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Sinn Féin has emerged as the biggest party in Northern Ireland following the local government elections—but the DUP has claimed the greater number of council seats. The republican party claimed 24.1% of all first preference votes with the DUP on 23.1%. Both parties, however, saw their share of the vote slip with the DUP down by 4.1% and Sinn Féin marginally down by 0.7%. …

**SNIP** Dan Rogers, a voter in Boise, told KTVB he went to his 18th district polling location right as the polls opened and wanted to vote as a Republican. Rogers says he is currently unaffiliated and wanted to affiliate the day of the election. "So [the poll worker] sent me over to the voter registration table, and when I was there, a couple of the workers consulted, and I was informed that I was unable to vote in the primary for the Republicans unless I had been a declared member of the party since March 20," Rogers said. Rogers says...

A Texas gun store has put up a new sign that is grabbing people’s attention. “I like my guns like Obama likes his voters: Undocumented,” the Tactical Firearms sign states. The store’s owner, Jeremy Alcede, says the sign is meant to be looked at as a joke.

**SNIP** Those Frontline members, with their Rothenberg Political Report/Roll Call race ratings, are: •Rep. Ron Barber of Arizona (Tossup) •Rep. John Barrow of Georgia (Leans Democratic) •Rep. Patrick Murphy (Leans Democratic) •Rep. Nick J. Rahall, II of West Virginia (Tossup) •Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (Democrat Favored)

About four in 10 Republicans and Republican-leaning independents classify themselves as supporters of the Tea Party, while 11% are opponents and 48% are neither. This continues to be a significant drop from the Tea Party's high-water mark in November 2010, when 61% of Republicans were supporters of the Tea Party.

The House of Representatives will vote today, Tuesday, at 5 pm on whether to hold former head of tax exempt groups at the IRS Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress. Lerner was voted in contempt by the House Oversight Committee back in April after failing to answer questions from lawmakers. Many argue Lerner waived her Fifth Amendment rights last year because she made an opening statement declaring her innocence before claiming she wanted to remain silent.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist flaunted actress Eva Longoria's endorsement Tuesday, as he runs for his former office against Gov. Rick Scott. On Monday, Longoria's the Latino Victory project, a political action group that was close to raising about $5 million this cycle, announced it was backing Crist. "Blessed to receive the endorsement of Eva Longoria and the Latino Victory Project," Crist tweeted Tuesday morning. "Welcome to Team Charlie, Eva."

[SNIP]...Let's first consider the situation in which we find ourselves. Once again this year, the two parties that dominate our politics will conduct parallel campaigns aimed at two distinct subsets of Americans, rather than engaging in any actual debate. One side will scream about liberal overreach and the other will scream about conservative greed and bigotry, and whoever arouses the most passion in their most reliable voters (generally the party out of power at the moment) will probably win.

The Republican-controlled House will hold a contempt vote next Thursday on embattled former IRS supervisor Lois Lerner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor says. If the legislators vote to hold Lerner in contempt, it will be the most serious step taken by lawmakers in the controversy surrounding the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative, tea party and religious groups.

A month ago an audit of voter registration rolls in North Carolina found 150,000 duplicates in other states and 35,000 duplicate ballots cast by these registrants. This week it was disclosed that 44,000 persons are registered to vote in both Virginia and Maryland. While only 164 of these voters were confirmed to have cast ballots in both states during the 2012 November election, the continued insistence by Democrats that this type of vote fraud isn’t worthy of further investigation is not reassuring. US Attorney General Eric Holder maintained his stance that “this is much ado about nothing. The election of...

....Graham, counter to the early prognostications of many, has quelled any potential threats from Tea Party insurgents and, two months ahead of the Republican primary, is cruising to a third term in the Senate -- still gleefully tackling those controversial topics that might have made him vulnerable in the first place. Graham is in this position by no accident. Wary of other incumbents who have not prepared for competitive re-election campaigns and lost, Graham and his campaign team have spent the intervening years raising money and shoring up support among South Carolina's political class -- all but guaranteeing Graham's path...

