Dear Commons Community,

Many of us are thankful that the 2024 election is over — even if some states and races remain uncalled. As of this writing, Donald Trump is  positioned to reclaim the White House after his late-night victory in Pennsylvania. Below are five major takeaways from how America voted courtesy of Yahoo News and other media.

Tony

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Trump is stronger than four years ago

Trump didn’t lose reelection in 2020 by much. If a few thousand votes in a few key swing states had broken the other way, he would have been president instead of Joe Biden.

So any shift toward Trump in 2024, even a minor one, had the potential to be decisive.

The big takeaway from Tuesday is that America did shift toward Trump in 2024 — and the shift wasn’t minor. In Florida, he defeated Harris by 13 percentage points, roughly quadrupling his 2020 margin. He lost in Virginia — but by 5 points this time instead of 10. In the deep blue states of New York and New Jersey, he performed better (on the presidential level) than any Republican in decades. The list goes on.

Much of this movement — winning red states by more than expected; losing blue states by less — didn’t scramble the electoral math. But it reflected larger demographic and geographic trends that could propel Trump to victory in the all-important battlegrounds once all the votes there are counted.

Trump did especially well in rural areas

Late Tuesday night, the Associated Press called the two Southern swing states, Georgia and North Carolina, for Trump. In both, the former president improved on his 2020 performance in nearly every small, red, rural county — a couple hundred votes here, a few thousand there. Harris did slightly better than Biden in some places, too — including several key suburban and exurban counties around Atlanta and Charlotte. But ultimately, it wasn’t enough to overcome Trump’s relentless rural firewall.

According to the preliminary exit polls (which may change as more of the vote comes in), Trump won 63% of the rural vote nationally — up from 57% four years ago. Meanwhile, Harris didn’t do any better than Biden among urban voters (60%) — and narrowly lost suburban voters, a group Biden won.

Trump also overperformed with Latino voters

Early exit poll data can be a bit fuzzy — but if the initial numbers end up being roughly accurate, Trump may have just secured a bigger share of the Latino vote than any Republican since George W. Bush.

Four years ago, the exit polls showed Trump winning 32% of Latinos. Right now, they show him winning 45%. In Michigan, they show him winning 60% of Latinos. If true, that would be a net shift in Trump’s direction of more than 35 percentage points.

Nationally, Latino men seem to be mostly driving this movement. In 2020, they voted for Biden (59%) over Trump (36%). This year, they voted for Trump (54%) over Harris (44%).

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Again, exit polls can change — and they’ve struggled to precisely quantify the Latino vote in the past. But assuming the basic direction of this year’s Latino numbers are correct, it could represent a major sea change in U.S. politics.

Democrats struggled in down-ballot races

In the current Senate, Democrats have a working majority — 51 to 49.

But 2024 was always going to be an uphill battle. For one thing, they had almost no room for error. (Losing even one seat could mean losing control of the entire chamber.) And for another, they were defending lots of vulnerable seats; Republicans were barely defending any.

On Tuesday, some Senate Democrats and Democratic candidates — Ohio’s Sherrod Brown, Texas’s Colin Allred — ran ahead of Harris in their states. But it wasn’t enough, and they lost anyway.

In West Virginia, Democrats had effectively ceded the seat held by outgoing Sen. Joe Manchin long before Election Day. In Nebraska, independent challenger Dan Osborn failed to unseat GOP Sen. Deb Fischer.

Once Gov. Jim Justice won in West Virginia and businessman Bernie Moreno won in Ohio, that was it — two seats flipped, and the Senate flipped with them.

The polls weren’t wrong

Votes are still being counted, but it looks like “the polls” had a pretty decent night.

This was not a foregone conclusion. In both 2016 and 2020, the polls significantly underestimated Trump’s support in key battleground states. Many political observers wondered if the same thing would happen again in 2024 — or if, by trying not to underestimate Trump a third time, pollsters would tweak their methodologies too much and underestimate Harris instead.

This time around, however, the best nonpartisan polling averages seem to have been fairly accurate.

Again, it’s too early to say what the final margins will be in every battleground, let alone nationally. But the pre-election polls estimated that none of the swing states would be decided by more than a point or two, or three at most. And currently, all of them remain within that range.

