Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* A Pew Research Center survey released this morning showed Joe Biden leading Bernie Sanders nationally in the race for the Democratic nomination, 26% to 21%, followed by Elizabeth Warren at 16%. No other candidate reached double digits.
* We’re a few days out from the Super Bowl, which will feature two presidential campaign ads, one from Donald Trump and the other from Michael Bloomberg. On the latter, we now know the former mayor’s campaign ad will focus on preventing gun violence.
* On a related note, the Trump campaign has run Facebook ads claiming the “Fake News media” will try to block the Republican’s Super Bowl commercial. That’s not even close to being true.
* In Georgia, the Rev. Raphael Warnock, the senior pastor at Martin Luther King Jr.’s Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, kicked off his U.S. Senate campaign this morning. He’ll join a crowded Democratic field, but Warnock was heavily recruited by the DSCC and will likely enjoy considerable party support.
* Elizabeth Warren’s campaign raised a few eyebrows yesterday with the unveiling of a plan to combat the spread of election-related disinformation by proposing “criminal and civil penalties for online voter suppression efforts.” * The Trump campaign has warned the Commission on Presidential Debates that the president may not participate in this year’s three general-election debates unless the Republican’s team deems the process “fair.” It’s not altogether clear exactly what that means. * And in a strange pitch, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice (R) and Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. this week urged some of Virginia’s conservative rural counties to leave the commonwealth and become part of West Virginia. “If you’re not truly happy where you are, we stand with open arms to take you from Virginia or anywhere you may be,” the Republican governor said.
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
