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On Wednesday afternoon, the latest batch of polls in the Presidential campaign were released, and they showed an increasingly grim picture for Donald Trump. The NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey had Joe Biden up by eleven points. Fifty per cent of those surveyed said that there was no chance they would support Trump. The Quinnipiac University poll showed an even wider national lead for Biden, of fifteen points. Trumps job-approval rating had sunk to thirty-six per cent, and a daunting sixty per cent of Americans disapproved of his performance in office. There is no upside, no silver lining, no encouraging trend hidden somewhere in this survey for the President, Tim Malloy, the Quinnipiac polling analyst who oversaw the study, said. A few hours later, Trump ousted his campaign manager, Brad Parscaleor, rather, had his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, do so. His new campaign manager is Bill Stepien, a New Jersey operative and former Trump White House political director best known for his role in former New Jersey Governor Chris Christies Bridgegate scandal. I look forward to having a big and very important second win together, the President tweeted, shortly before 9 P.M.

Reaction was swift, and withering. Brads not the one going off-message. Brads not the one refusing to wear a mask, a senior White House official told CNN, lambasting Trump. Hes not focussed. Everyone has told him that. Nothing has changed. The political analyst Amy Walter said, The campaign manager isnt the problem. The problem is the candidate. Of course, she was right: Trumps summer slump is real, and it is his own fault.

Parscale did not tell Trump to downplay the threat of the coronavirus, or to deny its deadliness. He did not force Trump to undercut Americas scientists and public-health officials. He did not demand that America open back up for business in the midst of an untreatable plague. He was merely an extremely well-compensated cheerleader for the Presidents reckless actions. Now, with cases rising in forty-one states, the country has come to a new awareness that there will be no return to normalcy this fall. Many of Americas largest school districts announced this week that they will not welcome students back to classrooms in September. Trumps own head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Robert Redfield, said this week that this fall may be one of the most difficult times that the country has ever confronted. With little more than a hundred days left until the election, no amount of Trumpian rage, denial, bluster, or attacks has been able to obliterate this unpleasant reality of the Presidents making.

One of the enduring mysteries of this most unusual of campaign seasons is why Trumps precarious relection bid has not affected his standing with the Republican politicians who will be on the ballot alongside him. In the past, a historically unpopular President plummeting in the polls would have caused a slew of panicking pols to distance themselves. In July of 1980, when Jimmy Carters popularity sank into the low twenties and he hovered just under forty per cent in the polls in his race against Ronald Reagan, Carter even gave a speech in which he volunteered to stay away from Democratic members districts if they thought that his campaigning for them would hurt their chances. It didnt work, of course, and when Carter was defeated by Reagan his party lost twenty-nine seats in the House and control of the Senate.

But the vast majority of Republicans this time are not abandoning Trump; some are even choosing to double down on their embrace of the President, a political choice that speaks loudly to the current moment. Part of it is that Trump is an unusually vengeful politician, one who is obsessed with loyalty and who does not hesitate to go after members of his party who cross him. On Tuesday night, Trump and his inner circle crowed when his former Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, was soundly defeated in a Republican primary in Alabama, a humiliating end to his bid to win back the Senate seat that he gave up to serve in Trumps Cabinet. Sessions, who committed the unpardonable sinto Trumpof recusing himself from the Russia investigation, had been the first senator to endorse Trump, back in 2016. Even after being fired by the President, Sessions continued to publicly suck up to Trump during his comeback bid. A few weeks ago, when Trumps mid-pandemic return to the campaign trail, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, bombed, Sessions blithely praised the President for his masterful performance and winning message. But that was not enough for Trump, who endorsed Sessionss opponent and bad-mouthed his former A.G. as a disaster who let us all down. After the vote, Trump exulted in Sessionss defeat. So did Trumps close adviser Stephen Miller, the young immigration hawk who owes his career to Sessions. Asked on Wednesday about Sessionss loss, as he strolled across the White House driveway, Miller called it a great victory for the country, a great victory for the President.

