Election Night Guide: Utah through Wyoming

I am doing a final predictions series for the November 5th general elections.  If you've missed previous articles, they're listed right here: Alabama-Arkansas, California-Hawaii, Idaho-Louisiana, Maine-Montana, Nebraska-North Dakota, Ohio-Texas

(Note: I'll be doing commentary on every race for Governor & Senate regardless of level-of-competitiveness.  I'll only do mentions for the House if I assume it'll be competitive in some way-if the House race isn't listed, I'm assuming an easy hold for the incumbent party)

Utah

President: Similar to Kansas, I do want to see what happens to the margins here.  Utah is the most college-educated state in the nation to go for Donald Trump in 2020, and you would assume that Harris will do better than Biden did as a result of her numbers with college-educated voters, even if she will still lose with them.

Governor: If Utah had midterm elections, I would be more interested in this race.  Gov. Spencer Cox (R) has made a lot of enemies (including Phil Lyman, who ran against him in the Republican primary and has endorsed his Democratic opponent Brian King), and in a less partisan environment, this would be a chance for the Beehive State to finally get a Democratic governor after a drought that goes back to 1980.  However, it's just not going to happen with Trump winning the state by double digits.

Senate: Expect a rightward shift in the Senate seat with Rep. John Curtis taking over for retiring Sen. Mitt Romney.  Romney has always been a bit of an over-hyped moderate (he's not Liz Cheney), but he definitely took some blue votes (like on Trump's impeachment and confirming Ketanji Brown Jackson) that Chuck Schumer won't rely upon with Curtis.

Vermont

President: An easy win for Harris in the bluest state in New England.

Governor: And like all New England states, it seems to fall in love with moderate Republican governors from time-to-time, with Gov. Phil Scott getting reelected to his fifth term as governor.

Senate: Man I wish that Sen. Bernie Sanders, who at 83 is WAY too old to be running for a fourth term, was retiring, but Sanders (like many politicians these days) does not seem to have the grace to give up the spotlight and will easily win another reelection. 

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA)

Virginia

President: The Republicans seem to be in love with running a lot of misinformation about the Old Dominion (there is a persistent rumor right now online that Harris will be throwing cash at her campaign in the state and taking it away from North Carolina, which is categorically untrue).  She should handily take the state, and put those rumors to rest tomorrow.

Senate: She won't win by as much as Sen. Tim Kaine, though, who will hopefully be able to get at least one victory on the same night as the first female president since he couldn't do so 8 years ago.

House: There are two competitive races in Virginia for the US House, but I do think both favor the incumbent party.  For some reason pundits seem to think that VA-7, which is open due to the retirement of Rep. Abigail Spanberger (who is running for the Democratic nomination for governor), is a tossup.  Despite raising gargantuan sums of cash, Eugene Vindman (whose brother Alex was one of the primary reasons that Donald Trump was impeached, as it was based on his testimony) is neck-and-neck with attorney Derrick Anderson, who ran here in 2022.  Vindman has struggled to consolidate support after his primary, but the district went for Joe Biden by 7-points, and will go for Harris-I don't think Anderson is the kind of Republican who can overcome that.  On the flip side, VA-2 is much closer, but also shows a tight race.  If Harris wins by roughly the same margin as Biden did (about 2-points), I think Rep. Jen Kiggans (R) holds on with some crossover votes against a weaker opponent, Democrat Missi Cotter Smasal, but Harris does much more than that Smasal could gain steam.  I'll be honest-if you're looking for a canary-in-the-coal-mine among the earliest states to close the polls: if Trump is having a "sweep the Big 7" kind of night, Anderson probably is winning...if Harris is doing a "sweep the Big 7" night, look for an upset for Smasal.  As I'm predicting neither have a sweep, I'll stay status quo.

Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA)

Washington

President: Like Chicago is to Illinois, so is Seattle to Washington...both states basically ensure that they remain forever blue in the 21st Century.

Governor: Gov. Jay Inslee (D) is retiring, and while Republicans got their best candidate for this office in a while in former Rep. Dave Reichert, the losing streak that they have suffered for over 40 years will continue on Election Night as Attorney General Bob Ferguson (D) wins.

Senate: Sen. Maria Cantwell (D), one of the lowest-profile members of the Senate, will win a fifth term in office.

House: Two years ago, the biggest surprise on Election Night 2022 was the surprise win by Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D) over businessman Joe Kent.  That was driven by Kent knocking the incumbent Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (who is running for Commissioner of Public Lands and will surely lose) out of office.  Perez was always going to be a challenge to hold this seat, but she has run an impressive campaign.  One big late-breaking wild card in the race is the attacks (presumably by MAGA extremists given it was in the bluest district in the state) on ballot boxes in the district, which might spur some Democrats off of the sidelines to support Perez in solidarity.  But this is a district Trump won by 4-points in 2020, and polling shows he's on pace to do that again.  It will be close, but I think Kent takes the rematch and we go R+1.

West Virginia

President: Once such a reliably blue state that it actually went for Mike Dukakis, West Virginia is the heart of Trump country, and will probably be his biggest statewide margin tomorrow night.

Governor: Attorney General Patrick Morrisey (R), who lost the US Senate race in 2018, will get redemption as he holds the governor's mansion tomorrow night in the Mountain State.

Senate: And tomorrow we will say goodbye to Sen. Joe Manchin (D/I), a man who was a perpetual thorn in the side of Democrats everywhere, but still paved the way for the Inflation Reduction Act, the American Rescue Plan, & Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.  It's entirely possible when he is replaced tomorrow by Gov. Jim Justice, it will be the last time in most of our lifetimes that West Virginia has a Democratic senator. R+1

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)

Wisconsin

President: And it all comes down to Wisconsin.  The Badger State was the tipping point state in 2020 for Joe Biden, and it looks like our likeliest candidate for tipping point state in 2024.  Both sides are pushing hard here, and both sides have clear strengths and weaknesses.  The biggest issue for the Harris campaign is turning into Milwaukee, an area she will win easily, but where turnout is never as consistent or high as Madison (the other blue bastion in the state).  I am writing this article on October 29th, but I'm going on record as being stunned if Harris does not hit Milwaukee at least one more time before the end of the campaign to get stronger Black turnout.  The biggest issue for Trump, on the other hand, is the Milwaukee suburbs.  Again, this is an area that he will win, but the question is by how much.  The infamous WOW counties (Waukesha, Ozaukee, & Washington) have been the bedrock of Republican politics in the state for decades (Trump won them by 23-points in 2020).  But there's a lot of signs that Harris will over-perform in the midwestern suburbs, and there are clear signs of vote cracks in the WOW counties.  Waukesha, the largest of the three, gave Judge Janet Protasiewicz over 40% of the vote in 2023...if Harris got that, she'd have Wisconsin locked up.  I think that Harris's ground game will exceed Trump's clear problems convincing suburban voters to give him a third shot, and she will ultimately win, but not by much.

Senate: I think Sen. Tammy Baldwin will have an easier time, though Wisconsin has reverted to form and while she was once boasting gargantuan leads against businessman Eric Hovde, those have disappeared into a 2-3 point race.  That's probably where this ends, but Baldwin is able to hold the seat.

House: Democrats dropped entirely former Rep. Peter Barca in his comeback bid in WI-1, so don't expect any partisan changes there.  The bigger question is around WI-3, where controversial Rep. Derrick van Orden is in a tight contest with businesswoman Rebecca Cooke.  I think van Orden will under-perform Trump by a point or two given his many dust-ups in DC (and because the DCCC has stayed on the air here for Cooke), so the question becomes how much Harris can gain over Biden.  Both Protasiewicz & Gov. Tony Evers won here, but Ron Johnson did as well so it's a swing seat.  If Harris wins here, so does Cooke...but as I don't think Harris will, I'm going to bet on van Orden...but man do I want to call an upset here though as it feels like one is brewing. 

Wyoming

President: Our final state will be another, final red state landslide for Donald Trump.

Senate: In Wyoming, it's not clear yet whether or not they're just reelecting John Barrasso or if they're reelecting the next Republican leader...but they're certainly giving him a win.

The Lowdown

Governors: With the only flip that I called this year being in New Hampshire, the Democrats will go from 23 to 24 governorships, but will have to wait until 2025 to have a shot at a (tied) majority in Virginia.  No other race is at risk-New Hampshire is really the only question mark.

