Good Day, this is the Commonwealth Report.
News for the public, not the powerful.
Is Oligarchy Itself on the Ballot Tomorrow? Forty Billionaires Just Spent $2.4 Billion to Find Out
Tomorrow’s midterms carry a price tag no American election has ever seen. The Brennan Center for Justice reports the 40 biggest individual donors have poured $2.4 billion into federal races as of mid-October. That’s the most spent on any midterm since Citizens United in 2010, and eight times what the top 40 gave in 2014 after inflation. The New York Times puts Elon Musk at the top with nearly $450 million for Republicans. Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein gave $150 million. Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz chipped in $116 million. Jeff Yass added $110 million. The five biggest individual donors in America are all backing Republicans, and loyal GOP donors now give more than three times what reliable Democratic donors do. Labor unions have been pushed off the list by crypto money. Ian Vandewalker of the Brennan Center put it plainly. “The more one person can influence, the less egalitarian our system becomes.” Paul Krugman calls this election a referendum on oligarchy itself. If a few dozen men can own the government and pay no price, tomorrow isn’t just about who wins. It’s about whether your ballot still counts for as much as a billionaire’s checkbook.
Trump Vows Preemptive Pardon for Elon Musk. Who Else Gets a Get Out of Jail Free Card?
Donald Trump went on a podcast released this morning and said he’ll pardon Elon Musk before anyone can even investigate him. On Pod Force One, hosted by New York Post columnist Miranda Devine, asked about a preemptive pardon for Musk, Trump said “I would not even think about it. I’d do it.” His precedent? The January 6 insurrectionists he pardoned hours after taking office. He claims Democrats want to arrest Musk and his DOGE crew, including Edward Coristine, the 19-year-old who went after payroll and payment systems at the Small Business Administration. The Wall Street Journal says he’s promised to pardon anyone who came within 200 feet of the Oval Office. What Democrats actually want to examine is this. Musk’s companies hold billions in federal contracts. He ran DOGE while it cut 250,000 federal jobs, withheld money Congress appropriated, and dismantled USAID. This administration cancelled at least eight enforcement actions against his companies. And he’s put roughly $445 million into Republican super PACs this cycle. A pardon is supposed to be mercy. This is prepaid insurance for the biggest political donor in American history. Promising immunity to the man bankrolling your party before a single question gets asked isn’t justice. It’s a protection racket.
Haley Stevens Endorses the Republican. So Why Did Abdul El-Sayed’s Odds Go Up?
Michigan Democrats got a shock yesterday when Congresswoman Haley Stevens, who lost the Democratic Senate primary to Abdul El-Sayed in August, endorsed Republican Mike Rogers two days before the election. Stevens had been hammering El-Sayed to condemn a campaign ad about the cost of living, an ad that didn’t even come from his campaign. Trump cheered her on. Progressives were furious. But the people betting real money saw it differently. When Stevens made her announcement, El-Sayed sat at 69% on both Kalshi and Polymarket. An hour later he’d ticked up to 70% and 72%. By nine this morning, he stood at 78% on Kalshi and 79% on Polymarket, all-time highs since he beat Stevens in the primary. Stevens had publicly backed El-Sayed after losing to him, so this reversal landed hard. Traders apparently decided a primary loser’s endorsement of a Republican tells you more about her than about him. This seat decides whether Democrats can take the Senate. Michigan voters get the final word tomorrow, but it looks like the establishment’s last swing at a progressive just missed, and hit the swinger.
The news you need. Twice every weekday.
Who’s Paying to Keep America’s Dirtiest Power Plants Alive? You Are.
It’s a good time to own a coal plant in America. A new Environmental Defense Fund analysis, reported by the Guardian, looked at all 184 coal plants on the grid and found 90 of them, nearly half, got direct help from the Trump administration. Three flavors of help. First, cash. $950 million in taxpayer money to prop up 24 plants. Second, free passes to pollute. Seventy plants got exemptions from the Clean Air Act’s limits on mercury and other toxic pollution. All it took was an email to a special EPA inbox. Third, forced life support. The Energy Department ordered six plants to keep running past their retirement dates. Ratepayers have already eaten $593 million for that, and EDF estimates the health damage could reach $860 million. EPA chief Lee Zeldin told coal executives this year that “many of the items on your wish list are now done.” EDF’s Surbhi Sarang says the mercury coming out of these stacks damages children’s brains. So add it up. You pay once in taxes, again on your electric bill, and a third time in your family’s health, all so a dying industry can keep writing checks to the people who kept it alive.
Can Trump’s DOJ Get the Supreme Court to Toss California Ballots the Day Before the Election?
The day before the election, Donald Trump’s Justice Department is racing to the Supreme Court to get thousands of California ballots set aside. DOJ claims it found 20,000 likely noncitizens on California’s voter rolls and wants their ballots held until citizenship is verified. A federal judge said no. A divided 9th Circuit panel said no on Friday. Judges Mark Bennett, a Trump appointee, and Gabriel Sanchez found the federal list unreliable and warned that building a new ballot sorting system mid election could jeopardize all of Los Angeles County’s results. They cited the federal law banning systematic purges within 90 days of an election and warned of “a material risk” of disenfranchisement. Only Judge Patrick Bumatay dissented. The real number is far smaller than 20,000, since many people on DOJ’s list weren’t even registered. Meanwhile DOJ has threatened election workers with prosecution and sent grand jury subpoenas to the LA County Registrar’s office. Nobody knows if the Court will act before polls open. But look at this. The federal government is threatening the people who count our votes with prison, and asking the Supreme Court to toss ballots based on a list its own courts call unreliable. That’s not election integrity. That’s intimidation with a law degree.
Crazy Alert! Trump Picks the Reflecting Pool for His Closing Argument. Could He Have Found a Better Symbol?
You can’t make this up. Donald Trump is skipping battleground travel on the final day before the election to give his closing argument this afternoon at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. He says it’s to show how beautiful it is. Let’s review how beautiful it’s been. In April, Trump said contractors he knew would fix it in mere days for about $1.5 million. In June he declared victory. Within weeks, algae turned the water green and the new blue liner started peeling off. By mid-July, it was drained again. The repairs finished nearly three months late at more than ten times his original price. Trump blamed vandals. His own US Attorney, Jeanine Pirro, said it was shoddy workmanship. The Justice Department charged a former Olympian, David Hearn, then dropped the case, and a judge permanently dismissed it. Trump said Pirro “folded like an umbrella.” So on the eve of an election driven by the Iran war and the cost of living, the president is standing in front of a project promised fast and cheap that fell apart on contact with reality. If you wanted a metaphor for this presidency, he just handed you one, with a security camera pointed at it.
And that’s the way it is, Today Monday, November 2nd, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.
