“The visit had all the trappings of a full-fledged presidential campaign: a speech at the state Democratic convention, a pep talk to door-knocking volunteers, breakfast with labor leaders, appearances alongside the party’s candidate for governor,” the Los Angeles Times reports.

“The only thing absent was a formal announcement by Martin O’Malley that he was, in fact, seeking the White House in 2016. But unlike a certain other much-chronicled, vastly better-known prospect, Maryland’s two-term governor makes it no secret that, if not officially running for president, he is at least actively striding in that direction.”

“Republican candidates for governor around the country have built an unexpectedly strong position for election this fall, helped by an improving economy, disaffection with President Obama and a national fund-raising machine that is leagues ahead of the opposition,” the New York Times reports.

“Four years after an economic crisis and opposition to Mr. Obama’s health care law propelled Republicans to capture a lopsided majority of statehouses across the country, they are faced with a staggering political task: defending 22 of the 36 executive mansions that will be up for grabs in November, led by a governor who is trying to rebound from a scandal.”

“While the sheer scale of Republican gains four years ago offers Democrats a wealth of opportunities to win, the political environment appears to be tilting again in the Republicans’ direction.”

“The 2014 campaign season’s got a sleeper issue: a government bank most people have never heard of,” Politico reports.

“The Export-Import Bank, a federal entity that has handed out loans to American businesses in relative obscurity for years, is suddenly a political flashpoint — either a symbol of government-sponsored corporate welfare, as some tea party Republicans argue, or a critical force for small business, some Democrats and establishment Republicans say.”

A new Insider Advantage poll in Georgia finds Jack Kingston (R) edging David Perdue (R) in the Republican U.S. Senate runoff, 43% to 41%.

Chris McDaniel (R) said that “as a result of misleading information coming from the Secretary of State’s Office,” many county clerks aren’t coughing up the voting records he needs for a challenge of his June 24 GOP runoff loss to incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran (R), the Jackson Clarion Ledger reports.

McDaniel also claims to have found over 8,300 questionable ballots cast, “many of which were unquestionably cast by voters ineligible to participate in the June 24th runoff election.”

National Journal: “Edwin Edwards is loosely a New Deal Democrat, but he doesn’t believe so much in any grand vision of America; he believes in doing favors. His version of politics is much more personal than ideological. Edwards is running for Congress in a district that Mitt Romney won by 34 percentage points–enemy territory for a Democrat–but he believes he can prevail by peeling off Republicans one by one, with a promise that he’ll do right by each and every one of them. Sure, Edwards is competing in an era of micro-targeting and ideological purity, when retail political skills are much less central to congressional elections than they once were. But so what, his thinking seems to go. Who can resist the sly smile, the Cajun lilt, and the mischievous wink of the man they call the Silver Fox?”