Free Republic

Ballot Measure 2, the effort to repeal Alaska’s ranked choice voting and open primaries, was winning slightly as election results continued to come in early Wednesday, with about 93% of Alaska precincts counted. Wednesday results showed Ballot Measure 2 ahead by 4,703 votes, out of a total of more than 254,000 ballots cast. That’s a margin of about 2 percentage points. The other initiative on Alaska voters’ ballots, to increase the state’s minimum wage, appeared headed to victory, with a margin of 13 percentage points. Loren Leman, a former Republican lieutenant governor who worked with the campaign to repeal ranked...

Exit polls show Trump won Catholic vote by ‘massive margin’ of 15 pointsCatholicVote.org president Brian Burch said the poll numbers indicating Donald Trump’s large win among American Catholics are ‘shocking.’Catholics supported Donald Trump in the 2024 U.S. presidential election by a “massive margin” of 15 points — the largest in decades — according to exit polls.A Washington Post exit poll found that Trump outperformed Kamala Harris among American Catholics by 56 percent to 41 percent. An NBC exit poll similarly showed that Catholics voted for the president by a 15-point margin in 10 key swing states, with Trump receiving 56...

Her campaign pitch was moving, even high-minded. If Vice President Kamala Harris were elected to the White House, she would safeguard the ideals of a good nation. Voters had a choice, she said: democracy, constitutional rights and bedrock freedoms — or Donald J. Trump’s “chaos and division.” On Tuesday, the nation replied. The answer from more than half of voters seemed to dismiss warnings that Mr. Trump was a threat to principles on which the country had been founded. Abstract truths mattered less, voters said, than tangible issues, like the ability to pay rent or concerns over border crossings. In...

Terry Bradshaw's family hasn't been shy about where it stands politically. The legendary NFL quarterback has made it clear where he stands politically over the years. Bradshaw, 76, grew up in Louisiana and starred in the NFL for the Pittsburgh Steelers, winning four Super Bowls. The Hall of Fame quarterback now works for FOX as an NFL analyst on the pregame and postgame shows. Bradshaw, who has been taking heat for his performances this season, doesn't seem to have any plans on retiring. Bradshaw, meanwhile, has made it clear that he considers himself to be an independent voter. However, his...

Colorado, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon rebuffed efforts to adopt ranked-choice voting in their future elections, dealing a setback to a group of wealthy donors who wanted to dramatically change how Americans choose their elected officials. The one bright spot for advocates of ranked-choice voting was the District, where a referendum was approved by a wide margin. Under this system, voters rank their top choices in elections. If the top vote-getter wins a majority, the election is decided in their favor. But if no candidates get a majority, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated. Voters whose top choice are...

The Gavel outside the Supreme Court of the State of Ohio. (Photo by Graham Stokes for Ohio Capital Journal. Republish photo only with original article.) Ohio Republicans have tightened their grip on the Ohio Supreme Court from 4-3 to 6-1 by ousting two incumbent Democratic justices and winning a third, open seat, the Associated Press projects based on unofficial results. Results remain unofficial until they are certified by local county boards of elections and the Ohio Secretary of State. The Ohio Supreme Court will rule on a variety of issues that affect the daily lives of Ohioans ranging from education...

States with less than 95% of the vote counted at the moment as reported on RCP: California 58% Arizona 65% Utah 66% Washington 66% Alaska 71% Oregon 73% Mississipi 77% Colorado 79% Maryland 82% Hawaii 87% Nevada 90% New Jersey 91% Maine 92% Illinois 92% Connecticut 93% Montana 93% Massachusetts 94% DC 94% New York 94%

Republican Rep. Jen Kiggans won reelection to a U.S. House seat representing Virginia on Wednesday, defeating Democratic challenger Missy Cotter Smasal. Both women had served in the U.S. Navy: Kiggans is a former Navy helicopter pilot, and Cotter Smasal was a surface warfare officer. Virginia’s 2nd District is home to Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach and is adjacent to the country’s largest naval base in Norfolk. Democrat Joe Biden narrowly carried the district in 2020. Kiggans defeated Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria in 2022 after redistricting made the seat slightly more favorable to the GOP. The Associated Press declared...

The 2024 presidential election was decided on Tuesday night, as former President Donald Trump won re-election to begin his second term in office. Trump won after years of unsubstantiated claims that the 2020 election was unfairly stolen from him in a variety of different ways. He claimed that outsiders from other countries meddled in the election, and that some states and cities were illegally counting votes. These claims were debunked or otherwise proven to be false, but one popular sports radio host is calling out the president-elect for his sudden change of heart when it comes to free and fair...

Elections forecaster Allan Lichtman took a swipe at fellow prognosticator Nate Silver on Wednesday while admitting he was wrong in predicting Vice President Harris would win the presidency. “Unlike Nate Silver, who will try to squirm out of why he didn’t see the election coming, I admit that I was wrong,” Lichtman wrote on the social platform X, adding that he “will assess the election and the keys,” in an upcoming online live show. His comments come after former President Trump was declared the winner early Wednesday. A historian and American University professor, who has correctly predicted nearly every presidential...

