Midterms too close to call, GOPs missing positive message and other commentary

“Trump certainly deserves a shellacking — his presidency combines the unthinkable with the unnecessary with the unhinged,” growls Joe Klein at Sanity Clause, but he’s not making any predictions.“Senate races across the country,” including red states, “are all within or near the margin of error.” I’m “hoping that the Democrats will take one of the Houses,” but “I’m not willing to bet the farm on that.” One worry: Democrats this year “have accepted socialism in the same righteous, benighted way that they strutted trans activism in 2024.” Yet you can see Dem momentum in “the trend toward ship-jumping and modification by Republican candidates” distancing themselves “from Trump in close races.” Beware: “Crazy things have been known to happen in October.” Plus, “journalists really suck at predictions,” so: “Don’t trust us.”“What should Republicans do about [Abdul] El-Sayed?” asks Washington Examiner’s Byron York.

He’s a “radical” who “has some truly terrible ideas,” but “that doesn’t mean he’s wrong about everything.” When he “leads with the cost of living” and blames “recent increases on the war in Iran,” he’s “hitting Republicans in their weakest spot.” Republicans can respond with “negative advertising targeting his positions, record, and associates,” but they must also show that he “does not have a plausible plan to stop the increase in the cost of living” — and that the GOP does, something they have “not done that well enough.” Republicans “need to raise their game,” or they’ll “spend the next six years with Sen.El-Sayed.”Nikole Hannah-Jones casts “segregation and school choice as causing educational inequality,” but the real outrage “isn’t that some families can choose a good school, but that too many can’t,” argues Roland Fryer at The Wall Street Journal.

“Too many must choose from a menu that presents the options dishonestly or offers...