News Reporter: The Daily 202: The 2016 map might look just like the 2012 map, but this election could still foretell a realignment

The 2016 map might look just like the 2012 map, but this election could still foretell a realignment

Donald Trump campaigns yesterday in Scranton, Pa. (Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

With Breanne Deppisch

THE BIG IDEA: John McCain's final stops to close out the 2008 campaign were in New Mexico and Colorado. George W. Bush, garnering 44 percent of the Latino vote, had carried both in 2004. Barack Obama, meanwhile, visited Indiana on Election Day eight years ago, which he subsequently won. The Democratic nominee that year also spent time during the final stretch in Missouri, which he lost by fewer than 4,000 votes out of 2.9 million cast (that's 0.13 percent).

If Donald Trump wins today, and he still could, his path to the presidency will go through the Midwest. In a reflection of how the political terrain has changed in just two presidential elections, the Republican nominee is almost certain to lose New Mexico and Colorado but win Indiana and Missouri with no real effort. The states likeliest to move into the Republican column are Iowa and Ohio.

While McCain wrote off Michigan in September, and Mitt Romney never made a real play for his home state, Trump has devoted significant attention there lately. At 12:30 a.m., he took the stage in Grand Rapids for the final rally of his campaign.

Tightening polls forced Hillary Clinton to travel twice to Michigan in the final four days, in addition to her husband and President Obama. Worried about lagging African American turnout in Detroit, the Democratic nominee tried to appeal to moderate whites in western Michigan by invoking Gerald Ford during an appearance in his old House district. "I was privileged to know, as a college student, Gerald Ford," she said in Grand Rapids, a few hours before Trump arrived. "In fact I had an internship with the House Republican Conference Committee, which he headed, after my junior year in college."

Working-class whites have also helped Trump close the gap in Wisconsin, which he visited last week, and they are why his team has (totally misguided) hope for an upset in Minnesota.

-- Trump's center of gravity during the primaries was somewhere in the South. His base during the general has been the Rust Belt, where voters tend to be older and whiter than the country as a whole. Millions of folks in this sprawling region, buffeted by decades of deindustrialization, feel left behind. They have proven especially receptive to someone preaching the easy answers of nationalism, protectionism and isolationism.

Obama introduces HRC at Independence Mall in Philadelphia last night. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

-- The Clinton campaign recognized pretty early that Pennsylvania needed to be its firewall and behaved accordingly. The Keystone State has proven to be a siren song for Republicans since George H.W. Bush won in 1988. Bush 43 came very close in 2004. Romney made a quixotic, 11th-hour visit four years ago but basically invested no resources and lost by 5.4 points. It will probably be closer this year.

This is why Clinton devoted time yesterday to the population centers of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. She held a huge rally in Philly last night with Bill and both Obamas. She is going to underperform in the western parts of the state but remains favored to ultimately prevail if African Americans show up in the City of Brotherly Love and moderates break her way in the collar counties, which are decidedly not part of the Rust Belt.

-- Despite the shift in the battlegrounds over the last decade, it is completely conceivable that the electoral map tonight might wind up looking eerily like it did in 2012. In fact, Trump is likelier than not to end up with more electoral votes than Romney -- thanks to the Hawkeye State, as well as perhaps the Buckeye and Sunshine States. Because Mitt lost all three, North Carolina is really the only state which could turn blue.

There was a laser show at SNHU Arena as Trump came on stage in Manchester last night. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

-- In a testament to how polarized the country has become, there are not landslides anymore. Lyndon Johnson won 44 states in 1964 (everywhere outside the Deep South and Barry Goldwater's home state of Arizona). Richard Nixon won everywhere but Massachusetts in 1972. Ronald Reagan won everywhere but Minnesota in 1984. Bill Clinton carried 32 states in 1992 and 31 states in 1996. In the best case scenario for Hillary tonight, if she "runs the table," she will win no more than 28 states.

-- Assuming the election turns out as the polls and the models forecast, many Republican leaders will downplay the results. Party apparatchiks will blame Trump and the exogenous circumstances he created.

Indeed, this was a very winnable election: History was on their side. If anyone but Trump was the nominee, there would never have been any buzz about Utah being in play. Independent Evan McMullin would not have run.

It stands to reason that future nominees will not do as poorly among college-educated white women again. Mitt Romney carried this group by six points, but the most recent polling has Trump -- who more than a dozen women have accused of sexual assault – trailing Clinton by 27 points.

Trump's allies will say, if they lose, that the outcome might have been different had members of the establishment such as the Bushes, Romney and Ohio Gov. John Kasich stuck with him.

RNC leaders insist that they will not produce another autopsy, as they did after 2012, because there is no need to. (The old report makes for good reading and still applies, considering how few of the 219 recommendations were followed.)

The crowd watches Clinton speak in September at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute's annual gala in Washington. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

-- Just saying the overall map is static is overly simplistic analysis that misses some pretty profound changes happening under the surface. (It also misses the fact that an unchanged map from 2012 would mean permanent minority status for Republicans.) Until James Comey's bombshell October surprise, which brought recalcitrant Republicans home to Trump, Clinton was making a meaningful play to expand the map – namely with a major investment in Arizona.

