Trump's Plan

He's laid the groundwork to seize power in case he loses.

For months now, it has been clear that the margin of victory for whoever wins the election for president will be so narrow that a barrage of lawsuits will ensue. It is also apparent that Trump is laying the groundwork to seize power even if he loses at the ballot box.

Politico has done a brilliant job of documenting how this will occur:

— He will deepen distrust in the election results by making unsupported or hyperbolic claims of widespread voter fraud and mounting longshot lawsuits challenging enough ballots to flip the outcome in key states.

— He will lean on friendly county and state officials to resist certifying election results — a futile errand that would nevertheless fuel a campaign to put pressure on elected Republican legislators in statehouses and Congress.

— He will call on allies in GOP-controlled swing-state legislatures to appoint “alternate” presidential electors.

— He will rely on congressional Republicans to endorse these alternate electors — or at least reject Democratic electors — when they convene to certify the outcome.

— He will try to ensure Harris is denied 270 votes in the Electoral College, sending the election to the House, where Republicans are likely to have the numbers to choose Trump as the next president.

None of this is far-fetched; it’s all out there in plain sight. If our democracy is to survive, it appears not only will Harris have to win in the Electoral College, our courts will have to again hold the line, as they did in 2020, against the Trumpist onslaught that is certain to follow upon his defeat.

So it’s a double whammy awaiting us. Not only is democracy going to have to win the battle; it will have to win the war.

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The polls all remain within the margin of error, but Trump has moved ahead in Pennsylvania. If he wins there, and all else stays as is, he would win in the Electoral College, 280-258.

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And then there’s this from the Washington Post: “Woman Drops Phone, Gets Stuck UpsideDown in Rock Crevice Looking For It.”

HEADLINES:

• Harris’s Early Career: Prosecutor by Day, Boldface Name by Night (Cal Today)

• The Improbable Coalition That Is Harris’s Best Hope (Atlantic)

• The Very Real Scenario Where Trump Loses and Takes Power Anyway (Politico)

• Trump Vs. Harris 2024 Polls: Harris Leads In 4 Latest Surveys (Forbes)

• Poll shows Harris holds a 46%-43% lead over Trump amid voter gloom (Reuters)

• Democrats brace for a possible crack in the blue wall and signs of North Carolina slipping (NBC)

• Likability isn't enough (Silver Bulletin)

• Inside the Last-Ditch Hunt by Harris and Trump for Undecided Voters (NYT)

• Mideast conflict looms over US presidential race as Harris and Trump battle for an edge (AP)

• Elon Musk targets Michigan with voter misinformation (WP)

• Nerves frayed in Canada and Mexico over US trade relations (BBC)

• New cases of political violence roil US ahead of contentious election (Reuters)

• FBI investigating leak of U.S. intelligence on Israeli strike in Iran (Axios)

• What’s Wrong With Donald Trump? (NYT)

• Ranked choice voting could decide which party controls the US House (AP)

• Global fight against historic inflation surge is nearly over, says IMF (WP)

• Lost City Discovered in Amazon Rainforest (Newsweek)

• Neuroscientist: The No. 1 thing you can do every day for a sharper, healthier brain—it takes ‘just 10 minutes’ (CNBC)

• Humans Are Evolving Right Before Our Eyes on The Tibetan Plateau (ScienceAlert)

• Rupert Murdoch’s news outlets sue Perplexity AI for allegedly engaging in ‘massive freeriding’ (CNN)

• What open-source AI models should your enterprise use? Endor Labs analyzes them all (VentureBeat)

• More than 10,500 actors, musicians, authors protest tech’s AI data grab (WP)

• It Only Tuesday (The Onion)