fortune--2020-11-01--What role would Kamala Harris play in a Biden administration?

When Joe Biden was narrowing down his list of potential vice presidential picks, one requirement was clear: His running mate on the Democratic ticket would need to be equipped to be an equal partner in the White House.
That line of thinking—that Biden, who at age 77 is a possible one-term President, needed a veep who would be a Democratic leader in her own right—led the nominee to choose Sen. Kamala Harris.
“In making a judgment about Sen. Harris’s talent, Biden must have made a judgment that they could work well together,” says Joel Goldstein, the author of The White House Vice Presidency: The Path to Significance, Mondale to Biden.
But what role would Harris play in a Biden administration? The Biden campaign declined to comment, but a few factors, as Election Day approaches, provide a sense of what to expect.
Biden’s own veep experience
Biden’s approach to his vice president will certainly be guided by his own experience in the role under President Obama. As vice president from 2009 to 2017, Biden played an active role as an adviser and political ally to the President. The former Delaware senator continued a tradition established by Vice President Walter Mondale, who set a new model for the expanded purview of the role under President Jimmy Carter, according to Goldstein.
Biden took on tasks including negotiating budget deals—including notable one-on-one budget negotiations with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell—implementing economic stimulus plans in the aftermath of the 2008 recession, and traveling to represent the United States on visits important to U.S. foreign policy.
Biden and Obama also had an “unusually close relationship”—even when compared to prior vice presidents who wielded significant influence in the White House. That personal relationship played a critical role in Biden maintaining his influence through eight years of the administration.
Biden, however, almost always stuck to the precedent of allowing the President to set the policy agenda—something he is likely to also want from his own No. 2.
Harris’s plans
Harris has said that she would be a “partner” to Biden. In his vice presidential pick announcement, Biden said he was “proud…to have her as [his] partner in this campaign.” That language suggests that both politicians hope to continue the hands-on vice presidential model.
In her nearly four-year career in the Senate, Harris developed a high profile as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and took on a range of issues. Her Senate tenure began with a speech about the DREAM Act and immigration reform. Harris competed against Biden for the Democratic nomination in a wide field; in that campaign, she emphasized the needs of women and people of color, and issues she worked on in the Senate. Those topics could continue to be areas of interest for her in a presidential administration.
Harris would be the first Black person, first South Asian person, and the first woman to serve as U.S. vice president; she is likely to deliver speeches and talk about issues related to gender as she builds her international profile, Goldstein says. Harris has also been a vocal supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement and is likely to lead on issues of racial justice in concert with her boss.
As the country’s oldest-ever President, Biden might be unlikely to travel as much as some of his predecessors. Harris could take on much of that international travel as she builds her own profile on the global stage, Goldstein says.
The Biden-Harris ticket—and administration?
Some tasks that Biden took on as VP, Harris is unlikely to handle—in large part because Biden himself would probably continue those interests. “Biden likes dealing with Congress, with politicians, in a way that President Obama didn’t. It wouldn’t be surprising to me if Biden does more of that type of interaction,” Goldstein says. “I’d be surprised if Sen. Harris is the person negotiating with congressional leaders.”
But Harris is likely to take on a role similar to Biden’s own as an adviser and the “last person in the room” during any major decision, Goldstein says.
Biden’s vice presidential pick was so consequential in large part because many saw his choice as anointing the next leader of the Democratic Party. Following one term of a Biden administration, Harris could very well end up as the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination in 2024. Her record as vice president would set the tone for a future presidential run—as it would for Vice President Mike Pence, were he to run in a future election.
“Being the vice president,” says Goldstein, “is the best springboard to a presidential candidacy there is.”


fortune--2020-11-01--I’m a Michigander who’s always voted Republican. But the President has failed us

This data scientist ’ s model shows Biden is still a 3-to-1 favorite to win—but he ’ s fading in @ @ @

This year hit me like a ton of bricks. I remember seeing the news about a virus in China and on cruise ships thinking, “Wow, that’s terrible,” and never once thinking it could come to Michigan. I knew that Michigan would be important in this year’s presidential election—we are a swing state after all—but didn’t realize what impact COVID-19 would have on my voting decisions.
I’m a Michigander through and through. I grew up in Kalamazoo and spent my summers on Lake Michigan. This is where I learned the value of hard work and the importance of family. Now, I’m a single mom living just outside Kalamazoo with my teenage son and daughter. I love it here, there’s no other place I’d want to raise my kids.
But it’s no secret that this has been a hard year; catching us all off guard, myself included. I’m a realtor, managing my own small business. After a really strong 2019 and continuing to grow my business into early 2020, the pandemic hit and I had to file for unemployment. Not being able to go out and show homes for several months just killed my business.
Initially, the supplemental pandemic unemployment helped immensely. I was able to feed my kids and pay bills without dipping into my reserves too much. But now, while the market seems hot, home buyers and sellers are hesitant to make decisions when they don’t know what the future could hold. Uncertainty is bad news for the economy—especially if you’re a realtor like me—so things just aren’t back to “normal.” And they might not ever be.
The additional $600 in unemployment has run out, even though the economy isn’t back to where it was before, and I’m feeling it. I have some savings, but it’s getting tighter and tighter each month and I’m increasingly worried. I know I’m not the only one who is concerned. Both small and large employers are closing because they aren’t getting support from the federal government. That’s just wrong.
All of this led me to get involved with an organization called WorkMoney that started during the pandemic to help working people advocate for ourselves. I answered a Facebook post and signed a petition, which led to several conversations about pandemic support for folks like me and how to advocate for things like additional stimulus funding from our elected officials. It helped me find my voice, which I’m using now to demand better for my family and my community here in Southern Michigan.
Let’s face it: On the national level, our leaders have failed middle-class, hard-working people like me. Congress can’t get it together on the stimulus package, especially after President Trump canceled talks and then sent mixed signals about potential legislation. What gives?
There are those who credit Trump with a strong economy, and I used to be one of them. But this pandemic has been so horribly mismanaged, even when his administration knew back in January just how bad things could get. If there were a tornado barreling toward Kalamazoo and our local government did nothing to inform citizens, we’d be outraged. We should be similarly outraged here that more than 225,000 lives have been lost, so many businesses have closed, and Americans of all backgrounds are suffering. And the President failed to warn us or adequately prepare us.
That’s what’s driving me to vote this year and be more active than I have in the past. I was raised Catholic and I still have conservative values that align most closely with Republicans overall. But I’m not voting for Donald Trump this election.
Many of my friends and family are, and that’s their choice. I still love them, and they still love me, but I can’t vote for another year like this one. My kids and I need something different.
There’s a saying in Michigan: “We lived through the snowstorm of ‘78.” Now there’s a new saying: “We can’t say we lived through the storm of ‘78 anymore, because 2020 trumps it all.”
We will get through this year, and we’ll be stronger for it. But it’ll take guts, commitment, and everyone doing their part to build a bright future for Michigan and our nation.
Emily Anglin is a small business owner from Richland, Mich.


fortune--2020-11-01--Senate majority outcome may take weeks—or longer

Thirty-five U.S. Senate seats are on the ballot Tuesday, which will determine control of the legislative chamber for the next two years.
But due to election law quirks in the states of Georgia and Louisiana, where a total of three seats are up for grabs, it is possible that the fate of the current 53-47 Republican majority will remain unknown for weeks to come.
Both states require a Senate candidate to capture over 50 percent of the vote in order to win outright on Nov. 3. If not, the top two vote-getters move on to a runoff election, which Louisiana will hold Dec. 5 and Georgia has scheduled for Jan. 5.
What’s at play
Louisiana is solidly Republican and Sen. Bill Cassidy is widely expected to win reelection, even if he’s forced into a runoff by a field of 14 other contenders.
But Georgia, where there are two competitive races, could ultimately determine which party is in the majority if Republicans do well in other Senate battlegrounds.
In one of the Georgia races, Republican Sen. David Perdue is locked in a tight contest with Democrat Jon Ossoff. Libertarian Shane Hazel will also be on the ballot.
The other is a special election that will decide who completes the remaining two years of retired Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson’s term.
Under Georgia law, there was no special election primary to winnow the field. Instead, a jumble of 21 candidates will appear on the ballot. They include Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who was appointed to temporarily hold the seat until the election; GOP U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, a Trump ally; Democrat Raphael Warnock, a pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King Jr. once preached; and Democrat Matt Lieberman, the son of former Sen. Joe Lieberman.
The race will likely to go to a runoff unless Warnock, a leading contender in recent polls, garners just over 50 percent of the vote.
What it means for the President
Control of the Senate has wide-ranging implications for whoever is elected to the White House.
If Democratic nominee Joe Biden wins, the outcome of Senate races will determine whether he is able to enact an ambitious liberal agenda — or face Republican gridlock. Democrats already control the House, which they are expected to keep.
If Trump wins, he will look to the Senate to confirm key nominees, like federal judges, and serve as a bulwark against Democrats in the House.
But who holds the presidency could also play a role in determining the Senate majority: In the case of a 50-50 split, the vice president can cast tie-breaking votes.


fortune--2020-11-01--Networks get ready for election misinformation with lineup of voting law experts

