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It is often claimed that conservative religious voters, especially white evangelicals, are going the way of the dinosaur, consigned to demographic irrelevance. But they were a key component of the Republicans’ 2014 midterm victories. According to exit polls, Conservative religious voters made up as big a percentage of the electorate as ever, and they backed Republicans at least as strongly as ever. White evangelicals were 26% of the electorate this year, and 78% of them voted Republican. That’s up from 2010, when they were 25 percent of the electorate, and 77 percent voted Republican, and 2006, when they were 24...

Recall Contents [hide] 1 Statewide recall 1.1 Officials eligible by state 1.2 Prerequisites for recall processes 2 Notable recalls 2.1 Gubernatorial recalls 2.1.1 Wisconsin, 2012 2.1.2 California, 2003 2.1.3 North Dakota, 1921 2.2 Other recalls 3 Recalls by type of political office 4 See also 5 References Recall is a process available in most jurisdictions whereby an elected official can be removed from office either for malfeasance or in some jurisdictions for any action the recall language specifies. For recalls, most state laws have set the highest signature threshold for any type of petition—most often requiring 25% of all registered...

Compared to his 2016 peers, he's on rocky footing going into primary season.Tuesday's GOP victory doesn't guarantee the party's success in 2016. But the race, which began as soon as AP called the midterms for the party, has steeled a few Republicans angling for presidential bids. One likely contender, however, already appears to be behind: Ted Cruz. The Texas senator certainly had a good election night. His party won a majority in the Senate, and he appeared on CNN and Fox News soon after the victory became clear to talk about the GOP's legislative plans with its newfound power. But...

More than a dozen Republican governors and senators are rushing to line up supporters, pore over policies and map out strategies for the 2016 presidential campaign, concluding that last week’s midterm rout of Democrats shows that the GOP has a strong chance of taking back the White House. Whereas Democrats are rapidly coalescing around Hillary Rodham Clinton as their standard-bearer, there is no heir apparent on the Republican side. The field is as splintered as the Grand Old Party itself, with stark differences along the lines of ideology, style and background. “Tuesday night certainly gives the Republicans a sense of...

The 2016 cycle began before the 2014 cycle ended, and the prospective presidential candidates long ago mobilized to hit the ground running as soon as the polls across America closed on Tuesday night. The results of the midterm elections have, however, lit a special fire under the inevitable Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton. A report in The New York Times on Friday morning revealed that the Clinton Machine is revving into high gear, but it also suggested that Hillary will burst out of the 2016 presidential gate with a whimper. The former secretary of state will cease to deliver paid...

Obama took to the podium on Wednesday after the midterm elections and made it clearer than ever that he lives in his own universe. Americans sent the message loud and clear that they reject his policies and the Democrat platform as it currently stands, yet Obama drove the message home that even with a Republican Congress in control, he would continue to push his extremely unpopular liberal agenda. The wellbeing of Americans has never been the top priority in Obama-land, and his arrogant-selfishness was the resounding sentiment throughout his misguided press conference. In Obama’s mind there may as well not...

The 2014 election was a disaster for Hillary Clinton. Why? Let us count the ways. She will have to run against an energetic and motivated Republican Party. If the GOP had failed to capture the Senate, the loss would have been more than demoralizing. It would have led to serious discussion of a third party. Donors would have reconsidered whether their spending was worth the reputational cost. Candidate recruitment efforts would have stalled. Republican voters would have asked why they bother to show up. The Republican circular firing squad, always a problem, wouldn’t use conventional weapons. They’d use ICBMs. Clinton...

Please tell me why Republicans are expected to compromise and capitulate for the greater good, when Democrats, under the tutelage of one Barack Obama, defiantly implemented the most radical and rogue agenda in our nation’s history? And yet the same discerning media that has demonized any and all dissent during their savior’s tenure now calls it imperative to squash any suggestion of an “implied” conservative mandate granted by a small rabble, but by no means “a wave”, of discontented voters? Because irony and journalistic integrity are known to cause mental and moral paralysis, I’m guessing our righteous critics were sick...

Republican victory gives neocons, war hawks bully pulpit GOP eyes expanded aid to Syria’s Islamic rebels, increased pressure on Russia over Ukraine By Julio Severo The Washington Times says as the GOP takeover of the Senate provides neocons and war hawks with their bully pulpit, there will be increasing pressure for the White House to send heavy weapons to Ukrainian forces battling pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine and sophisticated arms to Islamic opposition rebels in Syria. John McCain and Islamic Syrian terrorists Increasing aid to Syria’s Islamic rebels is likely to be among the first Republican priorities, John McCain...

