Friday's Campaign Round-Up, 10.28.16

Today's installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.* The latest closing-statement ad from Hillary Clinton's campaign features a pitch from President Obama about what's at stake in the election.* Though I hope he was kidding, Donald Trump told an Ohio audience yesterday, "We should just cancel the election and just give it to Trump, right?"* Though the protests surrounding the Dakota Access pipeline in North Dakota haven't played much of a role in the presidential campaign, Clinton weighed in on the matter yesterday, urging "all of the parties involved -- including the federal government, the pipeline company and contractors, the state of North Dakota, and the tribes" -- to "find a path forward that serves the broadest public interest."* Add Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) to the list of congressional Republicans who urged Trump to quit the presidential race earlier this month, only to re-endorse him this week. Stewart famously compared Trump to Mussolini, though apparently not in a bad way.* The latest ABC News tracking poll shows Clinton leading Trump by just four points, 48% to 44%, down from a 12-point lead last week. What's driving the shift? A growing number of Republicans gravitating to their party's nominee as Election Day draws closer.* Quinnipiac released a batch of state polls yesterday, with Clinton ahead in North Carolina by 4 points, Clinton leading in Virginia by 12 points, Trump up by one point in Georgia, and the two candidates tied in Iowa.* In Michigan, the latest poll from the Detroit Free Press found Clinton ahead by seven, 41% to 34%, with plenty of undecideds.* Ahead of next year's gubernatorial race in the Garden State, New Jersey Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno (R) is going out of her way to distance herself from Gov. Chris Christie (R).* In Massachusetts, the latest Suffolk poll shows Clinton leading Trump by a greater than two-to-one margin, 57% to 25%.* The same poll, looking ahead to the 2018 Senate race in the Bay State, found Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D) leading retired right-wing baseball player Curt Schilling by an even larger margin in a hypothetical match-up, 58% to 24%.* And in one of the year's funniest editorials, the Yale Record, which is prohibited from explicitly supporting a presidential candidate, published a rather unambiguous non-endorsement endorsement this week.