--:-- Shumita Basu: Good morning. It's Monday, November 4th. I'm Shumita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
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--:-- Shumita Basu: On today's show, how this became the most expensive election in U.S. history. Why local officials are readying drones and panic buttons for Election Day. Plus, tips to lower your anxiety. But first, we are on the eve of Election Day. Already more than 70 million people have cast their ballots.
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--:-- Shumita Basu: Over the weekend, the last push for the campaigns. Vice President Kamala Harris visited Georgia, North Carolina, and spoke at a church in Detroit, Michigan. She also made a surprise appearance on Saturday Night Live, alongside Maya Rudolph, who plays Harris on the show.
--:-- Shumita Basu: I gotta tell myself something over here. Come here. I want to tell you something. I'm going to vote for us. Great. Any chance you are registered in Pennsylvania? Nope, I am not. Well, it was worth a shot.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Tonight, Harris is scheduled to be campaigning in Pennsylvania, where she'll be joined by a long list of celebrities, including Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Ricky Martin, and Oprah Winfrey.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Former President Donald Trump, meanwhile, made stops in North Carolina, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, where he repeated his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen and told a crowd of supporters that he should have never left the White House.
--:-- Shumita Basu: He also joked about reporters being shot when referring to the bulletproof glass around him. And to get me, somebody would have to shoot through the fake news. And I don't mind that so much. I don't mind. I don't mind that.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Trump's campaign later tried to clarify, saying those remarks, quote, had nothing to do with journalists being hurt.
--:-- Shumita Basu: With just hours to go in the race, I wanted to check in one last time with my colleague Gideon Resnick. Hey, Gideon.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Hey, Shamita.
--:-- Shumita Basu: OK, we are in the final two days here. How are the two campaigns feeling about their chances?
--:-- Gideon Resnick: For the entire course of this campaign, you've often heard Vice President Kamala Harris say that she is the underdog in this race. They sometimes still say that, but now they're inching a little bit more towards saying that she will win it, albeit by razor-thin margins.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: A recent New York Magazine piece that talked to officials in and outside the campaign used this quote, nauseously optimistic, to define the sentiment there.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: They have had more money than the Trump campaign, more organizational resources, more staff this whole time, really. But the thing that's changed in recent days is that the Harris campaign says they see late deciding voters moving to her column.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And they point to early voting statistics, particularly among women voters, as signs that they are on track for a victory. And there's some outside polling evidence that late deciding voters are breaking Harris's way.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The most recent set of New York Times, Siena College polls of the swing states showed Harris with a double digit lead among people who have only recently made up their minds about who to support.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: In this poll, Harris wins that group 55% to Trump's 44%.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Yeah, and there has been lots to consider for late deciding voters in these past two weeks, between some of Trump's former advisors saying that he would run the country as a fascist, the comments made by one of Trump speakers at the Madison Square Garden rally calling Puerto Rico an island of garbage
--:-- Gideon Resnick: We're also seeing on TikTok the youngest generation of voters is discovering for the first time Donald Trump infamous Access Hollywood tape that first circulated just before Election Day in 2016 which has now been viewed on TikTok millions of times.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Given all of this, how is the Trump campaign feeling? They still project confidence.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: They sometimes talk about those polls that we just referenced as not being what they are seeing. They point to early voting numbers among Republicans as good evidence for their success in this election.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Trump also has been traveling to a number of states like Virginia and New Mexico, where he's not actually known to be competitive, which some say could be a sign the campaign believes that those states are more in play than polls show.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The other theory that often gets presented by reporters is that he's just trying to get some big crowds in these states. Perhaps if he were to lose, Trump could turn around and point to those crowds as evidence that there must be fraud at play in the election.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And then separately, his allies have also pointed to various partisan polls, even betting markets in some cases, showing Trump ahead. Again, the idea here being that if he were to lose, that it could only be because of some sort of election malfeasance.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: So a note of caution there, as you might be hearing that message, that Trump is, you know, way, way ahead. It's not true, at least not according to the most respected nonpartisan polls that are out there at the moment.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Okay, so speaking of the polls, we know that they have been neck and neck for a while now. Any last-minute polling surprises we should be aware of?