Fear alone, however, does not explain whats going on with Republicans. Not every state is Alabama, where Trump will win in November no matter what. Trump has been sagging even in reliably red states, such as Georgia and Texasa Democratic Presidential candidate has not won the latter state since Carter, in 1976where surveys now show Biden more or less even with Trump. The Dallas Morning News wrote the other day that Trump represents a bigger threat to fellow Republicans than any GOP nominee in forty-four years. As coronavirus cases spike in Texas, the crucial suburban voters in Dallas and Houston, who have long been the G.O.P.s bedrock in the state, appear to be souring on the President. Yet Senator John Cornyn, a mild-mannered Republican-establishment type never previously seen as a Trumpite, has chosen to respond to his increasingly uphill relection challenge in Texas by becoming one of the Presidents more ardent public defenders. Hes tweeting more. Hes trolling. He told Texans to go out and drink some Corona beer and not to panic about the disease. Democrats are now calling him Mini-Don. There are plenty of other Republican officeholders like him.

The best, or at least most vivid, explanation for this phenomenon that Ive seen is a recent piece in Rolling Stone by the Republican strategist Tim Miller, an adviser to Jeb Bushs doomed 2016 Presidential campaign who became a fervent Never Trumper. Miller asked nine G.O.P.-consultant friends who are still welcome in the Party why the dumpster fire that is the Trump 2020 campaign has not caused their Republican candidates to abandon the President. There are two options, you can be on this hell ship, or you can be in the water drowning, one told Miller. Millers report from the U.S.S. Hellship suggests that the trapped sailors are well aware of how badly Trump is faring but are unable to bail outespecially in competitive elections, where the Party can ill afford to lose any Republican votes. In rural Texas, one of Millers informants pointed out, Trump gets like Saddam Hussein level numbers here. Cornyn desperately needs those Trump superfans in order to win statewide. Loyalty to Trump among such voters now outweighs any policy position, which means that catering to them requires Cornyn to strike a hard pro-Trump line, even if it further alienates the suburban moderates now wavering on the President. No dissent is tolerated, a consultant in another state told Miller. And, besides, another strategist told him, the election is all about Trumptheres no use pretending otherwise. Their observations are strikingly similar to a conversation that I had last month with a veteran Republican pollster, whose clients are running in competitive states. I asked him whether, given the bad and worsening poll numbers, we might soon see his candidates running away from the President. I dont think so, he said, citing the Trump Twitter curse. He stirs up his base all the time, so you cant take a position to reach out to the independents who have trouble with his persona, because the Republican Trump base will turn on you in a second. And so the Hellship sails on.

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Trumps Losing, So When Are Republican Candidates Going to Abandon Him? - The New Yorker

But, so far this year, one topic has been off the table for these endangered Republican incumbents: the elected official at the top of the ticket this fall. It's a stark illustration of President Donald Trump's declining poll numbers and the danger they could pose to the Republican majority in the Senate.

The stakes are high for Republicans: Democrats need a net gain of just four seats to flip the chamber (or three seats if the party's presumptive presidential nominee, Joe Biden, captures the White House, giving his vice president tie-breaking power in an evenly divided Senate.)

In all, the five Republican incumbents in races viewed as pure tossups by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report -- Tillis, Collins and Gardner, along with Arizona Sen. Martha McSally and Montana Sen. Steve Daines -- have run nearly 37,000 television spots between January 1 and July 9, according to a tally by Kantar's Campaign Media Analysis Group for CNN.

But fewer than 5% of those ads contained pro-Trump messages, the analysis found. And, during the period examined, Tillis, Collins and Gardner ran no ads mentioning the President.

None of the five incumbents in tossup races have run any ads during the 2020 cycle that criticize Trump.

'Tough spot

Those spending decisions underscore the "tough spot" vulnerable incumbents in battlegrounds such as Colorado and North Carolina face, said Nathan Gonzales, editor of "Inside Elections" and a CNN contributor. "They need to form a coalition of voters that includes people who love Trump and people who don't like him very much," he said.

"They need every last Trump supporter," Gonzales added, "but also the independents and some moderate Democrats."

The careful dance among vulnerable Republicans of distancing themselves from Trump without sharply criticizing the President comes as Democratic candidates find themselves awash in campaign donations as the general election draws closer.

