Free Republic

New polls from NBC News and Marist out from New Hampshire and Iowa show that, once again, billionaire Donald Trump is winning a fight with yet another career politician: This time, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Bush’s position in the all-important first-in-the-nation caucus state of Iowa has deteriorated significantly as he’s at a meager 6 percent—in a poll with a margin of error of 5.5 percent—meaning he’s slipping further and further into the lower tiers of candidates there. -snip- New Hampshire, which unlike Iowa is a pretty much must-win-state for Bush to be able to get the nomination or at...

Current GOP frontrunner Donald Trump maintains a strong lead in New Hampshire, while establishment pick Jeb Bush has steadily lost support in the early-voting Granite State, says the new NBC News/Marist poll. Trump is 16 percentage points ahead of his closest competitor, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, and has 28 percent of likely Republican voters backing him. Dr. Ben Carson came in third place with 11 percent of the vote, while Bush dropped to fourth place at eight percent. Bush has lost almost half his supporters in New Hampshire since July, when he was in second place behind Trump with 14...

In Revenge of the Sith, the emperor replaces Count Dooku, his elderly apprentice played by Christopher Lee, with a younger, more vigorous apprentice with puppydog eyes named Anakin Skywalker. It looks like GOP insiders and the Chamber of Commerce crowd have done much the same thing. Bush was supposed to be their anointed candidate but is faltering, and their backup candidate, Chris Christie, seems stuck in the polls. So they have chosen a new and more powerful apprentice for Bush, in the form of John Kasich. Kasich is starting to gain traction in New Hampshire, which is filled with refugees...

Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina said Sunday she is disappointed in congressional GOP leadership, arguing that if they don’t move swiftly to pass conservative legislation, they “should go.” Mentioning Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell by name, Fiorina said at a campaign stop in Bedford, N.H., that the Republican leaders haven’t done enough since the 2014 election. Fiorina said the Republican-controlled Congress should pass bills to institute a 20-week abortion ban and defund Planned Parenthood, secure the border, and rein in government regulations regardless of whether President Obama threatens to veto the legislation, adding...

Meanwhile, in the Republican presidential race, Donald Trump now holds a seven-point lead in Iowa and a 16-point one in New Hampshire. In the Hawkeye State, Trump gets the support from 29 percent of potential GOP caucus-goers, while Ben Carson receives 22 percent. There's a steep drop off after that: Jeb Bush gets 6 percent; Carly Fiorina, Rand Paul and Scott Walker get 5 percent; and Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindal are at 4 percent. In July, Walker was ahead of the Iowa Republican field at 19 percent, Trump was second at 17 percent and Bush was third...

Part of the news coming out of the latest NBC/Marist poll isn’t going to come as much of a surprise. In a robust survey taken between August 26 and September 2 with nearly 1,000 participants in Iowa and New Hampshire, the headlines for Hillary Clinton are just great… if she’s actually thinking about just retiring to spend more time with her new granddaughter. Bernie Sanders is beating her up pretty badly in New Hampshire no matter who you include in the list of contenders. (NBC News) In New Hampshire, the Vermont senator gets the support of 41 percent of...

Kasich has built a strong foundation in New Hampshire. A super political action committee, or super PAC, has spent millions of dollars to promote him on television there. And he visits frequently. Kasich held several town hall-style forums there last week and will return Monday for a two-day swing that includes a Labor Day parade and house party hosted by former U.S. Sen. Scott Brown. When NBC News/Marist last checked in on New Hampshire, Kasich had climbed to fourth, behind Trump, Bush and Walker. Since then other polls have shown him surpassing Bush, who is about to hit the state's...

Bernie Sanders has jumped out to a nine-point lead over front-runner Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire, and he's gained ground on her among Iowa voters in the Democratic presidential race, according to a pair of brand-new NBC News/Marist polls. In New Hampshire, the Vermont senator gets the support of 41 percent of Democratic voters, Clinton gets 32 percent and Vice President Joe Biden gets 16 percent. No other Democratic candidate receives more than 1 percent.

Current GOP frontrunner Donald Trump maintains a strong lead in New Hampshire, while establishment pick Jeb Bush has steadily lost support in the early-voting Granite State, says the new NBC News/Marist poll. Trump is 16 percentage points ahead of his closest competitor, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, and has 28 percent of likely Republican voters backing him.Dr. Ben Carson came in third place with 11 percent of the vote, while Bush dropped to fourth place at eight percent.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders now has a 9-point lead over front-runner Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire, after trailing her so far in the race, according to NBC News/Marist polls released Sunday. The polls also show Sanders, I-Vt., gaining ground on Clinton in Iowa. The states -- Iowa and New Hampshire -- are the first and second states, respectively, to hold 2016 primary votes. And the outcomes of those ballots often determine the future of the presidential campaigns. The New Hampshire poll shows Sanders getting support from 41 percent of the state's likely Democratic vote, compared to Clinton with...

