SNEAK PEEK … PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP on “60 MINUTES” from the White House. Interviewer is Lesley Stahl, who interviewed Trump after he won the presidency.

STAHL: “Jamal Khashoggi, the journalist, the Saudi journalist. Was he murdered by the Saudis? And did the prince give the order to kill him?” TRUMP: “Well, nobody knows yet, but we’ll probably be able to find out. It’s being investigated, it’s being looked at very very strongly. And we would be very upset and angry if that were the case. As of this moment, they deny it and they deny it vehemently. Could it be them? Yes.”

STAHL: “Jared, your son-in-law, got on the phone and asked the prince. Did he deny it? TRUMP: “They deny it. They deny it every way you can imagine. In the not too distant future I think we’ll know an answer.”

STAHL: “What are your options? Let’s say, they did. What are your options? Would you consider imposing sanctions as a bipartisan group of senators have proposed?” TRUMP: “Well, it depends on what the sanction is. I’ll give you an example, they are ordering military equipment. Everybody in the world wanted that order. Russia wanted it, China wanted it, we wanted it. We got it, and we got all of it, every bit of it.”

STAHL: “So would you cut that off?” TRUMP: “Well, I’ll tell you what I don’t want to do. Boeing, Lockheed, Raytheon, I don’t want to hurt jobs. I don’t want to lose an order like that. And you know what, there are other ways of punishing, to use a word that’s a pretty harsh word, but it’s true.”

STAHL: “Tell everybody what’s at stake here. You know…” TRUMP: “Well there’s a lot at stake, there’s a lot at stake. And maybe especially so because this man was a reporter. There’s something — you’ll be surprised to hear me say that, there’s something really terrible and disgusting about that if that was the case so we’re going to have to see. We’re going to get to the bottom of it and there will be severe punishment.” The 1:49 clip

DIAL-A-PRESIDENT … “‘Donald Trump in Full’: The President’s Very Talkative, Very Televised Week,” by NYT’s Katie Rogers and Maggie Haberman: “Air Force One has become a flying call center, the Oval Office, a revolving door of journalists, dignitaries and celebrities. Rock stars and cabinet secretaries wander the White House driveway, a place that at any given moment can be the site of an impromptu news conference.

“When President Trump enters one of the more talkative cycles of his presidency — and ahead of the midterms, post-Supreme Court confirmation, he is definitely in one — the environment around him becomes a stage, and inevitable questions of a grand strategy arise.

“But there is none, people close to him say. His aides are simply clearing a path as the president speaks — and speaks, and speaks, and speaks — up for himself. ‘Honestly, it’s Donald Trump in full,’ is the way Kellyanne Conway, the counselor to the president, explained it. ‘His critics would swear that the president is predictable and yet they’ve become quite predictable. They sound the same. He’s still mixing it up.’” NYT

Good Saturday morning. It’s finally fall in D.C. Highs are around 60 degrees. 24 DAYS until Election Day … WAPO HEADLINE: “Trump calls on blacks to ‘honor’ him with votes, then praises Confederate general Robert E. Lee”

MIDTERM UPDATE …

— SIREN … ALEX ISENSTADT: “‘We’ve never seen anything like this’: GOP overwhelmed by Democratic cash”: “A deluge of Democratic spending in the final days of the battle for the House has triggered recriminations among Republicans and forced the party to lean on its biggest patron to salvage their majority.

“Since the end of July, Republican candidates in the 70 most contested races have reserved $60 million in TV ads, compared to $109 million for Democratic hopefuls, according to figures compiled by media trackers and reviewed by POLITICO. The disparity is almost certain to grow, as former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg makes good on plans to spend nearly $80 million to help Democrats flip the House. …

“The [NRCC] is expected to secure a loan to help the party compete in the final weeks. Party officials declined to divulge the size of the credit line though in previous election years the committee has received loans of between $10 million and $20 million.

“NRCC Chairman Steve Stivers has also reached out to party leaders, including Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Majority Whip Steve Scalise, seeking financial help. McCarthy, who spent part of the week in Texas huddling with donors, has transferred $5.7 million to party groups over the past two weeks.

“Still, Republicans have hit roadblocks. House GOP aides had hoped to receive a late cash transfer from the [RNC], but they now don’t expect that to happen. The RNC, which is running an extensive national field campaign, has already allocated its remaining funds for the rest of the election season, according to two senior Republicans.” POLITICO

— NO CASH FOR SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: L.A. TIMES: “Top GOP funding group snubs incumbents Rohrabacher and Walters 3 weeks before midterm election,” by Michael Finnegan and Mark Barabak: “In a worrisome sign for two endangered Orange County lawmakers, a major Republican Party funding group has passed over the pair in its opening round of broadcast television advertising across Southern California.

