Free Republic

Donald Trump was the clear favorite in today’s winner-take-all Arizona primary, even before the Brussels terrorist attacks. The immigration issue and the flood of early voters favors him, as does the fact that some of those early voters will have cast ballots for Marco Rubio before he dropped out last Tuesday night. If they had known Rubio would no longer be a candidate, many of those voters might have gone with Cruz. But polls have been tricky and often erratic this year (think Michigan and the surprise win of Bernie Sanders). For example, the latest poll showing a 14 point...

A 6-year-old girl was removed from the California home of the foster family she has lived with for four years because she has a tiny sliver of Native American heritage — despite resistance from her foster parents and their tens of thousands of supporters. Rusty and Summer Page of Santa Clarita, California, have long fought to gain custody of Lexi, 6, who is 1.56 percent Choctaw Native American. That figure means that Lexi's home placement is dictated by the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978. That law "seeks to keep American Indian children with American Indian families," according to its...

Political commentators noticed something interesting early on about Donald Trump's surprising sweep through the Republican primaries — the mogul seems to do better in states that let almost any voter help pick the party nominee, not just those registered to a party. In those open primaries, Trump has come out ahead in 13 out of 16 states. In states with closed primaries, Trump won only six out of 14 states. Overall, Trump has won closed states about half as often as he's won those open states. Both primaries in Utah and Arizona are "closed," meaning only registered Republicans can vote....

Three Mormon missionaries from Utah were among those seriously injured in Tuesday's terror attacks on Brussels. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints confirmed that the three — 66-year-old Richard Norby, of Lehi; Joseph Empey, 20, of Santa Clara; and Mason Wells, 19, of Sandy — were hurt when a suicide bomber struck the Belgian capital's airport.

Good morning, Utah & Arizona voters & those in American Samoa...too!!! Hope ya all got a good view of the massive Muslim terrorist attack that occurred in Brussels, Belgium this morning. Under attack, the American Airlines, check-in counter, the USA embassy, the EU & Nato headquarters, the major airport & two "Metro" stations in the politcal center of the city!!! I'll skip the dialogue....except to say Donald J. Trump is the only candidate that correctly has fingered the need to control immigrant entry into the USA. Brussels and all of Europe is in chaos...with much more "innocent" death and injury...

Ahead of resident Obama's historic visit, Castro's Cuba is more oppressive than ever. An Afro-Cuban dissident who spent time in Fidel Castro’s gulags, Oscar Biscet is one of many people that represent the real Cuba, the people who will be hidden from sight as resident Obama visits this week. While the resident basks in the Cuban sun and in photo-ops with its heavy-handed dictator, the fate and freedom of political resisters like Biscet remains grim. Biscet is free now in technical terms, but in reality, he remains among a cohort of dissenters who still live in an invisible prison: a...

AZ - 58 delegates (Winner Take All) UT - 40 delegates (Proportional, WTA > 50%)

Talk about political whiplash. Exactly one week ago, 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney -- in his effort to defeat Donald Trump -- campaigned in Ohio with John Kasich, telling the state's voters to cast ballots for their governor. "Unlike the other people running, he has a real track record," Romney said of Kasich. "He has the kind of record that you want in Washington, and that's why I'm convinced that you're going to do the right thing tomorrow." Today, however, Romney's voice appears on robocalls in Arizona and Utah, telling these voters to side with Ted Cruz -- and...

Tuesday, March 22, 2016107 of 2,472 delegates(98 bound)

The aversion to Donald Trump is so strong among Utah Mormons that if the Republican frontrunner secures the party’s presidential nomination, it could produce a general election outcome that has not happened in half a century: the state could go blue. “The Bible says if you’ve got a wicked leader, the nation suffers,” said Chris Herrod, a former Utah state representative and a Utah campaign coordinator for Ted Cruz. “I’m not saying Donald Trump is wicked, but for most Utahns, the moral character of a leader makes a big difference.” At the state’s high-stakes GOP caucuses on Tuesday, political experts...

John Kasich appears to have tapped into a special kind of madness. In the course of a single weekend, the Ohio Governor and presidential candidate’s public statements have only served to stoke confusion about what his actual end game is.First off, he’s campaigning in a state where he can’t possibly win. As CR’s Daniel Horowitz writes: Ted Cruz is polling just above the 50% mark in Utah, the threshold needed to win all of the state’s 40 delegates this upcoming Tuesday.  Yet, John Kasich, who has no chance of winning a single remaining state, much less the nomination, is trying...