-- All evidence suggests that the Latino sleeping giant really is finally waking up. This will make it harder for Republicans to win in Western states that were strongholds not long ago.

Early voting numbers suggest that Nevada, which Bush 43 carried twice, has probably slipped away from Trump – and that will cost Republicans the chance to pick up Harry Reid's Senate seat.

Colorado has not been a true toss up since the beginning of the general election phase of the campaign, and Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet is coasting to reelection.

Of the eight states that have Hispanic populations larger than the national average, Trump is only certain to win Texas. Trump could still win Florida narrowly, but that's only because around two-thirds of the electorate is white.

Less than one in 10 Republican voters in 2012 were non-white, and that number could actually be lower in 2016. There are still lots and lots of white people in America – enough, in fact, to win Trump this election – but their share of the electorate will only continue to decline:

Many hombres, as Trump derisively referred to Mexican immigrants at the last debate, are turning out for the first time. The University of Florida's Daniel Smith calculated that 36 percent of Hispanics who cast early ballots in 2016 did not vote in 2012. Democrats finished early voting with at least an 88,000-vote lead in Florida because of historic turnout in Miami-Dade and Broward. "If Clinton wins Florida — and therefore the presidential race — it will be on the strength of these two urban counties," Politico's Marc Caputo notes.

A Clinton strategist told me over the weekend that strong turnout from the burgeoning Latino population in North Carolina might actually offset some of the potential softness among African Americans.

This is only going to become a bigger deal. The number of Hispanics eligible to vote is poised to rise from something like 25 million now to 40 million by 2030. Nine in 10 Hispanics under age 18 are born in the United States and will thus be legally eligible to vote.

Keep an eye on Trump's margin of victory in the Lone Star State. It will certainly be less than the 16 points Romney won by.

At 3:38 a.m. this morning, Hillary and Bill Clinton got off the plane together in White Plains, New York. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

-- The upper South is also no longer reliably Republican. Obama was the first Democrat to win Virginia since LBJ. The growth of the D.C. suburbs in Northern Virginia has made that state harder for Republicans to win.

The changing face of North Carolina is going to ensure that it remains a purple state going forward, even if Trump wins and despite the big GOP gains of the past three cycles. "In 2008, a little more than half of the voters were born in-state and Obama was defeated among that group; he won by taking those that had moved to North Carolina," Al Hunt observes in a column for Bloomberg. "This year, more than half of the electorate will be voters who've moved to the state, and a good percentage will be college-educated. Both characteristics advantage Democrats." (Check out a cool breakdown of the Tar Heel State from our graphics team.)

For a moment, it looked like Georgia might even come onto the map this year. It did not, but it may not be too far out of reach for Democrats, thanks to the changing face of the Atlanta suburbs and the large African American community. In the final poll of the state, Trump led by just three points.

Reince Priebus speaks during a rally for Trump on Friday in Hershey, Pennsylvania. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)

-- But, but, but: Reports of the Republican Party's death will be greatly exaggerated. Expect a flurry of obituaries in the coming days. The Sunday opinion sections of our nation's leading newspapers will probably be chock full of them.

Unless they blow it yet again, though, 2018 is probably going to be a very good year for Republicans. Ditto with 2017 in Virginia. There will be backlash to a new president. The Senate map in the midterms is very favorable. The party has 31 governorships right now, and that number should stay steady after today's elections. The GOP will continue to control the House of Representatives and its losses might be capped around a dozen seats.

One side of the impending GOP civil war will press heavily for the party to adapt and evolve. Some politicians are going to try to channel Trump to recreate his coalition and hope that someone without his baggage and temperament problems can expand on it. Others who aspire to lead will repudiate Trump and Trumpism while trying to expand the tent. That could happen as early as 2020.

Chuck Schumer, in New York City last month, is cruising to re-election in his home state today. (Gareth Smit/For The Washington Post)

-- Something else to consider: The Democratic Party is dominated more than ever before by coastal elites. Despite her Illinois upbringing and tenure as Arkansas first lady, Clinton is a full-fledged New Yorker with all of the sensibilities that entails. Nevadan Harry Reid, who succeeded South Dakotan Tom Daschle 12 years ago, will be replaced by New Yorker Chuck Schumer as the Democratic leader in the Senate. Patty Murray from Washington State could replace Dick Durbin from Illinois in the number two slot. The Democratic leaders in the House hail from San Francisco (Nancy Pelosi), Maryland (Steny Hoyer), Los Angeles (Xavier Becerra) and New York City (Joseph Crowley).

