Good morning. It’s Tuesday. More notably, it’s Election Day – finally.
The mad dash to the finish line is finally almost over.
Barring something really out of the ordinary, which certainly has happened in the past as voters were heading to the polls, but isn’t something we would hope for or advocate, there’s not much that can be done at this point by any candidate, campaign, surrogate, or outside entity, to move the needle any further.
One thing is fairly certain, it’s likely we won’t know the winner of the presidential race tonight, or even tomorrow morning, or maybe even next week…or longer?
I am out of the business of predicting the outcome of close elections, and this one is the closest I can recall – pretty much as long as I’ve been paying attention. As no less an authority than Nate Silver said, the presidential race is “a pure toss-up.”
The election date is set by federal law and has not changed since 1845, when Congress designated the first Tuesday following the first Monday in November as Election Day. Before that, it was pretty much chaos, as states were able to hold elections whenever they wanted within a 34-day period before the first Wednesday in December.
This was, obviously, not ideal, if for nothing else because the early voting states and last-minute voters arguably both had an outsized influence over the outcome. The choice of a weekday was made because the preponderance of Americans at the time were farmers who lived rural and it took them time to travel to the nearest settled hub to cast their ballots.
This also explains why the founding fathers went with November, which is a month when not a lot is happening on the farm. The harvest is more or less over, but the bad weather (in places that have it) has yet to settle in. It’s a perfect time to put on your finest clothes, saddle up your wagon, pack up a lunch and jaunt with the missus and the kids to town.
Election Day is not a federal holiday, but five states – including New York – recognize it as a public holiday and mandate that employers allow employees paid time off to vote. Schools are closed in New York City as many of them are doing double duty as poll sites.
Even though turnout is expected to be high – it’s traditionally higher in presidential election years – U.S. turnout is still pathetically low (likely less than 50 percent of eligible voters will bother to exercise this fundamental right) compared to what happens elsewhere in the world, especially in the 22 countries where voting is mandatory.
In Australia, failure to vote can result in a $20 fine. I, sadly, have no power over such things, but I implore you, if you’re not among the 75 million Americans nationwide who cast an early ballot, please, please, PLEASE go out and vote today.
Polls across the state open at 6 a.m. and will close at 9 p.m. The weather report is encouraging, with no rain in the forecast and temperatures in the low 70s. Nothing there to discourage anyone from showing up in person at the polls.
Early voting ended Sunday in New York. Reminder: if you’re voting absentee, your ballot needs to be postmarked by today (Nov. 5) OR dropped off in person by 9 p.m. this evening.
I’ll see you on the flip side. (Or, if you’re local, I’ll be on CBS 6 from 9 p.m. to midnight, watching – and opining on – the returns). Also, if you’re looking for a little distraction, try this, compliments of the TU’s Dan Clark.
In the headlines…
Election Day kicked off with a tie as Donald Trump and Kamala Harris split the six votes cast in the tiny New Hampshire town of Dixville Notch with a tradition of counting its ballots just after midnight. They received three votes each.
Four Republicans and two undeclared voters participated in the Dixville Notch election, in which a single poll site opened and closed just after midnight ET in a tradition that dates back to 1960.
Harris and Trump wrapped up their campaigns in the hours leading up to Election Day, each urging supporters to turn out for what may be one of the closest presidential elections in modern history.
Trump urged supporters to show up and vote for him in his final rally hours before polls open on Election Day. He closed out the last day of campaigning with a final rally in Grand Rapid, MI, that stretched into the early morning hours.
The moods and messages were more different than ever as the rivals made one last scramble through battleground states, their ambitions riding heavily on Pennsylvania. He was grim and predicted economic ruin, while she was energized and optimistic.
Harris delivered her final pitch to voters in Philadelphia, leaning into the image of herself as an underdog as her fast-tracked campaign against Trump reaches its end. The rally took place at the Philadelphia Museum of the Arts on the famous “Rocky Steps.”
Trump argued during the final rally of his campaign that his real opponent this election was not Harris but instead “an evil Democrat system.”
Podcaster Joe Rogan endorsed the former president on the heels of an interview with billionaire Trump supporter Elon Musk.
Rogan promoted the interview with Musk on the social media platform X, saying the Tesla CEO “makes what I think is the most compelling case for Trump you’ll hear, and I agree with him every step of the way.”
Harris was in Reading, Pa., and stopped in a residential neighborhood to do some door knocking, according to a pool report. After she made her way over a driveway, the vice president met with a family that included two parents and an adult son.
Harris posted a video of the encounter on her social platform X last night, captioning it, “Took some time today to hear from voters in Pennsylvania and ask for their support.”
On the eve of the 2024 presidential election, Harris holds a 4-point lead over Trump among likely voters nationally, according to the latest PBS News/NPR/Marist poll.
Harris enters the election with a 16-point lead on abortion — and an even more commanding advantage among voters for whom it is their most important issue.
Here is where the battleground states stand as we head into the presidential election’s final hours.
Ohio Sen. JD Vance, the Republican nominee for vice president, riffed on recent comments from President Biden in which he appeared to compare Trump’s supporters to garbage, stating that Harris is “trash.”
Bernice King, daughter of civil rights icon the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., is calling for a Trump-supporting social media account to remove an ad featuring her father generated by artificial intelligence (AI).
The $1 million-a-day voter sweepstakes that Elon Musk’s political action committee is hosting in swing states can continue through the presidential election, a Pennsylvania judge ruled.
Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a prominent election forecaster, predicted that this year’s elections will result in a House divided by one vote.
A super PAC funded by billionaire Musk is pumping millions of last-minute dollars into a door-knocking effort on both sides of the Hudson River in an attempt to keep the House of Representatives in Republican hands.
