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Monday's Campaign Round-Up, 8.31.20

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

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

* Joe Biden is scheduled to speak in Pittsburgh today, and he's expected to address in detail "whether voters feel safe" under Donald Trump's presidency.

* It's Primary Day in Massachusetts tomorrow, and among the high-profile contests is a Democratic U.S. Senate contest, where the latest polling suggests incumbent Sen. Ed Markey is positioned to prevail over Rep. Joe Kennedy.

* A new Republican super PAC, called "Preserve America," is poised to launch a $30 million ad blitz in the hopes of boosting Trump's candidacy. The project will reportedly be overseen by Chris LaCivita, who helped orchestrate the wildly deceptive Swift Boat smear campaign against John Kerry in 2004.

* Team Trump is launching a new round of television ad buys this week, targeting five states: Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Florida, and Georgia. It's of interest that the Republican operation is concerned about Georgia, and sees a possible breakthrough in Minnesota.

* Over the weekend, Biden spoke at a virtual gathering of the National Guard Association of the United States, and the former vice president made a timely commitment: "I promise you, as president, I'll never put you in the middle of politics, or personal vendettas. I'll never use the military as a prop or as a private militia to violate rights of fellow citizens. That's not law and order. You don't deserve that."

* In news that the president is already choosing not to believe, the ratings for last week's Republican National Convention were lower than those for the Democratic National Convention a week earlier.

* According to the latest NBC News analysis, most of the voters who backed third-party candidates in 2016 -- specifically, former Gov. Gary Johnson and Jill Stein -- are supporting Biden over Trump in 2020.

* And in Wisconsin, Kanye West's representatives are apparently going to court in the hopes of being forced onto the presidential ballot. TPM's report on this noted, "[T]he address listed for West's court filing matched that of a GOP state senator who previously served as chief counsel for the Republican National Committee." Imagine that.