“The omission of Reps. Dana Rohrabacher and Mimi Walters by the Congressional Leadership Fund, a political action committee closely aligned with House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), comes at a crucial inflection point in the midterm election when the two parties begin assessing their likely winners and losers.” LAT

— ELENA SCHNEIDER in San Antonio: “‘We’ve got a Latino problem’: Dems fret midterm turnout in key House districts”: “Voters are more invested in the 2018 elections than in any recent midterm. But a key piece of the Democratic coalition — Latino voters — is lagging behind other groups in its interest in the 2018 campaign, an enthusiasm gap that could tip the scales in key battleground House districts.

“Latinos make up at least 20 percent of the population in more than a dozen districts that top Democrats’ House target list in 2018 — more than half of the 23 seats Democrats must flip to take over the House. But a POLITICO analysis of over 20,000 interviews conducted with battleground-district voters by Siena College and the New York Times shows that Latinos rated themselves less likely to vote than both white and black voters.

“Two-thirds of white voters surveyed said they were ‘almost certain’ to vote — the highest rating on a 5-point scale — as did 61 percent of African-Americans. But only 55 percent of the Latinos polled said the same about their plans for next month’s midterm elections, according to POLITICO’s analysis.

“The findings — echoed by other public and private polling from groups like Latino Decisions, a Latino-focused polling and research firm whose latest survey showed that more than half of Latino voters have yet to be contacted by a campaign or party group ahead of the midterms — could have an outsized effect in a crescent of battleground House districts running from Texas to the West Coast, where the Hispanic vote is especially important.” POLITICO

A 2020 PREVIEW? … “Joe Biden Doesn’t Hold Back on Trump: He’s ‘Trashing American Values,’” by NYT’s Michael Tackett in Owingsville, Ky.: “Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., in some of his harshest criticism of President Trump to date, said on Friday that the president was ‘trashing American values’ and undermining institutions to ‘amass power,’ as he appealed to his party to not give up on winning the votes of the white working class.

“Campaigning in rural Kentucky for a Democrat running in one of the nation’s most watched House races, Mr. Biden appeared to be testing themes for a potential 2020 campaign to unseat Mr. Trump.

“‘He is just trashing American values the way he talks about people, the way he makes fun of people, the way he denigrates folks,’ Mr. Biden said. ‘I got to tell you, I think there is a method to his madness because he wants you to get down in the mosh pit with him.’” NYT

TRUMP SUPPORTERS FOR RENT? … NYT’S KEN VOGEL and MAGGIE HABERMAN: “Early in his presidential campaign, Donald J. Trump dismissed political data as an ‘overrated’ tool. But after he won the Republican nomination, his team began building a database that offers a pipeline into the heart of the party’s base, a comprehensive list including the email addresses and cellphone numbers of as many as 20 million supporters.

“Now, consultants close to the Trump campaign are ramping up efforts to put that database — by far the most sought-after in Republican politics — to use, offering it for rent to candidates, conservative groups and even businesses. It is an arrangement that has the potential to help the Republican Party in key midterm races, while providing a source of revenue for President Trump’s campaign and the consultants involved.” NYT

NEXT UP IN TURTLE BAY … “White House considers two female ambassadors to replace Haley at U.N.,” by Eliana Johnson, Daniel Lippman and Gabby Orr: “The White House is adding two high-profile women, both confirmed ambassadors, to the list of candidates to succeed Nikki Haley at the United Nations, according to two senior administration officials: Jamie McCourt and Kelly Knight Craft.

“White House aides have said the president is inclined to select a woman for the post, and — while they stressed it’s still early in the process — that they are looking to tap somebody already in the administration. ‘It’s so hard to get a security clearance so there’s a bias to get someone who is already in the system,’ said a senior administration official. … The president is also likely to consider acquaintances from the business world.” POLITICO

FALLOUT IN THE KINGDOM … WAPO: “Western walkout of Saudi ‘Davos in the Desert’ conference over Jamal Khashoggi undermines kingdom’s modernization plans,” by Jeanne Whalen and Justin Wm. Moyer: “By Friday afternoon, nearly a dozen tech, media and entertainment companies had backed out of a Saudi investment conference to be held this month, as dismay over Saudi agents’ alleged murder of Khashoggi spread to companies that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has tried to woo.

