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The Miami Young Republicans, one of the more active GOP groups in South Florida, gathered Tuesday night for a straw presidential poll ahead of Florida's March 15 Florida primary. Though the organization is a Marco Rubio bastion -- it's run by Jessica Fernandez, a Rubio Miami-Dade County campaign chairwoman -- Ted Cruz supporters made sure to show up. The night ended with a Rubio-Cruz tie...

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has boosted his lead over GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump in a new survey of Texas primary voters. The Dixie Strategies Poll taken Monday, and released Wednesday, shows Cruz ahead of the real estate billionaire by more than 8 percentage points statewide. At the end of January, Cruz was leading by 5 percentage points. Here's the latest breakdown: Cruz: 33 percent Trump: 25 percent Florida Sen. Marco Rubio: 15 percent Ohio Gov. John Kasich: 8 percent Retired pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson: 6 percent Undecided: 13 percent....

Republican campaign veteran Ed Rollins calls Trump an "asset" to the party who is "energizing voters who haven't traditionally voted." However, Rollins said, Trump needs to define what he means when he calls himself a "commonsense conservative." "I think he carries every state right today that Republicans have been traditionally carrying, which is what Romney did," Rollins aid on FOX News this morning. "He probably puts Michigan in play, which we haven't in a long, long time. Certainly Ohio is the key. Again, he's ahead of a very popular governor we see in the polls. My sense is that Donald...

This is already the most fascinating Republican presidential primary campaign since the fabled Ford-Reagan fight of 1976, But at the moment it looks like it won't turn out as well from the establishment's perspective. Back then, the establishment managed to put their candidate over the top against his right-wing challenger. That's not likely to happen this year. That's because the Ford-Reagan race was essentially a two-man race. But the Trump-Rubio-Cruz race has three men in it. One is likely to keep getting around a third of the vote while the other two split up most of the remainder. The hope...

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Progressives angry about the extensive amount of free, sympathetic coverage Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gets on Fox News may have found an unlikely ally in former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich. During Monday's episode of Fox & Friends, Gingrich took the hosts to task for giving Trump a massive platform to spread his views -- likely referring to the network's wall-to-wall coverage of his campaign as well as Fox & Friends' regularly scheduled Monday segments featuring Trump as a pundit, which ran from 2011 to 2015. "This time the billionaire is spending the least amount of money and running...

Why would Ted Cruz, who has a well-stocked campaign, more delegates than Marco Rubio, and a strong ground game, give that up for a snowball's chance at a SCOTUS confirmation? Following the Donald Trump blowout in South Carolina, pundits are calling for Ted Cruz to get out of the GOP presidential race to make room for Marco Rubio, even though Cruz won Iowa, came in third in New Hampshire, and essentially tied with Rubio in South Carolina. The reasoning is sound if you don't want a Trump nomination. As long as Rubio and Cruz are in the race, they'll split...

If you think the arguments between the Republican candidates have been bad, well, you ain't seen nothing yet. Pundits, reporters and political analysts are going to really have at it. Two competing theories about the Republican race are about to come to a head, and both of them can claim a victory of sorts after South Carolina. The first theory is simple. It can be summarized in one word: Trump! The more detailed version would argue the following: * Trump has easily won two of the first three states. * Trump is ahead in the polls in pretty much every...

An aide to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's (R) likely presidential campaign resigned late Tuesday night just a day after her hire was announced. Liz Mair, who was a digital strategist for Walker, came under a storm of criticism for her advocacy for some relatively liberal policy positions and colorful tweets that critics claimed were insulting to Iowans. "In other news, I see Iowa is once again embarrassing itself, and the GOP, this morning. Thanks, guys," Mair wrote about a January event hosted by conservative Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), according to the Associated Press. "The sooner we remove Iowa's front-running status,...

Donald Trump comfortably defeated his Republican presidential rivals on Saturday in South Carolina's GOP primary. Trump's resounding victory isn't simply a boon to his prospects for winning the Republican presidential nomination, an outcome once thought impossible that is looking increasingly more plausible. It is also an embarrassing repudiation of conservative orthodoxy that has dominated Republican politics for decades. It suggests that the party's intellectual leaders, who organized the base around the National Review/Weekly Standard consensus -- small government, free trade, pro-Israel, deregulation, low taxes, social conservatism and an aggressive foreign policy -- have been generals of a phantom army. The...

