“The math doesn’t work. The Democrats are down 1.7 million early votes in the battleground states in urban areas,” said Lotter. “They are down 1.4 million votes in the battleground states among women voters.”

“Rural voters have overperformed early by 300,000,” he continued, noting that “Democrats have to win their races early. Republicans generally win them on election day.”

“The margins don’t add up right now for the Democrats in any of these battleground states.”

"The math doesn't work. The Democrats are down 1.7 million early votes in the battleground states in urban areas."

"They are down 1.4 million votes in the battleground states among women voters."

"Rural voters have overperformed early by 300,000."

"Democrats have to win their… pic.twitter.com/zarBQ7RY7o

— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) November 5, 2024

Lotter’s comments come after the Trump campaign touted bullish data showing Republicans gaining ground with the early vote in battleground states vs. the 2020 election cycle.

According to the campaign, new and infrequent voters are leaning more Republican than Democrat based on the latest indications from Arizona, North Carolina, Nevada and Pennsylvania, the NY Post reports, citing a source in the camp.

“In those states, Democrats have more than 1.4 million voters who voted before Election Day in 2020 or 2022 but have not voted yet” — despite early voting being closed in nearly every state — “and many not having even requested a mail ballot,” the source said, suggesting that Democrat turnout might not be as strong this time around.

According to the Post, here’s some of the data that allies of the campaign have been privately touting – mixed with early-voter information:

Arizona

Returned mail and early-vote party registration: Republicans up 8 points.

Relative to 2020: Republicans are up 9 points.

Early voting in the Grand Canyon State closed Nov. 1. Men comprised about 50% of the votes for Republicans and 40% for Democrats, according to the data shared with The Post.

Other groups have reported apparent advantages for Republicans here, too. For instance, there have been 924,524 GOP ballot returns, relative to 736,569 for Democrats, according to early-vote data compiled by UpLift Campaigns.

Georgia

The Peach State doesn’t have voter registration information for its early votes.

Looking at data from Democratic analyst Tom Bonier, the African American early vote and mail turnout dipped 7% relative to 2020.

Early voting in Georgia stopped Nov. 1. Its turnout soared to 4,004,588 both through early voting and absentee voting by mail this year, compared to the 2,697,822 early voters four years ago, according to data from the Georgia Secretary of State’s office.

Michigan

The Wolverine State similarly lacks voter registration information for its early votes.

But the Trump campaign is touting data suggesting that in-person early voters represent about 32% of the pre-Election Day votes cast and that its supporters typically favor in-person voting. In-person early voting is new in Michigan.

More than 2.58 million of the over 7 million people registered to vote in Michigan have cast early votes, according to data from the Michigan Secretary of State’s Office.

North Carolina

Returned mail and early-vote party registration: Republicans up 1 point.

Relative to 2020: Republicans are up 9 points.

This appears to be the first time Republicans have ever clinched the early vote in North Carolina.

Data from Bonier suggests that African American mail and early-vote returns have sunk 22% relative to 2020 here. Men comprised about 37% of the Democratic support and 49% of Republican support.

In-person early voting in the Old North State stopped Nov. 2.

There have been about 4.4 million early votes cast out of the roughly 7.8 million registered voters in North Carolina, including 1,478,496 for Republicans, 1,436,861 for Democrats and 1,524,094 without a party registration, according to data from the University of Florida’s Election Lab.

Nevada

Returned mail and early-vote party registration: Republicans up 4 points.

Relative to 2020: Republicans are up 8 points.

Early in-person voting was closed off Nov. 1. Roughly 42% of Democratic votes came from men and 52% from Republicans.

Across the board, Nevada saw about 1,077,441 voters turn out early, including 406,705 from Republicans and 363,595 from Democrats, according to data.

Pennsylvania

Returned mail and early-vote party registration: Democrats up 23 points

Relative to 2020: Republicans are faring 22 points better.

The Trump campaign believes that Democrats’ early-vote advantage in the Keystone State has slipped from past elections, with total absentee ballots plummeting about 29% relative to the 2020 cycle.

There have been at least 1,739,606 early votes cast in Pennsylvania, including 971,615 from Democrats and 571,725 from Democrats, per the University of Florida’s Election Lab data.

Wisconsin

The Badger State lacks voter registration information for its early votes.

Still, the Trump campaign believes that early votes and mail-in ballots have slipped 23% since 2020 and that mail-in ballot requests are down 52% from 2020.

There have been at least 1,338,728 early votes cast in Wisconsin, according to data from the University of Florida’s Election Lab. There are more than 4.7 million registered voters there.

Approximately 76 million early votes have been cast across the country, per the University of Florida’s Election Lab vs. 252 million in the 2020 election, in which early voting generally favored Democrats, while in-person voting leaned Republican.

Whatever energy, spirit, or superpower one wants to attribute to the phenomenon, it’s definitely real. Henry Ford broke it down for the individual with his famous quote, “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.”

It works even better on a mass scale. If a large group of people can be convinced that something is going to happen, it often does even if outside forces point to a different outcome. This is important on Election Day because corporate media is in the process of trying to convince the world that Kamala Harris can win.

Here’s a snapshot from Google News “Full Coverage” of their top story this morning:

None of those headlines are accurate. The first one is particularly egregious in its gaslighting because the Kamala Harris campaign is in full-blown panic mode while the Trump campaign is trying their best not to seem overconfident.

Corporate media, upon orders from their UniParty Swamp and Deep State commanders, are trying to get Democrats pumped up so they can manufacture a win. At least that’s what they’re being told, and let’s hope that’s true. The alternative is ugly.

