“As Joe Biden pushes ahead with his search for a running mate, Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) has quietly emerged as a serious contender, one of several developing dynamics as the search enters its final weeks,” the Washington Post reports.

“Duckworth is a Purple Heart recipient and veteran of the Iraq War, the only finalist with military combat experience — and as a woman of Thai and Chinese descent, one of several candidates of color under consideration. While she has a lower profile than some rivals, she is being taken seriously by Biden’s team, according to the people with knowledge of the search, one of whom said she has lately received strong consideration.”

The Trump campaign will be providing face masks and hand sanitizer for all attendees at an upcoming rally Saturday in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Axios reports.

The campaign said in an email on Sunday that attendees are “strongly encouraged” to wear the masks.

Joe Biden “finds himself in landslide territory without having had to do very much to get there… Mr Trump’s flailing has made a Democratic Senate majority possible,” The Economist reports.

“That opens up the chances of a highly productive presidency which once seemed inconceivable. Before COVID-19 and widespread social unrest, Mr Biden’s candidacy was about restoration — the idea that he could return America and the world to the prelapsarian days of 2016. It transpires that he could have the opportunity to do something big instead.”

“To make lasting change through the federal government you need to win the Senate. And that cannot be done with a candidate at the top of the ticket who frightens the voters… Because he comes across as the grandfather he is, he is viewed with suspicion on the left. Yet that is precisely what makes him reassuring … to voters in states like Montana and Georgia where Democrats must win to gain a majority in the Senate. It is Mr Biden’s caution that opens up the possibility of more change than a real radical would.”

“Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA) hasn’t had a tough primary challenge in 30 years,” Politico reports.

“But Massachusetts’ Sept. 1 contest represents the last, best chance for the left to take down a Democratic incumbent this year, so the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee isn’t taking any chances against a progressive challenger.”

Los Angeles Times: “It’s unclear whether West has filed any of the necessary paperwork to formally join the race between incumbent Donald Trump — for whom West has expressed admiration — and Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee. West and his wife Kim Kardashian West have visited Trump in the White House.”

Associated Press: “With President Trump confronted by skyrocketing joblessness and the coronavirus pandemic as he campaigns for reelection against Democrat Joe Biden, members of his Cabinet are busy making time in pivotal states. They are carrying a message to voters about what the Trump administration is doing for them. At the same time, there are questions about whether these agency heads are running afoul of a law meant to bar overt campaigning by federal officials on the taxpayer tab.”

Politico: “Publicly, the Trump campaign asserts their candidate is still competitive in each of the 30 states he carried in 2016. They say presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden faces an enthusiasm deficit among his party’s likeliest voters and that public polling — much of which has shown the president trailing far behind Biden nationally, and more narrowly in battleground states — does not jibe with their own internal numbers.”

“But privately, campaign aides, senior administration officials and GOP donors have begun to acknowledge what they call a more plausible scenario: a pair of losses in the Rust Belt, most likely Michigan and Wisconsin. That would mean the president has to win some proven Trump-averse states to crack the 270-vote threshold needed to clinch a second term.”

“Gone are the days of forecasting a landslide victory, said one person close to the Trump campaign. The president’s team is now recasting its expectations to identify not where Trump can win more, but how he can lose less.”

The consensus electoral map shows six Toss Up states.