tell them apart. (Wired)

​• 2026: The End of the Road: Polling error agonistes, the recall vote mirage, the PTSD election model, what the early vote can tell us, where I’ll be on Election Night, Blue Kansas, new tools to follow the election. Patrick Ruffini on why this should by all rights be a terrible, horrible, no-good election for Republicans. (The Intersection) see also The Insider’s Guide to the Midterms: Our top election correspondents emptied their notebooks after two years of crunching the numbers and reporting on the ground. Here are the races, trends, and figures that will dominate 2026. (National Journal)

• Companies That Cozied Up to Trump Brace for a Reckoning: Catherine Rampell: with a new sheriff likely coming to town, the companies that collaborated with the regime are shaking in their boots. The question is why almost none of them saw it coming. (The Bulwark)

• The corruption is still the story. I spent five months tracking every Trump corruption story. Here’s what I found. ​Isaac Saul, after a marathon day with a 10,000-word document and more than a hundred individual stories, on why the corruption remains the through line. (Tangle) see also In Trump’s pardon economy, crime victims lost out on at least $119 million in restitution: All told, Mr. Trump’s clemency orders have erased at least $119 million in unpaid restitution since January 2025, a CBS News investigation has found.  A CBS News investigation by Gabe Kaminsky, Steve Reilly and Daniel Klaidman. (CBS News)

​• The MAGA Reckoning Arrives: Peter Wehner: where there’s no bottom, there’s no bottom. The latest example is Vivek Ramaswamy’s Ohio governor ad featuring the estranged mother of his opponent, Amy Acton. (The Atlantic)

• What is the Cook Political Report, and why is Washington so obsessed with it?  Inside D.C.’s last bastion of bipartisan consensus. Ian Ward on the oracle of Foggy Bottom, 13 days before the midterms.  (Washington Post) see also The Pollwatcher: The 10 most important poll findings shaping the midterm elections Scott Clement’s final-week roundup, starting with the big one: Trump has lost his credibility on the economy, the core of his identity through most of his first term. (Washington Post)

• The Trump Aide Trying to Stop a Blue Wave: James Blair, the president’s top political strategist, planned for a different midterm cycle. Then Trump attacked Iran.​Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer profile James Blair, the political operative running the White House midterm effort. (The Atlantic)

​• Inside Donald Trump’s Secret Plan To Restart the Iran War After the Election: Iran claimed sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz over the summer and the ceasefire Trump rushed into effect collapsed altogether. Operatives aligned with the president spent months devising a plan to resume the war—only after ballots had been cast. Republicans have worked studiously to avoid tipping off voters. (Off Message)

​• A List of Things Democrats Might Do If They Retake Power: National Review(!)’s  catalog of what gives conservatives cause for alarm if next week’s midterms set up a Democratic trifecta in 2028. (National Review) see also Four Investigations Democrats Could Launch if They Win Control of Congress: Bernd Debusmann Jr. on what a Democratic House has signaled it would go after. (BBC)

​• The MAGA Face That Launched a Thousand Memes: “Mar-a-Lago face” face might seem like the result of a series of unfortunate surgical mistakes. What if it’s intentional? Clara Molot on the aesthetics of Mar-a-Lago. (Vanity Fair)

Video of the day: I Dressed Like a 1950s Man for a Week, Here’s What Happened (Buff Dudes)

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business this weekend with Rich Steinmeier, Chief Executive Officer of LPL Financial Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq: LPLA), the largest independent broker-dealer in the country. 32,000 advisors and $2.4 trillion in brokerage and advisory assets. CEO since October 2024.

How 2026 stacks up vs other recent midterms when the GOP held the WH.

Source: Bruce Mehlman’s Age of Disruption

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