Daily Digest: TGIF edition

Here we are again and it's Friday. Anybody remember the old days when phones were plugged into the wall, and you didn't need to worry about them exploding? Here's the Digest.

1. Embarrassing disclosures about a few first-time candidates for the Minnesota Legislature are providing openings to their opponents. Whether the problems sink those candidates remains to be seen. But they serve as a reminder that people’s lives and their social media comments are accessible and that even low-visibility legislative campaigns are fodder for background researchers. (MPR News)

2. One of those candidates, Republican Nolan West, who apologized for and deleted some offensive Facebook posts this week, has resigned from his day job at the Minnesota Legislature. (Pioneer Press)

3. Every seat in the Minnesota Senate is on the ballot this year. Republicans are hoping to pick up enough of them to give them the majority. They're looking at seats outstate, especially in areas where Republican candidates running statewide have won in the past and where Hillary Clinton is unpopular. But Democrats say the state's strong economy and Donald Trump's unpopularity in the suburbs will help them stay in control of the Senate. (Star Tribune)

4. Clinton was back campaigning Thursday after taking a few days off to recover from a bout of pneumonia. Polls show Trump gaining ground against her this week. She also faced questions about why she didn't appear to tell even her running mate that she was sick. (Wall Street Journal)

5. In an interview Trump remained unwilling to say that President Obama was born in the United States. From this article: “I’ll answer that question at the right time,” Trump said. “I just don’t want to answer it yet.” Later his campaign put out a statement saying that Trump no longer doubted Obama’s birth in Hawaii and had done “a great service to the President and the country” by prompting Obama to release his long-form birth certificate in 2011. But it also repeated the widely debunked claim that Clinton and her campaign had questioned Obama’s birthplace in 2008, which is false. (Washington Post)

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