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Welcome to The Tip Sheet, a daily political analysis of the 2018 elections, based on interviews with Republican and Democratic officials, pollsters, strategists and voters.
• Follow updates from around the country on Monday
Where things stand
• Lifted by overwhelming support among women, Democrats enjoy a 13-point advantage on the question of which party should control Congress, according to a new CNN poll.
The national survey indicates that 55 percent of voters prefer Democratic control of the House while 42 percent said they wanted Republicans to stay in power.
While men are effectively divided on the question, women are backing Democrats in large numbers: 62 percent of women said Democrats should take over Congress while just 35 percent prefer Republicans to retain their majorities.
The divide is clearly driven by views toward President Trump. Only 39 percent of voters approve of the president’s job performance, but among women it is even lower: just 31 percent of women believe Mr. Trump is doing a good job as president, while 63 percent do not approve of his performance.
• Think the 2018 campaign will be over after all the ballots from Tuesday are counted? Think again.
Some Republican officials now believe that the Georgia governor’s race is destined to go to a Dec. 4 runoff because neither Stacey Abrams, the Democrat, nor Brian Kemp, the Republican, is likely to capture a majority of the vote.
The race is that close in their private polling and, while Mr. Kemp enjoys a slight advantage in the G.O.P. surveys, the libertarian on the ballot, Ted Metz, could take about 2 percent of the vote. (In Georgia’s 2014 gubernatorial race, the Libertarian nominee earned 2.36 percent of the vote.)
That could keep either major candidate from reaching 50 percent on Election Day if the race remains neck-and-neck.
• The furor over the new inquiry by Mr. Kemp’s office of the Georgia Democratic Party threw a curveball into the final days of this tight race.
• With Election Day looming, Trump advisers spent the weekend preparing the president for Republican losses this week and what that could mean for his agenda in the House.
• Two New York Times Upshot/Siena College polls wrapped up Sunday night on bellwether races that we’ll be watching on Tuesday — and they are close.
In Kentucky, where polls will close at 6 p.m. Eastern, Representative Andy Barr, a Republican, and Amy McGrath, the Democratic nominee, are tied at 44 percent.
In Virginia, where polls will close at 7 p.m., Representative Dave Brat, a Republican, is narrowly ahead of his Democratic challenger, Abigail Spanberger. The poll had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.6 percentage points.
• In Representative Steve King’s run for re-election in Iowa, a Times Upshot/Siena poll completed Sunday found that Mr. King had a 5-point lead over the Democrat, J.D. Scholten. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 5 points, however. Mr. King has usually cruised to re-election, but his history of racist remarks, a recent interview to a publication associated with neo-Nazis and a rebuke from a Republican Party leader have complicated his race.
Advisers to Mr. Scholten tell us they are preparing for a recount if the vote is razor-thin. They have also cut a final digital ad with Mr. Scholten saying it was time for new leadership in both parties, calling to replace Nancy Pelosi and Paul Ryan.
• Two months of Times Upshot/Siena College polling concluded Sunday night — 96 polls in all, an extraordinary and fascinating undertaking. Check them all out here. A h/t to Amanda Cox, Nate Cohn and our colleagues at the Upshot.
• On the Senate side, the Trafalgar Group, a Republican firm, has a new poll out on the Arizona Senate race that shows the Democratic nominee, Kyrsten Sinema, slightly ahead of the G.O.P. candidate, Martha McSally.
• For more details about where things stand in the campaign for Congress, our election outlook for the Senate is here and for the House is here.
Trump’s Monday
The president has three campaign rallies scheduled:
• 3 p.m. in Cleveland with the Republican nominee for governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine.
• 6:30 p.m. in Fort Wayne, Ind., with the Republican nominee for Senate in Indiana, Mike Braun.
• 10 p.m. in Cape Girardeau, Mo., with the Republican nominee for Senate in Missouri, Josh Hawley.
Back in New York, if Claudia Tenney is not the Trump family’s favorite member of Congress, she’s high on the list. On Monday, Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle will headline a rally for the upstate Republican; he is the fourth member of his family to appear in Ms. Tenney’s district in recent months, following President Trump, Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump.
A Times Upshot/Siena poll completed Sunday showed that Ms. Tenney and the Democratic nominee, Anthony Brindisi, are running virtually even.
Turnout in Florida
About 25,000 more Democrats than Republicans have voted early in Florida, as of Sunday afternoon, according to state statistics updated on Monday morning.
• Ron DeSantis, the Republican candidate for governor, thinks this bodes well for him.
“I’d rather be me than him,” he said of his Democratic opponent, Andrew Gillum. Speaking to reporters in South Daytona, Fla., he cited a “huge reservoir of dedicated Election Day voters” for Republicans as well.
• Mr. Gillum sees things differently, telling reporters in Miami that he was “not at all” concerned.
“The hard part is a look at Democrat vs. Republican leaves over 800,000 of independents and no-party-affiliates,” he said. “We believe we’re leading in that category, and we also don’t believe that all Republicans who voted will be voting for Mr. DeSantis. We think we’ll get our fair share of it.”
Democrats on Bob Hugin’s block
Tom Malinowski is the Democratic candidate running against Representative Leonard Lance in New Jersey’s Seventh Congressional District.
But his campaign volunteers are creating headaches for Bob Hugin, the Republican candidate for Senate.
One of Mr. Malinowski’s volunteer organizers, Lacey Rzeszowski, lives on the same block as Mr. Hugin in Summit, N.J. On both days this weekend, her house served as the headquarters for canvassing efforts for Mr. Malinowski in the town. Hundreds of people streamed across her lawn and then out into the neighborhood in support of Mr. Malinowski.
On Saturday, the turnout was so overwhelming that the police temporarily shut down the block.
Mr. Malinowski shared the news with Mr. Hugin’s opponent, Senator Bob Menendez, at a Union County get-out-the-vote breakfast on Sunday morning, noting, “Senator Menendez will like this story.”
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