We have gotten a lot of e-mails about this, so we will explain that the "tie" on the map above is Nebraska. Dan Osborn is running on a basically Democratic platform, but he is officially an independent, and has refused to say whether he will caucus with the Democrats or not. We're OK counting Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Angus King (I-ME) as "blue," because they actually do caucus with the Democrats. But not Osborn, until such time that he formally commits (which he would surely only do after the election, if he wins). After all, if the Republicans offer to quadruple corn subsidies in Nebraska to get him, he might accept.

The National Debt: Has the U.S. Reached Its "Break Glass in Case of Emergency" Moment?

This week, the U.S. passed an inauspicious milestone, as the national debt is now north of $40 trillion.

As a practical matter, $40 trillion is not especially different from $39.9 trillion, or $39.8 trillion or even $39.0 trillion. However, thanks to round number bias, people pay much more attention to 40 or 30 or 20 than they do to 39.9 or 39.8 or 39. So, the fact that the United States has passed this threshold is getting a lot of attention right now.

Macroeconomics is not exactly our cup of tea, so we need to tread lightly here. We do know more about the subject than Donald Trump does, but that only puts us in the rare company of 95% of the American populace. We thought we would present our thoughts through three lenses: long-term, medium-term and short-term.

Long-term, this is not sustainable, and eventually the Congress is going to have to balance the books a little better. Maybe a lot better. And that means either cutting spending, or increasing taxes, or, most probably, both of those things. Now, please note that we have no strong sense if the time for action has finally arrived. Every time the debt crosses some major threshold (for example, a few years back, when it officially grew larger than one year of U.S. GDP), there is much anxiety and tearing out of hair, and then... nothing much changes. Also, we have read many pieces over the last decade arguing "The debt is a MASSIVE problem and the U.S. economy is in imminent danger of a nuclear meltdown." And we have read many pieces arguing "The debt may be big, but it's not actually a big problem, for [X] reason." The point here is that while we are not really sure if the U.S. is on the verge of a crisis, nobody else is really sure, either.

That said, there are some particularly worrying signs right now. First, treasury yields are currently quite high. That means it's more expensive for the government to borrow money, and has the potential to set up a debt spiral where more borrowing --> debt service costs more --> more borrowing --> debt service costs more and so forth. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent tried to get yields down earlier this week by announcing a plan to buy back a higher-than-normal number of government securities, but it didn't work. Yields trended downward for a day, and then started creeping upward again.

Second, if we may be blunt, the people steering the ship of state right now are largely a collection of incompetents, buffoons and bootlickers. This is probably the least capable collection of people ever to lead the United States. Tackling the national debt is a project that much more capable administrations, both Democratic and Republican, have tried to grapple with, and have mostly failed. The last president to make real headway was Bill Clinton, and that was in substantial part because of the dot-com boom. It's possible a more competent president might be able to ride the AI boom in the same way, but... probably not. The dot-coms were popular until they went bust, and so voters were happy to see the government encourage them. The AI companies are not.

Third, lots of other countries are having the same problem and are, if we may use a 1960s term, freaking out. The fact that Britain keeps going through prime ministers more quickly than through heads of lettuce is due, in part, to the various prime ministers' inability to stabilize that nation's balance sheet. Similarly, the Japanese economy is in turmoil right now, and is experiencing its worst inflation in decades. In fact, the U.S. just bought up a bunch of Japanese yen in an effort to try to convince the Japanese government not to unload a bunch of U.S. treasuries that it holds. If the Empire of the Sun did that, it would make it even harder for the U.S. to find buyers for its bonds, and the federal government would have to pay even higher interest rates.

Fourth, and something of a combination of #2 and #3, the U.S. has become an unreliable partner on virtually every level. It is possible that many other nations will begin to take steps to move away from the dollar as the world's reserve currency, and from U.S. treasuries as (one of) the world's reserve repositories of value. If that happened, it would further compound the U.S. government's issues in trying to right the economic ship.

