“Top allies of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are diving into the midterm elections with an initial fall television advertising reservation of nearly $25 million,” the Washington Examiner reports.

“Senate Leadership Fund, financed by wealthy campaign contributors cultivated by the Kentucky Republican, is placing buys in Missouri, Nevada, and North Dakota in a bid to pad the GOP’s thin 51-49 majority. The group plans tens of millions more in advertising to begin after Labor Day, but is delaying to guard its November strategy.”

Special counsel Robert Mueller “is preparing to accelerate his probe into possible collusion between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russians who sought to interfere in the 2016 election,” Bloomberg reports.

“Mueller and his team of prosecutors and investigators have an eye toward producing conclusions — and possible indictments — related to collusion by fall… He’ll be able to turn his full attention to the issue as he resolves other questions, including deciding soon whether to find that Trump sought to obstruct justice.”

“Signs of suspicious Russian contacts first surfaced in late 2015… On three occasions, Russians offered people associated with Trump’s campaign dirt on Democrat Clinton — all before it was publicly known that Russians had hacked the Democratic National Committee and Clinton’s campaign chairman.”

New York Times: “Democratic turnout has risen more sharply than Republican turnout in at least 123 congressional districts, including districts where Republican incumbents are most vulnerable, in states like California and New Jersey.”

“That turnout pattern is highly encouraging to Democrats who hope to flood the polls in November and unseat Republicans, even in districts that typically lean to the right. Midterm campaigns often hinge on voter enthusiasm: Without a presidential race to draw casual voters to the polls, the party out of power tends to benefit from disproportionate turnout among Americans who feel angry or aggrieved about politics in Washington.”