Democratic candidates and their campaign workers have an article to read, “Class, race and the chances of outgrowing poverty in America” at The Economist. Some of the observations:

A new study by Raj Chetty, of Harvard University, and colleagues provides fresh data on how America’s landscape of opportunity has shifted sharply over the past decades. Although at the national level there have been only small declines in mobility, the places and groups that have become more (or less) likely to enable children to rise up have changed a lot. The most striking finding is that, compared with the past, a child’s race is now less relevant for predicting their future and their socioeconomic class more so.

The greatest drops in mobility have been not in the places evoked in song, but on the coasts and the Great Plains, which historically provided pathways up (see maps). “Fifteen years ago, the American Dream was alive and well for white children born to low-income parents in much of the North-east and West Coast,” says Benjamin Goldman of Cornell University, one of the co-authors. “Now those areas have outcomes on par with Appalachia, the rustbelt and parts of the South-east.”

The fact that white children have become more likely to remain in poverty than before, whereas for black children the reverse is true, raises many questions. The finding comes from tracing the trajectories of 57m children born in America between 1978 and 1992 and looking at their outcomes by the age of 27. “This is really the first look with modern big data into how opportunity can change within a place over time,” says Mr Goldman. For children born into high-income families, household income increased for all races between birth cohorts. Yet among those from low-income families, earnings rose for black children and fell for white children.

A black child born to poor parents in 1992 earned $1,400 a year more than one born in 1978. A similar white child earned $2,000 less than one born in 1978. But on average, a poor white child still earned $9,500 more than a poor black child.

Convergence, not equality

This pattern has played out in virtually every county, though with big regional differences. As a result, the earnings gap between rich and poor white children (the “class gap”) grew by 27%, whereas the earnings gap between poor white and poor black children (the “race gap”) fell by 28% (see chart). The class gap did not meaningfully change for non-white people. This convergence between poor white and poor black children is as much the result of improved mobility for black children as it is of decreased mobility for white ones.

The effects echo in other outcomes too. The gap in early-adulthood mortality between rich and poor white Americans more than doubled between the 1978 and 1992 birth cohorts, while the white-black race gap for the same metric fell by 77%. Other gaps between black and white Americans, from sat uptake and rates of graduation to rates of marriage and incarceration, have narrowed similarly.

None of this means that race is no longer relevant for Americans’ chances in life. Although the reversal of the direction of travel is striking, a young black American born in 1992 to poor parents was still four percentage points more likely to remain in poverty than a poor white peer, down from a 15 percentage-point gap for those born in 1978. And while the near doubling in rates of mortality among young, lower-income white Americans is deeply alarming, mortality rates for their black counterparts have increased too, and they are still (a bit) more likely to die young.

In polarised America, where race remains a divisive topic, some are bound to misappropriate the findings. Anti-woke conservatives will claim that the data show how “white privilege” is a myth and that programmes targeting poor black children should instead invest in poor white ones. Woke warriors will argue that race remains the most important factor holding children back from upward mobility, and so dismiss concerns about left-behind white kids. Both are wrong.

Convergence has not yet brought equality. Despite improvements across America for poor black children, there is still no county where their outcomes match those of poor white ones. Yet the decline of the white working class is steep, and bound to cause grief. Telling a young white man with lower life outcomes than previous generations that he is still doing better than the average black peer is about as useful as telling a young black man that he’s doing well “for a black man”.

Another possible misconception is that social mobility is a zero-sum game: that poor white children are doing worse because poor black children are doing better. The authors tackle this by showing how in places where black children have done well, white children’s outcomes have remained stable; and in places where white children have done particularly poorly, their black peers have also not thrived.

In his previous work Mr Chetty demonstrated just how much a child’s chances of outperforming their parents depended on their race and where they grew up. One of the questions the authors were left with was how “sticky” these effects would be over time: could opportunities for the next cohorts of children change within these same places, or were they fixed? The new study’s most hopeful finding is that, far from being fixed, opportunities within a place can change significantly and rapidly. Neither history nor place is destiny.

This offers clues for policymakers. Jobs, and their role in ensuring that communities flourish, are at the heart of understanding these big shifts. Children’s outcomes are tightly correlated with those of the communities in which they grow up. The narrowing of the race gap and widening of the white class gap, write the authors, “can be explained almost entirely by the sharp fall in employment rates for low-income white parents relative to low-income black and high-income white parents”. Growing up in a thriving community is crucial for children’s future outcomes—and which communities have been thriving over the past 15 years has changed in a way that relatively disadvantages poor white families. “In the past 15 years, we’ve seen a decline in conditions in low-income white communities relative to low-income black and high-income white communities,” concludes Mr Goldman.

So the gap between upward mobility stats for African Americans and low-income whites is shrinking a bit, and that’s good for Democratic candidates to consider, when reaching out to working-class voters. When it comes to  dealing with cheap shots regarding Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs, however, note also that less than 10 percent of Fortune 500 C.E.O.s  are women and about 1.6 percent  are African Americans, with 3.2 percent of S & P 500 C.E.O.s  identifying as Latinos. A good question for D.E.I. critics is, “So, how would you improve these statistics, or do you think it’s O.K. the way it is?”

In “Harris’ big test: reclaiming swing states for Dems,” Erin Doherty writes at Axios: “Early national polls suggest Harris’ entry has given Democrats a bump in a tight race, but the presidential election is a state-by-state contest.

• Harris appears to be energizing many young and minority voters. A big question is whether she also can maintain Biden’s recent success among older voters — and stem Democrats’ losses among groups such as Latino men and whites who didn’t go to college.
• In a strategy memo released early Wednesday, Harris’ campaign argues she can. She aims to do so partly by focusing on women’s reproductive rights and contrasting Trump’s legal problems with her history as a prosecutor.
• Biden’s victory over Trump in 2020 was aided by his gains among whites who didn’t attend college, a group that helped Trump defeat Hillary Clinton in 2016, according to the Pew Research Center.

Driving the news: Larry Ceisler, a Pennsylvania-based public affairs executive, said he doesn’t expect Harris to match Biden’s numbers in rural parts of the state.

• But, he said, Harris “is going to boost turnout and support from African American voters, diverse voters and younger voters.”
• “It could be a net positive for the ticket,” Ceisler said.
• Another thing that might help in must-win Pennsylvania: Harris is considering Josh Shapiro, the state’s popular Democratic governor, as her running mate. Putting him on the ticket could alter the calculus there.

Doherty continues, “What they’re saying: In its memo, Harris’ campaign argues that she’s positioned to expand Biden’s winning coalition from 2020.

• “Her net favorability is 19 points higher than Trump’s among white, college-educated voters, and 18 points higher than Trump’s among voters over 65,” the Harris campaign writes.
• It also claims that the roughly 7% of voters who remain undecided are “disproportionately Black, Latino and under 30” — voting populations more likely to favor Harris.

By the numbers: Few polls have been released since Biden left the race Sunday and Harris jumped in.

