Free Republic

PPP's newest Colorado poll finds that the Senate race remains very competitive, although not that much closer with Cory Gardner in the race than it was with Ken Buck. Our last poll of the state, in early December, found Mark Udall leading Buck by 4 points. Udall starts out with a 2 point lead over Cory Gardner at 42/40. Gardner starts out the race with just under 50% name recognition, and voters with an opinion about him are pretty evenly divided. The close division mirrors how voters feel about Udall's job performance- 41% approve and 40% disapprove of him, almost...

Washington, D.C. – Eagle Forum PAC, a conservative public policy organization founded by pro-family leader Phyllis Schlafly, is proud to endorse Chris McDaniel in the race to represent Mississippi in the United States Senate. “Chris McDaniel has a solid record when it comes to defending family values and our Constitutional liberties,” said Schlafly. “We need more legislators like him, who are not just Republicans but true conservative champions.” “He has proven that he is not afraid to stand against the bureaucratic establishment and the Obama Adminstration’s unprecedented overreach into our healthcare and the education of our children through Obamacare and...

Former Miss America Erika Harold lost her longshot bid on Tuesday to unseat first-term Rep. Rodney Davis as Illinois primary voters cast their ballots... Davis received 55 percent of the vote to Harold's 41 percent in the downstate district. Another candidate, Michael Firsching, a veterinarian who lost in a 2012 race, won 4 percent. Davis, 44, declared victory about 10:45 p.m. He won the 2012 race by slightly more than 1,000 votes... Harold, 33, who was Miss America 2003, is an attorney and a Harvard Law School graduate whose battle to unseat Davis was seen as uphill from the outset...

*Promoted from the diaries – Aaron* The national narrative today suggests that the chances of the Republican Party taking over the Senate in November are increasing as the map of competitive races expands. One of the states that the pundits are increasingly talking about is Oregon. If you are listening to the Beltway establishment, including Rove, you would think that there is only one Republican candidate running in Oregon — Dr. Monica Wehby. The problem with this is two-fold: 1) Monica Wehby is not the only candidate running for the Republican nomination 2) Monica Wehby is a liberal Republican and...

Former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown announced Friday that he is laying the groundwork for a possible challenge against incumbent Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire, but Shaheen is comfortably ahead of Brown for now in Rasmussen Reports’ first look at the possible U.S. Senate race in the Granite State. A new statewide survey of Likely New Hampshire Voters finds Shaheen with 50% support to Brown’s 41%. Four percent (4%) like some other candidate in the race, and five percent (5%) are undecided.

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) has been near the top of the list of the most vulnerable senators facing reelection since day one of the 2014 election cycle. But notable developments in recent weeks suggest her seat is increasingly at risk of falling into Republican hands. Republican groups have blitzed Landrieu over the airwaves while she has gotten limited cover from Democratic allies; polls show she is locked in a close race against Rep. Bill Cassidy (R); and now, Landrieu is reserving $2.6 million in airtime between April and June, an apparent recognition that the cascade of opposition ads has forced...

The first opponent is the left. They still call us the “Tea Party,” though we rarely use that term anymore. It’s fun to hear the liberals say it – it’s like listening to grandparents trying to sound cool. Yeah, those hepcats are sure hip with their cool jive, daddy-o. Every day, the lefty punditry opines about the Tea Party’s death spiral. And every day, the Tea Party refuses to crash and burn. We conservative insurgents have another opponent, but this opponent recognizes us for exactly what we are – a dangerous, existential threat. This opponent is the GOP Establishment, and...

A Republican Senate hopeful in Virginia has turned the tables on his Democratic competition, claiming that his political foe is waging a war on women — by supporting abortion. Shak Hill, who’s running for the U.S. Senate seat for Virginia, blasted his incumbent Democratic counterpart, Mark Warner, for waging a “war on girls” by easing the path for late-term abortion, in a statement and accompanying YouTube video “Mark Warner is waging a war on girls, and it’s killing them,” Mr. Hill said in the statement. “Warner claims he personally opposes abortion, yet he demands that the government give women a...

Former Obama White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs appeared on the “Meet the Press” roundtable Sunday and laid bare truths about Washington, and his former boss’s spokesman. As the show’s featured guest, White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer painted a ludicrously optimistic portrait of the 2014 midterm elections for Democrats, stating emphatically, “I believe we will keep the Senate.” Later in the show, Gibbs admitted the Democrats could “absolutely” lose the Senate. He added: “If [Obama] doesn’t get more involved in raising money and making this a choice, as Dan Pfeiffer said, you lose the Senate. And, if you lose the...

Clay Aiken's appearance here recently seemed as much a fan tour as a campaign stop. The former American Idol contestant and current Democratic candidate for the Second Congressional District was at Di'lishi Frozen Yogurt Bar to meet people and have his picture made with them. Some talked politics while others just seemed to want to see and touch him. Marlo Francis, owner of Di'lishi, said the event was the result of a friendship between Aiken and Lane Ragsdale, who works at the N.C. Zoo. "Clay's PR person asked me about visiting the Zoo," said Ragsdale, who added that Aiken's Zoo...

