Free Republic

<p>Last night trial attorney Bruce Braley and Iowa State Senator Joni Ernst squared off in a final debate before voters heads to the polls in November and choose their next U.S. Senator from Iowa.</p>

Senate Democrats are pleading with donors to give to Rep. Bruce Braley’s campaign as they struggle to pull off a victory in Iowa and save their endangered majority. But there’s one key player holding onto his campaign cash: Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin. Despite direct appeals from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and other top Democrats, Harkin has refused to transfer money from his $2.4 million campaign account to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. The retiring Iowa senator has informed party leaders that he plans to use the campaign funds for a charitable contribution to an entity that bears...

Iowa Republican Senate candidate Joni Ernst said she would support a federal bill that gives legal personhood rights to fetuses from the moment of fertilization, effectively wiping out legal abortion in the United States. Ernst voted for a fetal personhood amendment in the Iowa State legislature in 2013, and she told the Sioux City Journal editorial board on Wednesday that she also would support a federal personhood measure if she were elected to the U.S. Senate. "I will continue to stand by that. I am a pro-life candidate, and this has been shaped by my religious beliefs through the years,"...

<p>New Jersey Governor Chris Christie will speak at U.S. Rep. Steve King’s annual pheasant hunt in Iowa this month — but he won’t be shooting game himself.</p> <p>Ann Trimble-Ray, an advisor to the King reelection campaign, said Christie will be present at a fundraising luncheon in Iowa on Saturday, but he won’t be hunting because he’s on a campaign swing visiting other candidates.</p>

Contrary to popular belief, I don’t like writing negative article about Republicans. I especially don’t like criticizing Republican candidates running for office in the final month of the campaign. As I sat down to write this article at 9:15 p.m. last night, I had no clue what I was going to be writing about. I thought perhaps I’d write about the Des Moines Register’s latest Iowa Poll that shows Governor Terry Branstad leading his Democrat opponent by 15 points. (SNIP) Had Young taken the stage at the District nominating convention back in June and said, “Hi, I’m David Young, and...

FULLTITLE: Police force pregnant woman to the ground at gunpoint for speeding - even though she was in LABOR and on the way to the hospital A pregnant woman in Iowa had a particularly difficult labor this week when she was held at gunpoint on her way to the hospital. Rachel Kohnen and her husband Ben were going 30 miles over the speed limit on Tuesday morning in Fort Dodge, Iowa, as Rachel was in labor and felt that if the two did not get to the hospital soon she was going to give birth in a car. Around that...

Word salad of left wing buzz words will leave you laughing. (VIDEO-AT-LINK)MSNBC's Ed Schultz has been increasingly, visibly, sweatily desperate as the day count down to the election, and his choices in topics and guests reflect that. On Tuesday's show, Ed's guest, radio host Mike Papantonio delivered just what the doctor ordered for the poor, overwrought Ed: a blazingly useless word salad of left-wing buzz words and scare phrases all wrapped up in a neat Koch bow. Harry Reid would be proud (if he were capable of positive emotions). “"The Joni Ernst candidate is the perfect mental and moral blank...

Joni Ernst ✔ @joniernst Deeply saddened by tragic news of Dr. Doug Butzier. Gail&I will keep Doug’s family in our thoughts&prayers as they mourn their untimely loss 12:09 PM - 14 Oct 2014 32 Retweets 16 favorites Doug Butzier, Libertarian Party candidate running against Bruce Braley and Joni Ernst for U.S. Senate, lost his life yesterday in a plane crash. The wife of Doug Butzier confirmed Tuesday morning to KCRG-TV that it was Butzier who was killed in a plane crash Monday. … Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Lynn Lunsford said the Piper PA-46 crashed around 11 p.m. Monday on approach...

A Republican running in a hotly contested race for an open congressional seat now says that Obamacare is here to stay. David Young, who is running for Iowa's third congressional seat, said at a healthcare forum Monday that the Affordable Care Act “is going to be here to stay,” according to the Des Moines Register. “The president is not going to allow his keystone legislation to go by the wayside. So we're going to have to work to make it better,” he said. That is a marked change from Young’s previous statements on the law. At a training event for activists in August,...

Sad news via Radio Iowa regarding the passing of Libertarian Party Senate candidate Douglas Butzier: The pilot who died in a plane crash near Dubuque late last night was the Libertarian candidate for Iowa’s U.S. Senate seat. The family of Douglas Butzier has confirmed Butzier was piloting the plane that crashed near the Dubuque Regional Airport at about 11 p.m. Monday. No one else was in the plane. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, the single-engine plane took off from the Ankeny Regional Airport at about 10 p.m. and crashed at about 11 p.m., about a mile north of the...

