Biden corrects remarks; Warren closes gap
Former Vice President Joe Biden, who is known for the occasional gaffe, has a new one to deal with.
Speaking about his education plan Thursday night, which would triple federal investment in lower-income school districts, Biden told the Iowa Asian and Latino Coalition that “poor kids” are “just as talented as white kids,” before correcting himself, the Des Moines Register reported.
After President Donald Trump’s campaign posted a video of the remark. Biden spokeswoman Kate Bedingfield said the Trump team was trying to change the subject from the president’s own comments.
In other news from the presidential campaign trail this past week:
Warren surging: Biden leads the unwieldy field among likely Democratic Iowa caucusgoers, but Sen. Elizabeth Warren is closing the gap, a new Monmouth University Poll says.
Twenty-eight percent of likely caucusgoers surveyed said they support Biden, while 19% said they back Warren. The Massachusetts senator was polling at 7% four months ago.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas, saw their support erode. Sanders fell from 16% in April to 9%, while O’Rourke slipped from 6% to less than 1%.
Yang is in: Andrew Yang has become the ninth candidate to qualify for September’s debates.
The former technology executive earned 2% in Monmouth’s poll of Iowa voters. The next debates require donations from at least 130,000 people and 2% support in four polls.
Biden, Sanders, O’Rourke and Warren also have qualified. Also in: South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sens. Kamala Harris of California, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.
Yang’s campaign manager, Zach Graumann, said the campaign has added more than 35,000 donors and raised more than $1 million since the last presidential debate in Detroit.
Ryan’s express: A caravan Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan organized with the antigun violence group Moms Demand Action traveled more than 370 miles and made six stops before arriving Thursday night in Louisville, Kentucky, home of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. About 1,500 people gathered there in support.
Ryan said McConnell needs to call the Senate back into session “immediately” if he’s serious about having a conversation on expanding background checks for gun owners.
“I’ve watched him slow walk this time and time and time again, and they’re going to the same playbook,” Ryan told the Louisville Courier Journal. “It’s just a bunch of bologna.”
McConnell has agreed to consider gun control measures once the Senate returns from its August recess.
Quiet #Gravelanche halted: Mike Gravel, a former U.S. senator and antiwar firebrand who launched an onlinecentric campaign for president, has given up his quest, and his Twitter account expressed thanks to his 65,000 donors.
Gravel will endorse Sanders, The Daily Beast reported.
Contributing: The Associated Press