Television networks are adding experts in election law to their election night coverage teams so they’re prepared to explain legal challenges or irregularities that may come up during the vote.
Veteran attorney Ben Ginsberg, who represented George W. Bush when the 2000 presidential race was decided in the Supreme Court, has joined CNN for this purpose. CBS News hired David Becker, founder of the Center for Election Innovation and Research.
ABC and NBC have made similar arrangements, although some of those experts will have more offscreen roles.
“If the country is going to war, you want an admiral or general to help you figure out what is going on,” said David Bohrman, executive producer of CBS’s coverage.
Becker, former director of the elections program at Pew Charitable Trusts who also worked in the Justice Department, said he sees the CBS role as an extension of his efforts to educate the public about voting issues.
Becker said it’s inevitable there will be Election Day incidents such as polling sites where technology breaks down or people who try to intimidate voters, but he expects these will be isolated and it will be his job to explain that.
“This is going to be the most secure election that we’ve ever had,” he said.
A flurry of court decisions during the week before Tuesday’s election on challenges to rules in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina on how long votes can be counted, with the expectation of more to come, illustrates the need for expertise.
Besides Ginsberg, New York University constitutional law professor Richard Pildes is also doing work for CNN. He appeared on the network last week to discuss the ruling barring Wisconsin from counting ballots that arrive after Election Day.
Pildes, who said he has been encouraging people to vote in person wherever possible, said he worried about an “explosive situation” if days drag on without a winner being declared in the presidential race.
“It will be better if we can get a result sooner rather than later,” he said. “I think everyone recognizes that.”
NBC News has hired a firm that specializes in election law for advice and to provide lawyers who can appear on the air if they need to, said division president Noah Oppenheim. Like many news organizations, NBC assembled a team that has been specifically covering election integrity issues, with investigative reporter Cynthia McFadden playing a big role.
“It’s not an expertise that we have had to build from scratch, but we certainly are focused on it this cycle,” Oppenheim said.
The ABC News experts will work offscreen to brief network correspondents and anchors on the issue. Marc Burstein, the network’s top elections producer, said ABC believes it’s best for viewers to see faces they’re familiar with.
Fox News is relying on its in-house team of legal analysts, said Alan Komissaroff, senior vice president of news and politics.
“We would be negligent if we didn’t have someone with the expertise available to us if we need it,” Bohrman said.
To a certain extent, CBS’s Becker see bolstering public confidence in the nation’s elections system as part of his job. He said he knows many elections officials across the country and that “by and large, these are people that want as many people to vote with confidence and security as possible.”
He said he doubts Russia or any other nation has the ability to disrupt the nation’s voting systems to any large degree because there will be a paper trail for nearly 95% of the votes that are cast.
He’s more concerned about the spread of disinformation sowing doubt about the election.
“No matter what happens, a portion of the public will not believe in the result,” Becker said. “Part of our job is to make sure that this portion of the population is as small as possible.”


fortune--2020-11-01--The self-funded retail startup designing seasonless clothing for women

This is an installment of Startup Year One, a special series of interviews with startup founders about the major lessons they have learned in the immediate aftermath of their businesses’ first year of operation.
After more than a decade of working in her family business and later as a supermarket manager, Vanni Leung wanted her next chapter in life to embrace her passions as a lifelong vegan: a brand of her own that would be “eco-friendly, plant based, and full of compassion and respect for all things.”
The result is Valani, a newly launched biodegradable and vegan fashion house based in Northern California, which launched in August. In addition to giving 10% of proceeds of the brand’s eco-friendly separates and dresses to charities that support women’s empowerment and the environment, Leung, a certified breathwork practitioner, hosts monthly free virtual breathwork sessions as a way to promote self-love and help women lighten their mental load.
Fortune recently spoke with the founder about how the first year has been and what the company plans to do next.
Vanni Leung, founder of Valani. Courtesy of Valani
The following interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Fortune: Could you tell me a bit about your background? What were you doing professionally prior to launching Valani?
Leung: While I do not have a formal background in fashion, I do have a strong entrepreneurial background. I handled the books for my dad’s service business since I was a kid and continued to do so into my thirties. Alongside that, I managed a supermarket for 12 years and have a BS in marketing from San Francisco State University. I developed very strong entrepreneurial skills but craved a creative outlet. I wanted to pursue something that I was passionate about.
What inspired the launch of Valani?
Valani is really an extension of my vegan lifestyle: eco-friendly, plant-based, and full of compassion and respect for all things. I’ve been a vegan for 24 years, so it was really important to me that my brand reflects this lifestyle as well. I started Valani to create awareness of plant-based options and to show that sustainable fashion doesn’t have to be boxy and boring. It can actually be fun and beautiful.
Valani is built on the concept of what the company describes as “lighter living,” meaning recognizing the interconnectedness of all things and lightening the impact on the earth and yourself. Courtesy of Valani
Who is your target audience?
My target audience is a woman [between] her twenties and forties who is looking for sustainable clothing but is tired of boxy and boring options. She’s looking for clothing that embraces her femininity and doesn’t sacrifice style. She understands the impact that fast fashion has on the earth and its inhabitants. She’s looking to make a change and vote with her dollars and prefers quality over quantity.
The brand uses biodegradable materials—such as hemp, Tencel, and banana fabric—to produce seasonless and feminine styles. Courtesy of Valani
Retailers have taken quite a hit during the pandemic, so it must be daunting to launch a company of any kind, let alone a clothing brand, right now. What has it been like opening a direct-to-consumer clothing business during a pandemic? What has it been like to work with supply chain partners and develop the initial capsule collection?
The first production will always be the most difficult, but adding in a pandemic takes it to a whole new level. Our original launch was set for spring 2020, but when the pandemic hit, our partner in India had to close for about three months. When they reopened, they could only operate at 25% capacity and faced road closures and transportation issues. In addition, our banana fabric was lost and had to be remade.
This has definitely been a very challenging year to launch and not what anyone has envisioned for 2020. Instead of canceling the order, we decided to pivot our plans. We immediately began production of our hemp and Tencel collection in Chicago to ensure a launch date of September 2020. Ideally, we would have launched in spring. However, with a bit of restyling and layering, our collection is meant to be worn throughout many seasons.
That said, what has it been like to secure funding for Valani? Is it primarily self-funded, VC-backed, or some mixture of both?
It’s tough to get funding as a startup, let alone a clothing line. As of now, Valani is self-funded, and any outside funding would be considered in the future.
Valani says it dedicates 10% of proceeds to charities supporting women’s empowerment, animal rights, and environmental issues. Courtesy of Valani
Post-pandemic and five years down the road, where do you see Valani in the market?
With the pandemic creating so many unexpected delays, especially with working overseas, we’ll be focusing more on U.S. production. We are working on some knit garments that are elevated basics with a feminine flair. These should be released for spring 2021.
In five years, we plan to have a wider range of knits and woven garments that are timeless, beautiful, and easy to mix and match. We are always on the lookout for new sustainable, plant-based fabrics that are biodegradable.
It takes time for self-funded businesses to grow and build brand awareness. We plan to make our mark in the sustainable fashion world as a brand driven by compassion and purpose. We donate one tree for every garment sold, and 10% of our profits to animal, environmental, and women’s empowerment programs.
As part of our “Lighter Living” concept, we host free monthly breathwork sessions to our community to help women lighten the emotional load of everyday life. It’s important that we operate at our best so we can be ready to make a positive impact on the world.


