Over its first three days, the Democratic National Convention kept building on one overriding theme: joy. Or, as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez explained to Stephen Colbert last night, for Democrats it was "the rebirth of hope." I almost expected Beethoven's Ode To Joy to be played at some point, but I guess the various DJs didn't have a copy. A far different Alex -- the main character in A Clockwork Orange -- would have been seriously disappointed by this omission, since (as he put it) it would have added: "all the banging and creeching about Joy Joy Joy Joy." The lack of "Ludwig Van" aside, though, it certainly was a joyful event for the first three nights.

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The Democratic National Convention has truly been a blowout affair, building each day to an even-more-impressive frenzy, sparked by speaker after enthusiastic speaker, each seeming to bring the levels of excitement inside the arena to new heights. Last night was a continuation of this building sense of joy. A third Democratic president, Bill Clinton, appeared (following Joe Biden on the first night and Barack Obama on the second) -- but (rather astonishingly) he was actually not the biggest star of the evening.

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The Democratic National Convention is now half over, after a blowout second night that featured both Michelle and Barack Obama as the evening's headliners. This was after what is normally a pretty boring (and cheesy) process -- the rollcall of the state delegations -- turned into a joyful dance party, complete with a DJ spinning tunes appropriate to each state. All in all, a pretty outstanding night!

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So the first night of the Democratic National Convention has come and gone. It was a night featuring two memorable swansong speeches. The first came from Hillary Clinton, who in an alternate universe would be finishing up her second term as president right about now. The second came from Joe Biden, who is currently finishing up his first (and only) term as president right now. It was a night for passing torches, in other words.

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Today is the first day of the Democratic National Convention, but I've decided I'm going to report on each day's events the day after they happen, rather than typing furiously into the night with my snap reactions. So today's convention round-up will run tomorrow, and we will likely have to pre-empt the Friday Talking Points column for the final day's review (which of course will be the biggest night, when Kamala Harris gives her acceptance speech).

Instead, I have a few random comments about the news media and how they are currently exhibiting a massive double standard towards Harris and her campaign, in more ways than one.

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For the past few weeks, JD Vance has been mightily trying to paint Tim Walz as having somehow claimed some "stolen valor" for his 24 years of honorable service in the National Guard. This required him to completely ignore the fact that Donald Trump got a deferment for non-existent "bone spurs" to avoid going to Vietnam, as well as Trump's naked contempt for those who do serve in the military. But hey, all that was a long time ago, and people have mostly forgotten how Trump denigrated an authentic war hero (John McCain) in 2015, so Vance just kept trying.

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Well, that was an hour and a half of my life that I surely would have enjoyed doing just about anything else during... sigh.... Chalk it up as another instance of: "I watch these things so you don't have to," I guess.

Donald Trump gave a marathon press conference today, but didn't actually take a single question until more than 45 minutes into it. He then answered questions for roughly 40 minutes before walking off camera to give someone an autograph.

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A program note is necessary, to begin with here. I almost wasn't going to even bother with the whole "Electoral Math" series this year, because it would have been so depressing to try to cheer President Joe Biden's chances on while watching Trump flip state after state. So up until very recently, I hadn't even started collecting the data or doing the charts or anything.

Of course, that all changed three weeks ago.

So welcome back to our Electoral Math column series again! This marks the fifth presidential election we will have provided this service, I should mention. This year, for obvious reasons, we are only going to track the data from late July onwards. Our charts will begin two days after Joe Biden exited the race, or Tuesday, July 23rd. This was the point where Donald Trump hit his maximum in state-level polling and things looked the grimmest for the Democrats. But, of course, that would all soon begin to turn around....

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Two more states -- Missouri and Arizona -- have now certified the signatures required to place abortion rights on their ballots in November. This brings the total for this election cycle up to eight states, although the possibility of the ballot measures having a meaningful impact on the other races on the ballot realistically only exists in three of them. So far, abortion rights have an unbroken 7-0 record of winning, even in some very red states, so it will be interesting to see if that continues or not. But beyond electoral geekiness, if any of them win it will be a victory for women's rights and freedom over government interference in the most personal of medical decisions.

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The past three weeks have been filled with optimism -- for obvious reasons -- so I thought I'd write a truly optimistic column today. Democrats are now feeling very enthusiastic about the chances for victory in November, and the polls are starting to back this feeling up. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are now leading by four points in each of three critical battleground states (Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania) according to one prominent poll, and the national polling has also taken a turn for the better, with Harris beating Trump regularly (by a margin of around three points, give or take). So I'm just going to assume for the sake of argument here that Harris goes on to win the presidential election (yes, I realize this is an enormous assumption to make, but as I said I'm in a rather optimistic mood). My question is whether such a victory can not only defeat Donald Trump but also Trumpism itself.

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