It's Hot in Chicago

 If you stick a thermometer in boiling water, you can watch the mercury rise. That’s the image I have of the opinion polls this week during the Democratic National Convention.

Whereas 538 had Harris ahead of Trump nationally by 2.5 points when the convention started, and it was up to 2.9 points by last night, it soared overnight to 3.3 this morning. I suspect that margin will reach at least 4 points once the effects of the convention excitement has registered with the public a week from now.

Day Three of the four-day party gathering featured an old and tired-sounding Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, Nancy Pelosi, poet Amanda Gorman, among others leading up to the keynote, Vice-Presidential nominee Tim Walz, who was straight out of central casting as a Midwestern Dad.

But the best speech for me came from the minority leader in the House, Hakeem Jeffries. I’d never heard him give a rabble-rouser before, but now I see why he’s Pelosi’s hand-picked successor. The other high point was Kenan Thompson and his hilarious panning of Project 2025.

Now on to the final day and the ultimate headliner, Kamala Harris. My hope is that she offers up some concrete policy proposals, because no one else has. And the mercury keeps rising.

HEADLINES:

• Nate Silver Predicts Kamala Harris Will Keep Rising in Polls Post DNC (Newsweek)

• How Harris shifted Democrats’ message from ‘democracy’ to ‘freedom’ (WP)

• 56 protesters arrested after clashes with police outside Israeli Consulate in Chicago during DNC (PBS)

• Biden Approved Secret Nuclear Strategy Refocusing on Chinese Threat (NYT)

• Attorney for far-right Oath Keepers extremist group pleads guilty to Capitol riot charges (AP)

• Ukraine attacks Moscow in one of largest ever drone strikes on Russian capital (Reuters)

• Ukraine Is Trying To Double The Area Of Russia It Controls—By Destroying Bridges And Blocking Reinforcements (Forbes)

• Pro-Palestinian protesters clash with US police during DNC (Al Jazeera)

• Bernie Sanders’ tough love for the Harris campaign (Politico)

• Trump’s former press secretary Stephanie Grisham says he has ‘no empathy, no morals’ (WP)

• Federal authorities launched a civil rights probe into reports of murders, sexual abuse and other violence at Tennessee’s largest correctional facility. (WP)

• Millions of Americans face blistering temperatures as heat dome blankets Gulf Coast states (USA Today)

• A Massachusetts professor has filed a lawsuit against Meta using a novel interpretation of Section 230, a law known primarily for shielding social media companies from liability. (NYT)

• An ‘AI Scientist’ Is Inventing and Running Its Own Experiments (Wired)

• Why video game performers want their work protected from AI (AP)

• Earth Towed, Impounded After Illegally Parking In Milky Way (The Onion)