fortune--2020-11-01--Gift Guide: Comfort food for your loved ones this year

Not everyone has time to shop around—not to mention most people have no desire to shop in stores at all right now—and look for the newest items on the market that could appeal to the loved ones and colleagues on their gift-giving lists. (Or for themselves, because let’s be honest, we look at holiday gift guides and deals for ourselves just as much as for others.)
Self-care takes on many forms and definitions, and among them is certainly the idea of “comfort food.” Here is a list of suggestions for culinary treats that can be shipped near and far to the loved ones in your life.
Courtesy of Oath Pizza, Runamok, La Maison du Chocolat, Spicewalla, and Edible Arrangements
Bella Cucina: Pizza is really having a moment right now as delivery sales have surged over the course of the pandemic. If you’re looking to upgrade your pizza night, Bella Cucina’s pizza party kit is an easy but delicious option. The kit includes both the flour and yeast as well as a jar of savory tomato sauce. You just need to add your own cheese and olive oil. The dough produces a wonderful crust—as soft or crispy as you choose to roll it out with a rolling pin—and it tastes like something you’d order at a restaurant. Can serve two to four…or even just one. No shame. SRP: $45.
Edible Arrangements: Edible has expanded its portfolio of fruit-forward bouquets for the 2020 holiday season, shipping nationwide—through local vendors—with free same-day or next-day shipping. Among the new holiday-themed arrangements are Santa’s Bakeshop Box of handcrafted cheesecakes and brownies; the Merry Christmas Platter (includes sweet strawberries dipped in semisweet or white chocolate, semisweet-dipped pineapple stars and apple wedges, and a signature Edible apple doughnut); and the Merry Christmas FruitFlowers, a bouquet of freshly cut flowers paired with Edible’s deluxe Christmas Dipped Fruit Box of fresh fruits dipped in chocolate. SRP: $60 for the Merry Christmas Platter.
FarmSteady: Those aspiring bakers who started baking bread in the earliest days of the shutdown might be looking to up their game with a challenge by the end of the year. To that end, this Everything Bagel & Cream Cheese Kit includes all you need to make one dozen everything bagels as well as homemade cultured cream cheese, straight out of the box. It’s a complex process, but it’s also a productive way to kill a lot of time with the promise of fresh bagels at the end. SRP: $30.
La Maison du Chocolat: Hopefully whoever came up with the line “Life is like a box of chocolates” had plenty of chocolates stockpiled in time for surviving 2020. And these trying times call for the good stuff. Based in Paris, La Maison du Chocolat is a French chain of chocolate boutiques with stores around the world and also ships free in the U.S. for deliveries over $95. Among the chocolatier’s holiday offerings is this 110-piece Holiday Cracker Coffret, a selection of ganaches and pralines in dark and milk chocolate that you can share…or not. While it is advised to serve them at room temperature, the chocolates can be stored in the fridge or freezer to space out indulgences. The confectioner also suggests to cut a chocolate piece in half and let it melt in the mouth to allow time for the flavors to develop. When tasting several chocolates, it is best to start with a plain chocolate, then move on to flavored varieties: first those with fruits, then spices, then alcohol. SRP: $225.
Oath Pizza: Pizza delivery experienced a major comeback during the pandemic as more diners eat at home but still want food delivered. Few foods travel better than pizza, but the local slice shop isn’t the only option—especially for those looking for more refined pies. Oath Pizza delivers fully made, personal pizzas for vegetarians and meat lovers alike, with vegan and gluten-free options readily available. The Classic Cheese Pizza kit includes a two- or four-pack of cheese pizzas (with an optional swap for vegan cheese) and a pack of chocolate chunk cookies. All pizzas are delivered frozen, ready for the oven or the grill, and cook in less than 15 minutes. SRP: $44.
Packed With Purpose: Packed With Purpose assembles curated gift boxes in which each item is handpicked, with portions of the proceeds giving back by supporting small businesses and diverse social causes. The Nut-Free and Vegan Delights box, for example, includes a fragrant and flavorful plum spread infused with delicate rose water from Trade Street Jam Co., a woman- and Black-owned artisanal jam maker in North Carolina; nutrient dense seed-based energy bars with semisweet chocolate and tart cherries from Ommie Snacks, a Latina-owned family business in Minneapolis supporting hunger- and homelessness-relief efforts; and a mix of dried tropical fruits from Mavuno Harvest, which supports sub-Saharan Africa small farmer cooperatives and fair supply chains. SRP: $72.
Runamok Maple: This Vermont-based maple producer distributes its pure, infused, smoked, and barrel-aged maple syrups nationwide. This year the brand is offering special gift boxes, volume discounts, custom inserts, and drop shipping. Runamok Maple specially designed this program to make employee and client gifting as flexible as possible. Packaged in beautiful glass bottles, the maple syrups also look stunning on their own on the countertop or kitchen table. Flavor infusions include coffee, cinnamon and vanilla, ginger root, holiday spices, bourbon, and smoked pecan-wood. Of course, the syrups are ideal for warm breakfasts in fall and winter on pancakes and waffles, but they also work well as infusions and mixers in coffee and cocktails. SRP: $65 for a gift box set of three 250-milliliter bottles.
SaltWorks: Brand new for 2020, SaltWorks has curated a selection of its signature salt fusions housed in a limited-edition recipe box along with a handful of correlating recipes. Salt selections include Black Truffle Sea Salt, Wild Porcini Mushroom, Vintage Merlot, Espresso Brava, Lime Fresca, and Spanish Rosemary. SaltWorks uses its proprietary process to bind natural ingredients to each sea salt crystal to create a new generation of flavorful, all-natural infused salts. With so many flavor combination possibilities, it’s an ideal gift for the experienced home cook and the person who just learned to cook while in quarantine. SRP: $50.
Spicewalla: With so many more people cooking at home and gaining confidence in the kitchen this year, everyone is going to be stocking up their spice cabinets at this time too. Spicewalla’s colorful tin cans are fun additions to the kitchen, not to mention reusable. The Unconventional Holiday Collection of 10 spices inspires cooks to think beyond the basic turkey or ham dinner with a bevy of global flavors in one box, including Chai Masala, Herbs de Provence, Cajun seasoning, Berbere, and a mustard and tarragon rub. SRP: $50.
Sugarwish: Do you remember candygrams from grade school? Then these are the candygrams of the 21st century for smartphone owners. A Sugarwish can be sent via email or almost any app (i.e. text, Slack, Snapchat, etc.) and allows the recipient to choose his or her own savory and sweet treats—from popcorn to candy to cookies—for receiving. Once treats are selected, they are packed in a bright-blue gift box and shipped to the recipient’s door. SRP: Starts at $20.
Sakara Life: Comfort food is all relative, and sometimes heavier dishes don’t actually inspire cravings or warm feelings in all eaters. For people who prefer a cleaner diet (or maybe want a jump-start on the inevitable New Year’s food trends sooner), Sakara offers a full plant-based menu for breakfast, lunch, and dinner—with plenty of treats and snacks throughout the day. Programs can last two, three, or five days with the option for one-time purchase or weekly subscriptions. Everything is delivered to your door and ready to eat, no cooking required. SRP: Starts at $70 for the five-day program with a weekly subscription.
Wisconsin Cheese: The Wisconsin Artisan Award Winners Cheese Board features three hand-selected, high-quality cheeses with sweet, earthy, and smoky palates, respectively: the Prairie Sunset by Roth (nutty undertones and hints of butterscotch), the Pleasant Ridge Reserve (notes of caramel and nuts, with a hint of tart fruitiness), and the paprika-rubbed Apple Smoked Cheddar. And all three cheeses are ready to serve out of the box on the included wooden bamboo cutting board. SRP: $52.


fortune--2020-11-01--Gift Guide: The best beauty and wellness presents of 2020

Not everyone has time to shop around—not to mention most people have no desire to shop in stores at all right now—and look for the newest items on the market that could appeal to the loved ones and colleagues on their gift-giving lists. (Or for themselves, because let’s be honest, we look at holiday gift guides and deals for ourselves just as much as for others.)
And given everything that has happened in 2020, everyone needs a bit (or a lot) of self-care after this year. With that in mind, here is a helpful list of suggestions for the best gifts around promoting a healthy body and mind this holiday season.
Courtesy of Linhart, Well Told, InBloom, Vintner’s Daughter and Clé de Peau Beauté
Clé de Peau Beauté: Zoom meetings really brings out the darkness under your eyes, but a little concealer can do wonders. (Much more than the so-called Zoom beauty filter.) The Clé de Peau Beauté Radiant Corrector For Eyes is a hybrid makeup and skincare product designed to effectively cover dark circles and dullness while targeting underlying causes with continued use. Providing long-lasting wear and moisture for eigh hours, the soft brush applicator is carefully designed for the delicate eye area and provides easy on-the-go application. SRP: $65.
Conture: After wearing a face mask for the last several months, you might have found yourself dealing with a resurgence of acne, or in 2020 parlance, “maskne.” The most urgent way to combat this is to clean your face thoroughly upon getting home and removing your mask, and simply splashing your face with water and a wash cloth might not be enough. The Aerocleanse facial cleansing device features an airflow stream that produces a rich, gentle lather and reduces friction on the skin. Its pulsating motion effectively removes traces of makeup, dirt, and oil better than fingertips. SRP: $99.
Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: With many spas and other aestheticians shutting their doors again in the wake of another round of lockdowns, it’s time to (re)consider the at-home facial. Dr. Dennis Gross has become synonymous with salon-quality facial products and sets that bring all of those benefits and nutrients to your own setup at home. The “Peel. Glow. Be Merry” gift set includes 21 Alpha Beta Extra Strength Daily Peels, a full-size C + Collagen Brighten and Firm Vitamin C Serum, and a kit-size C + Collagen Deep Cream moisturizer. With seven acids plus antioxidants and vitamins, at-home peel—Alpha Beta Extra Strength Daily Peel—lifts away dead skin while reducing visible signs of wrinkles, imperfections, and dark spots. SRP: $96.
InBloom: Amid the threat of both flu season and a global pandemic, it has never been more critical to be on top of getting your daily vitamins. For those averse to tablets or capsules, a smoothie is a ideal vehicle for consuming vitamins by dropping a supplement scoop in with your fruits and vegetables. InBloom, which counts actress Kate Hudson as one of its backers, has been in development for two years and launched in late summer. The collection consists of five jars of 100% plant-based supplement powders with whole-food nutrients and herbal blends, intended to provide better sleep, boost immunity, and improve overall health. The Energy Shift, for instance, is a green powder with flavor notes of matcha and ginger, which should provide an alertness boost but not at double-espresso levels. SRP: $50.
Hanacure: In the Before Times, going to get a facial was a nice splurge treat. But now it’s hard to come by in some areas depending on local regulations around what kinds of businesses and services can stay open during different phases of pandemic shutdowns. But at-home facials can be just as good and just as restorative. Korean skin care brand Hanacure’s anti-aging facial mask is already a cult classic, and the company also offers a four-piece, all-in-one facial set targeting fine lines and wrinkles, hyper-pigmentation, large and clogged pores, dullness, and other woes. According to the company, up to 68% of customers saw hyper-pigmentation reduction after 28 days, and 63.7% saw wrinkle reduction after 21 days. SRP: $110.
Lelo: Sexual health is an oft overlooked realm of wellness, unfortunately often dismissed as taboo, or worse, irrelevant. Lelo, a Swedish intimate lifestyle company, has been striving to change the conversation with a line of, dare we say, sophisticated and simple-to-use upmarket massage and sex products for women, men, and couples. Lelo’s intimate products offer an aura of luxury and modernity, which has won the brand numerous design awards in the U.S. and Europe over the last several years. SRP: Starts at $70.
Lord Jones: Since CBD hit the mass market, gummies are among the most popular product to both by for oneself or give as a gift. And like any candy, some are better than others. But Lord Jones takes gummy candy to another level with pitch perfect flavors, a luxurious texture, and supremely elegant packaging. For the holidays, Lord Jones is releasing two limited edition gumdrops: sugarplum (featuring flavors of stone fruit with a hint of ginger) and spiced cranberry, (with notes of cinnamon and a subtle spice). SRP: $50.
Linhart: Even dental care can be zhuzhed up. Developed by a father-son dentist duo with more than 50 years of experience, Linhart makes what might be the most fashionable tube of toothpaste around, in an Hermès-esque shade of orange. But the cleaning and whitening products are also effective and taste great. The Linhart toothpaste contains aloe vera and linämel, enamel protection formulated with three essential ingredients: theobromine, fluoride, and xylitol. The result is a a mild mint taste with a tiny hint of anise and a smooth formulation when applying to a toothbrush. SRP: $44 for the smile enhancement collection.
Lumin: The Korean brand curated its skin management products formulated for men with all the essentials to help establish a proper routine. Whether he’s new to skin care or an expert, Lumin’s line of products are meant to help address the most common skin issues men deal with all year long, targeting concerns such as acne scar appearance reduction, clogged pores, dark circles under the eyes, fine lines and wrinkles, skin tone imbalances, and dryness. Lumin also clearly lays out all of the ingredients in each product in layman’s terms, from charcoal and ginger root extract to squalene and vitamin C. SRP: $85 for the complete collection, which includes the exfoliating rub, charcoal cleanser, moisturizing balm, dark circle defense, anti-wrinkle serum, and recovery oil.
Melach 33: Finding a good body butter can be tricky—you want something more moisturizing than a standard body lotion or cream, but you don’t want to feel like you’re covered in olive oil, either. The Silky Shea Body Butter from luxe CBD brand Melach 33 fits the criteria and then some. The spa-inspired body butter absorbs quickly—almost as soon as you apply it but without feeling the need to apply more—pumped with Dead Sea minerals and natural antioxidant plant oils, like grape seed, almond, pomegranate. SRP: $52.
Murad: Speaking of washing your face, a powerful cleanser is key to getting the job done. Murad’s new Clarifying Oil-Free Water Gel is an oil-free, non-comedogenic, water-light hydrator designed to get rid of bacteria that can lead to irritated skin thanks to the inclusion of Hyaluronic Acid, Ginger Root Extract, and Salicylic Acid. The weightless, oil-free moisture absorbs into the skin fast to lock in hydration without a greasy feel and it should offer some relief to redness. SRP: $44.
Nutrafol: At a time when we are all beyond stressed, Nutrafol is a great fit to proactively take control of hair thinning and hair loss before it starts—or even after you’ve noticed more hairs than usual falling on your bathroom floor. Available for both men and women’s hair, Nutrafol targets the root causes of thinning—like hormones, stress, and poor nutrition—with a proprietary blend of 21 ingredients (including vitamins A, C, and D; biotin; and ashwagandha to balance hormones) touted for better hair growth within three months, packaged in capsule form. SRP: $79 on a monthly subscription.
Opte: Opte is a handheld, noninvasive beauty device that immediately scans, detects, and corrects for hyperpigmentation, emitting an included serum only for those areas and camouflaging them to naked eye. The serum contains 5% Niacinamide, a form of Vitamin B used to treat acne, promising longer-term benefits as well. OPTE’s tiny digital cameras take 200 images per second to analyze the skin, and it has been shown during testing in the U.S. to cover 99% of all complexions after 10 years in development. SRP: Starts at $65 per month—for the serum refills. (The wand and charging cradle are included in the first delivery.)
Well Told Health: Founded by self-described serial entrepreneur Monica Ruffo after being diagnosed with breast cancer but less than impressed with the onslaught of “all natural supplements” when full of ingredients unfamiliar to most (if not all) consumers, Well Told Health supplements are 100% vegan and GMO-free, and touted to be “science based” in development with total transparency on what goes into them. (The company links to all of the research for each product on its website.) While the brand offers supplements for antioxidants and anti-inflammatory purposes, among other diet and health needs, perhaps the two things we all need help with most these days are energy and sleep. The energy capsules include organic beet and maca powder as well as organic matcha tea, while the sleep capsules include organic lemon balm and goji berries—and neither capsule is habit-forming. SRP: $60 for the energy and sleep supplements.
Vintner’s Daughter: Dubbed a holy grail product among skin care and beauty bloggers, the Vintner’s Daughter Active Botanical Serum is being repackaged in a limited edition form with original artwork in collaboration with jewelry designer Lauren Harwell Godfrey. The artist says the special design of the 50-milliter bottle was inspired by Northern California’s wine country, also the home of Vintner’s Daughter. SRP: $325.


