Free Republic

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,...

Randall’s supporters were animated by a mix of factors, including the perception that George was too friendly to establishment Republicans.Republican Party of Texas Vice Chair D’rinda Randall became the party’s new leader Friday after defeating her former running mate, incumbent Chair Abraham George, shaking up the top of the state’s majority party ahead of the fall midterm elections. Randall, who first became involved in GOP politics nearly two decades ago, campaigned on her accomplishments as the party’s second-in-command during the last two years, touting financial wins like the return of certain convention corporate sponsors and her support for grassroots...

In the thick of another high-stakes election year, GOP voters are sending a clear message that cuts through the noise of legacy media chatter. It even transcends far more serious pocketbook worries.AdvertisementA new national survey reveals that Republicans are firmly commited to President Donald J. Trump, rooted in his record on issues that reach beyond dollars and cents. This data was gathered by the Democracy Institute in partnership with me, as host of the current events show News Sight and author of the finance newsletter Dr. Cotto’s Digest.The poll spotlights a GOP base that stands rock-solid even as broader national...

Politico continues its dogged faux “reporting” to create a narrative that Democrats are a lock to control the U.S. Senate in 2026. Which gives me a great opening to make one of my periodic updates on some of the crucial Senate races. The Republicans have a 53 to 47-seat majority in the Senate. There are 35 seats up for grabs in 2026. The Democrats need a net pick up of four seats to win control.The central problem for the Democrats is that only two Republican seats – Maine and North Carolina – are in competitive states. The other 20 GOP...

Rep. Thomas Kean Jr., R-N.J., has now confirmed an illness has kept him from voting on Capitol Hill since March 5 and says he plays to return to Washington, D.C., soon. However, neither he nor others have disclosed the details of his condition. In an interview with the New Jersey Globe, Kean said that in the next couple of weeks he will return to voting in the House and hit the campaign trail. “My doctors are confident that I’m on the road to a full recovery,” he also told the newspaper. Kean said the illness doesn't impact his cognitive health,...

In a Republican-led Congress defined by deference to President Donald Trump, there's a small but steadily growing cohort who have found themselves more willing to break with the White House. Although the president maintains a firm grip on Republican voters, the expanding club could hinder his agenda on everything from the Iran war to immigration funding at a moment when his party holds a tenuous majority on Capitol Hill. Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana is the newest member of the club. Just days after losing his primary to a Trump-backed challenger, Cassidy on Tuesday reversed himself on legislation involving the...

1. Voted against NDAA provisions for indefinite detention without trial. 2. Opposed FISA Section 702 reauthorizations lacking warrant requirements. 3. Sponsored amendments to defund NSA warrantless surveillance programs. 4. Cosponsored legislation to end bulk phone record collection by NSA. 5. Voted against Cyber Intelligence Sharing bills expanding corporate data sharing with government. 6. Introduced Surveillance Accountability Act requiring warrants for many searches. 7. Pushed for warrants on backdoor searches of Americans’ data. 8. Opposed weakening encryption standards for surveillance. 9. Cosponsored LIBERT-E Act for FISA court transparency. 10. Voted against Patriot Act extensions. 11. Sponsored bill to repeal parts of...

President Donald Trump will not control the Republican Party forever. No political figure does... History is littered with figures who seemed immovable — until they moved. The question is never whether change will come. The question is whether honorable people are ready when it does. We intend to be ready. What does that mean in practice? It means identifying and supporting candidates, at every level of government, but most importantly a candidate for President in 2028, who hold genuine conservative values rather than merely pay lip service to them. It means building a coalition of Republicans who understand that winning...

The conventional liberal take on the Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v. Callais to limit the use of race in drawing congressional districts is that it is a defeat for minority political influence… But the fact that it will no longer be permitted doesn’t mean that Black voters will necessarily have less influence. They could even have more. The key to understanding why is the tried-and-true power of the swing voter… The alternative to race-based districts, after all, is those that are “geographically compact”—in which the shared concerns of neighbors about their communities are at issue. Those could include race-related...

In 2024, President Donald Trump won the White House buoyed by historic support among Hispanic voters, diversifying the GOP’s coalition and flipping Democratic strongholds like South Texas. Two years later, a crop of Hispanic Republican candidates in Texas will aim to solidify Trump’s gains in defiance of the midterm headwinds facing the GOP this fall. The balance of the U.S. House could turn on whether they succeed... As many as four of the five Democratic seats targeted by GOP redistricting could feature Hispanic GOP nominees, while two of Democrats’ top targets will be defended by Hispanic Republican candidates. In all...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — Tennessee lawmakers in the House of Representatives have passed the bill that will split Memphis along new congressional lines. Memphis will be split into three congressional districts per the new map, which passed in the Tennessee General Assembly’s special session on redistricting Thursday, May 7. Democrats in the state house have railed against the push to redraw congressional lines outside of the decennial census, calling the move a “grave, grave rollback of rights” for Black Tennesseans and especially for Memphians. The proposed new map, only released to the public about 24 hours before they passed the...

A generational and structural shift is decoupling Black identity from Democratic Party loyalty, transforming a once-reliable voting bloc into a cohort of "political free agents" that the GOP is uniquely positioned to exploit.

Ever since the Never Trumpers left the Republican Party and rushed into the arms, politically and financially, of the Democrats, it's been pretty clear that all the "conserving conservatism" talk was a smokescreen. They wanted to run the Republican Party, and when they were rebuffed, they exited to grift off the Democrats. I wrote about Jeb!'s former communications director now embracing Hasan Piker and Nick Fuentes because he wants to preserve "democracy" against Donald Trump, and we all know that David French, who ran into the arms of The New York Times, argued that the best way to fight abortions...

SAYRE, Okla. (KOKH) — Oklahoma Senate Candidate Barry Christian, 54, was found dead on Thursday after he was declared missing, according to multiple reports. On Thursday afternoon, officials with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation confirmed that Christian's truck had been found in a rural area on the side of the road, south of Erick. A short time later, Christian's daughter told Sinclair Broadcast Group that a body was discovered inside the truck.

State lawmakers on Wednesday passed redrawn congressional lines that create an additional four GOP-leaning seats in Florida, making it the eighth state to complete mid-decade redistricting in the 2026 election cycle — and likely setting up a historic legal challenge in the state. The proposal passed the Florida state House and Senate on largely partisan lines, even as some members of the Republican majorities have expressed skepticism about redrawing the congressional lines. Florida GOP lawmakers largely remained silent publicly as the state has become part of a Trump-backed mid-decade redistricting push designed to beef up Republicans' slim U.S. House majority...

Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., on Monday unveiled a proposed slate of congressional district maps that would see the state net four-Republican leaning seats. The map, first reported by Fox News, would limit Democratic seats to Orlando, and three isolated urban bubbles along the southeastern coast. Florida currently has 20 Republican seats and 8 Democratic seats. The new map would shift the balance to 24 Republicans and 4 Democrats. The move comes in the wake of the Virginia redistricting referendum, which saw voters approve a plan that would shift Virginia from 6 Democrats and 5 Republicans to 10 Democrats and 1...