Donald Trump is on the brink of a massive landslide victory. As much as I hate public polls, it’s telling that the most accurate poll from 2020, Atlas Intel, has him winning all of the battleground states while being competitive in Minnesota and Virginia. Add New Hampshire to that list and likely a couple of “surprise” tight races in blue states and Trump should coast to well over 300 Electoral College votes and a majority of the popular votes.

In a free and fair electoral process based on legal American citizen voters, it’s possible that we could have results on election night. Of course, the caveat is “free and fair.” That’s very unlikely to happen unless the Democrats’ internal polling shows Trump achieved his goal of “too big to rig.”

This is why I’m relatively confident (slighting over 50% chance) that the sudden surge of unified gaslighting by corporate media trying to tell us that Kamala is going to happen is pure hopium. If not, then we’re witnessing their attempt to suspend disbelief. In that scenario, they’re prepared to steal the election and they need as many Americans as possible to disregard everything we’ve seen for the last month so we can accept the false results they have planned.

I’m not going to elaborate on the potential for a stolen election. We’ll cross that unfortunate bridge if it happens, but I don’t think it will. Every single indicator points to a Trump landslide. The only reason more pollsters and analysts aren’t saying it is because most of them hope it’s not true.

Let’s assume the indicators are right and corporate media is lying. That’s not exactly a tough pill for most Americans to swallow, not with trust in corporate media at an all-time low.

The only thing we should trust is that God is in control. If He wants Trump in the White House again, there’s no measure of cheating that can overpower His will. And if our judgment is due and Kamala is His choice, then we need to buckle up and brace ourselves.

Ephesians 6:11 comes to mind: Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

Don’t fear. Fight the good fight. Take care of yourself and your family no matter what happens with this crazy election. God is in control but He hears us. Otherwise prayer and free will would be meaningless.

For those who are not Bible-believing Christians, think positively about the outcome of this election with confidence that Donald Trump and his supporters have done enough to earn this victory. For Bible-believing Christians, do the same but throw in a prayer for good measure.

Arguably, it was not just the most iconic visual of the campaign, but also one of the most iconic images in American history.  The picture of a bloodied but defiant American president reaching toward the heavens and expressing a sense of resolute calm in a moment of chaos will remain in many people’s minds for the rest of their lives.  President Trump’s bravery is seared in their memories.

In any other election cycle, the contest would have ended on July 13.  On a sunny day during a festive campaign rally, a shooter murdered a husband and father protecting his family, injured two other attendees critically, and nearly assassinated a former president.  Such outrageous political violence should have sufficiently shifted public sentiment toward Trump’s favor to make his victory a foregone conclusion.  (For what it’s worth, President Biden dropped out of the race eight days later.)  Fearing that possibility, the propaganda press immediately worked to erase the incident from the public’s thoughts.

After becoming one of the most famous photographs in the world, the image of President Trump’s raw courage disappeared from publications and websites.  Reporters barely talked about the murder of local Pennsylvanian Corey Comperatore or the serious injuries to other rallygoers.  Anonymous FBI sources initially downplayed the attempted assassination by speculating that Trump had not actually been shot but had instead been cut by flying pieces of broken glass.  Cable news pundits openly mocked the bandaging around Trump’s ear and acted as if being shot in the face is no big deal.  To this day, FBI investigators preposterously claim that they are unable to ascertain the shooter’s motive.

This is the unfortunate reality of America in 2024.  One of the most consequential public figures in the world comes within millimeters of being assassinated, and the great majority of corporate news sources invest all their resources in covering up the seriousness of the event.  Reality cannot be permitted to interfere with their preferred political narratives.

Imagine if President Biden, President Obama, or Vice President Harris had been the target of an identical assassination attempt.  The press would have been talking about the incident nonstop over the last four months.  Newspaper headlines and news show chyrons would have kept the word “assassination” in front of Americans’ eyes.  Reporters would have demanded daily press briefings from the Secret Service, DOJ, and FBI.  We would have been repeatedly reminded that “democracy” is “literally” under attack and that violent Republicans are a “threat” to the stability of the Republic.  July 13 would have been memorialized as another “date which will live in infamy” because Democrats and the propaganda press would have settled for nothing less.

On January 6, 2021, tens of thousands of unarmed Americans protested for free and fair elections outside the Capitol, and Democrats have made sure Americans never forget that date.  Corporate reporters have falsely called protesters “insurrectionists,” “terrorists,” and “violent extremists.”  Politicians have accused Trump’s voters of trying to somehow overthrow the federal government without firing a shot.

In contrast, an assassin kills one Trump-supporter, injures several others, and nearly takes President Trump’s life, and the propaganda press acts as if it never happened.  If that glaring inconsistency does not vividly demonstrate how fake the J6 “insurrection” narrative has been, nothing else can.  Unlike Kamala Harris, Donald Trump was nominated for president through a democratic process, and when democracy actually came under attack, the news media minimized it as a trifle.

The outcome of this election will have serious consequences for Americans.  We will find out whether we are a nation willing to protect its citizens or a bankrupt welfare state with wide-open borders.  We will learn whether runaway inflation and economic uncertainty have become our permanent way of life or whether money-printing and crony capitalism have finally come to an end.  We will discover whether the Bill of Rights and Constitution still mean something in the United States or whether concerned Americans will have to fight for their most basic freedoms once again.  The stakes could not be higher.

On top of all these life-and-death issues, one weighs most heavily: will the struggle for truth survive?  Will Americans beat back a Deep State committed to mass censorship?  Will Americans dig their heels into the ground and defend free speech?

