CHRIS CRUCIAL: Why are Republicans so sure they are going to win? 😎

PLUS: A SCOTUS ballot ruling in VA!

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1. Confidence, Man

Even a cursory glance at the state of the presidential race makes one thing abundantly clear: Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are effectively tied.

The 538 average of national polls has Harris ahead by less than 1.5 points, for example.

It’s the same story in swing states. Here’s the Washington Post’s polling average in the seven battlegrounds:

Like it’s just very, very close.

And yet, I’ve noticed — in conversations and on social media of late — a growing confidence among Republicans that Trump is going to win.

It’s not just me!

“There's no guarantee that Trump's going to win,” longtime GOP Strategist Alex Conant told NPR recently. “But the Republicans I talked to are more optimistic about this election than any election in 20 years.”

Mark Halperin, former ABC political director, was even more blunt about how Republicans see the race.

“Trump is going to lock up the Sun Belt states, probably all four, but at least three. And then he's going to win Pennsylvania, and that checkmates [Harris],” Halperin said earlier this month, describing his chats with GOP strategists. “They may be wrong. But there's a not insignificant number of them who are quite confident of that. And the data they've seen on the absentees and the early votes and the voter registration ... makes them more confident.”

What explains the growing GOP confidence — despite the narrowness of the polling? I have a few theories.

1. Trump just keeps saying it. “We’re leading by a lot in Nevada. We’re leading by a lot in Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, even states that are typically never in play,” Trump said at a Las Vegas rally. “Big states are all in play.” This is, obviously, not the case. But Trump has a remarkable ability to fake it until he makes it — and convince his followers that what he is saying is true even if it’s not. Call it the “Pied Piper” effect.

2. The polling has moved (slightly) toward him. Trump appears to have gained between .5 and 1 point nationally and in a bunch of swing states over the past three weeks or so. Which, I suppose, can be counted as momentum. But the truth — as evidenced by tons and tons of data — is that Trump’s surge basically brought him back into a virtual tie with Harris nationally and in several swing states. It’s not as though he is up 5+ points, well, anywhere. (Of course, neither is she!)

3. Early vote. I’ve written recently about how the early returns on early voting in places like Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina are marginally positive for Republicans. But, early vote is notoriously hard to analyze — many states don’t register voters by party etc. — and doing so without ALL of the early vote in is even more sketchy. (Sidebar: This is a good site to monitor early voting across the country.)

4. Prediction markets. The two major futures markets — where you can gamble on the outcome of the election — have moved relatively heavily toward Trump in recent weeks.

   Here’s the Kalshi market:

And here’s the Polymarket, uh, market:

Of course, futures markets create a sort of chicken-and-the-egg question for me. Are the markets moving because of the growing confidence, which could be based on nothing(!), among Republicans? Or are Republicans growing more confidence because the betting markets are looking better for their side?

Here’s one more thing to think about: Does GOP confidence — whether it’s justified by the numbers and data or not — have an effect on undecided voters? We know that these undecideds, whether they like to admit it or not, want to say that they were with the ultimate winner. And so, if the perception in these final days is that Trump is winning might not that help turn the perception into reality?

Truth is, I don’t know. But in an election this close, anything could be the thing that determines who wins. Even unverifiable confidence.

2. SCOTUS sides with GOP in ballot purge

A Supreme Court ruling Wednesday regarding the Virginia voter rolls could set a precedent for how suspected noncitizens are treated when it comes to voting.

Overturning a lower court judgment, SCOTUS said that GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin was allowed to remove 1,600 people from the voter registration rolls less than a week before the 2024 election.

At issue is an executive order signed by Youngkin over the summer that sought to purge these 1,600 people as registered voters due to applications for driver’s licenses that indicated they may not be U.S. citizens.

Reacting to the favorable decision, Youngkin said that it offered “further comfort across the commonwealth that this election will be secure, it will be accurate, it will reflect the will of the voters.”

It was opposed by the Justice Department, which insisted that removing voters so close to the election violated the 90-day window for imposing such changes.

