News Reporter: The Daily 202: Down-ballot Democrats now want to ride Obama’s coattails

Down-ballot Democrats now want to ride Obama's coattails

President Obama sings "Happy Birthday" to his daughter, Malia, during an Independence Day celebration in the East Room last night. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

THE BIG IDEA: When Barack Obama makes his debut on the campaign trail this afternoon for Hillary Clinton in Charlotte, the Democratic candidates for Senate and governor in North Carolina will join him on stage.

It's a stark contrast from 2014, when Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan awkwardly (and unsuccessfully) tried to distance herself from the then- unpopular president.

It's also a contrast to just two weeks ago. When the presumptive Democratic nominee last visited the Tar Heel State, campaigning solo, neither Attorney General Roy Cooper – challenging Gov. Pat McCrory – nor Deborah Ross – challenging Sen. Richard Burr – attended her rally.

-- Even in a state he lost in 2012, down-ballot Democrats are more eager to link themselves with Obama than Clinton. He's able to galvanize the progressive base, particularly African Americans, in a way that the woman he vanquished in 2008 still cannot. And he is perceived as more likeable and trustworthy than his former Secretary of State.

The latest Washington Post/ABC poll pegged POTUS's approval rating at 56 percent nationally, his highest level since the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011.

It's another validation of Clinton's strategy to tie herself to her onetime rival throughout the Democratic primaries, though he avoided formally endorsing her until after she clinched the nomination. Their initial debut, scheduled to take place last month in Wisconsin, was canceled after the attack in Orlando. This new date should help HRC shift the storyline back in her favor after being interviewed at FBI headquarters for three-and-a-half-hours on Saturday about her email set-up.

But almost entirely overlooked in the coverage of Obama helping Clinton is what an asset he's becoming for Democrats running for House, Senate and governor.

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, left, shakes hands with Attorney General Roy Cooper, right, after a debate in Charlotte on June 24. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)

-- Because of the nature of the Senate map, we've always known some Democrats would try to ride Obama's coattails. We just didn't realize it would be so many.

In 2014, Democrats had to defend seven seats in states that Mitt Romney had carried. Obama was never going to be a net asset in Louisiana, Alaska, Arkansas, South Dakota or West Virginia. This time, however, Republicans must defend seven Senate seats in states that Obama won twice. (Recall that every senator up for reelection this time won during the 2010 tea party wave.) So it's not too surprising that Tammy Duckworth in Illinois, Russ Feingold in Wisconsin and Katie McGinty in Pennsylvania would hitch their horses to the Democratic president when trying to knock out a GOP incumbent.

What is striking is how much Democrats are embracing the president in truly purple battlegrounds, including Florida, Ohio, Virginia and, now, North Carolina. Rep. Patrick Murphy's first radio ad as a Senate candidate in Florida featured Obama's endorsement. Yes, he has a primary fight against Rep. Alan Grayson but advisors say they viewed the endorsement as advantageous in the context of a general election, as well.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee last cycle spearheaded the effort to distance vulnerable incumbents from Obama. Now, when you arrive at their headquarters, there are stacks of stickers at the entrance that say: "I'm with Barack."

Donald Trump speaks Friday at the Western Conservative Summit in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

-- Donald Trump will bracket the Obama/Clinton event with a rally of his own this evening in Raleigh, a reflection of the importance of the state and its 15 electoral votes.

After the Democratic convention in Charlotte four summers ago, the president's campaign sharply scaled back its efforts in the Tar Heel State. Obama won North Carolina by 14,000 votes in 2008 – the first Democrat to carry it since Jimmy Carter -- and he wound up losing by only 2 points in 2012.

A recent survey of the state conducted by Public Policy Polling, a Democratic firm based in Raleigh, found Trump leading Clinton by 2 points, 48 percent to 46 percent, in a head-to-head match-up. The same poll asked voters whether they'd rather have Trump or Obama as president. Obama narrowly edged Trump out, 49 percent to 48 percent. Both figures were within the margin of error. (As a point of comparison, Obama led Trump by 11 points on the same question in Virginia.) The PPP survey had Burr up just 3 points in the Senate race, but only garnering 40 percent – a sign of weakness.

