Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* As you’ve probably heard, Iowa’s presidential caucuses are tonight, and if the polls are correct, Bernie Sanders is very well positioned to come out on top.
* It’s worth noting that the tallies from Iowa may get a little complicated, raising the possibility of more than one winner due to multiple metrics.
* There was supposed to be one more Des Moines Register/CNN poll released over the weekend, but the survey was pulled over a reported procedural misstep.
* The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found Donald Trump trailing each of the leading Democratic presidential candidates in hypothetical general election match-ups, though Joe Biden did slightly better than his rivals, leading the incumbent president by six points nationally. That said, when the same poll narrowed its focus to battleground states, Biden led Trump by five points, Sanders led Trump by three points, and the incumbent narrowly edged out Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg.
* The same poll, incidentally, sought respondents’ attitudes on economic models, and found capitalism with 52% positive rating, while 19% had a positive view toward socialism. * In a bit of a surprise, the 200,000-member Amalgamated Transit Union, which supported Sanders’ campaign four years ago, endorsed Biden over the weekend. * And former Secretary of State John Kerry, a prominent Biden supporter, was overheard by an NBC News reporter yesterday in Des Moines, talking about what he’d have to do to enter the 2020 race and prevent Sanders from “taking down” the party. Kerry soon after clarified, in unusually blunt terms, that he will not be a candidate.
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