That brings us to the medium-term implications—say, the next couple of years or so. It is (sometimes) very popular to campaign on budget austerity, but it's pretty much never popular to actually follow through. The problem is a basic one, namely that every voter who wants the budget cut wants the cuts to come from someone else's money. Social Security recipients might like to see the military budget cut. Military hawks think Medicaid is not worth the money, and so forth. It's easy to carp about things like school lunch programs, and sometimes those things even get cut, but those are tiny parts of the federal budget. If there's going to be any serious reductions in outlays, they will either have to come from military spending (around 20% of the total budget) or entitlement spending (around 60%).

We suppose it is possible that if there is a divided government from 2027-29, something might get done because no one party will take the blame for unpopular spending cuts. But we seriously doubt it. The Congress is pretty dysfunctional right now, regardless of which party is in the majority, while the White House is entirely dysfunctional. Further, as you may have heard, there is one party that really hates cutting defense spending and one party that really hates cutting entitlement spending.

Even if something is done (whether substantial, or moderate, or trivial) in the next couple of years, there is zero chance it will be done prior to some sort of serious crisis. Pretty much always, Americans have to get bitten hard in their rear ends before Congress gets off their rear ends. And that's the real medium-term implication here: Whether or not Congress does anything, there is a fairly substantial chance that the already shaky U.S. economy goes into recession in 2027 or 2028. Should that come to pass, well... if you thought American voters were in a "throw the bums out" mode already, you ain't seen nothin' yet. 2028 could be an absolute bloodbath.

And finally, the short-term implications. It is not impossible that this becomes a campaign issue in 2026, particularly with the $40 trillion threshold having been crossed reasonably close to Election Day. If it does become a campaign issue, then the party that will be hurt is the Republicans. First, because they are the ones in power right now. Second, because the Trump administration has been quite the spendthrift with the people's money. We're less than 2 years into Trump v2.0, and yet he's overseen about $12 trillion of that $40 trillion in accumulated debt, or close to a third. That's a somewhat unfair framing, because it hits more-recent-serving and longer-serving presidents the hardest. Still, it is a fact that could fit nicely on a bumper sticker: "Donald Trump: one-third of the national debt. All the other 44 presidents combined: two-thirds."

Indeed, if the Democrats decide to make this a core issue, the messaging practically writes itself. They would need to focus on two things, in particular, that they are probably already planning to focus on anyhow (because both are also in the general realm of "corruption"). The first is that Trump has twice signed into law blowing-a-hole-in-the-budget tax cuts that primarily benefited wealthy people. The second is that Trump is spending some meaningful chunk of money on things that primarily benefit Trump, whether it's all the golf trips or it's the Arc de Trump or whatever. We recognize that the tax-cut bills are complicated, while the golf/monument money is a relative drop in the bucket. However, these are the budget-related issues that are most likely to get voters' blood boiling.

Certainly, the White House recognizes it has a potential political problem on its hands. Yesterday, Vice President J.D. Vance was dispatched to do an interview with Newsmax, which apparently is still in business. And the VP offered up a very simple explanation for what has gone wrong here. His explanation is—wait for it—it's all Joe Biden's fault. "Even though the debt is too high, even though we inherited this debt bomb from the Biden administration, we actually do have a plan to get the economy growing faster than the debt," were his exact words.

It is remarkable how, in Elephant World, Joe Biden was able to wreak so much havoc while simultaneously being so incapacitated or incompetent. The fact of the matter is that the debt grew by about $9 trillion under Biden, which is certainly a lot, but is obviously affected by the pandemic. It's also similar to the $8 trillion figure for Trump v1.0, and it's less than the nearly $12 trillion and counting for Trump's combined terms. The more important issue, politically, is that blaming the former guy eventually stops working. That is particularly true for an administration that blames Biden for everything. Eventually, most voters start to suspect that the boy crying "wolf!" doesn't know what he's talking about.

