Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) will be in Iowa this weekend, with events scheduled for Sioux City, Storm Lake, and Des Moines. It’ll be the senator’s first campaign swing as a presidential hopeful.
* Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) hasn’t yet formally announced his 2020 plans, but he told The Atlantic that he will launch a presidential campaign, and his principal focus will be on the climate crisis.
* Starting next week, more than 1 million Floridians who are former felons are supposed to be able to register to vote under a new, voter-approved law. Whether that’ll happen in practice is the subject of some controversy.
* As Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) prepares to leave Capitol Hill, he continues to believe that “somebody” needs to challenge Donald Trump in a 2020 Republican primary. Though Flake suggested it may not be him, he added, “I haven’t ruled it out.”
* On a related note, the Washington Examiner reports that a Republican National Committee member is moving forward with an effort to “change party rules to protect Trump from any long-shot primary challenge in 2020.” This would reportedly include an early RNC endorsement of the incumbent, and changes to make it harder for a challenger to call for a vote on the convention floor. * Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) reluctantly certified Rep.-elect Jared Golden’s (D) congressional election late last week, but the governor wrote the words “stolen election” on the official documentation. (The election was not, in reality, stolen.) * And in New York, state Sen. Simcha Felder was originally elected as a Democrat, but he spent the last several years caucusing with Republicans, which allowed the GOP to control the chamber. Now that voters in the Empire State have elected a sizable Democratic majority, Felder asked if he could rejoin the Democratic caucus. Party leaders politely declined.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past." Recommended