• Reuters released a national poll Tuesday showing Harris with a 2-point lead over Trump, (44%-42%).
• The same poll the previous week had Trump with a 2-point lead, suggesting that the Democrats’ candidate switch led Trump to lose ground instead of picking up a post-convention bump.
• A new NPR/PBS News/Marist poll indicates that Harris’ entry reset the race, which the poll says is statistically tied.

Swing-state polls are done less frequently, and don’t yet reflect the historic twists and turns of the past two weeks. The latest batch showed Trump ahead in most of the six states likely to decide the election — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

• In a New York Times/Siena College poll — taken before Biden dropped out and the assassination attempt against Trump — Harris fared better than Biden, and was essentially tied with Trump in Pennsylvania.
• Harris also polled stronger than Biden with Black voters and younger voters.
• In Michigan, Real Clear Politics found that Trump led by about 2 points from an average of Trump-Harris polls.

Doherty quotes Ceisler on Harris again, “She’s going to have to introduce herself to the electorate — and she can’t let herself be painted as some far-left ‘woke’ activist from San Francisco, because she’s not.”

Sahil Kapur and Scott Wong share some observations regarding how “Harris’ candidacy reshapes strategies for key House and Senate races” at nbcnews.com: “For Democrats, candidates in battleground races are still planning to localize their races as much as possible. But lawmakers and party operatives are now hoping they can benefit from the wave of enthusiasm provided by Harris’ campaign in down-ballot races….Republican strategists said their priority is to craft and drive a negative portrait of Harris in the minds of voters, using some of the same issues they attacked Biden on, such as immigration, crime and inflation….“What is going to be critical important for Republicans as a whole is to quickly define Kamala Harris,” said one GOP strategist, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, adding that the party is already evaluating new messages in the field. “We have a very short runway to take the four or five most unpopular positions she has and brand her as a supporter of those.”….Democratic strategists say their candidates will continue to run state-specific Senate campaigns and district-specific House campaigns. Many of those candidates had been overperforming Biden for months before he dropped out, and party operatives expect that to continue with Harris, whose favorability ratings are also under water in recent surveys….They’re also continuing to run against what they’re portraying as Republican extremism and out-of-touch candidates after successfully using that approach in 2022….”‘Despicable Me 4’ was a big hit this summer and the problem in the Republican Party is they’ve got a bucket full of minions running for the U.S. Senate,” said JB Poersch, the president of Senate Majority PAC, a deep-pocketed Democratic super-PAC. “Republican candidates are trapped well behind where Trump is.”

Harold Meyerson opines on “Kamala’s Strengths and Weaknesses: Today on TAP: And how she can talk to working-class voters” at The American Prospect: “….there’s not much in Harris’s history to suggest she’s the cure for the Democrats’ growing weakness among working-class voters—most particularly, the white working-class voters who’ve been trending Republican for a very long time….How, though, can she reach out to the working-class men who build buildings, drive trucks, and operate assembly lines (all alongside women, but it’s the men who’ve been moving en masse into Republican ranks)? Chris Hannan, who heads the California Building Trades Council (which represents virtually every union of construction workers in the state)….was clear on how unions like those represented in his council would campaign against Trump and, now, for Harris. “Trump had an ‘infrastructure week’ every year, which led to no increase in infrastructure construction, every year. Under Biden and Harris, we’re building more roads and bridges and rail lines, and electric car factories and semiconductor factories, with union members and union-scale wages, in California, in Arizona, and across the country,” he said. “Trump gave corporations a huge tax cut with no conditions on spending that money in the U.S.; Biden and Harris have prioritized investing in America.”….Will Harris’s strong environmentalism be an obstacle to winning a number of working-class votes? Most likely, particularly in places like Western Pennsylvania, where her opposition to fracking will surely be something that the Trump campaign will stress. “She may not do well in Western Pennsylvania outside Pittsburgh,” another labor leader told me, “but she’ll boost turnout in [heavily Black] Northern Philadelphia and Detroit, particularly if Obama campaigns alongside her there.” That labor leader is also confident that Harris will stick with the kind of pro-union appointees to whom Biden entrusted the Labor Department and the NLRB. “Democrats with centrist records, like Biden had, now understand this is good policy and good politics,” he added….I herewith offer a couple of suggestions myself that might win her more support, or at least more of a hearing, among working-class voters. As I’ve noted, Trump’s suggestion of making tips tax-free actually won’t affect most tipped workers because they don’t make enough money, even with the tips, to pay income taxes. (Indeed, according to a report released today by UC Berkeley’s Food Labor Research Center and the organization One Fair Wage, fully 66 percent of tipped restaurant workers have incomes falling beneath that threshold.) Nonetheless—and despite some speculation that Wall Street consultants would mislabel their fees as tips if such a change were made—I think Harris should adopt this proposal (saying she’s open to crossing the aisle when a decent, or even half-decent, proposal originates there) and go it one better, challenging Republicans to raise the national minimum wage from the $7.25 where it’s languished for the past 15 years, and the tipped minimum wage from its microscopic $2.13—positions I doubt the newly “pro-worker” Republicans will embrace….As well, she should emphasize the arguments that Hannan has made: that factory construction increased by 73 percent once the Inflation Reduction Act passed, that infrastructure construction stagnated under Trump and soared under Biden, and that, as vice president, she cast the deciding votes on much of the “Build, Baby, Build for a Clean, Prosperous Future” legislation that is Biden’s legacy.”

In his column, “Biden made a very tough decision to save the soul of America — again. Democrats need to get to a Harris nomination through a process the whole party will see as fair,” E. J. Dionne, Jr. writes: “Choosing someone other than Harris, who has already been well vetted, would invite turmoil the party can’t afford. Dumping your entire ticket three months before an election is not a good look. But Democrats need to get to a Harris nomination through a process the whole party will see as fair….Doing so would only strengthen Harris’s candidacy. So would a strong running mate. Govs. Roy Cooper of North Carolina and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan are among the many good options Harris would have….Biden’s decision will bring new energy to a party that had already gained confidence in its capacity to win, courtesy of Trump’s 92-minute disquisition on Thursday that drove even ardent loyalists to weariness and exhaustion. Trump’s lack of discipline and his vaudevillian affection for his old act led him away from the recommendations of his advisers. They understood that natural sympathy had rushed Trump’s way after a failed assassination attempt. They promised he would tell his moving personal story and call for national unity….Although the choice was excruciating, the president should be — and deserves to be — at peace with this outcome. None of what happened reflects badly on his record as president. He didn’t fail in that debate. His age failed him….All along, Biden cast himself as the person who could best preserve democracy by stopping Trump a second time. Paradoxically, perhaps, he stayed true to that mission by removing himself from the contest. He did the hardest thing a politician can do: relinquish power. His decision saved his legacy.”