We really can't think of a national election in the past half-century where the outcome was substantially affected by the state of the national debt (unless there were other economic issues in play at the same time, like the stagflation of the 1970s). However, we could be looking at a perfect storm here. And, truth be told, the U.S. does have plenty of other economic issues in play right now, so it could be a replay of, say, 1978. In case you're wondering, the Republicans flipped three Senate seats and 15 House seats in that one. Certainly, we'll be keeping an eye on this (potential) storyline. (Z)

This Week in TrumpWorld: Operation Veteran Fury Is Progressing Nicely

Continuing on the subject of elections, we have an honest question that would be absolutely nuts for any other president: Is the Trump administration trying to lose the veteran vote?

Our first exhibit is the aircraft carrier CVN-81. Construction is supposed to commence on that vessel later this year, which would mean commissioning in roughly 2034. (Yes, it takes a long time to build aircraft carriers.) When the plans for the ship were first announced, in 2021, the Navy said the ship would be known as the USS Doris Miller. Messman Second Class Doris Miller was among the more famous war heroes of World War II. Though he was trained as a cook, he responded valiantly when his ship, the USS West Virginia, was attacked at Pearl Harbor. He helped get numerous wounded sailors to sickbay, then he manned an anti-aircraft gun and shot down somewhere between one and six Japanese planes. Just less than 2 years later, he was killed in action when his ship (by this time, the escort carrier USS Liscome Bay) was sunk by a Japanese torpedo.

This week, CNN learned that somebody (and it appears it was Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao) wants to drop plans to name the ship after Miller, instead putting Miller's name on some other, smaller ship. Part of the reason, apparently, is that Miller was both an enlisted man and Black, and Cao (or someone else) thinks that carriers should only be named after powerful white men. But a bigger part of the reason is that Cao has a much better ship name in mind: The USS Donald J. Trump.

We understand what Cao's motivation is here. He badly wants to be the actual Secretary of the Navy, not the acting secretary, and, like Todd Blanche, he has to engage in major rear-end kissing before it's too late. What we can't understand is why everyone else in the chain of command, including Trump himself, would be so colossally stupid. Yes, we recognize that Trump has infinite ego and zero shame. But if a name can be changed once, it can be changed a second time. There is no way the next Democratic president lets USS Donald J. Trump stand. Perhaps more importantly, if the administration is going to try it anyhow, why not tell Cao to keep a lid on it until after the election? To name any ship, much less an aircraft carrier, after a president who is not only still alive, but is still in office, and who was a draft dodger? That is going to make some voters, including some who have previously voted MAGA, absolutely furious. Not to mention Black voters. Many of them who voted for Trump were already having second thoughts, and this will not help.

And now, a second exhibit, one with a narrower focus. We have noted, a couple of times, that after the situation on the USS Abraham Lincoln became a scandal, Trump was flippant, telling reporters that the long deployment was "no big deal" and that it really should have lasted longer. We don't know if that was serious, or an attempt at a joke, or an attempt at sarcasm. Whatever it was, it was a very impolitic thing to say, as we pointed out when we first wrote about it.

The angle we missed, however, is this: The ship's home port is San Diego, and it's located in the district of Rep. Juan Vargas (D). We checked that at the time, and realized Trump's casual remarks were not going to put a GOP seat at risk (and the district, CA-52, is D+13, so Trump did not torpedo an otherwise viable Republican contender). However, there is another House district where the Abraham Lincoln has put into port, and where they take Navy affairs very seriously. That district is VA-02, which is home to Norfolk Navy Yard. That district is EVEN, and is currently represented by Rep. Jen Kiggans (R), whose Democratic challenger is Cmdr. Elaine Luria (ret.). Luria had a 20-year Navy career, and then held this seat before Kiggans sent her packing in 2023. Some Republican operatives think that Trump effectively handed the seat over to the Democrats with his flippant attitude, and you can see why they think that way.

