Electric Plastic.

China’s assault on American infrastructure.

“It’s the first thing I read every day.” — Brigadier General (retired) Russ Howard, founding director of The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.

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1. Wall Street Journal Poll:

Donald Trump has opened a narrow “lead” in the presidential race, as voters have adopted a more positive view of his agenda and past performance and a more negative view of Kamala Harris, a new Wall Street Journal poll finds.

The national survey finds that Trump is “leading” Harris by 2 percentage points, 47% to 45%, compared with a Harris lead of 2 points in the Journal’s August survey on a ballot that includes third-party and independent candidates. Both leads are within the polls’ margins of error, meaning that either candidate could actually be ahead.

Views of Harris have turned more negative since August, when equal shares of voters viewed her favorably and unfavorably. Now, the unfavorable views are dominant by 8 percentage points, 53% to 45%. Moreover, voters give Harris her worst job rating as vice president in the three times the Journal has asked about it since July, with 42% approving and 54% disapproving of her performance. (Source: wsj.com)

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2. The presidential contest between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris could hardly be tighter. The candidates are statistically tied among likely voters in each of the seven swing states in the Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll, with the razor-thin margins in these battlegrounds underscoring how the final blitz of advertising, rallies and door-knocking campaigns could decide who claims the White House. Across all seven states, the candidates are in a dead heat, with 49% support each among likely voters. The poll’s overall “statistical” margin of error is 1 percentage point. (Source: bloomberg.com)

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3. More than a quarter of Americans believe that civil war could break out after this year’s presidential election, according to polling for The Times of London. Fears that an eruption of violence is very or somewhat likely are shared across the political divide by 27 per cent of American adults, including 30 per cent of women and 24 per cent of men, YouGov found in a survey of 1,266 registered voters on October 18-21. Twelve per cent of respondents said they knew someone who might take up arms if they thought Donald Trump was cheated out of victory in under two weeks’ time. Five per cent said they knew someone who might do the same if they thought Kamala Harris was cheated. (Source: thetimes.com)