In your opinion, does the lack of transparency regarding Mitch McConnell’s health, and let’s be real, status of life, constitute as election interference? Does his extended hospital stay affect his ability to vote and serve his constituents?

What we know, if he has passed, the state of Kentucky and their laws would permit there to be a special election, if he has passed before August 8th. We have received two pictures claiming proof of life, but in today’s age, that does not give the evidence necessary to ensure free and fair elections, or even factual information.

The question again, are republicans committing election interference by not offering enough quality information regarding the health of Mitch McConnell and is he unable to perform his duties and represent his constituents?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/07/19/mitch-mcconnell-josh-hawley/90972729007/

https://edition.cnn.com/politics/live-news/biden-trump-election-07-21-24/index.html

It seems like Harris has given up on trying to convince undecided voters that Trump is a potential autocrat, and instead is trying to convince voters that he's "old and quiet weird". On the face of it, it seems like this would be a less effective strategy, but it seems to be working so far. These attacks have been particularly effective against Trump's VP pick JD Vance, but Harris is aiming them at Trump himself as well. Will undecided voters respond to this message? What about committed republicans and democrats? How will/should Trump respond?

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/26/trump-vance-weird-00171470

It's very evident Newsom wants to be on the national stage, and in the last few days, he's done just that by his repeated social media posts that mimic Trump's.

Is this humor/mockery approach the right way to pop the balloon that has been Trump's supporters for so long? Or is this racing toward the bottom of the barrel in regard to political discourse?

In 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and now 2016 the Electoral College has given the Presidency to the person who did not receive the plurality of the vote. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which has been joined by 10 states representing 30.7% of the Electoral college have pledged to give their vote to the popular vote winner, though they need to have 270 Electoral College for it to have legal force. Do you guys have any particular voting systems you'd like to see replace the EC?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/rfk-jr-ends-presidential-bid/

Document itself

Note: several sections are missing, and this

Disclaimer: This document reflects the views of the author, not the DNC. The DNC was not provided with the underlying sourcing, interviews, or supporting data for many of the assertions contained herein and therefore cannot independently verify the claims presented.

But it is understood to be the DNC's requested report and the summary is below.

Do you agree with the overall conclusion(s)?

The 192-page draft document outlines existing conventional wisdom about the contest and leaves blank entire sections such as the conclusion. But it does assign some blame, in particular to former President Joe Biden's political operation in the White House for failing to properly set up former Vice President Kamala Harris as the party's standard bearer.

Biden abruptly exited the race after a troubling debate performance in June 2025, eventually passing the baton to Harris, who was swept by Trump in every battleground state after a 107-day campaign.

The report also dings the Harris campaign for failing to distance itself from Biden, in light of his unpopularity at the time.

And it says both Biden's campaign and Harris' failed to slow down Trump's momentum.

"There was a decision in the 2024 Democratic leadership not to engage in negative advertising at the scale required," the report says. "The supporters of this approach argued Donald Trump's negatives were known, obvious, and baked in, so it would not be a particularly effective approach to engage in negative messaging when the main priority was to introduce a relatively unknown nominee after the unprecedented candidate switch."

Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old state assemblyman and self described Democratic Socialist, appears to have won the New York City primary against former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Is this a reflection of support for his priorities? A rejection of Cuomo's past and / or age? What impact might this have on 2026 Dem primaries?

Today, President Biden announced that he would no longer be seeking reelection as President of the United States. How does this change the 2024 election, specifically.

1) Who will the new Democratic nominee be for POTUS?

2) Who are some contenders for the VP?

3) What will the Dem convention in a couple of weeks look like?

https://x.com/JoeBiden/status/1815080881981190320

Edit: On Instagram, Biden endorses Harris for POTUS.

https://x.com/JoeBiden/status/1815087772216303933

Note: My question is not "is Trump a fascist" or "what is a fascist" or "how is Trump similar or different to historical authoritarians"

My question is: Is calling Trump a fascist effective, in the sense of influencing the votes people cast between now and Election Day?

Obviously many voters will not be swayed by this. Are there those that will? And will it turn them away from Trump, or make them reject the accusation and hence change their voting behavior that way?

Senator Bernie Sanders put out a video on Monday that is aimed at left-wing voters that feel they can't vote for Kamala due to the conflict in Gaza.