If Democrats manage to hold on to their Senate majority next month, it will be, in large part, because of people like Barb Yankey. In the political ground war of 2014, she is a front-line soldier. The deluge of political ads inspire Iowans to take a shower than rouse them to vote. And that’s where volunteers like Yankey come in. “I think it’s so sad. … Old, white, rural, conservative voters come out, but the people who live here stand to lose the most, so we have to get them to the polls.” Actually, she just has to get them...

What’s in a name? For Michelle Obama, a whole lot of confusion. While campaigning in Des Moines, Iowa Friday for Democratic Senate candidate Bruce Braley, she referred to him multiple times as “Bailey” before she was corrected by someone shouting from the audience. The flub came despite a huge array of signs in the hall where she was speaking, all spelling Braley’s name correctly

Fortunately for the GOP, there are six races that lean toward Republicans: Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky and Louisiana. We’ll refer to these states as the “Maroon 6” (because maroon is somewhere between red and purple). In each Maroon 6 state, the Republican candidate has a 65 percent to 75 percent chance of winning, according to the FiveThirtyEight forecast.

Full disclosure: I feel awful today. Vaguely half-nauseous, having what we will gently call ‘digestive issues,’ generally logy and possibly congested: it seemed like an excellent time to take it easy. It would take a definite electoral disaster to pierce this fog of illness, in short. And Michelle Obama delivered. Jimmy @JimmyPrinceton Bruce Braley never even served. How does FLOTUS think he's a USMC vet? 4:18 PM - 10 Oct 2014 8 Retweets 4 favorites Here’s the video of the event: it autoplays and I can’t turn it off, so skip ahead to 3:28 – where, indeed, the First Lady...

Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, who narrowly won the 2012 Iowa caucuses, will headline a fundraiser later this month for U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Kiron. The event will take place Oct. 22 in a private home in Dakota Dunes, S.D. (SNIP) In a release, Santorum said King is the kind of congressman people need. “We need Steve King in Congress to stand up for America, our sovereignty, values, and economy... Steve understands the burden illegal immigration creates on American workers and their wages.

Thousands of Iowans are now facing double-digit health insurance premium hikes due to Obamacare. On Wednesday, the Des Moines Register reported that the state's insurance commissioner has approved Des Moines-based Wellmark to hike its rates between 11.9% and 14.5%. The premium spike will affect 19,000 Iowans. "That increase is for individual policyholders who have Affordable Care Act-compliant plans," reports the Register. CoOportunity, one of the main companies offering health insurance on the Obamacare exchange, will increase its rates 19%.

With one month until Election Day, Republicans' chances for retaking the Senate and picking up seats in the House are improving. The GOP has been buoyed by positive public polling, while red-state Democrats are still struggling to find distance from President Obama. There are bright spots and even some unexpected new targets on the map for both parties, but the overall national environment seems to have ticked a bit toward Republicans. The GOP needs to win a net of six seats to retake control of the Senate, and Republicans seem better-positioned to do so now than they did through much...

Politico has noticed that there has been a lack of women in statewide office for the past 20 years. A name is presented as someone who could resolve this situation. So what name first pops into your head? If you guessed U.S. Senate candidate Joni Ernst you would be absolutely right. However, Politico mentioned her as an afterthought buried deep into their article written by Dave Price. The female being promoted by Price as the savior to this situation is Hillary Clinton who might be running in the Iowa primary for presidential nomination, not statewide office. Price takes the example...

Not long ago, it would have been unusual for a Democratic senatorial candidate in Iowa to run a powerful abortion-rights television ad like the one recently broadcast by Representative Bruce Braley. The ad lists in detail the anti-abortion positions taken by Mr. Braley’s Republican opponent, Joni Ernst. In the State Senate, the ad says, she sponsored a “personhood” amendment (declaring a fertilized egg to be a person) that would have the effect of outlawing abortion even in cases of rape or incest, and would also ban many common forms of birth control. Ms. Ernst is even shown saying at a...

Dems freaking out. Remember Joni Ernst? She’s the pig-castrating, conservative candidate for Senate out of Iowa who took the internet by storm earlier this year with her campaign video claiming she’ll “make big spenders squeal” when she gets to Washington. Since she kicked off her campaign, Ernst has been seen as a long-shot to take the seat that had been held for 30 years by Democrat Tom Harkin, but a recent poll shows that her Dem opponent Bruce Braley is now running defense. Via the Des Moines Register: Ernst leads 44 percent to 38 percent in a race that has...