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Good Wednesday morning from Washington, where the Senate has passed a budget, and is thinking about giving some help to the United States bourbon industry. Hillary Rodham Clinton heads to California to raise some cash and might be breathing a little easier since controversies have seemed to gain little traction with voters.

Mrs. Clinton’s campaign has been under siege with questions about the Clinton Foundation’s foreign donations. But so far, there’s little evidence it has sunk in with voters.

In a New York Times/CBS News poll, a plurality of Americans – 44 percent – said they didn’t know enough to answer questions about whether the Clinton Foundation’s focus is mostly charitable, mostly political or both. That included 45 percent of self-described independents.

On the question of whether foreign donations affected Mrs. Clinton’s decisions while she was secretary of state, 55 percent said they didn’t know enough to answer. Among them were 61 percent of independents.

The survey had 1,027 respondents and was conducted from April 30 through May 3.

The numbers could mean that voters aren’t engaged at this early stage of the campaign. Or it could mean they’re aware of the stories about the foundation but are tuning them out.

The poll also shows that Mrs. Clinton’s favorability has improved and that Democrats do not appear troubled by the email and foundation issues.

The discussion around the foundation was prompted primarily by the book “Clinton Cash” by Peter Schweizer, a Republican. It focuses on possible overlaps with the Clintons’ personal wealth, donations to the foundation and her tenure at the State Department. Mrs. Clinton’s campaign responded with an aggressive pushback effort against the book.

Unlike the stories about Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, the issues around the foundation are diffuse, more complicated and less stark. Most readers have an email account; far fewer have foundations, making the email story, perhaps, more accessible for voters.

— Maggie Haberman

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Ben Carson and former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, both Republicans, and former Senator Jim Webb of Virginia, a Democrat, will each hold events in Iowa, where Mr. Huckabee won the caucuses in 2008.

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. will meet with Masoud Barzani, the president of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region, at the Naval Observatory.

Secretary of State John Kerry, who made a trip to Somalia on Tuesday, will meet with leaders in Djibouti “to discuss our bilateral cooperation and their support to evacuation efforts from Yemen.”

Aside from the strategy to combat “Clinton Cash,” Mrs. Clinton’s campaign has placed a premium on small events, including fund-raisers.

But that will change when she arrives in California on Wednesday for a series of money events. One, on Thursday, will be at the home of her close ally, the media mogul Haim Saban, where, two people involved in the planning said, more than 500 people are expected to attend.

The fund-raiser will be the biggest event Mrs. Clinton has held since announcing her candidacy. Most of her appearances have been confined to just over 100 people.

The Clinton team is trying to focus on being low key in the race so far. That includes the candidate herself, who is keeping a restricted schedule and who has yet to engage any Democratic groups focused on policy.

The strategy has meant, as one veteran Democratic strategist put it, that they are fighting “with one arm tied behind their back,” and that they are not hustling for money as hard as they could be.

Mrs. Clinton has told her aides she wanted to step up the pace amid concerns about the tens of millions of dollars that Jeb Bush, the Republican former governor of Florida, is raising for his “super PAC.”

— Maggie Haberman

Senators Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, Republicans from Kentucky, are pitching a new tax break that might even appeal to some Democrats. At least those who love bourbon.

They have introduced a bourbon bill that would allow distillers to save money by deducting the interest expenses they pay on their stocks of spirits that age in warehouses. The “pro-growth” measure would make it easier for bourbon makers to compete with international sellers, they say.

Under current law, distillers cannot deduct the expenses they incur for aging their bourbon until the liquor is bottled and sold – a process that in some cases can take more than a decade. Mr. McConnell compared the situation to a “homeowner not being able to deduct the interest on a home mortgage until the sale of the house.”

Republicans will most likely get the measure to the floor of the Senate as part of a larger tax bill rather than passing it as stand-alone legislation.

However, with Mr. McConnell in charge of the chamber, introducing a bill backing his local bourbon industry was apparently worth a shot.

–– Alan Rappeport

The Senate gave final approval on Tuesday to the first joint congressional budget plan in six years, ratifying a blueprint that would cut spending by $5.3 trillion. But it appeared moribund even before its passage.

Once again, Chuck Norris is ready to back Mr. Huckabee in a campaign fight.

Democrats have agreed to six primary debates starting this fall.

Mr. Huckabee‘s vigorous defense of so-called entitlement programs is splitting the Republican presidential field.

Meeting in Morocco, the Clinton Foundation is coming under scrutiny for taking donations from a Moroccan government-owned mining company that is sponsoring the gathering, The Washington Post reports.

NPR details another setback in what has been somewhat of a rough week for Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey.

The three newest Republicans in the campaign received widespread attention in their first days, as The Wall Street Journal considers their chances; Yahoo News breaks down Mr. Huckabee‘s finances; and Time reports that Carly Fiorina, a former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, would “roll back” net neutrality regulations.

Politico reports that Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts recently met with members of a “Draft Warren” movement, but that they stuck to discussing how she could influence the 2016 race — not whether she would run.

Barney Frank, the former congressman from Massachusetts, is not running for president, but he seems worried that Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin might be.

Mr. Frank was speaking at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington on Tuesday at an event hosted by the Smithsonian Associates. He revealed small compromises he made to get the Dodd-Frank Act signed and told stories about his long career in politics, like the time he tried to come out as gay to the speaker of the House at the time, Tip O’Neill, who misunderstood and was grief-stricken because he thought Mr. Frank was dying.

But he was much less nostalgic when asked about his thoughts on the 2016 election. He said Mrs. Clinton should not be subjected to the same partisan battle that Mitt Romney faced in 2012, especially, he argued, because Democrats’ main focus should be on defeating a “very scary” potential challenger from the right.

“The Republican I am most afraid of is Scott Walker,” he said, citing the governor’s past clashes with labor unions and widespread economic inequalities. “He has the best chance to unify that party.”

— Jada F. Smith

​Correction: Because of an editing error, the newsletter on Tuesday referred incorrectly to an 81 percent rating for Mrs. Clinton. That is her favorability rating among Democratic primary voters, not her overall approval rating.