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WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING:

Midnight voters in Dixville Notch go for Clinton

-- Clinton won the first votes cast on Election Day. From the New Hampshire Union Leader in Hart's Location: "In a continuation of a longstanding tradition, voters in the smallest town (population 43) in the state were again among the first in New Hampshire … to cast ballots in the Nov. 8 election. The voting at Hart's Location began at midnight and ended 5 minutes later. … Hart's Location cast 17 votes for Clinton/Kaine; 14 votes for Trump/Pence; others receiving votes included Gary Johnson (3), Bernie Sanders (3) and John Kasich (1). [Dixville Notch reported four votes for Clinton and two votes for Trump, plus one vote for Johnson and one vote for Romney.] Under a provision in state law, communities with fewer than 100 residents may open their polls as early as midnight and close them once all registered voters have exercised their franchise."

Kaine votes in Virginia

-- Kaine and Clinton both voted, as did Biden.

Candidates pack in final rallies on whirlwind last day of campaigning

THE FINAL HOURS:

-- Trump and Clinton made their closing pitches to an anxious nation Monday, with Clinton seeking to strike a conciliatory, positive tone — and Trump, the underdog, warning of "disaster" if he loses. From Anne Gearan, Sean Sullivan and David A. Fahrenthold: "Both candidates were hoping that polls had missed something: Trump hoping for a surge in white voters that would allow him to win the White House; Clinton hoping for a surge in Latino voters that would put the race away."

-- Clinton spent yesterday highlighting themes of post-election unity, calling on voters to work to "repair the breach" and partisan divisiveness. "We choose to believe in a hopeful, inclusive, big-hearted America," she said outside Philadelphia's Independence Hall, joined by former president Bill Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, and President Obama and Michelle Obama.

-- Besides the Philly event, Obama stumped solo for his 2008 rival in Michigan and North Carolina. "I am asking you to trust me on this one," the president said in Ann Arbor.

Trump lands final jabs at Clinton in Michigan

-- Around the same time, Trump took the stage to a flashy laser light show in a crowded arena in Manchester, N.H., that seats roughly 11,000. "Tomorrow, the American working class will strike back!" he declared. "Do you want America to be ruled by the corrupt political class, or do you want America to be ruled again by the people? ... Hillary Clinton's only allegiance is to herself, her donors and her special interests." "Lock her up!" the crowd began chanting moments later. Earlier in the day, a rowdy crowd in Scranton, Pa., shouted, "She's a witch!" and "She's a demon!" as Trump berated Clinton. When he began to lambast the news media as dishonest, the audience erupted into a thunderous chant of "CNN sucks!"

Tim Kaine gives a final salute after speaking yesterday in Richmond, where he lives and was mayor. (Steve Helber/AP)

-- Vice President Biden and would-be successor, Tim Kaine, stumped in Virginia. Biden called for "empathy" towards Trump supporters. "I've been tough on [Trump], as tough as anyone," Biden told the Fairfax County crowd. "But when this election is over, we have got to let it go. God willing, we are going to win this, but there are a lot of people who are going to vote for him. We have to figure out why, what's eating at them. Some of it will be unacceptable, but some of it will be about hard truths about our country and about our economy." The duo were joined by Virginia Democratic Reps. Robert C. "Bobby" Scott, Don Beyer and Gerald E. Connolly — all possible appointees to Kaine's Senate seat should Clinton win. (Fenit Nirappil)

Hillary, Bill and Chelsea during their final rally at NC State University in Raleigh early this morning. Lady Gaga and Jon Bon Jovi entertained the large stadium crowd. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

THE FINAL POLLS:

-- Our last WaPo/ABC News tracking poll finds Clinton up four points over Trump, 47 percent to 43 percent. Her advantage is the same size as Obama's winning margin against Romney in 2012.

-- A Fox News poll also shows Clinton with an identical four point national lead (48-44), with Trump up six points among independents.

-- Monmouth University has Clinton up six points, down from the 12 point lead she had in mid-October but larger than her four point advantage in September.

-- An NYT Upshot/Siena College survey in North Carolina finds Clinton and Trump deadlocked at 44 percent each. The same poll shows Sen. Richard Burr (R) edging out Democratic challenger Deborah Ross, 46 percent to 45 percent, which is well within the margin of error.

-- A Hampton University poll in Virginia finds Clinton up four points (45-41).

Clinton speaks to a huge crowd during a rally at Independence Mall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

THE FINAL FORECASTS:

-- The Rothenberg & Gonzales Political Report predicts a 323/197 electoral vote split in Clinton's favor. The states ranked as "Lean Clinton" were Florida, North Carolina, Nevada and Wisconsin, while Arizona moved in Trump's direction.

-- The Fix's final best guess is a Clinton victory with just 275 electoral votes: "Even if Trump holds all of the states either solidly or leaning his way and wins all three states currently rated as 'toss-ups,' he still falls seven electoral votes below 270," Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake write.

-- Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight model gives Clinton a 70 percent chance of winning and predicts a 299 electoral vote victory. Her projected margin of victory in the popular vote also jumped to 3.5 percent from 2.9 percent after a spate of recent polling showed "a slight wind at her back."

-- The Upshot, a New York Times vertical, gives HRC an 84 percent chance of winning. The latest predictions gives Clinton a 64 percent chance at winning North Carolina. Clinton is forecasted to have an 89 percent chance of taking home Pennsylvania, with Democratic Senate candidate Katie McGinty has a 63 percent chance of victory.

