Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* Despite widespread concerns about the process, it appears all of the votes from Iowa’s Democratic presidential caucuses have been tallied: Bernie Sanders appears to have narrowly received more votes than Pete Buttigieg, while Buttigieg appears to have eked past Sanders in terms of the total number of state delegates allocated on the basis of the caucuses.
* Tonight, seven Democratic candidates will participate in the eighth presidential primary debate. The event will air on ABC, live from St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire.
* With time running out in New Hampshire, a new Boston Globe/WBZ-TV/Suffolk poll found Bernie Sanders continuing to lead in the first primary, though his lead over Pete Buttigieg has narrowed to 24% to 23%. Elizabeth Warren is third in the poll with 13% followed by Joe Biden at 11%.
* Speaking of data from the Granite State, the latest Monmouth University poll found Sanders leading Buttigieg, 24% to 20%, with Biden third at 17%, followed by Warren with 13%.
* During a CNN event last night, Sanders said he does not consider himself the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination. (I think a whole lot of campaign observers would disagree, and FiveThirtyEight’s forecast shows the Vermont senator well ahead of his 2020 rivals.)
* Facing a re-election challenge in one of the nation’s bluest states, Phil Scott, Vermont’s Republican governor, told reporters yesterday that his party’s senators didn’t act “appropriately” during Donald Trump’s impeachment trial. He added, “I didn’t vote for the president, and I don’t believe that he should be in office.” * As Michael Bloomberg picks up another congressional supporter, I think one of the biggest surprises of the last month is just how many endorsements the former New York City mayor has received in a short period of time. By FiveThirtyEight’s tally, of all the candidates vying for the Democratic nomination, only Biden and Warren have received more support than Bloomberg. * In the wake of a dismal showing in Iowa’s caucuses, Andrew Yang, one of the Democratic candidates making his first bid for public office, fired dozens of his campaign aides. Politico reported that each of those dismissed served in “senior level positions.” * And in the last undecided race of 2019, Mississippi’s state House has turned away a challenge to a state legislative election from the fall, and state Rep. Hester Jackson McCray (D) will remain in the chamber.
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
