I want to commend to your attention this article from Nate Cohn at the Times. It looks at the weak point for the NYT-Siena poll, and, indeed, many other polls this election cycle. In short, Donald Trump’s current lead is heavily focused on people who didn’t vote in 2020 and tend not to vote in general. They tend not to follow politics closely or pay much attention to traditional news sources. This isn’t new to our discussion. It’s sort of the internal anatomy of the gap between polls of registered voters and likely voters.

This is a fairly big deal. It has always struck me as inherently unlikely that what many suspect will be a relatively low turnout election (relative to recent cycles) will be determined by voters who tend not to vote and didn’t vote in 2020 — voters who, in this election, are supporting Trump in greater numbers. It’s not impossible. But it’s hard to figure. And this is what Trump’s current lead in most polls is based on. To be clear, this isn’t some hidden defect in the NYT-Siena poll or Cohn’s earlier logic. He’s discussed this issue throughout. And this article today focuses on it.

We have our first arrest tied to the vigilante attacks on the UCLA Gaza encampment on April 30th. In some ways it illustrates how slow and incremental the process has been. The arrestee is an 18-year-old high schooler named Edan On. He appears to be either Israeli or Israeli-American. I base this in part on his name but more on the fact that his identity was originally uncovered in part by his mother’s boasting about his role in the attack in Hebrew on Facebook. (Many American Jews know some Hebrew, or even a lot of Hebrew. But they don’t tend to use it as a casual posting language on social media unless they’re from Israel or have a family background in Israel.)

Below I noted that one obvious way to steal the election for Republicans, if we have a 270-268 Biden win, is to reallocated Biden’s (probable) Nebraska elector to Trump. But TPM Readers ED and JP noted that when Republicans tried to change the law in advance, Maine Democrats made clear they’d do the same to even the score. I didn’t realize they’d been so public about it. But it’s very good that they did. Changing the law in advance is very different from illegally doing it after the fact. But this gives me some confidence that if Nebraska Republicans tried this and got SCOTUS to say it was okay then Maine would say “count us in too.” As they should. Still worth keeping an eye on. But this gives me a bit more peace of mind.

I’ve had various readers tell me that I’m saying people shouldn’t be worried about the presidential election. That’s not true at all. I want people to have a realistic sense of the situation and I want people, for lack of a better word, to worry productively. But along these lines, I wanted to mention something that legit worries me. I think we all know that there’s a high likelihood of post-election shenanigans and potentially things much worse than shenanigans, especially if Joe Biden wins but wins narrowly. But there’s one scenario that particularly has my attention.

Let me walk you through it.

Gov. Kristi Noem has reacted to most of the criticism she’s received for executing her dog Cricket and lying about a meeting with North Korea’s paramount leader Kim Jung Un by saying city folk just don’t know the rural folkways of South Dakota. But it turns out Noem’s dog murdering ways are taking a toll on her support in South Dakota too. A new poll shows her job approval has dipped significantly since the Cricket imbroglio, now only just over 50% (52.2%). That’s down from an April poll which had her at 59%. And her favorability rating — which looks at personal qualities rather than job performance — is clearly in negative territory. 48% unfavorable and only 38.6% favorable.

And then there’s the big question: Was Noem justified in shooting cricket in the face just because the dog was a bit of a spaz and didn’t turn in a good performance on her first hunting outing?