One of the more important debates emerging among Democrats is whether or not Hillary Clinton is banking too much on winning the support of GOP moderates. By appealing to them, is Clinton hurting the chances of Democratic candidates down-ballot and endangering potential Democratic majorities in the Senate and/or House? It’s a question which could decide whether the Supreme Court, as well as congress, will become a force for progressive change or deepening stagnation.

In his Salon.com post, “Hillary’s GOP outreach: Could it do more harm than good for Democrats?” Gary Legum asks whether  “Clinton’s outreach to some traditional Republican constituencies” could cost the Democrats the House and Senate. He cites a  USA Today/Suffolk University poll, which “suggests a bare majority of Hillary voters – 52 percent – are very or somewhat likely to split their ticket when they vote, punching their ballot for Clinton for president but a Republican for Congress. By contrast, a slight majority of Donald Trump supporters say they will vote straight Republican up and down the ballot”

However, “The biggest problem with Clinton’s outreach to Republicans,” explains Ed Kilgore in his New York Magazine article “Maybe Hillary Clinton Shouldn’t Spend So Much Time Pursuing Republican Voters,” is that “it does not seem to be working, at least at the level of actual rank-and-file voters…There are relatively few signs in polling so far of significant crossover voting by either partisans or partisan-leaning independents.” Kilgore concludes that “Clinton’s outreach to them is risky and not really necessary.”

“In the heat of this year’s presidential battle,” Kilgore says, “taking the fight to the partisan enemy makes more sense than begging it to surrender.”

Ron Brownstein notes further, in The Atlantic: “In one respect, Democrats have helped Republican candidates to escape any Trump undertow. Although some individual Senate candidates have linked their opponents to the blustery nominee, Hillary Clinton has mostly chosen not to tie Trump to conservative thought but rather to define him as a fringe departure from it. Republicans are hopeful that will help conservative-leaning voters who can’t stomach Trump revert to their usual party loyalties in Senate races.” Brownstein adds that Republicans hope for ticket-splitting to check Democratic Senate and House candidates had “some success late in Bill Clinton’s 1996 victory.”

For Democrats, however, most of Trump’s policies are not so different from those of other Republican leaders. As Ed Kilgore explains, “While it is possible to argue, as Clinton regularly does, that Trump has “taken over” a Republican Party that was a different kind of elephant before he appeared, it is not so clear the takeover was hostile or accidental.”

At RealClear Politics, Caitlin Huey-Burns quotes Jim Manley, a former aide to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who has argued, “You have Republicans up for re-election trying to run away from Trump as much as they can, so I think the smart move would be to lash them together to the extent possible to drag all of them down…The goal is to make the Republican Party as toxic as possible, to make it one big dumpster fire that they can’t run away from.”

Huey-Burns quotes former DNC official Luis Miranda: “We can’t give down ballot Republicans such an easy out. We can force them to own Trump and damage them more by pointing out that they’re just as bad on specific policies…” However, warns Huey-Burns, “Portraying all GOP candidates as racist or bigoted could turn off an electorate already exhausted by the tone and tenor of this campaign season and the divisive nature of the political system.”

Legum adds, “…Trump’s immigration speech on Wednesday should have removed any doubt about him for even the most clueless, disengaged voter. If that 70 minutes of bombast and flat-out fascism didn’t convince the last few remaining GOP holdouts that he would be far and away the most dangerous president in the history of the republic, then nothing will. If any Republicans are still going to support him out of some twisted sense of party loyalty, then there is nothing to be done.”

From a purely strategic point of view, Republicans who can’t stomach Trump’s brand of politics are either going to stay home, vote Libertarian  or vote for Clinton. There’s not much that Clinton can do, other than an excellent debate performance, to encourage them to vote for her.

In the wake of Trump’s blunder-riddled campaign leading up to Labor Day, most of his remaining Republican supporters are hard-core Hillary-haters, rigid ideologues or misguided ignoramuses, very few of whom can be considered persuadable.  To win the votes of whatever Republican moderates remain, Clinton should instead focus on the debates, which genuinely persuadable voters will be closely watching — along with everyone else.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s botched meeting with the president of Mexico and its aftermath has led to an exodus of what remained of his Latino Republican support, damaged the GOP’s Latino outreach even further and generated global ridicule. As Javier Palomarez, president and c.e.o. of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce put it on the Morning Joe show, “He’s done for…He has laid it to waist, and there’s no going back. Remember this one word: “Payaso.” It means ‘clown.'”

For those who were wondering just how bad of a mess Trump could make of America’s international relations, these three headlines and the stories behind them provide an indication: (1.) “Mexican president disputes Trump over border wall payment discussion“; (2.) “Donald Trump Gambles on Immigration but Sends Conflicting Signals“; (3.) and the devastating “Pariahs for Trump: When ISIS Jihadists, North Korea and the K.K.K. Agree on a Candidate.”

From Nate Cohn’s post “Democrats’ Edge in Voter Registration Is Declining, but Looks Can Be Deceiving” at The Upshot: “Democrats are actually registering more new voters than Republicans. In addition, more new voters are registering as independents. These voters are far younger and more diverse than the electorate as a whole, and they appear to lean Democratic…These trends in voter registration aren’t being driven just by Mr. Trump. The changing tallies are a lagging indicator of what we already know: Many voters who used to consider themselves Democrats now vote Republican…Among the approximately one million voters who have registered this year in the seven traditional battleground states where voters can register with a party — New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada — Democrats have an eight-point registration lead, 37 percent to 29 percent, according to data from L2…The Democrats hold this new-voter edge in every state — even the ones where their overall registration tallies have dwindled.” Read Cohn’s post for a more deatiled analysis.

