“Donald Trump plans to outline a suite of economic proposals in a speech here Thursday, including introducing a government efficiency commission recommended by Elon Musk, taking an even more aggressive swipe at regulations than during his first White House term and pledging to rescind certain unspent funds appropriated during the Biden administration,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
GOP Seizes on False Theories About Immigrant Voting
New York Times: “There is no indication that noncitizens are voting in large numbers. And yet the notion that they will flood the polls — and vote overwhelmingly for Democrats — is animating a sprawling network of Republicans who mobilized around former President Donald Trump’s false claims of a rigged election in 2020 and are now preparing for the next one.”
An App for Election Deniers
Wired: “VoteAlert is a new app from the election conspiracy group True the Vote, a company with a rich history of combining tech with election conspiracies only to come up with nothing. In 2022, True the Vote claimed to have evidence showing that so-called ballot mules were being used to stuff drop boxes to sway the 2020 election in Joe Biden’s favor. Earlier this year they admitted in court they had no such evidence.”
“But that didn’t slow them down. The group has already rolled out one online tool this election season called IV3 to facilitate mass voter roll challenges, and with VoteAlert, the group now wants to give election workers and poll watchers the chance to get in on the action.”
“VoteAlert is designed to be a one-stop shop for all your election conspiracy needs, featuring a scrollable feed of the latest voting-related alerts, the ability to report your own claims, and even, apparently, a 24/7 hotline.”
State Republican Parties Renominate Fake Electors
“State Republican parties have nominated 14 of the 84 fake electors from the 2020 presidential election to serve again as Republican party presidential electors, an indication of the legitimacy that election deniers continue to hold in some quarters of the GOP,” The Guardian reports.
“The Republican parties of Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Nevada have each nominated one or more electors who attempted to submit themselves as electors for Donald Trump and Mike Pence in 2020 despite the former president losing in their states.”
Trump’s Lawyers Due Back in Court
“Lawyers for former President Donald Trump and special counsel Jack Smith are returning to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan’s courtroom Thursday for the first time since she regained control of the 2020 election-related case following the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling on presidential immunity,” CBS News reports.
“The attorneys are poised to lay out their proposed paths for how pretrial proceedings should move forward in the wake of the July decision, which offered Trump and all former presidents protection from federal prosecution for ‘official acts.'”
“Trump is not expected to attend Thursday’s hearing and has waived his right to appear.”
Why Aren’t We Polling the House?
“There’s a polling crisis in America, and it has nothing to do with weighted averages, sampling errors, or the ‘shy Trump voter’ phenomenon. It’s the lack of reliable polling on House races this cycle,” National Journal reports.
“Ask any campaign strategist worth their salt, and they will grumble that, while presidential polling is a dime a dozen, there’s a serious lack of public data on the races that will decide control of an entire branch of government, especially in the House.”
Republicans Still Favored to Flip Senate Majority
Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “Democrats are still in the game, but they need to win all the closest races just to get to 50-50, and they are likely behind in at least one of those races, Montana.”
“Democrats appear to retain leads in 5 seats they are defending in presidential battlegrounds, although Republicans argue that the gravity of the presidential race will allow them to catch up.”
“We remain skeptical of the Democrats’ ability to truly put Florida and Texas in play, and the Republicans’ ability to put Maryland in play.”
House GOP Launches Anti-Harris Offensive
“With Congress set to return to Washington next week after a very long absence, House Republicans have new targets in mind — Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz,” Punchbowl News reports.
“The House Republicans have turned the machinery of their committees against the Democratic presidential ticket. It’s a preview of what they’ll face if Republicans keep the House and Harris manages to defeat former President Donald Trump.”
New Hampshire Is Latest Sign of Trump’s Shrinking Map
“Donald Trump hasn’t set foot in New Hampshire since he won the state’s GOP primary in January. His campaign hasn’t sent a high-profile surrogate here since the spring,” Politico reports.
“And now, even as they insist he can win here, some of Trump’s most ardent supporters in this blue-leaning swing state are openly saying that his campaign should focus its efforts elsewhere.”
