According to nbcnews.com, Hillary Clinton maintains a lead over Donald Trump in the polls despite recent discovery of emails that according to FBI Director James Comey, could be "pertinent" in the investigation of Clinton's use of private email servers. NBC News weekly election tracking poll shows Clinton with a 6 point lead over Trump taken days before the news of the emails were released. The poll was conducted online between October 24 through the 30th. After the release of the news, Clinton's lead over Trump remained mostly the same, 47% to Trump's 41%. On Friday, Director Comey sent a letter to Congress stating that the bureau would be reviewing emails that may be related to the investigation into Clinton's use of a private server during her time as Secretary of State. When asked whether she thought this news would effect the election, Clinton replied, "I think people made up their minds a long time ago." Another survey was conducted by nbcnews to ask people whether they thought the news of Clinton;s emails was an important topic to discuss, or whether it was more of a distraction from the campaign. 55% of survey-takers said it was an important issues while 44% said it was a distraction. 83% of Democrats said it was a distraction, 93% of Republicans, and 68% of Independents said it was an important issues to discuss.
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/data-points/poll-clinton-maintains-national-lead-over-trump-despite-fbi-letter-n675771

Jason Kander, the democratic candidate running for Senate in Missouri posted an ad, which features him assembling a rifle blindfolded while verbally criticizing his running mate, Roy Blunt. According to washingtonpost.com, this ad is the best to come out of the election so far. Kander states, "I also believe in background checks, so that terrorists can't get their hands on one of these." Passing background check legislation has not been popular recently, but the American public does not seem to agree with Washington on this issue. An estimated 85% of gun owners support universal background checks for buyers. Kander has a chance to take Blunt's seat because of this. Despite its GOP lean at the federal level, Missouri is ranked #10 for most likely to flip parties in "The Fix's most recent Senate rankings.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/09/15/this-campaign-ad-might-be-the-biggest-mic-drop-of-2016/

According to theblaze.com, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is pulling all of it's remaining ad reservations out of Florida. Because of this, Democratic candidate, Patrick Murphy will have to finish out his campaign for senator with the money he can raise by himself. Politico stated that the decision to pull the funding came prior to the debate, which Rubio was widely believed to have won. The DSCC has not admitted that they pulled the funding because of Murphy's performance in the debate Monday night, but rather claimed that it was a strategic decision designed to give Democrats the best possible chance to retake the Senate.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2016/10/18/democrats-pull-funding-from-florida-senate-race/

The Missouri senate race for 2016 features lead candidates, current secretary of state, Democrat Jason Kander (35), and current incumbent, Republican Senator Roy D. Blunt. Recently, Mr. Kander released a television ad that shows him putting an AR-15 rifle together blindfolded while reciting a script about gun rights and verbally attacking his opponent, Senator Blunt. Because of this, Mr. Kander's polls soared while Republicans worried about keeping their seat in the Senate. Many of Mr. Kander's ads have suggested, among other things, that Mr. Blunt took votes to enrich industries that his family represented. In Mr. Blunt's ads, however, he and his supporters have worked hard to cast Mr. Kander as a doormat to both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, who are both unpopular in Missouri. In one of the senator's ads, Mr. Kander's face is depicted morphing into Mrs. Clinton's and the president's face with the line, "Fresh face. Same old liberal thinking."
Roy Blunt, 66, studied history at Southwest Baptist University during which time he recieved three draft deferments from the Vietnam War. Later, he earned his masters degree in history from Missouri State University. He was elected secretary of state in 1984 and again in 1988. He was elected to be a representative in the house in 1998-2008.
     -Key issues:
        -Education: Voted in favor of school prayer and supports the No Child Left Behind Act.
        -Gun rights: Voted to reduce the waiting period to purchase a gun from 72 hours to 24.
        -Voted pro-life.
Jason Kander graduated from American University and after 9/11 enlisted in the Army National Guard. He was elected into the House of Representatives in 2008 and won Missouri Secretary of State in 2012.
-Pro-gun rights with background checks
-Believes women should get equal pay for equal work, fighting for protection against financial fraud, pushing for open and honest government, wants to reduce business fees.
As of mid-October, Mr. Blunt led Mr. Kander 465 TO 445, a three percentage point drop since August.
Mr. Kander is now known as a gun-wielding Democrat, but is also a veteran and a Georgetown- educated lawyer.
Because of recent homogeneous growth outside of it's larger cities, Missouri has become more reliably Republican on the presidential level. Like Florida, however, Missouri tends to vote Democratic for statewide officials, such as senators.
Two weeks after Mr. Kander's now famous ad with the rifle, political action committees and other outside groups invested more than $8 million into the state on both Mr. Kander and Senator Blunt, quadruple what they had spent in the previous two weeks, according to the Federal Election Commission. 
Kander has "embraced" Clinton, but not endorsed her for the presidential candidate.
Kander has received $47,265 in donations
Kander edorsements: League of Conservative Voters
Missouri AFL-CIU
NARAL Pro-choice America
National Education Association
National Organization for Women

