McClatchy: “Republican Richard Uihlein and Democrat Tom Steyer have poured tens of millions of dollars into the 2018 campaign. And their political parties are irritated about it. The two billionaires have backed candidates and causes that Republican and Democratic leaders believe are detrimental to their chances in November.”

“Uihlein, the founder of a Wisconsin-based shipping supplies company, has boosted insurgent conservative candidates over the GOP’s choices in several races… He hasn’t picked many winners… Steyer, a San Francisco hedge fund manager, has poured cash into a campaign to impeach Trump, an effort many Democrats view as counterproductive at best.”

The Weekly Standard’s forecast shows Democrats now have a 41% chance to take control of the Senate in this year’s midterm elections.

Washington Post: “An unusual political battle is raging across North Carolina, where national and state Democrats have recruited an army of candidates and are pouring millions of dollars into a campaign to loosen a years-long Republican grip on a state legislature that has turned an otherwise evenly split state into a bastion for some of the country’s most conservative laws. Among them: a limit on transgender access to bathrooms that was ultimately repealed under pressure from business leaders, congressional district maps that courts have ruled were designed to curtail the voting power of African Americans and education spending levels that have sparked mass protests at the state Capitol.”

“The campaign reflects an often-overlooked subplot of the Democratic Party’s broader push to engineer a ‘blue wave’ across the country in the November midterms — tapping into voter anger over President Trump as well as Republican policies on school funding, taxes and health care to chip away at GOP dominance in state capitals.”

“A flood of women, minorities and first-time candidates is poised to radically alter the composition of Congress next year after winning Democratic primaries in record numbers in 2018,” Politico reports.

“White men are in the minority in the House Democratic candidate pool… Democrats have nominated a whopping 180 female candidates in House primaries — shattering the party’s previous record of 120, according to Rutgers’ Center for American Women and Politics. Heading into the final primaries of 2018 this week, Democrats have also nominated at least 133 people of color and 158 first-time candidates to run for the House.”