fortune--2020-11-01--Planes continue to fly into a GPS dark hole over the Mediterranean, puzzling experts

GPS, the global positioning system that underpins everything from Google maps to telecommunication networks and aviation navigation, has become unreliable across huge stretches of the Mediterranean, Caucasus and the Middle East, as geopolitical tensions have risen in the region, according to the European agency responsible for safe air traffic management.
Air traffic experts worry that a prolonged disruption to GPS could put the safety of commercial airline passengers at risk.
Reports of GPS outages submitted by pilots from the cockpits of commercial flights show that disruptions to the navigation system, which was created and is maintained by the U.S. government, are now standard occurrence on the flight routes between North America and Europe and the Middle East, according to data from the European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation, known as Eurocontrol.
In 2019, the agency received more than 3,500 reports of outages, an all time high, according to Gerhard Berz, the senior expert for navigation systems and radio spectrum coordination at the agency. That worked out to an average of about 10 reports per day throughout 2019 being reported to the agency.
This year, the sharp decline in air traffic due to the global pandemic means that fewer planes are flying, and so there’s less visibility into how common disruptions are, Berz says. Even still, the agency is receiving at least one report per day of outages, he says. Because reporting outages is entirely voluntary, the full scale of the disruption is expected to be far higher than the figures suggest.
Although the outages are assumed to be a knock-on effect from conflict zones and militaries on the ground, their sheer scale means it’s not clear who is responsible for all of the outages, according to experts. The leading assumptions from experts in the area is they come from military operations from multiple countries in the region, including airbases and vessels—in the East Mediterranean, one of the rare examples where public attribution has been made, such outages have been traced to an airbase on the coast of Syria. Berz says the fact that the outages are intermittent and not continuous, and therefore difficult to predict, makes it even harder to trace the disruptions to their exact source.
For more on this topic, please read the Fortune series, “When GPS goes wrong.”
In several cases, those outages had strange and potentially dangerous implications, including several instances where confusion to the GPS systems triggered a warning from the plane’s Ground Proximity Warning System, which warns a pilot they are about to hit land or an obstacle and must immediately “pull up” the nose of the plane to avoid crashing. Such warnings are usually worst-case scenarios. In these cases, they were false alarms that were correctly ignored by the pilots, who could see their locations clearly, said Berz.
But requiring pilots to selectively ignore urgent safety warnings goes against their training that such an alarm is a key safety net when ground control has failed, and should never be ignored, he said.
“We don’t like when confidence in those systems is undermined,” Berz says.
Flying blind
In other cases, GPS receivers that were disrupted while flying through the region did not regain a signal again after leaving the disrupted region, said Berz, requiring pilots to fly for hours without the GPS system.
Commercial planes have multiple systems for navigation and communication—GPS is just one. That means that losing GPS, especially for short periods, is not necessarily dangerous, and pilots can function without it. However, Berz warned that it is the “sheer magnitude” of the disruptions that is worrying, because it raises the risk that a disruption could line up with a failure of other key equipment, or that in dark or stormy weather it may be harder to use other cues to navigate.
There is also the added risk in areas where geopolitical tension is high. And for the few flights passing between Europe and the Middle East, including enroute to Asia, traveling through such risky region is unavoidable. Because Syrian airspace is closed, planes must fly either south of Syria through the Mediterranean, or north, through Turkey and the Caucasus. Both routes see regular reports of outages, Berz said. The area affected includes spill-over from the Syrian war, an ongoing conflict in Libya, and the recent explosion of tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan, to name but a few.
Cyprus, in particular, has struggled with persistent outages for years now, affecting both maritime and air traffic, as Fortune reported in January as part of a series on the impact of disrupted GPS on the maritime sector.
The country has repeatedly put out official government aviation warnings of GPS interference throughout 2020, via its department of civil aviation. The U.S. Coast Guard, meanwhile, has now reported disruptions extending into the Mediterranean Sea as far Northwest as Italy.
The risks of such widespread disruption has gradually gained more and more attention in the sector. In August, the UN’s aviation agency, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), passed a proposal recognizing the impact of “harmful interference” to GPS, and suggested a range of actions to address it. That included encouraging members to develop contingency systems for GPS failure, and to support alternatives to GPS; address the sale of illegal “jammers”; and recognize that risks to GPS from conflict zones can spill beyond the affected area.
It is difficult to overstate the ubiquity of GPS in both military and civilian life. On-land GPS receivers transmit precise time and location data to vital infrastructure, providing a level of accuracy that is used to sync everything from global telecommunications networks, to banking transactions and ATMs, to stop lights and energy management systems.
Saboteurs
GPS disruptions can be caused by weather, user equipment or by other innocuous reasons. But the disruptions of the scale seen over parts of the Mediterranean and Middle East are believed to be largely caused by intentional “jamming” and “spoofing,” two techniques used to disrupt or confuse signals sent from GPS satellites to receivers on earth. Though GPS is only one of several satellite global navigation systems—China, Russia and the EU all have comparable networks—GPS is the most widely used globally, and all such systems (collectively known by the acronym GNSS) are vulnerable to disruptions.
Although regular people, small operations and criminal networks, equipped with illegal jammers bought online, can and do regularly cause chaos to GPS signals, the scale of the disruption in the Mediterranean, central Asia and Middle East is believed to be the work of militaries and state actors, according to analysts and industry experts who specialize in GPS systems. NATO’s Shipping Centre, which liaises with commercial shipping, has repeatedly linked such disruptions in the Med to nearby conflict zones.
For militaries and state actors, GPS disruption is a classic form of electro-magnetic warfare—after all, disrupting communications and navigation has always been part of conflict. But it is also part of a new form of wide scale, grey-area disruption that has gained pace in the last five to six years as drones and other GPS-directed surveillance and weaponry has become an increasing part of conflict.
Some of the first large scale, public reports of GPS disruption affecting civilian life were from marine vessels in the Black Sea near Crimea, who saw their GPS locations suddenly diverge from their real location—often putting them at inland airports—around the time when Russia had annexed Crimea.
Russia has been openly blamed for disruption to GPS, including during military exercises in northern Scandinavia, and in the eastern Mediterranean, where the Center for Advanced Defence Studies last year said disruptions in the region appeared to emanate from the Khmeimim Russian air base on the coast of Syria. (Russia has either denied, or ignored the accusations.) The Cypriot government and Eurocontrol have also attributed the disruption in the region to the conflict in Syria.
However, the total extent of the disruptions globally is far too large to be attributed to just one actor. Rings of spoofing, nicknamed “crop circles” have been tracked to ports in China and to bizarre locations off the coast of San Francisco, according to investigations by Bjorn Bergman at the NGO SkyTruth. And such disruptions are a feature of life near the coast of North Korea, where illegal fishing fleets reportedly operate on a huge scale. Such disruptions have also been tracked at a more local level: in late 2019, small circles of GPS disruption affecting mobile phones began to appear in central Tehran, according to a report made to the U.S. Coast Guard and provided to Fortune.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Mysterious GPS outages are wracking the shipping industry
—The long ocean voyage that helped find the flaws in GPS
—How GPS went from the tech everyone hated to the tech everyone needs
—The World’s Most Admired Companies in 2020
—The forces behind Boeing’s long descent
Catch up with Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily digest on the business of tech.