-- The Princeton Election Consortium's statistical analysis predicts 323 electoral votes for Clinton and 215 for Trump. Its model also predicts a 51-seat Democratic Senate majority.

-- The AP's electoral map forecasts a 274/190 vote split for Clinton. The wire service's final moves: New Hampshire from leaning Democratic to a toss-up, Arizona and Iowa from a toss-up to leaning Republican, Virginia from strong Democratic to leaning Democratic, and Texas from leaning Republican to strong Republican.

-- CNN's political team predicts Clinton getting 268 and Trump ending up with 204. On Monday, they made three moves into Trump's camp – Ohio, Utah, and Maine's 2nd Congressional District. New Hampshire moved from a "lean Democratic" to a pure battleground.

-- Fox News' electoral scorecard moved Arizona, Iowa and Utah into the "lean Republican" column overnight, while Nevada shifted leftward to a "lean Democrat." The cable channel's team predicts Clinton gets 274 votes.

-- Larry Sabato predicts Clinton will claim 322 electoral votes. The University of Virginia political scientist and his team predict a four-seat gain for Senate Democrats – Illinois, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire -- resulting in a 50-50 chamber. Tim Kaine would be the tiebreaker.

-- The Cook Political Report invited a dozen academics in the battleground states to offer final predictions for their states. The most interesting six:

The University of Arizona's Barbara Norrander bets on Trump winning there by two (48-46).
Bowdoin Colleg's Andrew Rudalevige guesses that Trump wins Maine's 2nd Congressional District 46-45, which would give him one electoral vote.
The University of Nebraska-Omaha's Paul Landow thinks Clinton is going to win Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District 48-47, which would give her one vote.
The University of New Hampshire's Dante Scala says Kelly Ayotte will go down and Clinton will win the Granite State by six (49-43).
Franklin Marshall College's Terry Madonna predicts Clinton wins Pennsylvania by three (47-44)
Brigham Young University's Kelly Patterson thinks Trump wins Utah with only 35 percent of the vote, and that Evan McMullin gets 28 percent to Clinton's 27 percent. (Bill Clinton finished third there in 1992, as well, behind Ross Perot).

An Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighter, next to a Kurdish flag, holds a position in a village near the town of Bashiqa, 25 clicks northeast of Mosul, yesterday. The operation to reclaim Mosul from ISIS continues. (Safin Hamed/AFP/Getty Images)

GET SMART FAST:

Iraqi military forces said they have uncovered "dozens" of decapitated bodies at a mass grave outside Mosul. Villagers said Islamic State barbarians rounded them up at gunpoint and forced them to walk to the area as Iraqi troops advanced. Early reports suggest at least 100 people were killed in the attack. (William Booth and Karen DeYoung)
Islamic State fighters also launched a wave of car bombs in northern Syria, attempting to stave off U.S.-backed forces that have begun advancing towards their other stronghold city of Raqqa. (Louisa Loveluck)
A federal jury awarded $3 million to a former University of Virginia associate dean in her defamation lawsuit against Rolling Stone, siding with the administrator after an article alleged she was "indifferent" to allegations of a gang rape on campus. (T. Rees Shapiro)
New York real estate scion Robert Durst pleaded not guilty to the 2000 murder of his longtime friend Susan Berman, emphatically proclaiming his innocence in front of a Los Angeles court. (LA Times)
A federal judge abruptly postponed jury selection in the trial of Dylann Roof, the 22-year-old gunman charged with gunning down nine black parishioners in Charleston. He offered little explanation for the move, but Charleston officials said they are a investigating a threatening letter mentioning Roof. It is unclear whether the two events are linked. (Mark Berman)
Australia's parliament blocked a same-sex ballot initiative, with Senate members voting down plans to hold a popular referendum in February. Lawmakers cited concern that the vote "would open a rancorous societal divide." (Wall Street Journal)
A 49-year-old Queens woman was killed after being pushed, unprovoked, in front of a subway train in Times Square. Police said a 30-year-old "emotionally disturbed" woman has been charged in connection to the attack. (New York Times)
German authorities arrested five Islamic State suspects accused of aiding the militant group in logistical and recruitment efforts across the country. (AP)
The Philippine Supreme Court ruled that former dictator Ferdinand Marcos can be granted a "hero's burial," ending an emotional and nearly 30-year fight over the former strongman's final resting place. (AP)
Washington State University announced a ban on all sorority and fraternity events for the rest of the semester, shuttering months of planned events after what officials called a "concerning" spike in assaults, rapes, falls and hospitalizations across campus. (AP)
DNA evidence helped exonerate a Michigan service dog from death row after he was wrongfully accused of killing the neighborhood Pomeranian. Those who knew the gentle giant – who peacefully serves his disabled elderly owner – insisted he could not be the culprit, and turned to science for his freedom. (Karin Brulliard)
Secretary of State John Kerry is spending Election Day where perhaps many of us wish we could be – on a plane bound for Antarctica. But Kerry's fortuitously-timed trip has nothing to do with the election, a spokesman insisted to Max Bearak. He is going to get a firsthand look at climate change.