“One firm that was among the recipients of the $27 million the kingdom spent on U.S. lobbying last year announced that it would stop its representation. ‘We are terminating our relationship,’ said Richard Mintz, managing director of the Harbor Group.” WaPo

— JAKE TAPPER (@jaketapper): “CNN: Information reported by a Turkish newspaper on Saturday morning indicates that Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi may have recorded his own death. He turned on the recording function of his Apple Watch before walking into the consulate on October 2nd…”

TRUMP’S SATURDAY … At 3:40 p.m., the president will leave the White House for Andrews, where he will fly to Lexington, Ky. He will arrive at 5:25 p.m., and head to Alumni Coliseum in Richmond, Ky. At 7 p.m., Trump will hold a political rally intended to boost Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.). He’ll be back at the White House by 10:30 p.m.

VP MIKE PENCE is in Indiana, where he will stump for Mike Braun’s Senate campaign, and then will attend a GOP rally.

K-FILE – “Kyrsten Sinema’s anti-war activist past under scrutiny as she runs for Senate,” by CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski and Chris Massie: “Sinema and [radio host Ernest] Hancock discussed their political views [in February 2003], with Hancock taking up the libertarian argument against intervention and raising as a hypothetical against Sinema’s worldview if she would oppose him joining the Taliban army. … ‘By me, as an individual, if I want to go fight in the Taliban army, I go over there and I’m fighting for the Taliban. I’m saying that’s a personal decision…’ ‘Fine,’ Sinema interjected, ‘I don’t care if you want to do that, go ahead.’” CNN

AT THE BORDER … Trump administration considers family separation option as border arrests soar,” by Ted Hesson: “The Trump administration is considering ways to deter a soaring number of families arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border — including once again separating parents and children, three current and former Homeland Security Department officials told POLITICO. If parents and children are separated, parents will have a say, the officials emphasized. Under a 90-day pilot program, parents seeking asylum would be given a ‘binary choice’ to be detained with their children through the course of their immigration proceedings or to send their children to a shelter where they can be released to a sponsor.

“‘I don’t know how much this is going to lead to additional family separation or how much this is going to lead to prolonged detention of these families,’ said one DHS official. ‘I think the White House believes both of those are good things, because both of those would have a deterrent effect.’

“But another DHS official called binary choice ‘another Trump administration special’ that appears geared toward manufacturing a crisis. ‘They look at a bunch of options and think how can they drive up the chaos,’ the official said.” POLITICO

CLICKER – “The nation’s cartoonists on the week in politics,” edited by Matt Wuerker — 12 keepers

GREAT WEEKEND READS, curated by Daniel Lippman:

— “Trump’s Showdown” – PBS’ Frontline: “‘Frontline’ goes inside President Trump’s fight against the investigation of his campaign and whether he obstructed justice. With the threat of impeachment growing, this two-hour documentary from filmmaker Michael Kirk and his team traces Trump’s unprecedented war against the special counsel, the FBI, and even his own attorney general.” With cameos by many Playbookers. PBS

— “Why Isn’t Sy Hersh Covering President Trump?: America’s foremost investigative journalist opened the nation’s eyes to My Lai and Abu Ghraib. But now he’s a Russiagate skeptic,” by Washingtonian’s Ben Wofford, a new staff writer at the magazine: “‘Yeah, okay, listen. It’s Sy Hersh. Who the f— do you think I am? Your f—ing wife? What do I look like to you? Your f—ing brother-in-law?’” Washingtonian

— “Trapped by the ‘Walmart of Heroin,’” by Jennifer Percy in the NYT Magazine – per Longreads.com’s description: “Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood is the East Coast’s largest open-air drug market whose strong, inexpensive heroin attracts drug users from all over the country. Some locals commute there to score. Some work as guides, helping visitors shop and procure clean needles. The overdose rate is high. Rape, murder, and violence are common. Dead bodies end up in the bushes.” NYT

— “Susie Bean Breitbart: L.A.’s Secret Power Broker Behind a Right-Wing Media Force,” by Ravi Somaiya in the Hollywood Reporter: “She’s a quiet owner of the fire-breathing empire founded by her late husband, Andrew Breitbart, but this ‘cool mom’ can more likely be found cheering on her kids’ Little League teams than boosting Trump on Fox News.” THR

— “Idleness as Flourishing,” by Kieran Setiya in Public Books – per ALDaily.com’s description: “Life has sped up. We ruthlessly divide our time into efficient units. We even walk faster than we used to. Time to slow down.” Public Books