Women have been taking to social media urging others to boycott men. Millions of Americans were glued to the TV on the night of November 5 as they watched in shock as Trump pulled off a jaw-dropping political comeback and regained his seat in the White House. Now, women across the country are showcasing their frustration at the result of the election by taking to social media and giving themselves a buzzcut while boycotting men and refusing to get romantically involved with them.

San Francisco 49ers defensive end Nick Bosa made waves two weeks ago when he crashed teammate Brock Purdy's postgame interview on Sunday Night Football wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat. Asked by reporters after the game if he wanted to discuss his endorsement of Donald Trump, Bosa declined. The 2022 NFL Defensive Player of the Year could still possibly face a fine from the league for violating its policy against making political statements, but when approached by reporters today following Trump's election victory Tuesday, Bosa was not sweating that possibility. “It was well worth it," Bosa said about potentially...

It may take a while for analysts to fully quantify the factors that led to Donald Trump being elected the 47th President of the United States on Tuesday. But former All-Pro quarterback Boomer Esiason believes that one person was the "biggest" factor to his win. An "X-factor" if you will. On Wednesday's edition of Boomer & Gio, Esiason stated that the "biggest mover" that Trump had in the entire election was Elon Musk due to Musk's ownership of X and aggressive use of the platform to magnify Trump's messaging. While Esiason wouldn't make a judgment whether the information was accurate...

PENN HILLS, Pa. — A little girl was sent to the hospital after she was hit in the head by a rock while trick-or-treating in Penn Hills. According to police paperwork, a mother and her 5-year-old daughter had just left a house on Dorothy Drive when the mother felt something hit her back. When she turned around, she saw a man pick up another fist-sized rock and throw it. The second rock struck her daughter in the head. Channel 11 spoke off-camera to a woman at the home the pair had just left. She described the throw as hard and...

'This is a mandate. He's won the national popular vote for the Republicans for the first time since 2004. This is a big deal. 'This isn't backing into the office. This is a mandate to do what you said you were going to do: get the economy working again for regular working-class Americans, fix immigration, try to get crime under control, try to reduce the chaos in the world. 'This is a mandate from the American people to do that. I'm interpreting the results tonight as revenge of just the regular old working-class American, the anonymous American who has been...

Germany's governing coalition is in crisis after Chancellor Olaf Scholz fired a key minister and said he would call a vote of confidence in his government early next year. Scholz said he had no trust in Finance Minister Christian Lindner, who leads a rival party that has been part of the coalition along with Scholz's Social Democrats and the Greens. The move means Scholz's government no longer has a majority in parliament. The confidence vote could lead to early elections by March. The so-called "traffic light" coalition led by the chancellor has governed Germany since 2021.

Ward previously criticized Biden for his debate performance in JuneFormer NFL star defensive back T.J. Ward appeared happy with election results after Fox News projected Donald Trump had defeated Vice President Kamala Harris for the presidency. Ward, a Super Bowl champion and three-time Pro Bowler, wrote his take on X. "I’m so glad we done with this Kamala foolery lmao," he wrote. "Sometimes you have to protect the fools from themselves. "At the end of the day America voted for America and the people put her in the hands of the most qualified candidate. Be mad if you want to....

After refusing to concede Tuesday evening, Kamala Harris showed up late to her own concession speech at Howard University Wednesday afternoon. I've never looked forward to hearing her speak — ever — but today I did. So I was more than a bit annoyed that she was nearly twenty minutes late. Be that as it may, it was quite the show. Tim Walz looked like he was in tears, which certainly fit the bill. Kamala Harris’s concession speech was a blend of the obligatory humble platitudes but included its fair share of pointed, bitter undertones, making it hard to discern...

SNIP That was why, of all the big shocks during Election Night, the hard shift of Latino voters to Donald Trump did not surprise me in the least. The speed at which it came to pass may have surprised me, but the fact it happened did not. Ever since Trump did better with Latino voters in 2020 — after he called Mexicans drug dealers, rapists and criminals in 2016 — I’ve been cognizant of this shift. And I’ve spent a lot of time trying to work out what’s behind it, particularly when it comes to Latino men. The warning signs...

A new migrant caravan departed Mexico’s southern border in an attempt to reach the U.S. border before the arrival of a new Trump administration. Mexican immigration officials stood by as the caravan departed while police forces escorted them. On Tuesday morning, approximately 2,500 migrants departed from Tapachula, Chiapas, on their way to Mexico City. As in the case of other caravans, once the migrants reach Mexico City, they are expected to disband as they find various ways of quickly reaching the U.S. border, such as commercial flights, passenger buses, or other vehicles. Due to the size of the caravan, Mexican...