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Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus has been quietly having conversations with state party leaders to discuss the latest push by convention delegates to nominate anyone other than Donald Trump. Priebus has spoken with GOP party chairmen in multiple states in recent days in part to get a better sense of how large the anti-Trump faction is among their convention delegations, according to two people familiar with the conversations. While Priebus has made clear in these conversations that he is not spearheading the latest push for a coup, his involvement sends a signal that the RNC is taking this effort...

It must be pretty sweet to be a white swing voter. Political campaigns blow millions of dollars catering to your every whim. Politicians ask what you think before they step out on a major policy program, despite the fact that your views aren’t representative of the majority of Americans. The changing demographics of this country mean it’s well past time to stop obsessing over a shrinking population that’s out of sync with the right direction for this country. Continuing to cater to those voters can have dire consequences, in politics and more importantly in policies that deeply impact people’s lives....

BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH damn that Catherine Zeta Jones

Donald Trump railed Saturday against efforts by some frustrated Republicans planning a last-ditch effort to try to thwart him from becoming the party’s nominee, threatening at one point to stop fundraising if Republicans don’t rally around him. Speaking at a theater at the Treasure Island hotel on the Las Vegas strip, Trump referred to “an insurgent group” trying to deny him delegates at the party’s July convention.

A coalition of Republican delegates is mounting a last-ditch effort to block Donald Trump from obtaining the GOP nomination by pushing for a "conscience clause" that would allow delegates to vote against the presumptive nominee. Kendal Unruh, a Colorado delegate, organized a call with dozens of other delegates Thursday night to discuss ways to block Trump at the convention. The group, Unruh says, marks the coalescing of disparate "pockets of resistance" -- including backers of Sen. Ted Cruz, Sen. Marco Rubio and Ohio Gov. John Kasich -- which had been opposing Trump with little success.

John Kasich and two other prominent Republicans said on the one-year anniversary of Donald Trump’s announcement speech that they won’t endorse him for president. Kasich, who ran against Trump in the primary, was asked on MSNBC Thursday about the pledge he signed saying he would support the eventual nominee. “It’s painful,” the Ohio governor said, NPR reports. “Look I’m sorry that this has happened. We’ll see where it ends up. I’m not making any final decision yet, but at this point, I just can’t do it.’

Donald Trump is "on the right path" by announcing he will meet with the National Rifle Association to talk about restricting people on terror watch lists from obtaining guns, but South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham on Thursday said that he could still not bring himself to support the presumptive Republican nominee. "Have you decided, are the two of you going to work together? Are you going to get on board with him?" asked "Fox & Friends" co-host Ainsley Earhardt. Graham reiterated that he would not be supporting Trump or Hillary Clinton, because the Manhattan real-estate magnate has shown a "lack...

As I warned you in a previous alert, Rep. Paul Ryan is pro-amnesty (giving the franchise to millions of anti-gun voters), and he has a record of compromising gun rights. For example, Ryan voted for the Thompson-King amendment last year — an anti-gun amendment that would add an additional $19.5 million to pay states to turn in more names to the federal gun-ban (NICS) list. More names into the NICS system? You mean like adding more law-abiding veterans and senior citizens? These Americans have done nothing wrong, other than choosing to live in a country that wants to strip them...

House Speaker Paul Ryan told a room of Republican donors and elites in Park City, Utah last weekend that he endorsed Donald Trump to keep the Republican Party together. That explanation implied that if the highest ranking Republican didn't support the top of the ticket and went against the legitimate winner of the primary electoral process that the Republican Party would limp forward as a divided party with no chance of electoral success. The Speaker suggested that he put party above personal preference for the sake of unity. Just days later, party unity appears even more fragile. Since wrapping up...

Why are some Republican Rats abandoning the ship as it rises on a swelling tide of popular support? Some factions with the Republican Party are doing their best to hand over the keys to the White House to the irretrievably corrupt pathological liar Hillary Clinton because they dislike presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump. This suicidal gesture will help Barack Obama complete his fundamental transmogrification of America. The movement is being led by high-profile Republicans like two-time loser Mitt Romney and unsuccessful California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman who have proved over the years that they understand so little about electoral politics...