The latest sign of Democratic fundraising strength: Retired astronaut and first-time candidate Mark Kelly announced Tuesday that he had raised nearly $12.8 million in the second quarter of this year and had about $24 million remaining in the bank as he prepares for a showdown with McSally in Arizona.

Like it or not, "many of these senators will rise or fall based on how the President is handling his own job," said David Flaherty, the CEO of Magellan Strategies, a Republican polling firm in Colorado.

And in Colorado, where Gardner is a top target for Democrats, the first-term Republican likely will face an electorate that's less Republican and younger than the group of voters who sent Gardner to the Senate by a narrow margin six years ago, Flaherty said. Voters unaffiliated with any party now outnumber registered Democrats or Republicans in the state.

"It's a math problem" for Gardner, he said.

Aides to Gardner and Tillis did not immediately respond to interview requests.

Asked about the lack of Trump advertising, Collins' spokesman Kevin Kelly said the four-term senator "historically campaigns on her long record of accomplishments for the people of Maine," no matter who occupies the White House.

And Jesse Hunt, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said it's no surprise that Republicans are focusing on their accomplishments.

"Republican senators," he said, "have incredibly impressive records to run on and they're making sure voters are aware."

Coronavirus and jobs

Daines has run the most spots that include pro-Trump messages between January 1 and July 9 among the GOP Senate incumbents in tossup seats: 1,223, according to CMAG's data.

But they account for a tiny fraction -- just 8% -- of Daines' overall advertising this year.

The lion's share of his ads focus on coronavirus surging through the country and how to restore a US job market decimated by the pandemic. A recent spot argues that the US must hold "Communist China accountable" for what Daines called lying about the virus and then pivots to touts the first-term senator's effort to give tax credits to companies that return production and jobs to the United States.

In Arizona, meanwhile, McSally's most-run spot in July features an Arizona voter warning that "the coronavirus taught Americans that we are too reliant on China for our prescription drugs," and praising McSally's work on the issue.

Still, the reticence about embracing Trump does not extend to all Republicans running for Congress, particularly candidates in safe GOP seats.

Overall, more than four out of every 10 congressionally focused spots run by Republican candidates, PACs, parties and groups during the period examined were classified as pro-Trump by CMAG -- roughly on par with the party's embrace of Trump during the same period in the 2018 midterm elections.

Trump endorsed Tuberville and repeatedly attacked Sessions for recusing himself from the FBI investigation into Russian interference into the 2016 presidential election while serving as Trump's attorney general.

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Endangered Senate Republicans tout their records, not Trump, on the airwaves - CNN

A survivor of the deadly 2017 home explosion in Firestone caused by a leak from a nearby oil and gas well is calling on the National Republican Senatorial Committee to immediately take down an ad that uses the blast to attack former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper.

Erin Martinez, whose husband, Mark, and brother, Joey, were killed in the explosion called the ad horrifying.

My family and I have worked extremely hard to create positive changes that will keep my story from happening to anyone else and in doing so, honoring the memories of Mark and Joey, Martinez said in a written statement. Not a single day goes by that we are not heartbroken and struck with unimaginable grief. This ad uses my story in a negative light and disgraces the memory of Mark and Joey.

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The NRSC, which is spending millions in Colorado to reelect Republican U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, says it wont take the ad down. Hickenlooper is running to unseat Gardner.

The kind of grief Ms. Martinez and her family have survived is unimaginable, and their public fight to keep other Colorado families safe is incredibly important, said Joanna Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for the NRSC. John Hickenlooper said he was going to do the right thing to protect Colorado families right after the explosion, but then a private donation to his office from the gas company responsible changed that.

The 30-second ad lacks context.

It accuses Hickenlooper of not doing more to sanction Anadarko, the company that owned the leaky well, because his office took a donation from the driller after the blast. While its true that Hickenloopers office accepted the money weeks after the Firestone blast, there isnt proof that his office wasnt tougher on Anadarko because of it.Hickenloopers office also accepted money from Anadarko before the fatal blast.

