Free Republic

DONALD TRUMP was jubilant. “Great news for the Republican Party”, he wrote on Truth Social on August 5th, one day after the Democratic Senate primary in Michigan. Abdul El-Sayed, a leftist insurgent and former public-health official, had just eked out a one-percentage-point win over Haley Stevens, a congresswoman backed by most of her party’s establishment. Archived link

National Republicans are rallying around a complete political unknown who stunned the party by winning a Michigan congressional primary over President Trump’s hand-picked candidate. Thomas Smith, a retired GM engineer who sells salsa that retails at Flint farmer’s markets, spent virtually nothing yet convincingly beat Trump-backed Amir Hassan — a US Navy vet and former federal law enforcement officer who raised $727,000. “He’s just as shocked as everyone was on election night,” a Smith campaign consultant told The Post. “He understands that this was not expected, but he also understands that people have spoken.” Smith won 50.4% of the vote...

The most interesting race in California may be Gloria Romero’s run for the oft-ignored position of Lieutenant Governor. What makes this race different is that Romero is a different kind of Republican whose background constitutes a vigorous challenge to the standard-brand Democrat, Treasurer Fiona Ma. Romero is a 71-year-old Republican — but also a former Democratic State Senate majority leader and onetime leftist firebrand. Republican National Committeeman Shawn Steel calls her nomination “the most important development for the California GOP in a generation.”

Non-college voters, the base of the MAGA movement, are abandoning the GOP. MAGA's net favorability is -22 pts (down 28 pts) with them. Trump's now at -19 pt net approval with them. Dems actually lead in the race for Congress with them. This is what blue waves are built on. ...

An online debate about the cost of food has erupted among GOP conservatives after Andrew Kolvet’s viral tweet regarding a college student’s complaint that “A burrito shouldn’t cost $20.” There was no shortage of feedback. Pundit Marc Thiessen encouraged students to economize like he did as a young person and to lean into prepaid cafeteria meals. This prompted an acidic reply from Vice President JD Vance, who posted on X, “If you’ve ever met (Thiessen) in person, it’s quite obvious the man has never missed a burrito.”

California Assembly Republicans ousted Heath Flora as their leader Monday, one day after the California Post revealed that the Central Valley lawmaker is facing two state ethics investigations and spent more than $11,000 in campaign money at a Sacramento dive bar. Assemblywoman Alexandra Macedo, a first-term Republican from Tulare who served in Flora’s leadership team, was selected to replace him as minority leader, according to sources with knowledge of the situation. The sudden shake-up ended Flora’s rocky tenure atop the Republican caucus less than a year after he took over the job.

Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) and Sen. Darline Graham (R-S.C.) lead in the latest polling on the South Carolina Republican Senate primary, with both vying to serve a full six-year term following former Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-S.C.) sudden death. A new Emerson College poll released Thursday found Norman had 22 percent support, followed by Graham with 19 percent support. ... Norman’s biggest support comes from voters younger than 50, at 24 percent, and in their 50s, at 25 percent. Thirty percent of Graham’s supporters are older than 70. But 53 percent of voters said President Trump’s endorsement of Graham did not...

Speaker Mike Johnson's latest bid to skirt Democrats’ opposition to an election integrity bill backed by President Donald Trump survived a key hurdle on Monday evening. The Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act has faced significant headwinds in Congress despite having Trump’s full-throated support. While it passed the House, the legislation has struggled in the Senate where at least several Democratic votes are needed to break a filibuster and advance to final passage. But the new plan by Johnson, R-La., which would allow key parts of the bill to skirt Democrats entirely, is one step closer to getting a...

A new agriculture bill just dropped in the House of Representatives. It features: Granting amnesty to illegal aliens present in the United States as of May 31, 2026, who meet minimal agricultural work history requirements. How many illegal aliens will claim to be agriculture workers?

Republicans returned to Washington on Monday night in an increasingly dour mood about the state of their party: Growing fears of a November wipeout. A Middle East war with no end in sight. A feeling of loss after the sudden death of their longtime colleague Lindsey Graham. Now, with President Donald Trump’s attention focused on Capitol Hill for what could be the party’s final legislative sprint before the midterms, a restless House Speaker Mike Johnson is racing to reverse Republicans’ political fortunes. Johnson is privately pushing a major legislative push centered on Pentagon funding, cutting government fraud and a new...

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt isn’t thrilled with her generation. In a recent interview with Fox News’ Jesse Watters, she agreed that her fellow Zoomers are lazy and entitled. “This generation, my generation, I hate to say it, Gen Z and those younger than me have been raised with just silver spoons in their mouths,” she told the Fox News host. She added that they’ve been given everything and are completely ungrateful for those privileges. She even thinks some of them need to be sent to Cuba or Iran to straighten up. The comments didn’t land well on social...

