Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* Vice President Kamala Harris’ economic speech in New Hampshire highlighted elements of a tax plan that isn’t entirely in line with President Joe Biden’s policy.
* CNN’s latest batch of battleground state polls included Senate races, and while Democrats appeared relatively well positioned in Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Nevada, the same batch of survey data found a tie race in Pennsylvania. (Click the link for information on the surveys’ methodology and margins of error.)
* Donald Trump’s campaign claims it raised $130 million in August, which is certainly a significant sum, though a Politico report provided some key context: “Trump’s August total is notably lower than the nearly $139 million his operation raised in July — when it was buoyed by the Republican National Convention — and less than the $210 million that his team raised in August 2020, when he was running as the incumbent.”
* The Anti-Psychopath PAC, led by lawyer George Conway, is launching a new, minute-long ad featuring prominent Republicans publicly criticizing Trump. The super PAC is reportedly running the commercial in Florida and New Jersey, where the former president has homes.
* In Virginia, Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears has filed the paperwork to run for governor in 2025. She’s likely to face some primary rivals.
* In New Hampshire’s gubernatorial race, former Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte apologized late last week for an ad that attacked former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig, over a 2015 murder that happened more than two years before the Democratic candidate was elected. Ayotte has pulled the ad from the airwaves.
* And in Michigan, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fought to appear on the state’s presidential ballot, but the conspiracy theorist is now fighting to do the opposite. It’s not going well: A Michigan Court of Claims judge ruled this week that Kennedy will remain on the ballot, despite ending his candidacy.