The Ultimate October Surprise

“Sen. J. D. Vance knows he has had a rocky rollout as Donald Trump’s running mate, but he doesn’t believe he has disappointed the former president,” NBC News reports. Said Vance: “I mean, I knew that when I came out of the gate there was going to be a couple of days of positive media coverage and then immediately they would go and attack me over everything that I had ever said in my life.” He added: “The price of entry of being on the national ticket and giving me an opportunity to govern is you have to … take the shots, and so I sort of expected it.

This photo is amazing and not AI, y'all. Photographer Jerome Brouillet snapped this shot when surfer Gabriel Medina had just finished a great run. Washington Post: The image, captured by Jerome Brouillet for Agence France-Presse, showed Medina and his tethered board appearing to perform parallel levitations above the South Pacific Ocean. Rather than a scene of serenity, however, the photo told a striking tale of the Olympics’ competitive spirit, given that Medina was using his right arm and raised index finger to make a “No.

A new Emerson College Polling/WHDH survey of New Hampshire voters finds Kamala Harris ahead of Donald Trump, 50% to 46%. With third party candidates on the ballot, Harris leads Trump 48% to 41%; 6% support Robert Kennedy Jr., 1% support Jill Stein.

“The first night of the Democratic National Convention, now less than three weeks away, is expected to feature a keynote speaker previously slated to close the program: President Joe Biden,” CNN reports. “Biden is expected to deliver a primetime speech during the opening night of the Chicago convention, according to three sources familiar with the planning, with the evening’s programming centering on Biden’s legacy and achievements.”

“Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to announce her running mate by Tuesday, when she will hold her first rally with her pick in Philadelphia,” Politico reports. “The two will barnstorm cities in seven swing states in four days. In addition to Philadelphia, they’ll hit western Wisconsin, Detroit, Raleigh, Savannah, Phoenix and Las Vegas.”

In late June, I was at a candidate forum in Sun City West, a sprawling retirement community northwest of Phoenix, when an Arizona Republican sitting next to me leaned over and offered a suggestion. “You need to do a story,” she said, “about the ads Masters is running against Hamadeh.” The primary, which ends on July 30, features both Blake Masters, the party’s 2022 nominee for US Senate, and Abe Hamadeh, the party’s 2022 nominee for attorney general.