At Politico Gabriel Debenedetti credits the Clinton campaign with some clever moves on the political chessboard, forcing Trump to spend time, money and energy in formerly solid red states, like Utah, Arizona and Georgia — draining valuable resources that Trump needs for battleground states.

In his New York Times column, Thomas B. Edsall sheds some interesting light on New Hampshire politics during his recent visit to a Trump rally in Manchester, including how Sen. Kelly Ayotte’s re-election prospects are being held hostage to her two-faced support for Trump: “Senator Kelly Ayotte, elected in the Tea Party wave of 2010, was nowhere to be found in Manchester. She has distanced herself from the Trump campaign as her convoluted equivocation — “While he has my vote he doesn’t have my endorsement” — has drawn national attention, and, in some quarters, ridicule…Facing a tough challenge from Maggie Hassan, the Democratic Governor, Ayotte, who campaigned long and hard for Mitt Romney in 2012, has tried to describe what she calls a “big distinction.”…On one hand, she said “Everyone gets a vote, I do too.” On the other, “an endorsement is when you are campaigning with someone.”…While this is just the kind of distinction without a difference voters are suspicious of, Ayotte is very clearly not campaigning with Trump…Maggie Hassan repeatedly links Ayotte to Trump. In one recent week, Governor Hassan issued eight Ayotte/Trump press releases, starting with “In Just One Interview, Ayotte Praises Trump, Doubles Down on Raising Social Security Eligibility Age & More” and moving on to “In Two Interviews, Ayotte Refuses Multiple Times to Say Whether She Trusts Trump with Nuclear Arsenal” by the end of the week.”

The new Kaiser Health Tracking Poll reveals the major health care concerns shared by registered voters. Among the revelations: The future of Medicare is rated a “top priority” by 66 percent of poll respondents and an “important” priority by an additional 28 percent, while “the cost of prescription drugs” is considered a ‘top priority’ by 53 percent and an ‘important’ priority by another 33 percent. Such numbers suggest Democrats may be able to gain some leverage with senior citizens who have a lot to be concerned about in the Republicans’ refusal to address either of these issues with credible reforms.

For a sobering look at security of voting in the U.S., read “Here’s how Russian hackers could actually tip an American election” by Craig Timberg and Andrea Peterson in the New York Times.

Michael Wines reports in The New York Times how Republicans are manipulating rules of county election boards North Carolina, despite a recent Appeals Court decision invalidating the state’s 2013 voter law, which was designed to suppress African American votes. “In urban Mecklenburg County, where Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly two to one, the number of registered voters has risen 5 percent since 2012. But the majority Republican plan envisions a nearly 9 percent reduction from 2012 in early voting hours, and would limit balloting to six sites during the first week of the 17-day period, then to 22 sites for the remaining 10 days.”…In Lenoir County Republicans propose “106.5 hours of early voting before the Nov. 8 election — less than a quarter of the time allowed in the 2012 presidential election — and to limit early balloting to a single polling place in the county seat of a largely rural eastern North Carolina county that sprawls over 403 square miles.” NC has 100 counties.

David Brooks faults Hillary Clinton with a lack of “graciousness” in her refusal to cower and grovel in response to any phony “scandal” concocted by Republicans.

The Washington Post editorial “Republicans can’t pretend not to know what fuels the Trump campaign” offers some salient observations about Clinton’s speech to a community college in Reno, NV calling out the “alt-right,” especially: “In a major speech Thursday, Hillary Clinton linked Donald Trump to bigoted elements on the fringe of American politics. But she got it wrong when she said, “Trump is reinforcing harmful stereotypes and offering a dog whistle to his most hateful supporters.”…It’s not a “dog whistle” if everyone can hear the bigotry.” The only ‘pivot’ emerging in the Trump campaign is a stronger tilt toward neo-fascism.

Regarding the buzz about the pros and cons of  Clinton’s “alt-right” speech, my take is that it had to be done — at  least the part calling out the Trump campaign for advocating unprecedented bigotry for a major political party (the second video here defines ‘alt-right’). Once was OK for Clinton, but I think it’s a mistake keep on using the ‘alt-right’ term, which suggests something shiny and new, instead of the same old bullying racism, sexism, religious bigotry, homophobia that was more recently attributed to the tea party. What’s new is that they have taken over the GOP, and perhaps the escalated intensity with which they sneer at Republican conservatives who still believe in civility. Remember, the ‘tea party’ term got a long ride – a few years – before it was rendered counter-productive to their cause. This election is 9 weeks away. The media will continue to use ‘alt-right’ as their new rhetorical toy, but Dems need not help bigotry get all gussied up in fancy new clothes. Somewhere Frank Luntz is smiling, but George Lakoff is not.

At The Fix David Weigel explains, contrary to a recent New York Times article by Jennifer Steinhauer, that Democrats are in pretty good shape in terms of this year’s U.S. Senate races. Weigel notes, “Had the party failed at recruiting, it might be leaving races uncontested. It didn’t. There’s a credible Democratic candidate in every presidential swing state. The party is staring at a brutal 2018 midterm map, and it has no short-term solution to the gerrymandering-enabled wipeout of its suburban legislative bench. This year, remarkably, they’ve held off the crisis.” Check out all of the Democratic Senate candidates right here.

