Edward Luce: “The thing about freak accidents is that they do not keep happening. Donald Trump benefited from more than one lightning strike in 2016. His opponent, Hillary Clinton, offered a living, breathing picture of America’s reviled establishment. The director of the FBI, James Comey, was an unusually incompetent investigator. His last-minute intervention helped sway the election. The US electoral college managed to skew a popular defeat for Mr Trump into a victory. Finally, Facebook offered the ideal platform for Vladimir Putin’s fake news blitz.”

“None of these conditions is likely to recur in 2020 — or at least not in the same way. Yet Mr Trump is betting that history will repeat itself.”

President Trump told Telemundo that Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden look “tired crazy” and “exhausted.”

Said Trump: “Bernie, Bernie looks like he’s had it. Bernie looks crazy, but he always did. But he looks like a tired crazy right now.”

On Biden, Trump said “he looks like he’s just exhausted. I don’t know what happened to him but he is exhausted and he doesn’t do any work, he’s not working. One thing I found out about this job, to do it right, and I’ve done it right — you have to work hard.”

Aaron Blake: “Most polls have shown a majority of Americans — as many as 57 percent in one poll, but usually a slimmer majority — say they will definitely not vote to reelect Trump. It’s one thing to lack appeal to such a large segment of the population; it’s another for them to rule out supporting you entirely. If this segment of the electorate doesn’t budge, it would make Trump’s reelection very difficult; he’d have to hope these people simply don’t turn out to vote, that he could win with a plurality thanks to third-party candidates and/or that he could carry the electoral college without winning the popular vote (again).”

“As problematic for Trump is that this number seems to be bearing out in early polling — in the form of a ceiling. Most matchups in high-quality national polls have him struggling to climb out of the low 40s, no matter who his opponent is.”

A new Pew Ressearch poll finds just 3% of Democratic or likely Democratic voters think the optimal age for a president is someone in their 70s.

Time: “Gone is the rickety operation that eked out an upset victory over Hillary Clinton. In its place, advisers boast, is a state-of-the-art campaign befitting an incumbent President. Trump’s campaign is gearing up to spend $1 billion, and may well get there. His team has spent more money, earlier in the campaign, than any re-election bid in recent history. Campaign staff sit in slick offices in a glass-skinned tower overlooking the Potomac River in Arlington, Va. And Trump has won total control of the Republican National Committee, which fought against him for much of 2016.”

“Despite the trappings of convention, however, Trump has for the most part thrown out the playbook for incumbency. The last three two-term Presidents were lifted in important ways by a bipartisan message. Bill Clinton ran on the 1994 crime bill and tax reform. George W. Bush ran on keeping America safe in the wake of 9/11. Barack Obama reminded voters that Osama bin Laden was dead and General Motors was alive.”

“Trump, who lost the popular vote in 2016 and is the only President in the history of Gallup polling never to crack 50% approval, says he’s ready to defy that legacy. ‘I think my base is so strong, I’m not sure that I have to do that,’ he tells Time, after being asked whether he should reach out to swing voters. The mantra of Trump 2020 is ‘turnout, turnout, turnout,’ as campaign manager Brad Parscale puts it. ‘People all think you have to change people’s minds. You have to get people to show up that believe in you.'”

“The House GOP campaign arm is under fire from Republicans who are growing increasingly anxious about the party’s plan to win back the chamber in 2020,” Politico reports.

“Republicans still don’t have an answer to Democrats’ online fundraising behemoth ActBlue. GOP leaders are bickering behind closed doors. The head of recruitment has decided to retire. And some rank-and-file lawmakers are starting to express alarm about the party’s strategy as the campaign ramps up.”

Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX), a well-connected Democratic incumbent, is now facing an insurgent primary challenge from Jessica Cisneros (D), a 26-year-old immigration attorney who once interned in his Washington office, CBS News reports.

“The centrist congressman has represented Texas’ 28th congressional district, which stretches from Laredo and other border communities along the Rio Grande to the outskirts of San Antonio, since 2005.”

Said Cisneros: “He might have that ‘D’ next to his name, but in reality he’s been walking and talking like a Republican. He’s Trump’s favorite Democrat.”

“Joe Biden declined to answer questions on the campaign trail this week about his son’s overseas business dealings in countries where the then-vice president was conducting diplomatic work, an issue his political opponents have already begun to wield against him as he wades into the 2020 presidential campaign,” ABC News reports.