• Holy shit.
  • With this action, the Democrats take over the news cycle from the aftermath of the Republican National Convention, the ascendancy of Sen. JD Vance to vice-presidential nominee, the assassination attempt and even Hulk Hogan.
  • The GOP is scrambling after gearing their whole playbook for a race against Joe Biden.
  • In Harris v. Trump, we see a seasoned prosecutor against a convicted felon. Who is the party of law and order now?
  • More: Prosecutors show open disdain for felons, and they think quickly on their feet. This is going to be one hell of a debate.
  • Trump is the old guy running for president now.
  • Kamala’s mother, born in India, was part of the largest demographic of Southeast Asian people in the United States. Right now they number about 4.9 million, and though this is generally a conservative lot, Harris has a good chance to sweep this segment of the electorate.
  • Vance’s wife, Usha Chilukuri, is also from India! But that doesn’t seem to be a big selling point among the GOP faithful.
  • OMG what happens now?
  • Current NC lame-duck governor Roy Cooper is on the short list as a running mate. This is interesting because NC is barely registering as a swing state in some media and polling analyses, and Cooper won his last election by more than 4 points the same year that Republicans Trump and Sen. Thom Tillis carried the state — by slimmer margins.
  • Biden and Harris have been visiting NC regularly this year. Trump has a rally in Charlotte this week.
  • Is it possible that the party with the most exciting narrative wins the whole thing?
  • House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has already indicated that his party will be suing to keep Harris off the ballot in several states, calling the swap-out “wrong, and I think unlawful.”
  • There is nothing in the US Constitution about how political parties choose their candidates. Nothing about political parties at all, actually.
  • There are rules, though. A Democrat must win 1,986 delegates out of almost 4,000. Before he pulled out, Biden had accumulated 3,934 of them, all pledged to nominate him at the Democratic National Convention. Those pledges are now void. As of Sunday evening, Harris had gathered 531 of them, including 168 from NC. If she does not hit the magic number by Aug. 19, there will be a contested convention for the first time since 1968, in Chicago, also from the Dems. It did not go well

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