“What we can say from head-to-head polling of Harris is that the general trend has gotten a lot better for her,” Christian Paz writes in “Does Kamala Harris give Democrats a better chance to win?” at Vox. “A year ago she was underperforming Biden in head-to-head polling against Trump in a variety of surveys. Closer to the debate and right after, she began to perform about evenly. And more recently, in July, a few polls comparing Biden and Harris against Trump in battleground states and nationally have shown Harris even with Biden or slightly ahead of him….The first sign of this change came from CNN’s first post-debate poll, finding the vice president trailing Trump by 2 percentage points (within the margin of error) while Biden trailed by 6 points. And in FiveThirtyEight’s polls-only post-debate comparison of Harris and Biden vs. Trump, Harris performs slightly better than the president in battleground states — though not in all of them….Recent polling from Pennsylvania and Virginia also shows more positive signs for the vice president: New York Times/Siena College polls this month show that while Harris still trails Trump by 1 point in Pennsylvania, that’s a smaller gap than the 3 points that put Trump ahead of Biden there. Both of these results are within the polling’s margin of error, making the race in the state essentially tied. In Virginia, meanwhile, Harris’s lead over Trump is 2 points larger than the lead Biden has over the former president….And a post-assassination attempt national poll from Reuters/Ipsos shows a statistically tied presidential contest for either Biden or Harris against Trump….Under the hood, however, Harris backers can find an additional data point in their column: 69 percent of respondents think Biden is too old; Harris doesn’t face that concern. And Biden is more unpopular than Harris, something that is consistently true: As of July 18, Biden has a net -17.7 approval rating in the FiveThirtyEight aggregate. Harris’s disapproval is at 11.8. And in RealClearPolitics’ average of favorability ratings, Biden (-16.3) is also more unpopular than Harris (-14.9).”

If you thought Sen. Ted Cruz, Lindsay Graham, Nikki Haley and Marco Rubio set the lowest standard for selling out previously stated views for political advantage, take a look at “JD Vance, Trump’s VP pick, once called him a ‘moral disaster,’ and possibly ‘America’s Hitler’” by Andrew Kaczynski and Ern Steck at CNN Politics. As the authors write: “Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick Ohio Sen. JD Vance was once a fervent critic of the former president. In private messages, he wondered ahead of Trump’s election whether he was “America’s Hitler” and in 2017 said the then-president was a “moral disaster.” In public, he agreed Trump was a “total fraud” who didn’t care about regular people and called him “reprehensible.”….“I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler,” Vance wrote in a message to a friend in 2016. “How’s that for discouraging?”….In 2016 and 2017, Vance, then best-known for penning the best-selling book “Hillbilly Elegy” said Trump was “cultural heroin” and “just another opioid” for Middle America. He told CNN ahead of the 2016 election that he was “definitely not” voting for Trump and he also contemplated voting for Hillary Clinton (he ultimately said he planned to vote for independent candidate Evan McMullin.)….,“Fellow Christians, everyone is watching us when we apologize for this man. Lord help us,” he tweeted after the “Access Hollywood” tape was published in 2016….Vance also liked tweets that said Trump committed “serial sexual assault,” called him “one of USA’s most hated, villainous, douchey celebs,” and harshly criticized Trump’s response to the deadly 2017 White nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia….“There is no moral equivalence between the anti-racist protestors in Charlottesville and the killer (and his ilk),” Vance wrote in a deleted-tweet….“I’m definitely not gonna vote for Trump because I think that he’s projecting very complex problems onto simple villains,” Vance told CNN’s Jake Tapper ahead of the 2016 election….“Trump makes people I care about afraid. Immigrants, Muslims, etc. Because of this I find him reprehensible. God wants better of us,” he wrote in October 2016.”

Michael Tomasky, editor of The New Republic, interviews Stuart Stevens, a Lincoln Project consultant and writes,”Regular cable news viewers will know that Lincoln Project consultant Stuart Stevens has been steadfast in arguing that the Democrats should stick with the president. Regular TNR readers will know that most of our columns have argued otherwise. Here, Michael Tomasky asks Stevens to make the case. “I’m just hard-wired that in a campaign, you’re going to have incredibly difficult moments,” Stevens said. “The instinct shouldn’t be to run for the lifeboats. You fix it.” Watch to see what Stevens thinks the Democrats need to emphasize to win, and what he and the Lincoln Project are doing between now and November.” The interview:

An excerpt from “How Blue-Collar Candidates Could Change Politics” by Barry Yeoman at The Assembly: “About half the U.S. labor force qualifies as working class: people with manual, service-sector, and clerical jobs. They rarely see themselves reflected in their elected bodies….People with current or recent working-class jobs make up 1 percent of all state legislators, and 0 percent in North Carolina, according to data compiled by political scientists Nicholas Carnes at Duke University and Eric Hansen at Loyola University Chicago. If you add leaders of unions that represent working-class people, the national figure rises to 1.6 percent. The number is higher for city councils in the United States, but still hovers around 10 percent. A notable outlier is Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, a former factory worker and now the Republican candidate for governor….Nor do working-class voters have a clear champion in either political party. Democrats carried that mantle for much of the 20th century—and, to some degree, still do—in part because of their alliance with organized labor. But that alliance was eroding by 1993, when President Bill Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement into law. North Carolina’s manufacturing sector cratered after NAFTA, as factories closed and jobs moved to Mexico….“That was a demarcation point,” said Gwen Frisbie-Fulton, Down Home’s senior narrative strategist. “The Democrats started to feel more elite, feel very metropolitan, and [weren’t] talking about bread-and-butter issues.”….Carnes and Noam Lupu, a political scientist at Vanderbilt University, examined survey data from 1,000 Americans who, in 2015, were asked to compare hypothetical political candidates. Factory workers fared about 2 percentage points better than business owners in these matchups, though the difference was not statistically significant. “[Voters] tend to perceive politicians from working-class jobs as maybe having a little less competence, but a little more warmth or concern for their problems,” Carnes said. “The two things kind of wash out in the end.”

In “Republicans Just Handed Down a Death Sentence to the Nation’s Coal Miners,” Kim Kelley writes at In These Times: “It is shameful that some in Congress would play politics with the lives of the coal miners who too often sacrifice their health to power our country,” commented Chelsea Barnes, director of government affairs and strategy for the clean-energy advocacy group Appalachian Voices, in a statement. ​“Make no mistake: blocking the silica dust standard will cost lives. It is imperative that Congress strike this reckless provision as the legislative process moves forward.”….This rule, for which so many workers fought for so long, is a part of what these Republican committee goons call a ​“destructive and anti-worker regulatory agenda.” The final vote was 31 to 25, which likely means that every single Republican voted for this — and a Democrat joined them (and I for one am awfully curious about who that is). The irony is painful, particularly when one considers the Republicans’ cringeworthy push to position themselves as a ​“blue-collar party” that fights for ​“American workers” against out-of-touch liberal elites. Even Donald Trump, who used to yammer constantly about how much he ​“loved” coal miners and how he was going to bring back the coal industry, has largely abandoned both during his current campaign of destruction….When a coal miner is stricken with black lung and left unable to work, the absolute highest monthly payment that they can receive from the federal black lung benefits fund is $1,545.00, provided they have three or more dependents; if they’re all alone, it’s capped at $772. Meanwhile, members of Congress have access to the best medical care in the nation, thanks to their low-cost, gold-plated healthcare plans and six-figure salaries, both of which are paid for with workers’ tax dollars. Each one of the Representatives who voted to defund the silica rule brings home at least $174,000 per year. Aderholt himself is worth about $9 million, and took home $3.8 million in federal farm subsidies in 2023 for his spouse and businesses. All that filthy lucre could probably buy a lot of oxygen tanks for the coal miners that he and his colleagues just doomed….“It’s very disheartening to see a handful of Washington politicians try and undo all this hard work on a whim,” said Robinson of the National Black Lung Association, in a statement. ​“If this policy becomes law, it will put the lives of countless miners at risk. Mining families deserve better, and we urge Congress to throw out this dangerous policy and get to work helping miners, not making their lives much harder.”