From Jessica Wehrman’s Dayton Daily News post “GOP worried Trump could bring down others on ballot: Since 1948, Ohio has split the president, Senate votes just three times“: “In 1984, for example, roughly half of the states holding U.S. Senate races chose a Senate candidate from one party and a president from another…But by 2012, only one in five states holding Senate races split tickets, said G. Terry Madonna, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin and Marshall College…The last time Ohio voters backed a Senate candidate from one party and a presidential candidate from another was 1988, when Democrat Howard Metzenbaum won the Senate race while George H.W. Bush took Ohio on his romp to the presidency.” However, adds Wehrman, “As of June 30, the last reporting period, Portman had $13.2 million to Strickland’s $3.7 million. Portman has been airing ads since June, while Strickland began airing his first TV ad in August.” To help level the campaign finances playing field, check out Ted Strickland’s ActBlue contributions page.

Television still rules in terms of political ad revenues, but the picture looks a little different in terms of influence on voters. “Facebook, in the years leading up to this election, hasn’t just become nearly ubiquitous among American internet users; it has centralized online news consumption in an unprecedented way. According to the company, its site is used by more than 200 million people in the United States each month, out of a total population of 320 million. A 2016 Pew study found that 44 percent of Americans read or watch news on Facebook. These are approximate exterior dimensions and can tell us only so much. But we can know, based on these facts alone, that Facebook is hosting a huge portion of the political conversation in America.,” notes John Herrman’s New York Times Magazine article, “Inside Facebook’s(Totally Insane,Unintentionally Gigantic,Hyperpartisan) Political-Media Machine: How a strange new class of media outlet has arisen to take over our news feeds,”

Andy Schmookler, a former Democratic candidate for congress (VA-6) in 2012, has an interesting column, “Should Democrats use Trump as wedge or millstone against Republicans?” in the Augusta Free Press. Schmookler urges both, but with a strategic distinction: “Let the Democratic candidates for President and Vice-President use Trump as a wedge, differentiating Trump from the Republican Party whose face he’s become. And let other Democrats use him as a millstone, to sink the Republican Party in its current form. And perhaps together, these two approaches can loosen the stranglehold that today’s Republican Party has had over America’s ability to make progress as a nation.”

With respect to the Clinton campaign’s ‘wedge strategy,’ Rick Perlstein raises some perceptive concerns at The Washington Spectator about overdoing it, particularly if it throws Paul Ryan a life raft — instead of an anvil.

At The Hill, Niall Stanage discusses another strategic dilemma facing the Clinton campaign: how much to emphasize Trump’s flip-flopping on immigration, vs. focusing more strongly on his lack of qualifications and gravitas. Stanage quotes Joe Trippi, who was the campaign manager of Howard Dean’s 2004 bid for the White House: “Sixty percent of the population thinks he is not fit to be president…I would reinforce that and not do anything to take people off it. If the race is about who is fit to be president, Donald Trump is not likely to win.” Stanage reinforces Trippi’s argument: “In a Bloomberg poll released earlier this month, only 38 percent of likely voters said that Trump was ready to lead the nation “on day one in office.” Clinton’s rating on the same question was almost 20 points better, at 56 percent…A Quinnipiac poll released Thursday found 66 percent of likely voters saying that, whether they planned to vote for her or not, Clinton was “qualified” to be president. Only 40 percent said the same about Trump.”

This should be the front-runner for “most unwanted endorsement of 2016.”

Here we have an excellent example of the self-defeating myopia of single-issue politics. If one of these GOP Senators wins, and his victory denies the Democrats a Senate majority, not only would President Clinton’s ability to enact significant gun safety legislation be destroyed, but her ability to get a strong gun safety advocate confirmed to the Supreme Court would also be badly compromised.

At Sabato’s Crystal Ball, Alan I. Abramowitz reports on the findings of the Generic Ballot Forecasting Model, including: “…In order for Democrats to gain the minimum of four seats they need to regain control of the Senate (if there is a Democratic vice president to break a 50-50 tie), they probably would need a lead of at least two or three points on the generic ballot and to gain the minimum of 30 seats they need to regain control of the House, they probably would need a lead of at least 13 points on the generic ballot…According to HuffPost Pollster, results of recent national polls give Democrats an average lead of five points on the generic ballot. If that lead were to hold up until the week after Labor Day, the traditional cutoff date for the generic ballot forecast, Democrats would be expected to gain about 16 seats in the House and about four seats in the Senate — not enough to flip control of the House but enough to flip control of the Senate if Clinton wins the presidential election.”

Crystal Ball also spotlights another model, which is more more favorable to Democrats, “The Seats-in-Trouble House and Senate Election Forecasts” by James E. Campbell, which finds that “Based on seven House Democratic seats being rated as only leaning to the Democrats, toss-ups, or tipped toward going to the Republicans, and 33 House Republican seats being rated as only leaning to the Republicans, toss-ups, or tipped toward going to the Democrats — a net of 26 more Republican than Democratic seats-in-trouble — the model predicts that Democrats will gain 32 House seats in November. This would bring the number of House Democrats up to 220 members, two seats more than required for a bare majority. The forecast was made on Aug. 18, 2016…Based on one Senate Democratic seat being rated as a toss-up or tipped toward the Republicans and eight Senate Republican seats being rated as toss-ups or tipped toward the Democrats — a net of seven more Republican than Democratic seats-in-trouble — the model predicts that Democrats will gain seven Senate seats. This would bring the number of Senate Democrats (including two Independents who caucus with Democrats) up to 53 seats, a majority. The forecast was made on Aug. 19, 2016.”

