Free Republic

Republicans are trailing Democrats in seven key Senate battlegrounds, including longtime GOP strongholds Texas and Kansas, according to a poll released Sunday, just days before the midterm elections. The New York Times/Siena poll found Democratic candidates leading in five states currently represented by Republican senators — Alaska, Kansas, Maine, Ohio and Texas — while the race in Iowa is virtually tied. In Michigan, the only Democratic-held Senate seat surveyed, the party's candidate holds a double-digit lead. Don Levy, executive director of the Siena Research Institute, said the results suggest Democrats could capture control of the Senate, though he cautioned that...

Donald Trump is secretly asking close advisers about whether Pete Hegseth and General Dan Caine should be fired after the midterms, even as he weighs restarting the bombing of Iran.The president has been quizzing allies on the performance of his defense secretary and his Joint Chiefs chairman, the two men who assured him the war would be wrapped up well before the midterms, according to the Atlantic. *** As Republicans face the real possibility of losing the House and Senate, Trump has concluded the Iran war would be partly to blame and trained his attention on the advisers who promised...

Democrat Troy Jackson leads Republican Sen. Susan Collins by 5 percentage points in the final YouGov poll before Tuesday's midterm elections as Democrats seek to flip one of the nation's most closely watched Senate seats. The survey, conducted Oct. 26-29 among 1,503 likely voters, showed Jackson leading Collins 52% to 47%. That marks a shift from YouGov's previous Oct. 1 survey, which showed the candidates tied at 50%. The latest survey shows Jackson improving his position compared with YouGov's earlier October poll. Recent polling underscores just how close the contest has been. A CNN/SSRS survey showed Jackson leading Collins 49%...

Democrat Abdul El-Sayed has increased his polling lead to 7 percentage points over Republican Mike Rogers, a former congressman, among likely voters in a nationally watched U.S. Senate race in Michigan. Mitchell Research & Communications conducted the statewide poll Oct. 26-27 for CBS Detroit and other Michigan television stations. It surveyed likely voters in the Nov. 3 general election. "El-Sayed is in the driver's seat for a big victory on November 3rd," the researchers said. El-Sayed was the choice of 51% of likely voters, with Rogers at 44%, in the latest Mitchell poll. Three percent were undecided, and third-party candidates...

The nonpartisan Cook Political Report on Tuesday moved its ratings of the gubernatorial races in Nebraska from “Likely Republican” to “Lean Republican” and in Kansas from “Lean Republican” to “Toss Up,” another positive sign for Democrats running in red states. The more favorable ratings for Democrats help boost the party’s odds of having a majority of state leaders after the midterms for the first time since 2010, Cook said. In Kansas, Democratic State Sen. Cindy Holscher and Republican Senate President Ty Masterson are running to replace Gov. Laura Kelly (D), who is term-limited. Holscher is running hard on opposing data...

Two top appointees of President Donald Trump, including the deputy secretary of State, have been embroiled in a monthslong fight that includes accusations of leaks to the media and “bizarre” threats of defamation — all over emails that at times included more than a dozen administration officials. The conflict centers on Paolo Zampolli, a personal friend of Trump’s and a special envoy at the State Department, and Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, according to the messages obtained by POLITICO. The emails stretch over almost a year and show Zampolli and Landau disagreeing over chains of command as Landau admonishes...

One month until Election Day, voter dissatisfaction with the economy, concerns about political extremism and frustration with President Trump have Democrats within reach of flipping four Republican-held governorships, opening a wide lead in Iowa and an expanding advantage in Ohio among likely voters, according to new polls by The New York Times and Siena University. In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican fixture in the state for decades, is now narrowly behind his Democratic challenger, Gina Hinojosa. The Democratic candidate also has an advantage in the race for governor of Alaska. The only place surveyed where the Republican is ahead...

The nation’s two largest states by land area gave Democrats a boost in the battle for Senate control Saturday, with candidates in Texas and Alaska hitting 50% or more in new polls. Both races would represent pickups if Democrats are able to hold on and win on Nov. 3, which is just a month away. In Texas, Democratic state Rep. James Talarico leads Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, 51% to 45%, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll released Saturday. President Trump’s approval rating in the state stands at 40%, compared with 57% who disapprove. The poll, which examined...

James Talarico has gained ground in the closely watched Texas Senate race, with several prediction markets and election forecasters increasingly characterizing the contest as competitive, despite the state's long-standing Republican lean. Kalshi, a prediction market, currently gives the Democratic State Representative Talarico a 59 percent chance of winning the November election, compared with 41 percent for Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton. Another prediction market, Polymarket, similarly puts Talarico at 60 percent and Paxton at 41 percent; prediction market shares can occasionally sum to over 100 percent due to market spreads. Meanwhile, Fox News' latest Power Rankings forecast has shifted the...

30 Seconds in.You Will Get it. Here is a concise bullet-point summary of the speech in the video:Trump says the United States has developed a “new and powerful relationship” with Venezuela.He claims the U.S. has secured 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan oil, which he describes as the largest oil deal in history and “500 years’ worth” of oil.He says the oil arrangement was obtained as a result of “an attack,” without explaining further in this clip.He pledges that, if Republicans win both the House and Senate in the midterm elections, every adult American would receive a $5,000 “Trump Dividend.”He argues...

President Trump on Wednesday floated the idea of issuing every American adult a $5,000 “dividend” check if his party kept control of the House and Senate in November — an extraordinary offer that would cost more than $1 trillion and likely would require congressional approval. “It will be called the Trump dividend,” he said at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas. He added a caveat: The money must be spent in the United States, though he did not say how the government could track where private citizens used the funds. He offered few additional details about the idea. How could...

President Trump on Wednesday told the crowd at the Republican National Committee’s first midterm convention in Dallas not to boo the absent Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), telling them that “John is working hard.” Trump mentioned Thune’s name after he said Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) “will go down as the greatest Speaker of the House in the history of our country.” He then added that Thune was “here” before asking where he was, prompting boos from the audience.The president added that Senate Republicans will in general have “great, great success.” Thune and Trump have been at odds with each...

Stocks dropped Thursday after U.S. oil prices topped $100 a barrel, amid growing fears of higher inflation from a prolonged war in the Middle East. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 315 points, or 0.6%. The S&P 500 fell 0.5%, while the Nasdaq Composite slid 0.5% too. Higher oil prices continued to weigh on sentiment, as the war between the U.S. and Iran stretched into a seventh month. U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures for October jumped above $100 per barrel. Futures for the international benchmark Brent crude for November delivery spiked above $105 a barrel. The jump in oil prices...

The story you heard first — that President Donald Trump fired Kristi Noem over a $220 million ad campaign — isn't wrong, exactly. But it's incomplete. The ad spending lit the fuse; an eight-word question that Noem refused to answer in plain English plunged the detonator.Here's what really pushed Trump to fire her.It was previously reported that the breaking point for Trump was when Noem testified on Tuesday that he had personally approved $220 million in Homeland Security advertising, including a cinematic spot of her riding a horse in front of Mount Rushmore with a voiceover that said, "From President...

The Justice Department, after calls by President Trump to investigate former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., scrutinized whether Mr. Biden and his aides broke the law in using the autopen to sign presidential documents, but was ultimately unable to move forward with making a case, according to three people briefed on the matter.

According to a Politico report citing an internal Pentagon notification, United States Central Command (CENTCOM) has requested additional military intelligence officers to support operations against Iran for at least 100 days and possibly through September. When the United States and Israel launched coordinated strikes on Iran last Saturday, the operation was framed as a swift military campaign. Donald Trump later described it as a limited effort expected to last roughly four to five weeks. ...