In the end, Trump could win most — or even all — of the swing states and earn a comfortable Electoral College victory. But even a swing-state sweep falls well within the possibilities implied by the deadlocked pre-election polling — as long as none of those victories are outside the usual margin of error.

Dear Commons Community,

The article below appeared in Education Week yesterday.  It describes Sarah Said, an English teacher at an alternative high school, who is advocating for using generative AI with English learners.  In a study of graduate teacher education students published earlier this year, I too receive feedback from professional educators indicating that generative AI would be an effective tool for teaching English language learners.

Below is the entire Education Week article.

Tony

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Education Week

A Teacher Makes the Case for Using AI With English Learners

By Ileana Najarro

October 30, 2024

Sarah Said, an English teacher working with English learners at an alternative high school near Chicago, has seen translation apps evolve over time.

Enough input from users and linguists have made Google Translate a much more useful tool than it might have been a few years back.

Lately, her English learners at Dream Academy in Elgin, Ill., have demonstrated a knack for using and finding a variety of generative artificial intelligence tools and translation apps, prompting Said to learn more about this technology and guide her students in responsible and ethical uses.

With more than 20 years of experience working with English learners, Said encourages other teachers to familiarize themselves with new AI tools. She presented on this topic virtually at the annual WIDA conference in mid-October and spoke with Education Week about how teachers working with English learners should approach AI tools in class.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Why should teachers working with English learners not shy away from AI tools?

They’re already using it.

I’ve noticed you will get things that don’t look like your students’ writing, and they have tried to use AI, but they haven’t done it responsibly. It’s really then taking what they’ve done and working with them on saying, “Hey, this is a starting point. Let’s work on expanding the idea that AI gave you so that now it becomes your own idea to where your own feelings and your own emotion is in there.”

I do have students who regularly will use translation apps in class and outside of class. I’m noticing, where is this coming from? Students will tell you, “I used ChatGPT to help translate.” I’m like, “Well, OK, but now we have to grow what you did.”

That’s where it becomes a one-on-one conversation. How can we change the sentence to bring your voice into the sentence rather than AI’s voice into the sentence? Almost like using a calculator in math class, right? You may struggle with certain operations, but you still have to do the algebra, you still have to do the proofs in geometry. AI is your starting point to build on better ideas in learning and understanding language.

I didn’t totally know what was out there. [Students] were showing me things. You do have to teach them that there’s a line that they have to walk with AI, and it’s definitely not going away. My students, when they’re looking for jobs and they’re writing things—applications and resumes—they have to make sure that they are using certain words. Unfortunately, there are employers out there that are using AI to help them sift through resumes because they have thousands of resumes to sift through.

English learners might be the first ones to actually be in the know because they’ve had to adapt to using so many tools in the classroom.

In my building, I feel that way, because they had to learn language for survival. Years ago in another district, I was actually a coordinator, and I worked with moms from Yemen, and it was very interesting. This is when Google Voice first came out. And these moms would just use Google Voice with their phones. I’m like, “Wow, that’s so innovative.”

I think that sometimes our language learners are the most innovative because they’ve had to work to navigate certain situations, that they might be on the cusp of more than some of the gen. ed. students.

What should teachers keep in mind when exploring AI tools?

A teacher has to understand what the tools are and what the language of AI is, because it’s another world. So before even beginning to embark on AI in a classroom, the teacher has to understand it. I know that this is a work in progress with states and districts right now, but districts have to have parameters on how schools and districts can use it.

First, the teacher has to become knowledgeable about what tools are out there. Then, as they’re becoming knowledgeable about the tools, that’s where they become knowledgeable about the parameters, they become knowledgeable about policy. We have to regulate it in a sense, too. You don’t want kids putting their data out there, so you have to regulate that and understand that. If a student is using a tool, you have to show them how to use it responsibly.

I think AI enhances language learning. It’s up to the teacher on how they model the usage of it. The kids need to see an appropriate model in order to develop those skills.

What have been some of the strategic ways AI has helped your instruction?