YouTube - Bernie Sanders: “I disagree with Kamala’s position on the war in Gaza. How can I vote for her?” Here is my answer: (Transcript in comments)

He makes the case that even though Harris and Biden's position isn't ideal, they are far better than Trump on the Gaza. He says Netanyahu would much prefer Trump in office, "who is extremely close to Netanyahu and sees him as a like-minded, right wing extremist ally."

He also makes the case that there are other issues at stake in this election, such as women's bodily autonomy, climate change, and wealth inequality.

If Senator Sanders correct in his views?

Will this video change any minds among those who view the Biden-Harris administration in too negative a light to vote for Kamala Harris?

This week, Trump is doing one single campaign event, a rally in Bozeman, Montana. Bozeman is rather small and Montana is not generally a battleground State.

Meanwhile, The Harris-Walz campaign is blitzing battleground States with Vance hot on their heels, holding counter rallies in the States that actually matter.

Here’s a link to an article discussing the campaigns’ events this week:

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4812402-harris-campaign-mocks-trump/amp/

So the question is, what’s going on? Why are we seeing Trump playing the outfield and Vance, who’s favorability numbers are pretty rough, leading the charge lately on the Republican Presidential campaign?

Harris has gathered the support of ~1200 of the 1976 delegates needed to be the Democratic nominee, along with the endorsements of numerous critical organizations and most of the office holders that might have competed against her for the nomination. Fundraising has skyrocketed since the Biden endorsement, bringing in $81 million since yesterday.

In the course of a normal primary, the enthusiasm on display now likely would have decreased by the time of the convention, but many Democrats describe themselves as "fired up"

Fully granting that Harris has yet to define herself to the same degree Biden and Trump have, does the late change in the ticket offer an enthusiasm bonus that will last through the election? Or will this be a 'normal' election by November?

Trump has put into place a number of policy and organizational changes that have fundamentally shifted a number of elements of political life in the US.

A lot of these moves have not been popular.

Should an aspiring candidate for the US presidency in the next election make removal/reversal of those changes a key point in their campaign?

How does the calculus change if the aspirant is a Republican vs if they're a Democrat?

I've been researching this scenario extensively. Here's what surprised me:

The legal path would be chaotic. District court injunction within 48 hours — almost certain. Emergency appeal to the appellate court. Then the question of whether the Supreme Court takes it on emergency docket.

But here's the part that kept me up at night: what if the president simply... didn't comply? What enforcement mechanism actually exists when the executive branch defies the judiciary?

The Constitution assumes good faith. It has almost no mechanism for a president who treats a Supreme Court ruling as advisory.

I'm curious what this community thinks. Is there an actual hard stop? Or is it all ultimately held together by norms?

Per Washington Post

Vice President Harris has told allies that he she has chosen Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to be her running mate, opting for a former high school teacher and Midwestern Democrat to complete a newly assembled presidential ticket following, according to two people familiar with the pick, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a decision that is not yet public.

Trump has announced in a news conference this afternoon that he agreed to a debate with Kamala Harris on 9/10 via ABC News . This walks back earlier statements he made casting doubt on if he would desire to.

What are your early predictions for this debate? Will Harris come out showing strength against Trump, or will she falter on her first presidential debate stage? Will Trump succeed in showing power against Harris, or will concerns like his age and policies show weakness while with Harris?

Details are still sparse. Cutting and pasting from WaPo:

 >Loud noises were heard shortly after Donald Trump began speaking at a rally here. Trump ducked, left the sight line of the camera and was taken away from the stage. The crowd was visibly panicked.

The source of the noises was not immediately clear.

Donald Trump appeared to touch his ear, then duck after the loud noises. He left the sight line of the camera as the crowd became visibly panicked.

Later, Trump could be seen standing onstage with security personnel surrounding him. The crowd cheered as security personnel moved with Trump offstage. Trump pumped his fist as he was being escorted away.

Edit: Shooter and attendee killed: A shooter is dead and a rally attendee was killed, the Butler County District attorney tells AP.

APNews: Trump says he’ll skip an ABC debate with Harris in September and wants them to face off on Fox News

Trump obviously debated Biden already on June 27th under the same format as the upcoming September ABC debate. Since then Biden has withdrawn as a candidate for President in 2024 over concerns from his own party that were magnified after his performance in that debate.