Democrats are facing their toughest Michigan Senate fight in two decades. A sour national political climate, a little-known candidate and big spending by conservative outside groups have given Republicans a real shot at winning an open seat and boosted their chances at seizing Senate control. Republicans had all but written off the Democratic-leaning state last summer after they failed to recruit either Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) or Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.) to run, leaving them with former Michigan Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land (R) as their nominee. But President Obama’s dismal poll numbers, millions spent by conservative groups and...

By now it’s settled on most people, including Democrats, that the loss of Alex Sink to David Jolly in Florida’s 13th Congressional District was, in the words of the New York Times, “devastating” to Democrats. It’s a district Ms. Sink carried in her unsuccessful race for governor against Rick Scott, a district that Barack Obama carried in his two elections, and a district that demographically now favors Democrats. In addition, Ms. Sink raised more money and ran a better campaign than Jolly. Even Bill Clinton lent his efforts to her campaign. And yet she lost. What should particularly alarm Democrats...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama and his Democrats face the challenge of limiting fallout from Obamacare and drumming up voter enthusiasm in the November congressional elections, problem areas exposed by the loss of a Florida candidate who had led in the polls. The defeat of Democrat Alex Sink by Republican David Jolly in a special election last Tuesday has raised anxiety levels for Democrats as they struggle to hold on to control of the Senate in November and pick up seats in the Republican-held House of Representatives. Paramount on the Democrats' list of concerns about November is the need...

Gibbs frets about Dem 2014 chances Email Print By BURGESS EVERETT | 3/16/14 11:22 AM EDT The Senate is “definitely” in danger of flipping to Republican control, former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Sunday. Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Gibbs said “there’s no doubt that the rollout for healthcare is still providing a huge hangover” for Democrats. But that’s not the biggest problem that Democrats face as an emboldened GOP seeks to seize six Senate seats and retake the majority for the first time in eight years. Democrats are worried, he said, that the electorate could be...

There is growing panic among Democrats in Congress about the 2014 elections, and it is based on numerous factors that give them serious anxiety. In the Senate, Democrat Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire just found out that she will be challenged by former Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts, who has received $600,000 from the Super-Pac American Crossroads, and Democrat Senator Mark Udall of Colorado is now being challenged by Rep. Cory Gardner, a serious threat. In the House, the GOP just won a significant victory in a special election in Florida’s 13th district, which Barack Obama won decisively in 2012.

....While GOP enthusiasm mounts for a retake of the Senate, the Republican National Committee is spicing up its Black minority outreach operations. Not that there’s any expectation of a sudden groundswell of grassroots support for the GOP from African Americans — in fact, most observers laugh that off as fiction. But, Republican strategists hope that this Congressional midterm cycle could give Black voters something to think about, or maybe pause long enough to take a broader look at the political landscape. “The response to the RNC’s initiative to engage Black voters and share our positive message has been phenomenal,” said...

Former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown on Friday will announce he is launching an exploratory committee for a run for the New Hampshire U.S. Senate seat held by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen. A source close to Brown confirmed the announcement is at hand, and said it will be made in Nashua, where the state Republican Party will begin its two-day Northeast Republican Leadership Conference at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. Brown has been flirting with a Senate run in the Granite State for the better part of a year and recently moved full-time to what had been his vacation home in Rye and...

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul is warning Republicans that if they expect to be relevant in the future and grow the party they will have to soften on social issues. In an interview with vocativ.com, Paul said he had "sort of a Jeffersonian belief in unity, peace and commerce with all" and that the best way to build the GOP for the future is to include people with whom they don't agree on every issue. "I think that the Republican Party, in order to get bigger, will have to agree to disagree on social issues," Paul advised. "The Republican Party is...

Michelle Nunn’s got a gun problem. The Democratic Senate hopeful in Georgia, one half of the That 70’s Show ticket looking to bring the party back to prominence in the state, seems to have a problem telling voters where she’s at on the Second Amendment. In a weekend interview, she voiced opposition to recently passed Georgia legislation loosening restrictions on carrying firearms in the state, which passed by an overwhelming margin. That in and of itself is unlikely to win any of the rural conservative votes needed to pull off an upset. Then things got dodgy. When asked if she...

As I’ve mentioned before, Mary Landrieu has taken a dive in the polls last year. PPP ran two polls, one last February and one in August, both showing her up +10. PPP usually gives very, very pro-Democratic results a ways out from an election, but only goes very Democratic when you get closer to an election. Last month, a year out from their original +10 results, another PPP poll showed her only up +1.5 Another Democratic firm, Hickman Analytics, ran a poll at the beginning of March, with results that should absolutely terrify her. The Democratic-heavy sample of 404 breaks...