Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* Donald Trump was in Pennsylvania over the weekend, at a campaign rally in Pittsburgh, the president urged locals to support Rick Saccone (R) in tomorrow’s congressional special election. “This guy should win easily and he’s going to win easily,” Trump said.
* On a related note, Trump said Saccone “counseled” the president on North Korea “and told me other things specialists didn’t know.” For the record, Saccone is a state senator whose claims about his diplomatic experience in North Korea have been called into question.
* NBC News noted that as of Friday, ad spending in Pennsylvania’s 18th district had reached $11.7 million, most of which has been spent by outside Republican groups.
* Democrats at the national level are keeping a close eye on the U.S. Senate races in Arizona and Texas, but ahead of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) visits to those states, the independent senator passed on endorsing the Democratic candidates in either of the races.
* On a related note, Sanders also indicated last week that he isn’t going to endorse Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D) re-election in California. * It caused a bit of a stir when Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” yesterday that she’s “not running for president,” but in context, I’m reasonably sure she was just talking about the present — not her future plans. * On the same program yesterday, NBC’s Chuck Todd asked Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) if Donald Trump should face a Republican primary challenger in 2020. “Yes, I do,” Flake said, adding, “I do.” * And the Democratic Party of Virginia became the latest state party to rename its Jefferson-Jackson Dinner, going instead with the “Blue Commonwealth Gala.”
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