The ad also says that no one went to jail and there were no fines issued under Hickenloopers administration. Both claims are true, but state regulators were waiting to pursue fines until after the National Transportation Safety Board finished its investigation. The explosion was caused by a pipeline that was severed during construction of the home.

The pipeline was attached to a well that was dormant until a few months before the incident. When it was restarted, raw natural gas leaked into the house.

The NTSB investigation wasnt released until October 2019, long after Hickenlooper left office. Four months later, Occidental Petroleum, which acquired Anadarko, was hit with an $18.25 million fine.

The ad does not name Martinezs family, but it does use images of their home engulfed in flames.

Hickenloopers campaign also called for the ad to come down. Erin Martinez is absolutely correct Washington Republicans must take down their horrifying and false attack and stop exploiting this tragedy and distorting the facts to score political points, said Melissa Miller, a spokeswoman for Hickenlooper.

She also pointed out that Hickenlooper took a number of actions after the blast, including calling for pressure testing of pipelines near homes.

A spokesman for Gardners reelection campaign declined to comment.

Both Hickenlooper and Gardner have faced criticism for their ties to the oil and gas industry. Anadarkos political action committee has donated $10,000 to Gardners 2020 reelection effort, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Erin Martinez has pushed for stricter regulations on the oil and gas industry in the wake of the explosion. She was instrumental in the passage last year of Senate Bill 181, which dramatically shifted Colorado laws around drilling, but she has mostly stayed away from partisan politics.

MORE: Colorado lawmakers are using the deadly Firestone explosion as a fulcrum for change just as Erin Martinez wanted

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Martinezs son also survived the 2017 blast.

The NRSC has booked or spent $4.9 million in Colorado for the election cycle, including $1.3 million this month alone.

Colorado Sun correspondent Sandra Fish contributed to this report.

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Republicans are using the 2017 Firestone home explosion to attack Hickenlooper. A survivor demands they stop. - The Colorado Sun

Gov. Phil Murphy approved a bill Thursday evening allowing the state borrow up to $9.9 billion to aid its COVID-19-ravaged budgetonly for the state Republican party to file suit soon after, arguing that the move is unconstitutional.

GOP lawmakers and the states Republican Party filed the suitThursday evening at the Mercer County Superior Court. It lists the New Jersey State Republican Committee and GOP lawmakers from both the Assembly and Senate.

The borrowing plan would sidestep voter approval typically required when the state bonds money and could leave New Jerseys taxpayers on the hook for upward of 35 years.

Under the deal that Murphy struck last week with Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, D-19th District, and Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-3rd District, the state would bond up to $2.7 billion through September the end of the three-month extension of the current budget and another $7.2 billion between Oct. 1 and the end of June 2021.

The pandemic has ground economic activity to a halt, causing billions of dollars in state tax revenue to dry up. Murphy plans to cut or delay $5.3 billion through Oct. 1, and the state is facing a $7.2 billion budget hole.

ButMurphy has indicated its too early to tell how the borrowed money would be spent.

A four-person panel in the state Legislature would have to okay any borrowing and accompanying spending that Murphy wants to pursue.Coughlin and Sweeney will likely be two of the members, along with Senate Budget Chair Paul Sarlo, D-36th District, and Assembly Budget Chair Eliana Pintor-Marin, D-29th District.

Gov. Phil Murphy speaks at his daily COVID-19 press briefing at the War Memorial in Trenton on June 3, 2020. RICH HUNDLEY, THE TRENTONIAN

The passage of this legislation is an important step in New Jerseys recovery from the economic ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic, Murphy said in a Thursday evening statement, hours after the Legislature sent him the bill. While this is by no means a silver bullet, the ability to responsibly borrow is essential to meeting our fiscal needs in the coming year.

Parts of the borrowing, done under a Federal Reserve program, would be paid back in between three to five years; bonding through the private market could take decades to pay back.

The measure was passed in the Assembly hours after the Senate approved it, along party lines in both houses, with the Democratic majority supporting the bill, aware of the looming legal challenge.

Proponents argue that the plan is necessary to keep afloat a vast array of public and social service programs, ranging from K-12 education to police and emergency services, teachers, and the states pension payments.