Democratic politics was plenty complicated even before Trump was wounded in an assassination attempt. Democrats still have a daunting challenge to meet in mobilizing for the 2024 elections, and they can’t back away from the task because of the tragic shooting that took two lives, injured others and almost killed the Republican nominee. But let all Democrats be united in deploring and condemning the shooting and political violence. Social media is full of unworthy comments about the shooting from people who should know better. No Democrat should respond to them in any way that encourages or tolerates such comments. Democrats must be the adult party, the one which condemns all forms of violence, especially when directed at political adversaries. Not only is violence morally wrong; to tolerate it in any way is to invite certain defeat in the elections. “Toning down” the rhetoric is not enough. Democrats should openly and consistently espouse nonviolence in all of our political strategies and tactics, and, to paraphrase the message of Martin Luther King, Jr., urge everyone to refrain from violence of “fist, tongue and heart.” It is impossible to gauge the political effects of the assassination attempt on the November elections until all ballots have been counted and subjected to a rigorous analysis. But there is no quicker way for Democrats to blow it than to allow cynical comments about the shooting. Pennsylvania’s Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro has provided a good  template for responding to this tragedy: “Violence targeted at any political party or political leader is absolutely unacceptable. It has no place in Pennsylvania or the United States.” In expressing his sympathy for the victims of the shooting he added “We lost a fellow Pennsylvanian last night: Corey Comperatore….Corey dove on his family to protect them last night at this rally….Corey was the very best of us. May his memory be a blessing.”

Some other Democratic leaders’ responses to the shooting noted by Associated Press, via Daily Kos include: “As one whose family has been the victim of political violence, I know firsthand that political violence of any kind has no place in our society. I thank God that former President Trump is safe,” former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement. “As we learn more details about this horrifying incident, let us pray that all those in attendance at the former President’s rally today are unharmed.”….Obama, Trump’s immediate predecessor in the White House, shared the views of others who have held the presidency, writing on social media: “There is absolutely no place for political violence in our democracy. Although we don’t yet know exactly what happened, we should all be relieved that former President Trump wasn’t seriously hurt, and use this moment to recommit ourselves to civility and respect in our politics. Michelle and I are wishing him a quick recovery.”….President Joe Biden said in his Oval Office address last night: ““We cannot, we must not, go down this road in America,” he said, speaking in a prime time speech to the nation. “There is no place in America for this kind of violence, for any violence ever. Period. No exceptions. We can’t allow this violence to be normalized.”….Sen. John Fetterman, a Pennsylvania Democrat, blasted the violence in his home state. “I am appalled and condemn in the strongest terms this violence in Butler,” he wrote on X. “I extend my condolences to those injured and wish a speedy and full recovery for Mr. Trump.” Also at X, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez added “There is no place for political violence, including the horrific incident we just witnessed in Pennsylvania. It is absolutely unacceptable and must be denounced in the strongest terms. My heart goes out to all the victims and I wish the former President a speedy recovery.”

At The Guardian, Katrina vanden Heuval, editor and publisher of The Nation, writes, “Being the victim of a shooting is terrifying. Donald Trump and those wounded and killed deserve our sympathy and concern. We should not forget the risks that political leaders take in a society as polarized and as gunned up as this one….What should we take from this horror? We should begin by decrying all political violence as unacceptable. President Biden has condemned the shooting ardently and unequivocally. So, too, did prominent Democrats who fundamentally disagree with the former president. Hopefully, leaders from across the political and ideological spectrum will join in these condemnations. Just as, one hopes, they will condemn the growing threats of violence that public officials from the president to poll volunteers to judges and jurors now receive….But this is about more than politics and public life. This country has too much gun violence – and too many guns. Most of the victims are not famous, or powerful. With children in grade schools now forced to take part in active shooter drills, it is long past time for all of us to get serious about curbing gun violence….Trump should be assessed – as anyone who would lead this country – on his behavior, his character, and his agenda. That responsibility does not disappear because someone took a shot at him. The prospect of a Trump presidency was as deeply unsettling before Saturday’s shooting incident – and it remains so after it….No one should be fooled. Donald Trump deserves sympathy for the attack he experienced. That does not, however, make him an acceptable candidate for the presidency.”

“Ahead of the November presidential election, just 19% of Americans say democracy in the United States is a good example for other countries to follow, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in April,” Janell Fetterolf and Sofia Hernandez Ramones report at the Pew Research Center on July 10th. “The most common view – held by 72% of Americans – is that democracy in the U.S. used to be a good example, but has not been in recent years. Another 8% of Americans say U.S. democracy has never beena good example for other countries to follow….Americans are much more likely than people in other countries to say U.S. democracy used to be a good example. A median of 40% of adults across 34 other countries surveyed in 2024 take this view….Relatively few Americans overall see the nation’s democracy as a good example for other countries to follow. But adults ages 50 and older are more likely than those under 50 to hold this view. Younger adults, on the other hand, are more likely than older adults to say American democracy has never been a good example (11% vs. 4%)….Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are somewhat more likely than Republicans and Republican leaners to see U.S. democracy as a good example (22% vs. 17%). This is nearly the reverse of where things stood in February 2021, when 24% of Republicans and 16% of Democrats saw democracy in the U.S. as a good example….Opinions also differ by voter status. Among Americans who are registered to vote, 21% see U.S. democracy as a good example, compared with 13% of those who are not registered to vote. Registered voters are also somewhat more likely to answer this question.” A critical part of the challenge facing Democrats in the 2024 elections must be to improve these numbers.

