First Read: “Donald Trump’s support from Republican voters tends to come from men, seniors and those having a high school education or less, according to results from an online NBC News/SurveyMonkey survey of more than 3,000 GOP primary voters. Trump also has widespread ideological backing from Republicans – as he gets the most support of any candidate from moderate, conservative and very conservative GOP primary voters.”

Norm Ornstein: “What explains the Trump bump? The answer is the emerging, even dominant force in the GOP—an angry, anti-establishment, anti-leadership populism that was triggered by the financial crisis and the 2008 bailout, cynically exploited in 2010 and 2012 by the ‘Young Guns’ in the House and other GOP leaders in Congress to convert anger into turnout and elect Tea Party-oriented candidates. This force is now turning on those leaders, creating problems not just in the presidential race, but in a Congress whose leaders face the possibility of implosion ahead.”

“The angry populism has only grown with conservative rank and file incited to expect the repeal of Obamacare and an Obama capitulation on debt-ceiling showdowns and government shutdowns, ending repeatedly in disappointment. The sharp drop in Republican Party favorability shown in a recent Pew survey was driven by disenchantment among Republicans—an 18 percent decline in only six months.”

First Read: “As conservatives have declared war on Planned Parenthood (and remember that was the context of Bush’s remarks yesterday), it’s important to remember that there’s a fine line between abortion/Planned Parenthood and broader questions about women’s health.”

“Don’t forget: In 2012, the Obama campaign absolutely crushed Mitt Romney with TV advertisements (like this one) in Northern Virginia and the Denver suburbs on the subject of women’s health and Planned Parenthood.”

First Read: “As the political world remains transfixed on Donald Trump, here’s maybe your most important storyline heading into tomorrow’s first GOP debate: No one has more riding on a solid performance than Jeb Bush does.”

“After all, Bush has had a rough last week… Thursday night is going to be a big moment for Jeb, especially in this Summer of Donald Trump. Remember, Mitt Romney had plenty of challenges in his 2012 bid for the GOP nomination. But more often than not, he used solid debate performances to boost his position with Republican primary voters. Can Jeb do the same?”

Rick Klein: “As Republicans prepare for their debate, it’s clear that Hillary Clinton is already involved in hers – or, at least, the one she wants to be having. While GOPers tangle with each other, she is choosing to debate Republicans rather than her fellow Democrats. Not just any Republican, either (though she’d gladly take on Donald Trump when given the opening): Twice in the past week she’s gone out of her way to engage Jeb Bush directly on the campaign trail.””

Tuesday’s swift attack, on Twitter and later at a campaign event, engaged Bush on a quote where he later said he ‘misspoke,’ when he said as an aside in a riff on Planned Parenthood, ‘I’m not sure we need a half a billion dollars for women’s health issues.’ That’s in Clinton’s campaign wheelhouse, of course. The broader point, though, is that she’s looking for pitching on that part of the plate, so long as it’s served up by a Republican.”

“Any day Clinton can have herself running against an opponent, not just compared against herself, is a win in that campaign’s scorebook. It’s actually a dynamic that fuels the theory that a Joe Biden candidacy is good for Clinton. For now, though, she’s happy to swing at the easiest Republican pitching she can find.”

BuzzFeed got Gov. Bobby Jindal to do 67 consecutive push ups while talking about taxes.

Ann Selzer uses her “Selzer Score” to determine the top 10 candidates in the GOP field and finds Rick Perry makes it into the top 10, replacing John Kasich.

The index takes into account first and second choices, as well as a question on whether respondents could ever – or would never – support each candidate they didn’t name as their first or second pick.

A new WMUR poll in New Hampshire finds Sen. Bernie Sanders is chipping away at Hillary Clinton’s lead in the 2016 Democratic primary.

Clinton leads Sanders by just six points, 42% to 36%, with 5% supporting Vice President Joe Biden, who has been the subject of speculation in recent days about the possibility of becoming a candidate.

New York Times: “Those supporters, in the White House and the Senate, and within the political circles he has moved in for decades, fear that the legacy Mr. Biden has built as an effective partner who took on tough jobs for President Obama, not to mention the deep reservoir of public good will and sympathy he has amassed in his poignant handling of personal tragedies, could be sacrificed in the pursuit of an unsuccessful challenge to Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination.”

“They fret that Mr. Biden, as well known for his undisciplined, sometimes self-immolating comments as he is for his charm on the trail, could endanger Mr. Obama’s own legacy by injuring Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy and causing his party to lose control of the White House.”

Politico: “So if you’re trying to figure out why Donald Trump has so far left the political class in a state of stunned disbelief, it might be wise not to abandon every assumption about politics, but to ask a different question: When and why do voters behave in ways that seem to break the rules? When are bedrock assumptions about campaigns rendered at least temporarily inoperative? In this context, poll numbers taken months before an election don’t count; while they can measure a public mood, the choice of a candidate is something like a customer in a store trying on hats. The more telling question is: When do voters actually cast their ballots in ways that upend core premises?”

Newt Gingrich: “The amazing thing about Trump’s emergence is that it is self-made, without consultants, and virtually all by earned media.”

“Trump has gotten more news coverage for less money than any campaign I can remember. Part of his achievement is sheer showmanship. No one since P. T. Barnum has had the savvy for publicity that Trump demonstrates week after week.”