fortune--2020-11-03--The parallels between 1948’s ‘Dewey defeats Truman’ election and today

Swing states , COVID , and the Electoral College : Why Trump ’ s odds of winning are better than @ @

The famous “Dewey defeats Truman” presidential election was 72 years ago and reminders of what was an epic polling failure echo to this day. For pollsters, pundits, and the press, Democrat Harry Truman’s surprise victory over Republican Thomas E. Dewey in 1948 is, or ought to be, an enduring reminder about the perils of extreme overconfidence.
The 1948 election also may offer a lens by which to understand the outcome of the Trump-Biden race. Here’s how:
If Joe Biden blows what has been a solid lead in pre-election polls, his loss may be attributable to having pursued something akin to Dewey’s glide-path campaign that avoided controversy while trying to nurse a clear lead in the polls.
But if this year’s pre-election polling is accurate and Trump is repudiated, his defeat may be attributed to a failure to adapt Truman’s blueprint for winning in spectacular, against-the-odds fashion.
This is not to say election history will repeat itself. It almost never does. The parallels between 1948 and 2020 are not exact, but they are redolent enough to be intriguing and worth examining.
Dewey, who was New York governor in 1948, seemed bound for an easy victory. Truman’s Democratic Party had splintered into three factions and pre-election polls signaled Dewey was comfortably ahead. He seemed so far ahead in early September 1948 that Elmo Roper, one of the three national pollsters at the time, announced that he would release no further survey results unless a political miracle intervened.
Dewey was determined to avoid risk-taking. He spoke soothingly while trading in platitudes. “America’s future … is still ahead of us,” he said on one occasion.
According to his biographer, Richard Norton Smith, Dewey said to a supporter who suggested he inject specifics into speeches: “… always remember, when you’re leading, don’t talk.” He sought to strike a dignified aura but came across as distant and lackluster, not unlike Biden in 2020.
Dewey did not seclude himself as Biden has often done. He campaigned confidently, if rather leisurely, abroad a private train called the “Dewey Victory Special.” Laundry service and other amenities were offered to the dozens of reporters who traveled aboard. Few “inconveniences trouble the life of anyone on the governor’s train,” journalist Richard Rovere wrote in a campaign dispatch for the New Yorker.
His smooth, above-the-fray approach probably cost Dewey the presidency. If a similar fate awaits Biden, his low-visibility, socially distanced bunker strategy may well be regarded as a decisive factor.
Might Biden really be the Dewey of 2020? Nearly all the national polls say no. But as the 1948 election memorably affirmed, polls are not always prophetic. And Biden’s aggregate polling lead in battleground states is slimmer than his advantage nationally. A Biden loss surely will conjure Dewey’s ghost.
Trump’s campaign, meanwhile, has at times resembled Truman’s aggressive tactics of 1948. According to his biographer, David McCullough, Truman “had just one strategy—attack, attack, attack, carry the fight to the enemy’s camp.”
Even after a bout with COVID-19, Trump has stumped with energy and stamina, much as Truman did. The President’s campaign rallies and roadshows have attracted large, enthusiastic crowds, as Truman’s did in his grueling, cross-country campaign swings by train. Trump has been harsh and persistent in his attacks on his foe, as Truman often was. (Unlike Trump, who routinely questions Biden’s mental acuity and disparages him as “Sleepy Joe,” Truman rarely mentioned Dewey by name. He did, however, liken Republicans to fascists late in the campaign.)
Trump on the campaign trail has scarcely encouraged an impression of discipline and order. Unlike Truman, he has had difficulty remaining on message, and invariably has indulged in meandering narcissism. He has drifted from attacks on Biden to gloating about his surprise election four years ago. Such self-congratulatory detours have been distracting and have blurred his case against an opponent who is vulnerable and mostly sequestered.
A campaign focus à la Truman is what Trump has needed to overcome a persistent polling deficit. But Trump this year has been no Harry Truman. Should he lose, indiscipline will loom among the reasons why.
W. Joseph Campbell is a former journalist and a professor of communication at American University in Washington. He is the author of seven books including, most recently, Lost in a Gallup: Polling Failure in Presidential Elections. Follow him on Twitter.


fortune--2020-11-02--PayPal plans a much wider embrace of cryptocurrency, including Venmo use

PayPal CEO Dan Schulman provided new details about the company’s recent embrace of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies on Monday, describing plans for shopping tools as well as potential partnerships with central banks.
Schulman’s remarks, which came during an earnings call after PayPal posted record third quarter revenues, follows the company’s announcement last month that it will soon allow users to buy cryptocurrency within its app.
According to Schulman, starting in the first half of next year PayPal will let users draw from cryptocurrency accounts to pay for goods and services at 28 million merchants that use the company’s platform. The arrangement, he says, will not result in any incremental fees for either consumers or merchants.
Next year’s expansion will also enable customers to use Venmo, its popular peer-to-peer payment service, to buy and shop with cryptocurrencies.
PayPal’s bullishness on cryptocurrencies, Schulman implied, is based on early response to last month’s crypto offering. He said the size of the waiting list for access to crypto, which is now available to 10% of PayPal customers, was two or three times as great as what the company anticipated. Schulman said the service will be available to all U.S. users in the next few weeks.
On a broader level, Schulman pointed to the fact that companies and central banks are experimenting with cryptocurrencies, and to the utility of digital wallets. Such wallets are often equated with the payment services offered by Apple and Google, but also include apps used to store Bitcoin and other new types of money.
“Digital wallets are a natural complement to all forms of digital currency,” said Schulman, adding that PayPal is in close talks with central banks and regulators to explore new uses for these wallets.
In response to an analyst question, Schulman said PayPal views cryptocurrency systems—which rely on a tamper-proof online ledger known as a blockchain—as cheaper and more efficient than ACH, which is the network that supports the existing banking system.
PayPal is not the only company seeking to bridge the conventional financial system—which Schulman described as “not working” for many low-income people—with the newer world of crypto technology. Last week, cryptocurrency giant Coinbase announced a debit card that can be used at ordinary merchants, while MasterCard in September announced a service to let central banks test out digital currencies.
Despite such efforts, any attempt to introduce cryptocurrency in day-to-day commerce faces a significant obstacle in the form of the U.S. tax system. The Internal Revenue Service treats any crypto transaction as taxable event, like selling a stock or a piece of real estate—meaning a PayPal user who buys a coffee or groceries from a crypto account could be forced to declare a capital gain.
Schulman did not address the tax implications of PayPal’s crypto plans on Monday’s earnings call. Cryptocurrency advocates have been lobbying Congress to create a so-called de minimus exemption that would excuse small-dollar transactions from IRS scrutiny—an effort that has yet to bear fruit.
Cryptocurrency prices have surged in recent months, spurred in part by PayPal’s announcement. The flagship cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, is currently trading around $13,600.
More must-read finance coverage from Fortune:


fortune--2020-11-02--U.S. says it’s prepared for cyber election threats. But weaknesses remain

