McConnell Is on the Losing Side of History — And He Knows It  —  Mitch McConnell may be driving American politics to the brink of insanity, but let's assume that the majority leader himself is entirely sane.  —  There are two possible reasons why it would be rational for him to act …

Trump falls into the trap he set for Biden  —  Donald Trump will face Joe Biden within days for the first of three presidential debates, and some of the president's supporters are already bracing for a humiliating loss.  —  White House allies, Republican donors and some of Trump's closest advisers worry …

The Election That Could Break America  —  Illustrations by Guillem Casasús / Renderings by Borja Alegre  —  There is a cohort of close observers of our presidential elections, scholars and lawyers and political strategists, who find themselves in the uneasy position of intelligence analysts in the months before 9/11.

GOP senators' report calls Hunter Biden's board position with Ukraine firm ‘problematic,’ but fails to show how it changed U.S. policy  —  A pair of Senate Republican committee chairmen released a report Wednesday arguing that Hunter Biden's board position with a Ukrainian energy company was …

House Democrats unveil reforms to ‘prevent future presidential abuses’  —  House Democrats unveiled a sweeping package of reforms Wednesday morning designed to strengthen Congress's ability to check the executive branch and prevent abuses of power, especially by the president.

Allegations of racism have marked Trump's presidency and become key issue as election nears  —  In unguarded moments with senior aides, President Trump has maintained that Black Americans have mainly themselves to blame in their struggle for equality, hindered more by lack of initiative …

CIA clamps down on flow of Russia intelligence to White House  —  Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Gina Haspel and President Donald Trump attend the swearing-in ceremony for Haspel as CIA director May 21, 2018, in Langley, Va. |  The CIA has made it harder for intelligence about Russia to reach …

Countervailing Shifts in a Stable Race  —  Democrat makes gains in special Senate election  —  West Long Branch, NJ - Donald Trump and Joe Biden remain locked in a tight race for Georgia's electoral votes according to the Monmouth ("Mon-muth") University Poll.

DHS awarded $6 million in contracts to firm where Acting Secretary Wolf's wife is executive … WASHINGTON — The consulting firm where the wife of acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf is an executive has been awarded more than $6 million in contracts from the Department …

The story of how Trump chose children over country — and the men who tried to stop him  —  This piece has been adapted from “Donald Trump v. The United States: Inside the Struggle to Stop a President” by Michael S. Schmidt.  —  Counterintelligence officials had concerns about the attempts …

Dear Donald, Dear Mr. President: A Trump-Nixon '80s tale  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — They were two men in Manhattan who craved the same thing: validation.  One was a brash, young real estate developer looking to put his stamp on New York, the other a disgraced elder statesman bent on repairing his reputation.

Five Things Biden and His Allies Should Be Worried About  —  Interestingly, the suburban vote may not be one of them.  —  Mr. Edsall contributes a weekly column from Washington, D.C. on politics, demographics and inequality.  —  There are at least five reasons Joe Biden's consistent lead …

The Metropolitan Opera Won't Reopen for Another Year  —  The nation's largest performing arts organization, shut by the coronavirus pandemic, sends a chilling signal that American cultural life is still far from resuming.  —  The Metropolitan Opera announced Wednesday that the still-untamed …

White House Accused of Improperly Politicizing Review of John Bolton's Book  —  The account by a former National Security Council official also implied that the Justice Department may have told a court that the book contains classified information and opened a criminal investigation based on false pretenses.

Estimated Senate seats  —  Our model is updated every day, blending the latest data on polls and fundraising with “fundamental” factors like incumbency and each state's partisan lean.  Below is a chart over time of our best estimate of the most likely number of Senate seats each party will win …

Colorado Senate Moves From Toss Up to Lean Democrat  —  With a Supreme Court nominee now all but certain to be confirmed by the GOP-controlled Senate this year (either before or after the election), it looks like there will only be two defections from Republican ranks — Maine Sen. Susan Collins …

A ‘distressed’ Birx questions how long she can remain on White House task force, sources say  —  (CNN)Once a fixture at the administration's coronavirus briefings, Dr. Deborah Birx has confided to aides and friends that she has become so unhappy with what she sees as her diminished role …

The Hate at the Heart of Conspiracy Theory  —  Liberty can survive intense disagreement.  But it cannot survive pure hate.  —  Something bothers me about the most common explanations for why conspiracy theories are spreading on the American right.  When trying to account for the rise …

States of Play: Battleground & National Likely Voter Surveys on the Mail-in Election, COVID-19 and the Supreme Court  —  Change Research/ CNBC Poll: September 18-20, 2020  —  Key Takeaways  — Biden now leads by 9 points nationally (51% to 42%), and maintains his advantage across six battleground states.

The Russian Trolls Have a Simpler Job Today.  Quote Trump.  —  As part of their attempt to interfere with the 2020 election, Russians are grabbing screenshots of President Trump's tweets, or quoting his own misleading statements, analysts and officials say.

How progressives win in rural America  —  Election 2020 Domestic Affairs Health Care  —  Bonners Ferry, Idaho, 2017 (Garrett Strizich)  —  Last month, Missourians approved a constitutional amendment to expand their Medicaid program and extend government-sponsored health-care coverage to more than 230,000 people.

Facebook will let Trump run ads on election night prematurely claiming victory  —  Facebook banned political ads a week before the election, but it's the period after the election that it should be worried about.  Here's why.  —  At 12:01 a.m. Eastern Time on election night …

Breonna Taylor grand jury will present its report to judge this afternoon  —  A grand jury in Kentucky will present its report on the Breonna Taylor shooting to a judge at 1:15 p.m. Wednesday, and Attorney General Daniel Cameron (R) will speak about the investigation afterward, authorities said.

The Victims Of Violence During The Kenosha Protests Are Suing Facebook And Kyle Rittenhouse  —  Four people are suing Facebook for its alleged role in enabling the violence that overtook the city of Kenosha, Wisconsin, in August.  —  The five-count civil complaint filed late Tuesday …

Alex Ross on Music, Culture, and Criticism (Ep.  105)  —  Subscribe: Apple Podcasts / Spotify / RSS  —  To Alex Ross, good music critics must be well-rounded and have command of neighboring cultural areas.  “When you're writing about opera, you're writing about literature as well as music …

Voters' groups say poor face 90-minute travel time to deliver ballots to Cuyahoga County's lone drop box  —  CLEVELAND, Ohio - Voting-rights advocates say it could take some Cuyahoga County residents as long as 90 minutes in travel time to cast an absentee ballot at the county's only drop box.