SCOTUS Follow-Up, a Nail-Biter in South Carolina, and Nvidia's Big Test

MayaOkay, David, three things. The Supreme Court just moved on the mail-in voting fight, South Carolina's got a runoff that might actually embarrass a certain former president, and Nvidia's about to drop earnings that could tank half your 401 .

DavidThat's a Tuesday for you.

MayaRight?

DavidBuckle up.

MayaI'm Maya, that's David, this is the Morning Rundown, and I need everyone to know I'm on my second cold brew already.

DavidSecond one? It's not even nine.

MayaDon't judge me.

DavidNo judgment. Respect, honestly.

MayaHonestly, at this point, it's basically a personality trait.

DavidIt really is. All right, let's actually earn our paychecks, though.

MayaSo before I forget, the Court thing. We covered this last week, but there's actually new movement.

DavidYeah, there is, and it's not small.

MayaOkay, so catch us up.

DavidSo the mail-in voting order, the justices did something since we last talked.

MayaOkay, so here's what's actually new. The Court came down six-three, straight down ideological lines.

DavidSix-three? Wow, not exactly a nail-biter on the vote count itself.

MayaNo, but the details are the interesting part. DHS gets to compile a federal citizenship list, and USPS can move ahead with its ballot design rulemaking.

DavidWait, a citizenship list? Like cross-checking who's actually eligible?

MayaThat's the idea. The Washington Post framed it as clearing the path for Trump's limits on mail-in balloting, and ABC News laid out the specifics, the six-three split, the DHS list, the ballot design piece.

DavidRight. So this is the follow-up. Last time, we just knew the order existed.

MayaExactly. Now we know what's actually moving, and one thing's still stuck.

DavidWhich is?

MayaThe part everybody was fighting hardest about, requiring USPS to verify voter eligibility before a ballot even gets counted. ABC News reported that piece is still blocked, tied up in a separate case.

DavidSo it's not a total win for either side.

MayaNo. Election integrity folks get the citizenship list and the design rules, but the verification mandate, the thing with real teeth, is on ice. Somebody's definitely still filing briefs on that one.

DavidOh, for sure. This isn't over, not close.

MayaI mean, for people who want a tighter mail-in rules, DHS getting a citizenship list is a pretty big deal, right?

DavidIt is. That's a real mechanism, not just a talking point. Democrats are already calling it a suppression risk, saying it'll scare off eligible voters who don't want their info anywhere near DHS.

MayaAnd the other side says, "Well, if you're eligible, what's the problem?"

DavidThat's the fight in a sentence. Neither side's wrong about what it does, they just disagree whether that's good.

MayaIt does make me wonder how a list like that actually gets used, though. Is it just sitting there for reference, or does it change whether your ballot gets flagged?

DavidThat's honestly the part the reporting doesn't spell out yet. We know DHS is building the list and USPS is separately handling the ballot design rulemaking, but exactly how the two connect isn't clear from what's been reported.

MayaSo it's less here's the finished system and more here's the pieces that are now allowed to exist.

DavidRight. That's a fair way to put it, and that's part of why Democrats are nervous. When the mechanics aren't spelled out yet, people tend to fill in the scariest version themselves.

MayaMakes sense. And the USPS rulemaking, what does that actually change day to day?

DavidIt lets USPS set new standards for how ballots are designed and processed. Think formatting, verification steps in the physical mail piece, that kind of thing.

MayaNot glamorous, but it matters if you're trying to standardize 40 different state systems.

DavidExactly, and that's the piece that was allowed to proceed.

MayaAnd that standardization piece isn't just paperwork. If 40 different states are running 40 different ballot formats, that's already a mess for USPS to process consistently.

DavidRight, and that's the boring but real part of this ruling. It's not as dramatic as the citizenship list, but it's the piece more likely to actually shape how smoothly ballots are counted this cycle.

MayaOkay, so bottom line, some of it's moving, the most contested part is frozen.

DavidThat's where it sits going into the midterms.

MayaWhich, speaking of politics testing limits, there's a race today doing exactly that, just at ground level instead of the Supreme Court.

DavidOh, here we go.

MayaYeah, South Carolina. This one's genuinely testing how far Trump's endorsement actually carries somebody. So walk me through this South Carolina thing, because I saw the name Graham and got confused for a second.

DavidYeah, different Graham. This is Darlene Graham. She's the appointed senator holding Lindsey Graham's old seat, and she's in a runoff today against Congressman Ralph Norman.

MayaWait, so nobody actually won the primary outright?

DavidNope. Split enough votes that it forced a runoff, and it got rushed onto the calendar fast. Whoever wins tonight goes on to face the Democrat, Annie Andrews, in the midterm.

MayaOkay, and The Guardian's been tracking this one pretty closely, right?

DavidThey have, and The Washington Post's got a live results tracker running right now calling it flat out, "This is a test of how far Trump's endorsement actually carries."

MayaWhich, come on, is the whole story here.

DavidIt is, because he didn't just tweet a name out, he rallied for her in person.

MayaAnd I read NBC's piece on this. They said he's gone to bat for her the same way he's leaning into that Oklahoma governor's race.

DavidRight. So this isn't a one-off, and it's not cheap either. His super PAC, MAGA Inc, put over eight hundred and twenty-seven thousand dollars behind her.

MayaThat's a lot of money for a runoff nobody outside the state was paying attention to a month ago.

DavidThat's the thing. You'd think that kind of spending buys you a comfortable lead.

MayaBut?

DavidBut it doesn't look like it did. The Hill picked up a Trafalgar Group poll taken right before the vote, and it's got Graham and Norman basically tied.