Too often tragedies like the mass poisoning of Flint, Michigan’s water supply fade from the headlines after a short burst of public outrage, with few corrective measures in place, thanks to obstruction by Republicans. The crisis in Flint is symptomatic of other disasters in waiting as result of decades of Republican infrastructure neglect all across America, and there is a disturbing pattern of law enforcement making examples of mid-level officials bureaucrats and letting it go at that, while the more culpable CEO’s and top administrators who threw public safety under the bus are let off. Chase Madar’s NYT op-ed, “The Real Crime Is What’s Not Done” explores the political ramifications of infrastructure neglect, noting “A well-enforced regulatory regime lacks the TV-movie narrative arc of a criminal trial. But none of these crimes could have been committed if the government had been doing its job properly.” What Democrats must do is make it clear that it is the Republicans who are putting public safety at risk with obstruction and neglect across the nation.

Steve Bousquet of the Miami Herald reports that “Republicans and their allies in the state Capitol are flexing muscle in at least three hotly contested Democratic primary races in a covert attempt to define the makeup of the Florida Senate for years to come…In Tampa Bay’s most hard-fought Senate primary where black Democrats could be decisive, a new mailer in support of Rep. Darryl Rouson, D-St. Petersburg, makes it appear he has the support of President Barack Obama (he doesn’t). The mailer was paid for a committee backed by Republican interests…In Palm Beach County, the same group, operating under the nebulous name Floridians for a Better Florida, is helping Rep. Irv Slosberg, D-Boca Raton, with mailers attacking his rival, Sen. Jeff Clemens, D-Lake Worth.” It would be good if there were more examples of Democrats successfully deploying such a strategy, as did Sen. Clarie McCaskill in her U.S. Senate re-election bid in 2012.

Democrats now know exactly which House seats the GOP is prioritizing to protect or flip, as a result of the GOP Super-PAC, The Congressional Leadership Fund’s (CLF) decision to allocate their $10 million investment, reports Ted Barrett at CNN Politics. “The Congressional Leadership Fund’s spending on TV and digital advertising — as well as get-out-the-vote efforts — is aimed at 12 of the most competitive seats this fall that could determine if Democrats can make up the 30-seat deficit they face now and reclaim the majority after six years out of power.” The targeted congressional seats are in south FL, CA, NB, IA, WI, NY and TX. The non-partisan Sunlight Foundation reported that CLF had a 58.05% return on investment in 2012. The CLF’s largest donor in 2012 was Sheldon Adelson, who gave $5 million. Other major donors included Chevron.

Ben Rosen notes at The Monitor, “Larry Grisolano, who oversaw paid advertising efforts for the 2008 and 2012 Obama campaigns, predicted in June 2015 that the presidential campaigns will devote nearly a quarter of their spending to digital media…But Nicco Mele, director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School, says online advertising is only effective in raising money or increasing voter turnout, not persuading voters to choose one candidate over another…“Television is the most powerful form of persuasion,” he tells the Monitor in a phone interview Wednesday. “The internet is not as effective in changing people’s minds.””

Can Hillary Clinton win a healthty share of the votes of blue collar youth? Rebeccca Nelson probes the possibilities in her TNR article, “The Forgotten Millennials” Nelson observes, “When Clinton talks about millennials, she tends to use the word interchangeably with “college students.” But millennials with university degrees don’t represent their entire generation—just those with the greatest economic and educational advantages. A full 40 percent of young people never made it past high school, according to a recent analysis by CIRCLE, a research center that specializes in youth issues…Politicians tend to ignore working-class millennials for a simple reason: They don’t show up on Election Day. Just 29 percent of blue-collar youth turned out to vote in 2012—about half the rate of those who’d attended college. But in market terms, that political disengagement represents an opportunity for Clinton: CIRCLE estimates there are more than 17 million eligible voters under 35 still waiting to be mobilized—the last big segment of American voters that is genuinely up for grabs….Working-class youth should be Clinton’s for the taking: Fifty-two percent lean Democratic; 34 percent tilt Republican. And because so many are politically disengaged, their leanings are considered “soft,” in campaign parlance: They could be swayed by any candidate with a message that resonates.”

Shameless Gov. Chris ‘Bridgegate’ Christie vetoes a NJ Motor Voter Bill, which “would automatically register voters who are renewing or applying for a driver’s license.” As the Star-Ledger’s editorial “Christie tries to rig the system by vetoing motor-voter bill,” notes “Of all the ways Republicans use voter suppression to influence elections – gerrymandering districts, voter ID laws, purging rolls, shorting voter periods, preventing ex-cons from voting – this is especially odious, because MVC already makes you jump through hoops to prove that you are who you say you are. The only fraud here is the governor’s brand of politics.”

Sean McElwee’s salon.com post”Research shows Democrats are better for the economy — so why do voters trust Republicans more?” merits a thorough read from all Democrats concerned with crafting a stronger message that defines their party. From his conclusion: “Instead of bashing government and praising “job creators” Democrats must espouse a narrative that places the government and the safety net as a core component of economic growth. Such a narrative would emphasize the important ways that government creates the environment for growth, with infrastructure investment, science and technology research, education, childcare, healthcare and a safety net as a backdrop… As my colleague Tamara Draut argues, a better framework would be bottom-up: emphasizing that the working class is an engine for economic growth, and as long as they are left behind, our society struggles…An economic system that allows all Americans to flourish is the path to prosperity. But Democrats have to embrace the public sector, instead of austerity.”

