A close associate tells POLITICO that Donald Trump plans to sign a loyalty pledge Thursday that would bind him to endorsing the Republican nominee and would preclude a third-party run. Trump made the stunning decision, which he has long resisted, to avoid complications in getting listed on primary ballots, and to take away an attack line in the next debate, the associate said.
- Slate: Texas Two-Steps All Over Voting Rights: It says it can make voting as difficult as it wants to, and any law that says otherwise is unconstitutional.
In 1965, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, one of the most important pieces of legislation in U.S. history. It contained key protections for minority voters, especially blacks, who had been effectively disenfranchised in the South. The act was a remarkable success, increasing minority voter registration and turnout rates within a few years. In 1982, an important amendment made it much easier for minority voters to elect candidates of their choice. Then, following the contested 2000 elections, states started passing new voting rules along partisan lines. As part of these voting wars, conservative states began passing laws making it harder to register and vote, restrictions that seemed to fall most on poor and minority voters.
- The Hill: DNC chief faces perilous fall.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz has a tough fall ahead. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) chief is under fire from some of the top Democratic presidential hopefuls over her handling of the primary debates, and she's facing a huge decision over whether to support President Obama's historic nuclear deal with Iran.
Those issues highlight the difficulties facing the six-term Florida Democrat as she juggles her responsibilities to the president she supports, the constituents she represents and the broader party she's leading into the high-stakes 2016 elections. Wasserman Schultz's primary role as DNC head is to devise a campaign message that unifies the Democrats and distinguishes their priorities from those of the Republicans in the eyes of voters. But both the debate controversy and the Iran vote have distracted from that objective, threatening to undermine the show of Democratic unity even as party leaders are calling attention to the deep divisions in the GOP.
- Inside Jeb Bush’s fall strategy to deflate Trump and court conservatives.
This is not how Jeb Bush thought his summer would end. The candidate once seen as the most likely Republican presidential nominee is languishing in the polls, his fundraising has slowed, and he endures daily taunts from the rival who unseated him as the front-runner, Donald Trump. Through it all, Bush is sticking to the same strategy that he and his advisers laid out months ago: Establish himself as a tested conservative reformer who served eight years as Florida governor, ride out the chaotic pre-primary season and wait for the party to coalesce around him.
Even as he shifts tactics over the short term to fight back against Trump, Bush is plodding forward, returning time and again in his appearances to the comfort zone of his years in Tallahassee, Florida’s capital, when he was an alpha leader and fellow Republicans showed him deference rather than defiance.
