Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* The latest national Quinnipiac poll, released yesterday, found Democrats leading Republicans on the generic congressional ballot, 51% to 38%. Last week, the Dems’ lead was 11 points.
* As Sen. Bob Menendez (D) gets ready to run for re-election in New Jersey, he’s also keeping busy in the courts. A federal judge yesterday dismissed seven of the 18 counts against the Democratic senator ahead of prosecutors’ intention to retry him on corruption charges.
* Whining yesterday about his coverage of his 2016 candidacy, Donald Trump sounded unusually pitiful, telling reporters, “You people won’t say this, but I’ll say it: I was a much better candidate than [Hillary Clinton]. You always say she was a bad candidate. You never say I was a good candidate. I was one of the greatest candidates.”
* Facing sexual misconduct from two women, Wyoming Secretary of State Ed Murray (R) announced this week that he’s decided not to run for governor this year. Murray also won’t seek re-election to his current office.
* In Detroit, former Rep. John Conyers’ (D-Mich.) son, John Conyers III, filed the paperwork yesterday to run for his father’s open seat (his campaign committee is apparently called “Conyers to Conyers“). He faces a crowded Democratic primary field, which already includes his cousin, state Sen. Ian Conyers. * With the Trump administration eyeing changes to the status quo, support for recreational marijuana may be a key campaign issue this year, which is why it struck me as interesting that a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows 60% of Americans supporting legalization. * And if you’re one of those folks who’ve speculated about Oprah Winfrey’s possible presidential ambitions, stop. “It’s not something that interests me … I met with someone the other day who said that they would help me with a campaign. That’s not for me,” Winfrey said in a new interview.
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