Mondaire Jones, a Democratic former congressmember running in a New York swing district, wants desperately to get back to Capitol Hill. And he’s shown he’s willing to discard his allies to get there.
Boeing machinists voted to end a strike that has hobbled the company for the past 53 days. The new contract includes a 38 percent wage increase over the next four years and a $12,000 ratification bonus.
According to Boeing, the average machinist will make $119,309 per year at the end of the four years under the new agreement, up around $43,700 from the previous contract’s average of $75,608.
The International Association of Machinists (IAM) said that rank-and-file members voted by 59% to approve the deal. They voted almost unanimously against Boeing’s first offer, and then 64% voted against the second offer less than two weeks ago.
Almost the entire United States faced drought conditions during the last week of October. Only Alaska and Kentucky did not have at least moderate drought conditions, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, a record in the monitor’s history.
Nearly half a million more New York voters went to the polls early this year compared to the same nine-day period in 2020, with some counties in competitive congressional districts reporting more than double the numbers seen four years ago.
More than 1 million New York City residents voted early in this week’s high-stakes election — a new record, according to city officials.
According to tabulations from the city Board of Elections, just shy of 1.1 million residents cast early ballots in the nine days of early voting that started Oct. 26.
The last mandatory Regents exams for graduation should be held in August 2027, the state Education Department proposed.
Gov. Kathy Hochul’s Manhattan office is moving to 919 Third Ave., a tower co-owned by a New York state pension fund, after negotiating a substantial reduction in rent.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries dodged a question about Hochul calling Republican voters “anti-democratic” — as some of his fellow New York Democrats took the opportunity to pile on even harder.
The governor toured work happening at the southern interchange, where the current I-481 meets the current I-81 south of Downtown Syracuse.
Though both houses of the state Legislature will remain in Democrat hands after today’s elections, there are signs the supermajorities in each chamber could be in trouble.
Collegiate swimming champion and anti-trans activist Riley Gaines is urging New Yorkers to vote against Proposition 1 on the ballot today “if you care about women and girls.” Ex-Gov. David Paterson also opposes the measure.
New York Democratic Committee Chair Jay Jacobs expects the so-called Equal Rights Amendment will pass today, but not by a robust margin.
Democratic state Sen. Andrew Gounardes has proposed “Healthy Birth Grant” legislation and wants New York to give $1,800 to new parents — and has a plan to get the federal government to pick up half the tab.
DEC employees were told they could work from home yesterday and today as police investigated bomb threats at eight of their facilities over the death of Peanut, an Instagram-famous squirrel seized last week from a Chemung County home and euthanized.
After P’Nut and a raccoon named Fred were taken by New York wildlife agents and euthanized, Trump and local candidates accused Democrats of “state overreach.”
A GoFundMe page set up for P’nut’s guardians, Mark and Daniela Longo, has been inundated with more than 3,800 donations as outrage continues to mount over the 7-year-old gray rescue squirrel’s demise.
On the eve of a historic presidential election that’s being painted by the Democratic Party as a battle for the soul of the nation, Mayor Eric Adams encouraged New Yorkers to vote and said he is limited in what he can say about the race by legal concerns.
The mayor refused to even say the vice president and Democratic presidential nominee’s name, claiming he did not want to come across as electioneering for her while on city business.
“My prediction is that New Yorkers are going to get out and vote. And I just want to encourage people to don’t be on the sideline and say I wish I would’ve. The name of the game: get out and vote,” Adams said.
Adams said that he plans on attending SOMOS, an annual political conference that prominent New York politicians take part in.
Adams signed off on the controversial new hotels bill, which critics had once assailed as a “nuclear bomb” on the industry — but the fight seems far from over.
When the Metropolitan Transportation Authority recently announced its decision to shut down part of the A subway line for extensive repairs, the decision upset many of the 9,000 riders who take the route each day – and also ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
When a man stuck his hand through the closing door of an uptown F train, squeezed inside, threw his jacket on the ground and started yelling, Juan Alberto Vázquez took out his phone and snapped a photo, he said while testifying in a Manhattan courtroom.
Witnesses from the subway train said during Daniel Perry’s trial that they feared Jordan Neely but also described the horror of watching him die in a chokehold.
New York City’s interim top police official and his acting chief of staff got into a verbal dispute at the New York City Marathon on Sunday morning that became so heated that it was broken up by another high-ranking officer.
Sean “Diddy” Combs may have been jailed on his birthday, but he didn’t celebrate alone. Six of his seven children phoned him yesterday, gathering around a cake and singing their dad the birthday song.
After an emergency evacuation in November 2023 put them into limbo, tenants of an East Village building are still awaiting a court decision that might help them recover their past lives.
Manhattan’s east side may see the most expensive race in the 2025 City Council elections. Rachel Storch, a former Missouri state representative and chief operating officer at Fifth Avenue Synagogue.
The New York Philharmonic said that it had dismissed two players after an inquiry uncovered what it described as credible claims against them of sexual assault and harassment.
The New York State Police have launched an internal investigation into the reported shooting of a state trooper, Thomas J. Mascia, on Long Island last week.
Mascia was suspended yesterday without pay after allegedly refusing to submit to a drug test.
Good Samaritans pulled over to render aid and prevent the alleged suspect from leaving the scene after a state trooper and a tow truck operator were struck by a pickup truck Saturday afternoon on the Northway, according to statements given to police.
Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan said former city Police Chief Brendan Cox will take over next month as the department’s interim leader.
A heating oil spill in the town’s Community Center has forced the Saratoga County Board of Elections to move the town’s polling location into Town Hall.
A group that teaches adults how to read in Rensselaer County is expanding to Schenectady after businesses and a GED school asked for help.
A $4.4 million project to replace the Cauterskill Road Bridge is now complete, according to an announcement by Hochul.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
