Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* For election watchers, tomorrow will be a highly entertaining day, featuring two gubernatorial primaries in Ohio, a brutal Republican Senate primary in Indiana, and West Virginia’s Republican Senate primary, which may be the most interesting contest of them all.
* On a related note, Donald Trump weighed in on the West Virginia race this morning, telling voters that Don Blankenship, a leading GOP candidate, “can’t win the General Election in your State…No way!”
* And speaking of Blankenship, the Republican candidate, who was only released from a federal prison last year, said over the weekend that he hasn’t ruled out running for the Senate as an independent this fall if he comes up short in tomorrow’s primary.
* In Nevada’s closely watched U.S. Senate race, a new Public Policy Polling survey shows Rep. Jacky Rosen (D) with a narrow lead over incumbent Sen. Dean Heller (R), 44% to 42% margin.
* Michael Flynn, Donald Trump’s former White House national security advisor who pleaded guilty late last year to lying to the FBI about his communications with Russia, was scheduled to headline a Republican campaign event in Montana, but canceled, citing a family emergency. * In California, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) picked up a significant endorsement on Friday: Barack Obama announced his support for the longtime incumbent’s re-election. * And speaking of the Golden State, California’s Republican Party is facing a daunting possibility: “There may be no Republican candidate for governor or United States senator on the state’s ballot this November.” * Finally, Michelle Obama spoke at a United State Of Women Summit on Saturday and dismissed those urging her to seek elected office. “When I hear people say, ‘You run,’ it’s part of the problem,” she said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do before we’re focused on ‘the who.’ Because we’re ‘the who.’ … We are the answer. All of us here in the room are the answer to our own problems ― it is not finding the one right person that we think can save us from ourselves. It’s us.”
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
