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ABC News has declared Democratic Sen. Al Franken beat out Republican Mike McFadden for a seat in the U.S. Senate. Franken's big advantages in money and name recognition made him the favorite against McFadden. The former "Saturday Night Live" star was seen as a big target for Republicans after he won in 2008 by recount, but this cycle's race never appeared close and Republican-aligned groups invested their millions elsewhere.

Money certainly has been the villainous elephant in the room during another midterm bombardment of horrifically childish political advertising. Democrats have used every trick in the book to paint their Republican opponents as blue blazer-wearing Chatsworth Osborne Juniors, with the Rick Nolan campaign, for example, smugly referring to Stewart Mills as Stewart Mills the Third, apparently because thirds, in a "Great Gatsby" kind of way, have all the dough. Nolan might be running the dumbest campaign in the history of campaigns. He is trying to tell the people of northern Minnesota, who might very well be employed at a Mills...

MADISON, Wis. — The mid-term elections are right around the corner, and that means one thing: It’s voter fraud season. While many on the left see voter fraud as a fantasy — a delusion by right-wing conspiracy theorists — the fact is, stealing votes is very much alive and well in American democracy, election experts say. And the potential for election theft could play a key role in who controls the reins in American politics. “I don’t know if we are seeing more (voter fraud) than we have in the past, but I do think there are more folks today...

Could non-citizen voting be a problem in next week’s elections, and perhaps even swing some very close elections? A new study by two Old Dominion University professors, based on survey data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, indicated that 6.4 percent of all non-citizens voted illegally in the 2008 presidential election, and 2.2 percent in the 2010 midterms. Given that 80 percent of non-citizens lean Democratic, they cite Al Franken ’s 312-vote win in the 2008 Minnesota U.S. Senate race as one likely tipped by non-citizen voting. As a senator, Franken cast the 60th vote needed to make Obamacare law.

Many non-citizens don't register or vote, but so many do that it could change the outcome of some of the neck-and-neck Senate races as Republicans and Democrats fight to gain control over it ... with non-citizens favoring Democrats, resident Barack Obama took more than 80 percent of the non-citizen vote in the CCES 2008 sample ... Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., won his 2008 election by just 312 votes, and that the votes cast by 0.65 percent of his state's non-citizens may account for that win

Sen. Al Franken (D., Minn.) is hoping to saddle his Republican challenger with Mitt Romney-esque charges of “vulture corporatism,” but his own investment activities, and those of his son, could blunt those attacks with charges of hypocrisy. --snip-- However, a more notorious tax haven, the Cayman Islands, enjoy the business of private equity firm Cohesive Capital Partners. Joseph Franken, the senator’s son, is a senior associate at the firm, according to his LinkedIn profile. Documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission show that Cohesive has two private equity funds that, while headquartered in New York City, are incorporated in...

A bipartisan group of senators from across the political spectrum—from Elizabeth Warren and Patrick J. Leahy to Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio—wants President Barack Obama to speak out and act to support Hong Kong’s democracy movement.They don’t specify exactly what they want Obama to do—they say “demonstrable, meaningful steps”—but note that a 1992 law “authorizes you to suspend trade and economic provisions should Beijing not provide sufficient autonomy for Hong Kong.”Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who is president pro tempore and Judiciary chairman, leads the letter with Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Rubio.“The people of Hong Kong have sent a strong...

In almost every electoral cycle, Republicans feel they have a winning hand in Minnesota to turn the state red. And in almost every electoral cycle, their hopes get dashed. The GOP has not won a statewide electoral contest in Minnesota since Tim Pawlenty’s narrow re-election victory in 2006, and according to Survey USA’s latest poll, 2014 won’t break the pattern: In Minnesota, one month to Election Day, incumbent Democrats Mark Dayton and Al Franken appear well positioned for re-election, according to a SurveyUSA poll conducted for KSTP-TV in Minneapolis-St Paul. The victories do not reflect any larger love for...

Minnesota job vacancies hit a 13-year high in the second quarter, with employers reporting nearly 84,700 job openings, state officials said Thursday. The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) said about 56 percent of those job openings were in the seven-county Twin Cities area, with 44 percent in Greater Minnesota. Over the past year, outstate areas posted the strongest job growth. DEED said the most common job vacancies were in the fields of health care and social assistance (19 percent of the total), retail (15 percent), accommodation and food service (12 percent), manufacturing (8 percent) and educational services...

The Minneapolis Star Tribune had a reputation for being so far left that they used to be referred to as the Red Star Trubune. Therefore it was somewhat surprising that the Star Tribune yesterday published an article that was not only somewhat critical of Franken but sounded some upbeat notes for his campaign opponent, Mike McFadden. This is in stark contrast to an article early this month in the University of Minnesota student newspaper, the Minnesota Daily, which lavished praise upon Franken despite the fact he backed out of a campus debate and barely a word about McFadden who agreed...

