About half of Americans— 48% — have a very or somewhat favorable view of Harris, according to a new Associated Press-NORC poll.
That is up from 39% at the beginning of the summer, before Joe Biden’s poor performance in his debate against Donald Trump ultimately led him to drop out of the presidential race.
Former Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-VA) said she will vote for Kamala Harris for president on Sunday, marking the latest former GOP member to break from the party’s support of Donald Trump, The Hill reports.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told NBC News that Donald Trump, “the provocateur, the showman, may not win this election.”
Axios: “Graham joins a chorus of Trump allies who have publicly urged the former president to focus on policy, not personal attacks. So far, Trump’s not listening.”
Washington Post: “More than $247 million was spent in the first six months of this year on television, streaming platform and digital ads that mention immigration, according to AdImpact, which tracks campaign advertising. That is $40 million more than ads that mention any other issue.
Over 90 percent of the ads supported Republican candidates and were paid for by their campaigns or political action committees backing them.”
“The level of spending underscores how important Republicans view border security and immigration in this year’s elections. While polls show voters overall rank issues at the border as less important to them than the economy, inflation and protecting democracy, Republican voters consistently rank it as among the most important…”
“Taken as a whole, the ads convey an unrealistic portrait of the border as being overrun and inaccurately characterize immigrants generally as a threat, of which there is little evidence. FBI data show U.S. border cities are among the nation’s safest. And a 2023 report from a group of economists found immigrants are at least 30 percent less likely to be incarcerated than U.S.-born individuals.”
“Kamala Harris stole Donald Trump’s Republican convention bounce,” Politico reports.
“Now, polling conducted in the immediate run up to this week’s Democratic convention in Chicago shows the vice president entering not just with momentum, but with a slight advantage over Trump nationally and in most key battleground states — a dramatic reversal from the big hole President Joe Biden was in before he abandoned his candidacy just four weeks ago.”
“Even as feel-good displays of joy and confidence are set to dominate the Democratic National Convention this week in Chicago, one painful issue is bitterly dividing the Democratic establishment from its left flank: Israel’s war in Gaza,” the New York Times reports.
“The specter of convention-upending protests that hovered over a gathering hosted for President Biden has receded somewhat with the rise of a new candidate in Kamala Harris, who is seen as more sympathetic to Palestinian rights activists. But tens of thousands of protesters are still expected to convene just outside the event’s security perimeter, and the potential for high-profile disruptions remains real.”
Washington Post: “The series of events in early July illustrates the extraordinary challenges facing the Secret Service as it attempts to protect Trump — a former president running for office again and one of the world’s most recognizable people. He not only holds large-scale campaign rallies — as he plans to do this week — but also routinely hangs out with scores of people at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla., and his other resorts.”
“The difficulties have prompted numerous arguments over the past 3½ years between agency officials, Trump and his advisers. His aides grew increasingly angry as many of their requests for additional security were rebuffed by the Secret Service…”
“Trump aides say they had sometimes been forced to cancel or reschedule events when aides felt the venues were not going to be sufficiently secure. They described repeatedly being denied pleas for more snipers, bomb-sniffing dogs, magnetometers and specialty teams to protect Trump, often because agency higher-ups said extra resources were not available.”
Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), who lost both her legs fighting in the Iraq War, called Donald Trump “despicable” for comments Thursday about soldiers honored for their actions in combat, Politico reports.
Said Duckworth: “Donald Trump is despicable. He doesn’t deserve to be commander in chief. And certainly those remarks are consistent with where he’s always been. He thinks that we’re suckers and losers.”
“Kamala Harris appeared to call former President Donald Trump a ‘coward’ without mentioning him by name while contrasting her leadership style with his,” CNN reports.
Said Harris: “This campaign is about a recognition that, frankly, over the last several years, there’s been this kind of perversion that has taken place, I think … which is to suggest that the measure of the strength of a leader is based on who you beat down. When what we know is the real and true measure of the strength of a leader is based on who you lift up.”
