Free Republic

While New Hampshire’s Second Congressional District went for Obama twice, State Rep. Marilinda Garcia is up 4 points–41/37 (with leaners)–in a new Granite State poll from the University of New Hampshire. Still, 19 percent are undecided so there’s room for both sides to maneuver and grow as the election heads into the final stretch. Needless to say, the Kuster camp fired off this fundraising email upon hearing the news: Last night we got the results of the latest poll in our race. It shows that our opponent’s puppet masters’ - the Koch brothers - attack ads are working. Their relentless...

Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) told Fox News Sunday that she worried President Barack Obama was only confronting ISIS to help Democrats in the upcoming midterms, and that he would ease up on the Sunni militants after the election. “I think we have a problem where the president’s foreign policy is being trapped by his campaign rhetoric,” Ayotte said. “I’m very fearful as we look at the current military strategy that it is surrounding the November elections, and he won’t have the resolve to follow through with what needs to be done in a sustained effort to destroy ISIS.”

Even in privileged circumstances — say, while studying at Dartmouth College — life as an undocumented immigrant can be frightening and uncertain . For Oscar Cornejo, a sophomore from Illinois, it began at age 5, when his mother arranged to bring his brother and him across the border from their home in Cuernavaca, Mexico. When asked what earned him his admission, he hesitated, not wanting to boast. He credited affirmative action and his early decision application, and ultimately, his personal statement, “which blended my migration story in a nostalgic tone to describe my love for botany (at that time!) in...

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...

If the New Hampshire race is like others in some respects, it is unique in at least one. Brown, 55, moved to the state to run. The race is his third for the Senate in five years. Shaheen, 67, is a known political commodity in New Hampshire. She was elected, to this Senate seat, in 2008 when Obama won the state. "She's won in a wave and lost in a wave," says former Rep. Frank Guinta, a Republican. "I think she's as susceptible as anyone is." That view — that even a well-established politician can lose if enough voters sour...

Consistent: The topline results — Republicans are ahead. Inconsistent: The margins. NPR measures Obama’s job approval at (41/56) in states with contested Senate races, and an abysmal (29/67) among independents. But on the generic Senate ballot, the GOP leads by just three, fueled by a 16-point advantage among those aforementioned independents: In case you’re curious, NPR’s partisan sample is a reasonable, if slightly generous, D+4. Fox News’ pollster included two more states in their survey, but excluded Alaska. Results: Unless I’m missing something glaringly obvious (Fox’s poll sample is D+0, in line with 2010), I can’t quite wrap my...

Ok, I know what some of you are wondering: who’s Marilinda Garcia? Well, she’s a rising star in the Republican Party out of New Hampshire where she’s a state representative. She’s challenging Democratic Congresswoman Annie Kuster in the state’s second congressional district. Garcia has been traveling the district, visiting small businesses, schools, and just announced a town hall tour that will end the day before Election Day. Some prominent national Republicans have endorsed and fundraised on her behalf. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers raised at least $500,000 for her as well as other women running on the Republican ticket in this...

An A-10 Thunderbolt II banks after a strafing run on Aug. 21, 2014, during the Red Flag-Alaska 14-3 exercise at the Yukon Training Area, Alaska. Months after staving off a trip to the boneyard, the embattled A-10 Thunderbolt II is headed to the Middle East where it could be used to fight Islamic militants in Iraq and Syria. An Indiana Air National Guard unit that flies the Cold War-era gunships, known as Warthogs, is planning to deploy about 300 airmen and an unknown number of its aircraft to the U.S. Central Command region early next month, says a Sept. 17...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Thursday ripped U.S. Senate Democrats for blocking his bill that would revoke the U.S. citizenship of those who join the ISIS terrorist organization, noting that they are abandoning something Hillary Clinton supported when she was Secretary of State. The Democrats blocked Cruz’s bill on Thursday, a bill that would revoke citizenship from Americans who join ISIS. Cruz’s bill is very similar to one that then Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA)—who is now running in New Hampshire against Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)—and then Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) offered a couple of years ago.“As then-Secretary of State Hillary...

Cosmopolitan is “picking brains over brawn” in the 2014 Senate race in New Hampshire: the magazine is endorsing not Scott Brown, its 1982 “Sexiest Man in America,” but his competitor, Democrat Jeanne Shaheen, the magazine said Tuesday. “While we wish we could support the man who once posed nude in our pages, his policy positions just aren’t as solid as his abs were in the ’80s,” Cosmo said of the Republican candidate, a onetime Senator from Massachusetts who has decamped to the Granite State.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is betting big that the Affordable Care Act will be a drag on Democrats in New Hampshire. The Chamber will begin airing a campaign ad Saturday highlighting Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s vote in favor of Obamacare. Shaheen, who is seeking a second term, is leading Republican challenger Scott Brown, the former Senator from Massachusetts, by about five points. Obamacare has largely been set aside by GOP candidates as a top talking point against Democrats, but polls show the law is largely unpopular. The most recent survey, conducted by CBS News and the New York Times,...

