Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* Barack Obama is scheduled to deliver remarks at Stanford University, and according to a New York Times report, the former president will “add his voice to demands for rules to rein in the flood of lies polluting public discourse.” The article added that Obama has invested more of his energies of late “warning that the scourge of falsehoods online has eroded the foundations of democracy at home and abroad.”
* Wasting little time, Florida’s GOP-led state Senate has already approved the new gerrymandered congressional district map pushed by Gov. Ron DeSantis. The map, designed to carve up districts with sizable Black populations, now heads to the GOP-led state House.
* Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows is under investigation for voting in North Carolina after having moved to Virginia, and just to make this a bit more complex, the Republican claimed this week to be a resident of South Carolina.
* To appreciate how Republican politics now works in red-state primaries, consider this gem: Arkansas Sen. John Boozman voted early last year for some of President Joe Biden’s uncontroversial cabinet nominees. Now, a super PAC called the Arkansas Patriot Fund has launched an attack ad against the GOP senator for having cast those votes. The Arkansas Patriot Fund, of course, is funded by Republican mega-donor Richard Uihlein, who’s supporting Boozman’s rival, Jake Bequette.
* According to a Politico report, the Democratic National Committee and its joint fundraising arm raised $16.8 million in March and more than $42 million in the first quarter of 2022. Both are records for the party. Their Republican counterparts have not yet released their data for the same periods. * In New York, Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul has launched her first major ad campaign. The incumbent governor, elevated to the post after former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s resignation, is facing intra-party rivals ahead of the state’s June 28 primary. Early voting in New York begins on June 18. * And while President Joe Biden has said he intends to run for a second term, Sen. Bernie Sanders has apparently not ruled out the possibility of another national campaign if the incumbent president decides to retire. The Vermont independent, who’ll be 83 on Election Day 2024, will also be up for re-election in his home state in two 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."
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