Five Things
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Five Things: Tuesday, November 3
Good morning. Here is what matters today, in five.
1. Polls are open. Congress is on the ballot. Voters in Connecticut, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, New Jersey, New York, Vermont and Virginia were first in at 6 a.m. Kentucky and Indiana report first, at 6 p.m. Eastern, and Senate control runs through Maine, Ohio and North Carolina. via The Center Square.
2. Supreme Court lets California count 20,000 flagged ballots. Justice Elena Kagan on Monday denied the Justice Department’s emergency bid to set aside roughly 20,000 California mail-in ballots it says are “highly likely” from noncitizens. DOJ says 28 people on that list already face federal charges, including lying about citizenship to vote. via The Center Square.
3. Factories just had their best production month since 2021. The Institute for Supply Management’s October index hit 55.5, a tenth straight month of factory growth, and its production gauge reached 59, the highest since November 2021. Prices paid are still rising, though, at 75.2. via the Institute for Supply Management.
4. AOC tried to stop the Stevens defection. Nope. Politico reports Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spent 25 minutes on the phone with Haley Stevens last week trying to keep her on side. By Sunday Stevens had endorsed Republican Mike Rogers, and former Democratic Rep. Hansen Clarke followed within hours. via The Daily Wire.
Stevens texted AOC “it means the world.” Then she endorsed the Republican.
5. Cardi B would never put her kids in NYC schools. After a 15-year-old Bronx student was shot dead on his way to school, the Harris- and Crockett-endorsing rapper told a livestream that city kids are “mean,” said she would “never, never, never” use the public schools, and urged parents to move to Pennsylvania. via The Daily Wire.
Blue-city schools: fine for your kids, not for the celebrities who campaign for them.
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James Talarico
Texas state representative, seminarian, now running for U.S. Senate. Known for: viral floor speeches, Bible verses, and a checking account with a co-signer.
Certified LeftistHonored for his financial prudence. His Senate financial disclosure lists exactly one checking account, with a note explaining who else is on it, his mommy. He is 37. The follow-up filing in August shows the balance dropping from the $15,001-to-$50,000 range to $1,000-to-$15,000, so the campaign appears to be running on allowance. We assume big-boy pants will be a line item for next year.
“The account is jointly held by the filer and the filer’s mother.”
Source: Filer comment, personal financial disclosure (Annual Report for 2025), via the Washington Free Beacon, June 2026Photo: Larry D. Moore via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
More jabs on the Satire page →
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From Our Allies
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From Our Allies: Tuesday, November 3
The best of the day from the Allies. Headlines link to the original; we add a line on each.
Red States Team Up To Fight Illegal Immigrant Truckers
The Daily Wire — Fourteen-plus Republican-led states ran a coordinated 72-hour sweep with ICE so illegal truckers could not simply reroute around Oklahoma, arresting more than 230, including dozens with commercial licenses.
California’s Minimum-Wage Experiment Isn’t Looking Good
City Journal — Robert VerBruggen reports that a new working paper testing California’s $20 fast-food wage more than 1,400 ways finds job losses are the typical result, not the outlier.
Madness on the 6
American Enterprise Institute — Samuel Abrams describes a man threatening to shoot riders on a 6 train while Abrams’s children watched, and argues New York has normalized what should be unacceptable.
The New York Times Is Getting Really, Really Ridiculous
Washington Free Beacon — By Ira Stoll: “Each day brings new evidence that the New York Times is abandoning nonpartisan independence and instead embracing the hard left.”
Find all of them on our Allies page.