The New Hampshire Republican Party amended its platform this weekend with stricter abortion provisions, including support for "personhood," which defines life as beginning at conception.Personhood has become a hot-button issue in Senate races across the country this year, such as Colorado, where Democrats have successfully attacked Rep. Cory Gardner for having supported such a measure in the past.Now, the issue could spread to New Hampshire, following the state party's decision at its convention.The platform now states: "Support the pre-born child's fundamental right to life and personhood under the Fourteenth Amendment, and implement all Constitutional and legal protections."It added: "Support a...

Voters have soured on President Obama. National and statewide trends favor Republicans. And here in his new home state, Scott Brown’s truck is gaining speed. Analysts and recent polls have found Brown closing in on US Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the Democratic incumbent he is vying to unseat, in a race that has become increasingly nasty and expensive. Once largely dismissed by critics as an unlikely second act in a state he moved to only last year, Brown’s Senate bid is increasingly seen as a plausible path back to the US Capitol. Observers see a race that may be largely determined...

A new poll out by Vox Populi Polling has Republican Scott Brown leading Democrat Jeanne Shaheen 47 - 43 percent in their race for the U.S. Senate seat in New Hampshire. Republican Scott Brown 47 Democrat Jeanne Shaheen 43 Unsure 11 Vox Populi Polling was launched earlier this year and former Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter Mary Cheney is a founding partners. A small group of top Washington Republicans is teaming up to launch a new polling firm, Vox Populi Polling, that will churn out volumes of survey data ahead of the 2014 midterm elections. Mary Cheney, the political strategist...

Throughout her political career, including during her current race against former GOP Sen. Scott Brown, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D., N.H.) has touted her experience as a small business owner. Shaheen’s small business “experience” was co-running a store that once sold thousands of dollars-worth of stolen jewelry. “As the former owner and manager of a small retail business, Senator Shaheen knows what it’s like to worry about meeting payroll and inventory costs to keep a business going,” the Issues section of her Senate website declares. Her Senate biography also describes her as a “former small business owner.” This week, the Shaheen...

The one-day GreenStorm campaign blitz raised more than $250,000 for Democratic Sens. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado, along with Senate hopefuls Bruce Braley of Iowa and Rep. Gary Peters of Michigan. ... The GreenStorm fundraiser was also supported by ProgressivesUnited PAC, the Voices for Progress PAC, the National Resources Defense Fund PAC, and the Population Connection Action Fund..

We’ve seen three public polls of New Hampshire’s Senate race since July. WMUR put incumbent Democrat Jeanne Shaheen up by 2; YouGov put her up by 6. And now: BREAKING: New CNN-ORC poll in #NHSen race. @SenScottBrown: 48%, @SenatorShaheen: 48%, +/- 3.5%. 5:38 AM - 15 Sep 2014 Think about it, New Hampshire. You have the power in your hands… to make a Princeton professor eat a bug:

Scott Brown, the former senator from Massachusetts who moved to New Hampshire to run in a more friendly environment, appears to be in a dead heat with Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a new poll shows. A CNN/ORC International poll out Monday finds Shaheen and Brown tied among likely voters, with both obtaining the support of 48% among 735 voters surveyed. A close race could mean bad news for Democrats, who are struggling to maintain control of the Senate. Keeping the seat in the Democratic column is crucial if the party want to maintain a slim majority in the Senate.

Jim Geragthy, acclaimed author and National Review’s chief campaign analyst, has been grousing about the lack of quality polling in key Senate races this year. His frustration is well-founded. So yesterday must have felt like Christmas in September for Jim and political junkies everywhere, as two pollsters released a deluge of surveys covering the most contested races in the country. In light of the results, I’d expect that national Republicans are kicking off the week with an extra spring in their step, as well. We were leaked an advance copy of last week’s much-anticipated Politico/GWU Battleground poll, which was packed...

Marilinda Garcia, State Representative and candidate for Congress in New Hampshire's Second Congressional District, is a new generation conservative committed to reducing the size, scope and cost of the federal government by putting power and decision-making into the hands of New Hampshire and her citizens. She is committed to reform and American economic renewal through an agenda that includes ending deficit spending, reigning in job-killing regulation, lowering and flattening tax rates, and replacing Obamacare with bottom-up, consumer-driven solutions.