I’ve used it as a model. I’ll break down a sentence for students, and I’ll show them how the AI helps to find meaning within the sentence. I will use AI in front of them to show them, “Hey, when you ask this question, this is what’s going to come up, and this is what they’re going to tell you. It’s not just the question you ask. It’s how you ask the question.”

Then it teaches this idea of, how do we command language? Because a computer takes everything literally. It’s kind of like Amelia Bedelia, right? And what is the difference, then, between that literal and figurative language?

When you send an email to a person, the person cannot tell what you are like on the other end. If you send an email and you sound mad but you didn’t mean to sound mad, the person on the other end doesn’t see that. So how do we command language when we are not in front of people?

Even designing on Canva [an online graphic design tool], you could use their AI tools to design something.

Dear Commons Community,

Today is Election Day and everyone regardless of political affiliation should go out and vote for the candidates of their choice.  Besides the all-important Presidential election, there are also critical Congressional elections  to be decided. So please take the time to VOTE!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Almost 80 million ballots have already been cast in 47 states and the District of Columbia, according to data gathered by CNN, Edison Research and Catalist, a company that provides data, analytics and other services to Democrats, academics and nonprofit advocacy groups, including insights into who is voting before November.

The data offers a sense of who is choosing to vote ahead of Election Day, but it isn’t predictive of election results. For instance, we don’t know who people are voting for, and the data doesn’t include the millions of Americans who will head to the polls Tuesday.

But with less than 24 hours until Election Day polls start to open across the country, here are three big takeaways from what we know about those who decided to vote ahead of November 5 courtesy of CNN.

Early voting turnout is down from 2020 levels

Across the country, far fewer voters chose to vote ahead of Election Day this year compared with the pandemic-era 2020 election.

Four years ago, more than 110 million Americans voted early in person or by mail – roughly 70% of everyone who voted in that election.

We won’t know the final total number of 2024 voters for weeks, until all results are fully counted, but pre-election voting is expected to make up closer to 50% of all ballots – a split in the electorate that is more similar to the 2022 midterms.

While overall pre-election voting is down, in some states more voters chose to vote in person early than they did in 2020.

The key states of North Carolina and Georgia both saw record numbers of voters participate in early in-person voting, with the totals in Georgia exceeding the numbers from 2020. The total pre-election voting in North Carolina, however, was still lower than four years ago due to significantly fewer people choosing to vote by mail.

Mail voting was an especially popular option during the pandemic as voters chose to avoid crowds at in-person polling places. However, in both states, it’s also harder to vote by mail now than it was four years ago.

Republicans grow their pre-election vote share

Republicans have made up more of the pre-election vote than they did in 2020. The Trump campaign made more of an effort this year to encourage Republicans to vote early and by mail, a major shift from messaging against pre-election voting in 2020.

Across the 27 states for which Catalist has comparable data, registered Democrats have cast 37% of pre-election ballots, while registered Republicans have cast 35%. That’s a significant tightening in the partisan gap since 2020, when, at the same point and in the same states, registered Democrats held a 12-percentage point lead – 42% to 30%.

In four of the seven key states that will likely decide the presidential election, voters register by party, and in every one of them, Republicans have made up a larger share of the pre-election vote than they did at the same time four years ago. Democrats in these states have overall decreased their share compared with 2020.

In Arizona, 41% of pre-election voters have been Republican, a 4-point increase from 2020. Democrats have made up a share that’s 3 points less than it was four years ago, at 33%.

Nevada Republicans have increased their share by only 1 point from 2020 to 37%, while Democrats there have seen their share decrease compared with four years ago, from 38% at this point in 2020 to 34% now.

In North Carolina, where Trump rallied with supporters of the final day of his campaign, Republicans have accounted for 33% of the pre-election vote, compared with 31% in 2020. Democrats have accounted for 32%, down 3 points from their share four years ago.

And in critical Pennsylvania, Republicans have made up 33% of the pre-election vote, a whole 10 points more than in 2020, while Democrats have made up 56% – down 10 points.

Despite Republicans making up a larger share of pre-election voters so far compared with four years ago, recent CNN polling has generally shown Vice President Kamala Harris leading among voters who have already cast their ballots, including in all of the battleground states, besides Nevada.