MayaTied? Even after the rally? Even after the money?

DavidEven after all of it.

MayaSo this isn't the safe layup everybody assumed.

DavidNo, and I think that's actually the more interesting story than the seat itself. If Norman pulls this off, that's a real dent. That's a sitting president's machine getting outrun in his own party.

MayaAnd if Graham holds on?

DavidThen it's proof the endorsement still moves votes even in a race this close. Either way, you get an actual answer today, not a hypothetical.

MayaI kind of love that, honestly. Everybody wants to treat these endorsements like a foregone conclusion.

DavidRight. And a tied poll says otherwise. This one's live, genuinely could go either way.

MayaNorman's been in the House a while too, so it's not like he's some no-name challenger.

DavidExactly. He's got his own base in that district. This isn't Trump versus a nobody. It's Trump versus somebody with real standing.

MayaSo if Graham loses tonight, does that actually spook other Trump-backed candidates heading into the midterms, or is South Carolina just South Carolina?

DavidI think it spooks him a little, at least psychologically. He's already leaning into that Oklahoma governor's race the same way, so a loss here becomes the headline every other Republican has to answer questions about, whether it's fair to their race or not.

MayaRight. It's less about the actual seat and more about the story it tells everyone else watching.

DavidExactly. And Norman's not exactly a fringe figure either, so if he wins, it's not like Trump lost to some outsider. He lost to a sitting member of his own conference.

MayaSo by tonight, we'll know.

DavidWe'll know. And look, as much as I want to sit here and speculate on South Carolina all morning-

MayaI can feel the pivot coming

David... to there is a bigger number landing today than any poll number out of Columbia, and it's gonna move a lot more than one Senate seat.

MayaOh, yeah?

DavidNvidia reports earnings today.

MayaOh, right, right, right. That's the one everybody with a 401 should actually be watching.

DavidThat's the one. Way more consequential than a runoff most people outside the state haven't even heard of.

MayaSo Nvidia reports after the bell tomorrow, and futures are already twitchy.

DavidTwitchy how? Investing.com had futures wobbling this morning, waiting on both Nvidia and the next inflation read.

MayaWait, both on the same day?

DavidSame week, yeah. Traders don't love uncertainty stacked on uncertainty.

MayaFair. Okay, so what's Wall Street actually expecting from Nvidia?

DavidKiplinger's live coverage has the number. Earnings per share around $2.09.

MayaIs that good?

DavidThat's nearly double what they posted a year ago.

MayaOkay, that's a lot.

DavidAnd revenue, they're penciling in about $92 billion.

MayaFor the quarter?

DavidFor the quarter, up something like 97% from last year.

MayaSo basically doubling revenue in a single year?

DavidBasically, yeah. For a company already that size, that's not small growth. That's still rocketing.

MayaOkay, so if they're expected to nearly double everything, why would anyone be nervous?

DavidBecause expectations like that leave zero room for a stumble.

MayaRight. Right.

DavidAnd here's the weird part. Yahoo Finance is running a piece saying Nvidia's valuation actually looks cheap going into this.

MayaCheap? Cheap compared to what? A trillion-dollar chip company?

DavidI know. It sounds backwards, but the argument is the stock price hasn't kept pace with how fast the business has grown, so on paper, the multiple looks low for a company this hot.

MayaAnd that's a problem how?

DavidBecause Yahoo's framing is if the market already sees it as cheap and the numbers still miss even a little, there's no cushion. The stock has to get repriced up on the back of this report, or it could get punished instead.

MayaSo it's less can they grow and more can they clear a bar nobody's agreed on?

DavidPretty much. Everybody wants the number, but nobody agrees what the number needs to be.

MayaOkay. Very helpful, Wall Street.

DavidWell, that's the job.

MayaOkay, but step back for a second. Why does one company's earnings call matter this much to, like, my 401(k)?

DavidBecause Nvidia's become the stand-in for the whole AI trade. If they blow it out, that's confirmation everybody's still spending on chips. If they wobble, people start asking if the AI spending story is overheated.

MayaSo this isn't just a tech stock thing?

DavidNo, it ripples. Semiconductors, cloud companies, even the broader index funds a lot of regular people are sitting in.

MayaThat's genuinely a bigger swing factor than most people clock when they hear earnings report.

DavidRight. It's not just a headline. It's a mood setter for the whole market for weeks.

MayaOkay. Well, we will for sure be watching that one roll in.

DavidWednesday after the close.

MayaAnd for anyone holding index funds who thinks they're not exposed to any of this, you probably are, more than you'd guess.

DavidYeah, that's the honest answer. Even if you've never bought a single chip stock, this earnings call still touches your portfolio somehow.

MayaAll right. Between the Supreme Court, a Senate nail-biter, and now trillion-dollar chip math, this has been a lot to pack into one morning.

DavidA little bit of everything.

MayaDavid, take us home. What do people need to remember before they head out the door? All right. Quick lap before we go. Supreme Court hands election integrity a partial win. South Carolina is a coin flip between Graham and Norman. And Nvidia is about to tell us if this whole market rally has legs.

DavidRight? The courts, the voters, the chip makers.

MayaWhen you put it that way, it sounds like a bad movie pitch.

DavidKind of is one.

MayaHonestly, it kind of is when you stack it up like that.

DavidRight? Courts, voters, chips. Pick your genre.

MayaWe'll be watching all three play out, believe me.

DavidEspecially that South Carolina runoff.

MayaOh, for sure. All right. That's the show, everybody. Go pour yourself something warm, hug someone you love, and we'll catch you right back here tomorrow morning. This has been The Morning Rundown.