In “Democrats’ Effort to Push Biden Off Ticket Hits Uncertainty,” Lindsay Wise, Natalie Andrews and Katie Stech Ferek report at the Wall St. Journal: “An effort by some Democrats to seek an alternative to President Biden as the party’s nominee faced new uncertainty Tuesday, with frustrated lawmakers struggling to find a path forward after the president said he was dead set against stepping aside….Lawmakers aired their frustrations with their predicament, but a concerted push to install a new nominee didn’t emerge, even as a seventh House Democrat publicly called for Biden to make way for a new candidate. Private meetings ended without consensus, leaving the stare-down without a clear resolution less than four months until Election Day….“Like I said before, I’m with Joe,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) repeated several times in response to questions at his weekly press conference Tuesday afternoon….Schumer’s terse comments followed a lengthy lunch meeting with Senate Democrats, most of whom refused to talk to reporters afterward. Some looked dejected. “The president said it’s in his hands,” said Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.). Asked if Biden should remain on the ticket, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois said, “That still remains to be seen.”….Sen. Michael Bennet (D., Colo.) told colleagues he didn’t think Biden would prevail this fall, and Sens. Jon Tester (MT) and Sherrod Brown (OH) have also expressed doubts. Later, speaking to CNN, he said he thinks Trump is on track to “maybe win it by a landslide, and take with him the Senate and the House.” He said the White House “has done nothing to really demonstrate that they have a plan to win.” But he declined to say Biden should step aside….One person familiar with the meeting said the party seemed evenly split on Biden. “One-third of the caucus wants him gone, one-third want him to stay, and one-third are resigned he is the nominee but think he is going to lose.”….“I think the conversation is important to have right now, because people do have concerns,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D., Wash.), head of the progressive caucus. “I just don’t think it should be in public. And I think at the end of the day, he is our nominee right now till he’s not our nominee.”

At Politico, Jonathan Martin outlines “Biden’s Survival Plan: Decry ‘Elite’ Critics, Appeal to His Base,” and writes: “As the president fights for his political life this week, and calls grow from party leaders that he withdraw his candidacy, he’s counting on the support of African American Democrats and his union allies as his last line of defense. It’s a playbook Biden has turned to in the past, portraying his detractors as mostly elite white liberals who are out of step with the more diverse and working-class grassroots of the party. That’s what propelled his nomination after a string of setbacks in 2020….If Biden can retain his allies in labor and the Black community, he will have a chance to reframe the boiling debate about his candidacy along the lines of race and class that have animated every Democratic nomination fight for 40 years. Those clashes, of course, played out in primaries and caucuses. This battle is taking place in a more chaotic and truncated fashion, in the media and on group texts, conference calls and Zooms….“The people Joe Biden fights for — middle-class labor union members, Blacks, Latinos — they know he fights for them and they’re going to stay in the fight for him,” Anita Dunn, Biden’s longtime adviser, told me Sunday….Much as he craves the affirmation of elites, Biden is in his comfort zone donning the armor of Scranton Joe. It recalls Bill Clinton, facing impeachment and the condemnation of censorious Democratic elites, turning to the party rank and file and especially Black Americans in his hour of crisis….This is the crux of Biden’s challenge. He knows his most loyal supporters will be those blue-collar Democrats and their representatives who’ve always had more of an affinity for him than the latte set. “We’ve been through some shit in our lives and we don’t turn when times are tough,” as Richmond put it about the Black community.”

Margaret Sullivan has some pointed comments in her article, “The media has been breathlessly attacking Biden. What about Trump?” at The Guardian. Among her observations: “That bigger story, of course, is the former president’s appalling unfitness for office, not only because he tried to overturn a legitimate election and is a felon, out on bail and awaiting sentencing, but because of things he has said and done in very recent weeks. As just one example, he claimed that he doesn’t know anything about Project 2025, the radical rightwing plan hatched by some of his closest allies to begin dismantling our democracy if he wins another term….Trump’s disavowal is a ridiculous lie, but I doubt most members of the public know anything about it, nor do they likely know much – if anything – about Project 2025….Meanwhile, what of Trump’s obvious cognitive decline, his endless lies, his shocking plans to imprison his political enemies and to deport millions of people he calls “animals”, his relationship with the late accused sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein?….There really is no comparison in the amount or intensity of coverage. One journalist, Jennifer Schulze, counted New York Times stories related to Biden’s age in the week following the debate; she counted a staggering 192 news and opinion pieces, compared to 92 stories on Trump – and that was in a week when the US supreme court had ruled he has immunity for official acts….On Monday, the Times sent out as “breaking news” a story whose headline announced that an expert in Parkinson’s disease had visited the White House eight times in a recent eight-month period; much further down in the story we learn that the same doctor also had made 10 visits to the White House in 2012, and that he has supported the White House medical team for more than a dozen years. But many people never get past the headline….Of course, the problem certainly is not just the New York Times, despite its agenda-setting influence. It’s also TV news, both network and cable. And, to a lesser extent, it’s other major US publications….Where does that leave us?….All of these disturbing elements – the Democrats’ dilemma, the media’s failures, and the cult-like, unquestioning support of Trump – could add up to one likelihood in November….A win for Trump, and a terrible loss for democracy.”

Christian Paz mulls over the polling data in “Do other Democrats actually poll better against Trump than Biden?” at Vox and writes: “If the goal of national Democrats is to keep Donald Trump out of the White House to protect democracy — and they’ve largely framed the 2024 election in just those existential terms — who is best equipped to do it? And after a dismal debate performance by President Joe Biden last week, is it possible that there is another Democrat better equipped to beat Trump than the sitting president?….Polling gives us one way to answer that question. But it’s not as simple as looking at the topline numbers and deciding that it’s time to dump Biden. The only timeline for which we know anything, solidly, is the one we’re living in: anything else is purely hypothetical, and requires some suspension of belief, some scrutiny in looking at numbers, and some skepticism in how we might expect the public to react….Still, it’s too soon to tell just what the American people are thinking about replacing Biden with an alternative….we are dealing in hypotheticals. Any talk about how a Biden alternative would fare against Trump is purely imaginary at this point: we don’t really know how well any of these candidates would do among specific kinds of voters or in different states or regions. How would Whitmer do in the Sun Belt? How would Newsom do in the Midwest? Those questions are crucial to winning the Electoral College, and the polls we have don’t come close to answering them….the polls show hypothetical Biden alternatives would do no better than Biden (generally what Biden defenders say). The second is that they are doing just as well as Biden without even running as actual presidential candidates — and could do better still (what Biden critics say)….Harris, post-debate, still has a better favorability score than Biden, and is doing better than the president with women, Latino voters, and young voters — groups that Biden has struggled with overall. Philip Bump at the Washington Post did some digging on this question last week as well, comparing Harris and Biden’s favorability ratings among subgroups before the debate, and found Harris seems to be viewed more favorably by younger voters, women, and non-white voters….In short, we don’t know much. These are all hypotheticals we’re trying to game out from a very limited set of data. And we’re likely to get a bunch more data as we move further from the debate. “

It’s getting to the point where you need a playbook to sort out the supporters and opponents of President Biden continuing his re-election campaign.

If you thought it would be a matter of prominent moderates and centrists supporting Biden and left Democrats wanting to replace him, you would be mostly wrong. Thus, centrist Democrats like Sen. Mark Warner (VA) and Rep. Mikie Sherrill (NJ- 11) are leaning toward or calling on President Biden to step down and lefty Dems, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (VT) and Rep. AOC (NY-14 ) are affirming their strong support for the President’s re-election, alongside leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the Congressional Black Caucus and former Speaker Pelosi.

As you can see from some of the aforementioned examples, the ages of the President’s re-election supporters and opponents don’t provide much insight into their positions, either. Support for the President’s re-election is all over the place in terms of age. Ditto for those who want him to step down.

