Good morning. In today’s edition:

• 🗳️ The voters that could swing this year's election
• 🍷 Why the wine industry is in crisis
• ✈️ Flights to Europe are the cheapest they’ve been in years

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.93-minute read (1,314 words).

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“The best way to understanding is a few good examples.”

–Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727)

In the lead up to Election Day tomorrow, both presidential campaigns have been scrambling to reach the large bloc of undecided US voters, in what’s shaping up to be a tight race.

But these probably aren’t the “undecideds” you’re thinking of.

Rather than voters who are unsure which candidate to support, this election hinges on the significant portion of Americans who are undecided on whether to cast a vote at all, according to several analysts who cite recent polling data.

• An estimated 25+% of the US voting population sometimes casts ballots, and other times opts to skip elections.
• The Trump and Harris campaigns are working hard to get these voters to the polls, as their turnout is seen as more important than appealing to the ~3% of registered US voters who say they’re undecided on which candidate to support.

These infrequent voters will likely decide the election

“Super voters,” a group defined as showing up for every presidential and midterm election since 2016, have favored Harris over Trump by a margin of at least 4% in every Wall Street Journal survey this year.

But that group only represents 49% of the US electorate, meaning the race will likely come down to whether Trump can make up those 4+ points from the other half of the voter pool – which views him more favorably.

• Among US voters who only cast ballots in presidential years, Trump holds a 14 point lead over Harris.
• Trump also leads by 10 points among US voters who were old enough to cast a ballot in the last two presidential elections, but skipped at least one.
• However – Harris holds a 21-point advantage among voters under 26, a group that typically has low voter turnout and was too young to vote in one or both of 2016 and 2020.

Big picture: Available data indicates the campaigns’ efforts to target low-frequency voters is working. A recent campaign by MAGA Inc., the main super PAC supporting Donald Trump, targeted ~4 million GOP-leaning voters who had skipped the past three elections – and, as of last Thursday, nearly 20% of that group had already voted in 2024.

📊 Flash poll: To all our readers who are voting age: to which category do you belong?

• Super voter (2016, 2018, 2020, & 2022)
• Only presidential-year voter (2016 & 2020)
• Occasional presidential-year voter (either 2016 or 2020)
• Under 26 years old
• I haven’t voted in recent presidential elections

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🇮🇱🇮🇷 Israel’s recent counterattack damaged Iran’s air defenses, exposing it to future attacks. According to US and Israeli officials, as well as recent satellite imagery, Israel’s October 26 counterattack destroyed much of Iran’s strategic air defenses and severely damaged its missile production facilities. As a result, while Iran still has hundreds of missiles left to potentially strike at Israel, the damaged air defense systems mean it’s easier for Israel to retaliate against even more sensitive targets, including the country’s leadership and nuclear sites.

🚫 School districts in at least 12 states have banned students from wearing Crocs. Officials say the foam slip-on shoes represent both a distraction for students as well as a safety hazard, with numerous reports of students slipping and falling (inspiring a TikTok trend☝️). The bans come as Crocs has seen its popularity skyrocket in recent years, with the company’s annual sales more than tripling since 2020.

🗳️ Betting markets show the presidential race has tightened since Thursday. Harris gained ground against Trump across all three major election betting sites over the weekend. When it comes to polling, Harris holds a slight lead over Trump in FiveThirtyEight’s national polling aggregator (+1.0%), while Trump has pulled ahead in polls aggregated by RealClearPolitics (+0.1%).

Like Emily in Paris, the wine industry is trying to figure itself out amid a series of challenges. Global demand is declining – falling last year to its lowest level since 1996 – while supply issues persist.

State of the industry: Global wine consumption in 2023 was 221 million hectoliters, down from ~247 million hectoliters in 2017, according to the International Organization of Wine and Vine. That equates to ~3.5 billion fewer bottles being drunk.

The why: In 2023, global supply fell to 237 million hectoliters, the lowest in 60+ years, due to poor weather and widespread fungal diseases in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. This drop in supply led to an increase in prices, cooling demand.

But… There are signs this relatively short-term drop in consumption is actually a long-term issue the industry needs to address. While Boomers tend to love wine (“you had me at merlot”), Gen Z and millennials prefer other drinks instead.

• 58% of consumers over the age of 65 favor wine over other alcoholic beverages, according to Silicon Valley Bank. That figure falls to ~38% for Gen Z and millennials.

📸 Big picture: In an attempt to win over customers, especially younger ones, the wine industry is dipping its toe into the growing nonalcoholic beverage market as well as leaning into marketing. An international campaign dubbed "Come Over October" ran last month as a counter to "Sober October," encouraging people to invite friends over for a glass of wine and a chat.

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“Governments should urgently take action on AI policy in the next eighteen months. The window for proactive risk prevention is closing fast.”

Anthropic, the Google- and- Amazon-backed artificial intelligence startup founded by two former OpenAI team members, recently released an open letter calling on governments to regulate AI before it escapes from Pandora’s Box, so to speak.

Why the urgency? The company cites the faster-than-anticipated progress of AI models over the last year. Per the letter:

• Models have improved from being able to solve 1.96% of a test set of real-world coding problems (Claude 2, October 2023) to 13.5% (Devin, March 2024) to 49% (Claude 3.5 Sonnet, October 2024).
• AI systems have also improved their scientific understanding by ~18% from June–September of this year alone – while several models' responses to science questions are “on par with those given by PhD-level experts," per a UK AI Safety Institute risk test.

