Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* In the most important congressional retirement announcement of the year to date, Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas) said last night that he won’t seek re-election. The Texas Republican — the only African American in the House GOP conference — is the 10th member this year to announce his intended retirement, and the sixth to make this announcement over the last nine days.
* The next round of Democratic presidential primary debates will have far tougher participation standards, and as of yesterday, only seven candidates had met the minimum thresholds. Today, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) became the eighth.
* Donald Trump seemed to lose interest in Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) for a while, but he started talking about her ethnicity again yesterday, with “Pocahontas” references before and during his campaign rally in Cincinnati.
* On a related note, Trump’s followers in Ohio repeated the “lock her up” chant for a while. In case anyone’s curious, Election Day 2016 was 997 days ago.
* As hard as this may seem to believe, Corey Lewandowski, the first of three people who led Trump’s 2016 campaign operation, is eyeing a U.S. Senate race against Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D) in New Hampshire next year. It would be his first attempt at elected office. * Speaking of 2020 Senate races, Sen. John Cornyn’s (R) re-election campaign in Texas started airing an attack ad this week targeting state Sen. Royce West (D). It was a curious move: several Dems, including MJ Hegar, are already competing in Texas’ Senate primary, but West hasn’t officially announced his 2020 plans. * And Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) continues to receive endorsements from Congressional Black Caucus members, including a new one yesterday: Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D-Mich.) threw her support behind the California senator yesterday.
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