But according to one report from the state Legislatures nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services, the state could not bond out money to use for general operating expenses, and doing so would be unconstitutional.

The Republican legal challenge cites thatOLS opinion, as well as a 2004 state Supreme Court case limiting how the state could use borrowed money.

The Constitution of the state of New Jersey does not allow you to do what youre proposing to do, Assemblyman Jay Webber, R-26th District, said during the Thursday floor debate in the lower house.

Republicans also worried that the bill would lead to tax increases, and the legislation does in fact allow for the state to increase the property and sales tax rates if it cannot come up with the money to finance the debt.

Pintor Marin

Sarlo assured on Thursday and during a Senate hearing earlier in the week that tax increases, at least for now, are being kept off the table.

Still, Murphy and Democrats in the Legislature argue that the state constitution will be on their side in this matter, with Pintor-Marin, during the Assembly session, citing a legal opinion from the state attorney generals office that backs the plan.

[W]hats your plan B, folks out there? What else do you think we should be doing? Its just ridiculous the absence of viable alternative public policy from folks who are whining about this, Murphy responded earlier this week.

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Murphy signs $9.9B borrowing bill, NJ Republicans sue in court to block it - NJBIZ

* President Trump's ratings on his handling of the coronavirus pandemic continue to collapse. In a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, just 38% approved of how Trump has dealt with the virus while 60% disapproved. Back in March, 51% approved of how Trump was handling the pandemic while 45% disapproved in that same poll. As the public has soured on Trump's ability to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, it has also moved heavily in Joe Biden's favor in general election polling. The former vice president leads Trump by 15 and 11 points in two new national polls released this week.

* Democrats have a double-digit lead in party identification. In a new Gallup number, 50% of Americans identify as Democrats or Democratic leaners while 39% describe themselves as Republicans or Republican leaners. That's a major shift from January when Republicans had a 47% to 45% edge on party ID in Gallup polling and a rapid acceleration of Democrats' advantage since even May when Democrats had a 3-point edge on the party ID question.

"That fundraising difference is even larger in swing districts currently held by well-funded Democratic incumbents.

"Recent filings show that Democrats are widening the gap. In 13 races holding primaries in June and July that are considered competitive by the Cook Political Report, incumbent Democrats have 9 times more money in the bank -- $40 million to $4.5 million -- than the best-funded Republican challengers."

Political handicappers are taking notice.

"President Trump's abysmal polling since the pandemic began is seriously jeopardizing down-ballot GOP fortunes. We may be approaching the point at which dozens of House Republicans will need to decide whether to cut the president loose and run on a "check and balance" message, offering voters insurance against congressional Democrats moving too far left under a potential Biden administration....

"...Republicans began the cycle hoping to pick up 18 seats to win the majority back. Now they're just trying to avoid a repeat of 2008, when they not only lost the presidency but got swamped by Democrats' money and lost even more House seats after losing 30 seats and control two years earlier. For the first time this cycle, Democrats have at least as good a chance at gaining House seats as Republicans on a net basis."

"The Senate has been in play for at least nine months, but Democratic chances of winning control of the chamber have improved significantly in the last few weeks....

"...Democrats need a net gain of four seats for a majority, but can control the Senate by gaining three seats and winning the White House. With less than four months to go before Election Day, the most likely outcome is a Democratic net gain of 3-5 Senate seats. Since Biden has a clear advantage in the presidential race, that means Democrats are more likely than not to win control of the Senate."

"Trump is extremely unlikely to win if the polls continue to look the way they do now. And if these numbers represent a new normal, we need to account for the possibility that this election won't be particularly close, and that new states may come into play. In other words, if the national picture remains bleak for Trump, then the slippage he's seen from earlier this year wouldn't just be limited to a handful of swing states."

In short: All the signs are there that this could be a landslide up and down the ballot for Democrats. Yes, things could change between now and November 3. But, given Trump's obstinacy in refusing to admit his errors in dealing with the coronavirus and the current spikes in some of the most populous states in the country, such a turnaround seems very, very unlikely at the moment.

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The signs of a Democratic landslide are everywhere - CNN