“It’s a marked shift from when New Hampshire was among the bluish battlefields where Trump’s campaign boasted it could expand its electoral map as President Joe Biden faltered.”
What Anti-Abortion Leaders Want from Trump
“The anti-abortion activists celebrating Donald Trump’s vow to vote no on Florida’s upcoming abortion-rights amendment have their sights on a bigger target: extracting a promise from the former president to staff his administration with staunch abortion opponents if he wins in November,” Politico reports.
“Trump’s rejection of Amendment 4 on Friday — 24 hours after criticizing the state’s six-week abortion ban — followed a public and private lobbying blitz from anti-abortion leaders.”
Playbook: “Among the wishlist for activists would be a list of judges he’d nominate or anti-abortion-rights advocates for top jobs. But the Trump campaign so far has not released any such commitments or responses to the entreaties.”
GOP Candidate Uses Foreign Stock Footage in Ads
“Paul Junge, who is the Republican seeking Michigan’s 8th Congressional District seat, has used several foreign stock images and clips in political ads that advocate for preserving American jobs and domestic manufacturing,” WCPT reports.
Capitol Rioter’s Sentence Reduced
“A federal judge on Wednesday shaved 15 months off of a Jan. 6 defendant’s sentence, a direct result of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling limiting the scope of an obstruction charge used to prosecute hundreds of rioters,” Politico reports.
Hostage Families Press Biden to Make Deal
“The families of American hostages being held by Hamas have pressed the White House to seriously consider cutting a unilateral deal with the terrorist organization to secure their loved ones’ release, and the option is currently under discussion within the Biden administration,” NBC News reports.
Trump Questions Fairness of Next Week’s Debate
“Hours after the Trump and Harris campaigns agreed to rules for their first presidential debate, former President Donald Trump sought to instill doubt that the debate would be fair, downplayed his need to prepare and suggested he was more worried about the network hosting the debate than his opponent,” the New York Times reports.
Microphones Will Be Muted at Debate
“The great debate microphone muting drama of 2024 has come to a quiet end,” the New York Times reports.
“Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign has begrudgingly agreed to have her and former President Donald Trump’s microphones muted when they are not speaking, a position top Harris officials tried to change last week to give themselves an advantage when the candidates meet onstage next Tuesday.”
Bloomberg: “Trump said he plans to allow his opponent, Kamala Harris, to speak without interruption during their presidential debate next week, a shift for the reality-television-star-turned-politician who built a career on combative exchanges.”
Liz Cheney Endorses Kamala Harris
Former Rep. Liz Cheney, the once high-ranking Republican from Wyoming who torpedoed her political career by breaking forcefully with former President Donald Trump, said on Wednesday she would be voting for Vice President Kamala Harris in November, the New York Times reports.
Said Cheney: “I don’t believe we have the luxury of writing in candidates’ names, particularly in swing states. As a conservative, as someone who believes in and cares about the Constitution, I have thought deeply about this and because of the danger that Donald Trump poses, not only am I not voting for Donald Trump, but I will be voting for Kamala Harris.”
The Race Is Back to What We Expected
Nate Cohn: “Just take a look at our polling averages, which have been updated since Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s departure from the race (a return to normal in its own right). There’s no sign of the political chaos of the last few months. Instead, the results look typical: Nationwide, Kamala Harris leads Donald Trump by three percentage points, 49 percent to 46 percent. Across the battleground states, the race is a dead heat. In every state and nationwide, the polling average is within 1.5 points of the result of the 2020 presidential election.”
“In short, the polls finally show the close election that analysts expected a year ago, before President Biden’s candidacy went off the rails.”
Election May Come Down to Georgia and Pennsylvania
CNN: “Both Georgia and Pennsylvania remain thoroughly up for grabs, according to the polls, with tight margins overall and double-digit shares of likely voters — 12% in Georgia and 16% in Pennsylvania — saying they haven’t yet decided on a candidate, or that they might change their minds.”
