“Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s revenge tour is sputtering to an end this week, with just one primary win to show for it,” Axios reports.
“McCarthy’s former colleagues complain he’s effectively lit millions of dollars on fire and made it harder for new leaders to do their jobs.”
“Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) is expected to win easily on Tuesday despite a McCarthy-linked PAC spending more than $3 million against him.”
Said Gaetz: “McCarthy thinks about me a lot more than I think about him.”
“Democrats this week will enshrine one of the most audacious power plays in modern political history as they gather for a convention that was hastily reconfigured to try to vault Kamala Harris to a historic presidency,” CNN reports.
Wall Street Journal: “Democratic donors have gone wild for Harris’ whirlwind bid for the presidency despite her tepid polling for years, invigorated by what they think is an Obama-esque opportunity to create generational change in the Democratic Party—and elect the first female president. While Biden’s fundraising efforts sagged for weeks amid questions about his age and fitness for office, his decision to leave the race jolted Democratic donors big and small into action; Harris later reported she had raised more than $200 million in her first week.”
“Many big-money supporters will be piling into suites at the United Center and in Chicago’s luxury hotels this week as Harris accepts her party’s nomination at the Democratic National Convention.”
“House Republicans on Monday formally made the case for impeaching President Biden, releasing a lengthy report accusing him of corruption and seeking to allow his family to profit off his office in connection with foreign business deals made by his son Hunter, who has been charged with felony tax crimes,” the New York Times reports.
“In the 291-page document, released on the day that Democrats gather in Chicago to begin their party convention, Republicans call Mr. Biden’s conduct ‘egregious’ and say he should be impeached for abuse of power and obstruction. But the report contains no proof that Mr. Biden, when he was vice president, engaged in any corrupt quid pro quo to benefit his son’s business partners, and Republicans admit they have no direct evidence that he ordered any interference into a Justice Department investigation into Hunter Biden.”
Politico: House GOP investigators accuse Biden of “impeachable conduct” in long-awaited report.
“For the past few election cycles, the messaging app WhatsApp has been a major source of news and connection — and misinformation — for Latinos in the United States, a forum where they could swap memes, jokes and emojis with one another across the nation and Latin America,” the New York Times reports.
“Now, Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, are joining the platform.”
“Anyone who doubts that the road to the White House runs through this blue-collar city can just ask Donald Trump. His weekend visit marked the fifth rally he has held since 2016 in the spacious Mohegan Sun Arena, drawing big audiences to Wilkes-Barre, a former industrial powerhouse that over the decades has lost about half its population,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The repeated visits are a clear sign that Trump believes the key to winning Pennsylvania, the nation’s largest battleground state, is to boost support among the working-class voters in deindustrialized and rural areas. Those voters swung heavily behind him in 2016 and again in 2020, turning many formerly Democratic counties, such as the one that includes Wilkes-Barre, into GOP strongholds.”
“Kamala Harris, if elected, would make history as the first woman president. And she’s letting that fact speak for itself,” Politico reports.
“Harris — already the first Black and South Asian person to lead a major party ticket — is not, so far, heavily promoting the history-making elements of her campaign in TV ads or in her stump speech, focusing instead on her middle-class upbringing and prosecutorial track record.”
“It’s a marked departure from Hillary Clinton, the first female Democratic presidential nominee, who highlighted her gender throughout her 2016 run, immortalized in white pantsuits, the Javits Center glass ceiling and the slogan: ‘I’m With Her.’”
New York Times: “As a sign of what Democrats believe will mobilize their forces — and the head-spinning transformation that has remade their presidential ticket — the document mentions former President Donald J. Trump’s name 150 times.”
Politico: “Democrats arrive here, a city that’s played host to so many drama-filled political conventions, as a party lacking in drama. They are disciplined, orderly and united around Vice President Kamala Harris and, more to the point, thwarting former President Donald Trump’s restoration.”
“This new era of good feelings for Democrats is a far cry from last month, when they faced their most existential crisis since Trump’s initial election, their leaders staring one another down in a sort of political version of nuclear brinksmanship. And it differs from so many previous conventions when there was often intra-party tension over policy, politics, personnel, or all three, looming above the proceedings.”
Playbook: “We’re told this is not a farewell speech. The man has five months and one day left in his presidency, and — following Barack Obama’s model — he is likely to deliver a true valedictory address in January. But this is almost certainly the biggest audience Biden will face for the rest of his term, if not his five-decade political career, so expect it to feel like a swan song nonetheless.”
“In true Biden form, the speech is still being hammered out, but you can expect Biden to hand the party’s reins to Harris by highlighting their accomplishments together.“
Wall Street Journal: Biden to pass the torch to Harris as convention begins.
Associated Press: “Santos has previously pleaded not guilty to a range of alleged financial crimes, including lying to Congress about his wealth, collecting unemployment benefits while actually working and using campaign contributions to pay for personal expenses.”
Associated Press: “In Wyoming, the state that has voted for Trump by a wider margin than any other, overwhelming Republican dominance may be even more cemented-in now that the state has passed a law that makes changing party affiliation much more difficult.”
“Tuesday’s primary will be the first election since the law took effect.”
The FBI arrested D.C. Council member Trayon White Sr. on Sunday, in a sudden move against the unorthodox two-term Southeast Washington leader that appeared to take other city officials by surprise, the Washington Post reports.
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.”
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.
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