Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* It’s Primary Day in four states — Minnesota, Wisconsin, Connecticut, and Vermont — with a variety of Senate, gubernatorial, and U.S. House primaries among the contests to watch.
* In New Jersey’s 3rd congressional district, which Democrats consider a key pick-up opportunity, a new Monmouth University poll found incumbent Rep. Tom MacArthur (R) with the narrowest of leads over Andy Kim (D), 41% to 40%.
* Now that Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.) has been arrested by the FBI, will Republicans who received campaign contributions from him keep the money? Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) accepted a donation from Collins’ PAC, but the Kentucky Republican announced yesterday he’ll donate the same amount to a veterans’ charity.
* In Minnesota, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D) looks like a fairly safe bet for re-election: the latest Emerson poll found her leading her top Republican challenger, Jim Newberger, 50% to 26%.
* In New York, a state court ruled the other day that Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D) can, at least for now, run for re-election to Congress and run for state attorney general at the same time.
* Speaking of New York, Donald Trump claimed at a fundraiser last night that Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) personally vowed to the president that he wouldn’t run against him in 2020. I find that hard to believe, but the governor’s office has not yet commented on the claim. * In Florida, which will be home to several major races this year, Politico reports that the state Democratic Party “has lost a share of its registered voters in Florida since 2016 and the percentage of Democrats casting vote-by-mail absentee ballots this month trails those mailed in by Republicans, according to new figures from the state’s elections division.” * Speaking of the Sunshine State, Melissa Howard, the Republican state House candidate who apparently faked a diploma from a school she didn’t graduate from, came clean yesterday. Howard has not, however, ended her campaign. * And Trump yesterday blamed Gov. John Kasich’s (R) “unpopularity” in Ohio for undermining Troy Balderson’s recent special-election campaign. To the extent that reality still matters, Kasich’s popularity in Ohio easily surpasses Trump’s.
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
