Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* The latest national Fox News poll found Joe Biden leading the Democratic presidential field with 30% support, followed by Bernie Sanders with 20%. Elizabeth Warren is third with 13%, followed by Pete Buttigieg at 7%. No other candidate toped 5% in the results.
* The same poll found each of the top Democratic contenders leading Donald Trump in hypothetical general election match-ups, though Biden’s seven-point advantage was the largest.
* A new NPR/PBSNewsHour/Marist poll, however, found the former vice president with a much smaller lead in the race for his party’s nomination: the results found Biden leading Sanders by just two points, 24% to 22%. Warren was third with 17%, followed by Buttigieg at 13%. No other candidate topped 5%.
* Wisconsin already appears to be a difficult state for Democrats in 2020, and on Friday their task became even more difficult when a state judge “ordered that the registration of up to 234,000 voters be tossed out because they may have moved.”
* The next Democratic presidential primary debate is scheduled for this week in Los Angeles, but a labor dispute at Loyola Marymount University is threatening to derail the event. * Speaking of debates, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), who didn’t make the cut for this week’s event, is pressing the Democratic National Committee to ease the standards for the debates scheduled for January and February. The top eight candidates signed onto Booker’s effort late last week, encouraging the DNC to use “either a polling or fund-raising threshold, but not both.” * Just one day after Bernie Sanders’ endorsed Cenk Uygur’s congressional campaign in California, the Vermont senator un-endorsed Uygur. The congressional candidate’s record of offensive rhetoric toward women appears to have been responsible for Sanders’ quick reversal. * And in Virginia, there was a recount in one of last month’s state legislative races, but it did not change the outcome: Nancy Guy (D) narrowly defeated incumbent Chris Stolle (R). The Democratic majority in the House of Delegates will be 55 to 45.
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