Voters cast ballots yesterday in Columbus, Ohio, at the Franklin County Board of Elections. (John Minchillo/AP)

THE BATTLEGROUNDS:

-- "State leaders, voting experts and advocates say they are preparing for an unusual level of confusion and chaos Tuesday as voters cast their ballots in a historically bitter presidential race," William Wan and Sari Horwitz preview. "The concerns have led to extensive contingency plans and a heavy workload for state officials, lawyers and election experts, who are trying to monitor voting problems and troubleshoot them in real time. "The number and tenor of calls we've received about problems, the amount of litigation you already see, it all reflects the moment we're in," said Kristen Clarke, president of the nonpartisan Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. On Tuesday, Clarke's group will be running the nation's largest independent effort to field voter complaints, questions and problems. But the intensity of this year's election, Clarke said, has exhausted many of her lawyers and volunteers before Election Day has arrived."

-- The Justice Department will deploy more than 500 poll watchers from its Civil Rights Division to monitor voting in 67 jurisdictions in 28 states -- including at least three in each swing state with large minority populations-- to ensure that "every eligible person that wants to do so is able to cast a ballot."

-- Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) stands accused of intimidating voters, after telling college-aged students Monday they will be "investigated" by the state in order to make sure they follow the letter of the law. Fliers were also distributed at college campuses warning of "hundreds of dollars" in likely taxes and fees for students who register to vote. (Susan Svrluga)

-- A parade of horsemen rode into D.C. on Monday, trumpeting the gospel and urging voters to turn towards Jesus – and no, it wasn't a sign of the apocalypse. (We hope.) It was a Wichita pastor and his friends, who have spent the last 40 days riding horseback from Texas and insist their timing is "purely coincidental." (Julie Zauzmer)

-- A Catholic priest in Texas laid an aborted human fetus on an alter Sunday as he pleaded with parishioners to vote for Trump over Clinton. He also held up graphic pictures of abortion procedures. The video went viral. (Sarah Pulliam Bailey)

-- Meanwhile in Brookline, Mass. --> The Boston Globe, "As a divisive campaign ends, churches offer vigils, prayer for healing," by Lisa Wangsness: "They sat in silence in the old stone church, deep in thought, the turbulence and traffic of the world outside reduced to shadows and light at play on the walls. They prayed for the nation. They murmured a beloved psalm: I lift up my eyes to the hills/From where is my help to come? And they listened to a French Jesuit priest's poem that ends this way: 'Accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.' The service at St. Paul's Episcopal Church was part of an extraordinary 48-hour election prayer vigil called by Episcopal bishops in an effort to kindle a spirit of reconciliation at the end of an election year marked by fear and division. Jeannie Baca, a social worker from Roslindale and a member of St. Paul's, said she felt a bit better when the 15-minute noonday prayer ended. 'It's a much more productive thing than I would otherwise be doing, which is refreshing FiveThirtyEight,' she said."

A voter carries in her mail in ballot to her polling station early this morning. (Matt York/AP)

-- More than 40.7 million ballots were cast before the polls opened this morning. CNN tabulates that Democrats have cast the most early voting ballots in Florida, Iowa, North Carolina and Nevada. Meanwhile, Republicans recorded more ballots in Arizona, Colorado, Ohio and Utah.

-- "Florida may tell us a lot about whether we're going to have a long night or a short one," UVA political analyst Larry Sabato notes. "About two-thirds of voters will likely have cast their ballots early, so the vote count should not take that long. If Clinton wins the state by two or three points and is declared the victor early on, it'll be hard to find a plausible path to Trump victory. If Trump captures the state, though, then we'll have to see if her firewall states, like the aforementioned states of Michigan, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania, as well as Colorado, Nevada, and Virginia, come through for her."

-- "Can Trump win Florida today? Sure. Is it likely? Not really," writes Democratic strategist Steve Schale, who directed Obama's efforts in the state both times: "What is interesting about Florida is that the margins in counties consistent over time. Outside of a handful of places, we have a decent sense of where it will land. For Trump to win, [this] basically has to happen: in 64 counties, he has to get the highest share of any Republican between 2000 and 2012, and he has to keep Clinton's margins in Osceola, Orange, and Dade in the low 20s. He has major problems with the former, namely semi-large places like Sarasota, Polk and Duval, which so no signs of being anywhere near their GOP highs. And with the latter, I don't see how Clinton doesn't stretch Obama's margins in all three of those counties. So with that, I think she wins. In fact, I am pretty confident."

-- Philip Bump traveled to Pennsylvania to inspect both side's ground games (in Scranton and Bucks County, which is in the Philly suburbs): "On the one hand, Trump has a lot of supporters who are actively behind him — but the campaign is making some simple mistakes that is keeping it from being as effective as it could be. Clinton's support is a bit less energetic … but the campaign itself has a system locked in place."