— “Giselle Donnelly can finally be herself,” by WaPo’s Josh Rogin: “Giselle Donnelly is a renowned national security expert, author and conservative think-tank scholar — and even though she’s 65 years old, she was ‘born’ only this year. That’s because Giselle has just recently transitioned to living openly as a trans woman. She is now re-introducing herself to the Washington community she has been a part of her entire adult life. Giselle came into the world as Thomas Donnelly, the name most of Washington’s foreign policy establishment has known her by over her long career in media, policy and politics.” WaPo

— “Checkpoint Nation,” by Melissa del Bosque in Texas Observer – per Longreads.com’s description: “ICE is bad, but as that agency gets the bulk of critics’ ire, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency legally operates within 100 miles of the border, where it needs neither warrants nor explanations to search and detain American citizens. Civil liberties are in danger. How did this happen?” Texas Observer

— “Unprotected,” by Finlay Young in ProPublica: “An acclaimed American charity said it was saving some of the world’s most vulnerable girls from sexual exploitation. But from the very beginning, girls were being raped.” ProPublica … Accompanying documentary

— “The Love Story that Upended the Texas Prison System,” by Ethan Watters in Texas Monthly: “In 1967, a 56-year-old lawyer met a young inmate with a brilliant mind and horrifying stories about life inside. Their complicated alliance—and even more complicated romance—would shed light on a nationwide scandal, disrupt a system of abuse and virtual slavery across the state, and change incarceration in Texas forever.” Texas Monthly (h/t Longform.org)

— “Sniff Sniff: When pot goes legal nationwide, what will become of the drug-sniffing K9s?” by the Weekly Standard’s Alice Lloyd: “For most policing agencies, drug-sniffing dogs are trained on a whole suite of scents … About 40 percent are German shepherds, and 40 percent are Belgian Malinois—while the other 20 percent are a mix of Labradors, bloodhounds, border collies, and beagles. … Beagles, for example, are customs officials: They patrol international airports, sniffing out exotic fruits.” TWS

— “An Open Letter to Microsoft: Don’t Bid on the US Military’s Project JEDI” – “Employees of Microsoft” on Medium: “Many Microsoft employees don’t believe that what we build should be used for waging war. When we decided to work at Microsoft, we were doing so in the hopes of ‘empowering every person on the planet to achieve more,’ not with the intent of ending lives and enhancing lethality. … Like those who took action at Google, Salesforce, and Amazon, we ask all employees of tech companies to ask how your work will be used, where it will be applied, and act according to your principles.” Medium

— “Small-Town Injustice: The Aftermath of a Police Officer’s Murder Conviction in Rocky Ford,” by Robert Sanchez in 5280: “When a Rocky Ford police officer was convicted of murder after shooting a young man in 2014, residents of the Eastern Plains town might have believed that the criminal justice system had worked to protect the community. So why does the Rocky Ford Police Department seem more powerful—and less accountable—than ever?” 5280

SPOTTED at last night’s 50^th annual Meridian Ball: Kellyanne Conway, Rod Rosenstein, Sarah Sanders, Lindsay Walters, Hogan Gidley, Jessica Ditto, Mercedes and Matt Schlapp, Anastasia Dellaccio, Suzanne Kianpour, Kevin Chaffee, Cathy Merrill Williams, Jonathan Capehart and Nick Schmit, Josh and Ali Rogin, Howard Fineman and Amy Nathan, Amb. Stuart Holliday and Gwen Holliday, Ben and Ashley Chang, Artur Orkisz, Alice Lloyd, Carlos Gutierrez, Kevin Sheridan, Jim Sciutto, Robb Watters, Riley Brands, Linda Douglass and John Phillips, Jim Nicholson, Lee Satterfield and Patrick Steel, Amy and Bret Baier, Cecilia Vega, Nels Olson, Kasie Hunt, Nathan Daschle, Rina Shah, Michael Chertoff …

… Michelle Kosinski, David and Catherine Bohigian, Capricia Marshall, Clarke Cooper, David Adams, Zach Sentementes, Matt Mowers, Clara Brillembourg, Steve Clemons and Andrew Oros, Samantha Smith and Bubba Atkinson, Fritz Brogan, Dave Banks and Chrissy Harbin, Ali Velshi, Megan Devlin, Reps. Francis Rooney (R-Fla.), Don Beyer (D-Va.), Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and John Delaney (D-Md.), Rickie Niceta, David Hale, Jack Evans, Adrienne Arsht, John Rogers, Amb. Mark Lippert, Harold Ford, Jr., Alphonso Jackson, Kevin Madden, Ed Luce, the ambassadors from Japan, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, Jordan, Portugal, Colombia, Morocco, Philippines, Belgium, Denmark, Poland, Azerbaijan, Qatar and Argentina.

WEEKEND WEDDING – Tom Fanning, CEO of Southern Company, married Sarah Novascone, VP of federal government relations for Travelers Insurance and a Mike Johanns and EEI alum, in an ocean front ceremony in Maine surrounded by friends and family. Rep. Bruce Poliquin (R-Maine) officiated. Pic … Another pic

WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) and Liz Moulton, a senior client partner of the global sports practice at Korn/Ferry International, on Wednesday welcomed Elizabeth “Emmy” Moulton. Pic

BIRTHWEEK (was Wednesday): Michael Borden, a partner at Sidley Austin

BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Harris Faulkner, anchor of Fox News “Outnumbered Overtime” and co-host of “Outnumbered”. Playbook Plus Q&A

BIRTHDAYS: Mike Barnicle, senior contributor on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” is 75 … Ari Fleischer is 58 … Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is 29 … Billy Bush is 47 … Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) is 6-0 … GPG’s Nedra Pickler … Gerrit Lansing, partner at IMGE and co-founder of Revv, is 35 (hat tip: Blake Waggoner) … Bill Schuette, Michigan’s Attorney General who’s now running for governor (h/ts son Bill and Andrea Bitely) … Cathy Rubin … Josh Etter is 37 … WaPo research editor Alice Crites … Christopher Colford … Emily Cadei, correspondent for the SacBee in McClatchy’s DC bureau (h/ts Kristin Roberts and Ben Chang) … Nic Breeding of Burson Cohn and Wolfe and twin bro Nate Breeding of Secretary DeVos’ office … David Willkie … Nate Brand, who does comms for Patrick Morrissey’s campaign in West Virginia (h/t Ada Furciniti) … Shawn Yancy … CAP’s Jerry Parshall (h/t Morgan Finkelstein) …

… Michael Tomasky is 58 … Clarence Wardell … Dawn Le … Corinne Falotico … Regina Hing … WSJ’s Yigu Lin … Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.) is 58 … Rick Davis, EVP of standards and practices at CNN, is 66 (h/t Mark Preston) … GPG’s Gregg Rothschild is 53 (h/t father Herb) … Jack Krumholtz … Bev Lindsey … Judy Pino … Politico’s Lily Lancaster … Edelman’s Michael Newell … Governing’s Candice Norwood … Carrie Adams … AP alum Steven Gutkin is 54 … Lily Schuurman … Ashley Prime Gula … Paul Williams … Jeffrey Kimbell … Lucy Weber … Chris Jankowski … Fran Person is 36 … Kris Anderson … Christen Linke Young … Josh Friedmann … Daryl Muller … Craig Smith … Andrew Hosea … Joanna Burgos … Michael Lemonick … Azam Baig … Sarah Stevens … Matt Walsh is 54 (h/t Tammy Haddad) … Carl Wiederaenders … Erin O’Neill (h/ts Teresa Vilmain)

THE SHOWS, by @MattMackowiak, filing from Austin:

• NBC

  “MEET THE PRESS”: Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) … Josh Hawley … Stacey Abrams … John Brennan. Panel: Peter Baker, Lanhee Chen, Carol Lee and Andrea Mitchell

• CNN

  “STATE OF THE UNION”: Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) … Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) …Stacey Abrams. Panel: Scott Jennings, author and Amanda Carpenter, Paul Begala and Symone Sanders

• Fox

  “FOX NEWS SUNDAY”: Larry Kudlow … Chinese Ambassador to the U.S. Cui Tiankai. Panel: Brit Hume, Julie Pace … Karl Rove and Philippe Reines … “Power Player of the Week” segment with Blair House manager Matthew Wendel

• ABC

  “THIS WEEK”: Larry Kudlow … Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) … Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Panel: Tom Llamas, Chris Christie, Donna Brazile, Maggie Haberman and Rich Lowry

• CBS

  “FACE THE NATION”: a preview of the “60 Minutes” Trump interview … Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) … Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) … Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) … Anthony Salvanto. Panel: Susan Glasser, Susan Page and Jonah Goldberg

• CNN

  “Inside Politics”: Panel: Michael Shear, Abby Philip, Rachael Bade and Michael Warren

• CNN

  “Reliable Sources”: David Zurawik, Gabby Orr, Doug Heye and Anthony Atamanuik …Fred Hiatt and Shadi Hamid … Genevieve Guenther … Radhika Jones

• Fox News

  “MediaBuzz”: Gillian Turner … Mollie Hemingway … Richard Fowler … Jedediah Bila … Jessica Tarlov

• CNN

  “Fareed Zakaria GPS”: Max Boot, Ivo Daalder, Anne-Marie Slaughter … William Nordhaus

• Univision

  “Al Punto”: Vicente Fox … Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) … Alison Davila … Gioconda Belli … Rosina Lozano

• C-SPAN

  “The Communicators”: Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials government relations director Jeff Cohen, questioned by Politico’s John Hendel … “Newsmakers”: Emily’s List executive director Emily Cain, questioned by The Washington Post’s Amy Gardner and The Wall Street Journal’s Julie Bykowicz … “Q&A”: Tucker Carlson

• MSNBC

  “Kasie DC”: Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) … Lisa Lerer … Eli Stokols … Michael Steel … Guy Cecil … Tiffany Cross … Lanhee Chen … David Fahrenthold … Dave Wasserman … Greg Bluestein … Vaughn Hillyard and Ali Vitali

• Washington Times

  “Mack on Politics” weekly politics podcast with Matt Mackowiak (download on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher or listen at MackOnPolitics.com): Ken Starr.

• Anna Palmer @apalmerdc
• Jake Sherman @JakeSherman
• Daniel Lippman @dlippman

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SAN ANTONIO — Voters are more invested in the 2018 elections than in any recent midterm. But a key piece of the Democratic coalition — Latino voters — is lagging behind other groups in its interest in the 2018 campaign, an enthusiasm gap that could tip the scales in key battleground House districts.

Latinos make up at least 20 percent of the population in more than a dozen districts that top Democrats’ House target list in 2018 — more than half of the 23 seats Democrats must flip to take over the House. But a POLITICO analysis of over 20,000 interviews conducted with battleground-district voters by Siena College and the New York Times shows that Latinos rated themselves less likely to vote than both white and black voters.

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Two-thirds of white voters surveyed said they were “almost certain” to vote — the highest rating on a 5-point scale — as did 61 percent of African-Americans. But only 55 percent of the Latinos polled said the same about their plans for next month’s midterm elections, according to POLITICO’s analysis.

The findings — echoed by other public and private polling from groups like Latino Decisions, a Latino-focused polling and research firm whose latest survey showed that more than half of Latino voters have yet to be contacted by a campaign or party group ahead of the midterms — could have an outsized effect in a crescent of battleground House districts running from Texas to the West Coast, where the Hispanic vote is especially important.

Democratic operatives are concerned that Latino engagement is “better than it was in 2014, but not as strong as 2016, and we need closer to 2016 enthusiasm level to flip many of these seats in Texas, California, Florida and Nevada,” said Josh Ulibarri, a Democratic pollster who works on races throughout the country.

“Among Democrats, there continues to be a fear that we’re not doing enough to turnout Latinos,” Ulibarri continued. “We’ve got a Latino problem and we continue to have a Latino problem.”

The problem could be particularly acute in California, where Democrats “should absolutely be worried about Latinos,” said Paul Mitchell, a nonpartisan data consultant. Latinos comprise at least 20 percent and up to two-thirds of the population in seven contested California seats, making them “one of the most important factors for Democratic success,” Mitchell added.

POLITICO analyzed the Latino vote by aggregating responses to 40 House polls conducted by the New York Times and Siena College, yielding over 1,700 interviews with Latino voters — an unusually rich and detailed portrait of battleground-district Latinos. The surveys showed House Democrats leading by 13 points among Latino voters but yet to convince more than 10 percent of the group that remains undecided, even though those undecided Latinos disapprove of President Donald Trump by a 3-to-1 margin.

Democratic efforts to persuade them to vote for the party’s candidates could make the difference in numerous districts.

“You have a lot of races this year, in California and elsewhere, that are poised on the knife’s edge, where a candidate could win by a thousand votes,” said Mark Mellman, a Democratic pollster. “Latino participation could make the difference in a lot of those districts.”

Struggling to activate Latino voters — who are often younger and more transient than voters from other racial groups — during non-presidential elections isn’t a new problem for Democrats. In 2014, former Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) lost his House seat, where Latinos make up nearly a third of the district, after midterm voter turnout bottomed out.

“When you drill down into the numbers, it wasn’t that Republicans turnout out more people or Independents were against us,” said Horsford, who is running for his old seat again this year. “What we learned, again, was the importance of turnout and we saw a huge drop-off of voters from 2012 to 2014.”

“We’ve learned our lesson,” Horsford added, touting his own work to connect with the Latino community by “meeting them where they are.”

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has poured $25 million into heading off a Latino turnout problem, investing the money into turnout efforts targeting unlikely voters who would support Democrats if they participated, including Latinos. The committee — which is led by two Latinos, Chairman Ben Ray Lujan and executive director Dan Sena — has aired dozens of Spanish-language TV and radio ads on districts across the country and supported Latino field directors in 29 House districts.

A DCCC aide also pointed to the June primary results out of districts like California’s 39th as evidence showing that their investment has paid off already. Latinos there made up about one-fifth of the vote share in the primary for that seat, a top Democratic target, just slightly down from Latino turnout in the 2016 presidential primaries and nearly doubling the group’s participation from the last midterm year. The DCCC launched its first Spanish-language ad there to boost Democrat Gil Cisneros in May.

The catch: Latinos make up nearly two-thirds of the district’s population, and their vote share is far outweighed by other groups with less population power.

Another of those Democratic candidates airing frequent Spanish-language ads is Gina Ortiz Jones, who’s challenging Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas) in a district that’s 70 percent Latino, stretching hundreds of miles from the San Antonio suburbs into far West Texas.

“We’re showing up, and I must admit, they haven’t seen a Democrat in a long time,” Ortiz Jones said, adding that sees that “enthusiasm is high” when she’s on the campaign trail.

Latino organizers are emphasizing their potential strength in numbers as they try to amp up the Latino vote. As the Texas Organizing Project’s Laquita Garcia prepared to send off canvassers in San Antonio last week, she told them, “If we increase voter turnout, the chances of Republican staying in office is very slim because we outnumber them.”

Ortiz Jones, along with Democratic pollsters, also emphasized that Latinos are notoriously difficult to survey. But so far, Hurd continues to lead in public and private polling shared with POLITICO.

“If [Hurd] didn’t lose in 2016, it’ll be very difficult to take him out in a midterm year,” said Matt Barreto, the co-founder of Latino Decisions.

The ingredients for a boost in Latino turnout already exist in 2018. Two-thirds of Latinos said they want to see Democrats controlling Congress and just a quarter of those voters approve of President Donald Trump’s job performance, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Telemundo poll released last month.

But Latino voters “aren’t automatically connecting” their anger over Trump “to their local congressional candidate who’s never knocked on their door or reached out to them or told them what they’ll do for them,” Barreto said. “If candidates were connecting, then we would see that reflected in the polls.”

Candidates and Latino groups alike stressed that they can increase turnout among Hispanic voters with aggressive contact. Latino Victory Project, a group that works to elect progressive candidates, pointed to primary results in Texas and in Florida, where Democrat Sylvia Garcia amped Latino turnout by 225 percent tow in her primary and Rep. Darren Soto (D-Fla.) doubled it in his race.

But some say it’s too late to make a difference in the general election.

“We wind up seeing [Democrats] coming in and trying to move the Hispanic vote in the last four weeks before the election, when that’s something they clearly should’ve started two years ago,” said Jose Parra, a Democratic consultant who served as President Obama’s 2012 Latino communications advisor. “That’s repeating itself this cycle.”

Back in San Antonio, a Texas Organizing Project canvasser handed out pamphlets in heavily Hispanic neighborhood, encouraging voters to support Ortiz Jones and other Democratic candidates in the state.

But Debra Franco, a 54-year-old Democrat who met the organizer at her doorstep, acknowledged that Latinos may not be as enthusiastic voters, because “when we vote, politicians still do what they want,” she said. “So, what’s the use?”

This is a rather remarkable look from above at the massive extent of treefall/defoliation associated with the catastrophic winds associated with the core of Michael as it moved northeast. pic.twitter.com/kVFy4YCCC3

— Taylor Trogdon (@TTrogdon) October 11, 2018

Still processing the interior of the #Byton electric, semi-autonomous car. That screen — whoa. Apparently it’s below your eye line, but I was distracted and we weren’t even driving. Oh and Spider-Man also checked out the new wheels. #TCDisrupt pic.twitter.com/yS4dxjJIHe

— Sasha Lekach (@sashajol) September 6, 2018

West Virginia is about to take a leap of faith in voting technology — but it could put people’s ballots at risk.

Next month, it will become the first state to deploy a smartphone app in a general election, allowing hundreds of overseas residents and members of the military stationed abroad to cast their ballots remotely. And the app will rely on blockchain, the same buzzy technology that underpins Bitcoin, in yet another Election Day first.

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“Especially for people who are serving the country, I think we should find ways to make it easier for them to vote without compromising on the security,” said Nimit Sawhney, co-founder of Voatz, the company that created the app of the same name that West Virginia is using. “Right now, they send their ballots by email and fax, and — whatever you may think of our security — that’s totally not a secure way to send back a ballot.”

