Daily Tracking Starts Today

As you can see from the map, starting today we are tracking the state polls and using them to give the electoral-vote daily score, assuming the current state poll leaders do, in fact, win their states. The saturated colors mean the candidate is leading by at least 10% and is virtually certain of carrying the state. The lighter colors indicate a lead of 5-9%, which is outside the margin of error, but in politics a week is a long time. Things can change. The states with a white center are statistical ties. States that are entirely white are exact ties. Mousing over a state gives the current and historical scores. Clicking on a state shows a graph of its 2016 polls.

A similar map is given for the Senate. You can see it by clicking on the phrase "Click for Senate" in the blue bar above the map. Although we are publishing the maps for the first time today, we have collected all the Clinton-Trump and Senate polls for the entire year. To see how the electoral vote and Senate elections have been developing since January, click on the "Electoral vote graphs" or "Senate graphs" links on the menu to the left of the map above. The fourth menu item shows all the state presidential polls. Senate polls are a bit too sparse to warrant the same treatment.

The tipping-point state link shows a table going from the bluest state on top to the reddest state on the bottom. Reading from the top, Clinton has to win all the states down to the hand icon to get 270 electoral votes. If the hand is in blue territory, she can lose the states below the hand and still be elected president. Reading from the bottom upwards, the hand in Trump's column shows how deep into blue territory he has to go to pick off enough states to win. These states are not always the same. The states on the blue-red border are the ones to keep an eye on.

If you have a Website or blog and would like a little icon giving the current electoral vote and Senate scores, click on "Icons for bloggers." There you will find several score-bearing icons. All you have to do is copy three lines of HTML and paste them into your Website or blog and magically the current map and scores will appear there and be updated automatically, without your having to do anything, for the rest of the election season.

The "Data galore" pages have lots of links to matters political. If you would like to contribute similar items, please let us know. And tell your friends that the maps are up and running again, as in past years. (V)

Democrats Are As Divided as Republicans as Convention Opens

The Democratic National Convention opens today, just as the intraparty fight is getting bigger due to the release of e-mails showing that at least some members of the Democratic National Committee strongly favored Hillary Clinton over Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Many of his supporters were beginning to calm down after Sanders formally endorsed Clinton, but now that division is back at the forefront. Sanders' delegates are also steaming about votes they lost in the Rules Committee, especially about eliminating superdelegates.

In some of those battles, Sanders' delegates, nearly all of whom are white, found themselves fighting black delegates who defended the superdelegate system on the grounds that these were people who have put in years of work helping the Democratic Party, not people who suddenly got interested in politics last fall to support someone who is not even a Democrat. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), who is black, put it this way: "I watched Latino women and men rise up the ladder to become superdelegates; I watched African-American men and women rise up that ladder. We have never in any way skewed an election." Sanders' delegates have enough votes in the Rules Committee to force floor fights, if they wish.

Nevertheless, the Sanders delegates did win some major concessions, the most important of which is that next time about 2/3 of the superdelegates must vote the way their state did. While this may be face-saving to Team Sanders, it wouldn't have changed the primary results very much, as Clinton won more votes, more states, and more elected delegates than Sanders.

Sanders' delegates are also still smarting from Clinton's pick of Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) to be her running mate. Many of them wanted Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) or at least Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH). But Warren and Clinton don't get along very well and Clinton wanted someone she could govern with, not just someone who could get her 2% more votes in one state. The downside of Brown is that if he were elected vice president, Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) would name a Republican to replace him in the Senate. In a very real sense, it is much ado about nothing [citation: W. Shakespeare] because Veeps historically haven't mattered much in terms of winning elections, and have no power at all in office unless the Senate happens to be exactly divided. Nevertheless, coming on top of the DNC emails, the Sanders supporters are very riled up, just as the PUMA (Party Unity My Ass) Clinton voters were at this point in 2008. (V)

Bloomberg to Endorse Clinton at Convention

Former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg has come full circle. He used to be a Democrat, then became a Republican, then an independent, but on Wednesday evening he will endorse Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Bloomberg is not close to Clinton, although he was mayor when she was a senator from New York, but he cannot stomach Donald Trump for many reasons.

Bloomberg's endorsement and speech Wednesday are important because they deflate Trump's claim that business leaders all support him. Bloomberg is especially concerned about the issues of gun control and immigration, on which he aligns perfectly with both Clinton and her running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA). Bloomberg's support could also help Clinton with moderate Republicans who dislike Trump. Bloomberg is the eighth richest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of $40 billion. Bloomberg has given no indication whether he will help Clinton financially, but when he was contemplating running for president himself earlier this year, he said if he did it, he would put a minimum of $1 billion of his own money into the race. (V)

Debbie Wasserman Schultz Will Resign This Week

DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz has decided to take one for the team and will resign her DNC post immediately after the convention. Bernie Sanders has been calling for her head on a pole all year, first for not scheduling enough debates, and now for DNC-emailgate, in which it became clear that the DNC was working to make sure Hillary Clinton was the Democratic nominee. Her resignation removes one of the sticking points that really bothered Sanders' supporters. Donna Brazile, a long-time Democratic strategist, will take over temporarily. Brazile was interim chair of the DNC after Tim Kaine resigned to run for the Senate in 2011, but before Wasserman Schultz took over.