Unlike other polls which show a narrowing race, Quinnipiac University released a poll of registered voters Wednesday morning that finds former Gov. Charlie Crist, the leading Democratic gubernatorial candidate, with a solid lead over Republican Gov. Rick Scott.... The Q-poll relies, it should be pointed out, on a sample of 31 percent Democrats and 25 percent Republicans, an unusually low percentage of GOP voters in an off-year election..... "Florida voters think former Gov. Crist is more compassionate, more honest and trustworthy and was a better governor than Gov. Scott,” Brown said. “The difference may be simple: voters like Crist, whose...

Inside the long-awaited package, six pages of government paperwork dryly affirmed Carol Tapanila's anxious request. But when Tapanila slipped the contents from the brown envelope, she saw there was something more. "We the people...." declared the script inside her U.S. passport — now with four holes punched through it from cover to cover. Her departure from life as an American was stamped final on the same page: "Bearer Expatriated Self." With the envelope's arrival, Tapanila, a native of upstate New York who has lived in Canada since 1969, joined a largely overlooked surge of Americans rejecting what is, to millions,...

U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk says he'll now campaign for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Jim Oberweis, weeks after saying he wouldn't actively campaign for the dairy magnate. Last month, Kirk said he'd support Oberweis, but wouldn't campaign with the state senator from Sugar Grove so he could protect his relationship with Sen. Dick Durbin, a Chicago Democrat. But during a stop in Quincy on Tuesday, Kirk told the Illinois Radio Network (http://bit.ly/1eIrtRF ) he will campaign for Oberweis after all.

There hasn’t been a lot of polling in the South Carolina Republican Senate primary, but what polling there is shows Lindsay Graham ahead by 30%+ against potential challengers. But it may still be a challenge for Graham to get the 50% he needs in the primary to avoid a runoff, and generating a runoff in which all the anti-Graham vote could coalesce, has been the strategy all along.

The cities under consideration are: Atlanta; Chicago; Cleveland; Columbus, Ohio; Detroit; Indianapolis; Las Vegas; Miami; Nashville; New York; Orlando; Philadelphia; Phoenix; Pittsburgh and Salt Lake City.

Former Governor Charlie Crist went where few Democrats dare, a full endorsement of Obamacare Democratic gubernatorial candidate is doing something with his campaign that almost no other Democrat in America is willing to do: give a full-throated endorsement of the Affordable Care Act. Crist made an appearance at the Capital Tiger Bay Club and repeatedly called the ACA “great” during his lunch speech. Crist also took aim at attack ads against him being run by a political action committee backing Republican Governor Rick Scott.

by Brian Hayes | Top Right News Last month, Eric Holder’s Department of Justice went to court to battle two states to prevent them from verifying citizenship before voting -- before being slapped down by a Federal judge.Today we saw why they fought so hard:Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller says an illegal immigrant has been arrested on two felony charges for allegedly using a false identity to register to vote and casting ballots in two elections. Miller late Friday announced the arrest of Ortencia Segura in California.

Election-year memo to Democratic candidates: Don't talk about the economic recovery. It's a political loser.... Stan Greenberg, James Carville and others wrote that in head-to-head polling tests the mere mention of the word "recovery" is trumped by a Republican assertion that the Obama administration has had six years to get the economy moving and its policies haven't worked.

A dog is invited to vote in the European Parliament elections Zeus, an eight-year-old Rottweiler mix, was sent a polling card to vote in the upcoming elections for the European Parliament. The pup belongs to RussellHoyle of Norton, a village in north east England. Hoyle told The Evening Gazette, “I can remember when the people came round to do the census. I remember saying ‘There is myself and my wife. My son is not old enough to vote. We have got Zeus living here as well and he is 63 in dog years.’ When the polling card addressed to ‘Zeus...