While incumbent Minnesota Sen. Al Franken (D) has a comfortable lead in opinion polls, some are wondering if his relatively muted response to ISIS actively recruiting soldiers from Minnesota will come back to haunt him in November.Minnesota has been a hotbed for ISIS recruitment, with over a dozen residents of the Twin Cities traveling to the Middle East to fight for the Islamic State. Two have been killed. Mike McFadden, the Republican candidate for Franken's seat, has jumped on the issue of ISIS in Minneapolis by portraying Franken as ineffectively combating the terror threat.More from ABC: Hours after the release...

As Republicans contemplate the possible size of their November victory, outlier races may get interesting. Scott Brown, a few weeks ago considered certain to lose, may well win in New Hampshire. Most folks would not have thought that Republican Terri Land had a chance in a blue state like Michigan, but she continues to run close to Peters in the race. Al Franken also cannot pull away in his re-election fight, and all the polls show that race tightening. Surely the trophy in any general election is for one party to knock off a legislative leader of the other party....

Imagine the student association at your university wages a Twitter campaign to get the two candidates for the U.S. Senate seat to agree to a debate on campus. The challenger agrees but the incumbent senator declines.. Disappointing? Yes. But guess who the student newspaper on that campus lavishes praise upon? The candidate who declined to debate. How does that happen? When the incumbent senator who declined the debate has the magic "D" next to his name as happened in Minnesota when Al Franken declined the invitation of the student government to debate his opponent. The student newspaper, the Minnesota Daily,...

Al Franken is currently attempting to present to the general public the image of  someone who is willing to forge alliances with Republican senators as well as avoiding controversy by engaging in sweet corn filibusters when answering campaign questions. It is all part of his campaign strategy, along with refusing to debate his opponent, to run out the clock to election day. However, when he thinks he can get away with it, Franken will pull out the race card and basically accuse Republicans of racism for supposedly wanting to suppress the vote of "certain Americans" as you can see at...

So, Senator, will you agree to debate your opponent during the campaign? Hey, let me tell you about this sweet corn. It is so delicious that you can't eat just one ear. So sweet and tasty that I eat them by the dozen. And since I still have to run out the clock until election day, let's switch gears to ponder on the issue of chocolate chip cookies. You can buy them by the bucket and float them in bottomless glasses of ice cold milk...

For some reason, Al Franken has not appeared on many lists of vulnerable Senate Democrats. But he is no shoo-in for re-election in November, as John Feehery reminds us in the Wall Street Journal: In several polls the incumbent, a former Saturday Night Live star, can’t break the 50% mark. Given his narrow victory in 2008 (which some say wasn’t a real victory), it’s probably not that surprising that Mr. Franken is still a polarizing figure. But after six years in the Senate, one might expect that the incumbent would have built a more comfortable cushion for himself. When I...

Sen. Al Franken’s Republican challenger made a case for a power shift, bashing Democrats’ regulatory and education policies. Mike McFadden, seen as having an uphill battle, said Americans are hungry for new leadership. “Minnesota is the Land of 10,000 Lakes. But when it comes to the challenges working families are facing, all we get from Democrats is 10,000 excuses. “November presents a tremendous opportunity for America to elect new leaders, with the vision to turn our country around, and get us back onto the path of growth and prosperity.” McFadden said the Obama administration and congressional Democrats have presided over...

Bi-partisan legislation protects privacy rights while targeting terrorists July 29, 2014 | (202) 228-7561 WASHINGTON, DC -- U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, today released the following statement regarding the USA FREEDOM Act of 2014 filed today. Senator Cruz is an original co-sponsor of this bill: “Republicans and Democrats are showing America that the government can respect the privacy rights of law-abiding citizens, while at the same time, giving law enforcement the tools needed to target terrorists,” said Sen. Cruz. “The USA FREEDOM Act of 2014 ends the government’s bulk record collection program and implements other necessary surveillance reforms. Importantly, it...

“Gun Owners of America [has] blasted the bill as a ‘fake pro-gun bill designed to re-elect endangered anti-gun [Senators] up in 2014 in pro-gun states.’” -- Roll Call, July 9, 2014 Earlier today, the “Harry Reid Preservation Act,” S. 2363, went down to defeat, as pro-gun Senators successfully filibustered the bill by a vote of 56-41. As you know, S. 2363 was a “nothing-burger bill” which existed solely to elect anti-gun Democrats in Red States. This includes Senators like sponsor Kay Hagan (D-NC) -- pluscosponsors such as Mark Begich (D-AK), Mark Pryor (D-AR), Mark Udall (D-CO), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Al...

With Republicans in Washington thus far successfully fending off insurgent tea party challengers in competitive races, odds makers are now indicating that the GOP has a better than even chance of retaking the upper chamber of Congress in November. President Barack Obama’s sinking job approval rating is not helping boost Democrats’ chances. Speaking anonymously to The Hill, one Democratic Senator said Obama’s “unpopularity” is troubling. “It’s a tense time,” the source said.It is with this backdrop that Obama descended on Minnesota on Thursday where freshman Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) is seeking reelection. Franken has spent the last six years...