If any Democratic ad-makers need a list of Trump’s self-damaging tweets and video clips, former MI Gov. Jennifer Granholm has just the thing in her HuffPo post, “37 Times Donald Trump Should Have Apologized.” Or you could go with Chris Kirk’s “183 Things Donald Trump Has Said and Done That Make Him Unfit to Be President” at slate.com.

Ryan Cooper illuminates “Hillary Clinton’s Southern strategy” at The Week: “…Turning out Democrats in record numbers could change the party’s fortunes in the South…Probably the key demographic to focus on is young voters…If Clinton is to take any of these states, young voters (and their more left-wing ideas) are where to start…Southern people need federal government help more than most. Most of the states that refused the Medicaid expansion in ObamaCare are in the South — where people are disproportionately poor and hence could qualify for coverage. Clinton winning these states could mean Democrats taking control of the state government, and giving health insurance to millions of people at a stroke — at virtually no cost to state governments either…And, of course, a disproportionate fraction of those poor Southerners are black. More than half of African-Americans live in the South — and more are moving there over time…Trump’s omnishambles campaign might just give them [Democrats] the opening they need to start rebuilding the party and contesting elections where liberal policy is most desperately needed.”

Re our recent “Political Strategy Notes – Trumps’ Hidden Tax Return Edition,” here’s MoveOn.org’s petition.

As incredible as is the story behind the Manafort meltdown, anyone who believes that replacing him with  a Breitbart wingnut, like Stephen K. Bannon is going to facilitate a “pivot to the center” is setting a new standard for gullibility. As TNR deputy editor Ryu Spaeth writes at The New Republic: “With his latest campaign shakeup, Trump is pivoting to a meaner, nastier Trump…The problem with Paul Manafort, it turns out, was not that he was a shill for allies of the Kremlin. It’s that he tried to turn Trump into a respectable-ish general election politician. Now that Manafort has received a de facto demotion, to be replaced by Steve Bannon, the executive chairman of Breitbart News, we can expect to see Trump drop any pretense of cleaning up his act. Instead, he’s reportedly going to amplify the combative persona and ethno-nationalist message that won him the GOP primary.” Spaeth shares a tweet by WaPo national political reporter Robert Costa, who notes “Bannon has convinced Trump that rest of campaign needs to be bare-knuckles brawl, w/ full-bore populism/movement politics.”

In The New York Review of Books, Elizabeth Drew discusses Ratf**ked: The True Story Behind the Secret Plan to Steal America’s Democracy by David Daley, which takes a revealing look at the GOP’s political firewall, the REDMAP program. Drew explains how REDMAP has been so effective in taking over state legislatures and governorships in historical context and suggests a way for Democrats and progressives to undo the damage done by rabidly partisan redistricting: “What is to be done about partisan districting? Fortunately, a workable answer isn’t obscure or unachievable. The process has to be taken from the parties and turned over to nonpartisan commissions…What is required is a sufficient number of people who understand the issues at stake to bring pressure in their state to rectify its districting system…Embarrassment can be a potent political force and blatant denial of even the concept of representative government should be quite embarrassing…Citizen action of the kind that would push for redistricting commissions can be quite effective once the public is armed with the facts and determined to push for change…What’s needed now is the will in numerous states to force the powers that be to make this most fundamental and consequential reform of our political system.” Mobilizing such a coalition is harder than Drew suggests, but she is surely right that no one has come up with a better idea.

Republicans hold House seats in 28 congressional districts that Obama won in 2012 and Dems need a total net pick-up of 30 House seats this year to win back the critically-important Speaker’s gavel. At Daily Kos, Stephen Wolf explores ways to determine the percentage margin of victory Hillary Clinton would need to give Dems a good chance to flip majority control of the House back to Democrats, and comes up with a qualified estimate of 7-8 percent.

In her Cook Political Report update on the U.S. Senate race in North Carolina, Jennifer Duffy notes: “[Republican incumbert Richard] Burr goes into the final months of the race with nearly $7 million in the bank. By contrast, [Democratic candidate Deborah] Ross had just over $1.9 million on hand as of June 30. It is worth noting, though, that Ross outraised the incumbent in the second quarter, $2,101,017 to $1,575,224 for Burr…According to the current RealClearPolitics.com moving average (4/23 – 8/10), Burr has a one point advantage over Ross, 41.3 to 40.3. According to the HuffPollster moving average of all surveys taken in the race, Burr is ahead of Ross, 39.7 percent to 37.4 percent with Libertarian candidate Sean Haugh taking 4.6 percent…The most recent public poll actually showed Ross ahead of Burr by two points. The NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist College survey (August 4-10 of 921 registered voters) had Ross leading Burr, 46 percent to 44 percent…Absentee voting starts in early September; 56 percent of voters are expected to cast their ballots early, leaving Burr with little time to make his case to voters. As such, the race moves to Toss Up.” Looks like reducing Burr’s financial edge could help Ross win. Her ActBlue contributions page is here.

The staff of Talking Points Memo offers “TPM’s Guide To GOPers Hopping Off The Trump Train.” It’s a growing list with three general categories: ‘Ready for Hillary,’ ‘The Holdouts’ and ‘The Arch-Weasels,” one of whom is Sen. Rand Paul, who has said he will support Trump, despite calling him “a delusional narcissist and an orange-faced windbag.”

