Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper formally kicked off his Democratic presidential campaign last night, defending his approach to politics. “Being a pragmatist doesn’t mean saying no to bold ideas,” he told a crowd of more than a thousand people in his hometown of Denver. “It means knowing how to make them happen.”
* The Washington Post uncovered some intemperate remarks former Vice President Joe Biden made about race in 1975, which may be difficult to simply ignore more than four decades later.
* Though Donald Trump somehow managed to eke out a narrow victory in Michigan in 2016, a new EPIC-MRA poll in the Wolverine State found only 31% of voters definitely plan to vote for the Republican, while 49% say they’ll definitely vote against him.
* Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) was among the earliest Democratic presidential candidates to kick off a national campaign, but two months later, the senator does not yet have any endorsements from New York’s 21-member congressional delegation.
* The Dems’ 2020 field only has two governors, but that number may yet grow: Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D) has reportedly hired a veteran Democratic operative to oversee his Big Sky Values PAC, which suggests a national campaign is likely.
* As Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) moves forward with her presidential ambitions, she’ll reportedly unveil a new proposal today that will call for “breaking up some of America’s largest tech companies, including Amazon, Google, and Facebook.”
* And despite polling that suggests many Democratic primary voters support loosening the nation’s marijuana laws, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), running a long-shot presidential campaign, said many of her 2020 rivals are “vastly out of touch they are with the American people” on the issue with their support for decriminalization.
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."