Smartmatic Group, an electronic voting firm whose worldwide headquarters is located in the United Kingdom, will be running the online balloting process in the Utah Republican Open Caucuses on Tuesday. The chairman of Smartmatic’s board, Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, currently serves on the board of George Soros’s Open Society Foundation and has close ties to the billionaire. The Wall Street Journal dubbed the Republican party’s online adventure on Tuesday as “one of the biggest online votes conducted so far in the U.S.” and the “largest experiment with online presidential voting since 2004, when Michigan allowed Democrats to vote in a party...

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Governor Gary Herbert endorsed Sen. Ted Cruz for president Monday morning. Herbert confirmed his endorsement for Cruz at a signing for H.B. 27 – a bill that adds an “In God We Trust” license plate as one of the standard options available to Utah residents.

Two more states vote on Tuesday, Utah and Arizona. After Donald Trump's big win last week, many might expect him to win big here, too. That might happen in Arizona, but don't bet on the Donald winning Utah. Trump leads the polls in Arizona, the biggest remaining winner-take-all state in the GOP primary -- with 58 delegates up for grabs. Arizona has a closed primary, however, which means that only registered Republicans can vote -- a style that has tended to help Ted Cruz. Word on the ground in the state gives Cruz and Trump nearly equal odds of winning....

A Brigham Young University Islamic studies professor and an ISU professor who practices Islam said there are a lot of misconceptions about the law. . . . BYU Islamic studies professor Daniel Peterson tells Local News 8/KIDK that while the Mormon and Muslim religions are very different there are similarities. The idea behind Shariah is somewhat like the Word of Wisdom put out by the Mormon Church. It's a moral code. Unlike Shariah, the Word of Wisdom does not have a capital punishment extension as Shariah does. Peterson said when people say that all Muslims are associated with ISIS it's...

(CNN)One year ago this week, Ted Cruz became the first of 17 candidates to argue that he could unite the Republican Party behind him. Now, he has his a chance to prove it. On the anniversary of a presidential launch that knew nothing of a man by the name of Donald Trump, contests and converts won of late will offer the clearest signal yet of whether he can indeed consolidate the anti-Trump movement and eventually defeat the billionaire front-runner. Cruz is favored to win this Tuesday's caucuses in Utah and is hopeful of sweeping the state's 40 delegates by eclipsing...

Mitt Romney has recorded robocalls for Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz  97% ahead of Arizona’s primary and Utah’s caucuses on Tuesday, The Daily Caller has learned. The Cruz campaign says the robocalls were dropped in Arizona today and will go out in Utah tomorrow. “Hello, this is Mitt Romney,” the robocalls begin. “And I’m calling to ask you to join me in supporting Ted Cruz for president this Tuesday in the Utah Republican caucuses. This is the time for Republicans across the spectrum to unite behind Ted. He is the only Republican candidate who can defeat Donald Trump, and...

The odds of him actually losing Utah in the general election after many months of party honchos preaching unity are small, I think, but that’s not really the takeaway here. The takeaway is that Trump, who’s supposed to “expand the map” by attracting independents and Reagan Democrats in blue states, will begin the race needing to shore up support in red ones that are supposed to be gimmes for the Republican nominee. Winning New Hampshire doesn’t matter if you’re losing Utah. And if you’re spending time and money trying to hold Utah, that’s time and money you’re not spending...

Smartmatic Group, an electronic voting firm whose worldwide headquarters is located in the United Kingdom, will be running the online balloting process in the Utah Republican Open Caucuses on Tuesday. The chairman of Smartmatic’s board, Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, currently serves on the board of George Soros’s Open Society Foundation and has close ties to the billionaire.

Smartmatic Group, an electronic voting firm whose worldwide headquarters is located in the United Kingdom, will be running the online balloting process in the Utah Republican Open Caucuses on Tuesday. The chairman of Smartmatic’s board, Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, currently serves on the board of George Soros’s Open Society Foundation and has close ties to the billionaire. The Wall Street Journal dubbed the Republican party’s online adventure on Tuesday as “one of the biggest online votes conducted so far in the U.S.” and the “largest experiment with online presidential voting since 2004, when Michigan allowed Democrats to vote in a party caucus via...