What we have learned over the last four years while the Biden-Harris administration attacked dissenting opinion as impermissible “disinformation” is that the death of the First Amendment means the proliferation of everything that is fake.  When scientific debate is censored, we get fake pandemics and fake vaccines.  When allegations of election fraud are treated as crimes, we get fake votes.  When political speech is vilified and the right to assemble is ignored, we get fake insurrections.  When Democrat elites overrule primary voters, we get fake presidential nominees.  When ill-prepared vice presidents are incapable of answering simple questions, we get fake accents!

Because Democrats and their corporate news allies have declared war on free speech, all we get is fake news.  And in a world where fake news dominates the headlines, assassination attempts against President Trump are erased from history.

In the place of news that greatly matters, the propaganda press has filled the airwaves with demonstrable lies in the days leading up to the election.  Fake journalists lie about President Trump taking away birth control and forcing women to have babies against their will.  After covering up Joe Biden’s dementia for years, they now lie about Donald Trump showing fake signs of fatigue.  They parrot the FBI’s fake crime statistics and lie to Americans about the safety of their communities.  They parrot the CDC’s fake COVID statistics and lie to Americans about the success of lockdowns, mask mandates, and fake vaccines.  They parrot fake jobs reports and lie to Americans about economic growth.  Despite the fact that Kamala Harris has the lowest approval rating for any modern vice president, our fake journalists lie to Americans about her remarkable popular appeal.  And after mocking President Trump for being the victim of two separate assassination attempts, the propaganda press now pushes the lie that his words somehow threaten RINO Liz Cheney’s life.  The Deep State spews blatant lies, and the propaganda press treats those blatant lies as irrefutable truths.

There is good news.  After eight years of unremitting propaganda demonizing President Trump as the most dangerous threat to the United States, he has never been more popular.  Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and every other prominent Democrat in the country have called Trump a “fascist,” a “Nazi,” and “Hitler” reincarnated for years.  An MSNBC reporter recently asked a New York voter, “How does that message resonate with you?”  The voter paused, looked at the reporter, and replied, “It doesn’t.”  The reporter seemed surprised, but Americans see through their lies.

President Trump survived an assassin’s bullet for a reason.  This is the time to choose a side.  All we must do is vote!  May God guide and protect us.  And remember: “Fight!  Fight!  Fight!”

Is this an indication that a “red landslide” is coming, or are Republicans simply shifting votes that would have been cast on Election Day into the early voting period?  We will soon find out.  In any event, the following are 8 major election developments that everyone needs to know about…

#1 The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the state of Virginia can purge approximately 1,600 non-citizens from its voter rolls…

The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed Virginia to move forward with its removal of roughly 1,600 alleged noncitizens from its voter rolls just days before the 2024 election.

The high court granted a request from state officials to pause a lower court order that blocked Virginia from continuing its voter removal program that was launched in August, exactly 90 days before Election Day. A provision of the National Voter Registration Act requires states to complete programs aimed at purging ineligible voters from registration lists up to 90 days before federal elections.

#2 There were reports that officials in Bucks County, Pennsylvania had been turning away on-demand mail ballot voters early.  Now a judge in Bucks Country has extended on-demand mail ballot voting until Friday, and this is considered to be a major victory for the Trump campaign…

Bucks County Judge Jeffrey Trauger has ordered the Bucks County Board of Elections to extend its on-demand mail-in ballot deadline until “the close of business” on Friday, Nov. 1.

The Wednesday afternoon ruling stems from a lawsuit filed several hours earlier by former President Donald Trump’s campaign and other state and national GOP groups claiming Bucks County illegally turned away voters.

The filing with the Bucks County Court of Common Pleas, posted online late Wednesday morning, alleges that the county violated the state’s election laws by not allowing some voters to use the “on-demand mail-ballot” option in the final hours of the mail-in ballot application at 5 p.m. Oct. 29.

#3 In Wisconsin, turnout in the conservative counties of Waukesha, Ozaukee, and Washington is far higher than turnout in the liberal bastion of Dane County…

The conservative “WOW” counties of Waukesha, Ozaukee, and Washington have increased their turnout advantage over liberal Dane County up to 12.16%. Dane’s turnout advantage going into Election Day 2020 was 0.9%. This represents a 13% turnout swing compared to ‘20.

#4 In Arizona, Republicans are doing a much better job of turning out “low propensity voters” than Democrats are…

A look at AZ voter frequency scores shows that Democrats are trailing Republicans by a couple of points in the zero, one, and two buckets, turning out more of their 3/3 voters.

It’s not an excellent combination for available votes down the stretch, so Republicans are likely to outvote Democrats by 300,000+.

#5 Abortion is on the ballot in both Arizona and Nevada, and this was supposed to be a major advantage for Kamala Harris in those states.  But it turns out that vast numbers of pro-abortion voters are going to vote for Trump anyway…

While an Washington Post-Schar School poll conducted in October found that 68 percent of voters in Arizona and 80 percent of voters in Nevada say they planned to support their state’s abortion referendum, the same poll showed Harris narrowly behind Trump in Arizona and tied in Nevada. Harris’s support among likely voters in the poll was 46 percent in Arizona to Trump’s 49 percent, and they both had 48 percent support in Nevada.

Meanwhile, Trump — who has claimed credit for Roe’s reversal — has been working to assuage the concerns of independent and Republican voters who support abortion rights. In recent weeks, the former president has promised to veto a national abortion ban, after repeatedly refusing to make such a pledge. While he has maintained that each state should choose its own abortion laws, he said in a recent town hall geared toward women voters that many of the current bans are “too tough.”

