Overall, the numbers point to the same likely outcome that polls have indicated for months: that despite a strong economy with Republicans in control of Capitol Hill and the White House, Democrats are favored on generic ballots. But the Democratic lead in a generic race has tightened over a few months ago… As always, the election result will depend on voter turnout and both polls found high enthusiasm and interest in the election among voters.

Haunted by memories of 2016, liberals around the country are riven with anxiety in the campaign’s homestretch. They’re suspicious of favorable polls and making election night contingency plans in case their worst fears come true. Some report literal nightmares about a Democratic wipeout.

“We’re kind of just in the bed-wetting phase now,” said Democratic pollster John Anzalone, a Hillary Clinton campaign alumnus who spent election night 2016 in Clinton’s Manhattan war room.

2016 is widely taken to be an election that invalidated the polls and revealed how inaccurate they are. In fact, the opposite is the case. The national surveys were closer to an accurate prediction of the national election outcome in 2016 than they were in 2012. The problem in 2016 was not at the national level but at the state level. In many states, there weren’t any polls or any good polls. Hillary Clinton’s campaign did not conduct standard surveys in a number of states that turned out to be crucial in the three weeks before the election.

Pollster John Zogby agreed with the GOP analysts who believe there was a missed opportunity. “The economy was and is the GOP ace in the hole. Continuous job growth, unemployment figures many of us thought we would never see again, manufacturing jobs are up, as are wages. That is the sort of thing that draws undecided voters and independents,” he said. “Immigration is a red meat issue for those already eating it up and possibly experiencing gluttony.”

The toothlessness of establishment Dems is even somewhat understandable, given the way Pelosi, Schumer, and others came of age in an era in which the deployment of cautious, folksy rhetoric was a winning strategy. But it seems at least worth considering that, in 2018, being more direct, more aggressive, and more not-world-historically-lame—being, say, more like Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum, who concisely and virally said during a debate with his opponent Ron DeSantis that “I’m not calling Mr. DeSantis a racist. I’m simply saying the racists believe he’s a racist”—could help the party rally supporters, establish a rapport with new voters, frame news coverage in advantageous ways, and, like, actually win elections for once.

Trump has done what he can to place himself on the ballot — sometimes literally saying that a vote for a candidate is a vote for him. But a referendum on Trump is likely to mean vastly different things in different parts of a bitterly divided nation. The president’s popularity with his base could keep and even strengthen the Republican Party in rural, blue-collar, and predominantly white swaths of the nation. The fierce opposition to Trump could buoy Democrats in diverse, suburban and more highly educated areas that have been trending toward their party anyway.

The U.S. retains the flexibility to tighten sanctions further in coming months, but Monday’s measures will deprive the rulers in Tehran of more cash for their foreign adventures. The U.S. should expect some retaliation, perhaps with terror proxies. As for the EU, its leaders should rethink their resistance and work with the U.S. to prod Iran to renegotiate the deal so it really would prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon.

If the Trump administration goes ahead with this plan, it will have serious consequences for the United States as well. It will undermine America’s influence over the international financial architecture and diminish its power over allies and adversaries alike… the United States needs European cooperation with its approach to pressuring Iran. The European Union is the one power that could credibly test America’s dominance. The E.U. may not have an army, but it does have economic might. And it can use that power to harm American companies and, if pushed far enough, fragment the international financial system.

Front companies, barter deals, oil transfers on the high seas: These are just some of the methods that Iran could employ to keep its economy limping on after American sanctions targeting the country’s oil industry went into effect at midnight on Monday. Iran has plenty of experience here, having already been subject to stringent international sanctions over its nuclear industry, which choked its economy. That changed in July 2015, when it signed a deal―the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action―with major world powers, including the United States. That accord has legal standing and the imprimatur of the United Nations.

Every Friday night it seemed war would erupt the next Sunday morning. Netanyahu stood his ground. Whatever his motives, he has averted bloodshed, the blood of soldiers and thousands of helpless civilians who would have been massacred as during the army’s previous offenses. They owe their lives to Netanyahu. Perhaps he learned a lesson from his only war, Operation Protective Edge in 2014, and its thousands of unnecessary deaths. That conflict ended just as all Gaza offenses do: with nothing.

One way or another, the fragile arrangement has many enemies and opponents in Hamas as well. If it fails, it will boomerang back to Netanyahu. Liberman and HaBayit HaYehudi leader Naftali Bennett will certainly be happy to say “we told you so” while Netanyahu’s image as “Mr. Security” cracks. Another weekend of rocket fire on Israel or violent demonstrations at the fence, or the breakdown of the arrangement for any reason, will force him to prove to his political rivals who are ready to pounce that he still stands strong against Hamas.

As Netanyahu well knew back in 2009 and is totally aware of today, Israel has no alternative but to accept Hamas control in Gaza. In a rare, on-the-record interview with Yediot Aharanot a few days ago, Brig.-Gen. Dror Shalom, head of the IDF’s Military Intelligence research department, laid out clearly the situation facing Israeli policymakers… What’s to be done? Not a lot, according to Shalom, the senior IDF military intelligence officer. “Our challenge,” he said, “is to keep the Gazan population’s head above the sewage. Bringing about the collapse of the Hamas is not the solution. If Hamas falls, who will rule in Gaza? Poli [Yoav] Mordechai [the former IDF Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories]?

Why draw attention? In the wake of the murders of my fellow Jews in Pittsburgh I wrestle with that question, knowing that it is my responsibility to be Jewish with pride and visibility, in defiance of hate. The murder of Jews for their Jewishness is a clear sign that we are more vulnerable now, but also – maybe paradoxically – makes the choice more clear, too.

The Anti-Defamation League . . . reported that nine of the twelve physical assaults against Jews categorized as hate crimes in New York State were committed in Brooklyn and involved victims who were easily marked as members of traditionally Orthodox communities. Outside that world, they were hardly noticed at all.

I am Jewish in my soul. I am Jewish by birth and by choice. I spent a large chunk of my adult life working in the Jewish community. I write for a Jewish newspaper. All that said, I woke up this morning and wondered, how Jewish do I want to be? I’m not sure what inspired the question, but I can’t shake it from my mind. It’s all I can think about and do not know what the answer is. Perhaps it is the murders in Pittsburgh that have left me with this painful question. I have been unsettled since the horrific attack and can’t seem to quiet my brain. I live my Jewish life out loud so there is part of me that wonders if I need to change that.

As has been argued in this space before, our government should have been less concerned about the free speech rights of a foreign right-wing agitator who wishes nothing good for Canada, and more concerned about the real threat a racist visitor with a proven record of provoking violence presents here. God knows, we have enough of our own right-wing loons. Let them argue the merits of domestic fascism themselves!

If you believe in the value of debate, what could be better than confronting Bannon, putting him on the spot, forcing him to defend his weak ideas? The problem is the defender of liberalism that the organizers have chosen is Frum, who is not a liberal. I don’t mean that he’s not a big-L Liberal, a supporter of the Liberal Party. I mean that he is not a reliable advocate for small-l liberal values, like liberty and equality.

People do not think; they feel. They do not believe what is true; they regard as true that which they wish to believe. A lie that affirms us will gain more credence than a truth that challenges us. That’s the foundational insight on which Trump built his business career. It’s the insight on which Trump’s supporters built first their campaign for president and now their presidency itself. It’s the foundation that I had hoped to expose in Toronto. By a cunning plot twist, I did expose it—but in a way that may have strengthened that foundation rather than attacked it.