Wide gender gap remains, but slightly narrowed from 2020

In the seven most competitive states, the gender gap looks similar to the 2020 and 2022 early vote.

Overall, roughly 1.8 million more women than men have voted early in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, according to Catalist’s data. However, that gap is narrower than it was at the same point four years ago. That’s both because fewer people have voted early overall, but also because the percentage gap is slightly narrower.

Georgia has the most pronounced gender gap – women have cast 56% of the early vote in the Peach State, while 44% has been cast by men. In Arizona, 52% of the early vote was cast by women while 46% was cast by men. And in North Carolina, 56% of the early vote was cast by women to 44% for men.

Nevada had the closest gender gap – 51% of the early vote was cast by women compared with 47% by men.

In Pennsylvania, arguably the state that could decide the race, women have made up 56% of the early voters. At the same in 2022 and 2020, women had made up 57% of pre-election ballots cast.

Today is the day we will see the results of all of these early voters. Maybe?

Tony

Britain’s Member of Parliament Kemi Badenoch is the new leader of the Conservative Party.  (AP.)

Dear Commons Community,

The first Black woman to lead a major U.K. political party, Kemi Badenoch, is an upbeat and outspoken libertarian who thinks the British state is broken — and that she’s the one to fix it with smaller government and radical new ideas.

The new leader of Britain’s right-of-center Conservative Party was born Olukemi Adegoke in London in 1980 to well-off Nigerian parents — a doctor and an academic — and spent much of her childhood in the West African country.

She has said that the experience of Nigeria’s economic and social upheavals shaped her political outlook.  As reported by The Associated Press and the BBC.

“I grew up somewhere where the lights didn’t come on, where we ran out of fuel frequently despite being an oil-producing country,” Badenoch told the BBC last week.

“I don’t take what we have in this country for granted,” she said. “I meet a lot of people who assume that things are good here because things are good here and they always will be. They don’t realize just how much work and sacrifice was required in order to get that.”

Returning to the U.K. aged 16 during a period of turmoil in Nigeria, she worked part-time at McDonalds while completing school, then studied computer systems engineering at the University of Sussex. She later got a law degree and worked in financial services.

In 2012, she married banker Hamish Badenoch, with whom she has three children.

She was elected to the London Assembly in 2015 and to Parliament in 2017. She held a series of government posts in the 2019-22 government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, before becoming part of a mass ministerial exodus in July 2022 over a series of ethics scandals that triggered Johnson’s downfall.

Badenoch ran unsuccessfully to succeed Johnson, boosting her profile in the process. She was appointed trade secretary in the 49-day government of Prime Minister Liz Truss, and business secretary under Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

She held onto her seat in Parliament in July’s national election, which saw the Labour Party win a huge majority and the Conservatives reduced to 121 lawmakers in the 650-seat House of Commons.

Like many Conservatives, Badenoch idolizes Margaret Thatcher, the party’s first female leader, who transformed Britain with her free-market policies in the 1980s. Citing her engineering background as evidence she’s a problem-solver, she depicts herself as a disruptor, arguing for a low-tax, free-market economy and pledging to “rewire, reboot and reprogram” the British state.

A critic of multiculturalism and self-proclaimed enemy of wokeness, Badenoch is an opponent of “identity politics,” gender-neutral bathrooms and government plans to reduce U.K. carbon emissions.

Supporters think her charismatic, outspoken style is just what the Conservative Party needs to come back from its worst-ever election defeat. During her leadership campaign, her backers wore T-shirts urging: “Be more Kemi.”

Critics say Badenoch has clashed with colleagues and civil servants and has a tendency to make rash statements and provoke unnecessary fights. During the leadership campaign she drew criticism for saying that “not all cultures are equally valid,” and for suggesting that maternity pay was excessive — though she later backtracked on that claim.

“I do speak my mind,” she told the BBC. “And I tell the truth.”

Conservative politics in the U.K. should be interesting with Badenoch at the helm!

Tony

Bill Clinton speaks at a campaign rally in Durham, North Carolina, on October 17, 2024. – Steve Helber/AP

Dear Commons Community,

CNN had an exclusive interview  with former President Bill Clinton about his concerns for the future of American democracy regardless of who is elected president tomorrow. Here is an excerpt.

