Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* The labor dispute at Loyola Marymount has been resolved, and barring any last-minute changes, this week’s Democratic presidential primary debate in Los Angeles will be held on schedule.
* Facing a newly redrawn map, Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.) announced late yesterday that he won’t seek re-election next year, joining a long list of House Republicans giving up their seats. Walker, however, left little doubt that he intends to run for the U.S. Senate in 2022, when Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) is set to retire.
* In the latest national Quinnipiac poll, released yesterday afternoon, Joe Biden leads the Democratic presidential field with 30% support. Elizabeth Warren is second in the poll with 17%, followed by Bernie Sanders at 16%., and Pete Buttigieg at 9%. The only other candidate above 5% was Michael Bloomberg, whose aggressive spending spree has propelled him to fifth place with 7%.
* The good news for Republicans in the new Suffolk/USA Today poll is that it shows Donald Trump leading each of the top Democratic contenders in hypothetical general election match-ups. The bad news for Republicans is that in order to arrive at these results, the Suffolk/USA Today poll found “an unnamed third-party candidate” receiving double-digit support, which seems difficult to take seriously, given that no such candidate exists.
* Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), who will vote against Trump’s impeachment, acknowledged yesterday that he’s had “overtures by the highest levels of the Republican Party in the last couple weeks” about switching parties, but he declined. This probably has something to do with the fact that Peterson is currently the chair of the House Agriculture Committee — a post he’s long sought — and abandoning the Dems would mean losing his gavel * In Texas, where there’s a crowded field of Democratic candidates hoping to take on Sen. John Cornyn (R) next year, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has officially thrown its support behind M.J. Hegar (D). * Biden picked up an endorsement yesterday from Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin, following a recent meeting between the former vice president and a group of Southern black mayors. It’s a bit of a setback for Sanders, whose political operation rallied behind Woodfin in 2017.
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