Republican and independent voters who plan to split their ticket on abortion — voting for an abortion referendum and for Trump — said they were willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt on the issue, with some feeling reassured by his recent promises not to crack down further on abortion.

#6 As I discussed yesterday, it appears that the Harris campaign may be giving up on the swing state of North Carolina.  So far, Democrats in the state have cast over 300,000 fewer votes than they did at the same stage of the 2020 early voting period…

According to AdImpact, a political intelligence firm, on Monday the Harris-Walz campaign reserved $2.7 million worth of ads in North Carolina for the last stretch of the campaign, only to turn around and kill more than $2 million of its reservations on Tuesday. Though Harris is following through on a scheduled Raleigh rally on Wednesday morning — while Trump is holding his own event in Rocky Mount, NC — her campaign managers’ hopes of winning North Carolina’s 16 electoral votes have likely plunged as daily updates of early voting numbers continue to paint a grim picture of her prospects in the Tar Heel State.

The 2020 vs 2024 contrast in early voting patterns is striking. Compared to the same time four years ago, North Carolina Democrats have cast 341,000 fewer votes, while Republicans have cast 9,000 more, noted Andy Jackson of the Raleigh-based John Locke Foundation. Aside from the party mix, North Carolina is also seeing lower turnout among two traditional Democratic voter blocs: young people and blacks. In 2020, 92% of the state’s black voters backed Biden. Across the country, however, black support of Trump is surging.

#7 A television station in Pennsylvania is apologizing for broadcasting “randomly generated test results” that were meant to “help news organizations make sure their equipment is working properly in advance of election night”…

Test results for the upcoming November 5 general election mistakenly appeared on WNEP-TV early Sunday evening during a broadcast of the Formula 1 Mexico Grand Prix.

Those numbers should not have appeared on the screen, and it was an error by WNEP that they did.

The numbers seen on the screen were randomly generated test results sent out to help news organizations make sure their equipment is working properly in advance of election night.

#8 It turns out that the incendiary devices that were used to set ballot boxes in Oregon and Washington on fire had a pro-Palestinian message inscribed on them…

Ballot boxes in Oregon and Washington were set on fire with incendiary devices early Monday in what authorities believe are connected incidents, police said.

The devices used in the arson incidents carried markings with the expression “Free Gaza,” two sources familiar with the ongoing investigation told ABC News.

Sadly, I believe that this is just the beginning of the chaos that is coming.

November 5th may be the end of the campaign, but it will also be the beginning of a very dark chapter in our history.

There is going to be such an outpouring of negative emotion in the aftermath of this election, and whoever emerges as the winner is going to be facing crisis after crisis.

Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

What is even more astounding is the fact this crisis was created by the Democrat Party and was 50 years in the making, and yet half the voters still intend to vote Democrat.

Republicans made a mistake in judgment when they focuses on the shortcomings of candidate Kamala Harris and did not make this election an evaluation of the direction of her party. The party has become blatantly socialist, and from city hall to Congress, it is demanding Americans surrender freedom and accept government direction of their lives.

The poor among us are the first victims of socialism, for they are the first recruits in the revolution. Next, the middle class is reduced to poverty to support government’s handouts to the poor. And finally, a small number of Lords of the Manor take over and run the dictatorship in order to “restore order.”

President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “war on poverty” lost the war to poverty, and America is beginning to resemble Medieval Europe.

Right now Democrats are gathering in small groups to discuss how they can overturn this election and prevent Donald Trump from becoming president. Donald Trump is not the issue. The issue is Democrat insiders’ lust for absolute political power. The perpetual demeaning of Trump is just a tactic.

Many Americans feel the previous election outcome was corrupted by voting reforms and administrative changes in the process, that the security of ballots and the counting of the ballots was not handled property.

The people know Joe Biden did not campaign vigorously, and when he did appear in public, he could not attract a crowd. The people knew Donald Trump garnered millions of more votes in 2020 than he had received in 2016, clearly an endorsement of his presidency. And yet it was not enough, as the candidate who did not campaign received millions more votes than any other presidential candidate in history.

The outcome of the 2020 election did not make statistical sense. Millions of people accepted the “Trump is bad” theme of that election, and voted for the other guy, no matter who he was.

This time around, those followers were told Trump is not only bad, but a threat to the survival of this nation, and he cannot be allowed to resume his presidency. The leadership of the Democrat Party is prepared to defy the vote of the people. It just did when it forced Joe Biden to withdraw and selected Kamala Harris as a replacement.

In order to assume the presidency even if they lose this election, leadership Democrats are preparing attacks upon the Electoral College by extolling direct popular election, or, as Americans were once taught, mob rule.

The leadership Democrats are preparing to assault the U.S. Supreme Court, expanding the number of justices when a Democrat in the White House could make the appointments. Clearly, the court would become a political instrument of the ruling party, and justice would be no more.

The leadership Democrats also are plotting massive legal attacks upon the election processes to delay and obfuscate the election outcome for weeks or months.

And like the dog rushing to smell the dropping of other dogs, the national press corps will follow wherever the leadership Democrats take them.

It is really difficult to sustain the country, when so many of its institutions are corrupted by foreign ideologies that hate the constitutional structure of the United States of America.

At this point it history, it is difficult to imagine what could be done to kneecap these revolutionaries before they enslave us all. And as the scenarios play out in one’s mind, it appears the only way for America to reverse course is for voters to banish socialists from office.