--:-- Gideon Resnick: There was one from this weekend. The latest poll from the Des Moines Register shows Vice President Kamala Harris leading in Iowa 47% to 44% among likely voters.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Now, Shamita, you might be asking Iowa, why are we talking about Iowa? Well, there are two good reasons here.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The first is this poll is done by one of the most respected and reputable pollsters out there, Ann Seltzer.
--:-- Shumita Basu: I don't generally think that people should look at one poll result and talk about it in this way. But if there ever was going to be one that people do that for, it's going to be Seltzer's poll.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: She has a reputation for putting out these quite accurate last-minute polls, like when she previously captured momentum for Obama in the state in 2008, for Trump in 2016, that other pollsters have not caught.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And the second reason here is it's not just about Iowa, right? These numbers and Iowa itself could be a bellwether for other states in the region.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: It's typically to the right of Midwestern blue wall states. And Iowa is a place that Trump carried twice. Back in June, he was up by 18 points against then nominee President Joe Biden.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And something specific has also happened in Iowa that is worth mentioning.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: There has been a strict six-week abortion ban that went into effect over the summer. And this poll found that women and older and politically independent women were driving a shift towards Harris.
--:-- Shumita Basu: So if women in other states are feeling similarly to what this sentiment showed in Iowa, that could be an indicator of something that other polls have not quite caught yet.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: So to be honest, this did feel a little bit like a earthquake for political observers this weekend. But again, I would urge caution on just looking at a singular poll and trying to divine an outcome. It is an outlier. We just don't know if it's capturing something that other people haven't seen just yet.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Okay, so that's the presidential race. Really quick, where do things stand with the Senate and the House races?
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Yeah, in the Senate, Democrats currently have a slim majority.
--:-- Shumita Basu: There are 34 Senate seats that are up for grabs. It likely to come down to just about nine competitive races
--:-- Gideon Resnick: To name a few that people are paying attention to there are Democrats in difficult red states like incumbent John Tester in Montana
--:-- Shumita Basu: There are Republicans that look at that as a prime pickup opportunity
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And then there Republican Senator Ted Cruz in a tight race in Texas. Also an interesting one going on in Nebraska, where an independent named Dan Osborne appears to be doing quite well against the Republican incumbent there, Deb Fischer.
--:-- Shumita Basu: If we move over to the House, that's seen as more of a toss-up. Republicans control that chamber today.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: There are about 43 competitive races there. And a lot of the places that people are looking at are these districts that President Biden won in states like New York and California in 2020 that went for Republicans in their congressional districts in 2022.
--:-- Shumita Basu: It's, in fact, in these blue states that Republicans are making some meaningful gains.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: So some election observers are saying that we could see a scenario where one party might win the Senate, another party might win the House.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And if that were to be the case, that would mean that whoever wins the presidency would be governing with a divided Congress.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: All right. Lots to watch there, too.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Gideon, thank you so much.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Yeah, thank you.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And just a reminder, as you prepare for Election Day, make sure to check out our state-by-state guide on how to vote in partnership with NBC News. That's in the Apple News app.
--:-- Shumita Basu: This is shaping up to be the most expensive U.S. election we have ever had. According to Open Secrets, an organization that tracks this, spending hit nearly $16 billion between the campaigns and thousands of political groups.
--:-- Shumita Basu: $1 billion was spent in Pennsylvania alone. And if you have dared to turn on a TV, you'll know how nonstop the political ads have been.
--:-- Shumita Basu: $10 billion were spent on those, the most ever spent. Fundraising broke records, too.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Vice President Harris's campaign raised over $1 billion in roughly 100 days, the most money ever raised in a single quarter.
--:-- Shumita Basu: By comparison, it took President Biden's 2020 campaign pretty much the whole year to hit that same amount.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Former President Trump in this election has relied heavily on large contributions to super PACs to fuel his campaign.