And with great power… comes great potential for misuse. Anthropic’s research indicates current AI models can already assist with a broad range of hacking-related tasks. And as the models get better, they’re expected to be even more effective.

📝 The framework: Anthropic suggests AI regulation should contain three elements – transparency, incentivization of better safety and security practices, and simplicity and focus (so as not to impose unnecessary regulatory burdens).

Read the open letter here.

• ☝️ Peanut the squirrel, an orphan who became a pet and social media star, was euthanized by New York state wildlife officials last week as part of a test for rabies; Peanut’s owner says excessive force was used to seize Peanut (as well as a pet raccoon), while officials say it‘s illegal to own the wild animals.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with Asutra

• 💰 US markets fell last week (S&P: -1.4%; Dow: -0.1%; Nasdaq: -1.5%). | 📊 Nvidia is replacing Intel in the Dow Jones Industrial Average; four of the six trillion-dollar tech companies are now in the index.
• 💼 October’s jobs report: Employers added 12,000 jobs in the month vs. the 105,000 expected by economists surveyed by Bloomberg; the unemployment rate held steady at 4.1%.
• 📝 TGI Fridays filed for bankruptcy, citing a problematic capital structure and fallout from Covid.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏃 New York City Marathon: Abdi Nageeye of the Netherlands and Sheila Chepkirui of Kenya won the men's and women's races, securing prize money of $100,000 apiece. See photos from the event here.
• 🍿 Venom: The Last Dance led the US box office for the second straight week, bringing in $26.1 million; when factoring in international receipts, the film has now generated $317 million.
• 🏈 The University of South Carolina was slapped with a $250,000 fine after fans stormed the field following the school’s upset win over #10 Texas A&M on Saturday. | 🏈 Scoreboard: #4 Ohio State beat #3 Penn State 20-13; see other results from this past weekend in college football here.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Tuft & Needle

• 🧑‍🔬 UCLA chemists created a brand-new class of molecules previously thought too unstable to exist, then used them to generate exotic compounds; the discovery breaks a 100-year-old rule in organic chemistry.
• 🦠 Researchers discovered the mechanism behind the MRSA bacteria, which causes antibiotic-resistant staph infection and causes 120,000+ deaths/year.
• 🛰️ NASA’s Voyager 1, which is 15.4 billion miles away from Earth in interstellar space, successfully used a backup transmitter that hasn’t been used since 1981. | 🌌 How the Vega star system forces scientists to rethink where planets come from.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• 🤖🎃 Thousands of people in Dublin, Ireland, showed up for a Halloween parade that didn’t actually exist; the fictional parade originated with a website that creates AI-generated news.
• ⚖️ A former Kentucky police officer was found guilty by a jury of violating the civil rights of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old black woman who was killed in her home during a botched police raid in 2020. | 🏥 A western North Carolina plant that produces 60% of America’s IV fluid supply has restarted its highest-producing manufacturing line following damage from Hurricane Helene; the resumption is expected to help ease an ongoing IV fluid shortage in hospitals across the US.
• 🗳️ Vice President Harris made a surprise appearance on Saturday Night Live this weekend. | 🗳️ Former President Trump campaigned in four states this weekend, including three separate appearances in North Carolina.

CLICKBAIT

• 🚩 Billionaire CEO shares the No. 1 red flag he sees in employees: It has ‘a huge correlation to success.’

✈️🌍 Stat of the Day: It may be time to pull the trigger on that long-desired-but-never-taken trip to Mallorca. This month, “good deal” fares across the Atlantic to Europe are averaging $578 – down from $619 one year earlier, and the lowest figure since the pandemic-induced travel slump of 2021, according to data from flight-tracking company Hopper. Analysts say this year’s price lull is likely due to the fact that many Americans made big trips to Europe shortly after the pandemic, and are less interested in flying back there this year.

🤔 Did You Know? While the Beatles’ legacy has endured for generations, the band itself was only together as a recording act for a total of 7 years and 7 months.

📰 Worth a Read: ChatGPT and the movie Her are just the latest example of the ‘sci-fi feedback loop’ → (The Conversation)

Monday: Boeing machinists will vote again on whether to end a 7-week strike; the college basketball season tips off

Tuesday: Election Day

Wednesday: National Stress Awareness Day

Thursday: Federal Reserve decides whether to cut interest rates

Friday: Heretic hits theaters nationwide

On Friday, we covered how many Americans, including half of Gen Z, say they’ve lied about their vote to someone close to them, largely to avoid conflict.

❓ Our question to you: Have you ever lied to someone close to you about your vote in an election?

• Yes: 11%
• No: 89%

Click here to read the most thoughtful longform responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 2,986 votes and 310 longform responses.

Meet some of the fashion standouts among the 50,000+ runners in yesterday's New York City Marathon. 

👗 Making it their own... While running a marathon is a personal experience and challenge for everyone, some runners turn to clothing to help keep their mood and confidence high.

• See some of the other notable looks here. 

Guess the definitions of the following Greek/Latin root words:

1. Aug
2. Cac
3. Eu
4. Hypn
5. Myth

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1. Aug = Increase (e.g, augment)
2. Cac = Bad (cacophony)
3. Eu = Good (euphoria)
4. Hypn = Sleep (hypnosis)
5. Myth = Story (mythology)