The Electoral Map and a 'Competent' Trump

(Bloomberg View) -- 1. Laura Seay explains what the Clinton Foundation actually does.

2. Matthew Dickinson defends presidential “vacations.”

3. Jonathan Ladd on the upside potential for Donald Trump if he can just manage to reach “competent.” It’s a good point, but some of this is baked in now: Trump isn’t going to build a field operation, and he’s not going to get back Republicans who have sworn him off, especially those who have already endorsed Hillary Clinton. All of this means Republican voters will continue to receive mixed messages.

4. Dave Hopkins notes that this year’s electoral map looks a lot like what we’ve been looking at for years.

5. Historian Joseph Crespino nonetheless wonders whether we might be witnessing the beginnings of a real two-party system in the South. Perhaps.

6. At PollyVote, Andreas Graefe reports that political scientists think Hillary Clinton will win comfortably in November. Hardly definitive, but it’s another piece of evidence for which way the wind is blowing.

7. Nice catch from Kevin Drum: The latest from Iran demonstrates why “substituting braggadocio for substance” is a bad idea in international politics.

8. Greg Sargent at Plum Line answers Donald Trump’s question to black voters: “What the hell do you have to lose?”

9. I’ve delivered campaign lawn signs, hammered lawn signs into the ground, and we have a lawn sign in our yard in more elections than not -- we had one for a local candidate earlier this year -- but I still learned some things from Jaime Fuller’s great story about campaign lawn signs.

10. And Alyssa Rosenberg baked the first spouses’ cookie recipes. 

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To contact the author of this story: Jonathan Bernstein at jbernstein62@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Katy Roberts at kroberts29@bloomberg.net.

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