And finally, we'll pass along one more example. Stars and Stripes is one of the prides of the military establishment; it's been providing actual fair and balanced coverage of world, national and military affairs for 165 years (with a break prior to World War I). Since Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth took over the Pentagon, however, he's been gunning for the paper. He canceled the use of wire services like the AP and Reuters, banned the printing of cartoons (long a signature feature) and fired the paper's ombudswoman. This week, publisher Max D. Lederer Jr. decided that he's had enough, and also suspected that he was likely about to be fired himself, so he announced his retirement after nearly 2 decades on the job.

As with Cao and his secretarial dreams, we understand what Hegseth's motivation is here. Whiskey Pete hates an independent press, particularly an outlet that's been covering the Abraham Lincoln fiasco extensively. He also sees liberal boogeymen everywhere, including middle-of-the-road sources like the AP. However, mucking around with an institution like Stars and Stripes is like mucking around with the Marine Corps Ball or with the layout of Arlington National Cemetery. It's just not done, and the only real impact is going to be to aggravate voters. Again, that includes many pro-military voters who have been supporting the GOP with their votes.

It is almost conspiratorial to raise the question we started with here, and to wonder if the administration somehow wants to aggravate veterans and pro-military voters. We can't really think of what their motivation would be, unless it's something Freudian, like subconscious self-sabotage. But we also struggle to understand how Team Trump could be so foolish and impolitic with one of the third rails of American politics, and just months before an election to boot. (Z)

Political Bytes, National Edition: El-Sayed Dogged by His Time in Detroit

We are way overdue for another Political Bytes, to catch up on stories that are important enough to mention, but not quite enough to merit their own item:

Cats and Dogs: Whoever is crafting the Republicans' messaging seems to be hyperfocused on pets. In 2024, it was Haitians eating cats and dogs. Now, in Michigan, it's Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed's time overseeing Detroit's animal control operation, which he did from 2015-17 as part of his duties as the city's health director. The RNC has put out ads claiming that El-Sayed oversaw the killing of 4,000 cats and dogs. Actually, technically, the ads say he oversaw the killing of 4,000 kittens and puppies, presumably because baby cats and dogs are cuter:

Right-wing media ate it up. The truth of the matter is that while Detroit, like most major cities, does not operate no-kill shelters, during El-Sayed's time on the job, the number of animals who were euthanized decreased.

Our Take: Rhetoric like this is aimed at a pretty different group of voters than "Scary Muslim bad!" From that, we infer that the GOP had decided that "Scary Muslim bad!" won't get it done, and they need more ammo.

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Daddy Trump, Part I: El-Sayed, for his part, has been borrowing from the Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) playbook, and has been going hard after Donald Trump, focusing specifically on Trump assistant Natalie Harp. Sitting for an interview with MS NOW's Jen Psaki yesterday, El-Sayed said, of his Republican opponent Rep. Mike Rogers:

Every single time that he shows up to any conversation that's at all objective, he's gonna have to answer for Trump's ridiculous policies, which he can't answer to without pissing off Daddy Trump, so here he is in this absurd bind, and it's better for him to just dodge. So, he's continued to do that. Instead, he takes softball interviews from Fox News, or NewsNation, or Newsmax... whatever that is.

Note that we took our shot at Newsmax (above) before we knew about this story.

Our Take: Trump tends to take the bait with these kinds of insults, particularly when they involve Natalie Harp, so it makes sense to goad him and see if he takes the bait.

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Daddy Trump, Part II: In case you are wondering what all the "Daddy Trump" stuff is about, The Daily Beast just laid hands on, and published a bunch of letters that Trump assistant Natalie Harp wrote to him back in 2023. It is hard to do justice to them in paraphrase form, so here's a direct quote:

I want things to always be right between us. I also know I've been distracted all week (forgetting to eat throughout the days, and even forgetting to sleep, and only catching a couple hours at a time). I haven't been myself, dwelling on the Past, and the pain of losing my Dad, and I started letting the remarks of people who haven't bothered me before, get to me--not because I care what others think, but because I see myself being lowered in your eyes and good opinion. That is the fear you see, because I never want to bring you anything but joy. I'm sorry I lost my focus. You are all that matters to me. I don't want to ever let you down.

