 Ads Hovde for Wisconsin/AdImpact- Biden for President, “They Don’t Care.” Last year, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear’s re-election campaign told the story of Hadley Duvall, a woman who’d been raped by her father and miscarried the subsequent pregnancy. Republicans struggled to respond. Democrats had a model for how to talk about abortion bans. Biden’s campaign has made personal testimonial ads with other women, but this one stars Duvall herself, re-telling the story, warning that it’s now Trump and Vance who’ll “take our rights away.”
- Hovde for Wisconsin, “Big Trouble.” Right now, Democrats are still running alongside Biden, and Republicans are making them hurt for it. Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin called Biden’s one of the “most successful” administrations in history; Hovde’s narrator rattles off the biggest Biden weaknesses and asks how she could possibly believe that. “Inflation is sky high. Our border is wide open. Drugs flood our streets.”
- Martin Heinrich for Senate, “Familiar.” Republicans see New Mexico as a target this year if Democratic support collapses — five electoral votes they haven’t won since 2004, and a Senate seat they haven’t won since 2002. Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich’s already working to define Republican Nella Domenici, the daughter of the state’s last Republican senator, as a rich out-of-stater who moved out when “Richard Nixon was president” and returned to buy the seat.
Polls Correction: An earlier version of this graphic was mislabeled. Sixty-five percent of Democrats said Biden should drop out of the race; 35% said he should continue. Three weeks after the Atlanta debate, Democrats are getting more restless about their nominee. Biden characterizes that as an elite-driven sentiment for people who don’t represent his base. But the base has been moving, and most Democratic voters wanted another nominee before the RNC got underway. Black Democrats were split on the question, 50-49. White and Hispanic Democrats overwhelmingly want to dump Biden, and majorities of them say they’re dissatisfied that he’s still running.  Saturday’s shooting in Butler changed the way Republicans talked about Trump, from a lucky and fearless leader to one ordained and protected by God. It didn’t dramatically change the race. Since the last CBS poll, before the shooting and the Democrat autogolpe attempt against Biden, Trump’s lead has increased within the margin of error. Most of the voters who say they’re now leaning toward Trump were already with him — half of Republicans, a quarter of independents, and nearly no Democrats. Still, by an 8-point margin, voters say that Trump’s behavior since the shooting had encouraged unity, not division. They’re split down the middle over whether Biden, who made three sets of non-partisan remarks, did the same. Scooped!The best story Dave wishes he wrote this week: One surprise in JD Vance’s convention speech: No mention of Ukraine, or the war he’s been adamant about not funding. Delegates waved signs, which promised that Trump would “end the Ukraine war,” but this never came up onstage. Politico’s Jonathan Martin talked to all the right people about why. “Republicans from the Reaganite wing openly urged Trump to counter Vance’s influence by appointing more hawkish national security officials.” Next - 11 days until primaries in Arizona
- 18 days until primaries in Kansas, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, and Washington
- 25 days until primaries in Connecticut, Minnesota, Vermont, and Wisconsin
- 31 days until the Democratic National Convention
- 109 days until the 2024 presidential election
|