Welcome to The Lid, your afternoon dose of the 2016 ethos… The Chicago Cubs and Cleveland Indians face off tonight in a heavily anticipated World Series matchup that has Cubs fans hoping for the championship they’ve waited all their lives for. Or, in Hillary Clinton’s case, all her life minus the eight years she served as a New York senator and Yankees fan.
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‘16 from 30,000
With two weeks to go, the political reality is that Donald Trump’s impact on downballot Republican races is starting to come into focus. And the news doesn’t look good for the GOP. The Cook Political Report now estimates that Senate Democrats are poised to pick up five to seven seats, which gives them the majority. It’s true that there are a lot of tight statewide races out there, and Senate Republican candidates are largely outperforming Trump in those states. But Trump’s drag is likely to be a defining factor in how these races break. And here’s what the Cook Political Report’s Jennifer Duffy points out about how those fractures typically happen. “History shows that races in the Toss Up column never split down the middle; one party tends to win the lion’s share of them. Since 1998, no party has won less than 67 percent of the seats in Toss Up.”
POPPING ON NBC POLITICS
- Two weeks out until Election Day, Hillary Clinton continues to outspend Donald Trump over the airwaves by nearly a 3-to-1 margin, according to ad-spending data from Advertising Analytics.
- Colin Powell said he’s voting for Clinton.
- The Republican nominee urged the party in the key battleground state of Florida to “get smart and come together” to vote for the GOP ticket.
- Hillary Clinton said Donald Trump’s refusal to say he will accept the election results is an “unprecedented attack” on American democracy.
- Donald Trump on Tuesday responded to reporters' questions about the validity of this election by telling media to ask President Obama, NBC’s Ali Vitali reports.
- A majority of Republicans and GOP-leaning voters (57 percent) see a lasting fracture in the Republican Party, according to the latest NBC News|SurveyMonkey poll.
- Donald Trump likes to tout endorsements that never happened, NBC’s Amanda Sakuma writes.
- And from First Read: A reality check on Trump’s poll numbers.
FOR THE RECORD…
“When I see her, I see her in an orange jumpsuit, I’m sorry, or at least a striped one.”
-- Rudy Giuliani on his deadpan reaction to Hillary Clinton’s jokes at the Alfred E. Smith dinner last week.
TOMORROW’S SKED
Trump attends a rally in North Carolina.
Hillary Clinton is in Florida while Tim Kaine visits Pennsylvania.
Mike Pence hits Nevada, Utah and Colorado.
