Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* In a not-so-subtle rebuke to Facebook, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced yesterday that his social-media platform will no longer accept political ads. The ban will take effect next month.
* On a related note, as ABC’s Matthew Dowd noted, it’s of interest that the two highest-profile critics of Twitter’s decision are the Trump campaign and Russian state television.
* The latest national USA Today/Suffolk poll found Joe Biden leading Elizabeth Warren, 26% to 17%, in the race for the Democratic nomination, which is a smaller advantage for the former vice president than the 20-point lead he enjoyed in the same poll in August. Bernie Sanders was third in the results with 13%, followed by Pete Buttigieg with 10%. No other candidate reached 5%.
* Struggling to break through, Kamala Harris is reportedly “dramatically restructuring” her presidential campaign. Politico reported that the change, made necessary by a campaign that’s “hemorrhaging cash,” will involve “redeploying staffers to Iowa and laying off dozens of aides at her Baltimore headquarters.”
* In Pennsylvania, a Franklin & Marshall poll found Biden leading Warren, 30% to 18%, followed by Sanders at 12% and Buttigieg at 8%. * Given Pennsylvania’s role as a critical battleground state, it’s also worth noting that the same poll found 59% of voters in the Keystone State believe it’s time for a new president, while only 37% want to see Donald Trump remain in office for another four years. * In Virginia, which will hold closely watched state-legislative elections next week, Gov. Ralph Northam (D) is starting to hit the campaign trail again, which would’ve been hard to predict earlier this year when a racist photo from an old yearbook came to public light. * And in a curious campaign story, former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci apparently endorsed Steve Bullock’s Democratic presidential campaign, though he apparently didn’t know he was doing so: “Cameo is a service that allows regular folks to pay famous (and slightly famous) people to send video messages to their friends. In what the candidate claims was an attempt to make a point about money in politics, Bullock used the service to book a little bit of Mooch’s time.” The sort-of endorsement cost the Montana governor $100.
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