“On Monday, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told reporters that she was sticking with Biden after speaking to him over the weekend. “Joe Biden is our nominee. He is not leaving this race. He is in this race and I support him,” Nia Prater writes at New York magazine’s Intelligencer.

“I know that President Biden and his team have been true public servants and have put the country and the best interests of democracy first and foremost in their considerations,” [Rep. Mikie] Sherrill said. “And because I know President Biden cares deeply about the future of our country, I am asking that he declare that he won’t run for reelection and will help lead us through a process toward a new nominee,” Miranda Nazzaro reports at The Hill.

Lauren Sforza quotes Sen. Sanders, also at The Hill: “….I think what he has got to do is get out there, interact with people, turn off the teleprompter, and people can make a judgment for themselves how well he’s doing…So what we’ve got to do is inject policy, the contrast between what Biden stands for and what Trump stands for. And then if you do that, I think Biden’s gonna do just fine,” he added.”

Although it appears the Democrats are divided at present, when the Democratic Convention is concluded, the smart bet is that all Democratic members of the House and Senate will support the same nominee, along with every Democratic governor. Regardless of who is on the ticket, the “Democrats in Disarray” meme will be long-dead by Election Day.

As Ed Kilgore has written at New York magazine and TDS, whether or not President Biden is replaced as his party’s nominee is “A Decision Biden Alone Can Make.” There is no credible mechanism for replacing him as the Democratic nominee that doesn’t begin with his voluntary withdrawal. That doesn’t mean he couldn’t be persuaded to withdraw by family, friends or Democratic leaders. It just means only he can set the process in  motion. Even an attempt at an end run around the rules would be a bad, potentially disastrous, look for Democrats. So far, nine House Democrats have called on President Biden to step aside. But other influential elected officials, including Rep. James Clymer and Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) are hanging very tough for President Biden. To paraphrase Sen. Fetterman, hosting a recent rally for Biden in PA and pointing at the President, “Only one person in this room, state and nation has kicked Trump’s ass,” referring to Biden’s widely-certified 2020 victory over Trump. Fetterman may be the President’s most influential supporter in the largest swing state, since his PA colleague Sen. Bob Casey is busy running for re-election. “Here’s just one data point to keep in mind,” David From writes in The Atlantic, making the case for keeping Biden. “Joe Biden beat Donald Trump in 2020 in great part because he ran much better among white men than Hillary Clinton did in 2016. In 2016, Trump won white men by a margin of 30 points; in 2020, Trump won white men by a margin of only 17 points. Frum adds, “The great operational question before us is not “Is Joe Biden too old?” The question is “Do you trust the delegates to the Democratic convention in Chicago to replace the present ticket with a supposedly more winning ticket without ripping their party apart in catastrophic ways?” Further, Frum writes, “If Biden gets dumped and Democrats plunge into a civil war of who should replace him, Trump won’t even need that self-discipline: The story will be all Democratic disaster, all the time. The story told about the Democrats post–Biden dump would not be about their superb record on job creation since 2021, or about faster-than-inflation wage growth for middle-income and low-income workers, or about the funds for infrastructure and a greener economy, or about their success in reducing crime; it wouldn’t be about the Republican veto of immigration enforcement, or about Biden’s rebuilding of relationships with democratic allies, or about Democrats’ tireless work to defend women’s freedom, or about the party’s support for Ukraine and Israel in each nation’s war of self-defense. The story would be one of chaos and fratricide and splits, along lines of race and sex and ideology.”

At Common Dreams, Peter Dreier advocates a strategy for President Biden’s campaign “If he chooses to stay in the race, Biden and his team can’t simply put this dismal debate performance behind them. The Trump campaign will use clips of his many terrible moments on stage in TV and social media ads. Those clips will follow Biden from now until November….It might also be useful to recall that voters have been known to distinguish between the appearance of disability and the capacity to do the job. In the fall of 2022, John Fetterman, in recovery from a stroke, performed far worse in his debate against Trump-endorsed Dr. Amos Oz for the Senate seat from Pennsylvania. All the pundits said that Fetterman’s campaign in this swing state was over….Fetterman won the election….Those who want Biden to stay in the race believe he can recover if he can replicate that campaign style in his many personal appearances, and if the Democrats can amplify his deep engagement with national issues via surrogates. Ads that broadcast Biden at his best, including the North Carolina speech, broadcast on local TV and narrowcast on social media in the seven battleground states, will also be key….If the Democrats have any chance to defeat Trump, they must keep stressing that Trump lies about everything.” Dreier also gives the media a proper thrashing: “Whomever the Democrats’ presidential candidate is, the election will be decided by between 5,000 to 50,000 people in each of the following seven battleground states: Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania….These are the voters any Democratic candidate must persuade and turnout at this point….In the coming days, Biden and his close advisors must ask some key questions: Can they persuade and turnout these battleground state voters by practicing micro, retail politics? Did Biden’s debate debacle make a difference to these key voters? And if so, are they more likely to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris, or another candidate, than Biden?….One thing hasn’t changed: Our democracy is at stake so anyone who cares about thwarting fascism needs to stop whining and do whatever they can to keep Donald Trump from winning the White House, regardless who is at the top of the Democratic ticket.”

But Dreier also provides links to many of the strongest arguments urging President Biden to withdraw. These include:

From the New York Times:

• Thomas Friedman, “Joe Biden is a Good Man and a Good President. He Must Bow Out of the Race.”
• Paul Krugman, “The Best President of My Life Needs to Withdraw.”
• Nicholas Kristof, “President Biden, I’ve Seen Enough.”

From the Washington Post:

• Ramesh Ponnuru, ”Trump is too dangerous for Democrats to stick with Biden.”
• Karen Tumulty, “The Great Democratic Freakout is upon us.”

From The New Republic:

• Alex Shepard: “Ditch Biden. That Debate Performance Was a Disaster.”

From The New Yorker:

• Susan B. Glasser, “Was the Debate the Beginning of the End of Joe Biden’s Presidency? Notes on a Disastrous Night for the Democrats.”

From The American Prospect:

• Robert Kuttner, “A Tarnished Silver Lining: Biden was so inept that the case for replacing him is now overwhelming.”
• Harold Meyerson, “The Democrats Must Dump Trump. Here’s How.”

From The Atlantic:

• David A. Graham, “A Disaster for Joe Biden.”
• Franklin Foer, “Someone Needs to Take Biden’s Keys.”
• Mark Leibovich, “Time to Go, Joe.”
• Jerusalem Demsas, “Dropping Out is Biden’s Most Patriotic Option.”
• David Frum, “Trump Should Never Have Had This Platform.”

From The Bulwark:

• William Kristol and Andrew Egger, “It’s Not Too Late. Biden Should Step Aside.”
• Tim Miller, “The Bidens Need to Have a Talk.”

