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Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* A Washington Post-Schar School poll found Kamala Harris narrowly leading Donald Trump among likely voters in battleground states, 49% to 48%. More specifically, the data found the Democratic vice president with small leads in Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania, while the former Republican president had small leads in Arizona and North Carolina. In Nevada, the survey found the two candidates tied. (Click the link for additional information on the survey’s methodology and margin of error.)
* Trump claimed over the weekend that he’s “not that close” to turning 80. In reality, the GOP candidate will turn 80 in a year and eight months, and if elected to a second term, he’d be on track to become the oldest person ever to serve as president.
* Based on the latest filings, one of Trump’s main super PACs, MAGA Inc., has now received $150 million from Timothy Mellon, the reclusive billionaire megadonor.
* Early voting began late last week in North Carolina, and turnout totals quickly set a state record.
* Harris has already held one campaign event with former House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney, and this week, the duo will hold additional events in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Detroit and Milwaukee.
* In Maryland’s closely watched U.S. Senate, former Republican Gov. Larry Hogan is facing another round of conflict-of-interest questions in response to a Time magazine report. The article alleges that the governor, while in office, directed millions of taxpayer dollars to develop property owned by his stepmother.
* In Ohio’s closely watched U.S. Senate race, former Republican Gov. Bob Taft has thrown his support behind Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. (Side note: Taft is the only person to ever defeat Brown: The two competed in Ohio’s secretary of state race in 1990.)
* On Friday, Harris campaigned in Lansing, Michigan, where she showed local voters video footage of Trump saying auto factories “don’t build cars” but instead “take them out of a box, and they assemble them.” He went on to suggest that a “child could do it.”
* Speaking of Michigan, Trump campaigned in Detroit a day later and told locals, “Make sure you vote and bring all our friends that want to vote for us. Tell them, ‘Jill, get your fat husband off the couch. Get that — get that fat pig off that couch. Get him up, Jill. Slap him around.’”