“Rumbling down the road between small towns in western Michigan, Bill Clinton was considering mortality – potentially American democracy’s or the Democratic Party’s, but also his own.

The nation’s 42nd president believes Kamala Harris will win and that the economy will “explode” over the next few years, thanks to decisions that Joe Biden made, which Clinton says people will finally start to feel after an inevitable lag. He calls Harris a problem-solver, goes in deep on how her price gouging plan could bring down the cost of groceries and how the intricacies of her proposal to have the federal government build more housing is an idea he’d never thought of.

He still throws in Arkansas-spun laugh lines, like Donald Trump “spreads blame like a John Deere spreads manure” or a favorite bit he has about how the Republican nominee would take credit for this unseasonably sunny weather in the final campaign stretch but would blame Biden if it rained.

But speaking to CNN exclusively on his campaign bus – his only interview since starting what has become a marathon schedule that still has last-minute stops being added – Clinton said he also worries about what Trump’s impact on politics means for what comes next, no matter who wins.

“What has surprised so many people – although I’m sure this happened in the ‘30s throughout Europe, when they were considering things with fascism – a lot of people just can’t believe how many voters in America agree that he doesn’t make sense, agree that he’s advocating things that would be bad, but somehow think that if the experience was good for them back then, it was magically his doing and everything was fine,” Clinton said. “So, I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Clinton campaigned 30 years ago on being a bridge to the 21st century. He knows that viciousness, division and the feeling of being constantly pummeled from every direction by politics were not what America had been expecting on the other side.

He was the one who tapped into the White working-class vote back then to break through the political establishment, and then signed trade agreements and banking laws that created the job losses and resentment that has transformed American politics. His wife was the one whose loss put Trump in the White House, in a way that burns him still.

Now after spending the past few years celebrating 25th anniversaries of achievements such as the Good Friday agreement, as he’s seen his own time in office bear out, the second youngest elected president ever is talking about securing his grandkids’ future and holding up his big hands to show the joint problems and essential tremor that he says will keep him from hitting a 300-yard drive again.

Over nearly three weeks straight of 10-hour days – which means he’s had a much more active schedule than Harris, Trump, Tim Walz, JD Vance, Joe Biden or Barack Obama – Clinton is adamant in his speeches about his unique perspective as the only person on the planet who’s done the job and personally knows both candidates on the ballot Tuesday.

“You did pretty well when I was president, and I think I’m entitled to my opinion about who would be better,” he often says, his soft Southern accent now with a permanent rasp.

Standing in a church gym in Muskegon Heights, Michigan, he recounted a bit that he had read a few years ago about Dwight Eisenhower saying he worried how much longer the oldest continuous democracy could survive with all the effort it takes.

“I think we ought to say to President Eisenhower, ‘We don’t know how long we’re going to make it either, but we’re fixing to lengthen our stay in the land of the free and the home of the brave,” Clinton said.

Hours later, relaxed in a chair on a bright blue Harris-Walz bus, he considered what Obama, Biden, Walz and others have meant when they say that America might not survive another four years of Trump.

“I think you have to look at what the definition of ‘survive’ is,” Clinton said. “You can put me on a breathing tube tonight, but it wouldn’t be surviving like I’m surviving now. And the same thing’s true in politics. I don’t know if we can survive or not – I think it would be a travesty if he became president again.”

Amen!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The New York Times editorial yesterday was entitled, Vote to End the Trump Era.  The electronic version lists twenty-six reasons (see summary below with links to details) why we should not vote for Trump.  Its concluding comment:

“It is hard to imagine a candidate more unworthy to serve as president of the United States than Donald Trump.”

I could not concur more.

Vote Tuesday for Kamala Harris.

Tony

The New York Times

Editorial

Vote to End the Trump Era

You already know Donald Trump. He is unfit to lead. Watch him. Listen to those who know him best. He tried to subvert an election and remains a threat to democracy. He helped overturn Roe, with terrible consequences. Mr. Trump’s corruption and lawlessness go beyond elections: It’s his whole ethos. He lies without limit. If he’s re-elected, the G.O.P. won’t restrain him. Mr. Trump will use the government to go after opponents. He will pursue a cruel policy of mass deportations. He will wreak havoc on the poor, the middle class and employers. Another Trump term will damage the climate, shatter alliances and strengthen autocrats. Americans should demand better. Vote.