-- In newly-competitive Michigan, The Detroit Free Press's Todd Spangler says Clinton still holds the upper hand: "Clearly she's not a shoo-in. But the Democrats have the infrastructure to turn out voters and win in Michigan — something they've done repeatedly in races far less competitive than this one. Presumably, they can do it again, with help from labor unions, black ministers in Detroit and other friends. She also has lots of money to spend if necessary. Given that support for Trump among institutional Republicans has been tepid at best, if he wins now it will be in spite of them."

-- The Fix's Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake say early voting in North Carolina is a mixed bag – reclassifying the state from "lean Democratic" to "toss up:" "While more than 3 million votes have been cast early, black turnout is down from where it was in 2012, while white turnout has surged more than 300,000 as compared with the last election. That should be good news for Trump."

-- In Colorado, early voting numbers shifted in the GOP's favor, signaling potential signs of party organization and rising voter enthusiasm. The Denver Post reports that Republicans have cast 652,380 ballots compared to 645,020 cast by registered Democrats. The breakdown looks like this: 35.2 percent Republican, 34.8 percent Democrat and 28.5 percent unaffiliated.

Clinton speaks to a huge crowd in Philadelphia. (Photo by Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

THE DAILY HILLARY:

-- "With a Trump threat looming, the left gets behind Clinton," by Dave Weigel: "On Saturday morning, shortly before Sen. Bernie Sanders was introduced to his last Iowa audience of the campaign, an Iowa State organizer named Kaleb Vanfosson stepped up to the microphone. He started talking about student loan debt and how 'full-time bigot Donald Trump' had no plan to alleviate it. Then he argued that Hillary Clinton had no plan, either. The moment, which went a little viral, was jarring not because it represented a trend; it was jarring because it didn't. After the most ideologically fraught Democratic primary since at least the 1980s, and after a convention that saw multiple walkouts by some Sanders delegates, Clinton appears to have less of a challenge on her left flank than Al Gore did in 2000; final polls show her enjoying party loyalty comparable to that of Barack Obama in his two campaigns."

-- Clinton's White House transition team is eyeing six top candidates to lead the Interior Department, including former Colorado Sen. Mark Udall and former Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire. From Politico: "Other contenders also include Natural Resources Defense Council President Rhea Suh; Felicia Marcus, the chair of California's State Water Resources Control Board; Denise Juneau, the first American Indian woman elected to statewide office in Montana; and (Pennsylvania Senate candidate) Katie McGinty, the former secretary of Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection."

James Comey testifies before a Senate committee in September. (Yuri Gripas/AFP/Getty Images)

WHAT HATH JIM COMEY WROUGHT?

-- The FBI director drank "a giant margarita" after clearing HRC. We hate "spotted" items as much as you do, but this one is too good not to include: Comey had dinner at El Tio Tex Mex Grill in McLean around 6 p.m. Sunday evening. He, his wife and one of his five sons – accompanied by a detail of three security guys -- had a quiet, casual meal. Other patrons recognized them but said nothing, a tipster told Helena Andrews-Dyer.

-- Making her first public comment on being cleared (again), Clinton said during a radio interview that she never expected him to do that. "I was just a little befuddled by the whole process," she said. "But it's behind us now."

-- Unfortunately for the Clinton campaign, the original Comey bombshell got far, far, far more attention than the subsequent "never mind" announcement. Our analytics partners at Zignal Labs show the degree to which the initial spike in social media mentions of Clinton and Comey surpassed what followed Sunday's news:

-- Clinton's lawyers sent cease-and-desist letters to broadcasters still airing ads pro-Trump ads that claim she is "under investigation by the FBI." "These ads falsely claim Secretary Clinton is under investigation by the FBI," said the letter from Marc Elias, the campaign's general counsel. (CNN)

Trump, surrounded by his family and Mike Pence, speaks in New Hampshire. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

THE DAILY DONALD:

-- Our Ben Terris recounts the months of gaslighting he faced from the Trump campaign after witnessing then-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski physically yank reporter Michelle Fields in March: "'I just want to make sure,' my editor asked me as he closed the door to his office. 'He definitely grabbed her?' It had to be the 50th time I'd heard this question, and each time it filled me with unspeakable anxiety. Yes, he grabbed her. It happened right in front of me. There was no question. But by the time my editor asked me about it three days later, doubt had started to creep in. Trump had suggested Fields was probably making it up, and nobody else had corroborated my account. If it had really happened, Trump and his surrogates maintained, why wasn't there any footage? … The Trump team's response — to claim it never happened at all — would become a small preview of a strategy the campaign would return to again and again on a much larger scale this year: Bully, don't back down, do whatever you can to muddy up the facts. From an outside vantage point, it can be difficult to tell fact from fiction. From the inside, it's even more disorienting."