Haunted by Russia’s brazen effort to meddle in the last election, federal and state officials have erected what they believe are formidable barriers to thwart cyber-attacks ahead of Tuesday’s presidential vote.
Cybersecurity experts, including those authorized to deploy military cyber capabilities, have been brought together to form an ‘all of government’ effort to ensure voters decide whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden wins, without U.S. adversaries sabotaging the process. That means dozens of state, local, federal and private players, amounting to hundreds of people, will be linked to the Department of Homeland Security’s command center on election night.
The effort will be led by the DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, known as CISA, and will include representation from U.S. Cyber Command, the State Department, the National Security Agency, the FBI and the likes of Facebook and Twitter, as well as states, counties and private sector cyber surveillance teams.
That’s not all. Congress has distributed nearly a billion dollars to states to protect voting systems and procure paper trails — that can be audited — for each vote. And both non-profit and private sector companies have shared subsidized malware detection systems to watch for intruders seeking to topple voting systems or provoke chaos on and after Election Day.
Whether the new defenses are enough to keep nation-state hackers from disrupting the election may not be known for days, or even weeks, after the vote. But government officials and cybersecurity experts said they are optimistic the nation’s cumulative efforts can prevent a major breach.
“In 2016, when I asked government officials what they would do if Russia attempted to discredit the result of the election, they had no answer,” said Dmitri Alperovitch, then the chief technology officer of the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike. “Now, they’ve gamed out certain scenarios. They’ve at least thought about it.”
Early indicators show that the cyber barriers are working as planned, at least in larger jurisdictions with access to the tools needed to monitor their networks, Alperovitch said. What’s less known is whether smaller localities with limited resources have bought-in and sought out similar protections, he said.
There’s little doubt that Russia and other nation-state adversaries, as well as criminal hackers, are trying to disrupt the election. Iranian hackers have been particularly brazen, hacking into one state’s voter registration database and attempting to breach many more.
Protecting votes and result-reporting systems will be essential to ensuring the election’s integrity, said Suzanne Spaulding, a former DHS cybersecurity official in the Obama administration.
“CISA has done exactly what it’s equipped to do, but defending elections is about a lot more than one agency of the federal government,” said Spaulding. “What we’re about to find out is how well the rest of the country has prepared since 2016.”
Improved cyber defenses in many states illustrate the changes since 2016. For example, Washington state’s defenses were tested in September when many agencies were infected with malware. Officials worried that the attack might have implications for the election, and both the federal government and private sector threw the kitchen sink at snuffing it out. The cyber unit of the Washington National Guard was summoned to help.
Starting in July, any time a state’s National Guard cyber unit is summoned, they carry with them the weight of U.S. Cyber Command. The guard’s duty in this case was to fend off infection in the voting system by segregating the secretary of state’s network from the rest of the state, said Washington National Guard Adjutant General Gent Welsh.
The situation was dire enough for the state to contact Cyber Command using the newly instituted Cyber 9-Line, an emergency, data-sharing channel. It operates via secure email that allows participating National Guard units to diagnose a foreign attack and provide swift mitigation strategies that can be shared with the state.
“If you have Cyber Command as your phone-a-friend, you can quickly find out if this is something popping up in other states and how they’re dealing with it,” said Welsh. “We’ve found a way to get the most sophisticated cyber intelligence to support our own secretary of state. That’s a win.”
Similarly, DHS officials have been flying across the country to meet with state and local election officials in order to make them aware of their exposure to cyber-attacks. In a close election, toppling voting systems even in a small, swing-state county could have an impact, said Ben Spear, director of the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center, a non-profit organization that connects local election administrators to CISA and the FBI. Among the most damaging threats could be ransomware attacks on state and local voting systems that could slow down or halt the voting process, he said.
Potential problems will be monitored closely from DHS’s high-tech National Operations Center, located in southeast Washington D.C., according to a person familiar with the preparations. A second DHS command center in northern Virginia will monitor specifically for cyber-related issues, including meddling by nation-state adversaries. That one will include expanded staffing from multiple U.S. government agencies as well as telecommunications companies such as Verizon and AT&T, the person said.
U.S. Cyber Command, which controls the government’s arsenal of sophisticated cyber weapons, will monitor events from yet a third command center in the Washington D.C.-area.
That doesn’t mean blind spots don’t exist.
At least 11 U.S. states, including Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida and Georgia, still allow voting jurisdictions to use wireless-enabled voting equipment to transmit unofficial, election-night results, despite repeated warnings from DHS that such systems are vulnerable to attack.
“There’s so much added risk with these systems,” said Maurice Turner, a senior adviser to the Election Assistance Commission, which sets federal voluntary standards for voting machines.
With the beefed up defenses, many experts are betting that the 2020 vote will pass without a dramatic cyber attack on elections systems.
“There’s always background noise, that doesn’t stop,” said Matthew Prince, chief executive officer at Cloudflare, which supports public facing election infrastructure for 28 states in the 2020 election. “The question we’re trying to answer is where there is something systematic that’s undercutting election infrastructure generally, and we’re just not seeing it.”


fortune--2020-11-02--These 10 journalists have been killed and deserve justice immediately

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A total of 883 journalists have been murdered since 1992, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Unfortunately, justice has gone unserved in far too many of those cases.
Violence towards reporters has been particularly prominent in Somalia, Syria, Iraq, and South Sudan, with CPJ’s annual Global Impunity Index ranking those four as having the greatest number of unsolved murders targeting the press, in proportion to each country’s population. Of course, this issue extends well beyond those countries: For example, Norma Sarabia Garduza’s family still awaits justice a year and a half after she was killed outside her home in Huimanguillo, Mexico. She had received death threats when working as a correspondent for newspapers Diario Presente and Tabasco HOY.
Because Nov. 2, 2020 marks the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists, Fortune partner One Free Press Coalition (OFPC) has focused its latest “10 Most Urgent” list on killed journalists whose cases have not been brought to justice.
Since last spring, Fortune has copublished a monthly ranked list of the 10 most urgent press freedom cases, assembled by the OFPC in partnership with the CPJ. By spreading this information, Fortune hopes to bring awareness to these individuals and the suffering and mistreatment they have faced.
All attacks on journalists are attacks on press freedom, and all who have been imprisoned, harassed, and killed for doing their jobs deserve recourse. Read last month’s list here for information about some of these individuals.
High-profile murder case seeking answers from U.S. intelligence officials.
Jamal Khashoggi, former editor-in-chief of the Saudi newspaper Al-Watan and columnist for The Washington Post, was killed by a team of Saudi military and intelligence officials on October 2, 2018, shortly after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Turkish and Saudi courts have tried and sentenced several suspects in the case. It was revealed in September 2020 that, after Khashoggi’s murder, U.S. President Donald Trump admitted to helping shield Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who ordered the journalist’s murder according to a report released by the CIA. A current lawsuit against the U.S. intelligence community seeks the release of documents that may provide information on its awareness of threats to Khashoggi’s life.
No movement to date in bringing 2019 murder to justice.
In 2018, a member of parliament during a TV appearance threatened and encouraged violence against Ahmed Hussein-Suale Divela, and Divela had said he feared for his life. A member of the investigative journalism outlet Tiger Eye Private Investigations, 33-year-old Divela was shot and killed by two men on a motorbike in January 2019. He was driving in the Madina neighborhood of Ghana’s capital, Accra, and had been assisting government prosecutors with an investigation into corruption within the country’s soccer leagues. A Tiger Eye lawyer has called for charges to be brought upon the member of parliament, in addition to the two suspects.
Suspects’ identities remain unclear in deadly convoy attack.
Dalia Marko, a reporter for the local radio station Raja FM, was among five journalists killed when unidentified gunmen ambushed an official convoy in South Sudan in 2015. There were 11 victims in total. According to reports, the convoy was returning from Sepo to Raja, having visited families of individuals killed in another attack by unidentified gunmen, when it was attacked with gunfire and machetes and set on fire. The motive for the attack remains unclear, and government spokesmen pointed blame at the time at different rebel groups. This is the deadliest attack on journalists in South Sudan since CPJ began collecting data in 1992.
No justice in the decade since journalist’s kidnapping and murder.
Since 2000, at least five journalists from independent Moscow newspaper Novaya Gazeta have been killed, including Natalia Estemirova. She also contributed to Caucasus news website Kavkazsky Uzel, served as a consultant for Human Rights Watch, and was one of few people reporting on human rights abuses in Chechnya. In 2009, four men forced the 50-year-old into a car in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, as she was leaving her apartment for work. According to press reports, the journalist shouted that she was being kidnapped as the car sped away, and later that day her body was found in the neighboring region of Ingushetia with gunshot wounds in her head and chest. A colleague believes Chechen authorities were behind the murder, condemned by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
Journalist’s wife continues seeking justice and answers for his murder.
Publisher of weekly community newspaper Catanduanes News Now and owner of a local insurance company, Larry Que was entering an office building in December 2016 when a gunman fatally shot him in the head at close range and escaped on a motorcycle driven by an accomplice. The newspaper had recently published a column by Que alleging “official negligence” over an illegal methamphetamine laboratory and naming Catanduanes Governor Joseph Cua as responsible. Que’s wife believes Cua hired a hitman to “silence” Que. She filed a murder complaint, which police said is still under investigation as of August 2020. She also pursued charges of graft and misconduct against Cua; they were dismissed for lack of evidence.
Secessionist conflict threatens justice in journalist’s murder.
Journalist Nabil Hasan al-Quaety, 34, whose wife was expecting their fourth child, was killed in the southern port city of Aden on June 2, 2020. A group of men in military uniforms attempted to hit al-Quaety with their car as he exited his home and opened fire when he ran, shooting him in the head, chest and hand. The assailants then fled. A freelance reporter, videographer and photographer, al-Quaety had worked with the news outlet Agence France-Presse since 2015. The Yemeni government claims sole authority in Aden, but the city is effectively run by the Southern Transitional Council fighting for separation from the country. Both have condemned the killing, but an official investigation could prove difficult due to this makeup. A spokesman for the secessionist group said it recently embedded al-Quaety as a photographer and speculated that forces within the government may be responsible for his death.
Justice stalled in trial of alleged mastermind behind journalist’s murder.
Two gunmen shot Danilo López in March 2015, while the reporter for Guatemala City daily Prensa Libre was walking in a park with a fellow journalist. In more than a decade with the newspaper, López had often written about corruption and misuse of public funds and had received threats in connection to his reporting. The case awaits a murder trial against Julio Juárez Ramírez, a former lawmaker who has been charged with orchestrating the attack and sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department under the Global Magnitsky Act. Courts sentenced the getaway driver to 30 years in prison, charged but have not arrested the alleged gunman and acquitted two other suspects. Authorities believe the case may be linked to an organized crime network working with a drug cartel and transferred the case in 2015 to a special court in the capital after local prosecutors investigating the crime received threats.
Four suspects, no charges in case of murdered journalist.
Four suspects are yet to be charged in the June 2018 killing of Shujaat Bukhari, founding editor of Rising Kashmir newspaper. Several unidentified gunmen fired at him as he was leaving his office for an iftar party. He suffered injuries to the head and abdomen and died, as did two police officers who had been assigned to protect him after an attack in 2000. In the days preceding the incident, Bukhari had requested additional security amid the conflict-ridden situation in Kashmir. Police claimed that Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based militant group was responsible, but the group has denied involvement. In November 2018, police and the army killed one of the prime suspects in a shootout. There have been no updates in the case since.
Case idling 1.5 years after journalist killed outside her home.
In June last year, unknown attackers shot and killed reporter Norma Sarabia, 46, at the front door of her residence in Huimanguillo, in the southern state of Tabasco. She had received frequent death threats as a correspondent for newspapers Diario Presente and Tabasco HOY and had recently reported on a series of violent crimes, including murders and a kidnapping. Soon after her death, the Tabasco state attorney general’s office said in a statement released on Twitter that it had opened an investigation. To date, however, there has still been little movement in the investigation. Sarabia is one of 56 journalists killed in Mexico since 1992.
Independent investigation needed into investigative journalist’s death.
Daphne Caruana Galizia, a prominent journalist who reported on corruption and helped cover the Panama Papers, was killed in Malta in October 2017 by a car bomb near her house. Her widely read blog, Running Commentary, included investigative reports and commentary on politicians. Former Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat considered Galizia a harsh critic of his but condemned the “barbaric” attack and stepped down in January 2020 over the political crisis sparked after the case. Four men have been in detention—some since December 2017—but no trial date has been set. CPJ and 18 other organizations have called on authorities to prevent political interference in the investigation.
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fortune--2020-11-02--Fearing election unrest, U.S. businesses are getting ready

