A new Economist/YouGov poll finds Joe Biden leading the Democratic field nationally with 22%, followed by Elizabeth Warren at 17%, Kamala Harris at 14%, Bernie Sanders at 11% and Pete Buttigieg at 5%.
Yahoo News: “Here’s something that should keep Democrats up at night. In 2020, the party’s presidential nominee could recapture the big, historically blue states of Pennsylvania and Michigan, but still lose the Electoral College, 270-268, if Donald Trump ekes out another narrow victory in Wisconsin — a state he won by just .7 percentage points in 2016.”
“This isn’t some far-fetched scenario. For Democrats, Pennsylvania and Michigan are riper demographic targets than the Badger State, where the electorate is heavier on (Trump-friendly) non-college-educated whites and lighter on (largely anti-Trump) African-Americans. In the ‘blue wave’ midterm elections of 2018, Dems swept the governorships of Pennsylvania and Michigan by double-digit margins. They flipped Wisconsin by a single percentage point. In Wisconsin’s only statewide contest since then, a conservative state Supreme Court candidate upset his liberal opponent. And when Priorities USA, America’s largest Democratic super-PAC, recently projected the 2020 results, it said that ‘if the election were held today,’ only one state was too close to call: Wisconsin.”
Insider Louisville: “To win this race, McGrath will likely need a fairly large bloc of people who are voting for Trump for president to then cross party lines and vote for her in the Senate race.”
“Politics is dynamic. So it’s not that McGrath absolutely can’t win. But she probably needs at least one of three things to happen: 1. Trump to become much more unpopular than he is now so that he would be weaker in Kentucky, too. 2. Conservative-leaning voters to put aside their general partisan preferences because they are tired of McConnell, even as they remain aligned with Trump. 3. McGrath’s particular appeal as a former Marine to get conservative-leaning voters to support her, even as they remain aligned with Trump.”
“Billionaire activist Tom Steyer’s campaign rolled out a seven-figure television ad campaign promoting his nascent campaign, the largest single television ad buy in the Democratic presidential primary,” Politico reports.
“Joe Biden intended to stay above the fray. He wasn’t going to punch down at opponents, or embark on any apology tours for past votes or statements. Creating a sense of inevitability was the goal,” Politico reports. “That strategy is now out the window.”
The Hill: Biden campaign looks to correct early stumbles.
“Greg Murphy won Tuesday’s runoff for the Republican nomination in North Carolina’s 3rd Congressional District in a race that exposed a gender rift among U.S. House Republicans and attracted attention from some of the biggest names in Republican politics,” the Raleigh News and Observer reports. “Murphy will be the favorite to represent the GOP-leaning district in Eastern North Carolina.”
A new ABC News-Washington Post poll finds 60% of Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, the most since 1995. “More also say their state should make it easier, rather than harder, for women to have access to abortion, with a plurality favoring no change in the status quo.”
Kentucky U.S. Senate candidate Amy McGrath (D) raised more than $2.5 million in the first 24 hours of her campaign against Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), NBC News reports.
“McGrath campaign manager Mark Nickolas said it’s the most ever raised in the first 24 hours of a Senate campaign… The haul is a sign of just how deep Democratic antipathy toward McConnell, the Senate majority leader, runs in the Trump era.”
“Mayor Pete Buttigieg is raising cash for the Democratic primary season at a clip expected of a front-runner, but his poll numbers are exposing a rift between donors and voters,” USA Today reports.
“Donors say he can make a believer of many who hear him speak. Their support locked him into the second round of Democratic debates later this month and made him one of just a few so far to qualify for the third round, scheduled for September, giving him a better chance to make a name for himself onstage.”
“Tensions over the future of the GOP’s grassroots fundraising are reaching a breaking point, with the national party turning to strong-arm tactics to get Republicans behind its new, Donald Trump-endorsed platform for small donors,” Politico reports.
“The RNC is threatening to withhold support from party candidates who refuse to use WinRed, the party’s newly established online fundraising tool. And the RNC, along with the party’s Senate and gubernatorial campaign arms, are threatening legal action against a rival donation vehicle.”
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