A new Washington Post poll finds a “once-fractious primary battle” for Washington, DC mayor has narrowed into a two-person race with Muriel Bowser leading embattled Mayor Vincent Gray, 30% to 27%.

“The new polling indicates that, across a wide field of eight candidates, Bowser is now best positioned to capi­tal­ize on concerns about Gray’s honesty. Bowser’s surge offers more evidence that the electorate sees little connection between the city’s chief executive and its economic boom; by a two-to-one margin, voters say the city is on the right track, according to the poll.”

A new Marist Poll finds Bowser leading 28% to 26%.

“She and I are fine. Are we besties for the rest of our lives? No.”

— Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), quoted by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, on her relationship with Hillary Clinton.

“The 2016 presidential race has received more attention earlier than any
other in recent memory, quickening a tendency that began some 30 years
ago,” National Journal reports.

“To make sure this wasn’t a fluke, we looked at month-by-month data going back all the way to the month before the preceding presidential election. The early coverage of 2016 easily outstripped the early coverage of 2008 in all but three months, and overall about doubled the number of stories written from October 2004 through March 2006.”

Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) accused Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) of trying to oust him from Congress during the recent primary, the Dallas Morning News reports.

Said Sessions: “I don’t think there’s any doubt that Senator Cruz did get involved and had ideas about who he would prefer to work with, and that’s OK.”

“Meanwhile, Sessions says he’s not holding any grudges. But he wants Cruz to learn how to play inside the GOP sandbox.”

Stu Rothenberg looks at the recent polling and finds that attitudinally, independent voters “once again more closely resemble GOP voters than Democrats.”

“Democrats can hope that this cycle’s independents really are closet Republicans — presidential candidate Mitt Romney won independents by 5 points in 2012, according to the exit poll — but dismissing the president’s problems with independent voters seems like a risky strategy that looks dangerously like denial.”

“Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who along with his wife plowed more than $92 million into efforts to help mostly losing candidates in the 2012 elections, is undertaking a new strategy for 2016 — to tap his fortune on behalf of a more mainstream Republican with a clear shot to win the White House,” the Washington Post reports.

“This time, the Adelsons are plotting their investments based not on personal loyalty, but on a much more strategic aim: to help select a Republican nominee they believe will have broad appeal to an increasingly diverse national electorate.”

During the Clinton administration, David Brock “was a self-described conservative hit man intent on taking down the Clintons,” the New York Times reports.

“He famously went to Arkansas in 1993 and wrote an article for a conservative magazine asserting that state troopers had facilitated sexual liaisons for Bill Clinton, then the governor, which led to Paula Jones’s 1994 sexual harassment lawsuit against Mr. Clinton and Mr. Brock’s elevation in Republican power circles.”

“On Tuesday, Mr. Brock will return to Arkansas for the first time since that article, this time in the warm embrace of the Clinton world: He is a featured speaker at the Clinton School of Public Service at the University of Arkansas, delivering an address titled ‘Countering the Culture of Clinton Hating.'”

“Do I have the best credentials? Probably not. ‘Cause, you know, whatever. But I have long and strong ties to this state,”

— Former Sen. Scott Brown (R), quoted by the AP, on his New Hampshire U.S. Senate race.

People close to Jeb Bush (R) “said he has not formally begun to consider a presidential campaign but plans to decide no later than early 2015,” the Washington Post reports.

Said Bush adviser Sally Bradshaw: “People who thought he was not looking at this race six months ago were underestimating his interest, and people who think he’s made a decision and is moving forward to run right now are exaggerating where his thinking is.”

“This is not a presidential election. This is a bunch of elections in different states.”

— Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), quoted by Fortune, on why Republicans will not put forward a unified agenda for the midterm elections.

Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) ruled out campaigning for U.S. Senate nominee Jim Oberweis (R), saying he would rather “protect” his relationship with Sen. Dick Durbin D-Ill. and not launch a “partisan jihad,” the Chicago Sun Times reports.

Said Kirk: “I’m going to be protecting my relationship with Dick and not launching into a partisan jihad that hurts our partnership to both pull together for Illinois.”