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The South will play a crucial role in the 2016 presidential contest, both in the nominating process and in the General Election. For the Republicans, Dixie's plethora of primaries come quickly after the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary and will probably determine the nominee. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton's strong support among African Americans in the Southern primaries should cement her already commanding lead for her party's nomination. And in the General Election, at least three Southern states are likely to be competitive and may well determine the outcome of the race for the White House. Until...

Armstrong Williams, a close confidant and business manager for Dr. Ben Carson, told Breitbart News exclusively on Friday that Carson is confident he will re-emerge as a formidable candidate, place top three in Iowa, and win South Carolina--and eventually win the GOP nomination in 2016. "He remains in control," Williams said in a phone interview. "He made the changes that were necessary to give him the best chance to surge again to place first, second or third in Iowa, to win South Carolina, and establish the necessary momentum to win the GOP nomination." Both Carson campaign manager Barry Bennett and...

Forty-five minutes late, Jeb Bush hurried onto the porch of a crowded barbecue restaurant where more than 100 people waited for the Republican presidential hopeful earlier this week. The former Florida governor - hoping to revive his struggling campaign and become the third Bush elected president - launched into a stump speech before taking questions at Hudson's Smokehouse, a favorite stop for GOP candidates. "Donald Trump's not going to get the nomination. He's not going to be president," Bush said of the GOP front-runner near the end of the hour, the crowd clapping and cheering in agreement. Bush's Wednesday visit...

HILTON HEAD, S.C. (Reuters) - Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump filled a hotel ballroom with over 2,000 people for a rally on Wednesday, attracting die-hard supporters as he has in other cities, but was dogged by a rival who is also very popular in South Carolina: Ted Cruz. A dozen people interviewed by Reuters said the Texas senator offered a strong alternative to the loud-mouthed New York businessman, though more than half still planned to vote for Trump. "If he doesn't drop out of the race, I'm definitely going to vote for him," Daniel Barrett, 48, said of Trump. When...

He’s the GOP’s strongest candidate, right? But what if he can’t win a single early primary? The Rubio problem no one is talking about—yet. Everybody I know, I mean everybody, thinks Marco Rubio is the strongest Republican candidate. Yes, there’s a debate about how strong. Some say he’d beat Hillary Clinton, some say that what with some of the extreme positions he’s taken so far in this race, he’d be hard-pressed to do much better than Mitt Romney’s 206 electoral votes plus maybe his own Florida. So there’s a debate about that. But there ain’t much debate that he’s the,...

Could Mitt Romney and John McCain turn out to be the hidden arrows in Marco Rubio's political quiver in New Hampshire?[continued]

Sen. Lindsey Graham admitted on the same day he dropped out of the 2016 presidential race that the more moderate wing of the Republican Party is a thing of the past. "What's happened here is sort of my lane of the party has collapsed," Graham said in an interview with CNN's Kate Bolduan, when asked why he isn't holding out until the South Carolina primary on February 20th. "At the end of the day, I'm not going to be competitive in my state if I'm not competitive outside my state," Graham said, noting that he was once a front-runner in...

Breitbart News has confirmed that Senator Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) will address the 2016 South Carolina Tea Party Coalition Convention on Saturday Jan 16 at 2:20pm. The convention, seen by analysts as “a seminal event” in the run-up to the state’s “first in the South” primary, runs daily from January 16th – 18th, from 8:30 AM to 6:00 PM. Donald Trump, Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum are also scheduled to speak....

I haven’t seen anyone really go out on a limb yet and make predictions about the Republican primaries. So it's time to engage in some wildly premature political punditry. This, of course, is risky. There are so many variables. What happens if one candidate drops out and scrambles things? What is more, factors in the political universe - say, God forbid, another terrorist attack - can quickly swing public opinion. (Remember how Ben Carson’s numbers declined after the Paris attacks?) It is with all these caveats disclosed that I boldly present my picks. The good news is that these predictions...

He also calls the GOP frontrunner a "loser" and a "demagogue."EXETER, N.H. -- As he continues to find new ways to rip into Donald Trump over the Republican front-runner’s proposal to ban Muslims from traveling to the United States, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham may have finally unleashed the ultimate insult to denigrate his rival in the context of a GOP presidential primary. Graham, who has struggled to gain traction in his own long-shot White House bid, said that what makes America great is its religious tolerance, and that Trump’s plan undercuts outreach efforts to Muslim nations and communities in...

