That Ann Selzer-Iowa poll showing Harris surging in the last days of the election? It was a little off. Like by 14 points. … The Herald’s Joe Battenfeld is having a field day with the poll – and with those (similar to yours truly) who bought into its results hook, line and sinker.

Yesterday’s biggest loser: Ukraine. … Biden had his Afghan-retreat debacle. Will Trump share a similar fate with Ukraine?

Thinking a little more about the same WSJ article that I linked to immediately below, the coming intraparty debate among Dems, in the wake of yesterday’s disastrous election results for the party, will eventually come down to a struggle between what type of progressive politics will prevail within the Democratic Party: old-fashioned class-oriented progressive politics, as advocated by people like Bernie Sanders, who think Dems need to stress economic issues that appeal more to working-class voters, versus identity-politics progressives, as advocated by many in academia and other college-educated/suburban types, who mostly view politics through the lens of race, gender and sexual-orientation, etc. etc. …

Neither side is 100 percent right or wrong. It’s not a case of one or the other. But yesterday’s results clearly show that the corniest of all corny lines is true: It’s the economy, stupid, and that means a greater emphasis on economic/class issues and de-emphasis of the more radical aspects of identity-politics/cultural issues. … When you get down to it, moderate-liberals and Bernie progressives have more in common than they realize: Dems really do need to focus more on economic and class issues.

It’s begun. … 

Much of the progressive agenda was rejected across America yesterday, but a few progressive causes prevailed here in blue-state Massachusetts, via referendum approval of dropping the MCAS graduation requirement (Question 2) and allowing Uber and Lyft drivers to unionize (Question 3). But it wasn’t a clean progressive sweep: voters rejected the partial legalization of psychedelics (Question 4) and changing the current restaurant tipping-pay structure (Question 5). … Btw: Approval of Question 1, which allows the auditing of the legislature, was definitely a bi-partisan affair, winning more than 70 percent of the vote.

I sure got that one wrong. No huge last-minute female surge for Harris. Trump simply outperformed her on so many key levels. … I agree with Dan Kennedy: Win or lose, Harris performed magnificently as a candidate. Just not magnificently enough. … What really hurt Democrats was Democrats. I’ll have more on this later. But let me just say: Democrats have a lot of soul searching to do in coming weeks, months and years. They’re out of touch with huge swaths of the American electorate, particularly working-class, rural and non-college-educated people in general. Dems need to find a way to connect to them – economically and socially – and distance themselves from some of the radical positions of the academic left. What Dems don’t need is to act and sound like they haven’t learned anything.

Maybe it’s a case of wishful thinking, but my hunch is Kamala Harris is going to pull this one out today. Donald Trump outperformed the polls in 2016 and 2020 – and he may yet do it again this year. But I think women are going to put Harris over the top, as suggested by the recent Selzer/Iowa poll. Latino anger over third-rate comic Tony Hinchcliffe’s first-rate racist comments could also help Harris, or so I hope. .… 

Update – 11-5-24 – I liked these lines in a NYT piece on what could happen today and this week: “If Kamala Harris wins big, we should have seen it coming all along. … If Mr. Trump wins big, we should have seen it coming all along.” 

Down two starters – Kristaps and Jaylen – and the defending champs still find a way to win. … In particular, it’s remarkable how little people are talking about Kristaps’s absence. … This team is just fun to watch. They have so much talent and depth.

Update – 11-5-24 – Ho-hum. Another day, another Celts win, this time by 30 points, and without Jaylen and Kristaps again.

And good riddance. … The excesses of progressives’ identity politics and political correctness are the main reasons why Democrats aren’t a majority party today. …  

BTW: Nate Cohn has a separate take on why Dems can’t shake Donald Trump.

Ben Berke at WBUR explains why Fall River has gone Trump. It’s that working-class thing again. … And that Portuguese thing, too.