At The Fix, Philip Bump has an overview of early voting windows in the 50 states and how these windows  affect presidential campaign strategy. Bump unveils a new WaPo graph which depicts the early voting window in each state, along with polling averages in each state, to provide a sense of how Clinton and Trump are doing. Bump writes:

…”Election Day” is a misnomer, suggesting a set time at which America will head to the polls. Our description of Election Day being 82 days away is correct in that Nov. 8 is the day most people will vote in the election — but millions will vote well in advance of that, some by absentee ballot and some at early voting stations. What that means is that the presidential campaigns (and every other candidate) needs to have its turnout operation up and ready within a month, not within two. And it means that Trump’s consistent pokiness about setting up his field effort will be a problem sooner rather than later.

At Bloomberg, Sasha Issenberg (who knows this world well) reports that Hillary Clinton’s campaign has oriented its operation in an unusual way, dividing its focus between states that vote early and those that don’t, recognizing the very different ways in which the campaigns in those places differ. In 2012, a quarter of the votes cast were cast by early ballot, he notes. Michael McDonald, who tabulated that number, figures this year could top one-third.

Bump points out that the rules for early voting vary significantly from state to state, so the value of any comparisons is limited accordingly. One of the consequential takeaways from the graph is that people will start voting toward the end of September in six states, including potential swing states Michigan and Minnesota. All of the other early voting windows open up in October, with the exception of Oklahoma, which has a tiny early voting window in November.

Some, but not all of the potential swing states that will decide the election, have early voting windows opening in October, including Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin. Of this list, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina and Georgia have the most electoral votes, and all of them have Republican Governors and Secretaries of State.

Recent history suggests voter suppression activities on election day, including “caging,” poll site and hours disinformation, phony “security” guards, no parking signs near polls, purge lists, voting machine malfunctions, poll understaffing to create long lines and other scams, will be in full throttle in the first three of these states.  So early voting can make a pivotal difference in these four states, especially NC, where close races for Governor and U.S. Senator, as well as President are heating up. Ohio and Florida also have see-saw senate races, according to recent polls.

It makes good sense for Democratic candidates to try and bank as many votes as possible in the early voting windows in these four potential swing states. Florida (Oct. 29) and North Carolina (Oct. 27) have short early voting windows, while Ohio (Oct. 12) and Georgia (Oct. 17) open their early voting windows earlier.

Democrats should take no comfort from the fact that many Republicans, including Governor Kasich of Ohio, have given up on Trump. Dems should still expect fierce voter suppression in Ohio, where Republicans desperately want to hold Rob Portman’s senate seat and in NC, where even more is at stake.

It is encouraging that the Clinton campaign has a much better ground game already gearing up to help bank early votes. They are going to need it in a big way in Florida, North Carolina and Ohio, and perhaps Georgia.

In his Washington Post column on the Trump campaign leadership re-do, E. J. Dionne, Jr. observes, “There is much good news but one piece of bad news for Clinton in the Trump shake-up. The bad news is that she is likely to have to play more defense, especially if Bannon builds on his success in enticing reporters at non-conservative media outlets to work on stories damaging to her…The good news is that Trump seems determined to fight through the campaign on his own terms. This reduces the chances that he will drop out of the presidential race, which, in turn, means that Clinton is more likely to avoid what would be the biggest blow to her chances: a Trump withdrawal and the naming of a new GOP candidate.”

Sam Wang writes in his post “What would it take for the House to flip?” at the Princeton Election Consortium: “…I used the generic Congressional preference poll and national Presidential polls to estimate that if the election were held today, House Democratic candidates would win the popular vote by 5-8%…. Judging from the last few cycles, that level of public opinion appears to be right on the edge of being enough to give Democrats control of the House…Kyle Kondik takes a more extreme view, and estimates that Democrats need a +10% win. If true, that would be a serious deviation from 1946-2012 trends. There is a research finding from the 1990s asserting that the effects of gerrymandering can fade after a few cycles…”

At FiveThirtyEight,com Seth Masket explains “How A Trump Debacle Could Affect The House And State Legislatures.” Masket looks at historical data, crunches the numbers and observes “There’s a pretty clear relationship — for each additional percent of the vote a presidential candidate receives, his or her party will gain several House seats and about two dozen state legislative seats, according to my analysis. But there’s quite a bit of leniency in that relationship. While having an unpopular candidate at the top of the ticket is certainly a challenge, it’s not necessarily a death sentence. Candidates can sometimes successfully distance themselves from their presidential candidate.”

“Presidential Debates Will Almost Definitely Exclude Third Parties,” writes Alice Ollstein at ThinkProgress, because none of them are getting close enoiugh to the 15 percent average in five major polls that is required to be in the debates.

At The New Republic Kevin Baker makes the case for Democrats returning to a form of “machine politics” — using some of the organizing structures that empowered strong Democratic state and local parties in the past, while avoiding the corruption that often came with it.

“Trump plans to devote himself primarily to five crucial states — Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania — where he hopes that raucous rallies and a relentless presence on television will electrify his working-class base and thousands of other people who have grown disengaged and frustrated with the political class,” report Robert Costa, Jose A. DelReal and Jenna Johnson at The Washington Post.

Also at TNR David Dayen writes about Zephyr Teachout’s challenge to debate her opponent’s PAC funders (which I noted in Monday’s Strategy Notes) and comments: “Attack ads usually stream across local television screens without any context. By calling out the funders directly, Teachout has tainted those forthcoming ads by associating them with corruption. And that’s a lesson other Democrats might want to heed.”