From The Nation:

• Jeet Heer, “Trump Was Terrible. Biden Was Worse”

Some nuggets from “RFK Jr. fails to gain traction despite Biden’s disastrous week” by Hanna Trudo at The Hill: “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has failed to gain noticeable traction in the wake of President Biden’s catastrophic debate fallout against former President Trump….“If RFK Jr. was a truly viable candidate, he’d be making a credible push to supplant Biden as the main alternative to Trump,” said Kyle Kondik, an elections analyst and managing editor at the forecasting outfit Sabato’s Crystal Ball. “Clearly that is not happening in the slightest and to the extent he’s making news, it’s bad news.”….A New York Times/Siena College poll released in the days after the Atlanta debate showed Kennedy at 8 percent support in the race, which is also where he is in an aggregate of surveys from The Hill and Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ)….“Think about what a horrible week Biden has had,” Kondik said. “But RFK [Jr.] does not seem to be benefiting at all, and certainly no bona fide Democrat is thinking of backing RFK Jr. as an alternative to the Democratic nominee.”….Some prominent voices in the party faithful have become particularly fearful that Kennedy — a member of their team as recently as October — could spoil the election, which many fear will result in a second Trump win. But as demonstrated this week, Kennedy has his own potential liabilities….Kennedy’s standing with the public has not been where it should be for a serious contender about four months from Election Day, experts say. He did not get to 15 percent in the four polls CNN set as a threshold for the debate, meaning he wasn’t able to appear on stage with Biden and Trump. And it’s not clear he will even appear on most ballots in November….According to his campaign website’s ballot tracker, Kennedy still needs some two dozen states before he reaches his goal of 50 states, and most secretaries of state have yet to certify his submissions. The Hill/DDHQ confirmed he has made the ballot in six states.” There are lots of arguments being bandied about as to whether Kennedy hurts Trump or Biden the most. But no source has provided conclusive aggregate data showing a clear, consistent benefit from RFK, Jr.’s candidacy to either candidate, although even a small margin can be decisive in a close election.

In the wake of  the the first presidential debate, I put together a list of 20 reasons why President Biden might and might not end his bid for re-election:

Reasons why Biden should stay on:

It’s only one debate. A good candidate can have an off night.

“You dance with the one who brought you,” as one CNN commentator put it. Biden won all of his primaries, fair and square.

Biden’s answers to the questions were substantial, certainly no worse than Trump’s responses. Don’t get so freaked out by appearances.

Replacing Biden after he won all the primaries would be a bad look for a party that extolls democracy.

The how and when of picking a “replacement” are highly problematic. If the party goes with someone other than Vice President Harris, it risks a critical mass of Black voters and women not voting.

It’s the track records that really counts. Biden’s is good and Trump is still vulnerable, especially on his abortion policy and Supreme Court choices.

Even if voters believe Biden is showing some signs of cognitive decline, Trump is showing signs of mental illness (google “batteries, undersea and sharks,” for example), as well as moral depravity.

There are growing numbers of high-turnout senior voters who have switched to favoring Biden over Trump. Biden quitting under pressure might piss off a significant number of them.

The President’s advisors have a pivotal influence on decision-making. President Biden has excellent advisors, certainly compared to Trump’s band of extremists, loonies and corrupt lapdogs.

Keeping Biden would prevent a bruising fight over his successor.

Reasons Why Biden Should End His Re-Election Bid

There is still time for a new Democratic presidential  candidate to look like a good choice.

Vice President Harris is highly-capable, despite experiencing the usual disparagement that attends her office. Allowing her to head the ticket would show consistency and respect for the democratic process. She could generate excitement in choosing her running mate.

Democrats have an impressive bench of younger alternatives, if Harris doesn’t replace Biden at the top of the ticket. A partial list: Govs. Beshear (KY); Whitmer (MI); Shapiro (PA);  Newsom (CA); Sens. Warnock (GA) Casey (PA) and Klobuchar (MN);  Reps. Sherrill (NJ); Swalwell (CA); ; Khanna (CA); Minority Leader Jeffries (NY) Sec’y Buttigieg and many others.

Damaging images of the first debate will be relentlessly replayed in Republican campaign video clips from now until Election Day if Biden stays on.

The first debate debacle would be largely forgotten by November, with a new leader making the headlines.

Republicans would squawk, but a “that was then, this is now” argument by Dems could win the day.

A new presidential candidate could be the “fresh face” many voters long for.

All of a sudden, Trump would be the too-old guy. It would flip the age issue in a way that helps Dems.

Democrats could build a compelling case for winning back alienated young voters. Dems could be re-branded as the party that has an inspiring vision for a better future.

A young presidential replacement candidate could run for two terms, the second time with an incumbent’s advantage.

Above all, Democrats should not panic. As President John F. Kennedy said, “Every crisis has both danger and opportunity.” One opportunity is to show Democrats are competent at crisis management, a desirable quality for a governing party. Another is to switch the media focus to the interesting, positive changes in the Democratic Party. A third is to showcase the Democrats’ impressive bench of young, upcoming leaders. If Biden decides to stay, Democrats can unite around defeating Trump, who remains vulnerable, no matter who he runs against.

In “How Biden Can Win the Debate,” Brian Goldsmith writes at The Atlantic: “This is a gamble for Biden—but absolutely the right choice. He must try to redefine the race and encourage voters to take a second look. His age isn’t changing, but he can change some of the arguments he makes. And to influence voters who are still persuadable, he will have no better platform….Biden is now the incumbent who’s behind. And to turn things around onstage, he has to address the economy as voters experience it. Barely more than one-fifth of those surveyed in a recent New York Times poll rated the economy as excellent or good; a majority said it is poor. In a Guardian/Harris poll, more than half (56 percent) believed we are in a recession, and nearly three in five (58 percent) said Biden is responsible. The economic data may show that they’re mistaken—but good luck winning votes by telling Americans that they’re wrong….Biden’s first move at the debate podium should be to deliver his economic message with empathy—and a frank admission that inflation is still too high and prices on everyday goods are hurting millions of Americans. He should talk about his own family’s past hard times. That would give him more credibility to offer a narrative about the economic mess he inherited from Trump, the millions of good jobs he’s helped create, and the programs he’s put in place—such as the CHIPS Act and the bipartisan infrastructure law—to create an even better economy in the years ahead….He needs to talk about the future more than the past. As Gore has said, elections are “not an award for past performance.” This campaign has to be about the next four years. Currently, only one of dozens of Biden campaign ads outlines a second-term agenda. The platform it laid out is popular and compelling—making child care and elder care affordable, protecting Social Security and Medicare, passing a “minimum tax for billionaires,” establishing Roe v. Wade as the law of the land, banning assault weapons, and preserving the right to vote—but that ad is more than a year old, and I haven’t seen anything comparable since….Much of the president’s first-term accomplishments, and second-term agenda, should be framed as a fight to lower costs against Republicans who oppose both what he’s done and what he hopes to do….he third piece of Biden’s message that must change is his attack on Trump. Sounding the alarm against authoritarian threats to be a “dictator on day one,”cancel the Constitution, and take revenge on his “deep state” enemies is a vital, valid mission. Those hits are one reason Biden’s support among college-educated white voters is still about where it was four years ago. But the democracy agenda is either insufficient or ineffective to stanch Biden’s bleeding among working-class voters, including Latinos and Blacks….To win working-class Americans back to his coalition, Biden cannot simply tout his administration’s achievements in reducing crime and bringing down prices. That will just make him seem out of touch, as the longtime Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg has argued. The metaphorical sign behind Biden should say a good beginning, not mission accomplished. He should explicitly acknowledge that he isn’t satisfied and has more work to do—but then Biden should go on the offensive against Trump….In attack mode, Biden will look more vigorous. And he can win arguments about the way Trump’s budgets defund the police as well as environmental protection; how Trump’s policies undo gun-safety laws, caps on insulin prices, and protections for preexisting conditions; and why a Trump presidency would reward big companies and billionaires at the expense of working families….Biden should remind the debate audience that the only major legislation Trump passed was a huge tax cut for corporations and the wealthy—a measure that remains highly unpopular. And Biden can warn viewers that Trump is proposing more of those benefits for his buddies—tax cuts that will raise prices still higher. The threat isn’t just Trump’s vindictive personality or his antidemocratic instincts; it is his actual policies….Biden should use this extraordinary platform to make new arguments to voters: that he gets what they’re going through, that his plans will produce a better future, and that Trump isn’t just a risk for American institutions—he’s a threat to American families.”

