Free Republic

Kansas Surprise: Orman Leads Roberts by 10 in NBC/Marist Poll BY CARRIE DANN Independent candidate Greg Orman is leading incumbent Republican Sen. Pat Roberts in Kansas by 10 points, while Democrats have a slim lead in North Carolina’s contest and both candidates are in a dead heat in Iowa’s Senate race, new NBC News/Marist polls find. The Kansas poll, which shows Roberts trailing 38 percent to Orman’s 48 percent, is full of bad news for the incumbent and for Republicans, who have suddenly seen Roberts’ sleepy re-election race turn into a very real pickup opportunity for Democrats if Orman decides...

Before you delete this email, we want to explain something. You’ve probably seen this a lot: Email: Chipped in to Defeat Harry Reid's Democrats? NO DONATION Deadline: 11:59 PM Suggested Support: $5.00 Let us explain… We rely on lots of grassroots conservatives to chip in $5 or more, while the other side is able to pressure Hollywood celebrities and limousine liberals to donate millions. In other words, we need your support or we just can’t keep up. If people donate, it adds up fast, but it only works if everyone does their part. And according to our records, you haven’t...

Just as a high stakes gambler in the wrong place at the wrong time might get "rolled" from time to time, Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson appears ripe to get "Roved" yet again based upon reports he's "donated $10 million to a Karl Rove-backed outfit boosting Republican Senate candidates and promised a similar amount to an allied group focused on House races."

But GOP candidates can't simply rely on attacking Democrats for having voted for ObamaCare or, in the case of nonincumbents, supporting it. They should draw attention to the law's pernicious effects on ordinary Americans. By humanizing ObamaCare's shortfalls through stories from ordinary people, Republicans will help explode the myth of liberal competence and compassion, keep this issue fresh through the fall and cause voters to hold Democrats accountable at the polls.

Dear Friend, The conservative principles you and I believe in are in danger. Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi are crisscrossing America raising millions of dollars from rich liberals. They now have $11 million more on hand. In 12 days we face a critical deadline: the June End of Quarter FEC Fundraising Deadline. We must end strong to stay close with Pelosi’s campaign machine. This is critical to increasing our majority in the House this November. (SNIP) The deadline is just days away. After the VA scandal, Benghazi, the IRS targeting conservatives, and the Obama Administration trading away 5 Taliban Terrorist...

Last year, American Crossroads, the super-PAC conceived of by Republican operative and fundraiser Karl Rove, hatched a plan: Inject itself into 2014 GOP primary races to protect incumbents from hard-line challengers in the mold of Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock who could cost the party winnable seats in Congress. Immediately, conservatives howled with outrage over an establishment group targeting tea partiers—Mike Huckabee called it "fratricide." The plan never got off the ground, and American Crossroads itself has largely shied away from picking primary fights. But here's an exception: A brand-new Crossroads ad slams Matt Doheny, who's vying with Elise Stefanik...

For the Republicans, New York's 21st congressional district race has become a battle of attack ads. First, American Crossroads, a political action committee co-founded by Karl Rove came out with an ad against Matt Doheny. On Thursday, Doheny told WPTZ he would not release a negative ad against Stefanik and that he wanted to keep the campaign clean. However a few days later, Doheny released an attack ad against his opponent. Then, the super PAC which supports Stefanik released another attack ad against Doheny. -snip- When asked if she thinks American Crossroads’ support or the negative campaign ads against her...

American Crossroads, a Republican super PAC, has released another ad opposing Republican congressional candidate Matthew A. Doheny’s bid for Congress. The ad, “No Conservative,” reviews the “Mistakes” ad released by the PAC last week and calls Mr. Doheny a “perennial loser” for his unsuccessful campaigns for the 21st District seat seat held by Rep. William L. Owens, D-Plattsburgh. Rep. Owens is not seeking re-election. Mr. Doheny is locked in a primary battle with fellow Republican Elise M. Stefanik. The primary election will be held June 24, and the candidates will face off in debates today and Thursday.

American Crossroads, a GOP establishment organization, has decided to shift its political focus almost entirely to the general election and will not be spending money in the likely runoff election to decide the Mississippi Senate nomination that was virtually deadlocked after Tuesday night. Founded by Karl Rove and other Republican strategists, Crossroads and its non-profit affiliate, Crossroads GPS, had not played an active role in supporting GOP Sen. Thad Cochran’s bid to thwart a primary challenge from state Sen. Chris McDaniel, but the group had been working behind the scenes to boost other pro-Cochran super PACs. "Other than Alaska, we...

