Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* Donald Trump threw his enthusiastic support behind Republican mega-donor Foster Friess in yesterday’s GOP gubernatorial primary in Wyoming, but local Republican voters apparently didn’t much care. Wyoming Secretary of State Mark Gordon won the party’s nomination, defeating Friess by about seven points.
* On a related note, Gordon will take on former state Senate Minority Leader Mary Throne, who won the Democratic nomination, in November.
* In Alaska’s gubernatorial race, former state Sen. Mike Dunleavy won a crowded Republican gubernatorial primary, and advances to a three-way contest in the fall. He’ll face former Sen. Mark Begich (D) and incumbent Gov. Bill Walker (I).
* Though nearly all recent polling shows Democrats with a lead on the generic congressional ballot between 7 and 10 points, the new Monmouth University poll shows the Dems’ lead at just five points, 48% to 43%.
* Donald Trump headlined a campaign rally in West Virginia last night, and despite the afternoon’s legal developments for former members of the president’s team, attendees nevertheless chanted, “Lock her up” in reference to Hillary Clinton. * At the same event, Trump said the Secret Service prevents him from campaigning as much as he’d like, but the president added that he might make “a few trips without them.” * A new NBC News/Marist poll in Illinois found J.B. Pritzker (D) with a sizable advantage over incumbent Gov. Bruce Rauner (R), 46% to 30%. If the race turns into a blowout, it may spell trouble for down-ballot Republicans: there are four competitive U.S. House races in Illinois this year, each with GOP incumbents. * And in Kansas, Republican gubernatorial hopeful Kris Kobach claims on his website that “75 percent of those on the most-wanted criminals lists” in Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Albuquerque are undocumented immigrants. The statistic is wrong, but just importantly, as Media Matters explained, Kobach attributes the claim to a prominent white-nationalist writer.
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
