Matt Taibbi thinks Democrats are “gonna blow this again.”

“The front-runner — the front-runner! — is septuagenarian gaffe machine Joe Biden, who started running for president in the Eighties and never finished higher than ‘candidacy withdrawn,’ with a career delegate total matching John Blutarsky’s grade-point average, i.e., zero point zero. The summer’s ‘momentum’ challenger is California Sen. Kamala Harris, who spent all year sinking in polls but surged when she hit Biden with ‘I don’t think you’re a racist… but…’  on national TV.”

“A third contender is Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a famed red-state punchline who already has 10,000 Pocahontas tweets aimed at her head should she make it to the general. Her ‘I have a plan for that’ argument for smarter government makes her a modern analog to Mike Dukakis — another Massachusetts charisma machine whose ill-fated presidential run earned him a portrait alongside the Hindenburg in a Naked Gun movie.”

“A fourth challenger, Bernie Sanders, is a self-proclaimed socialist born before the Pearl Harbor attack who’s somehow more hated by the national media than Trump. A fifth, Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has never earned more than 8,515 votes in any election. The claim to fame of a sixth, Beto O’Rourke, is that he lost a Senate bid to the world’s most-hated Republican. It goes on.”

“Wealthy Republican donors frightened of a socialist takeover in Washington have boosted support for House Republicans despite concerns about the party’s direction, providing a ray of hope for recapturing the majority in 2020,” the Washington Examiner reports.

“Democrats scoff at House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky for insisting Democrats in Congress are a bunch of socialists led by ‘the squad,’ … But the message is paying dividends, literally, with Republican donors writing five, six and seven figure checks to the party’s congressional campaign committees and affiliated super PACs.”

A new Fox News poll finds Joe Biden holding on to a steady lead from a pre-debate poll in the latest piece of good polling news for the former vice president after faltering in the first debate.

“The former vice president leads the field with 33%. He’s followed by Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 15%, Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s 12% and Sen. Kamala Harris’ 10%.”

“President Trump, his top political advisers and congressional leaders gathered for an extensive political briefing at the White House on Thursday — and one topic of discussion centered on which Democratic candidates pose the biggest threat to his reelection,” Politico reports.

“Toward the end of the meeting, Trump, who was joined in the Blue Room by Vice President Mike Pence, went around the room and asked for opinions on the Democratic contenders. Campaign manager Brad Parscale noted that Elizabeth Warren was rising, Republican National committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said Kamala Harris could pose a threat in Michigan, and Trump 2020 adviser Bill Stepien highlighted Joe Biden as a potentially formidable threat.”