Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* Julian Castro only had three congressional endorsements for his presidential campaign and over the weekend, that number dropped to two: Rep. Vicente González (D-Texas) switched his support to Joe Biden.
* Three years after easily winning New Hampshire’s Democratic presidential primary, Bernie Sanders’ support isn’t quite where he wants it to be in the Granite State. To that end, the Vermont independent reassigned his New Hampshire state director, moving Joe Caiazzo to neighboring Massachusetts. He was replaced by Shannon Jackson, who oversaw Sanders’ Senate re-election campaign in 2018.
* For the third time in two weeks, a leading Democratic contender in Colorado’s U.S. Senate race has quit: former Ambassador Dan Baer has withdrawn, conceding that former Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) was all but certain to win the party’s primary.
* Donald Trump’s three most notable 2020 primary rivals — Mark Sanford, Joe Walsh, and William Weld — wrote a joint op-ed, making a spirited case that state Republican Parties are making a mistake by cancelling the party’s presidential nominating contests in order to help Donald Trump.
* In related news, Michigan Republicans cannot legally cancel their presidential primary, but state GOP officials have changed their delegate apportionment rules to all but guarantee that Trump receives all of the state’s delegates in 2020. * Almost immediately after parting ways with the Trump White House, former National Security Adviser John Bolton brought his PAC and super PAC back to life. He soon after announced new support for a variety of Republicans, including Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.). * And Trump is headed to New Mexico today for a campaign rally, apparently because the Republican’s operation believes New Mexico is in play. It’s worth noting for context that Trump lost New Mexico by eight points in 2016, and the state has supported the Democratic presidential ticket in six of the last seven cycles.
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
