The Atlantic: “Trump’s reelection seems implausible to many people, as implausible as his election did before November 2016. But despite the scandals and chaos of his presidency, and despite his party’s midterm losses, he approaches 2020 with two factors in his favor. One is incumbency: Since 1980, voters have only once denied an incumbent a second term. The other is a relatively strong economy (at least as of now). Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University who weights both of those factors heavily in his election-forecasting model, gives Trump close to an even chance of reelection, based on a projected 2 percent GDP growth rate for the first half of 2020.”

“So far, much of the concern about the long-term effects of Trump’s presidency has centered on his antidemocratic tendencies. But even if we take those off the table—even if we assume that Trump continues to be hemmed in by other parts of the government and by outside institutions, and that he governs no more effectively than he has until now—the impact of a second term would be more lasting than that of the first.”

New York Times: “After sidestepping the explosive issue of impeachment for months by citing the inquiry by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, most of the other 17 Democratic presidential candidates have responded to the special counsel’s report with tentative remarks about impeaching Mr. Trump, demands for the unredacted Mueller findings, calls for further hearings or attempts to simply change the subject.”

“Anything, that is, to avoid clearly answering the question of whether lawmakers should remove the president from office.”

“Underpinning the candidates’ calculations are complex sets of short- and long-term incentives. Democratic hopefuls could receive a fund-raising boost by embracing impeachment and energizing liberal donors. But some strategists and lawmakers say that a failed effort would only strengthen Mr. Trump’s re-election chances, allowing him to claim further vindication.”

Washington Post: “Most strategists planning for the general election campaign against Trump expect to focus far less on Trump’s behavior and personal qualities than Hillary Clinton did in the 2016 election.”

Evangelist Franklin Graham wrote a Facebook post which denounced people heckling Pete Buttigieg at a campaign event, but also managed to work in a verse from the Bible that condemns gay people to death.

Graham suggested Buttigieg cannot be both gay and Christian, citing Leviticus 20:13: “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination…”

But, as Hemant Mehta points out, Graham left off the last part of the verse in his post: “… they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.”