-- African Americans accounted for about one-quarter of the electorate there in 2012. "There is no swing state this year where black voters are going to be more important to Democratic success than North Carolina," said Tom Jensen, who runs PPP. "We've generally found Cooper and Ross in the 60s-70s of the black vote. Appearing with Obama can only help them drive that up closer to the 90 percent plus mark that you would usually expect for a Democrat."

"Democrats lost the last governor's race by 12 points and lost the last two Senate races by 2 points and 12 points," Jensen added. "Obama basically ran even in the state twice and is the most popular now he's been in years. I really see no downside to their appearing with him."

-- The election looks increasingly likely to become a referendum on Trump. Obama likes making the case against Trumpism, but he will also talk a great deal about "the unfinished work" that remains and explain that it was congressional Republicans – not Trump – who blocked much of his agenda from being enacted. He will pitch himself as someone who has come around on Clinton after battling her eight years ago.

Democrats hope to link the governor and senator with Trump, and it's unclear whether either of them will be at his rally in Raleigh. Burr and McCrory both skipped Trump's Greensboro rally in mid-June, though McCrory appeared at a private fundraiser for Trump and the RNC.

Cooper is "looking forward to joining Obama and Clinton in making the case against the Trump/McCrory agenda," said his deputy campaign manager Megan Jacobs. "The difference between 2014 and this year is that it's very clear what's at stake: the Trump/McCrory agenda would be disastrous for our state and our country," Jacobs wrote in an email.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee hit Ross for skipping Clinton's event last time she came to the state and predicted she won't be able to ride Obama's coattails. "Two years ago, North Carolina families rejected President Obama's policies and sent Kay Hagen home and they are going to do the same to Deborah Ross," said communications director Andrea Bozek.

-- Hopefully you had a wonderful Independence Day. I missed not writing last week. Thank you to Rachel Van Dongen, Breanne Deppisch, Elise Viebeck, Robert Barnes, Paul Kane, Mike DeBonis and Karoun Demirjian for stepping in. -- JPH

Welcome to the Daily 202, PowerPost's morning newsletter.
With contributions from Breanne Deppisch (@breanne_dep) and Elise Viebeck (@eliseviebeck) Sign up to receive the newsletter.

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING:

-- New USA Today/Suffolk University poll: Clinton's lead over Trump has narrowed to 5 points. The former Secretary of State is up 45.6 percent to 40.4 percent, down from 11 points two months ago. Only 23 percent say they are excited about this year's presidential contest, while 61 percent said they are "alarmed."

By a 3-to-1 margin, Republicans believe Trump should pick a VP candidate with Washington experience. Only 1 in 5 say he should pick another outsider to join him on the ticket.
By a 2-to-1 margin, Democrats say Clinton should pick a running mate with more progressive positions than her own to match primary rival Bernie Sanders. Just 1 in 4 say she should choose someone with more centrist views.

The scene yesterday in Medina, Saudi Arabia, one of Islam's holiest sites. (Courtesy of Noor Punasiya via AP)

-- "Suicide bombers suspected of links to the Islamic State struck for the fourth time in less than a week Monday, targeting three locations in Saudi Arabia in an extension of what appeared to be a coordinated campaign of worldwide bombings coinciding with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan," our Liz Sly reports from Beirut. "Initial reports suggested that there were relatively few casualties in the attacks at a U.S. consulate, a mosque frequented by Shiite worshipers and a security center in [Medina], one of Islam's holiest sites. Saudi officials said four security guards died in the attack and five were injured."

