A new Reuters/Ipsos poll of white working-class voters across the Rust Belt — Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and parts of New York and Pennsylvania — finds Mitt Romney leading President Obama, 44% to 30%.

Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) “turned in 2,000 petition signatures to get on August primary ballot, but all except 244 have been deemed invalid because of rampant duplicated copies,” the Detroit News reports.

“A review by The Detroit News of the petition signatures found full copies of a sheet of signatures that were photocopied once and in some cases two times and mixed in with the 136-page stack of signatures. In some cases, a different petition circulator’s name was signed to the duplicate copy.”

McCotter accepted the findings and will now run as a write-in candidate.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports the Michigan attorney general is investigating the McCotter campaign for possible fraud.

A new Public Policy Polling survey in Michigan finds President Obama leads Mitt Romney by 14 points, 53% to 39%.

Key finding: “Obama’s crushing Romney on what will doubtless be one of the biggest issues in the campaign in Michigan: 55% think that he’s been better for the automotive industry in the state to only 31% who say Romney wins out on that front.”

On the same day Donald Trump hosts a fundraiser for Mitt Romney in Las Vegas, he stepped up his accusations in a remarkable CNBC interview that President Obama wasn’t born in the United States.

Trump also confirmed he would start a Super PAC with up to $10 million to “do your own thing.”

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Rolling Stone takes an interesting look at 16 Mitt Romney donors who have put up $52 million in a Super PAC that supports his campaign.

“This unprecedented infusion of money from America’s monied elites underscores the radical transformation of the Republican Party, which has made defending the interests of 0.0001 percent the basis of its entire platform.”

Sen. Mark Kirk’s (R-IL) ex-wife filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging that her former husband and then-girlfriend may have broken campaign finance laws, the Chicago Tribune reports.

“The girlfriend, Dodie McCracken, who works in public relations, has acknowledged receiving more than $143,000 in fees and expenses for her campaign work. A former live-in girlfriend, she is no longer romantically involved with Kirk… At the heart of the matter is Vertolli’s assertion that the Kirk campaign may have improperly hidden money to McCracken by paying her through another company working for the campaign. Because the money was not paid directly to McCracken, her name does not appear in Kirk’s federal disclosures.”

Interestingly, Kirk also “quietly paid” his ex-wife $40,000 in campaign funds after she publicly said she wouldn’t support his campaign in 2010.

Admitting there were “some irregularities” in his signatures to qualify for the Michigan GOP primary ballot, Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI said he is running for re-election to Congress as a write-in candidate, the Detroit News reports.

A Project New America poll in Colorado finds President Obama leading Mitt Romney by four points in the presidential race, 48% to 44%.

The Obama campaign released a video showing how Sen. John McCain distanced himself from extremist positions in 2008 while Mitt Romney refuses to do so when it comes to Donald Trump.

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Politico: “This year, Palin has become almost irrelevant in the context of the presidential race she once had a chance to dominate, and is seen more than ever as a sideshow by the Republican establishment. But after seeing her celebrity peak last year, Palin has settled into a role as something of a strong Triple-A political ballplayer, picking well on down-ballot races and earning credit as she goes.”

“If she jumps into the right streams, the ex-veep nominee’s backers will cite her endorsements as fresh evidence of her clout — even if she’s being carried by the tide. Yet her durability among the grassroots of the party, even with the tea-party movement diffusing in 2012, is clear.”

First Read: “From our coverage of past presidential campaigns, Republicans have always been better — and more comfortable — when it comes to hand-to-hand political combat. Exhibit A: Some of the Democratic handwringing we saw over the past two weeks about whether the attacks on Bain Capital are fair. And here’s Exhibit B: More handwringing about whether President Obama has engaged too early in the campaign. The handwringing is mostly taking place in the Acela corridor by folks that haven’t seen any polling data in the industrial Midwestern states or any focus groups, at least when it comes to Bain.”

“The more intriguing debate folks will have in December is about how quickly and sharply the president decided to personally attack Romney. He could have easily decided to stay above the fray for longer, but the decision was made they couldn’t do that. Team Obama will argue, they needed to fire up their own base and running AGAINST someone helps fire them up faster than simply asking them to help re-elect the president. So they may have had no choice but to engage earlier than planned simply to get their own base motivated. Still, hand wring all you want. The problem, though is that the toothpaste is already out of the tube.

Mitt Romney did not distance himself from Donald Trump, “despite the reality TV and real estate mogul’s continued skepticism about President Barack Obama’s birth certificate,” ABC News reports.

Said Romney: “You know I don’t agree with all the people who support me and my guess is they don’t all agree with everything I believe in. But I need to get 50.1 percent or more and I”m appreciative to have the help of a lot of good people.”

First Read: “What if a chief Obama surrogate/fundraiser happened to be the nation’s foremost critic of the Mormon faith, who argued that it was nothing more than a cult? Or what if the Obama campaign was holding a fundraising contest with a celebrity who believed that 9/11 was an inside job? Or even if Obama held a joint fundraiser with Bill Maher? It’s hard to differentiate those hypotheticals from Mitt Romney’s association with Donald Trump, who in recent days has said that hitting Obama with Jeremiah Wright is fair game and that there are still doubts about Obama’s place of birth.”

George Will: “I do not understand the cost benefit here. The costs are clear. The
benefit — what voter is going to vote for him because he is seen with
Donald Trump? The cost of appearing with this bloviating ignoramus is
obvious, it seems to me.”