Good morning. I’m Thom Hartmann, And we’re one day out from the midterms. A quick favor: help us get these stories in front of the most people by tapping the ❤️ and hitting restack. Those two clicks help more than you know.
This morning, Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico now has a seven-point lead over Republican Ken Paxton in the final New York Times/Siena College poll, which is the highest advantage he’s had so far. Donald Trump seems to be under the assumption that Democrats will take back the House of Representatives tomorrow night, and he’s already vowing to protect top Republican donor Elon Musk from potential Democratic investigations while also suggesting he’ll issue preemptive pardons for White House staff. Maine’s high-profile US Senate race between incumbent Republican Susan Collins and Democrat Troy Jackson may not be decided for several days after the election if the margin is close enough to merit a first-ever ranked-choice Senate runoff. And the Trump Administration’s IRS and Social Security chief is accused of sending out pro-Trump propaganda emails to millions of Americans right on the eve of the midterms.
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James Talarico’s Chances of Winning Texas Senate Race Hit New Record High
Texas hasn’t elected a Democratic U.S. senator for nearly 40 years. And yet, the final New York Times/Siena poll released Sunday shows Democratic state representatives James Talarico leading Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton by a margin of 50 percent to 43 percent among likely voters. That’s his biggest lead of the race to date.
The NYT/Siena survey is one of the most highlyrespected polls in the country, getting an A rating from VoteHub. There’s still some question about how big Talarico’s lead really is, with the RealClearPolitics average of polls taken between October 15 and November 1 showing a tighter contest. Talarico’s edge over Paxton in the average is 49 percent to 46.5 percent.
At a recent campaign rally, Talarico framed the Lone Star State’s Senate race as a fight between “the powers that be and the powers that ought to be.” He accused powerful specual interests of having “bought and paid for Ken Paxton.” The former public school teacher added that his campaign is for Texas “teachers and nurses, farmers and ranchers,” and saying they’re the reason he’s running for office.
Meanwhile, Paxton spent Sunday in San Antonio pitching his “Protecting the Texas Promise Plan,” which he insists would save Texans thousands of dollars a year. He admitted to Republican voters that “every poll shows it’s gonna come down to the wire,” pushed them to get as many Republicans as possible out to the polls and ended the rally by parroting Donald Trump’s “fight, fight, fight” line.
Paxton’s final stretch has been somewhat rocky. In an Election Eve stop at the Alamo — which was originally billed as the grand finale of his two-week “Come and Take It” bus tour — was quietly removed from his campaign schedule. The Paxton campaign has yet to offer an explanation. A heckler recently disrupted a Paxton campaign appearance and was removed by security in an awkward moment caught on tape.
Texas once eleced Ralph Yarborough to the U.S. Senate, making him the only senator from a former Confederate state who ended up voting for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The populist streak Yarborough represented never really died in Texas: instead, it was simply outspent by wealthy special interests. When Talarico talks about teachers and ranchers uniting against the corporations and lobbyists who bought his opponent, he’s making a direct reference to that tradition of economic populism. With control of the Senate within grasp for Democrats, Texans could be the ones who decide what kind of country the rest of us will live in for the next two years.
Trump Appears to Be Bracing for Blue Tsunami by Floating Preemptive Pardons
Meanwhile, the president appears to be making preparations for a blue wave tomorrow night. In a Monday interview on her “Pod Force One” podcast, host Miranda Devine asked Trump about rumors that Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk could face investigations or even see some of his assets seized if Democrats take back committee gavels after the midterms. Trump insisted that was just “talk,” but added the caveat that “if it is talk, we’ll have to protect them.”
Musk has already spent more than $476 million of his own money on bolstering Republican in the 2026 midterm cycle. The South African centibillionaire recently warned in a post to X that if Democrats win back the White House in 2028 while controlling both chambers of Congress, it could signal the end of democracy. That’s a particularly bold claim from a foreign-born oligarch currently influencing American elections.
Trump also suggested he may issue preemptive pardons for staff and various MAGA allies in the event Democrats issue subpoenas and launch investigations, telling Devine: “I would if I needed to. Sure.” He went on to say he would hand out pardons without even thinking twice about it.
When asked about his rhetoric suggesting a run for an illegal and unconstitutional third term, Trump said he would love to do it but admitted “the language [of the Constitution] is very exacting.” He insisted there’s plenty of time to enact his agenda, saying a lot can get done in two years’ time.