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — Hillary Clinton is dropping in the polls here, and her presidential campaign is beset by the continued controversy over her private e-mail server, but she tried to place both issues on the back burner here Saturday in a showy display of what her latest big-name endorser called “pink power.” On a warm and clear day in this historic New England port city, Clinton rallied about 1,300 supporters on the steps of an old schoolhouse with a focus on women’s and family issues.

In November 2013, during construction of a new café for the University's Palace Green Library, on the City's UNESCO World Heritage Site, human remains were uncovered by Durham University archaeologists who were present throughout the building work. The jumbled skeletons of at least 17 and up to 28 individuals were subsequently excavated from two burial pits (a 29th individual was not exhumed). Since then the researchers have been carrying out a wide range of tests to establish their identities. Experts initially considered that most of the evidence was consistent with the bodies being those of the Scottish soldiers but could...

Ann Coulter's heckler (here, here, here, and here) may have been a kook, but he was right about one thing: many whites came to this country as slaves. With copious help from sources, I will recount a famous episode of Scots enslavement by the British. On September 3, 1650, the British, under Oliver Cromwell, defeated the Scots, under David Leslie, at the Battle of Dunbar. (See 1892 Gardiner's Atlas - Battle of Dunbar September 3rd 1650 for a nice picture of the British and Scots positions.) The British took some 10,000 Scots prisoners, several of whom were, on September 6,...

Every senator who accepted money from the Iranian American Political Action Committee (IPAC) should be impeached and removed from office — or at very least, soundly defeated the next time he or she comes up for reelection. But the enemedia, true to form, will cover for them and do everything it can to keep them on the government payroll. (“Gillibrand and other pro-Dealers got Iran cash,” by Jeff Dunetz, The Jewish Star, September 3, 2015 (thanks to Banafsheh One of the many unanswered questions about P5+1 agreement with Iran is why so many Congressional Democrats are rallying behind the President...

An interesting thing is happening in Iowa and New Hampshire, where the early polls matter the most. Carly Fiorina is in third place, and rising. In Iowa, she leads every current and former Republican officeholder and trails only the other insurgent candidates, Donald Trump and Ben Carson. In New Hampshire, she trails Trump and a surprising John Kasich. That’s bad news for Republican officeholders, good news for the political insurgents, and great news for Fiorina. In all likelihood, she will be the last outsider standing. Political campaigns are long and brutal, with external events often dictating the topics and media...

Cruz “all in” in New HampshireHOUSTON, Texas – On Sunday and Monday, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz returned to New Hampshire for several public events as well as the grand opening of the Cruz for President Headquarters in the Granite State. Below is a roundup of some of the coverage from the recent campaign swing:NHPR: Ted Cruz Brings ‘Consistent Conservative’ Message Back To New Hampshire At a town hall meeting Sunday afternoon Cruz told a crowd at New Boston Central School he’d be a different kind of Republican president if elected. By way of example, here’s how he described the to-do...

Cruz has an eye on jumping aboard the Trump train that he believes could take him all the way to Pennsylvania Avenue. Senator Ted Cruz picked up the lunch tab Monday at the Draft Sports Bar and Grill. During a business roundtable at the Concord, New Hampshire bar, the Texas senator and GOP presidential hopeful slammed the Obama administration and presented his plan to fix the country despite the machinations of what he calls the “Washington cartel” including through healthcare and tax reform and a tough foreign policy stance. Cruz’s campaign stops Sunday drew hundreds across the Granite State where...

Senator Ted Cruz autographed his book Monday at the opening of his New Hampshire campaign office in Manchester.CONCORD, N.H. — US Senator Ted Cruz wrapped up a two-day New Hampshire trip for his presidential campaign, arguing that he is the proven antiestablishment candidate in a crowded field of GOP contenders.Speaking to the New Hampshire House Business Caucus at a sports bar, Cruz told a crowd of about 150, “If you see a candidate that Washington embraces, run and hide.” There are others in the race, the Texan said, who are “squishy Washington establishment moderates, but they don’t tell you that.”...

Sen. Ted Cruz is talking about the establishment these days: the one he plans to tear apart in Washington, D.C., and, in the meantime, the one he’s building up among his grassroots supporters in early-voting states.The Texas Republican says the latter is the strongest of any presidential candidate.Before unveiling his Manchester headquarters Monday, Cruz stopped in Concord and touted his dedicated teams in New Hampshire and in Iowa, South Carolina and “across the Super Tuesday states” as the heart of his campaign.“Here in New Hampshire, our leadership team is – on any objective measure – much stronger than any other...

PPP's newest national poll finds Donald Trump just continuing to grow his lead over the GOP field. He is at 29% to 15% for Ben Carson, 9% for Jeb Bush, 8% for Carly Fiorina, 7% for Marco Rubio, 6% each for Ted Cruz and John Kasich, and 5% each for Mike Huckabee and Scott Walker. That group makes a pretty clear top 9. Rounding out the field are Chris Christie and Rick Santorum at 2%, Jim Gilmore, Rand Paul, and Rick Perry at 1%, and Lindsey Graham, Bobby Jindal, and George Pataki at less than 1%. Our new poll finds...