House: I have tallied it up, and I am going with 220 Democrats in the House to 215 Republicans, which would give Hakeem Jeffries a narrow (but winning) path to the Speaker's gavel.  The Republicans have room here.  A handful of races that I called for Team Blue (AK-AL, AZ-6, CA-27, IA-1, MI-7, MI-8, NY-19, & PA-8 specifically) feel like they are in true tossup territory, and the Republicans would only need to flip a couple of them to get to 218.  On the other hand, even a mild over-performance by Harris (maybe 1-2 points better than the polling averages) would result in 8-10 Republican-predicted seats (the most obvious being AZ-1, CA-45, IA-3, PA-10, WA-3, & WI-3) being in the blue.  I will say of the three big federal branches, the Democrats have the best shot at winning the House in my estimation.

Senate: The final count in the Senate would be 52 Republicans and 48 Democrats, with all of the Senate races matching my guess for the presidential victor.  If the Republicans do better than expected, you could conceivably see them picking off 1-3 of the Blue Wall states (Tammy Baldwin, Elissa Slotkin, & Bob Casey's races)...I don't think winning Nevada or Arizona is in the cards for them.  If the Democrats were to win the Senate, it would involve them matching polling in Ohio (the only true tossup of the bunch), and then it would really come down to them getting a mild upset in either Nebraska, Texas, Montana, or Florida (rated from most to least likely to be the flip).  If one of them flipped, it would be surprising but not insane surprising (i.e. it ain't like Trump winning Oregon levels of crazy), so a trifecta is still possible, but you shouldn't bet on it.  I think therefore it's likely that the next president will become the first POTUS to enter the White House without a trifecta since George HW Bush.

Vice President Kamala Harris (D-CA)

White House: If you've been following along closely, you know what I did here, but I am, based solely on my predictions, guessing that Vice President Kamala Harris will get exactly 270 electoral votes, the bare minimum she needs to win the White House.  A lot of the last few weeks have felt like the series finale of Donald Trump for President, a series that started with an escalator ride in 2015 that we have been forced to watch for nine years.  Whether or not he ultimately ends up the triumphant dictator at the end or the disgraced two-time loser/convicted felon we'll find out tomorrow (and more likely, into the rest of the week), but there would be a poetic justice in Trump losing the way that most thought he'd lose in 2016-with the Blue Wall holding together and providing just enough cushion to elect the first female president.

This gives me very little room if I'm wrong here.  I do think Harris has staked a lead and has the ground game to get victories in Michigan & Pennsylvania (if she loses either, she wasn't really close to winning in the first place), but Wisconsin feels like it could be where the break in the shields is for the Democrats.  On the flip side, in a world where Michigan/Pennsylvania go blue, she can win without Wisconsin as long as she takes North Carolina, Arizona, or Georgia (Nevada is also a true tossup, but doesn't really matter to the math if she wins PA/MI).  I think there's a real possibility that pollsters are not getting crossover votes in Arizona or end game Black turnout correct in Georgia, and either could end up going blue even if Wisconsin falls (Arizona, especially, feels like pollsters are about to repeat the infamous Katie Hobbs upset they couldn't call in 2022).  My gut for most of October was (similar to Nate Silver's) guessing a Trump victory...the past week (remember, I wrote this on October 29th), has changed my mind, and my gut & head are both guessing Harris.  I don't have confidence in that, I certainly wouldn't bet money on it, but officially it will be my final prediction that she will become the first woman to sit behind the Resolute Desk.

And with that, I will not only end this election night guide, but also this blog.  If you want to keep track of my movie takes, please feel free to follow me at Letterboxd where I promise to keep bringing in a variety of Oscar Viewing Project screenings (and sharing those via lists), as well as continue to watch & track movies old and new.  Otherwise, know that I have loved this blog for 12 years. It has been a place I have shared my passions, my joys, my hopes...and sometimes my fears, my regrets, and my loneliness.  Whether you have been here for one article or most of the 4200, I cannot express enough how much you letting my writing be a part of your life has meant to me.  While I leave it behind, this place has been truly a home when I really, really needed one, and though it is the right time for me to say goodbye, I do so with a longing heart.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

1957 Oscar Viewing Project

One of the biggest regrets I had with finishing the blog was that I wasn't going to do one last season of ballots for the OVP.  The series that basically started this blog was going to get ignored, and while I cheated a bit by having the Halloween blogathon serve as a "placeholder" for the Oscar Viewing Project goodbye, that wasn't enough.  I'll be honest-October has been really challenging on a personal level (one of the main reasons that I'm ending the blog is because I had a wake up call about my personal life), but I have pushed myself in the past couple of days to finish the four remaining films I hadn't completed from 1957 so that they were done, and I can officially unveil the 27th completed season of the series (a truncated version, as I didn't have the bandwidth to write a full twenty articles, but at least I got something!).  For those who have enjoyed this (including me), I want you to know that I have started to transpose all of the previous OVP winners from past seasons onto my Letterboxd lists, and will continue to do the winners on there going forward, so if you want to continue to see what I'm picking (I'm ending the blog-the Oscar Viewing Project continues to see another day), you can find me here.  My brother is trying to help me figure out the best way to present the My Ballots (I didn't have time to finish that for 1957), but I promise as soon as he figures out a way to do this (he's better at such things than I am), I will continue posting those on Letterboxd as well.  But below, you will find the ranked from first-to-last choices for the 30th Academy Awards.

That's enough shop talk.  Now it's time to go back to an era of Sputnik & the Little Rock Nine, of Althea Gibson & Mamie Eisenhower.  And of course, let's remember the movies...

Picture

1. The Bridge on the River Kwai

2. Witness for the Prosecution

3. 12 Angry Men

4. Sayonara

5. Peyton Place

The Lowdown: The Bridge on the River Kwai has been a part of my life since I can't remember when-it was my grandfather's favorite movie, and one that played in the background (along with Patton and Tora! Tora! Tora!) on repeat after he had a stroke.  The only one of these movies that really approaches its grandeur is Witness for the Prosecution, which honestly is kind of a miracle and the best Christie adaptation I've ever seen.  12 Angry Men is very well-done, and a masterpiece but one that might (unfairly) have lost some luster it's been done so much since, and the other two are handsome-but-dull (Sayonara) or a total snooze (Peyton Place).

Director

1. David Lean (The Bridge on the River Kwai)

2. Billy Wilder (Witness for the Prosecution)

3. Sidney Lumet (12 Angry Men)

4. Joshua Logan (Sayonara)

5. Mark Robson (Peyton Place)

The Lowdown: Even more than the Best Picture field (if you hadn't noticed, these are carbon copies of each other), David Lean takes the lead here.  Oscar Winner Sydney Pollack once said that a director's job is "less artist, more damage containment expert" and that might be what is drawing me to Lean to a degree.  He has the more challenging job, particularly given that Wilder & Lumet are largely staying in the same locations, and are bringing to life staged plays, but it's more than that.  Think of the ending of The Bridge on the River Kwai, having so many storylines come together with staggering precision-you only get that from thinking meticulously, even in a gigantic epic.

Actor

1. Alec Guinness (The Bridge on the River Kwai)

2. Charles Laughton (Witness for the Prosecution)

3. Anthony Franciosa (A Hatful of Rain)

4. Marlon Brando (Sayonara)

5. Anthony Quinn (Wild is the Wind)

The Lowdown: This is entirely down to the British actors (Guinness & Laughton).  Franciosa (who is in lead, Shelley Winters' memory be damned), gives a good performance but is in an underwritten movie, while Brando is a fabulous actor in a stuffed shirt sort of role.  Guinness gets my vote over Laughton primarily because he's playing so specifically to this character.  Laughton's role is appropriately loud-and-boisterous, he's typecast but in the best way possible.  Guinness isn't initially who I would guess in 1957 for this role (he was better known for comic work in movies before this), but that works to his advantage as Colonel Nicholson is a man obsessed, whose madness toward the end as he realizes what he's done is a crucial component to the entirety of Lean's epic.

Actress

1. Anna Magnani (Wild is the Wind)

2. Joanne Woodward (The Three Faces of Eve)

3. Deborah Kerr (Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison)

4. Elizabeth Taylor (Raintree County)

5. Lana Turner (Peyton Place)

The Lowdown: Here's where I'm going to confess something-I have never gotten the hype around Joanne Woodward's performance in The Three Faces of Eve.  I think part of why she got this award (and so many plaudits since) is because it was such a revolutionary idea onscreen-a woman playing three characters in one.  But it isn't as impressive as some of her peers were, and while Woodward is a good actress, this isn't her best work, and she's only as high as she is on this list because this is a weak field.  Magnani stands out more for me-she's a more obvious actor compared to the organic Woodward, but the way she plays this woman is so three-dimensional and felt.  I love it.  Kerr is lovely-but-not-stretched in Heaven Knows, while Taylor & Turner both have their best (sultriest) instinct muted in their dull pictures.

