Republican primary

Des Moines, Iowa This isn’t your grandfather’s Iowa State Fair.  Iowa, once a reliably blue state, hosts an internationally renowned fair every summer that explodes in popularity during presidential cycles. This year was different. Republicans ran the show, building off their almost complete political domination of the state.  “Iowa has been trending red,” the state’s lieutenant governor, Adam Gregg, told me, laying out the stakes. “The future of our state and the future of our country is impacted by what Iowa does.” And the state fair is where it’s at. Gregg, who’s been coming here for “decades,” called the fair “ground zero” for presidential campaigns.

The list of attendees for the first GOP presidential primary debate keeps getting longer. Former vice president Mike Pence has apparently just succeeded in reaching the 40,000 unique donor milestone, granting him a spot in Milwaukee on August 23 alongside Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Chris Christie and a governor from one of the Dakotas (not the one you like looking at). Trump may or may not attend, but whatever he chooses, Cockburn expects him to be at the center of the debate. The RNC also gave candidates some prompts about what to expect: some pre-taped questions from student members of the Young America's Foundation, one minute for answers, thirty seconds for follow-ups, forty-five seconds for closing statements, no opening statements.

Anyone who watched the Kentucky Derby this year was treated to a thrilling race in which the horse with the worst odds — at 80-1 — surged from behind during the last stretch, passing the two frontrunners that had been dominant since the start. No one was paying attention to Rich Strike, way in the back. And no one — not even his owners — saw it coming. This exact scenario — except with people, not horses — is playing out in Pennsylvania’s US Senate race, where underdog Kathy Barnette’s odds had been, for a long time, 358-1 (the margin by which her campaign has been outspent). Barnette is now neck-and-neck with the other top contenders, Dr. Mehmet Oz and Dave McCormick. One Pennsylvania Republican strategist has called the race “a dead heat.