Free Republic

Clay Aiken came in second yet again. The American Idol and Celebrity Apprentice runner-up was defeated by incumbent Rep. Renee Ellmers in Tuesday's election, losing his bid to represent North Carolina's 2nd Congressional District, The Associated Press reports. Aiken, 35, won the Democratic nomination after his opponent in the race died suddenly during the primary campaign. If the Idol alum had won, he would have been the first openly gay congressman elected in the South.

When Iowa and North Carolina were called almost simultaneously a little before 11:30 pm Tuesday night, the seemingly inevitable became official: Republicans will control the Senate and thus the entire legislative branch. On a variety of fronts, this new alignment is going to be hugely problematic for progressive governance—perhaps for governance, period. These will be the major flash points. The last one is the most important, because it’s how the GOP will force Obama’s most of the rest. 1. Staffing the Executive Branch For much of the Obama presidency, Republicans in the Senate stymied up literally hundreds of presidential appointments...

DIEBOLD!!! That old DUmmie excuse is back for them to explain the sad loss of Kay Hagan in the North Carolina senate LOSS. Why? Because exit polls MUST always be right. Just ask President John F. Kerry. You can see the DUmmies cry DIEBOLD in this very sad THREAD, "Hagan won the exit polls. How did she lose the race?" So let us now watch the DUmmies scream DIEBOLD in Bolshevik Red while the commentary of your humble correspondent, remember to make it THREE asterisks per F word on the Free Republic, is in the [brackets]: Hagan won the...

Despite the New York Time's prediction that Tillis will lose, Pundit Press projects that Thom Tillis will be the next Senator of North Carolina! With 94% of the vote in, Tillis holds a 48,000 vote lead over Hagan. Hagan's problem is that Wake County and Cumberland County, two heavily populated and heavily pro-Hagan counties, are 100% in. Hagan simply cannot make up that margin. On top of that, pro-Tillis counties, such as Cleveland and Davidson are under-reporting thus far. Hagan may gain a few votes, but Tillis should win by 20,000 votes or more.

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Liberal MSNBC contributor Jimmy Williams said the “old white people” in the South who vote Republican are “going to die someday” and hopefully usher in a new era of Democratic rule in the region. Host Krystal Ball, a former failed Democratic congressional candidate, asked Williams whether white Southerners should just be written off by the party, but Williams said never, saying that since they are “for people” and Republicans aren’t, they would eventually win the day. “Mitt Romney only won South Carolina with 53 [percent], John McCain with 52,” he said. “That’s a changing South. Those old white people? They’re...

Ha an goes down by 1.5%.

RALEIGH (WTVD) -- After a grueling months-long campaign that saw the candidates and outside groups spend over a $100 million on advertising, Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan and Republican challenger Thom Tillis were waiting for the final results after the polls closed Tuesday evening. The race seesawed back and forth through the evening with just a couple of percentage points separating the main contestants.

Former Charlotte Mayor Patrick Cannon was stripped of his right to vote in October when he was sentenced to 44 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to felony corruption charges. But just over two weeks later, Cannon cast a ballot in North Carolina's midterm elections. And the vote, a violation of Cannon's bond, has again landed the former mayor in hot water. "Let's cut to the chase: He shouldn't have done that, and we're going to talk to him tomorrow," Greg Forrest, chief of the U.S. Probation Office in Charlotte, told the Charlotte Observer on Tuesday.

There is one set of numbers in this breakdown of North Carolina early voting that really jumps out.  This year 52.2% of early voters in North Carolina were age 60 or over.  In 2012, that percentage was 35.5%.  Young voters were scarce among early voters this election.  In 2012, 13.2 percent of the early voters were ages 18-29.  This year the percentage fell to 5.1%, while there was a drop from 21.8 to 13.7% in the age 30-44 age bracket. We won't know what this all means until tonight, but I suspect that these numbers may be more significant than...

For about 20 minutes just after midnight on Sunday morning, The Charlotte Observer published a story detailing the apparent conflict of interest which could represent a violation of ethics by embattled Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC). The story revealed the details of an investigation into Hagan’s family, which received hundreds of thousands of dollars in stimulus grants – grants which Hagan voted for as a member of the U.S. Senate. The story was the first time that the state’s largest paper, The Observer, had informed their readers of the nascent controversy, but Tar Heel residents had to read it fast. The...

The Charlotte Observer pulled a story that reported on Sen. Kay Hagan’s husband being reported to the North Carolina state auditor by the Department of Environmental and Natural Resources (DENR). The DENR called for a “legal review” of the $260,644 in stimulus money the company Hagan’s husband received (via Charlotte Observer):"State officials say a stimulus grant given to a company run by Kay Hagan's husband needs "further legal review." WBTV obtained a memo written by the Department of Energy and Natural Resources which includes a letter to the state's auditor from last month. The memo states that NCDENR is looking...