While Wasserman Schultz's resignation is a start, some Democrats, including former Minneapolis Mayor Raymond "R.T." Rybak, want to go further and remove all the authors of the offending email messages. So far, that hasn't happened. It does not seem likely, either. Wasserman Schultz has already been named "honorary chair" of Clinton's 50-state campaign to support Democrats around the country, so it is clear that Democratic leadership is not especially upset, and is hoping this whole incident will soon be forgotten.

Cybersecurity experts believe that the DNC email leaks came from Russia in an attempt to cause disunity within the Democratic Party in order to elect Donald Trump, whom Vladimir Putin clearly prefers. Putin knows that he can't boss Clinton around but he undoubtedly suspects that Trump will be a pushover, especially if he allows Trump to build the biggest and fanciest resort hotel in Moscow. Then Putin will be able to retake the Baltic republics and all of the Ukraine with Trump's blessing.

While it is certainly true that the DNC did not want Sanders to win, it is even more true that the RNC really, really, really didn't want Trump to win, but he won anyway because he got more votes than anyone else. In truth, the national committees aren't that powerful.

While Sanders' supporters believe that if there had only been three or four more debates, he could have won, that is unlikely. Sanders' fundamental problem is that he did terribly among minority voters, who make up 46% of the Democratic Party. Those voters, especially blacks, have loved the Clintons for decades (remember, Bill was the "first black president") and a few more debates wouldn't have pried many of them loose. Sanders made a strategic error by campaigning almost exclusively on a theme of "break up the banks" for months. That simply doesn't resonate with poor black dirt farmers in Mississippi, where Clinton crushed him among blacks (who make up a majority of the Democratic electorate in most of the South) by a margin of 90% to 10%. Eventually, he added racial justice to his program, but by then it was too late. Ironically, Sanders has an excellent record on civil rights going back decades, but chose not to talk much about it until it was too late. (V)

How Clinton and Kaine Match Up on Key Issues

The New York Times' Katie Shepherd and Alan Rappeport have done a comparison of Hillary Clinton and her VP pick Tim Kaine on a host of key issues. Here's what they found:

• Trade: Clinton once voted in favor of free trade in general, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership in particular, but now she's opposed. Kaine voted in favor of NAFTA and the TPP while in Congress, but now that he's joining the Clinton ticket, he says he will campaign against the TPP.
  
  
• Criminal Justice: Clinton supports the death penalty, in egregious cases, but would be OK with a ban on capital punishment. Kaine personally opposes the death penalty, but oversaw its enforcement 11 times as governor of Virginia.
  
  
• Guns: Clinton is as anti-gun as is practicable, supporting expanded background checks and bans on sales to high-risk individuals. Kaine is a gun owner, but favors some gun control measures, including expanded background checks.
  
  
• Foreign Policy: Clinton supports the President's Iran deal, with some reservations, and favors arming Syrian rebels and waging more aggressive action against ISIS. Kaine also supports the Iran deal, wants to create "safe zones" for Syrian civilians, and says action against ISIS is only OK if Congress gives its approval.
  
  
• Immigration: Clinton favors overhaul of America's immigration policies, as well as the steps Barack Obama took to protect the children of undocumented immigrants. Kaine is entirely in agreement.
  
  
• Education: Clinton wants to make college more affordable. Kaine favors programs that serve poor or at-risk families at all levels of the educational system, less reliance on standardized tests, and making college more affordable.
  
  
• Environment: Clinton is concerned about global warming, and wants to take concrete steps to protect low-lying areas from potential rising ocean levels. Kaine shares those concerns, though he is more open to off-shore drilling for oil than Clinton is.
  
  
• Same-Sex Marriage: Clinton favors marriage equality, and so too does Kaine.
  
  
• Abortion: Clinton wants to fund Planned Parenthood, and to make sure all women have access to safe, legal abortion procedures. Kaine is personally opposed to abortion, and as governor of Virginia supported some limits on abortion rights, as well as abstinence education. However, he is not entirely pro-life (despite our and others' statements otherwise). In Congress, he consistently voted in favor of funding for Planned Parenthood, and against most abortion restrictions.
  
  
• Budget and the Economy: Clinton wants to close tax loopholes that benefit the wealthy, and wants to invest in massive infrastructure projects as a means of stimulating the economy. Kaine agrees on the tax loopholes; his position on Clinton's infrastructure plan is unclear.
  