Neel Kashkari swings an axe in his ubiquitous television commercial. But he hasn't found an axe big enough to cut into Tim Donnelly's lead among Republican voters. A new Hoover Institution "Golden State" poll shows that Kashkari is only pulling 5% of the vote, barely above the 4% margin of error, a distant third behind popular Democrat incumbent Gov. Jerry Brown at 36%, and Tea Party favorite Assemblyman Tim Donnelly with 12%. A large chunk of voters--35% overall--is still undecided. Kashkari will need to tap into those voters in the final few days of the race in order to finish...

Yesterday I noted that the tea party in big states and national elections faces a challenge both in money and support when facing competent, mainstream Republicans. To put it bluntly, there aren’t enough Republicans who think that Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is a sellout or that the shutdown was a good idea to sustain the tea party in its current form. I’ve suggested that it, in essence, disappears as a distinct subset of the right and, like most insurgent movements, will be soaked up by the larger political entity, in this case the GOP. But are there other things the...

More Republicans are pushing for an immigration overhaul.House Republican leaders are mum on a timetable for advancing immigration overhaul legislation and have so far been noncommittal on moving on the issue before the end of the 113th Congress. But a group of mayors and business leaders from across the political spectrum is determined to prove that momentum is growing for a rewrite of the nation’s immigration laws — even among conservatives. The coalition, Partnership for a New American Economy, on Wednesday held the first in a series of monthly conference calls moderated by Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist...

GOP activist Karl Rove is being accused of gutter politics in a response by Hillary Clinton’s reps after remarks last week, reported by Page Six, that the former secretary of state may have brain damage from a blood clot she suffered in 2012. “From the moment this happened 17 months ago, the right has politicized her health,” Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill said in a statement. “First they accused her of faking it. Now they’ve resorted to the other extreme — and are flat-out lying … All he wants to do is inject the issue into the echo chamber, and he’s...

Karl Rove denied Tuesday that he said Hillary Clinton had brain damage. "I didn't say she had brain damage, she had a serious health episode," he told FOX News, suggesting that her hospitalization in January 2013 for a blood clot could thwart her presidential ambitions.

North Carolina House Speaker Thom Tillis (R-NC), the frontrunner in the North Carolina GOP Senate primary, told a crowd two and half years ago that we must "divide and conquer" people on government assistance. Tillis proposed pitting those who are legitimately in need against those who made bad choices. Tillis made the comments in October 2011 in Asheville, North Carolina. They were reported by local press at the time and are being circulated now by the campaign of Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) whom Tillis is vying to unseat. They were highlighted on MSNBC"s Hardball Monday. "What we have to do...

The two Republican lieutenant governor candidates, David Dewhurst and Dan Patrick, faced off Friday night in a runoff debate. The debate took place at the studios of Houston Public Media. The runoff is May 27. The latest polls show Dewhurst, the current lieutenant governor, far behind Patrick, a state senator. Here’s a look at the race from KUHF, Houston’s public radio station: It's unusual for the incumbent to be unseated, but Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst is as many as 20 points behind state Sen. Dan Patrick in the polls.

A new television ad in the lieutenant governors race has a charity demanding an apology. The ad from the David Dewhurst campaign show a series of pictures of Dan Patrick with a tie but no shirt looking as if he’s at a wild party, but a written statement from the Be an Angel Fund reveals that Patrick was literally selling the shirt off his back at a fundraiser to help special needs children.

And yet just when the news is getting good, Rove is calling Silver's whole methodology into doubt. On Wednesday, he tweeted a link to a National Journal column titled "Why I Don't Agree With Nate Silver: Number-crunching Senate prediction models are fun to follow but are not very useful." "Smart piece: may disagree w/ some specifics, but major point is correct," Rove wrote. The major point is that the methodology behind Silver's projections is flawed: "Unlike baseball, where the sample size runs in the thousands of at-bats or innings pitched, these models overemphasize a handful of early polls at the...

SANFORD For months, Republican Thom Tillis’ Senate campaign touted his accomplishments and focused his attacks on Democratic incumbent Kay Hagan, acting like a frontrunner with his eye on November. Now, in the final days before the May 6 primary, Tillis is changing his strategy. Last week, he mailed a flier to voters that attacked his top GOP rival for not paying his property taxes on time. He also debuted a TV ad that trumpets his opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage. Tillis hit the social conservative issues Saturday in his speech at the 2nd Congressional District GOP convention in Sanford....

VIDEO AT LINK On Fox News Channel's "America's Newsroom" on Tuesday, former adviser to President George W. Bush Karl Rove reacted to remarks from former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-FL) that called certain types of illegal immigration an "act of love"...