Trump campaigns in Dallas by promising to redo the Mavericks’ Luka Dončić trade.

As it ran on the front

This reporter has witnessed many campaign stunts, but the latest is a true Dallas original: a former president, at a midterm rally, taking time to joke about redoing the Mavericks’ trade for Luka Dončić. The candidate unloads on the front office, then pivots to a promise—in jest, but with the crowd eating it up—that he’ll fix the deal. This is not the first sports grievance to hit the stump, but it’s the first to become an actual campaign pitch. The crowd’s response suggests they might be more invested in basketball than politics. The candidate’s platform, for the moment, is the NBA trade machine. Next season, perhaps he’ll run on fantasy football reform. This reporter notes: Dončić was acquired in 2018, not last week, and the trade cannot be undone by executive order, despite what the candidate implies. The stakes: your team’s record, your vote’s value, and your right to expect policy instead of a box score. This is the intersection of politics and sports, and the candidate is driving the lane.…