Stuart Rothenberg: “Unless you are Ronald Reagan running for re-election (‘It’s morning again in America’), most competitive presidential campaigns are about a single objective: making the race a referendum on the opponent, particularly if he or she is a long-time politician who has high negatives.”

“That’s how Barack Obama won a second term. He defined Mitt Romney and ran against that caricature he created (with Romney’s help, of course).”

“But whether it’s because he really doesn’t understand campaigns, or more likely, that his obvious narcissism makes it impossible for him to see that any topic could be more interesting than himself, Donald Trump continues to make the 2016 election a referendum on his accomplishments, his past statements and his beliefs.”

“Donald Trump — who made a fortune in part by lending his name to business ventures on which he left a light touch — appears poised to take a similar approach to building his ground game,” CNN reports.

“The presumptive GOP nominee has argued he can put as many as 15 states into play this fall, but he lags far behind Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton in building up troops for a general election battle. Rather than building out teams of his own hires in swing states — the model previous nominees like Mitt Romney and John McCain relied on — Trump is signaling to the Republican National Committee and state parties that he will rely on them to take the lead in organizing key toss up states.”

Meanwhile, Trump tells Bloomberg that there’s “no reason” for him to raise $1 billion for his campaign because he gets so much free publicity.

“Donald Trump has some advice for panicked Republicans in Washington who are melting down over his most incendiary statements: Man up,” the New York Times reports.

Said Trump: “Politicians are so politically correct anymore, they can’t breathe. The people are tired of this political correctness when things are said that are totally fine. It is out of control. It is gridlock with their mouths.”

Donald Trump told Bloomberg that he’ll probably choose “one of four or five politicians” as his running mate “and that his short list includes some vanquished rivals who have dropped out of the 2016 presidential race. He is considering at least one ex-rival who has so far refused to endorse him, but who will ‘come over to my side.'”

But he’ll wait until the GOP convention to announce his pick: “I’d like to save it, give it the old fashioned way, right?”

Nonetheless, “some advisers have worried that Trump may decide on his own to post the announcement on Twitter one night with little warning.”

First Read: “Fourteen months after Hillary Clinton launched her second presidential bid and almost a year since Donald Trump began his run, the general election officially begins — with Election Day now exactly five months away. And here is the reality: Trump squandered his five-week head start after wrapping up his party’s nomination on May 3 as Clinton and Bernie Sanders battled another month.”

“Maybe most noteworthy of all, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell delivered this warning shot to Trump: ‘I think it’s time for him to look like a serious candidate for president, which means that you need to think before you speak, you need to apologize when you make a mistake, and get on script.’ Ouch. In fairness to Trump, he accomplished that in his speech last night (despite how stilted his Teleprompter-aided performance seemed). Trump has another month to calm his party. If he doesn’t, the GOP is in big trouble this fall.”

Donald Trump issued a statement saying it “is unfortunate that my comments have been misconstrued as a categorical attack against people of Mexican heritage,” but the statement did not contain an apology, McClatchy reports.

BuzzFeed: “Conversations with more than a dozen reporters, producers, and executives across the major networks reveal internal tensions about the wall-to-wall coverage Trump has received and the degree to which the Republican frontrunner has — or hasn’t — been challenged on their air.”

“Two network sources also confirmed the unprecedented control the television networks have surrendered to Trump in a series of private negotiations, allowing him to dictate specific details about placement of cameras at his event, to ensure coverage consists primarily of a single shot of his face.”