-- Who would run Trump's government? Three campaign advisers told NBC News that the transition team is thinking Rudy Giuliani for attorney general, Newt Gingrich for secretary of state, retired Lt. Gen Michael Flynn for defense secretary or national security adviser, Trump finance chairman Steve Mnuchin for Treasury secretary, and Republican National Committee finance chair Lew Eisenberg for commerce secretary. Reince Priebus, the current RNC chairman, is under consideration as Trump's chief of staff. "They're thinking, 'We need to find that balance between someone who knows how Washington works and someone who shakes things up,'" the senior campaign adviser said. "Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, a loyal supporter, has taken a major role managing the transition effort, especially as the official transition chief, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, has drifted from the campaign," Katy Tur and Benjy Sarlin report. "The conservative Heritage Foundation is also helping vet names, along with some veterans of Romney's run and the second Bush administration."

-- Trump claimed during a rally in Michigan that he was "Michigan's Man of the Year" five years ago. He apparently made up the honor. The Huffington Post can find no record of any such thing, and the Trump campaign won't say what he's talking about.

Obama takes the stage to deliver remarks supporting Clinton in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Reuters/Jonathan Ernst)

WAPO HIGHLIGHTS:

-- "Obama's October surprise: A cynical, angry electorate boosts his popularity," by Juliet Eilperin and Greg Jaffe: "In the waning days of a bitter, exhausting, enervating election season, President Obama has often seemed to be the only person in America who is still having fun. On each of his stops for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, he has been greeted by screaming crowds and a palpable nostalgia embodied by the same largely improvised exchange. 'I love you,' a voice from the crowd inevitably calls. 'Love you, too,' Obama always replies. The exchange captures one of the striking paradoxes of this election season: At a moment defined by anger at Washington, voter cynicism and two historically unpopular presidential candidates, Obama's approval rating is the highest it has been since his first days in office. It now stands at 56 percent … For the first time in decades — dating back to Ronald Reagan — a lame-duck incumbent is in high demand on the campaign trail."

Evan McMullin poses for a photograph with Derek Ball, 2, during a meet and greet at the One Man Band Diner yesterday in Lehi, Utah. (Rick Bowmer/AP)

-- "Meet the man trying to keep Utah from going red or blue on Election Day," by Katie Zezima: "The afternoon before Election Day, a slim 40-year-old in a suit strode into a diner here to explain how he thinks he can play the spoiler in this year's contentious presidential race. And Evan McMullin may do just that — at least here in Utah. A former CIA officer, investment banker and, most recently, Capitol Hill staffer, McMullin has spent the past three months on a quixotic bid to become president. With McMullin on the ballot in only 11 states, his path to the White House is slim to the point of almost nonexistent — and he and his staff know it. But McMullin, his staff and volunteers — the campaign said there are 5,000 of them making calls nationwide — believe they have created a new conservative movement, and only time will tell what shape it will take." "I feel like it's the opposite of a protest vote," said running mate Mindy Finn. "Rather than protest out of fear it's standing for what I believe."

Pennsylvania's Republican Sen. Pat Toomey speaks to a small crowd of GOP loyalists in a Harrisburg hotel yesterday. The contest is the most expensive U.S. Senate race ever, and the outcome of the election may tip control of the chamber next year. (Marc Levy/AP)

-- "Sometimes even the best Senate candidates can't win," by Paul Kane: "It's a bipartisan axiom among campaign operatives that campaigns and candidates matter. But the other side of that principle is often a more painful reality: Sometimes you could also say political plate tectonics determine the outcome of a race. Ask any Republican who's run the best race of their Senate incumbents this year, and Sen. Pat Toomey's name emerges near the top of the list. Ask any Democrat — and quite a few Republicans — who has run the best Senate race, and almost universally they cite Jason Kander. Yet both Toomey (R-Pa.) and Kander (D-Mo.) head into Tuesday as 50-50 bets, and some of the same smart people who praise their campaigns wouldn't be surprised to see both lose. Taken together, these two Senate races will do more than just help determine which party claims the majority. They will also show whether it's possible, in this hyper-partisan era, for quality campaigns and candidates to overcome tough political geography. It's the political version of the head versus the heart."

Four people visit Susan B. Anthony's grave at Mt. Hope Cemetery in Rochester, New York, yesterday. The cemetery will extend its hours on Election Day to give people more time to visit her grave. (Tina Macintyre-Yee/Democrat & Chronicle via AP)

-- "Susan B. Anthony died without the right to vote. Now people are covering her tombstone in 'I voted' stickers," by Ben Guarino: "A new tradition has sprung up around a famous headstone in Rochester, N.Y. In the days leading up to and following an election, the grave marker in Mount Hope Cemetery sprouts a fresh coat of 'I Voted' stickers. The grave marks the final resting place of one of the most famous suffragists in American history, Susan B. Anthony. Anthony died in March 1906. Fourteen years later, in August 1920, the 19th Amendment was ratified. Some 90 years later, the pilgrimage to Anthony's gravestone on Election Day began ... The idea struck a chord with voters as far away as Maryland. 'Ever since I first found out about people putting their 'I Voted' stickers on Susan B. Anthony's grave, it has been on my bucket list to do the same,' said Elissa Blattman … [who] drove with her mother 350 miles from Rockville, Md., to New York."