Some people think that Harp has made Trump into a surrogate father. Others think this is sexual, with Harp in a submissive role. Either way, "Daddy Trump" kind of captures the gist of it.

Our Take: This is the kind of cultist person Trump surrounds himself with these days. Perhaps it is no surprise that he is often so far divorced from reality.

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Sticky Fingers, Part I: An incident from the past of Texas AG and would-be U.S. Senator Ken Paxton (R) has come roaring back to life. About a decade ago, he was caught on camera taking someone else's $1,000 pen out of the bin at the metal detector in a Texas courthouse. The owner of the pen (who did get it back) did not press charges back then, but he did record an ad for state Rep. and would-be U.S. Senator James Talarico (D):

The ad has been all over social media this week.

Our Take: You never know what will hit, but it would seem this long-ago incident encapsulates the general feeling that Paxton is a shady character. Oh, and Talarico's campaign is selling pens imprinted with "Not Ken Paxton's Pen." They're only $6, though, and not $1,000.

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Sticky Fingers, Part II: It would seem that Ken Paxton isn't the only Republican who has trouble remembering what belongs to him and what does not. Florida Rep. Randy Fine was doing some campaigning over the weekend, and was caught on camera rifling through the mail in a constituent's mailbox. Fine's staff confirmed it was him, though the Representative himself refused to confirm or deny if the footage was real, and implied that it could be AI-generated. Pro tip: It's not AI-generated.

Our Take: Fine's district, FL-06, is R+14, so he will probably keep his job. That said, if he does get booted, this will be the incident that did it. Oh, also, messing around with someone else's mail is a federal crime.

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Amateur Hour, Part I: The election to choose a successor nominee for former senator Lindsey Graham (R) is next weekend, and a debate was held this week. During the debate, Darline Graham (R, and sister of Lindsey) was asked if she sees the South China Sea and Taiwan as top national security priorities for the United States. She replied: "I'm just going to be honest here, I'm not that informed on national security... national security is not my thing, not my area of expertise, but I do support the military."

Our Take: This is the problem with amateur candidates for political office; they tend to be... amateurish. You don't exactly have to be Henry Kissinger to have at least some awareness of the situation with Taiwan. And while Graham's answer was honest, it did serve to remind everyone that she's woefully underprepared for this job and that she's not the foreign policy wonk that her brother was. Not good "lessons" the week before an election.

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Amateur Hour, Part II: You would think that Minnesota U.S. Senate candidate Michelle Tafoya (R) would be pretty good on camera, because that was her job for 30 years. Not so much, as it turns out, at least when the talk turns to politics. She's already had several pretty bad missteps since winning her primary; the worst was probably a somewhat rambling interview with right-wing talker Hugh Hewitt, where she talked about everyone to whom she owed a thanks for her victory. She started with several PACs and Washington insiders, which is probably not the best choice for the very top of the list. And when she was done, she meant to conclude by saying something like, "And finally, if I win, I will owe a debt of gratitude to the Minnesotans who sent me to Washington." What she actually said was, "The last people I'm going to answer to are the Minnesotans who sent me there." Oops.

Our Take: Tafoya is down around 5 points in the polls. She cannot afford to keep piling up unforced errors.

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The Dark Side: Flock makes cheap Internet cameras that can be used for surveillance. They have been embraced by some entities, such as the city of San Diego, which has installed over 500 of them. Many citizens are not happy at the police-state overtones, and so the subject came up at the latest meeting of the San Diego City Council. As it turns out, the cameras have a very forceful defender. Darth Vader, in his usual regalia, was present, and he advised, "This is what the Emperor needs. This technology will help us find the rebel scum and the hidden base on Hoth."

Our Take: Eye roll. Vader's sad devotion to his ancient religion has not helped him conjure up the stolen data tapes, and it's not going to help him find the base on Hoth, Flock cameras or no.

