By
Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* The latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist found President Joe Biden’s approval rating improving to 47 percent. “This is an unusual bounce,” said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, which conducted the survey. “It gets him back to where he was pre-Afghanistan.”
* Appearing at a Republican fundraiser on Saturday night, Donald Trump escalated his criticisms of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, describing the Kentucky lawmaker as both “stupid” and “corrupt.”
* In response to a request from the Texas Democratic Party, the Democratic National Committee has agreed to fund a full-time voter registration director position in the Lone Star State. HuffPost added, “Texas Democrats’ new voter registration director will focus on expanding the electorate in Texas, targeting Black, Latino and young Texan voters in particular.”
* Did former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows commit voter fraud? The New Yorker reports that Trump’s former right-hand man registered to vote using a North Carolina address where he never lived, despite a state law requiring voters to use their “place of abode.”
* In Arizona, state Sen. Kelly Townsend announced late last week that she’s ending her congressional candidacy. The right-wing state legislator was apparently waiting for a Trump endorsement that never arrived.
* At least for now, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds appears well positioned to win another term. A new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll showed the Republican incumbent leading Democratic businesswoman Deidre DeJear, 51 percent to 43 percent.
* In Georgia, after Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene spoke at a white nationalist event, GOP Senate hopeful Herschel Walker announced he would no longer participate in the congresswoman’s upcoming “Second Amendment and Freedom Rally.” David Perdue, a former senator currently running for governor, is still scheduled to attend Greene’s event.