Israel announced that it was not going to allow UNRWA, the United Nations Refugee and Works Agency, to continue to operate from its territory. The United Nations came down hard on Israel, including UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, as well as members of the UN Security Council.
Guterres has always stood by the “humanitarian” group which he has called an “indispensable” “lifeline” and force for “stability” and “hope for a better future.” He urged global support for the group as “an investment in peace.”
The media has chosen sides as to whether UNRWA has some terrorists among its staff and whether the humanitarian group can continue to operate in Gaza amidst the war.
Lost in the discussion was that the Palestinian Authority has curiously welcomed the attention, and has asked the United Nations to make clear that the entire mission of the UNRWA is to facilitate the “right of return” of millions of stateless Arabs into homes where grandparents lived in Israel.
The “humanitarian work” of the decades-old temporary agency is besides the point.
The staff is not the topic.
The MISSION of UNRWA is to move millions of Arabs into Israel against the Jewish State’s wishes. UNRWA schools teach their Muslim students that there is no path to coexistence but to wiping out the Jews and reclaiming all of “Palestine.”
Even those young UNRWA students who don’t talk about a genocide of Jews, still say that their future is in grandparents’ homes in Israel, even if they are compensated for ancestors’ lost property.
UNRWA student talks about killing all the Jews
Blind to reality, UNSG Guterres describes UNRWA schools as a place to “learn about democracy, human rights & tolerance, preparing them to be exemplary citizens,” in Israel? in Palestine? How does instilling vile antisemitism into Muslim children prepare them for peaceful coexistence with Jews?
UNSG Guterres posts about UNRWA schools in April 2019
Much of the discussion about UNRWA is whether ten or 100 or 1,000 employees are terrorists, and whether that is a disqualification for continued operations. The inherent problem with UNRWA is its mission as the UN’s operating tool to dismantle the Jewish State. The Palestinian Authority wants the UN to state it clearly for the entire world to hear.
On Saturday November 16, nearly 100 trucks carrying aid into Gaza were violently set upon by armed Arab gangs. According to Reuters, Louise Wateridge, UNRWA’s Senior Emergency Officer would not say who carried out the ambush. Reuters added that “An Israeli official said Israel had been working to address the humanitarian situation since the start of its war against Hamas, adding that the main problem with aid deliveries was U.N. distribution challenges.”
Tor Wennesland, the Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process – no friend of Israel – was more explicit in his remarks to the United Nations Security Council on November 18 when he specifically called out “organized armed Palestinians” as the culprit in stealing humanitarian aid.
Tor Wennesland remarks to the UNSC on November 18, 2024
The New York Times would have none of it. It blamed the looting of aid on Israel.
The Times alternatively called the militants “looters” and “attackers” without giving any description as to who committed the attack. It even tried to use passive language that the aid “was looted” to avoid placing blame on local Gazans.
Later in the article the Times said that “it was not clear who was responsible for the looting,” but the surrounding text made it very clear: Israel was responsible, even if it didn’t commit the looting.
The Times blamed Israel for “restrict[ing] a huge amount of the humanitarian response” in which the “woefully inadequate food supplies have led to looting.” Israel is to blame because of “the collapse of law and order… and the policies of Israeli authorities.” Further, Israel placed aid workers at risk from “attackers” who steal the much needed assistance from “desperate Palestinians.”
Israel has long complained that aid trucks are being looted by Palestinian militant groups and not making it to civilians. When the charge became abundantly clear to the entire world, the Times reoriented the story that Israel remains at fault. Such is the anti-Israel animus in the media today.
The election of Donald Trump has brought out the anticipated comments by politicians and pundits. The talking heads have said that they are “outraged”, “disgusted” and “horrified” that the nation would elect a convicted felon who was accused multiple times of sexual assault.
Cover of Vanity Fair magazine
They referred to Trump has “Hitler” and a “Nazi” who would destroy democracy, an autocrat hell-bent on power. His racist ideology would punish minorities like Hitler did to the Jews.
Cover of the Daily News from December 2015
After the 2016 election of Trump, many liberals stopped inviting people who voted for Trump to their houses, parties and events. Anyone who did not have the clarity to see the vileness of Trump was deemed morally corrupt.
It’s a scene that has had a parallel over the past year among Jews who watched the glee of the socialist-jihadi alliance about the gruesome October 7 massacre of 1,200 people in Israel.
Jews were appalled that university presidents did not have the basic humanity to condemn calls for the genocide of Jews on campuses. That the United Nations Secretary General would demand that Israel not bring the terrorists to justice. That the Jewish Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer would not bring acts meant to stem the tidal wave of antisemitism to a floor vote.
People have been disgusted by scenes of Jews being openly attacked, intimidated and harassed on streets and college campuses. Outraged that attackers are immediately released and suffer no consequences. Incensed that people affix stickers that “rape is resistance” while ripping down posters of Jewish toddlers stolen into captivity. Revolted that members of Congress would deny rape – if it happened to Jewish women
Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY16) yelling to a crowd on the streets of White Plains, NY after the October 7 massacre that Israel is making up propaganda to kill Arabs
Decent people are sickened that the International Court of Justice could accuse Israel of “genocide” for a war it didn’t start, doesn’t want, would end immediately if the hostages were released and terrorists surrender, and has the lowest civilian-to-terrorist death ratio of any urban combat. People are horrified that nations would vote to recognize a Palestinian State in the aftermath of Palestinian Arabs proving that they will not accept the basic presence of Jews anywhere.
On one side, people are disgusted that fellow citizens have elected a vile person, while on the other side, people are horrified that people have embraced antisemitic murderers. Liberals are shocked by the figurehead while Jews have been traumatized by pogroms.
Where does all of the revulsion lead? Will liberals once again end friendships with Trump supporters? Will Jews fire rabbis who sit on the board of Jewish Voice for Peace?
Will people recognize that the polarization is mutual? Will it matter?
Democrats and Republicans are no longer negotiating the finer points of economic or foreign policy. We have enabled the extremist members of the House of Representatives, as well as our politically active and biased media and school systems to redefine language and dismantle the foundation of facts to reframe the narratives of history advancing an us-versus-them dynamic.
“Us” is the “powerless,” minority groups and LGBT+ communities. “Them” are White misogynistic powerful men. The battle is a broad redistribution of power, wealth and privilege. The combatants are the socialist-jihadi coalition embedded in your school system, running your media and serving in Congress, against “The Man,” now in the caricature of Donald Trump.
There have already been two assassination attempts on Trump before he was even elected. Has our society reached such a terrible state that unhinged extremists would have theoretically tried to kill John McCain or Mitt Romney because they are White male Republicans?
Many blame Chinese-owned TikTok and other social media algorithms for fueling the outrage. However, it is our education system, legacy media and political process that are the main culprits. It’s not just everyday citizens’ posts and reposts on social media meant to shock and awe to get followers, but historic institutions that upheld society which have tacked to the immoral perverse.
The feelings and comments of Americans about the disgust they feel for America – fellow Americans, actually – about the election of Trump should NOT be to double down on the war against the “Patriarchy.” The left and right should retool their worldview for a country that provides freedom and opportunity for everyone collectively. Pitting one group against another will always be bad for society.
Will Democrats let the education system which they control via the teachers unions be fixed? Will mainstream media reorient their news towards facts instead of biased narratives? Will the country retool its political processes to allow moderates to win seats in deeply blue or red districts?
I doubt it.
People elected Joe Biden as a moderate to bring the nation together. He and Kamala Harris were a complete disaster. We remain disgusted with each other’s sense of humanity and morality.
It is time for us to be honest about our collective condition: there is a thin veneer of civilization covering tremendous anger and contempt for fellow Americans. At this vulnerable time – like a long dry spell marking susceptibility for forest fires – we need to douse our fields, cut back the dense wood, have emergency cut off of power lines and have early warning systems. Politically that means inserting civics classes into our schools, encourage volunteerism in our communities, cut back our viewing of mainstream and social media, and aggressively monitor hate groups, including expelling them and their financial sponsors from universities.
Donald Trump is not the cause of our disgust nor are the rabbis marching with Students for Justice in Palestine. They are byproducts of a deeper decay in our society, an us-versus-them mentality being aggressively fomented by a socialist-jihadi alliance.
Globalize the Intifada is a violent revolution brewing in the United States. Disgust may seem a quaint emotion before long.
Republican former President Donald Trump handedly defeated Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, and liberals have begun second guessing their strategies and choices that led to her defeat. Many consider whether Harris could have won had she (or the Democratic establishment that surrounded her) selected Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro as a running mate. The popular governor might have been able to help Harris win the Keystone State (which she lost) and had more Jews support her in other races, perhaps delivering Georgia, Arizona and Nevada.
The reality is that Harris and the Democrats fought a very good race – considering the TOP of the ticket. Bringing in Harris late in the election cycle, limiting her interviews to prevent gaffes, and making the election about her not being Donald Trump was smart. However, it could not overcome the Biden-Harris term being deeply unpopular and Harris could not separate herself from the administration in which she served.
The correct question for Democrats this Wednesday morning was not what they did wrong over the past few months but what they did FOUR YEARS AGO. Specifically, choosing Harris as the Vice President because she was a Black woman, and allowing the nation’s border to be overrun.
Harris never won a single delegate in her 2020 run for the president. She had a voting record as a member of the alt-left coming from a radically woke state. Had Biden chosen a moderate and qualified candidate from one of the seven swing states, the 2024 election would have been much easier for the Democrats to secure. Opting to pick a person a heartbeat from the presidency purely because of her intersectionality characteristics was more than a blunder.
In addition, the Biden-Harris failure at the borders put Americans at risk. Americans listed it as one of the key considerations in selecting a president along with the economy (in which people also preferred Trump), well above abortion rights. But the Democratic machinery was tethered to the reality of the past four years, even as they attempted to make the race about democracy and women’s rights.
Democrats began to get tough on the border late in the term but the impact was already present, much like the soaring inflation of Biden-Harris’s first years in office leveled off, but the cumulative effect was already baked into everyone’s daily living. Wars in Ukraine and Israel made the world feel unsafe and rudderless.
Picking Josh Shapiro as the VP might have helped Harris win the 2024 election but it would have just covered up bad choices of the last four years. The takeaway should be more strategic to develop better tactics for the future, not just thinking about the choice of VP in the immediate race.
Americans voted for the economy and safety. Just like Israel. As long as Democrats appear as the party of redistributing wealth, defunding the police and porous borders, with left-wing politicians from left-wing states as their spokespeople, they will continue to lose races they could have won.
American Jews have long favored Democrats in presidential elections. The best showings that Republican candidates have had since World War II among Jews was 40% (Eisenhower 1956), 39% (Reagan 1980) and 36% (Eisenhower 1952). Since the 1992 election, Democrats have sailed to clear majorities with between 68% and 80% of the Jewish vote for president. On average, 71% of Jewish voters chose Democratic candidates and 26% chose Republicans since 1968.
Historians consider that Jews aligned themselves with Democrats as it was considered the party of working class immigrants, just as the Jews were coming to the country from Europe and the USSR in the first half of the 20th century. As Jews became more established in America, and the Second Vatican Council of 1965 pushed antisemitism out of the Catholic doctrine, Jews sought candidates which had greater support for their economic and religious (Judeo-Christian) interests between 1972 and 1988 and began to vote for Republicans more frequently. Bill Clinton’s popularity helped bring Jews back overwhelmingly to the Democrats but that faded as Democratic candidates emerged from left-wing states of Illinois, New York and Massachusetts.
President Ronald Reagan (R-CA) at a Jewish synagogue
The majority of Jews still live in liberal states including New York, California, New Jersey, but many now reside in conservative Florida and moderate Pennsylvania. Overall, Jews are moving away from the Northeast (from 63% in 1971 to 40% in 2020) to the South (12% in 1971 to 25% in 2020) according to Brandeis. They are going for the sun and lower taxes to live with more conservative neighbors.
This 2024 election may yield a breakthrough of Jews voting for the Republican candidate, former President Donald Trump. No Republican candidate crossed the 30% of Jewish vote threshold since George HW Bush in 1988 collected 35% of the Jewish vote. Trump’s share of the Jewish vote jumped from 24% in 2016 to 30% in 2020.
If Trump pulls over 30% of the Jewish vote – particularly in Pennsylvania (where the Jewish population is about 430,000 or 3.3% of the state), Georgia (140,000; 1.3%) and Michigan (87,000, 0.9%) – it might prove to be the tipping point to help Trump win the electoral college.
American Jewry: Approximately 5%, 2% and 2% of American Jews live in swing states of Pennsylvania, Georgia and Michigan, respectively (Brandeis)Jews outnumber Muslims in Pennsylvania by almost 3-to-1
The trend of Jews voting more Republican is likely to continue into the future. Orthodox Jews are currently the only denomination to vote Republican (75% according to Pew) and they have much higher fertility rates than the non-Orthodox streams. Orthodox Jews made up roughly 12% of American Jewry in 2021, which is expected to grow to 29% by 2063 according to a study by Yale. That will likely yield a more conservative voter base for the Republican party.
Republican candidate Donald Trump visits grave of the Lubavitch rebbe
The media is focused on the Israeli record of Trump and Biden-Harris in their analysis of how Jews will vote, and it is a factor amid the Iranian proxy-Israel war. But so is the growing segment of Jews who do not want to see economic interests and religion trampled by liberal laws, nor suffer overt (physical attacks and harassment) and covert (DEI mandates) discrimination.
There are only a handful of tight races in the November 2024 election that have clearly superior candidates: New York’s 17 district has been incredible well-served by incumbent Republican Mike Lawler.
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY17)
Lawler is one of the most bipartisan members of congress, drafting numerous pieces of legislation with a number of Democrats including Ritchie Torres (D-NY) and Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ). He has fought aggressively for his constituents and for actual peace in the Middle East. He has been ranked as a leader by the non-partisan group GovTracks.
GovTracks ranking of Mike Lawler as a middle-of-the-road Congressional leader
This is in sharp contrast to his competitor Mondaire Jones who has been running around New York State to find a district to run in. He lost badly in the last cycle when he decided he ran in Manhattan’s Chelsea district.
When Jones did last serve in Congress, he was ranked as a highly partisan left-wing radical. He was not considered a leader and drafted little legislation.
GovTracks scored Mondaire Jones legislative record as far left-wing and with little leadership credentials
Vote for bipartisan Mike Lawler, a leader in Congress and fighter for New York.
Vice President Kamala Harris continues to lose Democratic voters in each poll. Of particular concern for Democrats is that the first Black female presidential candidate is fading among the majority-minority cohort of Black and Latino voters who are normally lock-step with the party.
The pundits blame Harris’s poor showing on the belief that former President Donald Trump will do a better job on two key policy matters, the economy and immigration. What is not mentioned is that people view Harris as a phony.
Most recently, they’ve watched the Democratic big wigs push out the sitting president and anoint his successor without consulting the public.
In these few weeks before election day, Americans are watching Harris avoid unscripted events. They’re watching the Democratic machine script a platform designed to gather broad appeal remaking the candidate.
This is not the easy oratory of Barack Obama but a puppet show. Harris is a mannequin dressed for the crowds by Democratic power brokers looking to quickly cement a presidency which they will choreograph.
And people don’t like it. They may enjoy Harris’s (her handlers’) packaged statements but know they are being duped in a very heavy-handed manner by a cabal that concealed President Joe Biden’s mental decline for months.
Half of the top six traits that people look for in a successful leader are being trustworthy, honest and authentic, according to U.S. News & World Report. Harris – and the current cast of Democrats – fails on all three.
Black and Hispanic votes were more likely to place ambitious and humble as important characteristics, but no candidate to lead the great nation can approach that position in the current political framework without ambition and arrogance.
Trump may say outlandish things but people believe him to be authentic. He may be convicted of felony crimes but he doesn’t waffle. He may be making the Republican party chase after him but it beats watching the Democratic elites completely orchestrating the election and controlling their candidate and the media.
And dominating a female minority to boot.
Democrats would do better by encouraging Harris to do town hall meetings in the seven swing states and let her answer questions honestly. The lingering fear of Harris’s statements may be more of a liability than her actual comments.
On October 3, 2024, the Director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), Henrik Urdal, announced his updated list today for the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize. While PRIO is not associated with the Nobel committee, its views are considered influential. The list included:
OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights
Sudan’s Emergency Response Rooms
UNRWA and Philippe Lazzarini
International Court of Justice (ICJ)
UNESCO and the Council of Europe
In selecting UNRWA, PRIO stated “The UN agency has faced a massive funding crisis for years, which has been exasperated by the war itself, and increasingly by the impact of US withdrawing funding following allegations by Israel that 12 participants of the 7 October attacks were Hamas militants, employed by UNRWA. The UN agency took the allegations seriously, by launching both an internal investigation and an external review of its procedures. UNRWA has extensive control mechanisms in place, with a zero tolerance, but not zero risk policy. They therefore terminated the employment of individuals where there was any indication that they might have had ties to militant groups. Throughout the war UNRWA itself has been heavily targeted by Israeli attacks, and by the end of September, 224 of its staff had been killed in Gaza, and 190 UNRWA installations had been damaged. UNRWA’s operation is absolutely fundamental to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. A Nobel Peace Prize to the agency and its Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini would send a strong message about its role in supporting the lives of millions of Palestinian women, men and children.”
Nowhere was it noted that UNRWA teaches its students to despise Israeli Jews. Nowhere was it mentioned that UNRWA has promised 6 million Palestinian Arabs – 42% of whom already live in historic region of Palestine – that their future is inside of Israel, whether Israel likes it or not.
In short-listing the ICJ, PRIO wrote “While a Nobel Peace Prize to the ICJ would largely be seen as uncontroversial, the Court acted boldly in January this year ordering Israel to take action to prevent acts of genocide in the Gaza Strip. In addition, it acted early in March 2022 by ordering Russia to ‘immediately suspend the military operations’ in Ukraine.”
The anti-Israel actions were not an accident or related to the current war.
In 2021, PRIO did not recommend Jared Kushner who helped engineer the Abraham Accords which formed normalization agreements between Israel and four Arab and Muslim countries, a feat which was once considered impossible. Instead it nominated B’Tselem & the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) for “contributing to raising awareness in Israel and elsewhere of the need for the Israeli regime to change course if the conflict is to have any chance of reaching a peaceful and just resolution.”
In short, the recommendations for a peace prize in the shadow of the brutal slaughter of Jews was to send a political message that Jews deserve neither peace nor justice; they should have neither until the Palestinian victims of preference achieve all of their goals.
ACTION ITEM
Contact PRIO at urdal@prio.org and +47 92 04 78 41 that the barbaric slaughter of Jews should be condemned clearly and the murderers brought to justice, and their protectors should not be celebrated on the global stage, a mockery to both living and dead Jews.
Columbia University has long felt insecure among the Ivy League schools, particularly relative to Harvard. Whether in the undergraduate or graduate programs, Harvard was considered the gold standard. For decades, Boston has been known as the elite university city while New York City was an elite city that happened to have a bunch of decent schools.
Building on its historic reputation as a haven for “revolutionaries” in the 1960s, the administration opted to use the Palestinian Arab enormous massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023 as a launching point for its new branding campaign. It allowed student protestors to harass Jewish students, break into school buildings and intimidate anyone who did not show solidarity with the anti-Israel movement. It gave permission for radicals to cut off access to the school and incite violence. It laughed off the dwindling Jewish population’s petition to remove Professor Joseph Massad who celebrated the October 7 Palestinian slaughter of Jews. The dean of the university celebrated the “peaceful protests” of the students as part of the “long and proud tradition [at Columbia] of protest and activism on many important issues.” She allowed deans who mocked antisemitism to resign with all their benefits rather than fire them for cause.
Columbia’s “Israel apartheid wall” bisects the campusPro-Hamas marchers calling for violence
As college enrollment has been on a steady decline since 2010, Columbia’s administration decided to tap into the populist anti-Israel movement and rename its School of International and Public Affairs, as the Yahya Sinwar School Of Government, after the leader of the Palestinian pogrom on Israeli Jews. It is bringing back the Intifada banners hung by students and etching its call into the stone walls of the buildings’ entrances to embrace antisemitism as the new anti-racism.
Columbia “Intifada” banner to be preserved in the new Yahya Sinwar School of Government lobby as historic inspiration
Columbia hopes that its new jihadi branding will entice the antisemitic generation to look past the flailing institution’s educational content and embrace the thriving Jew hatred culture metastasizing among the socialist-jihadi youth.
Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Columbia has eyes on you.
American citizens in 43 states will have no say on the presidential election in November 2024. Seven “purple” states – Arizona (11), Georgia (16), Michigan (15), Nevada (6), North Carolina (16), Pennsylvania (19) and Wisconsin (10) – with a collective total of 93 electoral votes, will ultimately decide the election. All of the other states are deeply Democratic or Republican so an individual’s vote there will not change anything, despite how vocal or passionately they feel about the candidates.
It does not mean that there is nothing for the vast majority of Americans to do.
For those who are moderate and do not want to see the country continue its divisive path towards the fringes, it is incumbent to try to help separate the party of Congress from that of the presidency. That means, that as Democratic nominee Vice President Harris continues to gain momentum and looks to secure the White House, people should try to ensure that Republicans are the majority in the House and/or Senate to avoid a Democratic administration tacking to the socialist-jihadi extreme of the party.
House of Representatives
The current split in the House of Representatives is 221 Republicans and 213 Democrats. Of these, fifteen are running for a different office (12 of which are Democrats), fourteen are retiring (8 of whom are Democrats) and three are resigning (1 Democrat).
Roll Call identified ten of the most contested races in the House of Representatives; I have added one more, NY17. In every race, the pro-Israel bipartisan lobbying group AIPAC endorsed the incumbent, of which seven are Republican. Those races are (incumbent listed first, AIPAC endorsed in bold, Republicans endorsed by AIPAC in red):
NY22: Brandon Williams (R) v. John Mannion (D)
CA13: John Duarte (R) v. Adam Gray (D)
NY4: Anthony D’Esposito (R) v. Laura Gillen (D)
WA3: Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D) v. Joe Kent (R)
NC1: Don Davis (D) v. Laurie Buckhout (R)
OR5: Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R) v. Janelle Bynum (D)
NE2: Don Bacon (R) v. Tony Vargas (D)
AK: Mary Peltola (D) v. Nick Begich (R)
CA27: Mike Garcia (R) v. George Whitesides (D)
PA8: Matt Cartwright (D) v. Rob Bresnahan (R)
NY17: Mike Lawler (R) v. Mondaire Jones (D)
Senate
The Senate is currently divided with 51 Democrats and 49 Republicans. According to Bloomberg, “of the 34 Senate elections currently scheduled for 2024, Democrats and allied Independents are the defending party in 23 contests, while the Republicans are defending just 11 seats. Democrats Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Jon Tester of Montana, and Sherrod Brown of Ohio are all up for re-election in states President Joe Biden lost in 2020. Trump won all 10 states where Republicans are defending Senate seats, all but two of them by double-digit percentage-point margins. Nebraska will have two races in 2024, including a special election triggered by the resignation of Ben Sasse (R).”
According to Real Clear Polling, there are seven toss up races in the Senate in 2024. They are:
Arizona: [open] Ruben Gallego (D) v. Kari Lake (R)
Florida: Rick Scott (R) v. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D)
Maryland: [open] Larry Hogan (R) v. Angela Alsobrooks (D)
Michigan: [open] Elissa Slotkin (D) v. Mike Rogers (R)
In summary, the top ten races people should get behind to stem the anti-Israel and antisemitic tide are: Bacon (NE2); Chavez-DeRemer (OR5); D’Esposito (NY4); Duarte (CA13); Garcia (CA27); Lawler (NY17); Williams (NY22); and in the Senate, Moreno (OH), Rogers (MI) and Scott (FL).
Runner-up to the top ten is also a somewhat tight race in NJ7 where incumbent Tom Kean (R) is running against Sue Altman (D).
To be clear, I am not suggesting that these individuals have great records overall; I am saying that a balanced Congress is the best antidote for extremist policies, and donating or volunteering for these candidates may provide a path for a more moderate administration.
One can donate to the candidates via the AIPACPAC portal. The two non-AIPAC endorsed candidates should be contacted directly at Mike Rogers and Bernie Moreno. Volunteering should also be done directly at the person’s website. Early action is highly recommended, as it takes time to build the local momentum needed to win these races.
First One Through 