Judging by the plywood, it’s shaping up to be an Election Day like no other.
In downtown Washington, the sounds of hammers and power tools echoed through the streets Monday as workers boarded up dozens of businesses. In New York City, businesses from Macy’s flagship store in Herald Square to high-end shops in Manhattan’s chic SoHo neighborhood had already covered their windows. Similar scenes played out in Denver and St. Paul, Minnesota, with business owners fearing that Tuesday’s election could lead to the sort of unrest that broke out earlier this year.
Just a short walk from the White House, construction workers were carrying large sheets of plywood. For block after block, most stores had their windows and doors covered. Some kept just a front door open, hoping to attract a little business.
“We have to be ready,” said Ali Khan 66, who works at a now-barricaded downtown Washington liquor store where thousands of dollars in merchandise was stolen in June protests. “They smashed the windows and just walked out with everything.”
Washington authorities pledged to keep the peace, with police officials saying the entire department would be on the job on Election Day.
“Some people would like to cause mayhem and trouble,” Mayor Muriel Bowser said. She also said she had never seen so many businesses being boarded up: “That all saddens me.”
Activists are preparing for another long-term occupation of Black Lives Matter Plaza, one block from the White House.
In New York City, a police department memo to officers called the vote “one of the most highly contested presidential elections in the modern era” and noted that the winner “may not be decided for several weeks.”
Police there have been holding tabletop exercises to prepare for potential unrest and shifting hundreds of officers to patrol duties.
“We want to be very careful not to either over-police, because that that could send a signal, or under-police,” said John Miller, the department’s deputy commissioner for intelligence and counterterrorism.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, speaking last week on a local radio show, said it was too early to predict what would happen, but that the city would be ready.
“We’re going to be prepared for a lot of protests, prolonged protests, potentially different protest groups confronting each other,” he said. “If anything turns violent, we’re going to move to stop that immediately.”


fortune--2020-11-02--UK bettor places £1 million wager on Biden to win presidential election

With Election Day upon us, it’s anybody’s guess who will be the next President of the United States. But at least one bettor seems to think they have a pretty good idea.
According to U.K.-based gambling company Betfair, one “punter” (as bettors are called in that part of the world) has placed an extraordinary bet of 1 million pounds ($1.3 million) on Joe Biden to win the election. The gamble is the biggest political bet ever placed on Betfair’s exchange and would return winnings of 1.54 million pounds ($2 million) should Biden beat President Trump to win the White House, given the 8/15 odds placed on the Democratic nominee at the time of the wager.
More than 271 million pounds ($350 million) and counting have been wagered on the 2020 presidential election on Betfair’s platform—already exceeding the 199 million pounds ($257 million) placed on the 2016 election and making this year’s contest the bookmaker’s “biggest betting event of all time,” it says.
This past weekend saw 14 million pounds’ ($18 million) worth of bets placed on Biden and 8 million pounds staked on Trump, who remains a 15/8 long shot to win reelection despite his odds having improved lately, according to Betfair. The current odds give Biden a 65% chance of winning the election.
“The big money is coming for Biden because people get more confident at the end of an election about the state of the market, and the big hitters enter,” according to political gambler and Betfair election expert Paul Krishnamurty.
While betting on political elections remains outlawed in the U.S., the presidential election has become a hugely popular betting market for those abroad in countries that do allow political wagering, such as the U.K. Betfair says it expects the total amount staked on the 2020 election to hit 400 million pounds ($517 million) on its platform—an unprecedented amount of betting interest that many attribute to Trump and his unique way of drawing attention to the American political process.
“That has to be the Trump effect,” Krishnamurty says of the increased interest in political wagering. “He’s changed the game.”


fortune--2020-11-02--‘Settle for Biden’ hopes to bring Bernie Sanders supporters to the polls

When Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders dropped out of the presidential primary in April, the assumed nominee, Joe Biden, made a direct appeal to his supporters. “Let me say, especially to the young voters who have been inspired by Senator Sanders: I hear you. I know what is at stake. And I know what we have to do,” he said.
The appeal makes sense: While young people don’t show up at the polls as frequently as their elders, they now constitute about half of all Americans. One in 10 eligible voters are members of Generation Z (ages 18 to 23), and 27% of voters are millennials. Together, that’s enough to sway an election.
Voters between the ages of 18 and 44 were the largest demographic group to support Sanders over Biden during his Super Tuesday sweep last spring. According to exit polls, Sanders won the largest chunk of voters 18 to 29 years old in every single state with the exception of Mississippi. And while it wasn’t enough enough to propel Sanders to victory, it’s an important group for any politician to hold on to.
Americans between the ages of 18 and 23 are likely to vote along the Democratic ticket Tuesday, but not enthusiastically. Nearly half of Gen Z voters say they’re casting their vote against Donald Trump—not in favor of Biden—and a quarter of young voters said that they didn’t like Biden or Trump enough to vote, compared with just 13% of the total population, according to a new Politico/Morning Consult survey.
Sam Weinberg, a 19-year-old Illinois native who backed Sanders, noticed this lack of enthusiasm in his own life. As Sanders wound down his campaign, Weinberg worried that his friends would also wind down their political activism. So he decided to do something about it. He created the Instagram account, Settle for Biden, which contains a healthy dose of tongue-in-cheek, self-aware humor alongside real policy comparisons between Trump and Biden. One image, which received nearly 20,000 likes, shows Biden holding a baseball bat with the words “Because a foul ball is better than a strike.” The caption below it reads: “Even if you think Biden is a swing-and-a-miss, you can’t deny that that’s better than getting hit in the face with a fastball.”
Settle for Biden Instagram
Another image features a photo of Biden with the words “He’ll do” above him.
Settle for Biden Instagram
The concept blew up, and the account now has more than 277,000 followers—including public figures like actor Kerry Washington—and a team of young people working on it.
Fortune spoke with Weinberg, who is currently taking time off from school to focus on the campaign from his home in Chicago.
The following conversation has been lightly edited.
Fortune: How serious are you about Settle for Biden? And what does settling for Biden look like?
Weinberg: Well, we’re serious about settling for Biden. The way that we’re trying to communicate that is a little bit more sardonic. It’s tricky because we do use a combination of sardonic humor and substantive policy proposals to communicate our message. But no, we are not satire. Although, you know, there are elements that could be seen as satirical.
How did this movement start? What are the origins?
In April, right after Bernie Sanders dropped out, as the primaries were coming to a close, I saw people, online and in some of my personal circles, saying stuff like, “I don’t think I’ll be able to bring myself to vote for Joe Biden.” People were saying they just wouldn’t vote. And I saw people saying stuff like, “Joe Biden and Donald Trump are two sides of the same coin,” and on a personal level, that really incensed me. And on a policy level, I think it’s just incredibly inaccurate. So I decided I would spend a little bit of my time trying to defeat that narrative.
It started as just an Instagram account. It was just me from April until late June. I taught myself the basics of some graphic design software. It was basically just something that I was doing if I had a spare 20 minutes a few times a week, then it really, really took off. I put out a call for résumés. And now we’re a grassroots collective of two dozen young people across the U.S. just really, really working to try to defeat Donald Trump.
Settle for Biden Instagram
What do you mean by young people?
I’m 19; the youngest person involved is 17. With a few exceptions, we’re all college-aged or recent graduates.
Clearly you’re someone who’s interested in politics, but do you have a history of getting involved?
I don’t have any political experience or anything. I guess I just fell into the category of concerned citizen. Now I’m working 10 to 15 hours a day on Settle for Biden and some other related projects.
This project blew up really quickly. Now you’ve got celebrities involved, nearly 300,000 followers, merchandise. Were you expecting any of this?
I did not expect it to be this large. I’m really glad that it is. I’m glad that we’re having an impact. The scaling up was really due to just two or three posts that got a whole lot of traction. On June 27, there was a post which said, “A vote for a third party is a vote for Donald Trump, and a vote for Donald Trump is a vote for homophobia, misogyny, fascism”—something like that. That got 25,000 likes when all the previous posts had been getting a few hundred. The growth streak was gradual up until then. The announcement of Kamala Harris as Vice President also boosted us up.
It seems like you’ve tapped into something that many young people are feeling…
Yeah, that’s a thing we hear pretty commonly. I know a lot of people are not too inspired by Joe Biden, but they’re still gonna be voting for him just because he is clearly the best choice.
Voter enthusiasm is obviously an important factor in getting people out to the polls, but this is almost the opposite of ginning up enthusiasm. Do you worry that people won’t go out and vote?
Well, there are three factors at play here. The first is that there are people who are enthusiastic about Joe Biden—obviously, that’s not our base.
The second thing is we’re really trying to defeat this idea that you have to be enthusiastic about candidates to vote for them. If people are seeing stuff all over the place on TV, online, wherever, where people are completely and uncritically proclaiming their love for a candidate, then it’s easy to throw out the whole process and say, “I don’t feel this way about the candidate, so there’s no point in voting.” We’re trying to make the point that you don’t have to feel a huge sense of anything about Joe Biden; you just have to get out there and vote because our democracy is at stake. Hopefully, people will realize that they don’t have to be head over heels for him, but they can just spend five minutes filling out their ballot and get it over with, and then spend the next four years not having to worry about what the President did that day.
The third aspect is that there is a lot of passion in the opposite direction in terms of hatred for Trump. I’ve been hearing a lot of pundits say, “You can’t just be voting against someone; you’ve got to be voting for someone.” I’m not sure that’s the case in this election. I think that the disdain and the frustrations around Trump and his administration are so intense and so justified that people are really going to be voting against him more than they will be voting for Joe Biden.
There’s that old cliché, Democrats fall in love and Republicans fall in line…It seems like this election may be the reverse of that.
There needs to be a combination on the left of falling in love and falling in line. People who supported Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren—they fell in love. And for those people, their love did not translate into victory, and they have to fall in line. I would rather be the party that falls in love rather than falls in line because clearly the Republicans have blindly coalesced around Trump. I would not want to be that party. I wouldn’t want to be the party that falls in line around a psychotic megalomaniac. I’d rather be in the party that’s morally pure. But at the same time, moral purity is not going to win this election.
What’s the ideal outcome of this election for you? Would you like Biden to be a one-term President?
Right now my expectation is that Biden will be a one-term President. Based on what I’ve read and seen and heard about him and how he feels about the election, he probably is thinking along similar lines. He’s described himself as someone who’s going to restore the soul of the nation, a sort of a transition after Trump. And he’s also very old. The implication is that if he wins, then in four years, Kamala Harris will be the nominee. I don’t know how I feel about that, but four years is a long way away, and we have a tendency in the U.S. where, on Nov. 4 or whenever Trump is forced to concede, if that happens, the media is just going to jump to 2024.
There’s a lot happening between then and now. I have no expectations about the election in four years. I just hope that someone progressive runs and wins. In terms of more immediate goals, we’re focused on getting as many people to vote as possible. We’re focused on pushing Biden’s platform to the left: We would love him to embrace Medicare for All and the Green New Deal.
You’ve worked with some celebrities. Have you heard from any politicians that you admire?
I exchanged a few emails with Noam Chomsky. We kind of quipped a little bit about how ridiculous it is that some people are going to be voting third party.