From Dara Lind’s “Democrats have a secret plan to win red states without moving to the center” at Vox: “…What if Democrats stopped thinking about winning as many of the available, likely voters as possible, and started thinking about changing the pool of who was a likely voter? What if they focused less on persuasion and more on voter mobilization?…If Democrats stop pivoting to the center and spending money on ads, and start focusing on getting their natural allies to the polls, they can win more durable victories; America, after all, is only getting more diverse…Instead of spending money on ads…spend it on turnout. [Democratic strategist Steve] Phillips estimates that for the amount of money spent on attack ads in the 2014 North Carolina Senate race, for example, Democrats could have paid for “400 full-time staff members to go door to door in communities of color for an entire year, talking to and mobilizing the voters who had turned out for [Democratic Sen. Kay] Hagan when she won in 2008.”

Roll Call columnist Jonathan Allen explains why “We’re Underestimating the Donald Trump Debacle,” noting that “Trump’s failure to put together even a bush league campaign organization has Republican insiders rightly worried about the long-term implications of the impending November debacle. He’s refused to do the presidential-year work that parties rely on to build their donor, volunteer and voter lists for future elections at the local, state and national levels…“Presidential races are where you can invest in data infrastructure, organizing talent, technology, etc. He is not doing that. She is,” Jeremy Bird, the national field director for President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign said on Sidewire…Democratic and Republican strategists say he could do truly lasting damage to the size and strength of the party and its ability to find and mobilize like-minded voters.”

At Brookings William Frey has an analysis that will should add to the RNC’s woes quite considerably. Frey writes,

Much has been written about white working-class men this political cycle because they represent the voting base on which Republican candidate Donald Trump largely depends. Yet recent polling suggests that another demographic segment – white college-educated women – could be his Achilles heel. I have calculated just how many votes it would cost him if white college-educated women vote the way they have stated they will in recent polls. If the polls are accurate, even a supersized turnout of working-class white men would not be nearly enough for Trump to win the election.

…This year’s election could be historic by making white college-educated women a lynchpin of a decisive Democratic win – an unintended consequence of Trump’s full-throated old-style male bravado, as a contrast to Clinton’s more inclusive messages. These women not only favor the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, but do so decisively – a shift that occurred just after both parties’ conventions took place. The difference is tallied in ABC/Washington Post polls of registered voters for mid-July and early August, as shown in Figure 1. Before the conventions, Clinton held a slight edge over Trump, 45 percent versus 42 percent among white college-graduate women, but her advantage widened sharply to 57 percent versus 38 percent after the conventions.

Frey presents charts that provide a striking visual demonstration of Clinton’s post-convention gains with the white women college graduate constituency, with little variation among other constituencies between pre and post-convention polls. Frey uses a simulation exercize “show how many votes Clinton and Trump would receive from these different groups,” using 2012 turnout rates with Current Population Survey reports and the polling data in the charts and calculates that Clinton would pick up an additional 5 million votes for her election tally, securing a 10 million vote margin in the popular vote. Frey explains,

The main reason for this difference is the outsized contribution to Clinton of 4 million net votes from white college-graduate women. This is a rise from the 659,000 net gain for Clinton that this group contributed under the pre-convention polling scenario. It makes the difference between a solid Democratic win and a near landslide win. Throughout the nation’s history only four previous presidential candidates (Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Lyndon Johnson and Franklin Roosevelt) showed winning margins that exceeded 10 million votes.

Frey performs another simulation exercize in which white non-college men turn out to vote in percentages  matching that of white college-educated men, a generous 79 percent turnout rate, translating into an 16 million increase in this constituency over 2012.

“Yet even with the assumption of extreme white working-class male turnout,” writes Frey, “the election results in a 5 million vote win for Clinton. This indicates that if Clinton can sustain the support of white educated women shown in recent polls, she can overcome supersized turnout of white working-class men.” Frey acknowledges that a lot could change in the months ahead. He concludes, however, that

…The division between the voting patterns of white-working-class and racial-minority voters will probably be larger than in the past. But recent polls suggest that there could be a new demographic divide within the white population with white college-educated women turning into a meaningful Democratic bloc. If this split within the white population persists until Election Day, it could result in a landslide win for Clinton over Trump.

Despite all of the complications that could arise over the next 90 days, Frey’s scenarios are not so  implausible if Clinton can hold steady her electoral popular vote coalition. And while many pundits are predicting a Clinton victory in November, the word “landslide” in Frey’s analysis should have GOP down-ballot candidiates in swing states and districts more than a little worried.

Zach Carter, senior political economy reporter at HuffPo, has an interesting post about a promising new strategy being deployed by Zephyr Teachout, a progressive Democratic candidate for New York’s 19th congressional district in the Hudson Valley.

Teachout is “cutting out the middleman” with a new ad that targets “vulture fund” billionaire Paul Singer, who wrote a check for a cool half-million dollars to a super PAC supporting John Faso, her Republican opponent. Teachout points out that contributions to her campaign average about $15. Go to this link to see the ad.

Carter explains Teachout’s strategy:

…When Singer signed on in May, Faso had the firepower to challenge Teachout in the general election.

On Monday, Teachout decided to bypass Faso himself and go after his donor. In a video posted to her Facebook account, she criticized Singer and challenged him to a debate.

“This is very serious,” Teachout says in the ad. “Paul Singer, I challenge you to come here and have a debate with me … I think the people of the 19th District deserve to hear your actual voice when you’re putting so much money into trying to buy up representation.”

Teachout is an academic corruption expert who is building her campaign message around curbing the influence of large corporations and money in politics. So highlighting Singer isn’t just an attempt to dismiss Faso as a tool of big money interests ― it also draws attention to Teachout’s strongest issue.

