New York Times: “Mr. Trump is not running a campaign in the modern sense — or what was the modern sense until about yesterday. Rather, he oversees a prolific content production studio that has accomplished what every major media conglomerate is trying to pull off with mixed success.”

“It has managed to produce a huge amount of inexpensive programming that has consistently dominated the ratings and the conversation across the entire new-media landscape — cable news, broadcast news, radio, Twitter, Facebook and who knows what else.”

Harvard professor Niall Ferguson told Bloomberg that Donald Trump has a better chance of becoming president than the betting markets currently project.

Said Ferguson: “Trump has a pretty close to 50/50 chance of winning this election, especially since Hillary Clinton is, let’s face it, not a very strong and attractive candidate. We’re still kind of underestimating this. The betting markets still think that Trump has a one-in-three, one-in-four shot at being president, but it’s actually I think much much higher than that.”

“Donald Trump has paid men on his campaign staff one-third more than women, while Hillary Clinton has compensated men and women equally,” according to a Boston Globe analysis of payroll data for both campaigns.

“Trump’s campaign staff is also far less diverse than that of his likely Democratic opponent. Only about 9 percent of his team are minorities, compared with nearly a third of Clinton’s staff.”

BuzzFeed: “In the days since San Diego, aides and supporters have said they see the speech ‘breaking through the noise,’ as one put it — and resonating on the trail to a degree Clinton hasn’t seen in past efforts to draw sustained attention to Trump’s failed businesses, for instance, or to his comments about profiting from the housing crisis.”

“Clinton and her aides were particularly gratified to see voters respond with recognition to the speech across California, where she and her husband are on a five-day breakneck schedule of roughly 40 combined events and retail stops.”

For members: Clinton Cracked the Code for Taking Down Trump

Edward Luce: “In a season of discredited predictions, here is a safe one. The presidential debates between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will shatter all audience records. Their draw will bear no relation to the substance of the issues. Tens of millions will tune in to watch our age’s most trigger-happy insulter denigrate one of the world’s most famous women.”

“In ancient Rome gladiators slaughtered barbarians to keep the people entertained. In this case however, the barbarian has a shot at becoming emperor. Whether or not he succeeds, US democracy will never be the same.”