Comment on One last last chance: GOP strains for Obamacare repeal votes

“The first wave of presidential ballots is in the mail, and Republican and Democratic officials alike have a plea for voters: Don’t wait for Election Day,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “Campaigns are hoping to lock in commitments from their most-likely voters early to focus resources on the less enthusiastic. They are urging Americans to avoid the risk that they will be blocked by Election Day crises: bad weather, viruses, power outages, computer crashes or flat tires.”

Washington Post: “As Trump makes his third run for the White House, the Harris campaign has ramped up its outreach to Republicans — from the rank and file to some of the party’s most recognizable figures — in an effort to win votes and bolster its message that Trump represents a unique danger to American democracy.”

“Over the past week, Americans were more likely to hear news about former President Donald Trump than about Vice President Kamala Harris, according to The Breakthrough, a CNN polling project that tracks what average Americans are actually hearing, reading and seeing about the presidential candidates throughout the campaign,” CNN reports.

“Recent spikes in voter registrations are shaking up the already contentious 2024 presidential race, with hundreds of thousands of new voters now signed up to cast ballots and help determine who resides in the White House for the next four years,” USA Today reports. “In the majority of the seven key battleground states where Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris are particularly close in the polls, the current number of registered voters is up compared to the 2020 presidential contest that coincided with the COVID-19 global pandemic.”

“Many voters know little about Ohio Sen. JD Vance and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the men selected to be one heartbeat away from the presidency. That’s not uncommon for vice presidential candidates, who rarely have a major effect on the outcome of races for the White House,” the Los Angeles Times reports. “But the tightness of the 2024 election, potentially coming down to a small number of votes in a handful of battleground states, means extra scrutiny is being paid to Walz’s and Vance’s first and only debate, scheduled for Tuesday.” “Given former President Trump’s refusal to debate Vice President Kamala Harris again, the clash between their running mates — in front of the largest audience since they were chosen — could be the last time many voters hear directly from candidates on the GOP and Democratic tickets.” USA Today: Will Vance and Walz draw audiences like the record-breaking Biden-Palin debate? The Guardian: Walz v.

“A Member of Parliament quit the UK’s governing Labour Party, unleashing a deeply personal attack on Prime Minister Keir Starmer and slamming the ‘staggering’ revelations of hypocrisy under his leadership,” Bloomberg reports. “In an excoriating resignation letter, Rosie Duffield, elected Canterbury’s first ever Labour MP in 2017, criticized Starmer for ‘inexplicably accepting expensive gifts of designer suits and glasses’ while at the same time slashing winter fuel payments to pensioners and refusing to reverse an unpopular Conservative cut to child benefits.”