Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* At a press conference on Saturday, Donald Trump insisted, “We need more Republicans” in Congress, which already has a GOP majority. The president added, in reference to the upcoming campaign season, “I will be actually working for incumbents and anybody else that has my kind of thinking.”
* After causing an uproar in Republican circles for criticizing members of Trump’s inner circle, Steve Bannon retreated yesterday, expressing “regret” for his comments to author Michael Wolff.
* In Ohio’s U.S. Senate race, Josh Mandel (R) ended his candidacy late last week, citing an ailing family member. The filing deadline in the race is Feb, 7 — less than a month away — which means state Republican officials will have to scramble to find a top contender willing to take on Sen. Sherrod Brown (D).
* A month after Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) traveled to Alabama to campaign for Doug Jones’ Senate campaign, the New Jersey Democrat traveled to Arizona on Friday to help support Rep. Kyrsten Sinema’s Senate candidacy.
* Progressive megadonor Tom Steyer, who’s helping spearhead an impeachment drive against Trump, announced this morning that he will not be a candidate for public office in his home state of California this year. * Though we don’t generally think of the ACLU in electoral terms, Politico reports that the organization is “jumping into the 2018 midterms with plans to spend upward of $25 million promoting ballot initiatives and issues in contested races across the country.” * And the HuffPost made an interesting catch the other day: the Senate Democratic incumbent who’s faced the most attack ads so far this cycle is Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D) of Wisconsin. She’s generally not high on the list of vulnerable incumbents, though it appears Republicans and their allies hope to change that.
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