While Hillary Clinton talks about Donald Trump on the trail, her allies are going after the GOP contender Democrats see as the real competition — Ted Cruz. David Brock, one of Clinton’s most important allies and fundraisers, is preparing a campaign against the Texas conservative that will attack his character as well as his policy positions....

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Monday challenged Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) to take a stand against Donald Trump's proposal to ban Muslim immigrants from entering the United States. When asked if he would support such a ban on Monday, Cruz replied, "No, that is not my policy," but did not criticize Trump, according to the Texas Tribune. "I believe the focus should focus on radical Islamic terrorism, and we need to be directly focused on threats to the United States," he continued. "We need a commander in chief that perceives what the threat is and that targets all of our...

While moderates languish in the polls, Ted Cruz and his ilk are doing just fine.It would be easy to dismiss Lindsey Graham as a sore loser even before the contest has been decided. In the Republican presidential campaign, his support has hovered between the negligible and the nonexistent. “I’m at 1 percent,” Graham quite honestly admitted to the Republican Jewish Coalition last Thursday. “The election is still long away. Help me stay in the race.” But it is precisely because Graham is doing so poorly that he offers some valuable insights on the outcome of a battle within the GOP...

Presidential candidate Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) took a bold step away from many in the pro-life camp Thursday when taking aim at his rival for the White House, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), over his allegedly extreme stance against abortion.The South Carolina senator indicated that taking a hardline pro-life stance, in essence, will preclude any presidential candidate from winning the 2016 election. “You can be pro-life and win an election, but if you’re going to tell a woman who’s been raped she has to carry the child of the rapist, you’re losing most Americans,” Graham argued. The 60-year-old GOP member took specific...

Lindsey Graham on Thursday delivered a scathing rebuke of Republican candidates — especially Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Donald Trump — for alienating Hispanic and female voters with “hard-ass” policies and hateful rhetoric. “How many of you believe that we’re losing elections because we’re not hard-ass enough on immigration?” Graham asked during his speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition in Washington, D.C. A few people in the room clapped, and Graham responded: “Well, I don’t agree with you. I believe we are losing the Hispanic vote because they think we don’t like them.”(continued)

With Speaker Paul D. Ryan’s comments about immigration Sunday, the top two Republicans in Congress have now declared dead the prospects of an overhaul before the 2016 elections. In the aftermath of 2012, when Latinos made up 10 percent of the electorate and President Barack Obama was re-elected resoundingly, Republican lawmakers and strategists predicted the GOP’s White House ambitions were directly tied to the passage of comprehensive immigration legislation. Many of those voices haven’t changed their tune. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., one of the four “gang of eight” Republicans who successfully navigated an immigration overhaul through the Senate in 2013,...

Attendees of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's campaign rally in Alexandria said the ongoing FBI investigation into Clinton's use of private email has not changed their opinion of the former secretary of State. "Yes, I still support Hillary. I believe the inquiry has been just a way to lower her polls and so, yes, I definitely still support Hillary," a Democratic voter told PJ Media at the rally. "I still support her in spite of the investigation. I expect some mistakes were made and maybe some people somewhere could have been more truthful about some of the events, but there's...

Lindsey Graham today called out fellow Republicans who “deny the science” on climate change. Graham was one of several candidates who spoke at the No Labels conference in New Hampshire today, and he made it clear he just doesn’t get Republican resistance to climate science. He spoke of “business-friendly” solutions to the problem and said, “To my friends on the left who are making this a religion, you’re making a mistake. To my friends on the right who deny the science, tell me why.” (VIDEO-AT-LINK)Earlier this year, Graham said he has no idea what the GOP’s environmental platform is and...

It has been rewarding to join a group of dedicated S.C. grassroots conservatives. Recently a group of Horry County volunteers for Ted Cruz engaged in their first two events: the Aynor Harvest Hoedown and the Irish-Italian Festival. We proudly wore our red shirts declaring the same values as our favorite presidential candidate. National polls have indicated that billionaire TV reality star Donald Trump is still leading. However, based on straw polls, Horry County residents who participated clearly indicated they preferred Ted Cruz over all other candidates. Straw polls top 3: Aynor Harvest Hoedown: Cruz 45.5%, Trump 20.8%, Carson 18.2% Irish-Italian...