“The Bloomberg-owned firm Hawkfish, which ran the presidential campaign of Mike Bloomberg, is in serious talks to serve the presidential campaign of Joe Biden,” The Intercept reports.

“Along with Biden’s campaign, the firm is courting a wide swath of other progressive and Democratic organizations, opening up the possibility of Bloomberg gaining significant control over the party’s technology and data infrastructure.”

“The latest scorcher of an attack ad by the Republican Lincoln Project concedes Donald Trump had other priorities before launching his lackluster battle against COVID-19. But he wasn’t distracted by impeachment, as he claims. Instead, he was too busy golfing and packing people into campaign rallies,” the HuffPost reports.

“Republicans are increasingly concerned not only about President Trump’s daily briefings but also his broader plan to ease the nation out of the virus crisis and back to work. This concern is acute — and spreading,” Axios reports.

“Trump can easily address the briefing worries by doing fewer, but the lackluster bounce-back planning is what worries Republicans most.”

“Some think he has only weeks to figure it out. The consequences of failure would be a November defeat, some warn.”

A new Trump campaign ad features a montage of Joe Biden meeting with Chinese officials. Amid that montage (at the :39 mark) is a clip of him with Gary Locke, the former governor of Washington/Commerce secretary/ambassador to China, who is Asian-American, but… American.

Tom Steyer told Politico that he plans to use his resources to get Joe Biden elected, joining almost every candidate who dropped from the Democratic primary race in endorsing the former vice president. 

Ryan Lizza: “In the end, the most influential politician of 2020 may be the one who has been the most silent. With Bernie Sanders exiting the race and Joe Biden taking on the mantle of presumptive nominee, the man who hovered quietly over the race for more than a year, Barack Obama, will soon return to the political fray.”

“Obama wanted Sanders to have the day to himself and so he refrained from speaking (or tweeting) publicly on Wednesday. But Obama had always said his role in the primaries would be to unite the party when it’s over, and he’s been in close contact with both campaigns as the pandemic both froze the race without a clear victor and also made it more obvious that Biden would eventually prevail.”

Amy Walter: “I have been thinking a lot about North Carolina these days. While the former ‘Blue Wall’ states get the lion’s share of coverage,  North Carolina is actually the bigger bang for the buck. It is one of just two states — the other is Arizona — to have its presidential contest and its senate race in the Toss Up column. Oh, and it also has a competitive Governor’s race.”

“How North Carolina goes is not just going to determine who wins the White House, but also who controls the Senate.”

A day after Bernie Sanders dropped out of the Democratic primary race, Joe Biden has already adopted two elements of the Democratic socialist’s agenda and credited Sanders’ energetic movement with the change, CBS News reports.

“First, Biden said he now favors dropping the Medicare eligibility age by five years, to age 60, a step toward the Vermont senator’s marquee single-payer plan…”

“Second, Biden wants to forgive student loan debt for those earning up to $125,000, who attended public colleges, Historically Black Colleges or Universities, or private minority-serving institutions.”

“By law, President Trump’s campaign is not allowed to coordinate with a super PAC supporting it,” the Daily Beast reports.

“But in recent months, one such ostensibly independent group has purchased access to one of the campaign’s most valuable possessions: the massive email list that it has built over the last five years.”

“You know what? I’ll tell you, it does amaze me that President Obama hasn’t supported Sleepy Joe. It just hasn’t happened. When is it going to happen? When is it going to happen? Why isn’t he? He knows something that you don’t know, that I think I know, but you don’t know. So it’ll be interesting.”

— President Trump, quoted by CNN.