What's worrying Washington: The brazenness of the attacks suggests that ISIS is taking deeper root inside Saudi Arabia, potentially threatening the stability of one of our closest Arab allies.
The Saudis just identified the suicide bomber who struck outside the U.S. Consulate as a 34-year-old Pakistani who arrived 12 years ago in the kingdom to work as a driver. His name was Abdullah Qalzar Khan. (AP)
Context: These attacks came just one day after more than 140 died in Baghdad as a suicide car bomb blew up on a busy shopping street. Another 212 were injured. (Mustafa Salim and Loveday Morris)

A car outside the U.S. consulate in Jeddah last night (Saudi Press Agency/Handout via Reuters)

-- The bigger picture: "Islamic State ambitions and allure grow as territory shrinks." From Carol Morello and Joby Warrick: ISIS has struck on four continents since the start of this year. The attacks of the past few days suggest that militant actions beyond the caliphate's borders are taking place more frequently and not necessarily with any overt direction from some caliphate headquarters. "Even more alarmingly, a growing number of attacks, starting with those in Paris and Brussels, were conducted by gangs of assailants instead of by an individual gunman. U.S. intelligence officials say battlefield setbacks in Iraq and Syria appear to have driven the Islamic State's leaders to speed up their timeline for attacks abroad. … Increasingly, it's the idea of the Islamic State, rather than the group's control of any territory, that has taken on greater significance."

-- Dispatches from the many fronts in this global struggle:

Two suspected ISIS operatives were detained at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport, the site of last week's deadly triple suicide bombing. The suspects, who hail from Kyrgyzstan, were found with military camouflage outfits and thermal binoculars in their suitcases. (AP)
Indonesian authorities are investigating possible links to ISIS after a suicide bomber on a motorcycle blew himself up at a police station in Java a few hours ago. (Wall Street Journal)
A parliamentary commission in France called for the overhaul of the country's intelligence services in response to the terror attacks in Paris that left 147 dead. A report faults a lack of communication between different counterterrorism entities and calls for a "much more ambitious" intelligence apparatus in the country. (BBC)
Israel said the 21-year-old cousins who opened fire at a Tel Aviv market last month were "inspired by the Islamic State," but carried out the attack without guidance from or recruitment by the organization. Their weapons and ammunition were acquired by a friend, who helped plot the assault and is being charged alongside them. (William Booth)
ICYMI: Three students enrolled at U.S. colleges were killed in Friday's terrorist attack at a café in Dhaka, including two Emory undergraduates and one University of California-Berkeley student. (Rama Lakshmi and Peter Holley)

Engineers and scientists celebrate at mission control when they get confirmation that Juno has entered Jupiter's orbit. (NASA/Aubrey Gemignani)

-- A big win for NASA: The Juno spacecraft has entered Jupiter's orbit after a five-year mission! Scientists confirmed that the football-field-sized craft successfully entered into orbit around the largest and oldest planet in our solar system. From Rachel Feltman: "That signal arrived just a few minutes before midnight. Cheers broke out across the mission's two control centers, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in California and at the Lockheed Martin control room in Colorado. The last step was confirmed around 12:40 a.m., when the solar-powered Juno orbiter turned its panels back toward the sun. Now the spacecraft's successful orbital insertion can be considered complete. ... Juno's project manager jubilantly tore up the mission's contingency plan in front of the crowd."

We've visited Jupiter before with probes, but Juno is special: "This spacecraft is designed to fly closer than any man-made object has ever gotten to Jupiter, probing beneath its roiling cloud cover to unlock new secrets."
"The first real data is expected to arrive in late August."

Here's an artist rendering provided by NASA of what Juno looks like:

GET SMART FAST:

NASA also announced it is extending the mission of New Horizon, sending the spacecraft -- which gained notoriety after completing a historic flyby of Pluto last year -- to probe a newly-discovered object in the outer solar system. (Rachel Feltman)
The United Arab Emirates warned its citizens against wearing traditional Muslim clothing while visiting the West, after a 41-year-old Emirati businessman was detained in Ohio at gunpoint while trying to book a hotel room. (Pamela Constable)
Italian police detained a homeless man for the murder of a 19-year-old American student whose body was found in the Tiber River, saying he was "seriously implicated." The student, who recently completed his first year at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, had arrived in Rome for a study abroad program just days before his death. (AP)
New York investigators continue to probe a bizarre Central Park explosion that nearly blew off the foot of an 18-year-old college student, who stepped on the material by accident. Authorities say the explosive material was not part of an intentionally-planted device, but many questions remain unanswered. (Justin Jouvenal)
Basketball star Kevin Durant signed a contract with Golden State, parting ways with Oklahoma City after nine seasons. It shows the Warriors, who just lost to the Cavaliers in the NBA Finals and already have a deep bench, are trying to build the next super team. (Tim Bontemps)
Obama, Joe Biden and other top White House officials will no longer visit college campuses that officials deem to be doing a poor job tackling sexual assault. (Juliet Eilperin)
Right-wing firebrand Nigel Farage resigned as the leader of his U.K. Independence Party, saying his "political ambition has been achieved" with Britons having voted to leave the E.U. It is the latest political bombshell to hit the nation as it grapples with the fallout from Brexit. (Erin Cunningham)
Hungary announced it will hold an October referendum on whether to accept mandatory E.U. quotas for relocating migrants. Prime Minister Viktor Orban is seeking popular support to oppose resettlement efforts. (AP)
China's defense ministry confirmed that Chinese and Japanese fighter jets had a confrontation over disputed waters in the East China Sea. (AP)
North Carolina lawmakers left in place controversial "bathroom bill" restrictions for transgender people after agreeing to revisit the bill. The state's House and Senate approved a change that allows employees to again sue over workplace discrimination in state court, but Republicans did not budge on the most controversial parts of H.B. 2. (AP)
The father of the 2-year-old boy killed by an alligator at Disney World last month told authorities that two alligators were involved in the attack. One bit him as he tried unsuccessfully to save his son. (AP)
A U.S. Army veteran used his sharp-shooting skills to rescue a bald eagle that was trapped in a rope 70 feet above ground. The Minnesotan used his rifle to sever the four-inch rope. (Reuters)
The Egyptians have located human remains at the crash site of EgyptAir Flight 804, two months after the plane went down in the Mediterranean Sea. The remains are being transferred to Cairo, where DNA analysis will begin immediately. (CNN)
A small city in Oklahoma is battling the state for ownership of a 100-year-old electric chair known as "Old Sparky." Both sides seem prepared to fight in court over custody of the coveted relic. (NBC News)
Facebook defended its content policies after an Israeli authorities accused the site of "sabotaging" its efforts to track down Palestinian street attackers. (CNET)
Farmers, lumberjacks and fishermen are most likely to kill themselves, according to a large study from the CDC that shows enormous differences of suicide rates across jobs. "High rates were also seen in carpenters, miners, electricians and people who work in construction," the AP notes. (Here's the full CDC report.)

Trump is interviewing VP candidates. (Reuters/Jonathan Ernst)

VEEPSTAKES:

-- Trump met with Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence over the holiday weekend.

The presumptive GOP nominee huddled yesterday with the Iowa senator at his golf club in New Jersey. Ernst called it "a good conversation" in a statement afterward. "We discussed what I am hearing from Iowans as I travel around the state on my 99-county tour, and the best path forward for our country," she said. Attendees also included campaign chairman Paul Manafort and RNC Chairman Reince Preibus, per the New York Times's Ashley Parker.

On Sunday, Trump spent more than an hour talking with Mike and Karen Pence together. "One person described the session as 'warm and friendly,' while the other called it a 'getting to know you thing, a chance for both of them to connect,'" Robert Costa reports, adding that sources continue to regard Newt Gingrich and Chris Christie as leading contenders.

-- This Trump tweet yesterday also generated some fresh buzz for Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton:

(You can watch the interview he's referring to here.)

-- Another possibility, Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, will appear on stage with Trump in Raleigh tonight. (WKRN)

Clinton poses for a selfie in Cincinnati last week. (AP/Andrew Harnik)

-- The White House is barring members of Obama's cabinet from addressing the convention in Philadelphia, hoping to avoid the appearance that Obama and his staff are being "consumed" by the campaign during the final months of his presidency. The announcement is a "stark break" from previous years, the New York Times reports, coming as the administration considers how deeply to involve itself in the ongoing campaign season.