Supporting Actor

1. Sessue Hayakawa (The Bridge on the River Kwai)

2. Red Buttons (Sayonara)

3. Russ Tamblyn (Peyton Place)

4. Arthur Kennedy (Peyton Place)

5. Vittorio de Sica (A Farewell to Arms)

The Lowdown: Hayakawa, at one point a major leading star of the Silent Era, made a comeback with this role very late in his career, and it's easily the best of this quintet.  The way that his Colonel Saito creates a humanizing aspect to his villain is years ahead of what you'd normally expect from such a part, and stands up against what Guinness & Holden are doing.  Buttons' heartbreaking work is a worthy runner-up, and I like that Russ Tamblyn got a nomination here (he's my favorite part of Peyton Place), but Hayakawa is the best choice of the bunch.

Supporting Actress

1. Elsa Lanchester (Witness for the Prosecution)

2. Miyoshi Umeki (Sayonara)

3. Carolyn Jones (The Bachelor Party)

4. Hope Lange (Peyton Place)

5. Diane Varsi (Peyton Place)

The Lowdown: Man is this a rough one.  Given 3/5 of these are in movies that underwhelmed me already, and The Bachelor Party is just an odd picture, thank the lord for Elsa Lanchester.  Her doddering in Witness for the Prosecution is marvelous, and would've made a fine winner (I would've found room for her costar Una O'Connor, and will in my My Ballot).  The rest, though, are uninspired in a field that could've been great had they invested more in musicals in 1957.  Umeki's groundbreaking win isn't the worst thing to happen to this category (there's an understanding in her work that I liked), and seeing Carolyn Jones outside of the Addams mansion is a change of pace, but man...Lanchester is the only truly acceptable winner of the bunch.

Original Screenplay

1. Funny Face

2. The Tin Star

3. I Vitelloni

4. Designing Woman

5. Man of a Thousand Faces

The Lowdown: It's weird, given the weak point of most of Fred Astaire's films is a cobbled together by scotch tape plot, that I'm giving his film this statue.  In a perfect world, you'd probably see a few of the Foreign Language Film nominees included in this lineup, but the only subtitled film of this bunch is Federico Fellini's I Vitelloni, where the screenplay is one of the weakest parts in an otherwise really attractive movie.  Funny Face is well-structured, and if you get past the fact that the 30-year age difference should be more of a plot point (let's be real, though, Fred Astaire & Audrey Hepburn are such ageless figures it's hard to think of them as anything more than ephemeral tricks-of-the-light), the only movie that comes close is The Tin Star, a well-structured morality tale that's admittedly a bit predictable and guided by strong work from Henry Fonda & Anthony Perkins.

Adapted Screenplay

1. The Bridge on the River Kwai

2. 12 Angry Men

3. Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison

4. Sayonara

5. Peyton Place

The Lowdown: The real battle here is between The Bridge on the River Kwai and 12 Angry Men, both impeccable screenplays.  12 Angry Men it's sometimes hard for me to tell if I should dock points for it clearly being a filmed play or if that works onscreen.  Since I can never quite tell, I'm going to go with Bridge, which has a stronger end game, and also manages to tell a lot of subplots without losing focus (harder than it sounds).  Kudos to Heaven Knows in third, particularly in the way that it handles the complicated (for 1957) romantic angles of the story that otherwise could've been abandoned by a different writer.

Foreign Language Film

1. Nights of Cabiria (Italy)

2. Gates of Paris (France)

3. The Devil Strikes at Night (Germany)

4. Nine Lives (Norway)

5. Mother India (India)

The Lowdown: In the early years of this category, you'd get masterpieces from renowned filmmakers like Fellini, which makes it really hard to judge in some ways because how do you compete with something like Nights of Cabiria, one of the all-time great pictures and featuring a beautiful performance from Giuletta Massini?  It's a pity, though, as there's some treasure trove films here too.  Gates of Paris is a wonderfully dark French crime film (with a romantic subplot that'll rip your heart out), while The Devil Strikes at Night gives you a really strong look at the rise of fascism from a film noir perspective. The only one of the bunch I couldn't get into was the unfathomably long Mother India, a well-regarded Bollywood picture that was at least two hours too long.

Score

1. The Bridge on the River Kwai

2. An Affair to Remember

3. Raintree County

4. Boy on a Dolphin

5. Perri

The Lowdown: Any of the Top 3 here would be a worthy prize (Boy on the Dolphin feels like it got nominated based on the composer, and Perri ranks as one of the sillier films to ever be cited for an Academy Award since it's just a children's nature documentary about a squirrel).  Even with the most famous cut of the score being a non-original piece (the "Colonel Bogey's March" is not original to the picture), I think that Bridge does the most with its music, and it will get my nod.  Either Affair or Raintree would make good choices, though, both of them lush & filled with a lot of romance (I'm still finalizing my My Ballot Awards, as I mentioned above, but as of this writing all three of these films would make my nominees).

Original Song

1. "Wild is the Wind" (Wild is the Wind)

2. "All the Way," (The Joker is Wild)

3. "An Affair to Remember," (An Affair to Remember)

4. "Tammy," (Tammy and the Bachelor)

5. "April Love," (April Love)

The Lowdown: A genuinely terrific group of songs-there's not a bad one in the bunch, and in many cases, we're getting some big-deal singers' signature tunes.  The Top 3, in particular, is pretty immovable, and my pick of "Wild is the Wind" might be a little cheat given my favorite version of the song is by Nina Simone (not, as sung in the movie, by Johnny Mathis, though Mathis is also marvelous).  It's such a creepy love ballad.  Sinatra's classic "All the Way" and Marni Nixon belting out the standard "An Affair to Remember" (through Deborah Kerr) are totally acceptable answers here too, though.

Sound

1. Pal Joey

2. Witness for the Prosecution

3. Sayonara

4. Les Girls

5. Gunfight at the OK Corral

The Lowdown: I will be honest-every single one of these films will be getting replaced when I do my My Ballot.  That's not to say there isn't good stuff happening (Pal Joey has some solid musical numbers and the dialogue is crisp, Witness has the great final courtroom scene & Marlene singing), but nothing here stands out in a big way.  The shootout in Gunfight, for example, is a disappointment (the best part of it is the Frankie Lane title song), and Les Girls is a great movie, but not one that has a lot of super memorable musical numbers (it works better on its plot).  The Bridge on the River Kwai is clearly missing.

Art Direction

1. Les Girls

2. Funny Face

3. Raintree County

4. Sayonara

5. Pal Joey

The Lowdown: Gorgeous sets abound here, but in particular for the Top 2 (in another year Raintree County's elaborate and epic southern looks would be a serious contender for the win, here it has to settle for the bronze).  I'm going to go with Les Girls for the statue because it plays more with the beautiful looks of Paris than Funny Face does, and the sets have a bit more color and personality, but honestly they're both so good this is splitting hairs.

Cinematography

1. Funny Face

2. An Affair to Remember

3. The Bridge on the River Kwai

4. Sayonara

5. Peyton Place

The Lowdown: This one comes down to the romances for me-this is the one area where I think Bridge is good but isn't necessarily breaking the bank except for the final sequence, and so I'd put this between Affair and Funny Face.  Funny Face probably benefits a bit from its plot-there film is literally about catching the exact right photo of Audrey Hepburn, and you get gorgeous scenes and fashion shots of her to accompany that.  I do like the intercontinental glamour and radiant CinemaScope beauty of An Affair to Remember, but if forced to pick, I'd end with Funny Face.

Costume Design

1. Funny Face

2. Les Girls

3. Raintree County

4. An Affair to Remember

5. Pal Joey

The Lowdown: With costume design, sometimes you get contests where you were never going to win.  There are really good nominees in this category (for my money, the best lineup Oscar pulled together in 1957), and some are extraordinary.  That exquisite orange & white dress Deborah Kerr wears in An Affair to Remember, the plunging bodices sported by a never-more-beautiful Elizabeth Taylor in Raintree County, the monochromatic swimsuits & matching chapeaus of Les Girls...all grand.  But when Audrey Hepburn in a strapless scarlet dress & matching scarf walks down the steps of the Louvre in Funny Face...that's what makes movies, movies-it simply has to win.

