Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* The recount in Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate Republican primary is just getting started, but celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz nevertheless released a video late last week claiming that he’s “earned the presumptive Republican nomination.” Heading into the recount, Oz leads former hedge fund executive David McCormick by about .07 percent of the vote.
* On a related note, Donald Trump — who endorsed Oz and encouraged him to declare victory, regardless of the results — issued a statement praising the candidate for having “declared himself the winner.”
* With the top Republican contenders in Michigan’s gubernatorial race being derailed by a procedural controversy, a new statewide poll found the top GOP candidate is Ryan Kelley, a real estate agent who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
* It seemed notable that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy appeared via video at a Trump rally in Wyoming over the weekend, and there were audible boos from attendees.
* The New York Times had a fascinating report over the weekend on Cleta Mitchell, who helped in the scheme to overturn Trump’s 2020 defeat, mobilizing grass-roots activists into an “army of citizens” trained to aggressively monitor elections. Her coalition “includes LaRouchePAC, a committee dedicated to Lyndon LaRouche, the deceased conspiracy theorist.” * Brian Robinson, a prominent Republican consultant in Georgia told Politico that Senate hopeful Herschel Walker “doesn’t speak in beautiful syntax,” but he added that he expects many voters to know what the former football player “was trying to say.” * And in New York, former Democratic Rep. Max Rose is sticking with his plans for a rematch against Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, even after the redistricting process left the Staten Island-based district even more conservative.
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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