Maddow Blog | Friday’s Campaign Round-Up, 5.3.24

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.

* On May 2, 2022, a draft Supreme Court ruling was leaked, alerting the public to the fact that Republican-appointed justices were poised to overturn Roe v. Wade. On May 2, 2024, President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign unveiled a new ad highlighting Donald Trump’s opposition to reproductive rights.

* It took a little legislative effort, but Gov. Kay Ivey signed legislation into law this week that will ensure that President Joe Biden appears on Alabama’s 2024 ballot. A similar issue in Ohio has not yet been resolved.

* As if Gov. Kristi Noem’s shoot-the-family-dog story weren’t quite enough, the South Dakota Republican also claims in her new book that she had a tense conversation with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un during her time in Congress. It now appears this never actually happened.

* Trump narrowly carried North Carolina four years ago, but a Washington Post report noted that Team Biden is clearly taking the state seriously in 2024: “The Biden campaign has spent tens of millions of dollars on television ads in North Carolina. His team expects to have 40 staffers in the state by the end of month and will soon have 11 offices in key counties, according to a campaign official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal plans. In 2020, the campaign did not begin hiring senior staffers until June, the official said.”

* Speaking of North Carolina, in the state’s 13th congressional district, Trump this week endorsed Brad Knott in the GOP primary. This led his intraparty rival, Kelly Daughtry, to suspend her candidacy, though her name will still appear on the May 14 ballot.

* A Wall Street Journal report on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent presidential campaign quoted a former staffer who left in part because she saw a political operation rife with “grifters and opportunists.” The article added, “Several staffers fear the electromagnetic radiation from microwave ovens, complicating a volunteer potluck.”

* And while Trump has made no secret of his desperate desire to debate Biden, the former president yesterday said he does not want to see Kennedy on the stage. The Republican conspiracy theorist said he doesn’t consider the independent conspiracy theorist to be “a serious candidate.”

This article was originally published on MSNBC.com