NBC News: “Despite having months to prepare for the probable outcome that Harris would be chosen, the Trump re-elect effort countered with a series of contradictory and at times confusing messaging on the California senator, on everything from her record as a California prosecutor to her positioning in the party.”

“Some allies of the president were stunned that the rejoinder appeared to be so flat-footed and incongruous, reiterating that Trump and his campaign have had trouble landing a punch on presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden and this does not bode well for their same attempts with Harris.”

Playbook on President Trump congratulating Marjorie Taylor Greene (R), a QAnon conspiracy theorist, on her GOP primary victory last night and almost certain victory in the general election:

“Privately, Republicans have said they’re ashamed of this but don’t believe there’s anything they can do about it. Of course, they’re wrong — they can spend money to defeat people who espouse beliefs contrary to theirs, but they have decided not to.”

Carly Fiorina said she disagrees with Sen. Kamala Harris “on many things,” but added “setting aside those disagreements as a woman, I think it is high time that we see a ferociously self-determined, highly accomplished, thoroughly prepared woman of color at the top of the national ticket,” The Hill reports.

She added: “And I think regardless of people’s political persuasions, I think honestly it just reminds us that diversity and possibility are the core of what makes this nation great.”

A new SurveyUSA poll in Kansas finds Roger Marshall (R) leading Barbara Bollier (D) in the U.S. Senate race, 46% to 44%.

NBC News has a very good deep dive into the process that led Joe Biden to pick Sen. Kamala Harris.

A group seeking to place rapper Kanye West’s name on the Montana’s presidential ballot this fall has spent the past few days gathering signatures from residents, telling them their signature could help take votes away from Joe Biden, the Billings Gazette reports.

Said one organizer: “You want to help Trump? We’re trying to take votes away from creepy Uncle Joe.”

First Read: “Joe Biden’s pick of Kamala Harris to be his vice presidential nominee yesterday made history — and it was also widely viewed in the political world as the likeliest choice. Which is why it’s so surprising that Republicans seemed so unprepared with a strategy to define her.”

“The GOP’s messaging on Harris was mixed from the start. Is she a finger-in-the-wind pol or a hardened leftist? Power-hungry or just a ‘puppet’ of radicals? ‘In lockstep’ with Biden or causing a ‘liberal revolt’ from disappointed progressives?”

“Is she actually ‘against everything that Black Americans are screaming about today’ because of her record as a prosecutor? Or is she soft on crime and ‘marching in the streets with the BLM organization’?”

“Republicans have been struggling for months to settle on one coherent argument against Biden. And despite having months to prepare for an argument against his veep, the same muddle is happening with Harris.”

Thomas Gilmer (R) holds a slim lead in the Republican primary in Connecticut’s second congressional district even though he dropped out of the race after being arrested on Monday for a violent altercation with a former girlfriend, the Hartford Courant reports.

President Trump tweeted congratulations to Marjorie Taylor Greene (R), the QAnon conspiracy theorist who won the Republican nomination in Georgia’s deep-red 14th Congressional District runoff last night.

Mike Allen makes three good points:

1. “She was always at the top of his list… It says something encouraging about these dire times for America that Joe Biden could both make history by naming the first Black and South Asian woman to a major-party U.S. presidential ticket — and fulfill conventional wisdom at the same time.”
2. “With some of the best connected reporters in the land obsessing about the choice, there was no definitive leak, even at the end — something Biden’s high command is super-proud of.
   Amid the chaos and improvisation of the Trump Show, Biden ran an old-school, by-the-book process. His White House would be a similar Return to Normal.”
3. “Biden’s selection process raised the profiles of several other women of color who are now set up to star in a new chapter of American politics.”

Sen. Kamala Harris released a new video about how her mother inspired her decision to become a lawyer and then a politician.

It also includes the moment when Joe Biden offered her the job of being his running mate.

New York Times: “By selecting the junior senator from California, a state that Democrats have captured in every presidential election since 1992, Mr. Biden embraced the modern imperatives of Democratic coalition building that have made the days of choosing running mates who could deliver their home states a relic of the past.”

“Ms. Harris, who is half Black and half Indian-American, is not expected to scramble the electoral map, nor was the Biden campaign looking to do so. The former vice president leads in polls of most of the crucial battlegrounds.”

“Instead, ever since Black voters resurrected his primary candidacy in South Carolina, Mr. Biden and his campaign team have made the pursuit of Black voters in November a centerpiece of his bid for the White House. And he had said from the start of the process that he would chose a woman as his running mate.”

The new FiveThirtyEight forecast — just launched this morning — gives Joe Biden a 71% chance to defeat Donald Trump in the presidential election.

Nate Silver: “If these numbers give you a sense of deja vu, it may be because they’re very similar to our final forecast in 2016 … when Trump also had a 29 percent chance of winning! (And Hillary Clinton had a 71 percent chance.) So if you’re not taking a 29 percent chance as a serious possibility, I’m not sure there’s much we can say at this point, although there’s a Zoom poker game that I’d be happy to invite you to.”

“One last parallel to 2016 — when some models gave Clinton as high as a 99 percent chance of winning — is that FiveThirtyEight’s forecast tends to be more conservative than others.”