At The New Yorker, John Cassidy writes that “it’s tricky for a politician to persuade voters that things are better than they think they are. Even as many people tell pollsters that they are satisfied with their own economic circumstances, they also say that the economy as a whole is still in poor shape. But, if Biden would be wise to frame his comments carefully in this area, he shouldn’t hesitate to ballyhoo, once again, the steps his Administration has taken to address some of the exploitative and monopolistic practices that big corporations have long subjected ordinary American customers and workers to….Many of these actions haven’t received the attention that they deserve, and they contrast sharply with the record, between 2017 and 2020, of Donald Trump, whose populist rhetoric from the campaign trail quickly yielded, once he was in office, to appointing former corporate lobbyists to regulatory agencies and showering corporations and the one per cent with huge tax cuts. Biden is promising to reverse those giveaways, and he has proposed new taxes on the very wealthy. Moreover, his Administration’s measures to eliminate hidden fees and reduce prescription-drug prices are part of a larger effort to boost competition and rein in corporate power, the likes of which arguably hasn’t been seen in the United States since the days of Teddy Roosevelt and Standard Oil….A longtime moderate Democrat, he has repeatedly referred to himself as a capitalist, and since he became President there have been times when he could have been tougher on major corporations. During the pandemic, for example, some major governments, including a center-right one in Britain, imposed a windfall tax on energy companies that were making out like bandits after a global surge in oil prices. Biden restricted himself to moral suasion. Taken as a whole, however, his Administration’s record belies the trope, common on the left and the right, that both major parties are in the pockets of big business, and it doesn’t matter who wins elections. If that were the case, why would there be so much pushback against Biden’s competition policies? Right now, lawyers for Big Pharma are suing to block the new prescription-drug rules. Big banks are suing to overturn an edict from the C.F.P.B. that capped credit-card late fees at eight dollars. And a number of plaintiffs, including the Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, and individual firms, are suing to block the F.T.C.’s ban on noncompete agreements….it’s up to Biden to make the contrast visible, and to point out that he, rather than the bluster merchant standing across from him, is the real economic populist. The record is clear: Biden will never get a better chance to explain it to voters.”

Not many of those who have been watching American politics for a few election cycles would be surprised by reports that “Trump’s massive fundraising haul” is catching up with the Biden campaign’s earlier lead in election fund-raising. Republicans rarely hurt for economic resources in the closing months of a national campaign – all the rarer in a time of record corporate profits. But Adam Wren reports at Politico that “new polling from Fox News shows an 11-point swing in President Joe Biden’s favorability among independents: They prefer Biden by 9 points, a reversal from May, when they favored Trump by 2 points. For the first time this year, the poll has Biden leading Trump by two points, 50-48, within the margin of error.” Wren also cites “a special election in Ohio’s 6th Congressional District this month, “in which “massively outspent Democrat Michael Kripchak erased 19 points from Trump’s 2020 margin of victory — still losing, but becoming the first Democratic candidate to carry the blue-collar Mahoning County since Trump painted it red in 2020….Incumbent Democratic senators in battleground states like Wisconsin, Nevada and Pennsylvania are polling ahead of their Republican challengers. In Arizona’s open Senate race, Republican Kari Lake, a star of the MAGA movement, is underperforming in the polls….after Republicans over the weekend nominated a far-right candidate for lieutenant governor in Indiana, a top national GOP lawyer predicted a “serious” threat to the top of the ticket even in the heart of MAGA country.” Also, “Trump may be raking in donations. But across the country, the mood of Republicans has dimmed, according to nearly a dozen Republican operatives, county chairs and current and former GOP officials. It comes amid ongoing concerns about the effect of abortion on Republican candidates….A Gallup poll released this month found record levels of voters saying that, in major races, they would only vote for candidates who share their views on abortion — with the intensity surrounding the issue likely to benefit abortion rights candidates more….And it follows defections from Trump in the primaries and, most recently, polling that has found Trump’s conviction in his New York hush-money trial hurting him with independents….Financially, the conviction was a boon to Trump’s small-dollar donor operation. But electorally, the reality of Trump’s conviction has begun to set in, they said.” In addition, three Trump-endorsed candidates lost their primary bids on Tuesday. But there is no guarantee that disgust with Trump’s convictions will have enough shelf life to last through Election Day.

“Abortion rights initiatives are already on the ballot in four states—Colorado, South Dakota, Maryland, and Florida—and pending signature approval in seven more,” Joan McCartyer writes in her article, “Anti-choicers in 11 states should be worried about November” at Daily Kos. “That includes more red states—Montana, Nebraska, Arkansas, and Missouri. In addition, advocates in the battleground states of Nevada and Arizona are still gathering signatures and likely to succeed. That puts the issue front and center in states key to President Joe Biden’s reelection and the Democrats’ hold on the Senate….Showing just how salient the issue is for voters, Montanans Securing Reproductive Rights announced last Friday that it had the most successful petition drive ever in the state for its constitutional amendment initiative guaranteeing that abortion access remain free in the state. It has gathered 117,000 signatures, nearly twice as many needed to get on the ballot—and from every county and all 100 House districts….The anti-abortion side has reason to panic. Voters have spoken in the past two years, from Kansas, Kentucky, and Ohio to all putting the issue on ballots in these states. They’re telling pollsters how important it is, too….The most recent Gallup poll showed a record number saying they’ll vote on this issue alone—32% of them. That breaks down to 23% of pro-choice voters and just 8% of anti-abortion voters….Civiqs polling highlights just how strong the pro-choice sentiment is in the electorate, with a plurality of 31% saying that abortion should be legal in all cases and another 30% saying it should be legal in most cases….This is a pro-choice country. Biden and Democrats get this, and it’s why they are centering the issue ahead of this election—they just need to make sure they tap into the citizens’ groundswell in every race, but particularly in the Senate and presidential campaigns.”