☕ Happy Tuesday. Make it a great day.

PA Weather

☀️ Quakertown | Sunny, 88

⛅ Altoona | Partly Cloudy, 83

☀️ Upper Saucon | Sunny, 86

✅ Did You Know? 8-9% of voters who showed up to vote in Pennsylvania’s 2024 presidential primary election were first time primary voters – a demographic consisting heavily of Gen Z voters. (L2 Data)

Top Story

1. why kamala harris picked tim walz as her running-mate

“Ken Martin, the chairman of the Democratic-Farmer-Labour Party (DFL), Minnesota’s affiliate of the Democratic Party, tells a story about how the state’s governor, Tim Walz, got his start in politics. In 2004 Mr Walz was a high-school teacher in Mankato, a town of 45,000 people in the south of the state.

In that year’s presidential election, he decided to take his class to a George W. Bush event. Unbeknown to him, his students had hatched a plan to tease the then president…” (The Economist)

State

2. Josh shapiro was a vp frontrunner. then his critics fought back.

“On Tuesday morning, news began to leak: Vice President Kamala Harris selected Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota as her running. According to reporting, it had been down to Walz and another rising star in the Democratic party: Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania.

Shapiro was an early favorite for the vice presidential slot. Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes are crucial to a Democratic victory in November, and Shapiro is popular in his home state…” (Mother Jones)

campaigns

3. why kamala harris picked pennsylvania for her first campaign rally with vp running-mate tim walz 

“… Pennsylvania has 19 votes in the Electoral College. Mr. Biden won the state in 2020, and Trump won it in 2016 after voters had chosen Democratic candidates for the previous six presidential elections.

John Kennedy, a political science professor at West Chester University, said Pennsylvania is “the tipping point state in this election” and is “the key” for either candidate to get to the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency.

The most recent CBS News state-level estimate shows Harris and Trump tied at 50% among likely voters in Pennsylvania…” (CBS Philadelphia)

Editorial

4. What’s On Your Mind

• High gas prices threaten Pennsylvania’s economy. (Hanna Bechtel)
• Proper masking law promotes freedom. (Nathan Ristuccia)
• Our rural hospitals need help. (Tom Corbett)
• Supreme Court should protect Pennsylvania energy from dog-and-pony show. (David N. Taylor)

1 Olympics Thing

5. Meet the Local Athletes Who Are Throwing and Jumping for Gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics

“Vashti Cunningham, Joe Kovacs, Valarie Allman, Curtis Thompson, and Sam Mattis will leave everything at the Stade de France over the next few days for a chance at Olympic gold.

The five athletes are among 120 members representing Team USA’s mighty track and field team, competing in the field events of the 2024 Paris Games…” (NBC Philadelphia)

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