Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* Six Republican presidential candidates have qualified for this week’s primary debate: former Gov. Chris Christie, Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Ambassador Nikki Haley, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, Sen. Tim Scott, and Donald Trump, though the former president is refusing to participate. North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who made the cut for the first two debates, fell short.
* On a related note, the Republican National Committee released the thresholds for the fourth primary debate, which will be predictably more difficult than the third. As The New York Times reported, candidates will need at least 80,000 unique donors and 6% support “in two national polls, or in one national poll and in one poll in one of the four early states.”
* The Associated Press reportedly obtained a campaign memo sent to the DeSantis campaign’s national donor network. Though the Florida governor initially said he intended to try to win the Iowa caucuses, the new document says the goal is to deny Trump “a big win” in the Hawkeye State.
* Speaking of DeSantis and Trump, the governor’s campaign this week released a video pointing to 21 “fumbles, accidents, and confused moments” from the former president. Each of the documented instances came from this year.
* In California, the latest UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll, conducted for The Los Angeles Times, found Democratic Reps. Katie Porter and Adam Schiff as the top two candidates in the U.S. Senate race, though 30% of Californians haven’t yet settled on a candidate. * Before kicking off her presidential bid, Haley delivered a series of highly lucrative speeches to private audiences. The former ambassador’s campaign told NBC News that the South Carolina Republican “doesn’t have transcripts, notes or recordings” from the events. * And this past weekend, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson spoke at the Florida Freedom Summit, where he mentioned that there was a “significant likelihood” that Trump would be a convicted felon ahead of next year’s elections. The booing he received from attendees was long and robust.
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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