Blunt endorsed Trump for president
Roy Blunt endorsements: 
Airline Pilot Association
Eagle Forum
Missouri Farm Bureau Federation
Missouri Right to Life
National Federation of Independent Business
National Rifle Association

Missouri statistics: 
Population: 6.06 million
Economics: Industry; aerospace, transportation equipment, food products, chemicals.
Party Identification: 48.8% democratic lean, 37.9% republican lean.


https://showmeprogress.com/2009/01/30/party-identification-in-missouri-gallup/
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/23/us/politics/senate-race-missouri.html

Roy Blunt

According to abcnews.com, two Americans were killed and three others were injured in an attack near a coalition base outside of Kabul, Afghanistan. According to a statement released by U.S Forces in Afghanistan, "They were conducting duties as part of a larger NATO mission to train, advise, and assist the Afghan security services. An investigation is being conducted to determine the exact circumstances of the event. One U.S. service member and two U.S. civilians also sustained wounds and are currently stable. A spokesperson for the Afghan Defense Ministry, Dawlat Waziri, told abc news that the shooting occured during an insider attack and that the shooter was wearing an Afghan National Army uniform and was later killed in a gunfire exchange. General John W. Nicholson, commander of U.S. Forces-Afghanistan and Resolute Support stated after the event, "Our sympathies go out to the families, loved ones, and the units of those involved in the incident. To those who continue to target coalition forces, ANDSF, and Afghan  civilians, RS and USFOR-A will continue to pursue our train, advise, and assist mission to help our partners create a better Afghanistan. 
http://abcnews.go.com/International/americans-killed-attack-kabul-afghanistan/story?id=42906237

According to americannews.com, wikileaks emails may prove that foul play was involved in the death of former U.S Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Scalia died, supposedly in his sleep at the age of 79 either the night of February 12 or the morning of February 13 at the Cibolo Creek Ranch in Texas. The owner of the ranch, John Poindexter, commented, "We discovered the judge in bed, a pillow over his head. His bed clothes were unwrinkled. He was lying there restfully. It looked like he had not quite awakened from a nap." Other suspicions arose recently when wikileaks released emails that were sent just three days before Scalia's death containing the word "networks", which is a term used in the military meaning assassination.
http://americannews.com/wikileaks-exposes-the-disturbing-truth-about-scalias-death-this-could-end-the-clinton-campaign-for-good/

According to nytimes.com, The Upshot's new senate election forecast gives Democrats a 60% chance of winning control of the chamber in the upcoming election. They also estimated that there is a 17% chance that the Senate will be split evenly with the Vice President providing the tie-breaking vote. The New York Times estimated that the Democrats will need to win 5 seats out of the 11 most competitive races with 10 of these seats currently being held by Republicans. This year, Republicans are defending only 10 seats, while the Republicans attempt to defend 24.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/24/upshot/democrats-have-a-60-percent-chance-to-retake-the-senate.html?_r=0

According to motherjones.com, a conspiracy radio host named Alex Jones made an announcement that both President Obama and Hillary Clinton are "abject, psychopathic" demons "from hell." The host of InfoWars has recently hosted Donald Trump on his show and has since become one of the candidates leading boosters in conservative media coverage. As for the comment, Obama responded at a rally in Greensboro, North Carolina on Tuesday saying, "I was reading the other day, there's a guy on the radio who apparently, Trump's on his show frequently, he said me and Hillary are demons. Said we smell like sulfur, Ain't that something!" He then paused to smell his hand. Jones is a known conservative, but, in the past has been very critical of republican candidates. He claims the Sandy Hook massacre never happened and helped popularize the "Hillary for prison" t-shirts.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/barack-obama-alex-jones-sulfur-donald-trump