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Well then, you must like losing your job to someone in Mexico who will make $3/hour. Union leaders at an air conditioner factory in Indianapolis threatened with losing 1,400 jobs to Mexico said on Tuesday the plants owner expects to pay Mexican workers $3 an hour compared to an average of more than $20 an hour for the U.S. workers. "We have not given up the fight yet," said Chuck Jones, president of the United Steelworkers union local that represents workers at the Carrier Corp plant. "But Carrier has pretty well indicated that the wage differential is too great and...

Is Trump losing his one big lead in South Carolina? Just days before the South Carolina primary, some polls have shown Trump's once-huge lead in Palmetto State is shrinking. But now, hours before voters head to the polls, FOX Business' Charles Gasparino is hearing it from inside sources that both Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz are seeing surges in support. On Friday's show, Gasparino told Tom Sullivan the campaigns and the "big money" behind them are seeing private poll numbers that suggest both Republican Senators may do better than the pundits expect and even top Donald Trump....

Link only due to copyright issues: http://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2016/02/19/republican-presidential-candidate-marco-rubio-stays-indiana-ballot-commission-rules/80607168/

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. -- Speaking just six miles apart on Friday morning, Donald J. Trump and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas renewed their bitter personal feud, while their supporters echoed the candidates' language and themes - a sign that the bitterness between the two men has now seeped deeply into the feelings of voters. Mr. Trump called Mr. Cruz "the biggest liar I've ever seen," a line he has been pushing all week. Trump supporters, some of whom said they had once considered supporting the Texas senator, largely agreed with Mr. Trump's harsh assessment. "I'm very disappointed in Ted Cruz...

Ted Cruz has pinned his hopes on a big showing in the South. He could still do it, but it's far from certain It's taken a while for the chattering classes to come around to the idea that Donald Trump may actually pull this thing off. It's hard to blame them. It's as if we all went to sleep one night and woke up in an alternate universe. But they do seem to have accepted it. He came close to winning Iowa, a notoriously buttoned up electorate, and won decisively in New Hampshire. All the polling going forward looks good....

Conservative radio host Glenn Beck has taken to his blog to clarify comments about 2016 presidential candidate Ted Cruz he made on Monday’s show. The comments came amid a discussion about who Beck thought would be the right fit for the White House in 2016. This led to the surprising quote where Beck said of Sen. Cruz, “I’m not sure he could govern.” Of course, Beck has long been a supporter of Cruz, so he wrote a clarification Tuesday morning entitled “Shocker: Media takes Glenn’s comments about Ted Cruz completely out of context.” Here’s a quick excerpt: As we were...

Noah already wrote a policy rebuttal to Paul’s position, which Paul elaborated on this afternoon in a new op-ed at Time. (The op-ed, unlike his tweets, doesn’t mention Rubio by name. Although it does approvingly cite … George W. Bush?) Anyone want to make the case that the politics of attacking Rubio on this issue were smart, at least? I can’t figure out why Rand would do it. When I tweeted out my surprise a few hours ago, a dozen people tweeted back, “Maybe Paul’s just saying what he really believes.” No doubt. But the thing that distinguishes Rand from...

SPARTANBURG, S.C. -- Ted Cruz's campaign is trying to make the most of Gov. Nikki Haley's endorsement of Marco Rubio days ahead of the South Carolina primary: driving sky-high his political expectations here. "If he doesn't finish first, this is a massive loss," Jason Miller, a senior Cruz adviser, said hours after news reports began circulating that Haley would endorse Rubio at a rally Wednesday evening. "Rubio has to win here." Earlier this week, Jeb Bush had called Haley's endorsement "the most powerful, meaningful one in the state." Haley's backing of Rubio comes on top of the support of Sen....

According to reports, Presidential candidate U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was slated to receive Tuesday afternoon the endorsement of the head of the nation's largest pro-Israel PAC. Jewish Insider broke the news Tuesday morning that the Texas senator, who is campaigning in South Carolina ahead of that state's Republican presidential primary on Saturday, will receive Dr. Ben Chouake's backing. Chouake is president of NORPAC, a nonpartisan political action committee whose primary purpose is to support candidates and sitting members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives who demonstrate a genuine commitment to the strength, security and survival of Israel....