On Friday afternoon, I came across a scolding essay from a bona fide bicoastal elite.

(I guess that’s what you’d call someone who owns homes in both New York and Santa Barbara.)

Longtime media pundit Jeff Greenfield, still contributing at major networks including CNN, offers a scathing critique of undecided voters at The Wall Street Journal.

Greenfield's disdain is evident in his recommendation that these voters should “stay home” on Tuesday because their participation “dilutes the value of genuinely considered votes.”

He also claims undecided voters are willfully ignorant.

But Greenfield reveals his own ignorance: Not once does he acknowledge the real-world challenges most Americans face.

Especially the plight of the undecided voter. We profiled him last month…

• Tending to skew more male than female, he’s younger, less educated and has a lower income compared to the general electorate. He’s also more likely to be Black or Latino.

If only Mr. Greenfield had bothered to do a little research, he might have saved himself from sounding like a jackass — or at least like a classist, racist jerk.

A fact not lost in the WSJ comments section…

Your Rundown for Monday, November 4, 2024...

The Race to The Finish

For instance, Bill H. writes: “This is a first for the Democrats. If you look up the author of this essay, you will see his progressive credentials.

“Apparently, stuffing the ballot boxes is not going to work. So the Dem mouthpieces are now encouraging ‘undecided’ voters to abstain from voting.”

As for Greenfield’s “progressive credentials”?

He started his career in the last 1960s as a speech writer. For RFK’s presidential campaign.

All to say, Democrats have truly lost the plot — having distanced themselves years ago from their historic blue collar, pro-civil rights base.

As for another liberal elite, last month, we featured comments from filmmaker Michael Moore who predicted a slam dunk for Kamala Harris.

Checking in on Moore this morning, he’s hedging: “Yes, I’m [feeling] good,” says Moore. “And yes, I could be horribly wrong.”

Which brings us to our last topic today: Pennsylvania.

In September, Paradigm’s own Jim Rickards predicted: “The entire presidential election comes down to Pennsylvania…

“If Trump takes [Pennsylvania], he likely wins. If Harris takes it, she likely wins.”

That said, we probably won’t know the outcome of the presidential race by the end of the day tomorrow.

Remember, the extensive early-voting period means that Election Day is no longer the sole focus for campaigns and voters alike.

In Pennsylvania, in-person early voting is something of a misnomer. Residents, for instance, can drop off their mail-in or absentee ballot at a voting station instead of choosing to mail it in.

“The state will be one of the slowest to release results from mail-in ballots,” Forbes confirms, “because officials can’t start processing absentee ballots — taking steps like removing ballots from envelopes and verifying voter signatures — until the morning of Election Day, and cannot record any vote totals until after polls close at 8 p.m.”

In 2020? It took four days for votes to be counted in Pennsylvania.

All that to say, Election Day is almost upon us, reader. And all the threads we’ve teased-out here at Election Insider for the past 90 days are converging.

Just don’t expect a speedy conclusion.

Market Rundown for Monday, Nov. 4, 2024

S&P 500 futures are up 0.10% to 5,765.

Oil is up 2.65% to $71.33 for a barrel of WTI.

Gold is slightly in the green at $2,750.60 per ounce.

And Bitcoin is up 0.35%, just under $70,000.