We still have a backlog, so expect more of this next week. (Z)

Local Elections: This Year, Every Race May Be a Golden Opportunity for Democrats

We wrote a fair bit about national elections this week, but we missed a local election that is worth a mention. State Rep. Stephenie Scialabba (R-PA) represented SD-12 in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from 2023-26. Earlier this year, she quit so she could return to the practice of law, leading to a special election for her (now former) seat in Butler County.

This is a pretty red seat. Scialabba won her reelection bid by 30 points and Donald Trump won the district by 19 points in 2024. It has not been represented by a Democrat in 3 decades. But that streak is now over, because Brandon Dukes (D) defeated Scott Timko (R) this week, 50.1% to 49.6%.

Obviously, the usual caveat about reading too much into a wonky special election, especially one with a very small electorate (around 17,000 voters cast a ballot), is in effect. That said, this is an enormous swing, and in a key state. If a district like this is flippable, then there aren't too many GOP-held U.S. House districts that aren't flippable. And do keep in mind that this is the latest entry in the Democrats wildly overperforming their 2024 numbers in local elections.

Further, even for those who pooh-pooh the predictive value of this election, it also has a practical implication. Had the election been won by the Republican, as expected, then the state House of Representatives would have been 102 D, 101 R, with one open seat, in a red district, waiting to be filled in a special election. So, the state House might have had to return to a power-sharing agreement, should the Republican have won that special election. But now, it does not matter; barring resignations or deaths, the Democrats will retain their majority through the rest of the term.

By the way, we have a sizable number of very good "Local Bytes" letters that we just haven't been able to get to for the past few weeks. Expect one entry, maybe two, next week. (Z)

I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: Sea Salt and Paper

It is unfortunate that several of the board games that have penetrated deeply into American culture are actually kind of mediocre. For example (Z) can play Monopoly at a master level, but unless that's true of all the players in the game, it's not a very good game. And even if everyone at the table IS a master-level player, it's still only an OK game. Other very popular board games that are pretty meh, on the whole, include Risk, Battleship, Clue and Trivial Pursuit. We suspect that TP is the inclusion that readers will disagree with the most, but: (1) there are better trivia games out there, (2) it's too dependent on random dice rolls, and (3) there are too many sloppy or outright erroneous questions. Also, it was invented by Canadians, so reach your own conclusions.

We have written on this subject before, but there are a lot of great board games out there, if you look for them. Sea Salt and Paper is among them; it's a trick-taking game with an ocean/origami theme, and is good for something quick to play and easy to pick up. The reason we mention this subject is that non-politics-questions Saturday is coming up, and we remembered that well in advance this time. If readers have non-politics questions about food, sports, television, music, films, history, literature, science, computers and, yes, games (board, video, or otherwise), send 'em along to questions@electoral-vote.com.

Anyhow, we gave two hints as to last week's headline theme. First up was: "while Davy Crockett and Jeremy Allen White were well-positioned for last week's theme, Richard I of England would be well-positioned for this one." And second was: "like Richard I of England, the magicians Siegfried and Roy would do well with this theme, if they weren't dead." And here is the solution, courtesy of reader N.G. in B'kara, Malta:

One word from each can be used with "lion":

• TrumpWatch 2026: A Kennedy Center Snow Job—Snow lion, the emblem of Tibet
• Legal Bytes: Miller Keeps Trying to MAWA (Make America White Again)—White lion, rare variant of lion, also the name of a heavy metal band
• FoxWatch 2026: How to Make a Mountain out of a Molehill—Mountain lion
• Across the Pond: At Least Binface Gave Everyone Some Food for Thought—The Thought Lion, a kind of muppet from Jim Henson's TV series The StoryTeller
• I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: Teddy Roosevelt Thought Woodrow Wilson Was Cowardly—The Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz
• This Week in Schadenfreude: Trump Media & Technology Group Is Awash in Red Ink—Red Lion is a common name for English pubs and former coaching inns.
• This Week in Freudenfreude: So... Larry David Was to Blame—Larry the Lion: vintage Mattel toy from 1962 (the year I was born!)

