Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* Late Friday afternoon, Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign said the Vermonter was hospitalized following a heart attack in Las Vegas last week. There is no reason to believe this will derail the 78-year-old senator’s presidential campaign, though he is now at home recuperating.
* The latest Fox News poll in South Carolina shows Joe Biden with a sizable lead over his rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination. The results showed the former vice president with 41%, followed by Elizabeth Warren at 12% and Bernie Sanders at 10%.
* Fox News yesterday also released its latest poll out of Wisconsin, where Biden leads Warren by a much narrower margin, 28% to 22%, with Sanders not far behind with 18%. The same survey showed each of the top contenders for the Democratic nomination leading Donald Trump in Wisconsin in hypothetical match-ups, with Biden enjoying the largest advantage (nine points) and Warren enjoying the smallest lead over the president (four points).
* The Warren presidential campaign announced late last week that it has fired its national organizing director, Rich McDaniel, after an investigation into “multiple complaints regarding inappropriate behavior.”
* As of this morning, it appears that Sen. Cory Booker and Tom Steyer have qualified to participate in the Democratic presidential primary debate in November, bringing the new total of participants to seven. In contrast, 12 candidates are slated to appear in next week’s debate. * Biden wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post, responding to Trump’s offensive against him, and it concluded, “[T]o Trump and those who facilitate his abuses of power, and all the special interests funding his attacks against me: Please know that I’m not going anywhere. You won’t destroy me, and you won’t destroy my family. And come November 2020, I intend to beat you like a drum.” * Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power told reporters on Friday that if Warren is elected president, Power isn’t ruling out the possibility of running for her seat. * And in a curious tweet, later promoted by Donald Trump, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel suggested donor support is most important indicator of the president’s public standing, arguing, “Dollars are the real polls right now.”
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." Recommended