The Democratic Party is at war with itself — and in Maine, the fight has spilled into the open. Graham Platner, an alleged rapist with a Nazi tattoo on his chest, won the Democratic nomination for United States Senate last month, beating the candidate the party establishment had recruited by a commanding 53-point margin. For months, Republicans and others had warned that Platner was unfit for the job. The Democrats did not care. As soon as party leaders saw polling that suggested he could beat Republican Sen. Susan Collins in November they embraced him, hosting him in Washington, DC, and...

Several Republicans said they spoke with Senator Mitch McConnell this week, who remains hospitalized after being admitted on June 14. The comments from Senate Majority Leader Thune, Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, and Republican strategist Scott Jennings are the first to shed any light on McConnell’s condition since his hospitalization last month. McConnell’s office has so far only released very limited information, which has fueled speculation about his diagnosis and condition online. Jennings described a 20-minute call with the 84-year-old Kentucky Republican in which he said they discussed several key political issues.

The public has received few details surrounding Sen. Mitch McConnell’s health condition after he was admitted into the hospital two weeks ago. A spokesperson for McConnell’s office did not have any updated information regarding the Kentucky senator’s health to share as of Monday. McConnell, 84, was hospitalized June 14, but his staff did not give details about his condition at the time, other than to say he was receiving “excellent care.” During the Republican Party of Kentucky’s Lincoln Day Dinner in Lexington June 20, Rep. Andy Barr told reporters after the event that he’d exchanged text messages with McConnell, saying...

RIPON, Wis. — As the United States marks its 250th anniversary this weekend, a one-room schoolhouse in Ripon stands as the birthplace of the Republican Party and a reminder of Wisconsin's place in the nation's political history. The Little White Schoolhouse, about 60 miles northeast of Madison, commemorates a meeting held March 20, 1854, when opponents of the Kansas-Nebraska Act gathered to organize against the expansion of slavery. "It was really cold and it was a blizzard," said Ellen Sorensen, the interim executive director of the Little White Schoolhouse. "It was a three-point objection," Sorensen said. "There was a moral...

MANY VIDEO CLIPS AT LINK..................... =================================================================== MAGA isn’t perfect. And JD Vance’s latest comments prove that he and President Trump can see some of the issues bubbling to the surface. ‘ JD Vance made a very simple point during his interview with Megyn Kelly, and it’s something a lot of people on the right probably needed to hear. Politics isn’t an emotional support system. It’s messy, frustrating, imperfect, and full of moments where leaders you voted for will do something you don’t like. That’s totally normal and part of the process, like it or not. And yes, when President Trump...

The Florida GOP may just be the most wretched in the nation, and that’s saying quite a bit—Arizona GOP, I’m looking at you. Now admittedly, I don’t live in Florida, but the news coming out of the Sunshine state about how they’re scheming to protect Byron Donalds, an objectively bad candidate (but the preferred pick of the establishment), is really quite disgraceful. (Some rumors suggest Donalds’s protected candidacy has Susie Wiles’s fingerprints on it.) First off, the Florida GOP schemed to exclude major contender James Fishback from a debate with Donalds—they don’t want the voters to know how bad Donalds...

Subtraction, not addition, is emerging as the central threat to Republicans in the 2026 election. Polls suggest that’s a greater danger for the GOP than the possibility that Democrats will add a big cache of new votes... “When both parties are viewed negatively, you are probably going not to see a lot of new voters,” said Texas-based GOP strategist Matt Mackowiak, with a view widely shared on both sides. Instead, this year’s result could turn on which side suffers greater falloff among the voters who backed it in 2024. And all signs so far indicate that Republicans now face the...

To some extent, Mohamed Hussein knew he was preparing to enter the lion’s den. But he made the decision to attend the Republican Party of Texas Convention to confirm for himself that he had a place in the GOP, even as members of the party have railed for months about the urgency of ending Sharia Law and the so-called “Islamification” of Texas. What he found was a party that didn’t want him. He arrived with hope but left in tears after being told explicitly that he should leave the country. Hussein was among at least four Muslims who arrived at...

DALLAS - Texas Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton said that Dallas will host his party's midterm convention later this year. What we know: Paxton said Dallas will host the GOP midterm in September during a tele-town hall on Tuesday. Paxton said he anticipates Trump coming to the midterm to help him campaign in his Senate race with Democrat James Talarico. What we don't know: We don't know the dates that the midterm convention would be, or what venue would host it. The backstory: Sources confirmed in March that the Republican Party is exploring a national convention for the midterm elections,...