And King Richard I was the known as the Lionhearted.

Correct. And Siegfried and Roy often worked with lions, while the headline of this item adds "sea" to the list. Note that we got all of the answers listed here multiple times, though our intent with the fourth headline was actually "Food Lion" (grocery store chain) and our intent for the final headline was Larry Lion from the Richard Scarry books.

Here are the first 60 readers to get it right:

M.S. in New York City, NY M.B. in Albany, NY C.B. in Lakeville, MN S.T. in Coventry, England, UK J.T. in Philadelphia, PA G.M.K. in Mishawaka, IN S.K. in Ardmore, PA T.K. in Half Moon Bay, St. Kitts A.F. in Boston, MA M.W. in Altea, Spain P.Q. in Metuchen, NJ M.S. in Canton, NY P.A. in Redwood City, CA P.H. in Fort Lauderdale, FL J.W. in Victoria, BC, Canada J.N. in Zionsville, IN B.F. in Nashville, TN B.D. in Portland, OR K.G.W. in Lafayette, IN P.H. in Bozeman, MT M.T. in Wheat Ridge, CO A.R. in Austin, TX J.C. in Carmel, IN M.K. in Long Branch, NJ R.P. in Brooklyn, NY S.B. in Palm Harbor, FL G.M. in Tunis, Tunisia J.M. in Estes Park, CO R.F.W. in Atlanta, GA T.C. in Danby, NY

E.M. in Jersey City, NJ T.D. in Chicago, IL P.C. in Vero Beach, FL D.M. in Oakland, CA M.Z. in Sharon, MA H.B. in Santiago, Chile D.S. in Layton, UT M.D. in Wakefield, MA J.O. in Ithaca, NY P.W. in Tulalip, WA J.F. in Fayetteville, NC B.A. in Edmond, OK S.I. in Minneapolis, MN M.V. in Oak Park, IL G.W. in Avon, CT K.R. in Austin, TX D.B. in Glendale, CA R.P.E.H. in London, England, UK G.K. in Blue Island, IL K.H. in Maryville, TN T.C. in Kirkwood, MO E.W. in Skaneateles, NY T.M.M. in Odessa, MO R.R. in Pasadena, CA W.A. in Red Lion, PA D.K. in Chicago, IL R.R. in Westborough, MA R.S. in Landing, NJ W.V. in Hemet, CA G.R. in Silver Spring, MD

The 60th correct response was received at 11:41 a.m. PT on Friday.

For this week's theme, it relies on one word per headline, and it's once again primarily in the category Language, and secondarily in the category Movies. For a hint, we can tell you that several readers figured out the theme before today's posting was even written.

If you have a guess, send it to comments@electoral-vote.com with subject line August 21 Headlines. (Z)

This Week in Schadenfreude: Duffy's TV Project Is a Failure in Every Way

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy came up with an idea grifty enough to be worthy of his boss. We've written about it before, but the pitch was a TV show showing the Secretary and his family taking a luxe trip around the United States. That's a free vacation (and probably other considerations) for the Duffy family, with the bill being footed by... corporate interests the DOT is responsible for overseeing. Ethics? What ethics?

The show was actually supposed to drop in early July, and for many weeks there was no show and no comment from Duffy's office. It was to the point that many people had concluded he just pocketed the money, which is certainly more efficient than actually going to the trouble of actually creating content. But that's not the case, as it turns out, and the entire 3-hour, 6-episode run was released on YouTube this week.

As you might expect, the whole enterprise is getting terrible reviews. It turns out that neither Duffy nor any member of his family is particularly entertaining or endearing. Further decreasing the entertainment value, though increasing the grift value, the whole show is dangerously close to an infomercial for its sponsors (again, the same entities Duffy is supposed to be regulating). For example, nearly all the vehicles shown are Toyotas. What ever happened to "Buy American"? In one episode, Duffy tours a Boeing plant. In another, he tours one of the manufacturing plants belonging to Texas Materials. Bet you can't guess who three of the main sponsors are.