“By cancelling voter registrations within 90 days of Election Day, Virginia places qualified voters in jeopardy of being removed from the rolls and creates the risk of confusion for the electorate,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke. “Congress adopted the National Voter Registration Act’s quiet period restriction to prevent error-prone, eleventh hour efforts that all too often disenfranchise qualified voters.”

The Virginia ruling is part of a broader effort by Republicans — via legal measures and ballot initiatives — to ensure that non-citizens are not allowed to participate in the 2024 election.

That may well be a solution in search of a problem. An analysis of the 2016 election by the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan organization, turned up just 30 cases of suspected noncitizens voting out of 23.5 million votes examined.

3. Some good news

Tom Holland, left, and Dominic Sndbrook

In the final days of the campaign — with stress levels soaring for everyone — I am going to dedicate some space every night in this newsletter to some good, non-political news.

Today I wanted to highlight a Wall Street Journal profile of Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland (not that Tom Holland), the two historian-hosts of my favorite podcast: “The Rest is History.”

Here’s the top of the piece:

Did you know that Napoleon, Emperor of the French, had family roots in Tuscany and delivered his stirring patriotic oratory in a thick Italian accent?

On “The Rest Is History,” the world’s most popular history podcast, hosts Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook ask some surprising questions. Was the Roman historian Tacitus woke? Is Louis XVI’s bad reputation unfair? Was World War I partly caused by the German Kaiser’s anger at being ridiculed for wearing the wrong shoes at a yacht party?

History professors struggle to get students excited about the past. Yet at a recent live show in London, Holland and Sandbrook drew a raucous Gen Z audience with a rock-concert vibe. “The Rest Is History” podcast gets 11 million downloads a month and 1.2 million monthly YouTube views, and seven out of 10 listeners are under 40. People familiar with the show say that it has over 45,000 paying subscribers, who, along with advertising, make it possible for each host to earn nearly $100,000 a month.

When Holland and Sandbrook started the podcast as a Covid lockdown project, they never expected it to be a success, much less a sensation. After all, it’s just two middle-aged academics pontificating about Neolithic metallurgy in the Balkans or botched coronations in Tudor England, while cracking irreverent jokes, speaking in funny accents and disregarding political correctness.

“The Rest Is History” has become a global phenomenon even though, or perhaps because, it defies the zeitgeist. Its growing army of fans includes celebrities such as Tom Hanks, who was recently a guest on the podcast, and musician Nick Cave. The brand has branched out to include books and sold-out stage shows. In November, Holland and Sandbrook will do a coast-to-coast tour of the U.S., where Sandbrook will as usual refer to the American Revolution as “tax-evasion wars” that were “basically won by the French.” Most of the shows are already sold out.

(Sidebar: I will be at the live show in DC. Can’t wait!)

I can’t tell you how much joy Dominic and Tom — I feel like we’re friends and I can refer to them by their first names! — have brought to me on my long car rides to and from soccer practices over the last many months. (I wrote about those drives here.)

Just last night I was laughing out loud listening to the first episode of the “1968” podcast — in particular Dominic’s description of the late Minnesota Sen. Eugene McCarthy, who, when announcing his primary challenge to LBJ, decided to lecture the assembled audience on the history of the Punic Wars!

Do yourself a favor and give the show a listen. You’ll thank me.

NOTABLE QUOTABLE

“I’m 70 years old. I can tell you, there’s not many 70-year-olds I know on Wall Street or in the political class that could go to a federal prison for four months.” — Steve Bannon, Steve Bannon-ning

ONE GOOD CHART

This chart, from Pew, makes clear that there are a BIG chunk of Trump supporters who simply do not believe that — even after all the votes are counted — it will be clear who won the election. Less than 1 in 5 say they are “very” confident that will happen.

SONG OF THE DAY

Josh Ritter is one of the best active American songwriters. (If you have any doubt, go listen to “The Curse.”) I was thrilled to find out that he just released a new album called “Heaven, or Someplace as Nice.” Here’s “The Bride,” the first song on the record.

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