Dear Commons Community,

A highly respected Des Moines Register poll showed Harris leading Trump 47% to 44%. It is an outlier compared to other polling results in the state. As reported by the Des Moines Register and The Huffington Post.

Vice President Kamala Harris has a narrow edge over Donald Trump in the final Des Moines Register poll of Iowa, a shocking result showing her with a lead in a state expected to be firmly in Trump’s corner.

The poll, sponsored by the Des Moines Register and conducted by J. Ann Selzer, nailed the final results of the presidential race in Iowa in both 2016 and 2020. While Iowa is no longer considered a swing state and rewards only six electoral voters, the Register survey remains closely watched as an indicator of how white voters across the Midwest may vote.

The poll found Harris earning 47% of the vote to 44% for Trump.

“It’s hard for anybody to say they saw this coming,” Selzer told the newspaper. “She has clearly leaped into a leading position.”

Selzer and the Register surveyed 808 likely Iowa voters from Oct. 28 to Oct. 31. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.

Harris’ lead in the poll is the result of a massive gender gap. She leads by 20 points among women, 56% to 36%. Trump has a lead among men, but it’s relatively smaller, 52% to 38%. It’s a pattern that’s repeated itself to varying extents nationwide, but notably, a six-week abortion ban went into effect in Iowa this summer.

While the poll is highly respected, it is also an outlier. Iowa has seen little polling so far this cycle, but an Emerson College survey released Saturday showed Trump with a 53% to 43% lead, and a September poll from Cygnal sponsored by a conservative group found Trump with a 51% to 43% lead.

The last iteration of the Des Moines Register poll, from September, found Trump leading Harris, 47% to 43%.

Selzer’s track record in Iowa is nearly spotless, with only a miss in the 2018 gubernatorial contest. She nailed the GOP’s margin of victory in the 2022 Senate race, the 2020 presidential race, 2016 presidential race and 2014 Senate race and the margin of President Barack Obama’s victory in the state in 2012. Often, her results broke from the polling consensus and turned out to be correct.

This would be quite an upset!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Daylight saving time ended at 2 a.m. local time Sunday, which means you should have set your clock back an hour before you went to bed. Standard time will last until March 9 when we will again “spring forward” with the return of daylight saving time.

That spring time change can be tougher on your body. Darker mornings and lighter evenings can knock your internal body clock out of whack, making it harder to fall asleep on time for weeks or longer. Studies have even found an uptick in heart attacks and strokes right after the March time change.

“Fall back” should be easier. But it still may take a while to adjust your sleep habits, not to mention the downsides of leaving work in the dark or trying to exercise while there’s still enough light. Some people with seasonal affective disorder, a type of depression usually linked to the shorter days and less sunlight of fall and winter, may struggle, too.

Some health groups, including the American Medical Association and American Academy of Sleep Medicine, have said it’s time to do away with time switches and that sticking with standard time aligns better with the sun — and human biology.

I was up at 2:30 A.M.

Tony

Getty Images.

Dear Commons Community,

A growing number of wealthy Americans are considering leaving the country in the run-up to Tuesday’s presidential  election, with many fearing political and social unrest regardless of who wins, according to immigration attorneys.  As reported by NBC News and CNBC.

Attorneys and advisors to family offices and high-net-worth families said they’re seeing record demand from clients looking for second passports or long-term residencies abroad. While talk of moving overseas after an election is common, wealth advisors said this time many of the wealthy are already taking action.

“We’ve never seen demand like we see now,” said Dominic Volek, group head of private clients at Henley & Partners, which advises the wealthy on international migration.

Volek said that for the first time, wealthy Americans are far and away the company’s largest client base, accounting for 20% of its business, or more than any other nationality. He said the number of Americans making plans to move abroad is up at least 30% over last year.

David Lesperance, managing partner of Lesperance and Associates, the international tax and immigration firm, said the number of Americans hiring him for possible moves overseas has roughly tripled over last year.