In 1788, George Mason warned Virginia’s ratifying convention that a president could end up pardon himself for crimes he had encouraged. James Madison responded that any president who actually did so would face impeachment. But nobody in that room imagined an American president announcing the possibility of pardons coming down before any formal investigations were even launched. If Congress lets that stand, it’s effectively a green light for every future president that the Constitution’s checks on executive power are completely optional.
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Maine’s Senate Race Could Come Down to Ranked-Choice Runoff
Control of the Senate may come down to a handful of states, including Maine, where Republican Senator Susan Collins is in a dead heat with logger and former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson. USA Today reports that Maine voters might not know the winner of the contest until possibly the end of next week.
In addition to Collins and Jackson, there are six declared write-in candidates who have also thrown their hats in the ring. Maine is just one of two states nationwide (the other being Alaska) using ranked-choice voting in statewide races with more than two candidates in the ballot. If nobody gets more than 50 percent of first-choice votes, the last-place candidate is eliminated, while voters’ second choices get redistributed until someone crosses the majority threshold.
Maine Democratic Secretary of State Shenna Bellows told the paper that a ranked-choice runoff is “highly possible.” It would be an unprecedented first for a U.S. Senate race in the Pine Tree State. Tabulation usually concludes by the Friday after the election, which would fall on November 13 this year. However, Bellows’ office is emphasizing that it plans to move faster.
There’s already precedent for ranked-choice runoff in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District. That particulr district has fallen to a ranked-choice runoff in three of the last four elections. In 2024, both write-in votes along with approximately 12,000 blank first choices across the district kept Democratic Congressman Jared Golden just under 49 percent after Election Day, triggering a four-day tabulation that eventually named him the winner.
The stakes are incredibly high this year given Republicans’ razor-thin majority. Susan Collins is the only Republican from a state that 2024 Democratic nominee Kamala Harris carried, and Democrats view Maine as a must-win race if they hope to get to the 51 seats needed for a majority.
It’s worth remembering that Americans didn’t have the ability to elect their own senators until the ratification of the 17th Amendment back in 1913. Before that, U.S. senators were handpicked by state legislatures and party bosses in backroom deals. Ranked-choice voting is merely the latest step in a long fight to make sure the U.S. Senate answers only to voters instead of insiders. A few extra days of counting ballots is a small price for a result that all voters can trust.
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Trump’s IRS and Social Security Chief Accused of Sending Out MAGA Propaganda
Our last story this morning: millions of Americans just got blatant political messaging from the federal government right as they’re preparing to vote in the midterms. Both the Social Security Administration (SSA) and the IRS — each of which are led by Trump appointee Frank Bisignano — sent emails heaping praise on the president.
One message from Bisignano claimed that under the Trump administration, the SSA is “transforming into a model of excellence.” An email from the IRS promoted the so-called Working Families Tax Cuts (which are overwhelmingly tilted in favor of the rich), telling recipients they’re keeping more of their earnings thanks to “President Trump’s historic tax cuts.” The SSA has more than 100 million online account holders, though it has yet to publicly say how many people received the message.
Washington University in St. Louis law professor Kathleen Clark told International Business Times UK that the emails are more propaganda than public service announcements. They appear to violate the Hatch Act, which is a 1939 law preventing federal employees from using the powers of their offices for partisan politics. No formal violation has yet been declared.
This isn’t the first time this year that official government offices sent out partisan messages using taxpayer resources. In July, the SSA claimed the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act gave more than 35 million seniors an average of $7,500 in tax cuts. This prompted Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin to confront Bisignano over both how accurate that claim actually was and also sending it to Social Security beneficiaries’ official email addresses. In late October, the IRS sent a message telling families to “Claim your child’s Trump Account today!”
Government watchdogs are also pushing back. The groups Democracy Defenders Fund and Reporters Without Borders both filed a Hatch Act complaint after Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick all made an appearance at a campaign rally in Alaska for Republican Senator Dan Sullivan, who is in a tight race with Democrat Mary Peltola.
In 1974, Richard Nixon’s second article of impeachment charged him with trying to turn the IRS into a weapon against his political enemies. Back then, that alone was considered serious enough to end a presidency. Using that very same same agency — along with the agency that mails out Social Security checks to millions of retirees — as a campaign megaphone is a direct assault on the idea that the government belongs to all of us and not just one man.
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I’m Thom Hartmann. Thanks for watching, and thanks for supporting independent media. If you haven’t yet, please help us get these stories in front of the most people by clicking the ❤️ and hitting the restack button.