It’s an interesting strategy. For too long, Republican PAC sugar-daddies have escaped scrutiny and paid no penalty for lavishing big money on their candidates. By calling a lot of extra attention to Singer’s outsize contribution, Teachout is forcing him to pay a price in his diminished image, making his candidate, John Faso, look like a hedge-fund puppet and, if she wins, providing an impressive example that can help other progressive candidates who are willing to go after those who try to buy elections with large donations.

Opinion polls show overwhelming public support for curbing the influence of big money on American politics. Teachout’s strategy may provide a powerful new way to check the corruption of our democracy by fat cat money.

Here’s the Clinton campaign’s first ad on the subject of Trump’s unavailble tax froms: 

The Associated Press report “Clinton Releases 2015 Tax Returns, Pushing Trump for His,” notes, “…The Clintons paid a federal tax rate of 34.2 percent in 2015 and made about $10.6 million combined that year. Pulitzer Prize wining financial and tax expert David Cay Johnston writes at The Daily Beast that “The average American pays 13.6 cents out of each dollar in federal income taxes, with those just below the 1 percent paying 18.4 percent and the top 1 percent paying 27 percent, IRS data show.” Further, according to the AP story, they gave more than $1,042,000 to charity, with $1 million going to the Clinton family foundation. That is the financial vehicle the family uses to give money to museums, schools, churches and other charitable causes…The Clintons have disclosed tax returns for every year since 1977…Trump has refused to make his filings public, saying they’re under audit by the Internal Revenue Service…”

Jenna Johnson notes at The Washington Post: “In January, Trump said he was almost ready to disclose his “very big . . . very beautiful” returns. But a month later, Trump reversed course, citing ongoing Internal Revenue Service audits of several years of his taxes…An IRS spokesman said that nothing, including an audit, “prevents individuals from sharing their own tax information.” And President Richard Nixon released his tax records while under audit.”

David Cay Johnston also explains in his thorough analysis, “Is a Crook Hiding in Donald Trump’s Taxes?” at The Daily Beast, that “Trump’s excuse—that he is being audited by the IRS—is as phony as the three-dollar bills Trump refers to in speeches. Besides which, Trump’s tax lawyers issued a letter saying audits of his returns for 2002 to 2008 were closed with no changes. So even by Trump’s own standard, no excuse exists for holding back those years or earlier ones, which would also be closed…” Johnston also cites numerous  Trump business interests and dealings in Russia, and believes hiding the damaging details may be a leading reason why Trump has not kept his promise about releasing his tax forms.

At NPR Politics Domenico Montanaro puts into perspective why we should care about Clinton and Trump’s tax history, and cites three important things we can learn from candidates tax filings, including: Are there conflicts of interest?; “Do they have heart?” (charitable contributions) and; “Are they like us?” (how much they earn, their net worth, tax rates and lifestyle).

It is highly doubtful that independent tax analysts would be able to say the same thing about Trump’s tax history, that this report by Rick Newman at Yahoo Finance says of the Clintons’ taxes: “…Almost nobody in that tax bracket pays the large portion of taxes the Clintons pay, because a slew of tax breaks sharply reduces the tax bite for most high earners…There are no tricks or gimmicks here,” says Stuart Gibson, editor of the weekly publication Tax Notes International. “These are white-bread returns.” The Clintons earn nearly all of their income from working rather than from investments, which leaves few options for exploiting the many tax loopholes that other wealthy taxpayers use.”

According to “How Much Does Donald Trump Pay in Taxes? It Could Be Zero” by James B. Stewart at The New York Times, “Mitt Romney was excoriated during the 2012 presidential campaign for paying $4.9 million in federal income tax, or an average of just 14 percent of his adjusted gross income, in the two years for which he released returns…No one should be surprised, though, if Donald J. Trump has paid far less — perhaps even zero federal income tax in some years. Indeed, that’s the expectation of numerous real estate and tax professionals I’ve interviewed in recent weeks…Even though his recent returns are confidential, the notion that Mr. Trump has paid little or no tax is not entirely speculative. It’s consistent with Mr. Trump’s returns from the late 1970s, which he filed with the New Jersey Casino Control Commission when applying for a casino license in 1981. Mr. Trump reported losses and paid no federal income tax in 1978 and 1979 and paid only modest sums — a total of less than $75,000 — for the prior three years.”

The Tax History Project at Tax Analysts has compiled an extraordinary archive of presidential tax returns going back to FDR, and includes links to presidential tax information from 1913 till today. Since the 1970s, notes the Project, most presidents have publicly released their tax returns.

And what does Mr. My taxes are “none of your business”‘ propose to do about tax reform for America?  From David Horsey’s L.A. Times post, “Trump’s tax scheme serves the rich, not working-class white guys“: Trump would get a nice payoff from his proposal to cut the top income tax rate. Then, he and his heirs would receive an enormous gift through the elimination of the federal tax on inherited wealth for couples who have assets of $10.9 million or more. As if that were not enough, Trump would receive enormous tax savings from the provision of his scheme that sharply reduces the tax rate for so-called “pass-through” entities, businesses that pay no corporate taxes but whose owners pay a personal rate based on the profits of their enterprises.” Columnist Clarence Page also notes “The “death tax” he promises to scrap actually is the estate tax, which effects only 0.2 percent of all estates. It doesn’t kick in until the estate exceeds $5.4 million for an individual or $10.9 million for a married couple…Call it what you want but it’s not a tax break for the poor, no matter how many upset waitresses or taxi drivers I run into who think it applies to them.”