-- "Thousands of miles from the U.S., Afghans wonder how the vote will affect them," by Pamela Constable: "Few countries have been as affected by the twists and turns of recent U.S. foreign policy as Afghanistan. Once supported by Washington as a Cold War proxy, it was abandoned to civil conflict, then liberated from Islamist repression and, under the Obama administration, flooded with troops and remolded as a modern Muslim democracy. Perhaps it should not come as a surprise, then, that Afghans — like Americans — appear to be divided into two camps on the U.S. presidential election. Some are hoping for a continuation of Washington's political and military involvement, but others are eager for a radical change. … In office corners, tea shops and commuter buses, people are puzzling over the faraway brawl between [Trump] and [Clinton], wondering how serious Trump is about banning Muslims from the U.S. and whether Clinton will keep U.S. troops in Afghanistan."

THE PUNDITS WEIGH IN:

-- "Trump's showing in the polls, though he will probably fall short on Election Day, confirms the deep fissure in the country and suggests that the next few years will not be any easier than the past few," our in-house handicapper Stuart Rothenberg writes. "The political landscape was ripe this year for a credible Republican alternative to Democrat Hillary Clinton. But that never meant that merely any alternative would do. [Trump] failed to pass the smell test among general-election voters. Even if they had doubts about Clinton, they often had even greater doubts about Trump. Instead of making the election a referendum on his rival presidential nominee, Trump made it about himself. Instead of talking policy, he talked slogans and platitudes. Instead of offering a vision, he offered vulgarity … The GOP's post-2012 election autopsy noted that the electorate is changing and the party needs to appeal to Latinos, Asian Americans and younger voters to remain competitive. I'm sure the autopsy's authors never thought that their party would have trouble with more-educated and more-affluent voters."

-- The Wall Street Journal's deputy editorial page editor Bret Stephens lambasts conservatives who capitulated to Trump: "It's normal that elections make fierce partisans of many of us. It's normal that Mr. Trump would attract the usual right-wing buffoons to his banners. What isn't normal is the ease with which so many conservative leaders, political and intellectual, have prostrated themselves before Mr. Trump simply because he won. What all this shows is that most conservative intellectuals have proved incapable of self-examination or even simple observation. [Trump] is a demagogue. Period. The fervor of his crowds recalls Nasser's Egypt. His convictions are illiberal. His manners are disgusting. His temper is frightening. It ought to have been the job of thoughtful conservatives in this season to point this out, time and again. If they can't do that, what good are they? George Orwell said that 'to see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle.' The Big Reveal of 2016 is that most conservatives failed the Orwell test. On Tuesday we'll learn if American voters can do better."

-- "Anti-Semitism is no longer an undertone of Trump's campaign. It's the melody," writes Post columnist Dana Milbank. "For more than a year, I have condemned Trump in the harshest terms I could conjure as he went after Latinos, Muslims, immigrants, African Americans, women and the disabled. This is both because it was wrong in its own right and because, from my culture's history, I know that when a demagogue begins to identify scapegoats, the Jews are never far behind. Trump himself has been raising the anti-Semitic ante: On Oct. 2, talking about the 'blood suckers' who back international trade and, on Oct. 13, the 'global power structure' secretly scheming … When the election returns come in Tuesday night, it will be Nov. 9 in Germany — the 78th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the "Night of Broken Glass" at the start of the Holocaust when Nazis vandalized synagogues and businesses. I pray that on this solemn anniversary, Americans tell Donald Trump and the world that we are never going back there."

-- Florida-based Republican operative and CNN talking head Ana Navarro said she's voting for Clinton "out of civic duty to the country." From her op-ed: "I thought back to the 2000 election, which was decided by 537 votes in Florida. I thought about how I would feel if the same thing happened in 2016. Then I cast my vote for Hillary Clinton. Let me rephrase that. I cast my vote against [Trump]. I did it without joy or enthusiasm."

-- "Here is the compliment I can pay [Trump], and I pay it with real gratitude: He never hid who he was," Vox's Ezra Klein writes. "Perhaps he lacked the self-control, or the self-awareness. Whatever the reason, he never obscured his authoritarian tendencies, his will to power, his sexism, his greed, his dishonesty, his racism, his thirst for vengeance. And he is still only 1.8 points behind. It is likely, though not certain, that [Clinton] will win on Tuesday. But even if she does, here is what must be said of American politics in 2016: We came within inches of electing [Trump] president of the United States of America. We did this even knowing exactly what he stood for, exactly what he had threatened to do, exactly what kind of man he was. A narrow Trump loss is another way of saying a near Trump win. Perhaps, on Tuesday, we will dodge the bullet. But we will still need to understand how we came to be standing in front of a gun."

SOCIAL MEDIA SPEED READ:

The final NBC-Wall Street Journal national poll asked likely voters the main word they would use to describe Trump. Here is a word cloud of the answers, flagged by Chris Cillizza:

A metaphor for many:

Kaine tweeted about his experience at the polling place:

Hillary and her staff did the mannequin challenge -- where they pretend to be perfectly still -- on the plane last night:

One of our video journalists noticed during a walk through that "Trump TV" is getting space on the riser at Trump's election night event -- leading to more speculation about Donald's post-election plans: