Wertheimer Whiplash, Trump Blame Games, Lemon’s Media Wars

Welcome back to The Daily Courant, your afternoon dose of Puck’s best new reporting.

First up today, Peter Hamby delivers an essential, thirteenth-hour snapshot of the most pressing Election Day plotlines, bellwethers, and the potential surprises that insiders are tracking: Which East Coast counties will foreshadow how on-the-fence, battleground state voters will break? Is Gen Z actually going to show up? How will the polling averages shake out against the actual results? All that, and much, much more…

Plus, below the fold: Lauren Sherman digs into the restructuring at Chanel as the luxury business homes in on a new creative director. Scott Mendelson reveals the one weird Hollywood trick for making money on a mid-sized global hit. On Somebody’s Gotta Win, Tara Palmeri rings up Axios’s Alex Thompson to preview the post-Election Night blame game. On Impolitic, John Heilemann and MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace chew over Harris’s closing argument and that bolt-from-the-blue Iowa poll that stunned the political world. On The Grill Room, Dylan Byers kicks back with Don Lemon to trade media war stories and peel back the curtain on the ex-CNN anchor’s meteoric rise. And on The Powers That Be, Abby Livingston drops in to answer the final questions haunting this interminable presidential race.

PETER HAMBY

November 5 is upon us: At long last, we can stop texting each other polls showing yet another godforsaken tie, we can put to bed the spin and mumbo jumbo that grifters have been peddling about early-vote numbers, and we can mercifully stop talking about Tony Hinchcliffe. Here are my surprises, predictions, bellwethers, and other last-minute observations.

LAUREN SHERMAN

On the brink of restructuring, the House of Lagerfeld is homing in on a new creative director, too. Will the Wertheimers choose Hedi, make it work with Marc Jacobs, bet on golden boy Pieter Mulier, recruit the Olsens, or opt for the brand manager route? Alas, in the end, there’s only one Kaiser…

SCOTT MENDELSON

As it turns out, avoiding monstrous budgets and not always swinging for the fences can be a solid way to make money on a mid-sized global hit like ‘Venom: The Last Dance’ or ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’—with or without China’s occasionally significant (but far less reliable) returns.

TARA PALMERI

Tara is joined by Axios national political correspondent Alex Thompson to discuss the state of the Kamala Harris campaign as it heads down the homestretch toward Election Night. They talk about Donald Trump’s undisciplined rhetoric over the past couple of weeks, examine the obstacles Harris has had to overcome since her nomination, and debate who will receive the most blame from the candidate who loses.