THE DAILY DONALD:

-- WaPo A1, "Trump's anti-trade rhetoric rattles the campaign message of Clinton and unions," by David Nakamura and David Weigel in Philadelphia: "Three dozen union workers gathered outside city hall here ... to rally against the global free-trade deals they believe have harmed Americans like them. Their candidate was Katie McGinty, the Democrats' nominee for Senate in Pennsylvania. But their spiritual leader was … Trump. Just two days earlier, Trump had delivered a blistering speech at an aluminum recycling plant near Pittsburgh in which he called U.S. trade policies a 'politician-made disaster' that has betrayed the working class. [Now], McGinty, surrounded by electricians, pipe fitters and steelworkers, declared that while Trump usually spouts 'nonsense,' he had, in this case, 'recognized a couple of truths.' Of the many ways Trump has upended the 2016 presidential race, it is his position on trade that has presented one of the most unforeseen challenges for Clinton. ... For Clinton, the risk is not necessarily losing support directly to Trump but rather not inspiring enough enthusiasm among rank-and-file union workers, whose turnout and ground-level organizing have traditionally been crucial for Democrats."

-- Wall Street Journal A1, "Trump's Complex Business Ties Could Set a New Precedent," by Monica Langley: "Back in his 26th-floor office after a recent campaign swing … Trump sat down at his desk and began signing a two-inch stack of checks, including ones for $10,000 for fuel, $21,000 for concrete and $99,000 to a contractor at a hotel construction site. Mr. Trump personally oversees many of his routine business expenses this way. Yet he also says he would separate himself from that business empire … if he were elected president. [Still] the potential for conflicts abounds. That is because the Trump Organization, which is owned solely by him, consists mostly of operating assets, as opposed to passive investments. Hundreds of business entities, including some in foreign countries, own or manage hotels, commercial and residential real estate, [and] golf resorts."

-- New York Times A1, "The Quiet Fixer in Trump's Campaign? His Son-in-Law, Jared Kushner," by Michael Barbaro and Jonathan Mahler: "International diplomacy is a world of careful rituals, hierarchy and credentials. But when the Israeli ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, wanted to communicate with [Trump], he ended up on two occasions in the Manhattan office of a young man with no government experience, no political background and no official title in the Trump campaign: Jared Kushner. It is a new and unlikely role for Mr. Kushner … whose prominent New Jersey family bankrolled Democrats for decades and whose father's reputation was destroyed, in a highly public and humiliating manner, by his involvement in electoral politics. Now, in a Shakespearean turn, Mr. Kushner is working side by side with the former federal prosecutor who put his father, Charles Kushner, in prison just over 10 years ago. ... In many ways, he has filled a vacuum in a startlingly small organization … But his real power, his friends said, stems from his close relationship with Mr. Trump … who sees in Mr. Kushner a younger version of himself."

-- Politico lead story, "Immigration reformers eye Gang of 8 revival," by Seung Min Kim and Burgess Everett: "Lindsey Graham doesn't sugarcoat his prediction: Republicans are going to get thrashed in the November election, especially among Latinos. And it's going to trigger another run at immigration reform [in 2017]. 'I'm going to take the Gang of Eight bill out, dust it off and ask anybody and everybody who wants to work with me to make it better to do so,' [he said]. Graham isn't the only one eyeing a revival of the Gang of Eight, the bipartisan group of senators that shepherded a sweeping immigration bill through the Senate three years ago … Several influential lawmakers see another opening for immigration reform in 2017, especially if Clinton wins and the GOP takes another hit among Latinos." "The hour we can move it, we've got to move it," said Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.).

OTHER BATTLEGROUNDS—

-- Trump is playing catch-up in OHIO. From the NYT's Trip Gabriel: "Since the Republican Party's 19th-century founding, not one of its nominees has won the White House without carrying Ohio. ... But … a vortex of headwinds are rising against Mr. Trump in the state."