The first step would be to throw out the Democrat Party in a defeat so dramatic it could not recover. The party is beyond redemption. Equally important would be to eject the socialist Republicans, those who soft-peddle nefarious government growth programs and use war as America’s only diplomacy.

The press has covered this Nov. 5 decision as it would the red carpet at the Oscars. The coverage has been vapid. Combine that insufficiency with the blather that passes for K-12 education, and it is no wonder so many Americans do not have a clear picture of the threat they face.

Fear motivates the anti-Trumpers. Fear motivates the pro-Trumpers too. Expressed another way, Americans have been pushed to the point they fear each other, and that fear has squashed the traditional give and take, listen and learn, and mutual respect.

Americans need to figure out if they want personal freedom and free enterprise, or government to be the most important part of their lives.

Donald Trump is a very successful free-enterprise guy, and he made his fortune in the real estate market – which is 100% in favor of private property.

Kamala Harris is a government lawyer. She earned the reputation, as a nasty boss, so nasty even ideology cannot hold her team together.

One thing is certain. Harris is no Margaret Thatcher nor a Golda Meir.

It is a perfect profile of the socialist state at work. The first victim of socialism is the working man and woman, and the crowning glory of American socialism at work is the typical homeless camp.

This election is not going to solve these issues, but setting aside personalities, one candidate will advance the cause of free enterprise because it is in his blood. The other candidate will advance the socialist cause because that is all she knows.

Content created by the WND News Center is available for re-publication without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@wndnewscenter.org.

The economy ranks as the most important of 22 issues that U.S. registered voters say will influence their choice for president. It is the only issue on which a majority of voters, 52%, say the candidates’ positions on it are an “extremely important” influence on their vote. Another 38% of voters rate the economy as “very important,” which means the issue could be a significant factor to nine in 10 voters.

Voters view Donald Trump as better able than Kamala Harris to handle the economy, 54% versus 45%. Trump also has an edge on perceptions of his handling of immigration (+9 percentage points) and foreign affairs (+5), while Harris is seen as better on climate change (+26), abortion (+16) and healthcare (+10). The candidates are evenly matched on voters’ impressions of who would better address gun policy.

Countless other surveys have told us the same thing.

The American people remember what life was like before the pandemic, and they desperately want to have that back.

In particular, U.S. voters have become deeply frustrated with the cost of living…

“It’s inflation, stupid!” wrote Bernard Yaros, U.S. lead economist at Oxford Economics, in an October 24 report, borrowing from political strategist James Carville’s famous coinage. “Inflation is the foremost issue voters are concerned about, and how it is perceived will determine the election.”

The Biden administration is being blamed for this inflation crisis, and that is going to cost Kamala Harris millions upon millions of votes.

At this moment, demand at food banks is off the charts in many of the key swing states that Harris desperately needs to win.

In Pennsylvania, we are being told that demand “is actually as high as it was at the peak of the pandemic”…

Joe Arthur, who runs the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank, told NBC News the current problem is “a hunger crisis.”

“The need that we’re seeing in our localities is actually as high as it was at the peak of the pandemic, yet there are less resources for those families today.”

At one food bank in Michigan, demand is actually “significantly higher” than it was during the pandemic…

One truck can carry enough food for up to 600 households, but some days even that isn’t enough to meet the demand, which has gone up by 18% over the past 12 months, said Ken Estelle, president of Feeding America West Michigan.

“We have never seen this level of need in the 43 years we have been serving this community. It is significantly higher than during Covid and has pressed us beyond our capacity,” said Estelle. “We’ve just seen this drumbeat increase every month of more people and more people.”

And at one food bank in Wisconsin, demand has more than doubled since 2022…

In the relatively affluent Milwaukee suburbs of Waukesha County, Wisconsin, Rochelle Gamauf said each week she is seeing new faces at her food pantry, Friends With Food, which she started during the pandemic.

The organization has gone from giving out around 420,000 pounds of food in 2022 to over a million pounds in 2023. On a recent week in September, nearly 400 families came through the door, 48 of whom were coming for the first time — a 50% increase in new families compared to last year, she said.

This is the biggest reason why Donald Trump is leading in the polls in all three states.

A lot of the people that are going to these food banks actually have jobs. But they aren’t earning enough to keep up with the rapidly rising cost of living.

If you go to the grocery store and you completely fill up your cart with food, it is going to cost you hundreds of dollars. 25 years ago, I could fill up an entire grocery cart for less than 50 bucks.

Inflation is a hidden tax on all of us, and it is suffocating millions upon millions of households all over the country.

Of course the Biden administration insists that everything is just fine.

For months, the government has been releasing numbers that look great initially, but later they are revised dramatically lower.

Let me give you an example.  Last month we were told that job openings were rising, but now we have learned that they are actually plunging…

Last month, when Kamala Harris still had some chance of winning the election, we were not surprised to learn that according to the extremely political Bureau of Labor Statistics, in August the number of job openings unexpectedly soared from an upward revised 7.7 million to 8.040 million, which was not only a 3-sigma beat to expectations, but was also above the highest Wall Street forecast. Fast forward to today, when Kamala’s chance of winning are effectively zero – as even the suddenly apolitical Jeff Bezos now admits – and shockingly moments ago the BLS reported that in September, the number of job openings  plunged from over 8 million to just 7.4 million, the lowest since early 2021…

This kind of thing has been happening over and over again.

The American people are sick and tired of being fed fake numbers when they can see that economic conditions are clearly deteriorating all around them.

Our standard of living has been steadily declining for years, and most Americans are just barely scraping by at this point.

I am entirely convinced that most of the experts will be completely shocked by the outcome of this election, and our imploding economy will be the number one reason why so many unexpected voters come out of the woodwork.

Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

Traditionally, the performance of the home improvement industry has been a very important economic harbinger.

And at this moment the home improvement industry is really struggling.

For example, True Value has been doing so poorly that it was finally forced to file for bankruptcy…

True Value, a 75-year old hardware store brand, has filed for bankruptcy and is selling substantially all of its operations to a rival, the company announced Monday.

In a press release, True Value said it will continue day-to-day operations of selling hardware and other homeware tools to its 4,500 independently operated locations during the Chapter 11 process, which includes a $153 million stalking horse bid from rival company Do it Best.

Meanwhile, Home Depot says that sales in 2024 will be down quite a bit from 2023…

The home improvement retailer said it now expects full-year comparable sales to decline by 3% to 4% compared with the prior fiscal year. It had previously expected comparable sales, a metric that takes out the impact of store openings and closures and other one-time factors, to decline about 1%.

In an article that I posted last week, I mentioned that Home Depot has been dumping millions of square feet of warehouse space.

They wouldn’t be doing this if they thought that the economy would be turning around any time soon.

Another giant in the home improvement industry, PPG, has decided the time has come for mass layoffs…

PPG — a global manufacturer of paints, coatings, and specialty materials — is laying off nearly 2,000 workers as it trims operation costs and sells off a chunk of its architectural business.

The cuts will impact about 1,800 positions, primarily in the U.S. and Europe. PPG didn’t disclose when the layoffs would occur.

The Biden administration continues to insist that all is well, but the home improvement industry is telling us a completely different story.

Meanwhile, drug stores continue to shut down all over the nation at a staggering pace.

In fact, Walgreens just announced that it will be permanently shutting down 1,200 stores…

Walgreens said on Tuesday it would shut 1,200 stores over the next three years as new CEO Tim Wentworth plots a turnaround at the struggling pharmacy chain operator hit by sluggish consumer spending and low drug reimbursement rates.

You don’t shut down more than a thousand stores if you believe that good times are ahead.

Let’s be real.

The restaurant industry is also being hit extremely hard in this difficult economic environment.

Last week, I was saddened to learn that TGI Fridays has been closing locations all over the country…

Your ability to enjoy a plate of loaded potato skins and $5 happy hour drinks is slowly dwindling, as TGI Fridays has closed 12 U.S. locations in the past month and shuttered 35 restaurants across the pond.

According to the company’s location section on its website, multiple TGI Fridays locations in the Northeast closed last week, including in Clifton Park, Middletown and Poughkeepsie, New York; Allentown, Pennsylvania; Enfield, Connecticut; and Leesburg, Virginia.

Additional closures from earlier this month took place in the Southeast and Midwest regions, in states like North Carolina, South Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana, as well as two locations in Minnesota.

If TGI Fridays anticipated that economic conditions would soon turn around, they would try to keep these restaurants open. But the truth is that the writing is on the wall.

Even churches are feeling the pain.  According to a recent study that was conducted by Lifeway Research, giving has been falling from coast to coast…

A majority of Protestant pastors are blaming a poor economy for their struggling bottom lines after experiencing double-digit declines to zero improvement in financial offerings from churchgoers over the last year, data from a new study released by Lifeway Research show — but the sentiment is divided along political lines.

“National trends of a favorable stock market along with unfavorable inflation and interest can influence a local congregation’s finances, but so do more local factors that contribute to economic problems or prosperity in the church’s community,” Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research, said in a statement on the study. “In general, pastors have turned a little more negative in describing economic forces impacting their church this year.”

What do all the examples that I just shared with you have in common?

They all show that most consumers don’t have a lot of discretionary income to spend right now.

Or as Gerald Storch put it during a recent interview with Maria Bartiromo, “consumers are running out of money”…

US corporate media outlets continue to push propaganda that the economy thrives ahead of the presidential elections, cheerleading the most recent retail sales print. However, most Americans know MSM is full of ‘malarkey’ because inflation and interest rates force many to spend more but receive less. Many folks have depleted their personal savings and racked up insurmountable credit card debt just to keep up with rising food, energy, insurance, and shelter costs. This toxic mix of inflation, sparked by failed Bidenomics, has hit low- and middle-income families the hardest, potentially leading to a breaking point this upcoming holiday shopping season.

“It’s very clear that consumers are running out of money. They’re increasingly stressed by inflation and the exhaustion of their pandemic-era savings. When you take a look over the last several years, what you see month after month, everyone talks about, the consumer’s still spending. They might be, but they’re spending less than the growth of inflation,” Storch Advisors CEO Gerald Storch told Fox Bussiness’ Maria Bartiromo on Thursday during an interview.

That is the bottom line.

Millions of U.S. consumers have been squeezed and squeezed and squeezed and now they are bone dry.

Last year I warned my readers that we had reached an “economic tipping point”, and now things are starting to roll downhill very rapidly.

There is a tremendous amount of frustration that has built up over the past four years, and I think that all of that frustration will play a major role in determining which party wins the White House in November.

Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

Data from AgFunderNews cited by the National Pulse reveals that the industry is in dire straits due to dwindling money. Funding for the lab-grown meat sector peaked at $989 million in 2021 but dipped slightly to $807 million in 2022. This dropped by almost 80 percent to just a mere $177 million last year.

“Industry experts claim they need substantial government assistance to survive, with various sectors within agrifood tech seeing a steep decline in investments since early 2022 and private capital for [lab-grown] meat almost vanishing,” the Pulse pointed out. “The decline in funding has prompted many startups to reduce staff, consolidate operations or, in some cases, cease operations altogether.”

