Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* In Texas, gubernatorial hopeful Allen West has been hospitalized due to pneumonia caused by Covid-19. The Republican, who is not vaccinated, told supporters over the weekend that he’s taking hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin — both of which are ineffective treatments.
* In Iowa, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley wasn’t likely to face a serious primary rival anyway next year, but the odds of an intra-party challenge grew longer after the incumbent secured an endorsement from Donald Trump.
* Five weeks after sort of launching a U.S. Senate campaign in Georgia, former football player and former Texas resident Herschel Walker has already raised $3.7 million for his Republican candidacy.
* After a group of Pennsylvania Republican legislators filed a lawsuit intended to curtail voting by mail, the Democratic National Committee is seeking to intervene in the case in support of voting rights. (Of the 14 GOP legislators who oppose the commonwealth’s mail-in voting system, 11 of them voted to create the system they now oppose.)
* Two Republicans — former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman and former Department of Homeland Security official Miles Taylor — wrote a joint New York Times op-ed today, urging GOP voters to “form an alliance with Democrats to defend American institutions.” * The latest national CBS News/YouGov poll, released yesterday, showed President Joe Biden with a 50 percent approval rating, far better than the 38 percent support the Democrat received in the latest Quinnipiac poll. Have I mentioned lately that it’s generally a good idea to rely on averages? * After last year’s Iowa caucuses, there was overwhelming talk that the Hawkeye State and its troubled caucuses would no longer go first in the Democratic Party’s presidential nominating process. Over the weekend, The Washington Post reported that party officials are starting to create a new calendar, and Iowa’s special status is very much in doubt.
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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