Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* The latest Washington Post/ABC News poll found Joe Biden leading Donald Trump at the national level, 54% to 42%, among likely voters. At least for now, the former vice president is in a stronger position than any challenger since the dawn of American polling.
* It seems hard to believe, but Jaime Harrison’s (D) U.S. Senate campaign in South Carolina raised $57 million in the last quarter for his race against incumbent Sen. Lindsey Graham (R). Harrison’s total is a record for any Senate candidate, in either party, ever.
* On a related note, Friday night’s Harrison-Graham debate had to change its format after the GOP incumbent refused to take a coronavirus test ahead of the event. Debate moderators ended up asking questions of the candidates separately.
* Early voting got underway in Georgia this morning, and once again, locals faced long lines “created by turnout and technical problems.”
* In California, Republican operatives have installed a series of unofficial and unauthorized ballot drop-off boxes. State officials described the scheme as illegal under California election law. * The Trump campaign launched a new television ad featuring Dr. Anthony Fauci, but taking his words out of context to make it appear that he was praising the president. “In my nearly five decades of public service, I have never publicly endorsed nor do I now endorse any political candidates,” the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said in a statement. “The comments attributed to me without my permission in the GOP campaign ad were taken out of context from a broad statement I made months ago about the efforts of federal public health officials.” * Late Friday, a Pennsylvania judge rejected Team Trump’s appeal to have poll watchers inside Philadelphia’s satellite elections offices, and a day later, a different Pennsylvania judge rejected Team Trump’s effort to block the use of ballot drop boxes. * In Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbott (R) recently moved to limit ballot-drop-off locations to one per county, a federal judge on Friday blocked the policy. Soon after, three Trump-appointed judges on the 5th Circuit reversed the order, allowing Abbott’s voter-suppression policy to remain in place while the case continues.
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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