Robert Jones, vice president for global public affairs at Dutch startup Mosa Meat, highlighted this issue during the Future Food-Tech Summit in late September. He told participants: “There’s a valley of death we’re not going to cross as an industry without a massive infusion of public investment.”

Andrew Ive, founder and managing general partner at venture capital (VC) firm Big Idea Ventures, echoed Jones’ sentiments. He emphasized that VC money won’t be funding capital expenses for large-scale commercial facilities for fake meat production.

“I think it’s going to take [a country] like the Netherlands or the [United Arab Emirates],” he told AgFunderNews, stressing the immense capital needed. “Maybe Saudi Arabia. It could be … Japan.”

Ive continued: “For me, what makes sense is [the mix of] cultivated with traditional meat – a bit like adding ethanol to gasoline for cars. So I think the way this will ultimately be rolled out in the marketplace will be where 20 percent of the meat content of a dumpling in China, for example, will end up being cultivated meat as opposed to traditional meat.”

Customers have decided: Fake meat is a NO for them

According to the Pulse, the economic case for lab-grown meat is “deteriorating rapidly.” In the same manner, the environmental and health cases for it are also on a decline.

Recent studies have suggested that fake meat is far from being a green alternative to the traditional livestock farming it ostensibly seeks to replace. One such paper by scientists from the University of California, Davis found that lab-grown meat produces up to 25 times more carbon dioxide (CO2) when scaled up to the current supply in the market.

According to the paper, the environmental impact of fake meat “is likely to be orders of magnitude higher than median beef production.” The increased CO2 levels would be necessary for the purification processes that supply nutrients to cultured cells. The study defines this process as “the removal of cells from an animal or plant and their subsequent growth in a favorable artificial environment.” (Related: CLIMATE FAIL: Study finds lab-grown meat generates up to 25 TIMES MORE CO2 than conventional beef production.)

“The use of refinement methods contributes significantly to the economic and environmental costs associated with pharmaceutical products since they are both energy and resource intensive,” the study authors wrote.

Aside from this, concerns about fake meat being a product of “immortalized cell lines” that replicate in perpetuity – cancer, in other words. A February 2023 op-ed in the Pulse by the Raw Egg Nationalist, which cited a story from Bloomberg, warned of the dangers of eating such edible cancer cells.

“The problem is that the materials used to make the product – ‘immortalized cell lines’ – replicate forever, just like cancer. Which means, in effect, that they are cancer. Although these cell lines are widely used in scientific research, they’ve never been used to produce food before.”

Head over to FakeMeat.news for more stories like this. Watch Jefferey Jaxen and Del Bigtree discussing the free fall of the fake meat industry.

This video is from the HighWire with Del Bigtree channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

• What they don’t want you to know about lab-grown meat.
• Fake meat firms collapsing due to lower sales, anti-woke backlash.
• Study: Vegan FAKE MEAT products linked to cardiovascular issues.
• Immortalized cell lines used in lab-grown meats can cause CANCER.
• Fake meat companies are failing as consumers abandon processed plant-based alternatives to real meat.

Sources include:

• TheNationalPulse.com 1
• AgFunderNews.com
• TheNationalPulse.com 2
• TheNationalPulse.com 3
• Brighteon.com

In fact, as you will see below, the most notorious South American gang is literally running operations out of facilities that were originally established by the government to assist migrants.

I have written about the national crisis that Tren de Aragua has created before, but it just keeps getting worse.  According to the Daily Mail, authorities are referring to this gang as the “epitome of evil” and “MS-13 on steroids”…

Dubbed the ‘epitome of evil’ and ‘MS-13 on steroids’, police investigations showed that the mob is behind a spiraling crime wave across the US, with members accused of murders, violent assaults on cops and sex trafficking women.

‘MS-13, they were never organized; Tren de Aragua is a transnational criminal organization from the bottom to the top,’ Colorado’s former ICE director John Fabbricatore told DailyMail.com.

‘These guys right here [in the US] – they’re sending money back to leaders in Venezuela. They’re set up shop like a corporation – it is the like the mafia. What it took MS-13 to do in like a ten-year period, Tren de Aragua has been able to do in less than a year,’ he added.

They have come across our wide open borders for a purpose. They are here to commit crimes and make lots of money, and they are causing chaos in communities from coast to coast.

In fact, it is being reported that in some cities they are actually running their operations out of “the very facilities established to provide assistance to migrants”…

As recent police investigations and criminal prosecutions have revealed, Tren de Aragua has no need to subsist in the underground world of urban blight where previous generations of immigrant crime gangs flourished. Instead, it appears to operate in the very facilities established to provide assistance to migrants who have illegally crossed the southern border, which Democratic presidential candidate and current Vice President Kamala Harris has so disastrously mismanaged.

Tren de Aragua’s leaders and members – identifiable by particular tattoos – have been reported to live, recruit new members, and sortie from migrant shelters, hotels appropriated for migrant use, and other social welfare institutions. New York City mayor Eric Adams, himself now under indictment for bribery and campaign finance crimes, estimates that migrant-related expenses will cost more than $12 billion by 2025 and could “destroy New York City”.

If we do not get this under control, the consequences will be horrific.

They are dealing drugs, they are breaking into homes, they are trafficking women and children, and they will kill anyone that gets in their way.

Earlier this month, there was a massive operation in San Antonio during which authorities took back a sprawling apartment complex that had been taken over by Tren de Aragua…

In a pre-dawn operation, hundreds of law enforcement officers closed in on the sprawling Palatia Apartments in the early hours of October 5 after spending weeks investigating reports that Tren de Aragua had control of the area.