"The barely concealed disdain of Gov. John R. Kasich … echoes through the state's Republican leadership, whose full engagement in the fall campaign will be needed to turn out voters."
"Public polling of Ohio, which has been scant, shows Clinton with an average lead of about three percentage points. A recent Quinnipiac Poll of Ohio, showing the race deadlocked, indicated women were moving toward Mrs. Clinton while Mr. Trump's strength among men was unchanged."
"Mr. Trump, who has signaled a strategy of outsourcing grass-roots organizing to the national party, hired a state director only late last month. The Republican National Committee, which promised last year to hire more than 200 field staff members in the state, has about 50 now, and has yet to open its first Ohio office." Meanwhile, the Clinton campaign, which declined to say how many staff members it has in Ohio, is also coordinating with state and national Democrats, who collectively have more than 100 people in the field.

-- "Once a swing state … COLORADO has teetered on the brink of becoming solidly Democratic. Trump may have pushed it over the edge," the AP's Thomas Beaumont reports from Denver. "For the first time in more than 20 years, there are now more registered Democrats in the state than Republicans. And it's not just Colorado. Trump's inflammatory rhetoric and weak campaign structure could ensure that perennially competitive Nevada and New Mexico are out of reach as well." Trump made his first campaign appearance in Colorado Friday. Clinton, meanwhile, made her fifth trip on Wednesday to propose college-loan deferment for graduates who start businesses.

MORE WAPO HIGHLIGHTS:

-- "When it comes to pretrial release, few other jurisdictions do it D.C.'s way," by Ann E. Marimow: "On the ground floor of Washington's busiest courthouse, it is hard to hear the judge over chains and shackles clanking to the floor. But the message resounds: On a typical afternoon the court will release about 90 percent of the people who have been arrested and held overnight in the nation's capital. They are released without leaving behind any money — on a promise to return to court and meet conditions such as checking in with a pretrial officer or reporting for drug testing. This is not how the system works for those charged in almost every other local and state court in the country. But it is how the District has run its rough-and-tumble courthouse for more than two decades."

-- "How a Muslim advocacy group in Florida is doing what the government has so far failed to do," by Abigail Hauslohner: Nezar Hamze, a Broward County police officer who moonlights as Florida operations director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), has embarked on a unique effort to educate American Muslims about their rights and safety while also seeking to deter what Hamze calls "the needle in the haystack" — the Muslim who commits an act of violence in the U.S. "Like other small-scale intervention efforts led by a handful of imams in other states, CAIR-Florida's team approach has no relationship to fledging federal government programs. That may be a key to its success."

-- "They're building some of Britain's most promising young companies. After Brexit, they're thinking of leaving," by Ylan Q. Mui: "Even as the market panic subsides, Brexit is raising existential questions about London's future as one of the world's great financial capitals."

-- "The Baltics' tangled geography that has both sides feeling surrounded," by Michael Birnbaum: "A Russian military crew may have landed in a peaceful fishing settlement as part of an exercise, a senior Lithuanian lawmaker said, an apparent testament to the vulnerable nation's inability to defend itself. Here in the Baltics, a region mostly encircled by Russia and its allies, many fear they could do little to stop a Kremlin invasion. And a growing number of officials are saying that small probes of Baltic security may have already begun. … Kaliningrad, a key Russian naval hub, is disconnected from mainland Russia and bordered only by the NATO nations of Lithuania and Poland. That leaves Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia trapped between Kaliningrad and mainland Russia in a pincer that they fear could snap shut any moment. The anxiety comes amid the biggest military buildup between East and West since the Cold War."

SOCIAL MEDIA SPEED READ:

A piñata of Trump was among the decorations at the Kennedys' annual 4th of July party at the family compound in Hyannis Port. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s daughter Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy posted a photo to Instagram and then later deleted it. (People Magazine)

Here are some fun Fourth of July posts from lawmakers and politicos:

Trump's grandson:

Bernie Sanders is still technically a presidential candidate:

Our colleague Jason Rezaian, free from Iranian captivity, got to watch fireworks in Washington:

Twitter was consumed for much of the weekend with discussion about Trump tweeting an image of Clinton and what appeared to be a Star of David against a background of $100 bills, an image that appeared to have originated among white supremacists. Chris Mooney notes that the original tweet was deleted less than two hours after it went up. After Clinton's campaign attacked the tweet yesterday as "hateful rhetoric that engages extremists," Trump fired back with a press release saying the former secretary of state is simply trying to "divert attention" from her own actions.

