5. Deal or no deal?:
By Tuesday, according to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, we should know whether Congress and the White House will find a way to make a deal before the election on a coronavirus stimulus package.
"While there was some encouraging news, much work remains," Pelosi said in a letter sent to her colleagues on Sunday afternoon. "I am optimistic that we can reach agreement before the election. To that end, we are writing language as we negotiate the priorities, so that we are fully prepared to move forward once we reach agreement."
The nut of the issue appears to be the size of the bill -- particularly as it relates to funding for testing (and other Covid-19-related issues) for minority communities.
The White House offered a $1.8 trillion bill last week which Pelosi quickly rejected. (Some Democratic Party leaders -- including 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang -- have suggested Pelosi needs to cut a deal for the good of the country.)
And while she seems open to the idea of a deal generally, other parts of Pelosi's letter are, um, less encouraging.
"The White House had assured Democrats that they would accept our language on testing with a 'light touch,'" she wrote. "Unfortunately, as the committees of jurisdiction review the White House's language provision-by-provision, it has become clear that these changes are not a light touch but instead, a deep dive."
The clock is ticking. 48 hours and counting.
4. A down-ballot disaster:
Yes, President Donald Trump looks like he is going to lose the presidential race to former Vice President Joe Biden. But it now increasingly looks like his unpopularity with the electorate could also cost his party the Senate and drive them even further into the House minority.
Inside Elections, a non-partisan handicapping tip sheet run by Nathan Gonzales, a CNN contributor, revised its seat projections in the Senate and the House in Democrats' favor.
Gonzales is now predicting a four- to six-seat Democratic gain in the Senate, which, if it comes to pass, means that Democrats will win the Senate majority whether Biden wins the White House or not.
On the House side, Gonzales now says Democrats are likely to gain between 10 and 20 seats, which could well double their current majority. (Republicans need a net gain of 17 seats to win the House majority, which is, well, not happening.)
If Inside Elections is right, Democrats would have full control over Washington that they haven't enjoyed since the first two years of Barack Obama's first term.
What that would mean is, effectively, an undoing of the last four years of Trump's presidency -- whether on health care, the environment, the tax code or the overall regulatory process in the nation's capital.
Side note: Keep an eye WAY down-ballot on the battle for state legislative control. This will be the last election before the country redraws its state legislative and House district lines in the wake of the 2020 Census. Which party controls the majority controls the line-drawing software in many of these states.
3. 22 mil
