“Democrats have been way too timid and modest in their expectations in the past. There’s a real chance for something big happening with this election, and I’m kind of old. So why not see if you can if there’s anything you can do to help?”

That’s a quote from Steve Pajcic, who was a politician himself decades ago and appears to have made a bundle of money over the years and has become a fairly prodigious philanthropist. There’s a Times write-up of him today — that’s where the quote comes from — and it’s about his and his children’s decision to drop about $7 million late dollars in the longshot quartet of southeastern Senate contests in Florida, South Carolina, Mississippi and the no-longer-so-long-shot race in Kansas.

Back in August I did a write-up on a deep dive on polling error put together by Republican consultant/pollster Pat Ruffini. When it comes to Ruffini’s work, I have a funny mix of assumptions and impulses. Ruffini’s a data guy and not a bullshitter. His numbers and analyses are real and solid. He’s also a Republican partisan. So he’s not above looking for the most favorable possibilities in the numbers. And I think it’s fair to say the series he’s done on this is generally aimed at Republicans and trying to send the message, “It might be okay” or “It’s not as bad as it looks.” At the same time, I am eager for it to be as bad for Republicans or worse than it looks.

Take that for what you will. Just a little truth in advertising and transparency for all involved. Ruffini just did a follow-up on this deep dive where, amazingly, there’s a new reason to think it might not be as bad for Republicans as it looks! Again, though, Ruffini’s a smart guy with a lot of data up his sleeves and he might be right.

“According to sources who spoke to WBTV on the condition of anonymity, the text thread between some Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officers includes a competition over who can pull over the most black drivers. There are also numerous uses of the ‘n-word’ related to use of force and discharging firearms at black residents.”

— WBTV3

I was waiting to hear how White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia would explain how and why she claimed she’d taken the bar exam in China despite that not being completely possible. She’s still mainly refusing to answer this question. But the Journal reports that Zacharia sat for the bar exam in California in 2011 but didn’t pass. (In fairness, many people don’t pass on their first try. California is known as a challenging bar exam.) The Times meanwhile got a moment of phone time with her on a tarmac in Arizona and asked her about taking the bar exam in China.

It was all a misunderstanding, apparently.

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Kimberly Guilfoyle, the recently defenestrated and soon-to-be-former Ambassador to Greece, has that stench about her of third-string corruption, the type that is hated by the righteous and sneered at by the corrupt. In Trumpworld setting up your own bribery-faucet meme coin and making billions is a baller move. Begging a MAGA-adjacent huckster to settle your Amex bill on the strength of once being Don Jr’s fiancée is sad. “Steal a little and they throw ya in jail / Steal a lot and they make you king …” But we seem quite suddenly to be seeing MAGA world become quite leaky. That’s not what we’re used to — what we’re used to is mammoth kinds of Trump and MAGA corruption more or less in plain sight. But now various MAGA capos are accusing each other, or dropping dimes on each other, as the reality of a possible Blue Wave or more comes into view.

Another only-in-MAGA corruption story hit this afternoon. Or, I guess, alleged corruption story since it’s not altogether clear which player in the story is the crook or more of a crook.