Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* Though New Hampshire Republicans were eyeing former Sen. Scott Brown for next year’s U.S. Senate race, the party is now turning to former Sen. John Sununu, who just launched a statewide bid. This will be a comeback campaign for the Republican: Sununu lost his re-election campaign in 2008.
* With just 13 days remaining before Election Day in New Jersey and Virginia, Barack Obama is returning to the campaign trail: The former president will campaign for his party’s gubernatorial nominees, former Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger and Rep. Mikie Sherrill, a week from Saturday.
* On a related note, the GOP’s gubernatorial nominee in Virginia, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, has been waiting for an endorsement from Donald Trump. On Monday, the president said his party’s nominee in the commonwealth is “very good,” though he did not say Earle-Sears’ name out loud.
* Around the same time, however, Trump published an enthusiastic endorsement of the Republicans’ gubernatorial nominee in New Jersey, Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli. The president added that Ciattarelli “calls me constantly.”
* According to the latest national polling from Gallup, Democrats have regained their party ID advantage over Republicans, after the GOP took the lead late last year.
* In Kentucky, retired Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein this week launched a Republican primary campaign against incumbent Rep. Thomas Massie. The campaign kickoff came just a few days after Trump publicly urged Gallrein to run.
* And in Alaska, former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola hasn’t yet announced her future electoral plans, but party leaders have lobbied her to launch a U.S. Senate campaign, and the latest poll from Alaska Survey Research found that Peltola narrowly leading Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan in a hypothetical match-up.
