Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* Over the last month or so, Donald Trump has continued to win Republican presidential primaries, though roughly a fifth of the GOP electorate participating in the contests has voted for one of his former intraparty rivals.
* Though it hardly seemed possible, a literal tie in a recent California primary has set the stage for a three-way congressional race in the Golden State’s 16th district. All three contenders — Sam Liccardo, Evan Low, and Joe Simitian — are Democrats.
* In case there were any doubts about the competitiveness of Nevada’s U.S. Senate race, Politico reported that incumbent Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen “is reserving an eye-popping $14 million in fall ads for her reelection bid, an early move to shore up her standing in what will be one of the nation’s toughest battlegrounds.”
* Speaking of the Silver State, many leading Republican officials have already rallied behind Army veteran Sam Brown in the race against Rosen, but Brown isn’t running unopposed in the GOP primary: Jeff Gunter, who served as Donald Trump’s ambassador to Iceland, this week made a $3.3 million ad buy to advance his own Republican candidacy.
* Though I find the results difficult to believe, the latest poll from Franklin & Marshall College showed President Joe Biden with a big lead over Trump in Pennsylvania, 48% to 38%. No other recent surveys have shown the Democratic incumbent with an advantage this large in the state.
* In a weird series of events, independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sent out a fundraising appeal this week referring to Jan. 6 defendants as “activists” who have been “stripped of their Constitutional liberties.” The conspiracy theorist’s political operation soon after distanced itself from the message, claiming that the language was an “error.”
* And as the No Labels operation abandons this year’s presidential race, the group’s former national director, Joe Cunningham, told Fox News yesterday that he’ll vote for Biden over Trump. Cunningham is a former one-term Democratic congressman from South Carolina.