Film Editing

1. The Bridge on the River Kwai

2. Witness for the Prosecution

3. Gunfight at the OK Corral

4. Pal Joey

5. Sayonara

The Lowdown: I feel like too many of these categories are Bridge on the River Kwai facing off against Witness for the Prosecution with the latter coming up short.  This is true here, even though it's close-Bridge sometimes sags in the middle (maybe its weakest aspect even if the beginning and end are so well-conceived), and you can't deny that Witness builds its tension masterfully.  Still, the ending of Bridge is just too good to ignore, and neither Marlene Dietrich or Dennis Hopper's very effective final scene in Gunfight at the OK Corral can really compete with it.

Special Effects

1. The Spirit of St. Louis

2. The Enemy Below

The Lowdown: Our only category with only two nominees in the bunch, this is a battle between two war pictures.  The Spirit of St. Louis is really impressive when you keep in mind this is a special effects category, and so therefore the plane stunt effects and trick flying should be part of your calculation.  It helps that Jimmy Stewart was a pilot in WWII and actually knows what he was doing.  The Enemy Below is both a lesser movie, and honestly has lesser effects by comparison (Lindbergh gets my win).  It's not bad-the water effects toward the end all are strong & believable in a world without CGI, but it's nothing you wouldn't see in a dozen other war films of the era.

5 Thoughts on the Selzer Poll

Just when I thought I was out...she pulls me back in.  And by "she," I mean famed Iowa pollster Ann Selzer, the subject of my political fascination (and someone I have had actual nightmares about).  Let me explain.

When I decided it was time to end the blog, I made myself a quick promise-for the next 50 days or so, that I would be allowed to write as many blog posts as I wanted, but only until the morning of November 4th (i.e. tomorrow).  There were ones (like the Halloween blogathon or the Lost articles we've discussed in the last week), that I had actually promised to you, the readers, that I would complete, and I took those more seriously, but there are definitely articles (like this morning's about To Do lists) that I kind of just added because I thought they would be fun.  This was sort of my way of saying goodbye to a lot of reoccurring topics we've talked about on this blog, but also a bit of a "patch" for me to get all of my thoughts out before I moved on.  I don't have a lot of friends in real life to talk about these things with (it's partially why I have a blog), so I knew that impulse would be hard to control, and while I'm quitting the blog for legitimate reasons in my personal life, I also wanted to give myself a little bit of grace to talk about what I needed to, especially in the heat of the election.

I did not think that I would still be having these urges the day before my self-imposed deadline (I wanted to end the blog with the final article of the Election Night Guide, which I always publish the morning before Election Day, and that will still happen tomorrow), but, well, as I'm still technically in that window I might as well go for it.  Yesterday we had the release of the infamous Selzer poll, an historically (and scarily) accurate poll that frequently has caught things that other pollsters have not, and this year's was no exception in terms of upending conversation.  So we're going to do an unexpected goodbye to yet another long-running feature of this blog (the "5 Thoughts On..." political dissection articles) and just have four articles for our penultimate day of publishing (cause yes, I have one other article I'll publish later this evening before tomorrow's finale).

Ann Selzer

1. What is the Selzer Poll?

If you're not a political nerd, this is a fair question.  The Selzer poll (officially referred to as the Iowa poll) is the longest continually-running statewide newspaper poll in the country.  Run by the Des Moines Register, it started in 1943.  While political polling has been around in the United States since the 1820's, it became popular in the 1920's when The Literary Digest correctly predicted the winners of every presidential election from 1916-1932.  They famously missed the 1936 results (which was a landslide in favor of President Roosevelt, while they had guessed Gov. Alf Landon would win), and the newspaper soon ended publication.  George Gallup figured out the mistakes of The Literary Digest, and would instead conduct more scientific, smaller-based surveys that were more accurate, and the Register used that method to create the Iowa Poll, which they still conduct sporadically for surveys of the state.

Ann Selzer came to the Register in 1984, and has conducted the surveys in the state since 1987 (hence why this is frequently shorthanded by many, including me as "the Selzer poll").  Selzer is known for being extremely diligent, having an extensive knowledge of the state that goes back over her 30+ years of surveying it, and for being eerily accurate.  She was the only major pollster to predict that Barack Obama would win the Iowa caucuses in 2008 over Hillary Clinton & John Edwards, and she correctly guessed in 2014, 2016, & 2020 that Iowa was going to swing right of the nation.  In 2016, in particular, she proved what other polls were glossing over-that Donald Trump was headed to victory.  Even when she's wrong, she tends to not be wrong by much-while she guessed the wrong winner in 2018 for the governor's race, she was still only off by 5-points, hardly something to scoff, and damn impressive when you think about a 5-point miss being the biggest gap in her major race record.

Former President Donald Trump (R-FL)

2. Why is the Poll So Shocking?

The reason the poll was so shocking is that Selzer found that Kamala Harris was leading Donald Trump 47-44% in the Hawkeye State.  This is a huge, huge deal if it's correct, and if you've been following along in our Election Night Guide (which, as I pointed out in the Iowa section, I wrote before the Selzer poll so I could stay on deadline), you'll know why: Iowa isn't a swing state anymore.  While during the presidential elections of George W. Bush & Barack Obama the state was continually contested, it moved right in 2016 and has stayed that way since, with Joe Biden & Theresa Greenfield both losing there in 2020 while the rest of the nation moved left.  If Iowa is actually competitive, what does that say about the rest of the presidential race, which up until now has been billed as an incredibly tight endeavor?  Is this a case (like in 2008, 2014, 2016, & 2020) where Selzer is able to find something that other pollsters are simply ignoring in the results?

It has to be noted that backlash to the poll was severe from the GOP, but notably without a lot of Republicans countering with their own polling to counter it (which makes me think it hurt a nerve that backs up some of their own worries).  Donald Trump took to Truth Social this morning to point out Emerson (a Republican-leaning pollster) had him up by 10-points and pleaded for farmers to support him.  Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds spent last night attacking the Des Moines Register, but also in the process begging Republicans to vote for Donald Trump to "prove the Register wrong."  Some leaks happened that said that Harris being up in Iowa was nonsense, but that Republicans had Trump up by about 5-points, which given Biden lost the state by 8-points, would still be a solid result for Harris and point to an overall win for her on Tuesday (in the nation, if not in Iowa).  If this is even remotely true, it could show that Trump has bigger issues than the bulk of polling have suggested.

State Rep. Christina Bohannan (D-IA)

3. How Important is Iowa?

Before you start having visions of "Harris Wins in a Landslide" dance in your head, I want to give a mild reality check.  First off, it's possible Selzer is an outlier.  She's better than most, but she still can be wrong (though, to be fair, she's never been this wrong if Emerson is accurate).  Secondly, there's also a chance this is mostly an Iowa thing.  Selzer's poll showed that Harris's lead was largely predicated on an over-performance with women voters and with senior citizens, both of which are things we've seen in other polls, but they also could be more pronounced in Iowa due to more local issues and local population (Iowa has a greater percentage of the state being white women and senior citizens than most other states).  Selzer said on MSNBC this morning that the abortion ban going into effect in the summer of 2024 was a big driver in getting women interested in the election.  While Dobbs has had a pronounced effect on voting (more on that in a second), it would be more recent in Iowa, and could be a way for women in the state to punish Republicans to try to overturn the ban.  Additionally, Trump's push for tariffs being a key part of his economic plan is going to go over like a lead balloon in a state like Iowa, where farmers and agricultural businesses are far leerier of tariffs than the average voter.  Both of these are things that are very local to Iowa, and are worth remembering before you start applying this to races in Wisconsin, Indiana, Nebraska, & Michigan (which a lot of people, including me, were doing on social media last night).

And third, Iowa isn't that important to larger presidential math.  Iowa is only worth six electoral votes.  As we've seen with Nevada all year, that's not enough in a chess match to counter Harris's need for Pennsylvania or Trump's need for North Carolina.  While Trump losing it would give Harris more paths (pretty much any path where Nevada was important suddenly becomes clearer), it still puts an undue amount of pressure for her to win big in places like Pennsylvania, Michigan, & Wisconsin.  Where the math is more important is in the House.  Though Selzer didn't poll congressional candidates by name (a crucial thing to note, as that wasn't the case with Harris/Trump), she did show Generic Democrats doing MUCH better in IA-1 and IA-3, and nearly winning in IA-2.  If Democrats Christina Bohannan & Lanon Baccam were to win, Mike Johnson would have to make up those races somewhere else, in a map where he's already bleeding heavily in California & New York.  Put bluntly, I don't see how he loses both of these seats and remains Speaker.