fortune--2020-11-02--Trump’s odds of winning have surged in the past 48 hours, according to this data scientist’s model

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You often hear political pundits claim that the contest for the White House is a remarkably stable one. It’s true that Joe Biden has enjoyed a consistent lead in the average of battleground polls that’s toggled for months in a relatively narrow range between 5% and his current edge of 3%, the same margin he held in early September. But the polls look backward, reflecting voter preferences that are often five days old, or even further out of date. The data that best reflect where the race stands in real time, minute by minute––the prices gamblers are paying on the political betting sites––show a battle that’s turned wildly volatile in the closing days.
The proof is the fluctuating fever chart for each of the three states that together constitute a must-win for Trump: North Carolina, Arizona, and Pennsylvania. The odds in the Tar Heel State careen from red to blue practically by the hour. In Pennsylvania and Arizona, where he’s never led, the red line is zigzagging from steep dips that should give the Democrats comfort, to spikes toward even money that should make them nerve-janglingly nervous.
“Over the past week, we’ve seen few if any events that have moved the market. Instead, the big theme has been a jump in bettors’ uncertainty about the outcome, in different states and overall,” says Thomas Miller, a data scientist at Northwestern University who harvests the data from the U.S. gaming venue PredictIt.org to project overall odds each hour, posted on Twitter @virtualtout. “We’re now seeing far and away the greatest volatility in the entire campaign.”
The gambling sites show big, sudden shifts, with Trump pulling closer
Miller’s model uses data from odds on PredictIt for all 56 jurisdictions that offer electoral votes. He then marshals machine learning to run 1 million hypothetical elections an hour using Monte Carlo simulations that incorporate a broad range of possible outcomes in each state. He distills all the number-crunching into two forecasts that move in tandem: The number of electoral votes Biden is most likely to win, and the Democratic candidate’s odds of victory. Miller posts those benchmarks each hour on Twitter @virtualtout, along with a graph that shows the trajectory of the votes and odds. Displayed on the curve are key events that are aligned with the ups and downs for each candidate, from Trump’s brutish performance in the first debate and COVID-19 diagnosis that depressed his chances, to Michelle Obama’s heartfelt video and the 60 Minutes interview that lifted Biden’s fortunes.
Miller prefers betting odds to polls for three main reasons. First, prices the gamblers are paying for each contender are posted instantaneously, so the odds are always up to the minute, versus surveys that reflect opinions that are several days old. Second, the bettors aren’t expressing an opinion on whom they’ll vote for, meaning whom they think should win, but putting “skin in the game” by risking their own cash. Third, the “sample size” on PredictIt is much larger than for any poll. The site has over 100,000 active U.S. investors across all political markets.
At midday on Nov. 2, @virtualtout put Trump’s odds of winning at 23%, versus 77% for Biden, rating the former Vice President a 3-to-1 favorite. But what’s gripping is how much that number has jumped around in the past few days. It’s helpful to review the undulations in the forecast since the start of September. From Sept. 1 to Oct. 12, Biden’s chances of victory consistently stood at over 90%, hitting 94% and 326 electoral votes at the peak. Then Trump surged back when he returned to barnstorming, looking vital and eager for combat. By Oct. 28, he was posting his best numbers of the entire campaign at 25.3%. In less than three weeks, his odds have swelled from 1 in 10 to 1 in 4.
Then the race turned hugely volatile. Trump’s attack on Lesley Stahl on 60 Minutes appeared to rile female voters. By Oct. 30, just two days after hitting his summit, his @virtualtout number had shrunk by 11 points to 14.3%, or 1 chance in 7. But in 24 hours, Trump staged a stunning reversal, hitting 23.5% at 11:20 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 31. Six hours later, late on Sunday afternoon, he’d fallen back to 18.3%. Then Trump roared back once again to 23% Monday morning, a gain of 4.7 points, before falling back to 22.8% by early afternoon. Miller puts his electoral vote count at 241, 56 shy of Biden’s projected 297. Hence, Trump’s chance has improved from less than 1 in 5 to, at times, around 1 in 4 in less than 24 hours.
Three states account for the wide swings in Trump’s odds
The most cited source for election forecasts, RealClearPolitics, lists six states as Top Battlegrounds: Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Biden leads in the average of polls in all but North Carolina, and is also narrowly ahead in a seventh, often labeled a toss-up, Georgia. PredictIt, however, gives a much more up-to-date picture of the prizes truly in play. Trump is now a big favorite to win Florida and Georgia, standing at 61% in both. The gamblers are pretty much counting him out in the upper Midwest; his odds in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota are all between 21% and 24%.
So the end game centers on the Big Three, North Carolina, Arizona, and Pennsylvania. It’s the oscillating odds in that triumvirate that account for the quicksilver shifts in Trump’s shot at victory. No state epitomizes the shifting currents better than North Carolina. From Oct. 1 to Oct. 18, Biden enjoyed a big lead, averaging almost 10 points. Then Trump came back, gaining a tiny advantage on Oct. 22. The lead changed hands three times in the next three days, but by Oct. 30, it looked like Biden was back in charge to stay when his edge jumped to 56% versus Trump’s 46%. That descent probably helped sink Trump’s odds at the time, since he has no path to winning without taking the Tar Heel State. But in yet another twist, on Sunday afternoon Trump grabbed the lead once again, and on Monday, has held a consistent margin of around 55% to 45%. It’s that switch that’s kept Trump in the game. As of today, he’s a narrow favorite to repeat his 2016 win in North Carolina.
Still, the whipsawing odds there are greatly adding to the weeklong surge in uncertainty. Another nail-biter is Arizona. It’s traditionally Republican territory that Trump took by 3.5 points in 2016. Yet on Oct. 8, Trump’s chances stood at just 32%, or 1 in 3. Although he was climbing back, on the Friday before the election he was in a hole at 43%. At midafternoon on Monday, he’s at between 47% and 48%, but he’s still never reached 50%. So Biden is maintaining a minuscule edge in the Grand Canyon State, though his prospects now stand on a knife’s edge.
So Trump holds what looks like a small but durable advantage in North Carolina and clings just below even odds in Arizona. The main reason he’s still such a long shot is the deficit in Pennsylvania. To be sure, Trump has rebounded strongly, doubtless aided by Biden’s gaffe on ending America’s oil and gas production, industries that account for 1 million jobs in the Keystone State. As recently as Oct. 7, Trump was lagging 27% to 73%. He clawed back to 43% on Oct. 27 and fell to 38% over the next three days. By midafternoon on Monday, he’d reached 42%, but had made no progress over the previous 24 hours.
Trump’s problem: Little time, not great momentum
And that’s precisely Trump’s towering challenge. He needs to hold North Carolina, where he’s just over even-money to win, overcome a small deficit in Arizona, and climb back from a shortfall in the odds of 58% to 42% in Pennsylvania. He’s got good to pretty good chances in each state. But to win, he’s got to pull off not one, not two, but a near-miraculous trifecta.
It’s important to address a yawning divergence in the overall odds for the nationwide, winner-take-all market on PredictIt, as well as the other betting sites, to those awarded by the Miller model. As noted, Miller’s methodology gives Trump a 1-in-4 chance of prevailing. But on PredictIt, Trump’s line on Monday afternoon is 40% to 60%, or 2 in 5 to win, 15 points higher than Miller’s approximate 25%. So if Miller is using the PredictIt data, why is the probability his model puts on a Trump victory so much lower? “It’s that people who are betting on the nationwide winner-take-all poll are using their feelings about what will happen in the election,” he says. “But to understand the outcome in the Electoral College, you have to model it. And that requires a computer.”
In fact, Miller is capitalizing on what he sees as a fun opportunity for arbitrage. He’s wagered $50 on the front-runner, a bet that would return him around $75, or 50% on his bet. “When I can buy something for $60 that my model shows is worth $75 to $80, I’ll buy that ticket,” he says. Miller has brought rigorous science to a field where predictions are often based on trends from the past and outdated polls. The question is whether any model can be smart enough to capture what Trump will need, a sudden surge in momentum that could put him over the top. “The time for that to happen is so short,” says Miller. The Big M is on Trump’s side, but with only hours to go, it doesn’t look strong enough to score the trifecta.