A survey by Arton Capital, which advises the wealthy on immigration programs, found that 53% of American millionaires say they’re more likely to leave the U.S. after the election, no matter who wins. Younger millionaires were the most likely to leave, with 64% of millionaires between 18 and 29 saying they were “very interested” in seeking so-called golden visas through a residency-by-investment program overseas.

Granted, the interest in second passports or residencies has been rising steadily among the American rich since Covid-19. Whether it’s retiring to a warmer, cheaper country or being closer to family abroad, the wealthy have plenty of nonpolitical reasons to want to venture overseas.

The ultra-wealthy also increasingly see citizenship in one country as a concentrated personal and financial risk. Just as they diversify their investments, they’re now creating “passport portfolios” to hedge their country risk. Others want a non-U.S. passport in case they’re traveling to dangerous countries or regions hostile to the U.S.

Yet the elections and the political climate have accelerated and added to the push by wealthy Americans to consider a Plan B abroad. Lesperance said that for more than three decades, his American clients were mainly interested in moving overseas for tax reasons. Now, it’s politics and fear of violence, with next week’s election turbocharging those fears.

“For some of them, the primary thing is ‘I don’t want to live in a MAGA America,‘” Lesperance said. Others are worried about violence if Donald Trump loses, or Vice President Kamala Harris’ plan to tax unrealized capital gains for those worth more than $100 million. While tax analysts say the unrealized gains plan has little chance of passing Congress, even with a Democratic majority, Lesperance said it’s still a risk.

“Even if there is only a 3% chance that it happens, you still want to take out insurance,” he said.

Attorneys say the wealthy also cite mass school shootings, the potential for political violence, antisemitism, Islamophobia and the government’s soaring debts as reasons to leave.

When it comes to destinations, Americans are looking mainly to Europe. According to Henley, the top countries for Americans looking for residency or second citizenships include Portugal, Malta, Greece, Spain and Antigua. Italy has also become popular for Americans.

“The love affair between Americans and Europe has been going on for very long time,” said Armand Arton, of Arton Capital. “It comes with a price, and they are totally fine investing couple hundred thousand dollars or a half million into a property or a fund.”

The rules and costs, however, are changing fast. While mass immigration has become a hot-button political issue across the world, some politicians in Europe have started to push back against golden visas that give the wealthy citizenship or residency purely based on investments.

Portugal, for instance, faced a backlash after a flood of foreigners poured in the Algarve and bought beach properties as part of the golden visa program. With property prices soaring by 15%, the government changed the rules, increasing minimum investment thresholds and removing residential property as an investment category.

Italy this summer doubled its flat tax on the overseas incomes of wealthy foreigners who transfer their tax residency to Italy, to 200,000 euros ($217,000). The change followed a wave of wealthy new migrants who came for the program and drove up Milan property prices.

For now, Malta remains the go-to second passport for the American rich. While expensive, at about $1 million to $1.2 million all-in, Malta’s investment citizenship program offers citizenship and unrestricted travel and residency in Malta and by extension the European Union, according to immigration attorneys. The EU has been challenging the Malta program in court, but most immigration attorneys expect the country to prevail.

The Caribbean is increasingly popular for Americans who simply want a second passport. Buying an approved piece of real estate in Antigua and Barbuda for more than $300,000 puts you on a path for citizenship, which allows freedom to travel to Hong Kong, Russia, Singapore, the U.K. and Europe, among other countries. St. Lucia is also increasingly popular, attorneys say.

Americans with ancestry in Ireland, Italy and dozens of other countries can apply for so-called lineage citizenship, which is typically far cheaper than an investment visa. Some countries, like Portugal, also offer retirement visas, which allow entry and a path to citizenship.

Don’t expect to get any citizenship or residencies right away. With attorneys and countries inundated with so many applications, and so many different background checks and approvals required, the process can take months or even a year or more. And that waiting list could grow longer depending on the election results.

“It’s getting crowded,” Lesperance said. “And I’m sure I’m going to get a bunch more on Nov. 6 or 7.”

I don’t want to live in a MAGA America either but I would be happy living in a Kamala America.  I am staying put!

Tony