Comment on Trump Shifts His Tone — For Now

Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “North Carolina moves from Leans Republican to Toss-up in our Electoral College ratings, further emphasizing a focus on 7 key swing states to the exclusion of almost everywhere else.” “Kamala Harris is actually polling slightly better in North Carolina than Georgia, but there are reasons to think she’ll still perform a little better in the latter.” This rating change is reflected on the interactive map.

John Heileman: “Political journalism has always struggled to fully capture or cope with Trump when he’s lost the plot—and it’s struggling mightily now. The standard recourse is to embrace euphemism: to say that Harris’s rise has ‘rattled’ or ‘disoriented’ Trump or ‘knocked him off his game,’ that he’s failing to ‘drive a consistent message,’ that he’s ‘unfocused’ or ‘undisciplined.'” “But if we’re honest about Trump’s public behavior over the past month, there’s no getting around the fact that the words and phrases above aren’t merely euphemisms or modestly inaccurate descriptions of his performances on the stump.

“On Friday, a longtime friend of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the independent candidate for president, delivered boxes carrying 110,000 signatures to election officials in Arizona, to secure ballot access in a critical battleground state,” the New York Times reports. “A vast majority of those signatures, according to two people closely involved with the campaign’s operations, were not gathered by local volunteers, or even by paid canvassers working for the campaign.

New York Times: “About a month before voting begins in some states, American voters have less knowledge about the people helping the 2024 presidential candidates raise money than they have had in any election in 20 years.” “That’s because, for the first time in modern presidential fund-raising, neither the Democratic nor the Republican nominee has disclosed the names of so-called bundlers, the people who amass large financial contributions for presidential campaigns and, in the eyes of transparency advocates, wield significant power in campaigns and presidential administrations.”

“J. D. Vance, do you understand why there was a sudden job opening for running mate on the GOP ticket? They tried to kill your predecessor.” — Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), at the Democratic convention.

“Fox News has been the undisputed leader in cable news ratings for years, but ahead of the 2024 election, viewers should expect the network to appeal to a broader audience of Democrats and independents, in addition to its conservative base,” Axios reports.