--:-- Shumita Basu: NBC points out this is the first election we have seen campaigns outsource so much of their get-out-the-vote efforts and ground operations to super PACs.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Daniel Weiner, the director of elections and government at the Brennan Center for Justice, told CBS how this system allows election spending to balloon.
--:-- Shumita Basu: A PAC that is separate from candidates and parties can raise unlimited amounts of money.
--:-- Shumita Basu: So both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have affiliated PACs. They're supposed to be independent, but in fact, they can work pretty closely with the campaign.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Those are the entities that are actually taking the million or even five million dollar checks.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Both candidates had billionaires pouring money into their campaigns through PACs.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Media mogul Michael Bloomberg gave $50 million to a PAC that supports Harris.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The largest individual donation went to support Trump and came from a member of the Mellon family, $150 million.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And tech CEO Elon Musk has been very vocal and very spendy in support of the Trump campaign.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Musk donated close to $119 million to a pro-Trump PAC he created that's been responsible for most of the former president's door-knocking and canvassing efforts in battleground states.
--:-- Shumita Basu: I do think that is one of the things that on the line in this election is the idea of whether it possible to win against a campaign that is backed by a few juggernaut billionaire funders
--:-- Shumita Basu: That one of the things people will be deciding when they vote
--:-- Shumita Basu: Evan Osnos, staff writer for The New Yorker, who warns against all this money in our politics.
--:-- Shumita Basu: I don't think that anybody would argue that as money has continued to climb in our politics, that our democracy has in any way become more trustworthy or robust.
--:-- Shumita Basu: I think, if anything, you see that the more money that's piled in, the less confidence people have in these institutions to represent the interests of individuals.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Congress has considered whether campaign finance reform can address this.
--:-- Shumita Basu: In recent years, Democrats have supported a federal bill called the Freedom to Vote Act that would tighten the rules for PACs to make sure they're truly independent of candidates and parties and require PACs to provide more transparency around large donations.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says if Democrats maintain control of the Senate and the White House. He hopes to pass it in the next term.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Before we let you go, a few other stories being featured in the Apple News app.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The Washington Post reports that there are unprecedented security plans in place for Election Day, including panic buttons for election workers and surveillance drones.
--:-- Shumita Basu: At least two states, Nevada and Washington, have activated the National Guard to be on standby just in case.
--:-- Shumita Basu: In other areas, there are extra law enforcement on the street.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The Post spoke with democracy experts who say voters should feel confident casting their ballots with these additional security measures.
--:-- Shumita Basu: At the same time, though, they lament that our political discourse has gone so off the rails that we have to take these steps in the first place.
--:-- Shumita Basu: In what has now become a tradition, voters are leaving their I Voted stickers on the tombstone of Susan B. Anthony, the defender of women's voting rights.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Anthony famously broke the law by casting an illegal ballot in 1872.
--:-- Shumita Basu: She didn't live to see women's suffrage become a reality.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And this year, for the first time, her home in Rochester, New York, which is now a museum, is an early voting site.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The Washington Post talked to the president of the museum who said Saturday was an overwhelming day, with massive crowds of voters flocking to the House to cast their ballots early and to remember the suffragist.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And finally, if you are filled with anxiety in these final days, there are lots of good tips being shared by professionals and mental health experts.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Things like fill a bag with ice and hold it to your face for 30 seconds to slow down a racing heart or find a healthy distraction for your mind.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Well, here's one of my favorite distraction tips that I've come across.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The Times of San Diego says the San Diego Zoo is teaming up with a meditation app tomorrow to bring anxious Americans a live stream of adorable zoo animals.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Research suggests that watching cute animals can reduce your stress up to 50 percent.
--:-- Shumita Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And if you're already listening in the News app right now, we've got a narrated article coming up next from The Atavist magazine.
--:-- Shumita Basu: It tells the story of an effort by folks in Maine to rid their community of a neo-Nazi.
--:-- Shumita Basu: If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