Vice President Kamala Harris (D-CA)

4. Is Harris Being Underestimated?

The bigger question here is one that I've been asking for months-is Harris being underestimated?  We have spent most of the past few weeks seeing virtually identical polls out of all of the seven swing states, which feels absurd that we think all of the seven swing states will be decided by 1-2 points (more on that in a second), but it has to be noted that Selzer isn't totally standing on her own here.  Other prominent pollsters have shown similar results, albeit without the headlines that the Selzer poll demands.  The Docking institute (polling Kansas) showed Trump up by only 5-points there, while Miami University showed Trump up by 3-points in Ohio, and SurveyUSA showed Trump up by 5-points in Maine's second congressional district.  These are races that Trump won by 14, 7, and 7-points respectively.  These races would show Harris gaining ground, not losing it as most of the swing states (and especially the national popular vote surveys) have shown, compared to Biden.

One key question that needs to be asked, and I don't know how to delicately ask it so I'm just going to say it straight out-are pollsters ignoring women?  In 2016 & 2020, pollsters (save for Selzer) frequently underestimated the "Quiet Trump" voters, and in my opinion have been shifting the environment in 2024 (assuming a situation where Republicans outvote Democrats by 2-3 points, which there's not a lot of indication at this point should be the case given Harris voters appear more enthusiastic than Trump voters as we head into Election Day) to counter that, assuming it'll happen a third time.  Given that Democrats have predominantly more support among women, and that (especially white women) have been feeding a lot of the surveys that show Trump losing (specifically the Selzer poll), I do wonder if the polling industry is trying to counter the Quiet Trump voter while at the same time missing the biggest headline of 2024-women are turning out for Harris in a record way.  It is not lost on me that, if this is the case, it will have been caught by Selzer, one of the few prominent women in an industry that is largely populated by men.  Not a great look for the men of the polling industry if they spent the year ignoring women, and only one of their female peers caught what may well appear obvious on Wednesday morning.

Harry Enten

5. Will Herding Hurt the Polling Industry?

The industry has made a point in recent weeks of basically saying the exact same thing-that this is a tied race.  But in an actual tied race, you would see more variety in the polls.  If Trump is actually neck-and-neck in Michigan, you would normally see results where Trump is up by 3-points and down by 4-points, because polling is not a consistent enough industry for this to look so uniform.  When all of the polls are showing the same thing, it implies that the pollsters, not wanting to stray too far from the narrative (or to be wrong) are doing what is known as "herding."  Herding essentially means all pollsters are giving the same results to ensure everyone is wrong in the same way, and everyone has covered their butt.

This is a bad look for polling, and has been called out by political analysts like Nate Silver as "cheating."  If all of the polls are being shifted and shaped so they say the same thing, they largely become worthless.  Pollsters aren't gong to own to that (it looks bad, and makes their data worthless, and puts them out of a job), but the complete lack of outliers from major publications like The New York Times, Fox News, & CNN, particularly countered with Selzer's results, puts up a dilemma.  After so badly screwing up in 2016 & 2020, if Selzer once again calls them out and is the only major pollster to catch a Harris wave, what's the point in the polling industry?  A lot of egg will be on the face of people like Nate Cohn & Harry Enten, who have spent months insisting on a close race in their polls & analysis...if they don't deliver, it's hard to imagine what credibility they'll still have at the end of this cycle.

The Art of the To Do List

Back in the day, we used to do what was called "GTKY Sunday" on the blog, which was a day for me to take a break from movies & politics, and instead put in some time with something else, specifically getting to know your blogger with a list or a bit of trivia.  We did everything from my favorite GTKY questions to my favorite things about each season of the year 

to which holiday has the best candy.  As we're in the final week of the blog, we're having a bit of a throwback to some nostalgic necessities (that is a reference to the most devoted reader of the blog, and the only person to my knowledge who has been here since the beginning), and so I'm going to do one last GTKY Sunday, and we're going to do it by talking about one of my favorite topics: the to do list.

If you're describing me in real life, you'll probably use words like "movies" and "politics" and "travel"...but you'll almost certainly throw out the word "list" into your description.  I am a man of a thousand lists.  I once tried to count all of the lists that I am working on, and it became a bit disconcerting, and possibly something that I should take up with a therapist, so I decided to just keep that information private.  But there are a lot of them, and they are always on the top of my mind.  Not a day goes by where I am not marking off some sort of list as I try to get through & make my mark on my world.

I think the biggest thing that people get hung up on when it comes to do lists is that there is an insane pressure on yourself to complete the lists, and at one point that was something that I struggled with too.  Years ago, I'd look at my to do lists as something daunting, as a sign of failure of what I hadn't done that day.  That feeling can sneak up on me in my weaker moments now, but it's not something that I consider a hallmark of my attitude toward lists, and that's because I try really hard to make sure lists aren't things that are short-term issues.

I don't put things on lists that I do without thinking.  Brushing my teeth, getting eight hours of sleep, catching up on texts...these are things I do naturally & so they aren't duplicative.  But I also make a point of not putting things on lists that are really urgent or that have a deadline in front of them.  My to do lists are almost exclusively things from my personal life-work to do lists function differently, and honestly are more about email maintenance than the art of the list.  Anything that has a deadline attached to it, one where "you have to get it done today" I make a point of just doing-not giving myself time to procrastinate.  The things on my lists are things that I have time to do-that the world isn't going to end if I don't complete it right away.

Lists are also a godsend for a lot of my projects.  Take the Oscar Viewing Project.  This is a gargantuan, multi-decade time investment that it's only possible to finish if you are diligent and constantly keep winnowing your list.  It's not something for the faint-of-heart, and it's something that I need to make a point of knowing how much time I have to achieve it if I actually want to complete it.  All of my movie & book lists, in fact, are stored in a running Excel document where I check everything off and know exactly how much time I have left.  I recently finished the DisneyNature films (see my Letterboxd for rankings), and am working toward seeing all the AFI 100 Passions sooner-than-later.  I have a pretty high bar at this point to get onto my movie/books lists (we sadly don't get to choose when we leave this mortal coil, but I do actually want to finish all of these lists before I do, so I am critical at expanding already an Everest of a group of projects), but when it's on the list...it becomes a part of my daily routine to ensure it happens.

Otherwise, the big thing I do with lists is break them up into daily, monthly, yearly, & lifetime to do lists.  The daily is simple-it's stuff that I just want to do around the house, errands I need to run or things I need to fix & appointments for which I need to do prep work.  I am a single homeowner, and so while this might seem a tad indulgent, it's honestly the only way that I keep track of anything.  It is very easy with no one else in your house to do the bare minimum, but that's not what I want out of life, so I make a point of doing more than that.  

Monthly is larger-term projects.  It can range from "cleaning all of the weeds out of the backyard rocks" to moving all of my OVP ballots to Letterboxd (not a hypothetical one-I plan on continuing to do the OVP on Letterboxd after the blog is retired, so if you're devoted to that make sure & follow me).  Like how the daily goals are not meant to get finished every day (that would be impossible), the monthly ones are really more a guide for the month, and mostly my goal is to end with less than I ended the previous month with rather than trying to get rid of everything on it.  

The yearly is different.  This is a longer process, one that I do in June for my birthday, and I call it the "30 @ lists," where I pick thirty things I want to be true about my life a year from now.  They are almost always things that are going to take time, potentially a full year, and the intent is to truly do them all even though I've never actually been successful in that (my second goal is to always make at least some progress on all of them...that I generally do).  They are built off of my bucket list.  This is a real list (not one I speak of in the abstract), one that I made the day I turned 25, and the intent here is to finish all of it before I die.  Since that's not a day I know, I am always trying to pluck things from it since I do truly want to complete it, and usually finish at least 1-2 things a year off of it.  The bucket list is intentionally grand-the Oscar Viewing Project, for example, is just one item on it-but that's because it's a lifetime list.  It's supposed to be filled with true accomplishments.

This all sounds daunting (or possibly certifiable), but it's honestly something we all do.  We all have our ways of getting through the world...just for me, it's something that I like having written down.  Organization is my hallmark, and as long as you ensure the lists are a source of inspiration (not a crutch or a source of constant obligation), which is how I operate, they can be a useful tool for achieving your dreams.

