Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* Brad Parscale, Donald Trump’s campaign manager, issued a public call yesterday for his boss to fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions. None of this is in any way normal.
* Following an unexpected Democratic victory in a local election yesterday, Dems now have a rare majority on the Miami-Dade County Commission, with the party controlling seven of the commission’s 13 seats.
* As part of his remarks to the National Federation of Independent Businesses yesterday, the president spoke for a while about his assessments of Hillary Clinton’s campaign commercials. For those keeping score, Election Day 2016 was 589 days ago.
* Steve Schmidt, an MSNBC political analyst, was a Republican for nearly 30 years and served as a senior adviser to John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. Yesterday, Schmidt ended his association with the GOP. * As if the Republican primary in New York’s 11th congressional district weren’t strange enough already, former Rep. Michael Grimm has accused incumbent Rep. Dan Donovan of privately offering to work on a pardon for Grimm if he agreed not to run against him. If the claim is true, it’d be a pretty serious ethical violation. Primary Day in New York is next week. * And as expected, California’s gubernatorial race probably won’t be competitive. On the heels of the state’s recent primaries, a new USC/Los Angeles Times poll shows Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) well ahead of John Cox (R), 45% to 28%.
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
