Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* To the great relief of his party, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D) formally kicked off a U.S. Senate campaign this morning, and he’ll take on incumbent Sen. Steve Daines (R). For more on this, take a look at my post from last week on why Democrats now have a better chance at taking back the Senate majority.
* Six states will hold Democratic presidential primaries tomorrow, but the biggest prize is Michigan, where Bernie Sanders scored an upset win four years ago. This morning, however, a statewide poll conducted for the Detroit Free Press found Joe Biden leading the Vermont senator, 51% to 27%.
* Speaking of polls, a new national CNN poll found Biden leading Sanders, 52% to 36%. The age gap in the data was striking: among voters under the age of 45, Sanders leads Biden by 26 points, but voters 45 and up prefer Biden by 55 points.
* Looking ahead, CNN’s poll found Biden leading Donald Trump in a hypothetical match-up by 10 points (53% to 43%), while Sanders leads Trump by 7 points (52% to 45%). In battleground states, Biden’s advantage over the incumbent president is 6 points, while Sanders’ lead is 3 points.
* On the generic congressional ballot, CNN’s poll also found Democrats with a significant lead over Republicans, 53% to 44%. At roughly this point in the 2018 cycle, the Democratic lead was 6 points.
* As many Democratic leaders gradually coalesce behind Biden, the former vice president picked up an endorsement from Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) this morning. Yesterday, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) also announced her support for Biden. * Speaking of endorsements, Sanders also picked up a notable backer over the weekend, receiving support from the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. * Donald Trump and his team promoted a video via social media over the weekend that took Biden wildly out of context, making it seem as if the Democrat had endorsed the president. Twitter alerted users to the fact that the video included manipulated content, while Facebook made no effort to notify its users of the deception. * And on Friday, the DNC announced debate-participation standards for Sunday’s event in Phoenix. It appears that Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), who hasn’t made it onto a debate stage since November, will not make the cut.
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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