LOUISVILLE — There were only two things Mitch McConnell didn't want to talk about Thursday — whether he will run for re-election in 2020 and his eventual legacy. In his first one-on-one interview since his landslide re-election to a sixth term and his expected ascendance to U.S. Senate majority leader, McConnell talked at length with the Herald-Leader about how he wants to use his new role to help Kentucky, a possible run for president by U.S. Sen. Rand Paul and the conventional wisdom that McConnell is unpopular. McConnell, relaxed and in a great mood in his Louisville home, wouldn't say...

A prayer has been answered -- not for a massive Republican victory at the polls, though that, too. No, I'm thinking of the perennial prayer of losers: "Oh Lord, let my enemies go too far." The results of the 2014 midterms will be chewed over for weeks and months. One datum that hasn't received much attention so far is the exit poll result showing that 71 percent of voters are somewhat or very worried about another major terrorist attack in the United States. Such is the Republican reputation for hardheadedness on national security that the party benefits from this concern...

Remember Wendy Davis, the champion of women’s rights? She was the Texas state senator who spent all night on her feet to protest a law that would ban late-term abortions. The U.S. (and Canadian) news media turned her into a hero, then cheered her on as she ran for governor, looking to strike a huge victory against the Republican war on women. Ms. Davis got clobbered on Tuesday. She lost by 20 points. Texas voters had many issues on their minds, but it turned out that late-term abortions wasn’t one of them. Democrats (and much of the media) were stunned...

A political war is about to erupt, and the Democrats are preparing to go for the jugular The Republicans were victorious during the 2014 Election in much the same way they were in the mid-term election in 2010. The GOP, thanks to this latest election, put a good number of Republican Governors in blue States, obtained an historic majority in the House of Representatives, and have gained a few seat majority in the Senate, which will launch a two-year hell, or heaven, for the Democrats, and President Barack Obama. I am sure Nancy Pelosi is sitting in her jet, surrounded...

I just have to say how proud I am of our Gen X politicians. It is clear that our country is in good hands and the future is bright. I just want to give a pat on the back the following: Gen X leaders like the following superstars: Governor Scott Walker, Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.), Senator Rand Paul Senator Ted Cruz Senator Tom Cotton Senator Jonie Earnst Senator Cory Gardner Senator James Lankford Senator Tim Scott Senator Mike Lee Rep Steve Scalise Rep Richard Hudson Rep Jeff Duncan Governor Matt Blunt Rep Sean Duffy These poor folks have so much...

Gov. Susana Martinez’s 15-point re-election win over Democratic Attorney General King was the largest margin of victory ever for a Republican governor candidate in New Mexico, one political expert said Wednesday. The resounding win for the nation’s first female Hispanic governor, who has been touted in some quarters as part of a national GOP ticket down the road, was driven by a good showing in Bernalillo County and her unusually strong performance in northern New Mexico’s Democratic strongholds. Traditionally, Democrats who win statewide races rely on winning Democratic-heavy counties in north-central New Mexico by margins so wide that Republican gains...

Republican congress, Send Bills to the President asap. Pass laws concerning emigration. Force this Presidential incompetent to veto bills and then put the "do nothing" label on him.

Early last month President Obama declared that while he wasn’t on the ballot his policies were. Now that the Republicans have won seven, soon to be nine, Senate seats and hold the largest House majority they’ve had since the 1920’s, the President doesn’t want to read the election tea leaves. Rather than concede defeat, the President yesterday gave a defiant and ungracious press conference. It seems that the President believes that his policies weren’t rejected by the American public. Instead, the Democrats lost because 2/3 of the country didn’t bother to vote. The assumption of course is that if those...

House Democrats deep in abyss By: Alex Isenstadt November 5, 2014 08:00 PM EST After a night of punishing losses, House Democrats are deeper in the minority than they’ve been in nearly 80 years — and party strategists say it could take years — possibly until after the next round of political map-drawing in the 2020s — to dig out of the hole.With votes still being counted in more than a dozen congressional districts, Democrats were on track to shed 13 to 16 seats, an outcome that would leave the party with as few as 185 of the chamber’s...

Video and transcript at the link.

Around 9:00 last night, the TV pundits realized that it would no longer do to say that it was an anti-incumbent year: The vast majority of the incumbents losing — all of them in the Senate — were Democrats. Nor could the election be chalked up to red-state reaction. Republicans took Senate seats in Iowa and Colorado, which voted for Obama twice apiece, and governorships in Maryland and Illinois, which last voted Republican in 1988. The wave gave Republicans a larger Senate majority than all but the most confident among them had expected, and added to the ranks of their...