She added: “Anybody who’s about beating down other people is a coward.”
“Donald Trump will travel to the US-Mexico border later this week, part of a push by his campaign to ratchet up political pressure and steal attention from Kamala Harris as Democrats celebrate her presidential nomination at their national convention in Chicago,” Bloomberg reports.
“Trump will travel to Montezuma Pass, Arizona on Thursday, the same day Harris is slated to give her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention.”
“Vice President Kamala Harris kicked off a bus tour through Pennsylvania by rallying volunteers in the critical battleground state, as her Republican opponent, Donald Trump, announced plans to ratchet up his cadence of political events in a bid to stall her momentum,” Bloomberg reports.
“Harris’ trip to Pittsburgh and the city’s surrounding counties ahead of the Democratic National Convention this week in Chicago underscores how crucial the state is to Democrats’ hopes in November, and efforts by Harris — who has surged in the polls since taking over the party ticket for President Joe Biden just weeks ago — to make inroads with White suburban voters who could decide the race.”
New York Times: “This will be quite an unmistakable caravan through western Pennsylvania.”
Washington Post: Harris and Walz launch pre-convention bus tour in western Pennsylvania.
Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, one of two Republicans who served on the select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, insurrection, will speak at the Democratic National Convention this week, CNN reports.
Kinzinger is slated to speak on Thursday night, the same evening Vice President Kamala Harris will address convention delegates.
Politico: “Stepping onto the stage in Chicago was supposed to be the capstone of a half-century electoral career, a triumphant recognition of his prolific first term and hard-earned validation of the belief that he alone could once again defeat former President Donald Trump.”
“But a week that Biden once saw as his political pinnacle will now last just a few hours, overtaken by an extraordinary series of events that has reenergized the president’s party at the expense of his own ambitions. The deafening roars Biden receives at the United Center Monday night will communicate just as much relief as reverence from a party grateful he’s stepped away, further signaling that Biden’s exit from the race is the only reason Democrats are confident they have a shot to win in November.”
“And when Vice President Kamala Harris delivers her acceptance speech later this week, Biden will already have been out of sight and out of mind, on vacation far from the celebration.”
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) told Fox News the media “uses fake polls to drive down Republican turnout and to create dissension and conflict with Republican voters.”
He also claimed: “If you talk to insiders in the Kamala Harris campaign, they’re very worried about where they are.”
New financial disclosures show Log Cabin Republicans, a group representing LGBTQ+ conservatives, paid Melania Trump nearly a quarter million dollars to speak at an event in Florida, the Advocate reports.
Donald Trump is “planning a rally in a Michigan town with long ties to the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacists,” The Independent reports.
“Trump’s campaign announced his return to Michigan this upcoming Tuesday with an event in Howell, a city of roughly 10,000 residents with long, storied links to the racist mob – which openly held events north of the town throughout the 1970s and even sporadically into the present era.”
“Pro-KKK graffiti was reportedly found in the town as recently as 2021 – and white supremacists staged a rally there just last month.”
Edward Luce: “Asked why he had robbed a bank, William Sutton, one of the FBI’s most wanted postwar criminals, replied, ‘because that’s where the money is.’”
“If Sutton had been running for president in 2024 he would have plotted a raid on Pennsylvania’s Hispanic vote. The path to the White House runs through Pennsylvania — America’s largest must-win swing state.”
“Yet Donald Trump’s campaign is so far making no discernible effort to woo its fastest-growing demographic. Numbering roughly 600,000 adults in a state that was settled by margins of less than 100,000 votes in the past two elections, Pennsylvania’s Hispanics are where the votes are.”
Out this month: At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House By H. R. McMaster.
Said McMaster to CBS News: “I got used up essentially in the service of Donald Trump. I was at peace with that. And I was not going to try to keep my job by telling the president what he wanted to hear.”
He added: “I describe the environment as an environment of competitive sycophancy… The president wanted advice; he also wanted flattery. He really likes the adulation. In many ways he’s kind of addicted to adulation from his political base, from people around him.”
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.
