It’s Wednesday. Simone, Jade, Jordan, Suni and Hezly absolutely crushed team finals! 🥇 Did anyone see Simone’s Instagram caption where she seems to throw some serious shade at MyKayla Skinner? 👀 Here’s what else is happening today:
- A new poll shows Vice President Harris has erased former President Trump’s lead in swing states.
- Some are having a hard time picturing Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) being an attack dog for Harris if she chooses him as her running mate.
- The Federal Reserve is announcing today whether it will cut interest rates.
- The U.S. is leading the Olympic medal count so far.
- Panera is giving out free avocado toast today for National Avocado Day.
I’m Cate Martel with a quick recap of the morning and what’s coming up. Send tips, commentary, feedback and cookie recipes to cmartel@thehill.com. Did someone forward this newsletter to you? Sign up here.
👟The Campaign Trail
This poll has created a lot of chatter:
Vice President Harris has erased former President Trump’s lead in multiple key battleground states, according to a new Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll.
Michigan: Harris has an 11-point lead
Nevada: Harris +2
Arizona: Harris +2
Wisconsin: Harris +2
Pennsylvania: Trump +4
North Carolina: Trump +2
Georgia: Harris and Trump are tied.
💡 Why this matters: This poll is not an outlier of the handful of polls that have trickled in. Harris has had significant momentum and raised more than $200 million in her first week as a presidential candidate. At the start of July, Trump led President Biden overall by 2 percentage points and was ahead in five of these seven battleground states.
Specifically: Democrats say Harris is putting Georgia, Arizona and Nevada back in play.
➤ MORE READS ON HARRIS:
- ‘Kamala Harris Created a Huge Wave of Energy. How Long Can Democrats Ride It?’: The New York Times
- ‘Trump’s nephew declares support for Harris’: The Hill
- ‘Trump, with a history of sexist attacks, again faces a female opponent’: The Washington Post
- ‘The Underdog vs. the Victim’: “Harris and Trump have different ways of playing outsider.” The Atlantic
- ‘RFK Jr.’s campaign struggles with Harris in race’: The Hill
It would be like hearing your kindergarten teacher swear:
Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) is one of Vice President Harris’s top contenders for VP, but that would require being an attack dog on the campaign trail.
How so?: Kelly has a clean-cut reputation and would be uncomfortable assuming that role. He’s a former naval aviator and astronaut — and has stayed out of political food fights since being elected to the Senate in 2020.
Kelly’s certainly trying!: Kelly recently took a few uncharacteristic partisan jabs at Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) outside the Capitol. 📹 Watch Kelly’s comments about Vance
Read more from The Hill’s Alexander Bolton: ‘Mark Kelly would break tradition of VP as attack dog’
🏆 In Arizona
Kari Lake’s on the ticket:
Republican Kari Lake easily won her primary in the Arizona Senate race, teeing up a general election match-up against Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego.
Was this a surprise?: No, she has been largely viewed as the presumptive GOP nominee in the race to replace retiring Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.).
Five takeaways from Arizona’s primaries:
- A winning night for election deniers
- A marquee Senate race is set
- Potential warning signs for Lake
- Blake Masters poised for defeat — again
- Arizona is slow at counting ballots
Reasoning for each from The Hill’s Caroline Vakil
🌍 In the Middle East
A senior Hamas leader was killed:
One of Hamas’s top leaders was assassinated in Iran, threatening to escalate tensions in the region.
💡 For context: “The latest airstrike in Tehran risks ratcheting up tensions between Israel and Iran, which has blamed Israel for the attack. Israel had no immediate comment on the assassination, but the military vowed to eliminate Hamas and its leaders in the months following the Oct. 7 attack that sparked the ongoing war in the region. The latest strike could also risk setting back cease-fire negotiations to release the hostages being held by Hamas since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.”
➤ HOW NEWS OUTLETS ARE FRAMING THE NEWS:
📱 In Congress
What’s the Senate still doing in town? It’s July 31 in an election year!:
The Senate passed two long-awaited tech bills aimed at boosting safety and privacy for kids online.
The bills: “The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and Children’s Online Privacy Protection Action (COPPA) 2.0 together would create regulations governing the features tech and social media companies offer to minors online, and the way they use young users’ data.”
The vote: The bills passed in a 91-3 vote. Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) voted against the bills. 📹 Watch the moment the bills passed
What now?: The bills have a much more uncertain fate in the House. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) faces pressure to pass the legislation, but the chamber is only in session for a few more weeks this year. Johnson said he’s generally supportive of the policies, but the relevant committee chair has concerns. Here’s a Washington Post explainer on the next steps.
For full disclosure: Your author’s husband works for Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who introduced COPPA 2.0.
🐝 Internet Buzz
🥑 Celebrate: Today is National Avocado Day! Panera is offering free avocado toast today with the tagline, “Toast, Don’t Roast, Millennials.”
🏄 Colin Jost is such a good sport: “Saturday Night Live’s” Colin Jost is in Tahiti covering Olympic surfing, and it’s been … eventful. He says he now has an ear infection to match his foot infection. He’s reporting live from a pool lounge chair, though, so how bad can it be?! 📹 Watch his latest update
📽️ This has me lol-ing: Watch this videographer capture Olympic trampolining.
🥇 The medal count: Team USA has won a total of 28 Olympic medals so far. France is behind the U.S. with 22 medals, followed by Great Britain with 17 medals.
📆 On The Agenda
The House is out. The Senate is in. President Biden and Vice President Harris are in Washington. Harris leaves for Houston this afternoon. (all times Eastern)
- 12:45 p.m.: Biden and Harris have lunch together.
- 1:30 p.m.: White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre briefs reporters. 💻 Livestream
- 2:30 p.m.: Biden receives a briefing on drug trafficking and opioids.
- 2:30 p.m.: Two Senate votes on nominations. Two more are expected around 5:30 p.m. 📆 Today’s agenda
- 2:30 p.m.: Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell holds a news conference to discuss interest rates. 💻 Livestream
- 3:15 p.m.: Biden meets with U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine’s Economic Recovery Penny Pritzker.
- 6 p.m.: Former President Trump campaigns in Harrisburg, Pa. 💻 Livestream
- 7:15 p.m.: Harris speaks at a political event in Houston. 💻 Livestream
- 8 p.m.: Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) campaigns in Glendale, Ariz. 💻 Livestream
- 8:45 p.m.: Harris speaks at Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority Inc.’s 60th International Biennial Boule. 💻 Livestream
👋 And Finally…
Let’s end this with a
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