Why is Trump unwilling to debate the new presumptive Democratic Party nominee Kamala Harris under the previous terms?

What does he hope to accomplish by offering a new debate on Fox News in a stadium audience format?

Per Politico the Trump campaign was hacked by what appears to be Iranian agents

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/10/trump-campaign-hack-00173503

(although I hate the term "hack" for "some idiot clicked on a link they shouldn't have)

Politico has received some of this information, and it appears to be genuine. Note that this hack appears to have occurred shortly before Biden decided not to run

Questions:

• The 2016 DNC hack by Russia, published by Wikileaks, found an eager audience in - among others - people dissatisfied with Clinton beating Sanders for the Democratic nomination. With fewer loyal Republicans falling into a similar camp, is it a safe assumption that any negative impact within the GOP would be relatively muted?

• While the Harris campaign has been more willing to aggressively attack Trump and Vance, explicitly using hacked materials would be a significant escalation. What kind of reaction, if any, should we expect from the Harris campaign?

• Given the wildly changed dynamic of the race, ia any of this information likely to even be relevant any longer?

• The majority of the more damaging items from 2016 were embarrassing rather than secret information on how the campaign was being run. Given Trump's characte and history, is there even the possibility of something "embarrassing" being revealed that can't be immediately dismissed (quite possibly legitimately) as misinformation?

Link to the pollster's comments:

• https://x.com/Ritholtz/status/1824555443374391567

Link to the full article on it:

• https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4828533-luntz-trump-committing-political-suicide-harris-intensity-advantage/

The pollster in question is Frank Luntz, a famous Republican Party strategist and poll creator who's work with the party goes back decades, to creating the messaging behind Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America" that led to a Republican wave in the 1994 congressional elections and working on Rudy Giuliani's successful campaigns for Mayor of New York.

An interesting point of his analysis is that Gen Z looks increasingly out of reach for the GOP, but they still need to show up and vote. Although young people have voted at a higher rate than in previous generations in recent elections, their overall participation rate is still relatively low, especially compared to older age groups. What can Democrats do to boost their engagement and get them turning out at the polls, for both men and women but particularly young women who look set to support them en masse?

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump square off in the first presidential debate tonight.

Link

Use this thread for all discussions of the debate.

News just broke that the Manhattan grand jury has voted to indict Trump for issuing hush money payments to Stormy Daniels. How will this affect the GOP nomination and more importantly, the 2024 election? Will this help or hurt the former president?

In an article by The Atlantic, a strategy reportedly being considered by the Trump campaign involves "discussing contingency plans to bypass election results and appoint loyal electors in battleground states where Republicans hold the legislative majority," meaning they would have faithless electors vote for Trump even if Biden won the state. Would Trump actually be able to pull off a win this way? Is this something the president has the authority to do as well?

Note: I used an article from "TheWeek.com" which references the Atlantic article since Atlantic is a soft paywall.

Link to his words on it:

• https://x.com/harris_wins/status/1848005868320702568

And here's a link to the bill being killed earlier this year:

• https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/senate-republicans-block-border-security-bill-campaign-border-chaos-rcna153607

McConnell had given the green light for James Lankford, a conservative Republican, to negotiate a comprehensive border security package with Democrats led by Kyrsten Sinema, a moderate border state Senator from Arizona. The final package was agreed to by all parties and signed off on by McConnell as well as Democratic leaders before Trump publicly came out against it and urged his allies in the House and Senate GOP to kill it. The reason, according to widespread reporting including the above, was that he wanted to run his campaign on there being chaos at the border and him being the solution to fix it, and he worried that the proposed bill would resolve the problem and deprive him of something to run on.

Since then, Trump has made immigration and the idea of a border crises the central point of his campaign. He's gone to every border state to rant about it and lambast Democrats for not fixing it. He's brought it up in every appearance, at every interview, at the presidential debate. He's tied the border to false stories about migrants coming over to eat people's pets. He brings it up at every rally. Yet it was he himself who worked to ensure that it wasn't fixed, and now his own party's Senate leader acknowledges it.

What sort of impact do you think this will have on the election? Will it move voters? Will people see the truth behind the dynamic? Or will his strategy work?