Bloomberg isn't on the ballot, but he's on the debate stage Welcome to the Maclean's Politics Insider: America 2020, launched for readers who crave U.S. political news during primary season. If you want to receive this new newsletter, take no action, it will arrive in your inbox every weekday at noon. If you'd rather not receive it, please unsubscribe here. Bloomberg qualifies for debate for election he isn't even in: A NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll showed Bernie Sanders with a big lead among Democrats nationally, with 31%. In second place with 19% is Michael Bloomberg, and this poll result qualifies him to be at the Las Vegas, Nevada Democratic debate this Wednesday - and the candidate has said he will participate, even though he isn't going to be on the ballot for the Nevada caucuses. Under the old rules, which demanded that a candidate reach a certain threshold of campaign donations, the self-funding Bloomberg wouldn't have been allowed at the debate one way or the other. Team Sanders fed up with MSNBC: In the U.S., MSNBC is sometimes seen as cable news's liberal counterpart to Fox News, but sometimes, the Bernie Sanders campaign would rather deal with Fox. According to Tom Kludt in Vanity Fair, Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir went to MSNBC's president to complain about "a ton of terrible coverage" they were getting on his network, like the time an MSNBC host brought in a body-language expert to claim Sanders was lying about a remark he allegedly made. Shakir even claimed that Fox has been "more fair" than MSNBC, a very low blow for a liberal audience: "Fox is often yelling about Bernie Sanders’s socialism, but they’re still giving our campaign the opportunity to make our case in a fair manner, unlike MSNBC, which has credibility with the left and is constantly undermining the Bernie Sanders campaign.” As Kludt notes, this isn't the first time a Democratic primary candidate has had complaints about MSNBC bias: supporters of Sanders' former opponent Hillary Clinton felt that the network's hosts were trying to get Barack Obama elected over her - and he was. Warren's comeback plan: After her weak showing in the New Hampshire primary, a lot of reporters have simply moved on from talking about Elizabeth Warren - and that might be part of what gets her back into the race. Warren's team is now quick to point out when the media is ignoring her: her staff "complained privately to cable networks" that cut off her speech in Iowa, and publicly chided networks for failing to cover her remarks in New Hampshire. Both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have successfully run on the public's distrust of the mainstream media, and Warren may be doing the same to cheer up her supporters and convince them that the media coverage doesn't tell the whole story. Maine Senator could lose seat over Trump support: For 23 years, Maine's senior Senator Susan Collins has always had the tricky job of being a Republican in a state that hasn't voted for a Republican president since 1988. Being up for re-election the same year as Donald Trump is making that job harder. After voting to confirm Trump's Supreme Court appointees and against Trump's removal from office, a new Colby College poll shows her nearly tied with her likely opponent, Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon. Ironically, Maine's governor from 2011 to 2018, Paul LePage , was a Republican whose style and comments are often seen as a precursor of Trumpism, so Collins might be in a better position if she embraced Trump more, rather than less. —Jaime Weinman | 
