Thursday's Campaign Round-Up, 5.11.17

Today's installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.* In the latest national Quinnipiac poll, released yesterday, Donald Trump's approval rating is just 36%, while only 33% consider him honest. The poll was conducted before the president fired FBI Director James Comey.* On a related note, the same poll found Democrats leading Republicans on the generic congressional ballot, 54% to 38%. The Dems' 16-point advantage, the report noted, is "the widest margin ever measured for this question in a Quinnipiac University poll."* The Congressional Leadership Fund, the House Republican leadership's super PAC, has a new attack ad in Georgia's congressional special election, slamming Jon Ossoff's (D) out-of-state support. The irony, of course, is that this commercial will air locally thanks to Republicans'  out-of-state support.* Rep. Raúl Labrador (R), one of Congress' most far-right stalwarts, announced this week that he's running for governor in Idaho next year. Labrador considered running for the job in 2014, but passed.* Mark Salter, a former campaign adviser to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), raised a few eyebrows yesterday when he said via Twitter that "the security of the United States might now depend on electing a Democratic Congress in 2018." These are, Salter said, words he "thought I'd never say."* A Republican narrowly won a state House special election this week, which wouldn't ordinarily be especially notable, except the two-point margin of victory came as a big surprise. Last November, Trump won this same district by 50 points.* On a related note, a Republican also narrowly won the Omaha mayoral race in Nebraska this week.* Despite talking about it for months, Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) will apparently not run for the U.S. Senate next year.* And Seattle Mayor Ed Murray (D), facing decades-old sexual assault allegations he insists aren't true, has decided not to seek re-election.