Here's how Trump responded yesterday to the criticism:

Some response to the new Hillarymoji app:

Hillary and Bill Clinton went to see "Hamilton" in NYC on Saturday night after her interview with the FBI:

The former and possibly future First Couple met backstage with the cast:

The Clintons posed for lots of selfies:

Finally, in case you missed it, Cinnabon was quick with a reply to this tweet about the meeting between Attorney General Lynch and Bill Clinton:

HOT ON THE LEFT

"Trump Is Turning Republicans Into Anti-Vaxxers," from The Daily Beast: "A new study … found a relationship between Republican Party affiliation and anti-vaccine sentiment. Survey participants who didn't plan to vaccinate themselves or their families most often named Trump as a public figure they thought shared their views. The new data runs counter to the prevailing public view on the relationship between political affiliation and vaccine skepticism—that there is little to no relationship—and suggests that Trump's ascent in the Republican Party is related to doubts about vaccines among its members."

HOT ON THE RIGHT

"Congressional Black Caucus plans to disrupt House Tuesday," from the Washington Examiner: "The Congressional Black Caucus is calling on its members 'to be as disruptive to Speaker Ryan as possible' when the House returns for business on Tuesday. The Washington Examiner has obtained a memo sent to Democratic offices that states that CBC members are coordinating a 'day of action on the floor in regards to gun violence.' … 'During Votes – Members are encouraged to have a picture (with an image of a constituent killed by a firearm),' the memo stated."

DAYBOOK:

On the campaign trail: Clinton speaks at the National Education Association convention in Washington, D.C., and then travels to Charlotte, N.C., for a rally with Obama. Trump holds a rally in Raleigh, N.C.

At the White House: Obama's only public event is his appearance with HRC.

On Capitol Hill: The Senate meets in pro forma session. The House meets at 2 p.m. for legislative business, with 16 suspension votes scheduled for 6:30 p.m. We're expecting a House vote this week on legislation similar to Sen. John Cornyn's gun bill. (Karoun Demirjian has more on what's being considered: "The section of the legislation that would prevent a gun sale to a suspected terrorist requires the government to prove to a judge, in three business days, that there is probable cause that the would-be buyer has links to terrorism. ... Democrats argue the three-day window for proving probable cause is an impossible hurdle to clear and would do little to curtail the sale of guns to possible terrorists. Meanwhile, leading House Democrats have reportedly asked Ryan for vote on a more expansive measure to deny firearms to suspected terrorists appearing on government watch lists, as well as a vote on a measure to expand background checks.")

For planning purposes: Trump will address House and Senate Republicans this Thursday.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

"It was the patriotic thing to do." -- A representative from "A Capitol Fourth," which aired on PBS, justifying the decision to broadcast footage of the fireworks from previous years because of the overcast skies last night (The story; A round up of reaction)

NEWS YOU CAN USE IF YOU LIVE IN D.C.:

-- Another day of storms, the Capital Weather Gang forecasts: "Scattered showers will greet us this morning and we could hear a few rumbles of thunder through the day. Rain could be moderate to heavy at times with heavy cloud cover. By the evening, we could see a few breaks in the clouds. Humidity will be much higher and temperatures surge into the middle to upper 80s."

-- The Nationals lost 1-0 to the Brewers yesterday, after beating them 12-1 the day before. (Jorge Castillo)

A joyful Bryce Harper celebrates during Sunday's win at Nats Park:

-- An ambitious new travel-abroad program will send 400 D.C. eighth and eleventh graders on trips around the world this summer – for free. (Joe Heim)

VIDEOS OF THE DAY:

Jimmy Kimmel captured people on the street lying about Clinton's emails: