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Today's installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* The AP reported overnight that the Republican National Committee is moving forward with plans to conduct the official business of the party's national convention in Charlotte. Donald Trump, however, will apparently accept the Republican nomination somewhere else.
* And where, pray tell, will the president accept his party's nomination? The same AP report added, "Republican officials visited Nashville on Thursday and plan to tour other major cities in the coming days. The RNC's top considerations to host Trump include Orlando, Florida; Jacksonville, Florida; New Orleans, Dallas and Phoenix."
* A federal district court recently cleared the way for voting by mail in Texas, but the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday blocked that ruling, siding with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R).
* In related news, a state judge in Tennessee yesterday ruled that the Volunteer State must offer the state's electorate the option of voting by mail during the coronavirus crisis.
* After Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said she's struggling with whether to support her party's 2020 ticket, Donald Trump announced on Twitter that he will support the incumbent senator's primary rival in 2022. Murkowski does not currently have an intra-party challenger, but the president nevertheless said he'd support any Alaska Republican with "a pulse."
* Republican Voters Against Trump this week unveiled a new, minute-long ad, intended to use the president's words against him. It's built largely around the most memorable line from Trump's inaugural address: "This American carnage stops right here and stops right now." The ad was scheduled to air yesterday during Fox News' morning program, apparently in the hopes that the president would see it.
* And on a related note, The Lincoln Project, comprised of anti-Trump Republicans, launched a new minute-long video of its own on Wednesday, taking aim at the president's latest responses to social unrest.