Election Night Guide: Ohio through Texas

I am doing a final predictions series for the November 5th general elections.  If you've missed previous articles, they're listed right here: Alabama-Arkansas, California-Hawaii, Idaho-Louisiana, Maine-Montana, Nebraska-North Dakota

(Note: I'll be doing commentary on every race for Governor & Senate regardless of level-of-competitiveness.  I'll only do mentions for the House if I assume it'll be competitive in some way-if the House race isn't listed, I'm assuming an easy hold for the incumbent party)

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH)

Ohio

President: At one point in time, the biggest question in American politics every presidential cycle was "who would win Ohio?"  From LBJ in 1964 through Donald Trump in 2016, the state correctly voted with the victor of the electoral college every single time.  But like so many things in American politics, Donald Trump smashed that too, and while Trump might win the electoral college, it won't be because Ohio is a bellwether...it'll be because it's a red state.

Senate: Which brings us to the most consequential Senate election on the map.  Most pundits have given up on the prospect of the Democrats winning back the Senate, because trying to hold at least two of the three Democrats in Trump 2020 states is just too hard.  But a lot have been willing to buy that the left might hold one of the seats, and that would be Ohio's.  Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) has run a remarkable campaign, and was helped by the Republicans putting up a lousy candidate (businessman Bernie Moreno, who initially ran for the Senate in 2022 but dropped out at Donald Trump's behest).  Brown has led in most public polling, and if polling was the only thing I was going by, I would be predicting him.  But Moreno is closing very well, and while Brown is above 50% in some matchups...I've been to this dance too many times before not to be jaded.  I'm going to predict an upset and for Ohio to go R+1.  If I am wrong, it may not matter in 2024 for the majority, but I suspect it will matter in 2026 or 2028, which are much easier maps for the Democrats to gain a seat or two, and Brown will provide buffer to Ron Johnson/Susan Collins.

House: In Ohio, there are essentially two races that merit interest (I think Greg Landsman is unbeatable in a presidential year given he's in a Biden 8-point district).  The first is Emilia Sykes (D), who is running in a Biden 3-point district near Akron.  Sykes is a first-term incumbent, but she's still an incumbent in a district that Harris should hold...I don't think she's ultimately at risk, though the Democrats are wise to invest here.  The second seat is Rep. Marcy Kaptur's in Toledo.  Kaptur is the longest-serving woman in congressional history, but is running in a red district (Trump won it by 3-points).  I think Kaptur should be fine; the Republicans seem to have given up on beating her in the same way that Democrats have Brian Fitzpatrick, and her opponent is weak by comparison.  It's worth noting that if Issue 1 passes in Ohio, it will mean the gerrymandered Buckeye State will have much fairer maps in 2026; if that happens, (assuming they win) Kaptur & Sykes will have easier races in 2026, and the Ohio congressional delegation will inevitably get bluer.

Oklahoma

President: There is a real possibility that Kamala Harris does something in Oklahoma that Joe Biden didn't in 2000-take Oklahoma County.  This has become something of a David-and-Goliath story for Sooner State Democrats that ultimately won't matter (Trump will win the state), but the Republican Mayor of Oklahoma City endorsed for a reason-one of the few states where Biden couldn't carry a single county (West Virginia was the other) could have a touch of blue in 2024.

State Rep. Janelle Bynum (D-OR)

Oregon

President: The cavalry will come in on the West Coast for Harris, as all three of our contiguous West Coast states will be blue.  The question will be if they will be enough by that point in the night.

House: In 2022, the DCCC royally-screwed up in the final days, abandoning the clearly winnable 5th district of Oregon (in my opinion) because it featured Jamie McLeod-Skinner, a two-time loser at that point who had beaten an incumbent Democrat in the primaries, and the DCCC didn't want to waste money on a race they could get someone they wanted more in 2024.  That likely resulted in a Dem House loss in 2022, but it does mean that the DCCC could get their wish in 2024.  McLeod-Skinner ran in the primary but lost badly (now she's a four-time loser), and was beaten by Janelle Bynum, a State Representative from the district who has beaten incumbent Republican Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer in two past contests for the State House.  Chavez-DeRemer was always going to be an underdog given Biden won this (admittedly gerrymandered) district that includes parts of blue Portland & Bend by 9-points, but against Bynum...she's a goner. D+1

Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA)

Pennsylvania

President: We are getting to what was, initially, the single most important state and indeed, Pennsylvania will be hallowed ground on election night even if I kind of think the "tipping point" state has shifted in recent weeks (in polls, vibes, and early voting numbers) to being another Blue Wall State (Wisconsin).  That said, this is a very important state, one that both sides have sunk an ungodly half a billion dollars into as of October 24th (and don't think the money train stopped after that was released to the press).  The big question here is around how Trump flips the state in a way that he couldn't in 2020.  That likely means getting more votes out of the redder parts of the state (something the Harris campaign, with the help of Sen. John Fetterman in particular, is trying to counter), but it also means he can't hemorrhage too many more votes around the Philadelphia suburbs.  The problem is that the suburbs like Harris, and they don't want four more years of Trump.  I'll be real-Pennsylvania is the state that I think points out the most clearly how partisanship was never going to be enough for Biden to get a win, as I don't think that he would've won here against Trump even though it'd be close...but I think that Kamala Harris will.  This will be tight (it won't be called on Election Day), but I will be predicting Harris to win the Keystone State in 2024, the most important state for her electoral college math.

Senate: Sen. Bob Casey (D) has seen his margin against Dave McCormick (R) slim since August.  This was inevitable in an era of no ticket splitting, and where Republicans have thrown gargantuan sums of money to help McCormick take down the popular Casey.  But Casey should outrun Harris by (at least) a few points, and if I'm predicting Harris to win, he will take it, I will confess by a smaller margin than I would've assumed this summer.

House: A couple things to get out of the way.  I think Chris Deluzio (17th) and Susan Wild (7th) are fine, even if Wild in particular will be in a close race that might not be called until the day after the election.  I actually think Republican Brian Fitzpatrick (who won by 10-points in 2022 in a 5-point Biden district) will be closer than we expect given the increased partisanship in the United States right now, but he will also win at the end of the day.  The two contests that I'm genuinely curious about are the 8th and 10th.  The 8th features Rep. Matt Cartwright (D), a moderate who pulled off a slim victory in this Trump +3 district in 2022.  Cartwright has been able to stop the clock a few times now, but you can't outrun partisanship forever, and this district is not going to go for Harris on Election Day.  On the flip side, the 10th district is going to stay with Trump (he won it by 4-points in 2020), but Rep. Scott Perry (R) has attracted so much controversy, and as the only member of the Freedom Caucus to be in a truly competitive race, this is a victory Democrats want badly so they can prove you can beat MAGA Republicans on their own turf.  It's also worth noting that newscaster Janelle Stelson (D) has run one of the best campaigns of the cycle against Perry.  I flirted with tossing out both Cartwright & Perry (I think they're both vulnerable), but I'm going to go with the safe answer since I can't decide which to guess goes down, and assume neither loses.

Rhode Island

President: The Ocean State's four electoral votes will be appropriately blue for Kamala Harris.

Senate: Another one of those Senate elections where you have to double check if there's a race, and indeed Sheldon Whitehouse will get a fourth term in a few days.

South Carolina

President: Despite Georgia to the South & North Carolina to the North flirting with blue status, South Carolina proves that the East Coast is not becoming the West Coast-it will stay very red.

South Dakota

President: Kristi Noem will deliver Donald Trump three more electoral votes in the Mount Rushmore State (let's just hope she doesn't have to hurt any dogs to do it).

Tennessee

President: The Volunteer State is too rural for Harris numbers in Memphis & Nashville to counteract it.  If the Democrats get a trifecta, though, I would assume gerrymandering legislation would have an impact on Tennessee long-term in the House, as their congressional delegation with only one Democrat is a crime.

Senate: Sen. Marsha Blackburn should beat State Sen. Gloria Johnson (one of the famed Tennessee Three) handily, but I have to applaud Johnson for being a real candidate running in a red seat against someone as heinous as Blackburn.  We need more of that.

Rep. Colin Allred (D-TX)

Texas

President: This is probably the last presidential election for a while where we won't see significant amounts of money spent by both sides on winning the White House in Texas.  Biden only lost this state by 6-points, and there is a very real possibility that Harris could match (or even beat) that.  The national environment (and in particular Biden's unpopularity) make an upset in 2024 unlikely here, but I would assume in 2028 both sides will start to spend real cash in the Lone Star State.

