What Can We Learn from Last Minute Polls?

Here are three takes on the results from last minute election polls:

Recent polls in the seven core swing states show an astonishingly tight presidential race: 124 out of the last 321 polls conducted in those states — almost 39% — show margins of 1 percentage point or less.

Harris leads Trump 49%-47% among likely voters in the latest Economist/YouGov survey out Wednesday, with 2% unsure and roughly 3% backing other candidates (margin of error 3.6)—a slight narrowing from Harris’ 49%-46% edge last week.

FiveThirtyEight currently shows Trump leading in four of those seven states (Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania), but by less than a single point in Pennsylvania. Harris leads in Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin, but again, it’s by less than one percent.

How Will American Jews Make Their Choice?

Despite some speculation to the contrary, it seems that the American Jewish vote will be largely Democratic. How come?

The enduring truth remains. Although most American Jews support Israel, in the voting booth, their civic, liberal selves predominate. And because every modern major party nominee has been pro-Israel enough, with candidates consistently insisting their approach to Israel is best for Israel, most American Jews reason backward.

Why Trump is the wrong choice in the eyes of many American Jews is easy to understand: they abhor the way he speaks about immigrants, they suspect his strange bedfellows who toy with antisemitic tropes, they are uneasy with the growing power of arch-conservative religious communities.

It is the Orthodox community where the most movement towards the Republican Party is evident, but it’s important to recognize the distinctions between Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) and Modern Orthodox Jews.

Will Anti-Zionists Win the Election for Trump?

Anti-Zionists may refrain from voting for Harris over her support for Israel during its time of war. Will this prove decisive?

…many of them will be tempted to vote for a third-party candidate or to avoid voting altogether, while a small number of these anti-Israel progressives will cross over and vote for Trump.

A recent poll showed Trump with a narrow lead among Arab American voters.

This is shocking, but hardly surprising… we Arab and Muslim Americans have a long tradition of merciless political self-sabotage.

This is the most consequential election in our lifetimes. Many of you have differences of opinion with Kamala Harris on Gaza. So do I. But we cannot sit this election out. Trump has got to be defeated.

Did Joe Biden Really Call Republicans “Garbage”?

On a call with Latino voters, President Biden responded to a comment from a speaker at Trump’s rally who called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage,” by saying that the only garbage he sees is “his supporters.”

Were Biden’s remarks awkward and easily misunderstood? Sure. But it’s also easy to deduce that the way his comment came off was unintentional.

It was a “basket of deplorables” moment that came at the worst possible time for the Kamala Harris campaign.

Whether he meant to or not, the president poured gasoline on the fire that had already been burning since the weekend – and gave plenty of justifiable ammunition to Republicans.

Will the World End If Your Candidate Doesn’t Win?

This election is certainly historic, but is it existential? Many Americans fear that the world will end if their candidate doesn’t win.

There could be no higher duty of American citizenship than to decisively repudiate a man who betrayed the nation when he was previously entrusted with the highest office in the land and now threatens the persecution of American citizens who have crossed him.

Like Biden, Harris evidently fails to grasp that every time the Biden-Harris White House utters the word “de-escalate,” solid green lights go off in the heads of Putin, Xi, Khamenei and Kim Jong Un.

Whatever happens in the weeks and months ahead, don’t get carried away and don’t despair. Take, if you can, the long view. Winter is coming, but spring is always around the corner.

What Spooky Stories Should You Check Out This Halloween?

Here are some very Jewish spooky books and movies to give you a scare this Halloween:

Dracula is not one of us. By contrast, Frankenstein’s creature is as Jewish as monsters get.

Both horrifiers have strong Hebrew bona fides. Bram Stoker likely fashioned his Van Helsing after Armin Vambery, a Jewish polyglot and world traveler he met in London who regaled him with tales of the creeps crawling around in the dark Carpathian mountains.

Ezra Friedman grew up seeing ghosts, which made life in a funeral home…complicated. His grandfather’s ghost disapproves of everything, especially Ezra’s HRT-induced second puberty, and he’s under constant scrutiny from living and dead relatives alike. So, it’s no surprise Ezra ran as far as he could from the family business.

As a Jew who was born in Texas, I was tickled to watch a horror-comedy about a Yiddish vampire cruising the back roads of my birth state, with a daughter he only recently learned of in tow. Noah Segan stars as Francis, the 115-year-old vampire (and Holocaust survivor) who is trapped in the body of a 35-year-old.

Today’s Hot Issues

What Can We Learn from Last Minute Polls? How Will American Jews Make Their Choice? Will Anti-Zionists Win the Election for Trump? Did Joe Biden Really Call Republicans “Garbage”? Will the World End If Your Candidate Doesn’t Win? What Spooky Stories Should You Check Out This Halloween?