“Vice President Kamala Harris will kick off a bus tour through south Georgia on Wednesday that will culminate with a Thursday evening rally in Savannah as she tries to sustain the momentum from her party’s nominating convention,” the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports.
“The Democratic nominee will be joined on Wednesday by her running-mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, in their first joint appearance in Georgia. On Thursday, Harris will headline the Savannah rally solo.”
Politico: “The former speaker’s multimillion dollar crusade to primary the eight Republicans who voted to strip him of his gavel ended this week with little to show for it. Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, the main architect of McCarthy’s defenestration and his chief nemesis, won his primary Tuesday by about 45 points.”
“It wasn’t the only high-profile failure. McCarthy allies also dropped millions against Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), only to see her prevail by 27 points. Another three handily won their primaries, two of whom were uncontested, and two others retired. McCarthy orbit’s lone election victory was against Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), a result that had a lot to do with his decision to cross former President Donald Trump. And that race was so close it ended in a recount.”
“Even some of Donald Trump’s supporters are now asking the question that was the undoing of Joe Biden: is the former president fit for office?,” The Guardian reports.
“But while Biden’s run for re-election was largely sunk by a single disastrous televised debate before a national audience, Trump is ramping up doubts with each chaotic, disjointed speech as he campaigns around the country.”
“While rambling discourse and outrageously disprovable claims, interspersed with spite and vitriol, may seem nothing new to many of Trump’s supporters and critics alike, the former president appears to have been driven to new depths by suddenly finding himself running against Kamala Harris a month ago.”
“Trump has only grown more infuriated as his poll lead over Biden evaporated, with Harris opening up a clear, if narrow, lead. The vice-president’s tactic of mocking Trump more than arguing with him appears to have incensed him further.”
Politico: Trump tries to reset his campaign after brutal month.
New York Times: “Vice President Harris’s candidacy has reinvigorated many Democrats and independents — and particularly young women. Their newfound enthusiasm is evident in interviews, and in early signals from polls in swing states and nationwide.”
CNN: “With the conventions over, the next race-defining moment on the calendar is their September 10 debate hosted by ABC. The campaigns have also both discussed participating in a second debate, but the details of where, when and who would host have not yet been settled.”
“Unlike the June debate between Trump and Biden, when their 2020 showdowns offered a preview of what to expect, no one is sure how this fall’s debates will unfold.”
New York Times: “Eight years after Hillary Clinton became the first woman to lead a major party’s presidential ticket, Democrats are sending American women a more sober and urgent message even as they try to elect another barrier-breaking candidate.”
“Republican policies, they argue, have had disastrous and once-unthinkable consequences for the health and autonomy of women and their families since the overturning of Roe v. Wade. A second term for former President Donald Trump, they warn, would be even more dangerous.”
Said Harris: “Simply put, they are out of their minds.”
“Donald Trump’s political endurance this year has been attributed in part to voters’ faded memories about why they denied him a second term four years ago,” the New York Times reports.
“The former president is doing his best to remind them.”
“Despite a carefully scripted week of campaign events aimed at counterprogramming the Democratic National Convention, Mr. Trump undercut much of his messaging with a series of off-the-cuff remarks, rants and blunders that threatened to stoke the kind of Republican anxiety he has spent much of the past month trying to tamp down.”
Doyle McManus: Donald Trump’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad convention week.
“Donald Trump, who recently said he has ‘no regrets’ about appointing the Supreme Court supermajority that overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling on abortion rights, declared on social media on Friday that his administration will be ‘great’ for women’s ‘reproductive rights,’” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Trump’s use of the specific phrase ‘reproductive rights’ — the language used by abortion-rights advocates — appeared to be an effort by the former president to refashion himself as essentially supportive of abortion rights and as a political moderate on an issue that has the potential to be damaging to him in November.”
Wall Street Journal: “Vice President Kamala Harris, who accepted the Democratic nomination on Thursday, has in her brief campaign offered a set of ideas and impulses about the course she would pursue as president, but with less detail than many candidates have provided in the past.”
“That may leave policy-focused voters frustrated as they consider how she would pay for her economic proposals, including an expanded child tax credit and help for first-time home buyers. She also hasn’t specified how she would handle pressing foreign policy matters, such as countering the rise of China and dealing with the Israel-Hamas war.”
“The Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump, for his part also has been scant with details: He has proposed ending taxes on Social Security benefits, but he hasn’t said how he’d cover the cost—estimated by independent analysts at $1.6 trillion or more—or handle the additional instability it would cause to the program’s solvency.”
“Ballot measures on abortion rights have succeeded beyond what even their proponents imagined when the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago,” the New York Times reports.
“They have not only enshrined a constitutional right to abortion and restored access to the procedure in red and purple states. They have also converted what had been a voter mobilization advantage for Republicans into one for Democrats.”
“Now the strategy — and an unbroken winning streak — faces its biggest test ever, with 10 states asking voters whether to establish a right to abortion in their constitutions.”
Nate Silver’s polling average shows Kamala Harris expanding her national lead over Donald Trump, 48% to 43.7%.
This is based entirely on polls conducted before Harris’ speech and before the end of the Democratic convention.
“Independent presidential candidate Cornel West lost a legal challenge Friday in his bid to get on the ballot in the battleground state of Pennsylvania,” the AP reports.
“The momentum of Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign helped push the ratings for the Democratic National Convention past the Republican festivities for former President Trump,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
“Nielsen data showed that Harris’ well-received acceptance speech was watched by 29 million viewers across 15 networks.”
“The figure is 14% higher than for Trump’s speech, which scored 25.4 million viewers July 19. Harris also drew substantially more than the 24.6 million viewers who watched Joe Biden’s acceptance speech at the convention in 2020 and about the same as the 29.8 million viewers who tuned in to Hillary Clinton in 2016.”
Associated Press: “There are just over 70 days until Election Day on Nov. 5, but major dates, events and political developments will make it fly by. Think about it this way: The stretch between now and then is about as long as summer break from school in most parts of the country.”
“In just two weeks, Sept. 6, the first mail ballots get sent to voters. The first presidential debate is set for Sept. 10. Former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, is scheduled to be sentenced in his New York hush money case on Sept. 18. And early in-person voting will start as soon as Sept. 20 in some states.”
The Kennedy family released a statement after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. endorsed Donald Trump:
“We want an America filled with hope and bound together by a shared vision of a brighter future, a future defined by individual freedom, economic promise and national pride. We believe in Harris and Walz. Our brother Bobby’s decision to endorse Trump today is a betrayal of the values that our father and our family hold most dear. It is a sad ending to a sad story.”
“Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign is releasing a new television ad in battleground states with a message aimed at the middle class, in its first major move after the convention,” the Washington Post reports.
“In the ad, titled ‘Opportunity,’ Harris speaks directly to the camera about the importance of lowering costs and taxes on middle-class Americans. It’s a topic voters often list among their top concerns, one that President Joe Biden had struggled to gain credit for even though various economic indicators have improved during his time in office.”
“Special Counsel Jack Smith has decided against seeking a major hearing to present evidence in the election-interference case against Donald Trump before voters go to the polls Nov. 5,” Bloomberg reports.
“The move means that it’s unlikely a so-called mini-trial, which would include evidence and testimony from possible blockbuster witnesses like former Vice President Mike Pence, would take place before the presidential election.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.