The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services (NC DHHS) and Durham and Person County Health Departments are working closely with Duke University Hospital to monitor a patient who departed from Liberia and arrived in the United States via Newark Liberty International Airport on October 31. The individual arrived in Person County, N.C. on November 1 and developed a fever this morning (November 2). The individual did not have any symptoms upon arrival in the United States and does not have any additional symptoms at this time. The individual also had no known exposure to Ebola while in Liberia. It...

North Carolina Democrats are taking to black churches today - and tomorrow for so called "Moral Monday" in an effort to drag Kay Hagan over the finish line before Republican Thom Tillis in North Carolina's Senate race. Hagan is a mere +1 in the current Real Clear Politics poll average, making the race too close to call. At churches across North Carolina, ministers took to pulpits Sunday morning with messages laced as thickly with pleas to turn out at the polls as they were with scripture. Led by the local NAACP, black churches have engaged in months of voter education...

This started as a top ten list.Let's face it, with President Obama's awful approval ratings and the unfortunate consequences of Obamacare felt like a sting around the country, Democrats were already vulnerable in this year's midterm elections. These gaffes certainly won't help. Let's take a look at some of the worst mistakes Dems have made on the campaign trail so far:1.) That awful/insensitive/shameful and now infamous ad from the Wendy Davis (D-TX) gubernatorial campaign. 2.) Those colorful campaign memos from Michelle Nunn’s (D-GA) campaign, in which her own campaign referred to her as a “lightweight.” 3.) Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) saying he was...

We were warned all along that if you let those nasty old Republicans take charge of things they would get up to all sorts of dirty tricks, including finding ways to stop primarily minority, younger or low income residents (read: Democrats) from voting. This weekend, these ominous portents apparently came true, as I saw one liberal after another touting a shocking report from Michael Wells Jr. at Politics USA with the Halloween level scary title, Minority Voter Suppression In North Carolina Witnessed Firsthand. So I guess they were right after all, eh? I mean, here we have a “firsthand” witness,...

There is a growing movement in the United States against secrecy and a growing distrust that government is operating in the people's interest. Related to both of these movements is a call for President Obama to declassify and release the 28 classified pages from the 9/11 Commission Report that President Bush deemed too vital to United States intelligence operations to be released in the 2004 report. Both Republican Walter Jones, from North Carolina, and Democrat Stephen Lynch, from Massachusetts, say that the documents, which they have read, quite clearly spell out a relationship between President Bush and the Saudi government...

More GOP cavalry arrived in Georgia today as Texas Sen. Ted Cruz stumped with David Perdue and Gov. Nathan Deal in Canton, invoking memories of long gas lines and stagflation as he attacked their Democratic rivals. “Here in Georgia, we’ve got on the ballot Jimmy Carter and Sam Nunn,” he said. “It’s like ‘That 70’s Show.'” The Texas firebrand echoed Perdue’s talking points by saying that an election of Michelle Nunn, the Democratic nominee, equals a stamp of approval for President Barack Obama’s agenda. Republicans need a net gain of six Senate seats to take control of the chamber, and...

A student group at UNC called The Real Silent Sam has gotten to the bottom of a scandal involving student athletes. Ian Tuttle of National Review reported. Student Group Says UNC’s Student-Athlete Fraud Is Actually a Result of White Supremacist, Heteropatriarchal Capitalism An enormous academic scandal is not sitting well with some students at the University of North Carolina — but not for the reasons one might think. On Wednesday, UNC student group The Real Silent Sam hosted a “Rally Speaking Back To The Wainstein Report,” expressing disappointment with the recent investigation that found that at least 3,100 students over...

Six Magistrates Have Now Stepped Down Because of Gay Marriage LegalizationSince gay marriage was legalized in North Carolina on Oct. 10, at least six North Carolina judges have resigned from their benches because they do not want to go against their Christian faith and conduct wedding ceremonies for same-sex couples. While it was reported last week that Rockingham County magistrate John Kallam Jr. and Swain County magistrate Gilbert Breedlove resigned from their positions because of the legalization of gay marriage, media reports have surfaced indicating that at least four other magistrates have done the same. All six magistrates, Kallam, Breedlove,...

For 18 years, thousands of students at the prestigious University of North Carolina took fake "paper classes," and advisers funneled athletes into the program to keep them eligible, according to a scathing independent report released Wednesday. "These counselors saw the paper classes and the artificially high grades they yielded as key to helping some student-athletes remain eligible," Kenneth Wainstein wrote in his report. Ex-UNC star: Fake classes helped me play UNC report: Thousands took fake classes In all, the report estimates, at least 3,100 students took the paper classes, but the figure "very likely falls far short of the true...