A new Loras College poll in Iowa finds Hillary Clinton crushing Donald Trump in the presidential race, 48% to 34%.
In the U.S. Senate race, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) is barely aheaad of challenger Patty Judge, 46% to 45%.
“What they’ve asked me to do is to speak all three nights. I turned it down.”
— Donald Trump, talking about the GOP convention with the New York Times while insisting “it would get high ratings” if he did.
Politico: “Now, Republicans smell blood in the water, and they’re looking to damage Murphy so badly that Democrats are forced to spend heavily on his behalf ahead of the state’s Aug. 30 primary — or abandon the race altogether. The GOP is adopting a strategy that’s been used against it repeatedly in recent election cycles: Propping up a politically toxic, outside-the-mainstream candidate in the other party’s primary, in this case firebrand liberal Rep. Alan Grayson.”
“The reversal of fortunes in Florida could hardly have come at a better time for Republicans, after weeks of negative headlines about their presumptive presidential nominee, Donald Trump, and increasing concerns about a down-ballot disaster for the party.”
“Every day I check the news, but every day our two presidential candidates are still Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.”
Attorney General Loretta Lynch “plans to announce on Friday that she will accept whatever recommendation career prosecutors and the F.B.I. director make about whether to bring charges related to Hillary Clinton’s personal email server,” the New York Times reports.
“Her decision removes the possibility that a political appointee will overrule investigators in the case.”
“The Justice Department had been moving toward such an arrangement for months — officials said in April that it was being considered — but a private meeting between Ms. Lynch and former President Bill Clinton this week set off a political furor and made the decision all but inevitable.”
A must-read in the Telegraph:
By noon, Mr Johnson, the front-runner for the Tory leadership, was no longer a runner at all, ousted by what was being called a “cuckoo nest plot”. Having been comprehensively stitched up by his running mate and several other “supporters”, he threw in the towel, his ambitions in ruins.
“We’re going to have to do things that are unthinkable almost. Unthinkable, when you look at what’s happening to us, when you look at what’s going on in this country and around the world, and we don’t want, you know they’re allowed to cut off heads and they’re allowed to chop off heads and we can’t water board. So people can have disagreements, but I feel we have to get much, much, tougher, stronger and smart.”
— Donald Trump, in an interview with NH1.
“Donald Trump’s campaign has begun formally vetting possible running mates, with former House speaker Newt Gingrich emerging as the leading candidate followed by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie,” the Washington Post reports.
“Given Trump’s unpredictability, campaign associates caution that the presumptive Republican nominee could still shake up his shortlist. But with little more than two weeks before the start of the Republican National Convention, Gingrich and Christie have been asked to submit documents and are being cast as favorites for the post inside the campaign.”
This new ad from Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO) is pretty telling.
Amy Walter: “President Obama has gotten a bump in his numbers, but they aren’t transferring to his party. Nor do they seem to be related to better feelings among Americans about the state of the economy or the direction of the country. In fact, the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found Trump with a ten point advantage over Clinton on the question of who’d best ‘deal with the economy.'”
“At this point, at least, Americans seem to be making clear distinctions about their feelings of the president and those in his party. Yes, Hillary Clinton’s fate is tied somewhat to Obama’s success. The worse they feel about him and his Administration, the harder it is for her to convince Americans to support a third Democratic term in the White House. But, it’s also true that she has her own liabilities that make it difficult for Obama’s approval ratings to “transfer” to her. She represents not only the “status quo” but she’s a candidate with deep and enduring negatives that even a popular president can’t erase.”
“That could be a Mexican plane up there — they’re getting ready to attack.”
— Donald Trump, quoted by The Hill, pointing to an airplane that was flying over his rally.
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) is “in play” as a possible contender to be named Donald Trump’s running mate at next month’s GOP convention, sources familiar with the vice presidential search tell NBC News.
Pence was made aware several weeks ago through an intermediary that he was being considered for the VP slot.
“It’s time to move on. This man has paid the price.”
— Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D), in an interview with WTOP, on former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) after the Supreme Court overturned his corruption conviction.
“A week after Democrats staged a nearly 26-hour sit-in demanding a vote on gun control measures, Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) said the House will vote next week on legislation to block suspected terrorists from buying guns,” The Hill reports.
“Democrats launched an historic, daylong protest on the House floor last week demanding a vote on such legislation in the wake of the Orlando shooting rampage that killed 49… Ryan has dismissed the sit-in as a ‘publicity stunt’ and said Republicans will be ready for the next one.”
A draft rule for the GOP convention, obtained by MSNBC, would effectively lock-in Donald Trump as the GOP nominee and kill the “Stop Trump” movement once and for all.
“Anti-Trump forces have talked up rules that could let delegates vote against Trump, regardless of the primary results. But the new rule would stop any and all of those efforts with a silver bullet — freezing the 2012 rules so that no alternatives go into effect this year.”
Less than three weeks before the Republican convention, Gov. John Kasich’s team is boasting that he “is the most popular Republican politician in the nation,” the Columbus Dispatch reports.
“John Weaver, chief strategist for the defunct John Kasich presidential campaign, sent an email this afternoon highlighting the results of new polling showing Kasich — not Trump — as the strongest potential candidate against the presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.