Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* It’s a figure so comically large that it’s almost hard to believe, but a CNN reporter noted that Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg have combined to spend over $200 million thus far in television advertising for their Democratic presidential campaigns. There’s never been anything like this in the history of American presidential primaries.
* Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick’s Democratic presidential campaign has been slow to get off the ground, and this week, it received some discouraging news: Patrick has failed to qualify to appear on Michigan’s March 10 primary ballot.
* Though Republican voters in several states will not be able to vote for one of Donald Trump’s presidential primary rivals, that won’t be the case in North Carolina: the state Board of Elections has agreed that former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld and former Rep. Joe Walsh have met the qualifications to appear on the Republican ballot.
* Corey Lewandowski, the first of three people who helped run Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign operation, said in a radio interview last week that he’s increasingly likely to run against incumbent Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D) in New Hampshire next year. * Speaking of former members of Team Trump eyeing electoral opportunities, former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders conceded to CNN the other day that she’s “very seriously” considering a gubernatorial campaign in Arkansas. * And in Gallup’s latest report on Americans’ party affiliations, the pollster found, “More Americans continue to identify as Democrats or as ‘Democratic-leaning’ independents than as Republicans or ‘Republican-leaning’ independents. The current 47% to 42% Democratic edge is largely in line with what Gallup has measured over the past five years.”
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