But cybersecurity and election integrity advocates say West Virginia is setting an example of all the things states shouldn’t do when it comes to securing their elections, an already fraught topic given fears that Russian operatives are trying again to tamper with U.S. democracy.

“This is a crazy time to be pulling a stunt like this. I don’t know what they’re thinking,” said David Jefferson, a computer scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories who is on the board of Verified Voting, an election security advocacy group. “All internet voting systems, including this one, have a host of cyber vulnerabilities which make it extremely dangerous.”

Voting integrity advocates are in overall agreement about the best way to secure elections, and they have pressed states to stick with technology that includes auditable paper trails — even suing Georgia over that issue. They’ve urged the Department of Homeland Security to advise states against having modems in voting machines. And they have pressed the government to warn state election officials against any kind of online voting.

So the security experts are not thrilled to see blockchain entering the picture.

“Why is blockchain voting a dumb idea?” University of Pennsylvania cybersecurity expert Matt Blaze tweeted in August. “Glad you asked. For starters: – It doesn’t solve any problems civil elections actually have. – It’s basically incompatible with ‘software independence’, considered an essential property – It can make ballot secrecy difficult or impossible.”

Blockchain is essentially a decentralized digital ledger that uses information stored on multiple computers to track any type of transaction — including payments, in the case of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. It also appends the information into a “block” of encrypted data that is designed to be tamper-proof, and it provides anonymity so that it’s difficult to trace a transaction to any particular person.

The Voatz app restricts access to registered voters who have successfully applied through the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, which sets the legal basis that allows members of the military and U.S. citizens to vote while outside the U.S.

The move to mobile was largely due to West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner, who says he could not vote while stationed in Afghanistan during the 2012 and 2014 elections because of the lack of reliable access to a fax machine or postal services.

“Not providing a means by which military men and women who are fighting for our democracy can participate in our democracy themselves, just doesn’t sit well with not only Secretary Warner but our county clerks here,” Mike Queen, the secretary’s deputy chief of staff and director of communications, told POLITICO.

“Mainstream mobile voting presents a much higher risk than this particular application does for military and overseas voters,” Queen said, adding that the state would stop the program immediately if any information came out showing Voatz was compromised.

Here’s how the app works: A voter first uses it to scan the bar code on his or her government-issued ID, then uses its facial recognition and fingerprint scanning to double-check that the ID is accurate. After the person selects the candidates and submits the vote, the app sends the voter an email verifying that the vote is correct. For added security, Voatz once again scans the voter’s fingerprint and face before sending the ballot to the West Virginia secretary of state’s office.

In addition to sending mobile votes, Voatz will send a printable duplicate. It will email those ballots to county clerks who can verify them if any results are disputed.

West Virginia tested the app in two counties during this year’s primaries. After declaring that run of only 16 total votes successful, the state decided to broaden the test. Twenty-four counties will allow mobile voting in the general election, when the state hopes 300 to 400 people will use the app to cast their votes.

If this run is deemed successful, the secretary of state’s office may include all 55 counties — with an estimated 8,000 voters — in upcoming elections.

But critics say voting with this sort of technology makes it difficult to determine if anyone has manipulated the vote. If a voter’s phone or tablet is infected with malware, for instance, it can record or change the person’s votes, or even infect an entire state’s election infrastructure, the security experts say.

“This is a fundamental fact of computer science: There is no foolproof way of determining if a machine has malware,” Jefferson said.

And blockchain is not a method of securing mobile apps before or while the vote is cast, election integrity advocates say. It’s only a way to offer tamper-proof records after the record is added to the blockchain. In a recent study by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, researchers said a vote can be compromised a number of ways before it reaches the ledger.

“If malware on a voter’s device alters a vote before it ever reaches a blockchain, the immutability of the blockchain fails to provide the desired integrity, and the voter may never know of the alteration,” the report says.

Sawhney and West Virginia officials acknowledge that risks exist but say the small chance that a voter’s phone could be compromised is worth taking to make voting easier and more seamless for people who can’t get to the polls. And if this works on Election Day in West Virginia, expect Sawhney to be shopping the app to other states ahead of 2020.

“Nothing is 100 percent safe, and so that’s true of paper ballots or any other system as well, and so that’s why we have a process of having an audit before and after the election,” he said. “Once this election is over, we definitely hope that we’ll be able to replicate this in many more states.”

I learned how to do CPR today so now I know how to save your life but more importantly I found out New York Presbyterian Hospital maintains a Spotify playlist of songs that are the right beat to time CPR compressions to and it is on point pic.twitter.com/C05BFPawBc

— julia reinstein (@juliareinstein) October 10, 2018