Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* In the latest Quinnipiac poll, 71% of voters said they would like to see Congress be “a check” on Donald Trump. The message to Democratic campaign strategists seems pretty obvious.
* Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner (R) this week said he’d like his party’s neo-Nazi congressional candidate to drop out of the race, but the Republican governor declined to endorse Rep. Dan Lipinski, the centrist Democratic incumbent.
* In Montana, Sen. Jon Tester (D) took out full-page ads in more than a dozen newspapers thanking Donald Trump “for signing 16 bills the Democrat sponsored or co-sponsored.” The president is scheduled to campaign in Montana today in support of Tester’s opponent, State Auditor Matt Rosendale (R).
* In Kansas’ 2nd congressional district, Steve Watkins (R) is benefiting from the support of a political action committee called the Kansans Can Do Anything PAC. It turns out, the PAC was created three months ago, and has exactly one backer: the candidate’s father. * Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill (R), often described as a rising star in GOP politics, has been accused of inappropriately touching four women in a bar. Hill denies the allegations, which were recently detailed in an eight-page memorandum prepared by a law firm hired at the request of legislative leaders. * And in Oregon this week, someone apparently called the police on state Rep. Janelle Bynum (D), who was canvassing alone in her area ahead of her re-election bid. Bynum is black. “It was just bizarre,” Bynum told The Oregonian/OregonLive. “It boils down to people not knowing their neighbors and people having a sense of fear in their neighborhoods, which is kind of my job to help eradicate. But at the end of the day, it’s important for people to feel like they can talk to each other to help minimize misunderstandings.”
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
