Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* Just when it seemed Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate race couldn’t get more dramatic, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the apparent frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, acknowledged yesterday that he’s been hospitalized following a stroke. Fetterman says he expects to return to the campaign trail soon, but he will not appear at tomorrow night’s Primary Day event.
* Speaking of the Keystone State, much of the Pennsylvania GOP establishment has scrambled of late in the hopes of denying Doug Mastriano the party’s gubernatorial nomination. It was against this backdrop that Donald Trump endorsed Mastriano by way of a written statement on Saturday night.
* On a related note, the effort to narrow the GOP’s gubernatorial field in Pennsylvania continues apace: Rep. Melissa Hart suspended her candidacy on Friday and threw her backing behind former Rep. Lou Barletta, who’s now seen as Mastriano’s principal rival.
* As for the Republicans’ Senate primary in Pennsylvania, the final Emerson poll before tomorrow’s primary found Mehmet Oz leading the pack with 28 percent support, followed by Kathy Barnette at 24 percent. David McCormick, who was out in front as recently as March, was third in the poll with 21 percent.
* The editorial board of The Philadelphia Inquirer announced the other day that it won’t make endorsements in any of the Republican primaries. As the editors put it, “How do you find points of agreement when you can’t reach common ground on facts so basic that they could be used in a field sobriety test?” * In the latest national NBC News poll, released yesterday, Republicans and Democrats were tied in the race for Congress: The generic ballot test showed both parties with 46 percent, which represented a slight improvement for Democrats, who trailed by two points in the same poll in March. * And in Montana, where former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has launched a comeback bid with a U.S. House candidacy, the Republican was already facing residency questions, and this won’t help: Politico reported that Zinke’s wife has designated a home in Santa Barbara, California, as her primary residence.
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."
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