Senate: Kamala Harris wasn't wasting her time in Houston just to see Beyonce...she just wasn't there for herself.  I have complained a few times in these articles about the DCCC not spending enough cash for my taste in some key races.  The DSCC is not immune to criticism, though, and that should be levied in Texas.  While they are shoveling millions into races like Maryland & Arizona (which are not flipping), they have ignored Texas, where Rep. Colin Allred (D) is in a close race against Sen. Ted Cruz (R).  Cruz is favored, and I will be predicting him, but I want to point out that Allred has positioned himself as a real counter option, and could get just as close as Beto O'Rourke's surprisingly impressive 2018 run.  Chuck Schumer has to start opening up more states-he cannot put the pressure on the 2020 Biden states to deliver all of his majority, especially in a world with Susan Collins & Ron Johnson.  Texas is the place to do that-he should've invested harder here even if he knew it was a longshot.

House: Three quick notes.  I do not anticipate that Democratic Reps. Henry Cuellar (28th) and Vicente Gonzalez (34th) are going to be vulnerable, but Harris will win these seats by a smaller margin than Biden did (possibly by a lot smaller), and so I would watch these even though they should be fine.  On the flip side, Rep. Monica de la Cruz (15th) is in a rematch in a district Trump barely won in 2020, but again...she should be fine, I'd just have this on your radar.

What If: Lost Edition

(If you've never seen the television series Lost from beginning to end, proceed with caution as spoilers abound)

As I mentioned earlier this week, I finished up a recent viewing of Lost, and while I could've just left it at a recap, I was feeling ambitious, and while I'm feeling ambitious I thought...why not do something a little wild to close the Lost chapter of the blog?  So we're going to combine franchises.  The What If TV series is one of the lesser-discussed aspects of the MCU, but if you look at my collection of comic books, you'll find that it is the most prominently-featured title.  That's because I loved the What If comic books as a kid.  Unlike the TV series, they were more-than-willing to play with stakes.  The TV show frequently will make characters you love into ones that you learn to hate, because it's a parallel universe, but the TV series, seeing only dollar signs at risk, doesn't play that way.  But there was potential here, particularly in a world like Lost where we have time travel, and multiple key character deaths that lead to a lot of very specific outcomes.  I know Daniel Faraday would warn me against such things, but I want to understand-what would happen if we could change the plot of the show?

I'm going to explore below ten very plausible shifts in the plot, and what would've happened as a result of them.  You will notice a few things missing.  First, I'm focusing on the entirety of the show, but given the long-term impact there's very little from the show's final two seasons in terms of set-up because there's not that much to run-on.  I think there's a world where, for example, Jack not breaking the Lighthouse mirrors might have given him more information, or letting Sayid die rather than become infected may have saved a lot more lives in total...but there's so little room to play with there.  I also don't list deaths that (in the larger run) aren't consequential to the plot of the show.  Boone, Shannon, & Juliet, specifically, don't really change the trajectory of the program.  The first two were on so little that it's hard to know how getting rid of them might've altered the future, and the latter would've just made Sawyer want to leave more, but I can't really think of anything in the final season that Sawyer would've done differently if Juliet was alive.  No, the ten things I have listed below are all things that I think would've actually changed the show's outcome if you shifted what happened, and so they're more fun to ponder.

1. What if...Hurley Had Remembered the Blanket?

Previously on Lost: As you may recall, in Season 2, Hurley wants to go on a romantic date with Libby, with a picnic on the beach.  However, Hurley forgets the blanket, which causes Libby to go back to the Hatch to retrieve them.  In the process, she is Michael's second murder victim when he kills her & Ana Lucia while breaking out Ben in exchange for Walt.

What Happened Next: In this scenario, we still have Ben out, Ana Lucia dead, and Michael tasked with bringing Kate, Sawyer, Jack, & Hurley to the Others in a trick.  Libby being alive & well throws a pretty big wrench into this plan, though.  First, Libby's death was the whole reason that Hurley went to the Others camp, as revenge for what they did to him.  Without that, it's hard to see a world where Hurley goes with Michael.  He wouldn't want to be avenged & Libby (knowing what a fragile state Hurley is in after the "Dave" episode), is going to fight back on that too.  It's entirely possible that Michael will either have to force Hurley to go (giving up his cover), or (more likely) he only takes the other three, in which case he might not get Walt back as Hurley is crucial so the castaways know that their people have been kidnapped.  We are also in a situation where if Libby lives, she knows Desmond (she gave him her boat), and we would have an opening into her very mysterious backstory, and establishing a clear connection to Charles Widmore as many Lost fans have wondered if she was his connection to the Oceanic 815 crash.

2. What if...Locke Didn't Blow Up the Hatch?

Previously on Lost: Completely devoid of his faith, while Ben destroyed his confidence & made him feel inferior to Jack, Locke decides that his destiny is to destroy the Hatch, rather than to push a button every 108 minutes.  Despite the protestations of Charlie, Desmond, & Mr. Eko, Locke succeeds in blowing up the Hatch, causing it to explode and triggering basically the entire rest of the show, including Locke's continued sense of self-discovery and doubt.

What Happened Next: So in this scenario, two things stand out to me as crucial.  First, the castaways never really used the Hatch for what it's most obvious use could be-they didn't use it as a safe zone.  In the coming season, the biggest issue for the castaways is that they don't have protection (think of the "Flaming Arrow Attack" in Season 5).  The Hatch is hard to break into, they have tons of guns, and it has shelter, a pantry, & running water; there's a real possibility that they could've used it in future seasons as a base camp that the Others would struggle to use against them.  Secondly, the Incident is probably impossible without the Hatch exploding, which would mean the entire team would stay in the 1970's indefinitely (which would totally throw off the sixth season to the point of not really having an ending to the show but would definitely result in Daniel & Juliet staying alive), and would result in the Man in Black theoretically destroying the world...unless the aged versions of themselves in 2004 decide to buy a ticket on Oceanic Flight 815 themselves, which would've been a completely crazy ending.

3. What if...Ana Lucia had killed Ben?

Previously on Lost: In season two, Ana Lucia spends a large amount of her time guarding Ben, who at that point is going by the guise of Henry & staying in the locked cell in the Hatch.  They have multiple encounters, some violent, and securing his freedom becomes crucial enough for the Others that they send in Michael, who ends up killing Ana Lucia.

What Happened Next: Given the demons she's working through, it's totally plausible that Ana Lucia, at some point in a violent rage, kills Ben, either by accident or on purpose, the consequences be damned.  This would be huge as Ben was an enormous factor in the final seasons of the show.  Without Ben, there's no one around who knows how to move the Island, so the Kahana crew get to the shore and either kill everyone on the Island (or the casataways kill them back...either way a lot is going down).  Walt & Michael are stuck on the Island because they have no bartering power, and the Others are listless without an obvious leader.  Potentially in this case Juliet is able to get off the Island before anything goes down (as the Hatch hasn't blown up yet), and honestly most of the incidents in the final season never actually happen.  It's worth noting that this isn't the only way Ben dies-had the castaways realized right away that Michael was lying, he probably is killed by Jack or John at that point...Ben escaping death was a huge part of the show, and he did it twice in his first season.

4. What if...They'd Gone Back to the Statue Right Away?

Previously on Lost: At the end of Season 2, when Michael is leading Kate, Jack, Hurley, & Sawyer through the jungle, there is a side adventure happening where Sayid, Sun, & Jin are on Desmond's boat, and are trying to navigate to find the Others.  During this time frame, they come across a giant statue of a foot with four toes on a beach.  Though this becomes a key supporting player later as we learn its connection to Jacob, none of these three ever actually talk about it again, and before we realize its connection to Jacob it's only referenced once more (during the time flashes when it's seen by Juliet, Sawyer, & Miles).

What Happened Next: This is one of the few times in the series I genuinely think they left a major plot gap because they didn't know what to do.  The statue is important because it's the home of Jacob.  Though Jacob is seemingly all-knowing, he does appear to be something of a mortal man (he eats, he can be killed), so there's a real possibility if they went to the statue again, they would've met him.  Whether or not Jacob could be trusted or not, imagine what a difference knowing who Jacob was would mean in Season 3, that he is a real person, and that Ben is faking his connection with him would've destroyed his relationship with the Others, and would've also changed the course of John's life.  In general, though, the lack of curiosity about the island itself (that they didn't explore at all-only Sayid even bothered to try) always felt weird to me.  What if there was a Holiday Inn on this island that they had totally missed?!?

5. What if Edward Mars had lived?

Previously on Lost: Edward Mars, for those who are wondering who I'm talking about, is the guy in the picture next to this question (makes sense).  In Season 1, and throughout the series in flashback, he is the FBI agent that is assigned to track down Kate, and is taking her back to LA and prison in the pilot episode.  He is clearly going to die from injuries sustained in the crash, but that is exacerbated when he is shot by Sawyer (at Kate's bequest), and Jack ends up euthanizing him.

What Happened Next: Obviously there's a world where Mars doesn't die, simply where he gets out of the plane crash with only some scrapes & bruises.  In this world, the biggest question is what happens to Kate's storyline.  I think Mars staying alive adds a dimension that honestly wasn't really on the show.  Jack was meant to be the morality police in the first season, but Mars (in flashback) is shown to be a more ruthless, authoritarian figure that honestly wouldn't be a thing until later (with someone like Ana Lucia).  He would've outed Kate as a murderer, making her initially a pariah, but I honestly think much of his problem would've been butting up against Sawyer & Jack, as one would be too criminal for him, and the latter being too moral in his attitude toward the Others and handling figures that disobeyed like Sawyer, Kate, & Locke.  I don't think Mars would've eventually made it to the end, as characters like this never survive long (he would've had no obvious allies), but he would've added an element to the story that definitely wasn't there in the first season.

6. What if Mr. Eko had lived?

Previously on Lost: Mr. Eko was one of the "Tailies" and while fans of the show hated some of the Tailies (Ana Lucia, Bernard had his detractors), pretty much everyone welcomed Mr. Eko into the fold.  The enigmatic former priest, whose back story led to one of Season 2's best episodes (The 23rd Psalm) was ultimately written out of the show early in Season 3, when real-life actor Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje wanted to be written out of the show, as he did not like living in Hawaii.

What Happened Next: The writers have been very clear that they had a five-season plan for Eko, so it's worth pondering what it might've been.  I suspect that Eko would've taken on some combination of roles from either Locke or Ben given this was already written.  It's easy to see Locke, a man constantly struggling with his faith, transferring some of his moments of doubt (or misguided certainty) onto Eko, an actual priest who struggled with his faith.  It also would've been easy for Ben, who was manipulated by the Man in Black into both killing Jacob AND following his orders for years, into transferring that power-of-persuasion to Eko, given that Eko thought the Smoke Monster was actually his brother Remy.  I would assume this would've coalesced his power over the Castaways faster, and maybe have made the Man in Black genuinely successful in getting off of the island.

7. What If Both Sides of the Plane Landed in the Same Spot?

Previously on Lost: A major part of Season 2 of Lost is that we find out that the tail section of the plane had some survivors.  Sawyer,  Michael, & Jin are trapped by them before they confirm that they are, in fact, who they say they are, and then they go across the jungle to rejoin the front-of-the-plane.  But, of course, there's the possibility that the plane doesn't split (but still crashes), and the Tailies are part of the original castaways the entire time.

What Happened Next: Weirdly, a lot of things shift with this move.  For starters, you get a few characters that live automatically here.  Cindy is harder to kidnap in this scenario, and Ethan probably never joins the castaways at all because Ben would be likelier to want to punish Goodwin than Ethan.  We also don't have Shannon dead in this scenario, because she was killed by Ana Lucia traipsing through the jungle.  Perhaps most importantly, it changes the dynamics of a few key figures.  Ana Lucia is granted less power here, which would mean that Nathan probably lives (and if he's a member of Charles Widmore's crew, we'd find out) since calmer heads like Jack & Sayid would prevail, and Libby & Hurley's relationship would start earlier.  I think it's also probable that the war with the Others comes much sooner, as all of the castaways together would be far more formidable against them.  Honestly-this speeds up pretty much every timeline...it's lucky for Widmore & the Others that this didn't happen as both of their plans become a problem in this scenario.

8. What if the Castaways Found The Pearl before finding The Swan?

Previously on Lost: The Pearl Station, which is an observation center where you can see all of the other stations on the island, is first discovered by Nikki & Paulo, but they don't go into it or discuss it with anyone else.  It is also walked over by Boone & Locke, but during that time frame Boone dies, which becomes the more pressing matter, and later that night Locke finally sees the light in the Hatch.  The castaways (in this case Locke & Mr. Eko) don't actually go into the Pearl station until late in season two, where it causes John to lose faith in the button itself.

What Happened Next: Here's the deal-this is maybe the biggest shift in the story of any of these questions because it likely leads to completely different stories for all involved.  For starters, let's assume that the actual discovery of the Pearl takes place with Locke & Boone, that they discover it before Boone goes into the Beechcraft.  In this scenario, Boone lives, adding a new element and ally for John for the rest of the series, and also the castaways learn about not only Desmond & the Flame (Mikhael's station), but if the cameras still work, the Tail section survivors as I would assume (it's hard to tell upon rewatch, but it'd be logical) that you could see into the Arrow from here.  This would give the castaways a vast upper-hand in the story.  They could retrieve the rest of the Oceanic survivors pretty quickly from the Arrow once they ascertained where it was, and know to look for both the Flame & the Swan before the Swan exploded, which would result in them being able to communicate with the outside world the same way the Others had been doing.  Keep in mind that this all happens after Ethan is dead, but before Walt is kidnapped, a rare gap in the story where they'd have the complete upper-hand over Ben without realizing it.

9. What if the Writers Never Went on Strike?

Previously on Lost: Season 4 of Lost was considerably shorter than the previous seasons.  This was both by design (from my understanding, they had already negotiated with the series' creators that there would be less episodes than the previous three seasons), and because of the 2007-08 writer's strike that caused the season to be trimmed.  The original 16 episodes were shortened to a 13 episode run, which means for fans of Lost, they were unable to see the three episodes that were cut from the series.

What Happened Next: In terms of practical impact, there's nothing really happening here-the Lost main plot from my understanding was just moved up, rather than altered dramatically as a result of the cuts (this is not the same thing as the alleged inclusion of a volcano explosion in Season 6, which was cut because ABC wouldn't approve the budget).  Some will argue that they were cheated out of only two episodes due to the studios not paying the writers enough, though I doubt that (I would assume "There's No Place Like Home" would've just been shorter, rather than getting an extra hour of runtime like what happened in reality).  The show's creators have never outright stated exactly how they would've planned these three episodes, but the consensus from interviews/panel discussions is that we would've gotten a Charlotte-centric episode, one that talked about her background, and an additional Ben-centric episode that would've been focused on more of Ben's personal life, including the reappearances of both Harper & Annie, two Others that felt like they didn't have resolution on the Island.  The third episode's central character isn't clear, but it seems to have either been focused on Michael & Libby (who both had small roles in Season 4) coming to terms with Libby's death and/or Danielle & Alex Rousseau having some sort of reunion (possibly in the Ben-centric episode).  Here's the deal-none of this really impacts the larger plot, but in all of these cases they are answers to questions that were clearly glossed over on the show, and it would've been nice (especially with Annie & Charlotte) to get some answers.  So it doesn't change the plot, but it does change the show and provide some of the rare questions they truly left unanswered from the series.

10. What if the Oceanic Six Hadn't Returned?

Previously on Lost: When the Island disappears, there were six survivors of Oceanic 815 (Jack, Kate, Sun, Hurley, Sayid, & Aaron), along with Desmond & Frank, that lived and were proclaimed "the Oceanic Six" by the press.  All six of these figures during Seasons 4 & 5 were seen back in their real lives, but in many cases (with Jack especially), they struggled to survive, and had a need to eventually go back to the island.  In the end, five of them (save for Aaron) returned to the Island, along with Ben & Ilana, and set off the events of Season 6.

What Happened Next: There's by my estimation two really big variables that could've happened here that might've changed the course of the Oceanic 6.  The most obvious one is if it'd been the Oceanic 7.  A few minutes of delay, and Jin would've been on that helicopter, and Sun & Jin both make it back.  It's hard to imagine the two of them returning for the rest of the people they left behind in that scenario given they have a child.  The second is Kate-at that point in the story, Kate could've been pregnant with Sawyer's baby (they even hint, to a degree, that this is the case at the beginning of "Eggtown"), just like Sun had gotten pregnant...a pregnant Kate would've made the Aaron story impossible (and quite frankly, would've made her trial scenes more believable), but she almost certainly doesn't leave to go back.  Let's keep in mind that Hurley had to be prodded by Jacob to return, and Sayid does not return of his own accord (he's arrested and brought back by Ilana against his will).  Without the true Oceanic Six...would they have even crashed the Ajira flight?  Then again, as we found out with Desmond, if the Island wants you back...it'll find a way to get you back.  Perhaps a pregnant Kate or a reunited Jin & Sun would've still been on that plane because that's what fate had decided.