Over at the Electoral Vote Map: Another look at the 2020 battleground states.

“Republican leaders are sharpening and poll-testing lines of attack that portray Democratic policies on health care, the environment and abortion as far outside the norm, in hopes of arming President Trump with hyperbolic sound bites — some of them false — asserting that Democrats would cause long waits for doctors or make killing babies after birth legal,” the New York Times reports.

“The blunt messaging underscores one of the biggest challenges facing Democrats as they try to defeat the incumbent president: The need to define themselves and their ideas before Mr. Trump and his conservative allies do it for them.”

“Some Democratic strategists said they have been taken aback recently by how successful Mr. Trump and Republicans have been at setting the terms of the debate around liberal policy ideas.”

Kyle Kondik: “One aspect of this year’s calendar that could speed a knockout blow is that the calendar is frontloaded. As the nominating calendar is currently constructed, almost two-thirds of the total number of pledged delegates will be awarded in the first seven weeks of the nominating season, from Feb. 3, 2020 through March 17, 2020.”

“This is why we led this article with Yogi Berra quote — it gets late early this primary season, with 64% of the pledged delegates slated to be awarded by mid-March. That percentage is subject to change, but it could get even higher if, for instance, states like Colorado and Georgia, neither of which has officially set a date but very well could vote on Super Tuesday, opt to also schedule themselves early in the calendar. New York, as mentioned, is another important state that is not scheduled yet (it voted in April in 2016).”

Jonathan Bernstein: “The campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination has been going on for over two years now, and the current phase of it seems unavoidable; CNN alone seems to hold a town hall candidate showcase practically every night. The ‘invisible primary’ gets more visible every cycle. If you’re heavily engaged in party politics, you may be spending hours a week on it; if you are just dedicated to following what’s happening in the news, you’re probably sick of the whole thing by now. ”

“And yet this is worth remembering: Most voters aren’t paying attention to any of it. Most Democratic voters have a pretty good idea of who Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are; they have at best passing familiarity with the other candidates. They haven’t watched any of the town halls all the way through, and may not have watched any of them at all. They haven’t seen clips on their Twitter feeds (if they use Twitter), or if they have, the candidates still tend to blur together. They don’t regularly talk with their friends about the candidates, or perhaps not at all.”

“There’s nothing at all wrong with that. After all, if all you do politically is vote, then tuning in this early is a big waste of time.”