  

Overall, Kaine is something of a Clinton clone—a Democrat whose Southern roots have produced a moderate, left-center point of view. (Z)

Kaine's Background Is Just Getting Better Known

Tim Kaine was not widely known until his selection Friday as Hillary Clinton's running mate. Now the media are starting to look into him more closely. CNN has a piece listing seven things you should know about him:

• In more than 20 years, he has never lost an election
• His father-in-law, former Republican governor of Virginia Linwood Holton, was an anti-segregation hero
• Kaine plays the harmonica
• He is no hero to the left
• He was the first senator ever to deliver a speech on the Senate floor in Spanish
• On religion and abortion, he is very similar to Joe Biden
• He personally opposes the death penalty but defers to prosecutors

While more is going to come out about Kaine in the coming weeks, historically, veeps have not had a huge effect on the ticket, perhaps 2% or so in their home state (as noted above). But in a close state like Virginia, 2% could be the difference between winning and losing its 13 electoral votes, and that matters a lot. (V)

Pence Complicates Trump's Pitch to Union Members

Donald Trump's strategy is to win over white blue-collar workers in the upper Midwest, many of whom are union members. The selection of Mike Pence as his running mate could complicate that. Pence has been an enemy of unions his whole life, on every issue, from the right to organize, the minimum wage, and much more. Most union leaders have already endorsed Hillary Clinton, so Trump will have to go around them and make his pitch to the members, telling them to ignore their leaders. (V)

Trump Gets Small Bounce from Convention

Candidates generally get a bounce from their conventions and that is also true for Donald Trump. In the CBS tracking poll of 11 battleground states. Trump is now at 42%, up 2 points from the 40% he was at pre-convention. He now leads Hillary Clinton, who remained steady at 41%. The poll showed that Trump's gain comes mostly from getting more Republicans on board; he didn't win over many independents or Democrats. In fact, 63% of Democrats said what they saw at the convention scared them. The average convention bounce for Republican candidates is about 4.5%, so Trump's bounce is on the small side. (V)

Trump Releases a Very Trump-like Ad

Donald Trump has released a new ad (on Twitter, naturally, since he doesn't like to pay for TV time), and it's very...interesting. Laid over silent footage of The Donald's convention speech are exactly three statistics:

• 75 minutes total speech time
• 24 minutes total applause
• 33% time spent applauding

The ad is very Trump-like in two ways. The first is in its approach to the truth. In his business career, Trump has been an advocate of what he calls "truthful hyperbole" (and what Stephen Colbert liked to call "truthiness"). This is information that is partly true, or at least seems to be true, but ultimately is not. The Donald has clearly carried this philosophy over to his political campaign, including this ad. First of all, 24/75 is actually 32%, not 33%. Close enough for government work. Second, even using the most charitable interpretation of "applause," there is simply no way that the total added up to 24 minutes (particularly since the applause after the speech is being excluded). Third, it is hardly unusual when a presidential candidate gets a lot of applause at his or her own convention. That's like being surprised there are a lot of Priuses in the parking lot at a Bernie Sanders rally.

The ad is also Trump-like in its focus. As the Daily Beast's Olivia Nuzzi points out, there is nothing there about Trump's policies, or his plans for the country, or even how bad Hillary Clinton is. All that is there is Trump himself, and a reminder of how great he is. This, of course, is not the typical way in which candidates pitch themselves. If Trump does win this thing, he will have rewritten virtually the entire rulebook for modern political campaigns. (Z)

Gore Will Skip DNC

Former vice president and 2000 Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore was non-committal when asked earlier in the year about his plans for this year's Democratic convention. But now, he's made a decision: He's out. He also has yet to endorse the presumptive Democratic nominee. His given reason is that he wants to push her further to the left on climate control before bestowing his blessing. The unofficial reason is that he and Clinton don't like each other very much.

Donald Trump, of course, was only able to persuade one living GOP presidential nominee to attend his convention—Bob Dole. Clinton is doing a bit better, but she's not going to have anything close to a full set, either. Barack Obama and Bill Clinton will be present, of course, and presumably John Kerry will as well. Jimmy Carter is out, as he was in 2012. Whether or not he will send a video message, as he did in 2012, has not yet been announced. Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis have not been asked about their plans, but have not made a habit of attending conventions, so they are presumably out as well. That means that Trump batted 1-for-5, and Clinton looks likely to bat 3-for-7. Neither tally is particularly great, though it takes some of the sting off when two of your three are both two-term presidents. (Z)

Today's Presidential Polls

We have one presidential poll today: Kansas, of all places. In general, we will include Gary Johnson in polls when the pollster asks about Johnson. We will not include Jill Stein, however, because she ran in 2012 and got 0.36% of the vote then and is polling below 5% this year and has no chance of hitting the 15% needed to get onto the stage at the presidential debates. Johnson is polling around 10% in some states and has an outside shot at making the cut. (V)

State	Clinton	Trump	Johnson	Start	End	Pollster
Kansas	27%	44%		Jul 11	Jul 21	Fort Hays State U.

Today's Senate Polls

Ticket splitting is getting less and less common, but Iowa is one of the states where that could happen. Obama won Iowa twice and Clinton could win it this time, but at the same time venerable Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) could get his seventh term. (V)

State	Democrat	D %	Republican	R %	Start	End	Pollster
Iowa	Patty Judge	37%	Chuck Grassley*	45%	Jul 13	Jul 15	YouGov

* Denotes incumbent

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---The Votemaster and Zenger