Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D) may not have qualified for this week’s Democratic presidential primary debates, but he’s nevertheless finding some success in Iowa, where he received an endorsement yesterday from Story County Democratic Chair Jan Bauer, one of the state’s biggest players in party politics. This comes a month after Bullock also received an endorsement from Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller (D).
* Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) raised a few eyebrows yesterday when MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt asked if he’d commit to supporting the Democratic 2020 ticket, even if he’s not on it, and the Vermont senator hedged.
* Though there’s likely to be a Democratic primary in Maine’s U.S. Senate race, Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon (D) picked up several endorsements this week, including one from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
* Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is working hard to make sure he doesn’t face a primary rival in South Carolina next year, and so far, that’s working out quite well for him.
* Speaking of GOP primaries, Roy Moore certainly made a splash by kicking off a U.S. Senate campaign in Alabama last week, but he’s going to have plenty of intra-party rivals. They’ll include Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill (R), who announced his candidacy on Tuesday. * Though Secretary of State Mike Pompeo seemed to officially close the door on running for Kansas’ open U.S. Senate seat next year, Politico reports that he’s still “quietly evaluating the next steps in his political career.” * And Donald Trump yesterday boasted that at his re-election kick-off event in Orlando last week, there were “literally tens of thousands of people” who wanted to attend but couldn’t get into the full arena. That’s not even close to being true.
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