Donald Trump called for the Republican Party to fall in line behind his presidential bid Saturday during campaign swings through Florida and Pennsylvania, attacking skeptical members of his own party along with Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. “We have a war to win against a very crooked politician. The Republican Party really should get their act together,” Trump said here Saturday. “They have to come together. We have to win. And if for no other reason, the Supreme Court, remember that.”

Donald Trump earlier this week promised to make Republicans "proud of our party and our movement." Days later, he's punching up his message to skeptical party members: Get your act together. "We have a war to win against a very crooked politician," he said at a rally in Tampa on Saturday, referring to Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. "I don't want to waste a lot of time trying to defend ourselves against these phony (politicians)." "The Republican Party has to come together, they have to get their act together," he added, citing the potential for the next president to nominate multiple...

There is growing talk on the right of replacing Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee for president, and even chatter about a possible alternative. As Trump has floundered over the past week after questioning a federal judge’s impartiality because of his Mexican ancestry, Trump’s critics within the GOP have stepped up their efforts to thwart him. Some anti-Trump conservatives, who have tried for months to recruit an independent candidate, have begun looking more closely at attempting to persuade delegates at next month’s GOP convention to nominate someone other than Trump. “There is a rapidly moving train toward the convention...

The Democratic establishment disarmed Bernie Sanders' political revolution in a swift and ruthless counter coup Thursday, lining up behind its own heir apparent, Hillary Clinton. "I'm with her," Obama declared in a web video in which the party's ultimate super delegate endorsed Clinton and effectively imposed a truce in an often divisive primary campaign. Hours later, Vice President Joe Biden said "God willing," Clinton would be the next president. Sen. Elizabeth Warren added her voice as well. It was the kind of mind meld between a party's establishment and its presumptive nominee that has eluded Republicans, with many GOP power...

Donald Trump is right. He did electrify the electorate in the Republican primaries. And the numbers prove it. In the 2012 GOP primaries, which former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney won, a total of 21.5 million votes were cast. In the 2008 primaries, which put Arizona Senator John McCain at the top of the Republican presidential ticket, 22.8 million people cast primary ballots, according to Real Clear Politics. But this year, about 7 million more Americans voted in the GOP primaries than in 2012, for a total of 28.5 million. Of those, 13.3 million votes were for Trump. True, Romney won...

There is growing talk on the right of replacing Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee for president, and even chatter about a possible alternative. As Trump has floundered over the past week after questioning a federal judge’s impartiality because of his Mexican ancestry, Trump’s critics within the GOP have stepped up their efforts to thwart him. Some anti-Trump conservatives, who have tried for months to recruit an independent candidate, have begun looking more closely at attempting to persuade delegates at next month’s GOP convention to nominate someone other than Trump. “There is a rapidly moving train toward the convention...

Donald J. Trump has some advice for panicked Republicans in Washington who are melting down over his most incendiary statements: Man up. “Politicians are so politically correct anymore, they can’t breathe,”Mr. Trump said in an interview Tuesday afternoon as fellow Republicans forcefully protested his ethnically charged criticism of a federal judge overseeing a lawsuit against the defunct Trump University. “The people are tired of this political correctness when things are said that are totally fine,” he said during an interlude in a day of exceptional stress in the Trump campaign. “It is out of control. It is gridlock with their...

Civility Two years ago, Stephen Henderson won a Pulitzer Prize. I’ll let you decide what you think that says about the state of journalism, especially as you consider what he wrote late last week. Henderson, the editorial page editor of the Detroit Free Press (and a Facebook friend of mine, at least as I type this), has become increasingly hysterical in the past year - seeing racism behind almost every perceived societal ill and ascribing to conservative policymakers not just mistaken thinking but, invariably, an intent to hurt people. But his column of this past Saturday took the cake. A...

House Speaker Paul Ryan reiterated his support Wednesday for Donald Trump at a closed door meeting with House Republicans and asked his colleagues to unite behind the presumptive Republican nominee, according to several members who attended the session.

Presumptive Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign is turning toward the general election, launching a website that targets frustrated Republican voters who don’t support presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump. “The website, republicansagainsttrump.org, was registered on May 27 and launched on June 2, according to domain registration records,” Politico reports. “The Clinton campaign only appears to have begun buying ads to promote the site more recently.”