After searching over 300 units, cops arrested 19 individuals – four of which have been confirmed as gang members.

‘One TdA member is a confirmed “enforcer” for that gang,’ and 15 were in the country illegally,’ the city’s top cop William McManus said.

According to one person that lives in that apartment complex, the gang was “prostituting the women and the children” in some of the apartment units.

We should be thankful that particular apartment complex has been cleaned up, but the Daily Mail has found three others in San Antonio that have also been taken over by Tren de Aragua…

But now DailyMail.com can reveal that this apartment invasion is just the tip of the iceberg in the major southern Texas city, with at least three other rental properties also occupied by the criminal organization.

DailyMail.com is not naming the three other apartment complexes to avoid jeopardizing ongoing police investigations.

However, the locations were confirmed by law enforcement sources, and we spent days visiting the sites where we spoke to terrified residents.

San Antonio was once such a beautiful place.

But now it is being absolutely terrorized by this gang.

And more military-age men from Venezuela are coming over the southern border with each passing day…

According to the authority’s most recent statistics, 25,111 migrants passed through the Darién Gap in September, a 51.23-percent increase from the 16,603 recorded in August. Venezuelan nationals accounted for 78.83 percent of September’s total Darién crossings, totaling 19,800 registered encounters, up from the 11,733 logged in August.

Nearly eight million Venezuelans have fled their country over the past decade as a result of the collapse of socialism in their country. The Venezuelan migrant crisis, described as the worst migrant crisis in the Western Hemisphere, is only comparable in size to that of Syria and Ukraine, notable since Venezuela has not been in a state of war in recent history.

In Venezuela, there isn’t much money to be made since most of the population is living in poverty.

So criminals have been making the long journey north because there is lots of money to be made in the United States.

We must put an end to this, but the politicians in Washington refuse to do so.

Once they get across the border in Panama, it is so easy for South American criminals to get to our southern border.  This is something that Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino discussed during a recent speech to the United Nations…

In his speech at the United Nations General Assembly in September, Panamanian President Mulino declared the flow of U.S.-bound migrants passing through his country an “immense global problem.” Migrants pass through his country in such large numbers, he said, that the “United States border” is functionally in Panama. Mulino called for joint international efforts to curb the flow of migrants, stressing that his country does not have the resources to solve the crisis on its own.

He is right.

Our southern border is basically in Panama at this point.

And that has got to stop.

When things finally hit the fan, millions of people that have come into this country illegally are going to go completely wild.

If our leaders had made better choices, things could have turned out much differently.

But now the stage has been set for unprecedented chaos, and when that time comes our law enforcement agencies will be totally overwhelmed.

Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

The FBI and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said they have “no information suggesting cyber activity against U.S. election infrastructure” that has “compromised the integrity of voter registration information, prevented an eligible voter from casting a ballot, impacted the integrity of any ballots cast, or disrupted the ability to count votes or transmit unofficial election results in a timely manner.”

But the two agencies said that foreign adversaries still might promote “false or misleading narratives” to sway the election or to undermine American confidence in its election systems and processes.

Specifically, the two agencies warned of election-related content produced by artificial intelligence (AI) that has lowered the guardrails for malicious or foreign actors to create more advanced schemes to influence the election.

“We are seeing foreign actors use these tools to develop and distribute more compelling synthetic media messaging campaigns and inauthentic news articles, as well as synthetic pictures and deepfakes (video and audio) at greater speed and scale across numerous U.S.- and foreign-based platforms,” their joint bulletin said.

“These efforts to develop content are designed to undermine voter confidence and to entice unwitting consumers of the information to discuss, share, and amplify the spread of false or misleading narratives.”

In one example of AI-aided content produced by foreign actors ahead of the election, the agency said that Russian groups have “created and deliberately designed” web pages “to look like legitimate mainstream news websites” such as The Washington Post or Fox News.

“Russian malign influence actors also created fake social media profiles posing as U.S. citizens to direct users to these fake news websites and purchased social media advertisements to drive traffic to the specific fake articles on the fake news site,” the two agencies cautioned.

The PSA highlights specific examples of tactics we have seen used by Russia and Iran during the 2024 election cycle to target all Americans. These include things from mimicking national level media outlets like The Washington Post and Fox News and creating inauthentic news sites posing as legitimate media organizations to using paid influencers to hide their hand.

In late September, three Iranian government employees were charged and identified by the Department of Justice for a wide-ranging hacking conspiracy that targeted both current and former U.S. officials as well as political campaigns.

The bulletin was referring to an indictment that was returned last month that accused Masoud Jalili, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri, and Yasar Balaghi of trying to hack the campaign of a presidential candidate, without providing names. But in a news conference last month, Attorney General Merrick Garland confirmed that they were targeting the campaign of former President Donald Trump.

Iran-backed hackers who breached the Trump campaign in June and July sent emails with hacked campaign materials to people associated with President Joe Biden’s campaign as well as various media outlets, said the FBI, CISA, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence last month.

But the agencies said that the the campaign of Biden, who suspended his presidential bid in late July, was not interested in the hacked materials. There is also no evidence the Biden campaign even responded to the emails, which were described by the intelligence and cybersecurity agencies as unsolicited.

“It is important for voters to critically evaluate information sources, particularly as disinformation campaigns evolve to use AI-generated content,” both CISA and the FBI said in a news release accompanying the bulletin. “Both agencies urge the American public to rely on trusted information from state and local election officials and to verify claims through multiple reliable sources before sharing them on social media or other platforms.”