Good morning. Welcome to Axios today. It's Monday, October 19th. I'm Naila Boodoo.

Here's how we're making you smarter today's

this holiday shopping season is about survival for many retailers

plus how the pandemic is forcing lawyers into this century.

But first the surge in voter enthusiasm is today's one big thing.

We've got record-breaking fundraising

and huge early voting totals,

which all add up to lots of voter enthusiasm. Hans Nichols is a political

reporter for Axios. Hans, can you tell us about the enthusiasm you're seeing for Democratic

candidates now the voting has started?

We're seeing it in the money, right?

It's just mind-boggling the amount of money that's being raised in the third quarter

and every single race of the top 10, Democrats are in the lead,

and sometimes by 20, 30 million dollars

in a single quarter.

Like, that's a massive amount of money,

so much money that some Democrats

don't even know if you can actually spend it all before election days.

I mean, South Carolina, not exactly a Democratic bastion.

Lindsey Graham had a great fundraising quarter, raised 28 million.

His opponent, his raise close to 60 million, Jamie Harrison. So you're seeing

double the enthusiasm, especially with small dollar donors and it's showing up in the numbers.

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