The good news is that these companies, with their de facto bribes, aren't getting much value for their money. The numbers for the series are in, and they are abysmal. In the first 24 hours, the project got off to an absolutely smashing start, with its first episode attracting a total of 2,900 viewers. It goes downhill from there, with episodes 4/5/6 getting 750, 625, and 659 views, respectively. The grand total, across all six episodes, was 6,679 views. Keep in mind that a person only has to watch for a short period of time (not the whole episode) to count as a "view." Also keep in mind that a whole bunch of reporters watched the series so they could write stories like this one. Finally keep in mind that content like the mind-numbing "Baby Shark Dance" has gotten 17 billion views. These three facts really underscore what a disaster this is; as far as grifts go, it's almost as big a failure as Trump University. (Z)

This Week in Freudenfreude: Putting on the White Coat, One Last Time

We try very hard, with these two features, to make sure they have something of a connection to politics. That's a little less obvious with this particular story, but it's very good, so we're running with it.

Westel Creager was born to a blue-collar Kentucky family in 1929, and when he reached maturity, he did what folks in his world did back then, and pursued a blue-collar life. He learned to be a master carpenter, and that is how he supported himself and his family until he was in his mid-30s. At that point, he decided on a career change, one that was nearly unheard of back then, and is still pretty unusual today: He wanted to be a physician. So, he enrolled at the University of Kentucky, and then applied for and was admitted to that institution's medical school. Creager was the oldest person in his med school class, but he made it, and got his white coat (the customary ritual at med school graduations) in 1970 at the age of 41.

Despite the late start, Creager had an extraordinary medical career. He regularly traveled to Mexico to treat patients who could not afford medical care, and he also started a hospital there for AIDS patients. His career in the U.S. involved working emergency rooms, largely in low-income areas. He remained in practice for close to 40 years, finally hanging up the white coat in his late 70s.

Earlier this summer, close to 20 years after concluding his career, Creager got to re-visit his past one last time. He was at the University of Kentucky medical school graduation, dressed appropriately in his white coat... so that he could celebrate the graduation of the newly-white-coated Dr. Haiden Hauret. That's not random. Hauret is Creager's great-granddaughter, and she took the same degree from the same school as her great-grandfather did nearly 6 decades ago. Here are the photos of the day that went viral:

There's also an Instagram post, which you can view here, if you wish.

That's a heckuva story. And if you would really like a political angle here, we will give you one, free of charge. Over the past 75 years, the government has invested substantially in advanced education for people previously not considered worthy of that opportunity. In the years after World War II, it was blue-collar workers like Westel Creager. Starting in the 1970s, it was minority students, and also women, like Haiden Hauret. The U.S. reaped great dividends from those investments; study after study has shown that for every $1 the government invests in education, it gets between $2 and $10 back in tax revenues and other economic benefits. The country is now under the leadership of a very anti-education administration; the story of Creager and Hauret is a small reminder of how short-sighted that policy is.

Have a good weekend, all! (Z)

Today's Senate Polls

We find the Arkansas poll below impossible to believe. In fact during proofreading, (V) threw it out assuming it was a typo. Then he checked and saw these were the published numbers. This can't be true. Hendrix College is not as experienced as some of the other small colleges doing polling, like Emerson, Quinnipiac, and Siena. Still, take this with a gallon of salt. Michigan seems plausible though. (V)

State	Democrat	D %	Republican	R %	Start	End	Pollster
Arkansas	Hallie Shoffner	47%	Tom Cotton	44%	Aug 11	Aug 12	Hendrix Coll.
Michigan	Abdul El-Sayed	48%	Mike Rogers	47%	Aug 09	Aug 11	Fabrizio + Anzalone

* Denotes incumbent

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