A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Kate and Josh break down the first two nights of the DNC.

You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.

My only take tonight is that I feel confident that Kamala Harris made the right decision picking Tim Walz. Walz is good in his own right. But he complements Harris, tonally, culturally. This was the right call.

If you haven’t seen, just in the last hour or so there are indications that RFK Jr is planning to drop out of the race and endorse Donald Trump. Kennedy’s campaign has put out word that he’ll be giving a speech about the “path forward” in Phoenix. And people are noting that Trump is supposed to be in Phoenix Friday too. The reporting suggests that the Kennedy people are signaling something like an endorsement. But who knows. That’s what it looks like to me. But we will know Friday, if not sooner.

A few points on this. The first one is that there’s some evidence that Kennedy is now hurting Trump more than Harris. Obviously Trump thinks so or he wouldn’t be trying to get Kennedy to drop out. Polls suggest that the balance changed after Harris got into the race. The more Dem-adjacent supporters basically went to Harris. So in this still very tight race, this could hurt Harris in the horse race numbers.

Well, there it is. We just flew past our goal of raising $500,000 in this year’s annual TPM Journalism Fund drive. We’re currently at $503,822. I want to say just a big, big thank you. We started this year’s drive with a relative confidence we could hit this mark. But you simply never know. Each year people’s moods are different. The economy is different. And these are just very big numbers. Each new time is really like a trust fall all over again. I personally want to thank the whole TPM team whose collective work this result is based on. The site promos will stay up a bit longer. And of course you are very welcome to continue contribute. Every extra dollar will be put to very good use. But this was our critical goal. So this will be my last post pitching you on this year’s drive.

Truly, we thank you. I thank you. We couldn’t be happier and prouder.