AIN'T I AN IDIOT?

Vance Ends Election Campaign With Vile Attack on Woman

He’s not casting a spell on half the electorate, our must-read newsletter The Swamp reveals.

Welcome to Midterms Meltdown, a special pop-up newsletter from The Swamp—bringing you up to the minute with the secrets the politicians don’t want you to know about the race to November 3.

It is the most consequential election campaign since 2024, and the nooze will be oozing around the nation to shape D.C. for the next two years and beyond. Our David Gardner, Farrah Tomazin, and Sarah Ewall-Wice are getting down and dirty with the inside stories from the battlefields every Monday and Friday.

Melting down in The Swamp today are: Nate Silver, Kamala Harris, Barbie, Ken, Zach Dembo, Amy Acton, Mike Rogers, Abdul El-Sayed, George W. Bush, Anthony Constantino, Al Gore, John McCain, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, and Troy Jackson.

Vice President Goes All in on Women-Hating Chant

It sometimes feels like Vice President JD Vance is actively trying to hurt his future with women voters.

In 2024, he came under fire when past remarks about Democrats being “childless cat ladies” resurfaced.

Now, on his second-last stop of a rally tour of deep-red districts on Monday, he has cheerfully called Kathy Hochul, the governor of New York, a “witch.”

The way it happened suggests that Vance can’t help himself. As the vice president was speaking in Rome, New York, at a not-very busy rally, attendees started chanting “ditch the witch.”

“They’re saying, ladies and gentlemen, I don’t endorse it, but for those who can’t hear it, they’re chanting ‘ditch the witch’ on T.V.,” Vance said.

Play Video

“That’s a proper and appropriate Halloween message,” Vance said with a laugh. “I’m not necessarily endorsing it. I wouldn’t want anybody to think that I would necessarily say that, but ditch the witch,” he added, gesturing with his hands for additional emphasis.

As he smiled, the crowd cheered.

The rally was for MAGA candidate Anthony Constantino, the guy who gifted Trump a bronze statue, in a district Republicans won by nearly 21 points less than two years ago. It’s a telling priority in the final stretch that Vance had to rally support in a district that was once double-digit Trump territory.

Just some notes for Vance’s future reference. Broadly speaking, calling a woman a “witch” isn’t very popular with… women. Nov. 1 is not Halloween, it is in fact All Saints Day, marked as a Holy Day of Obligation by the Catholic Church Vance joined recently. So time to give up on (unfunny) Halloween gags.

And the most important note of all: The race to be the 48th president starts on Nov. 4. So probably best if you don’t put a hex on your chances of getting half the electorate on side before it’s even begun.

Nostradamus Pollsters Hope to Get Their Predictions Out of the Red

Feuding pollsters Allan Lichtman and Nate Silver are not seeing red over the midterm elections—because both are seeing the blues.

Until 2024, Nostradamus pollster Lichtman had predicted nine of the previous 10 presidential races, with a winning run dating back to George W. Bush nudging past Al Gore in 2000 with the help of some hanging chads.

Then came the history professor at American University’s confident claim that Kamala Harris was destined for the Oval Office. Oops!

But the fact that he was famously wrong hasn’t humbled Lichtman, who is convinced that the Democratic Party will win both chambers of Congress in Tuesday’s election.

Lichtman, 79, bases his predictions on a formula of asking 13 true-or-false questions drawn from polling, policy, scandal, cultural and social issues, early voting and the economy. And he can’t be accused of blue bias—he was one of the few pollsters to pick Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016.

This time, Lichtman is avoiding any confrontation with fellow pollster Nate Silver. Two years ago, they clashed with Silver, who predicted a 50-50 nail-biter between Trump and Harris, branding the professor “comedically overconfident. Lichtman criticized Silver’s credibility, saying: “He’s not a historian or a political scientist. He has no academic credentials.”

“Unlike Nate Silver, who will try to squirm out of why he didn’t see the election coming, I admit that I was wrong,” Lichtman wrote on X.

The likely reason they haven’t crossed swords this time is that they both agree, with Silver predicting a “blue tsunami.”

Neither can hide on Wednesday. Let’s hope there are no red faces. Or the air might turn blue, after all!

Holy Toledo! How MAGA’s Final Sprint Proved Things Look Grim

On the eve of the biggest election to date, it’s very telling how top politicians are spending their final full day on the campaign trail. Perhaps most telling was Trump, who held seven “tele-rallies” (basically him shouting into a speaker phone for who knows how many listeners?) and also took the time to drive out from the White House to the Reflecting Pool to brag about its “completion” despite it being finished months and millions over budget.

Then Vance headed not just to theoretically deep-red upstate New York, but also back to Ohio (again) as Republicans contemplate a shellacking in his home state. His stop was in the 9th congressional district, centered on Toledo, where Republicans are desperate to unseat Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur, but that seat has also seen its rating shift further into blue territory.

He notably had ally Donald Trump Jr. tag along for both campaign stops, which probably didn’t help, since the president’s oldest son issued a head-scratching warning about Democrats: “they want to make Ohio a state,” while literally standing in Ohio.

And House Speaker Mike Johnson, found himself in Virginia trying to hold off Democrats from flipping the 2nd congressional district, the far south-eastern corner of the state, which has been rated “Lean Democrat.” Johnson was in 24 states in the last month as he still maintains Republicans can hold the House despite a tsunami of race ratings shifting further toward Democrats. His conviction allows him to keep insisting he will be able to become Speaker again, but if Democrats take control, Johnson is toast. Which may explain why he wasn’t asking for people’s votes on the Saturday night before the election. Instead he was at Mar-a-Lago, partying with a captive zebra, drag artists, and Trump himself.

‘Jaded’ Vivek Couldn’t Get Out His Own Vote

Vivek Ramaswamy has spent the closing stretch of Ohio’s governor’s race unleashing the most vile attack ads of the midterms. But there’s a rather awkward footnote to his pitch to lead the Buckeye State: for much of his adult life, he couldn’t even be bothered to vote. According to the OCG Research Center, Ramaswamy cast a ballot in just one presidential election between 2000 and 2020. That was in 2004, when he backed a Libertarian candidate. He then sat out the next three presidential elections before finally showing up for Donald Trump in 2020.

Ramaswamy has explained that he was “jaded” in his “younger age,” which is one way of describing a 16-year stretch of presidential-election apathy. His Democratic opponent, Amy Acton, meanwhile, has voted in every election over the same period, as well as every election in the six years since. So the man now asking Ohioans to trust him with their state was, until relatively recently, apparently not all that interested in participating in the democracy he wants to run. Perhaps he was just waiting for a candidate worth getting out of bed for. We know who finally managed it: Donald Trump.

Prediction Barbie

The locally-famous Barbie Pond in northwest D.C.—a kitschy, ever-changing garden installation at a private residence on Q Street—has delivered its midterm verdict: a blue wave is coming. The display, created by an anonymous trio of local enthusiasts, has become a beloved D.C. institution, with its cast of Barbies and Kens regularly rearranged to reflect holidays, pop culture and the latest political absurdities.

This time, a Ken resembling Trump is clutching a lifebuoy, another Ken depicting JD Vance is sprawled on a couch, and a collection of Barbies are drowning beneath a giant blue wave.

The Stevens Crash Cash Grab

An unintended consequence of Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens’ dramatic u-turn to endorse MAGA Senate candidate Mike Rogers has been that the accused turncoat’s 11th-hour endorsement has fueled a massive surge in donations for Abdul El-Sayed. The Michigan Democratic Senate nominee raked in $2.4 million on Sunday, his best fundraising day of the 2026 cycle so far as Stevens showed up outside a church with the MAGA candidate she previously blasted as a Trump rubber stamp. Her dramatic reversal to back the Republican shocked her former campaign aides, congressional staffers and colleagues alike.

But apparently it also galvanized those looking to flip the Senate blue, something that largely relies on Democrats keeping the Michigan seat. The contributions for El-Sayed flooded in from more than 65,000 donors, according to his campaign including more than 29,000 who were donating for the first time with just days to go before Election Day. But donations do not equal votes, so this battleground race might be the true one to watch on election night.

5 Clues to Watch Out for on Election Night

Apart from the obvious battlegrounds, here are five things The Swamp will be watching on election night that could tell us whether Donald Trump and the Republicans are in much bigger trouble than even they think.

What Trump is saying:

“They call it American flag blue, but it’s very dark, and if you had a regular blue … then you wouldn’t have any reflection. It wouldn’t be reflecting blue.” Trump talking about his Reflecting Pool paint job.

What the Republicans are saying:

“Our party needs a slap in the face.” Texas Young Republicans leader Hillary Shepheard after resigning rather than support scandal-plagued Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton.

What the Dems* are saying:

“Maybe he can be a McCain-type person or a Lisa Murkowski.” (Dem) Rep. Haley Stevens on Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers.

*Ex-Dems

AND FINALLY…PLACE YOUR BETS:

Who will win the Maine Senate seat?

What they’re saying on Kalshi:

Troy Jackson - 73 percent

Susan Collins - 23 percent

What they’re saying on Polymarket:

Troy Jackson - 73 percent

Susan Collins - 28 percent

The Swamp will be back on Wednesday afternoon with all the secrets of election night the winners and losers don’t want you to know.

Never miss another secret from the D.C. ooze by signing up here to get The Swamp direct to your inbox.

See more of our coverage in your search results.

ADD THE DAILY BEAST ON GOOGLE

The Swamp

Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.