Free Republic

Earlier today it was widely reported that North Carolina Senator Richard Burr was not happy with Ted Cruz. That doesn't make him a special snowflake. Most of the practitioners of crony capitalism and Failure Theater in the Senate are not happy with Ted Cruz. But Burr was not content to merely take a number and get in line. Burr had to make a point of how pissed he was at the idea of Ted Cruz winning the nomination. (Burr's Heritage Action score is 45%, which is the same as arch-conservatives John Cornyn and Mitch McConnell.) Cruz has become such a...

Donald Trump has inserted himself into one of the most contentious House primaries in the country this weekend, endorsing GOP Rep. Renee Ellmers in her member-versus-member race in North Carolina. Trump makes a personal appeal to voters to back Ellmers in a robocall released Saturday. She was "the first congresswoman to endorse me and she really was terrific and boy, is she a fighter," Trump says in the call. It is the first time this election that Trump has picked sides in a congressional race.

RALEIGH, NC (WECT) – Greg Brannon and Mark Harris showed improved numbers while Thom Tillis saw his support slip in the final Public Policy Polling survey of the North Carolina Republican Senate primary campaigns. In a PPP poll done April 26-28, Tillis had support from 46 percent of the responders, with Brannon at 20 percent and Harris at 11 percent. In the final poll done over the May 3-4 weekend, Tillis had the support of 40 percent, with Brannon up to 28 percent and Harris at 15 percent. The 40 percent mark would keep Tillis at the level he needs...

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is making an 11th hour plunge into the North Carolina Senate race, aiming to boost his preferred candidate and block the GOP establishment’s favorite, state House Speaker Thom Tillis, from scoring a clean win in Tuesday’s primary. The Kentucky Republican and potential presidential candidate said in an interview that he will stump on Monday for Republican Greg Brannon, a libertarian-minded candidate who is trying to ride a tea party wave into a runoff against Tillis, who is backed by the party establishment and is reportedly expected to receive the endorsement of Jeb Bush. Tillis is looking...

Olympia Snowe made her case for a return to governing from the “sensible center,” and she did it with conviction. But while the audience was both loud and supportive at a women’s summit in Charlotte, no one – and that includes the former Republican U.S. senator from Maine — thought it would be easy. Snowe was considered moderate in her approach and her politics when she decided not to run for a fourth term in the Senate in 2012. How bad had it gotten? Republicans and Democrats honored her at separate celebrations, a departure from the past. “It’s not even...

Yep. That’s what he told The Cumberland County Republican Women’s Club on Saturday. Okay, Mr. Big Boy Pants™, then why are YOU running? I disagree with his assertion there. I think there are BIG differences between Tillis and the rest of the field. He’s the only candidate in the field who appears to be using his day job to shake down people for campaign contributions. (It’s illegal to accept campaign contributions to your legislative campaign fund from people with business before the state while the legislature is in session. It’s NOT illegal to accept them for your US Senate race...

North Carolina House Speaker Thom Tillis (R) leads a crowded Republican field for the right to face Sen. Kay Hagan (D) in November, according to a new survey conducted for a super PAC backing his campaign. Tillis scored 27 percent of the vote, compared with 16 percent for physician Greg Brannon and 10 percent for state Baptist Convention President Mark Harris. A handful of other candidates received only single-digit support.

A tea party Senate candidate is going after one of his Republican primary competitors over a supporting ad that does not include the phrase "repeal Obamacare." North Carolina Senate candidate Greg Brannon's (R) campaign is attacking North Carolina House Speaker Thom Tillis (R-NC) Senate campaign over a new ad by American Crossroads in support of the state House Speaker, establishment Republicans' preferred candidate in the race. The narrator in the ad said Tillis has the "conservative guts" to replace Obamacare with "honest healthcare reforms." The ad however does not say Tillis wants to repeal Obamacare and that's where the Brannon...

I met Dr. Greg Brannon four years ago and am excited at the prospect of him being our next U.S. senator in the great state of North Carolina. Dr. Brannon has delivered approximately nine thousand babies; read that again it’s not a typo. He is the most ardent pro-life candidate in our state. He has literally been a leader in many state pro-life organizations while running a busy OBGYN practices in Cary, North Carolina. Dr. Brannon has 7 children, including 3 he and his wife adopted from China. He was born to a single mother who was loved this country...

WASHINGTON, March 24 -- FreedomWorks issued the following news release: Tonight, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) headquarters is hosting a fundraiser for North Carolina moderate and Senatorial candidate Thom Tillis. Headlining the fundraiser invite was a "who's who" of beltway establishmentarians, including Senator Mitch McConnell, Senator Lamar Alexander, and Senator Richard Burr. Attendees must pay a minimum of $1,000 per PAC or $500 per person to rub elbows with the D.C. elite. According to the Washington Post, (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/03/21/nrsc-chairman-obamacare-has-helped-dramatically-expand-senate-map/) NRSC Chairman Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) explained today that playing in races like this one are a priority because the "map and...

Turning up the heat in the U.S. Senate primary, Republican Greg Brannon said a “culture of corruption” would make N.C. House Speaker Thom Tillis “unelectable” in November. “The Democrat attack machine will make easy pickings of his candidacy,” Brannon wrote in a new fundraising letter. Brannon hit Tillis on several points, including his 2012 decision to give severance pay to two staffers involved in sex scandals. The attacks are among the sharpest yet in a Republican contest to pick a challenger to Democratic U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan. Eight Republicans are running in the May 6 primary. But Brannon, more than...

A Republican Senate candidate in North Carolina is defending his remarks that some abortion rights groups contemplate infanticide. Greg Brannon, who is challenging Democratic incumbent Kay Hagan, told a group in November that killing babies who survived abortions could happen in America, according to a report Wednesday in Mother Jones magazine. …

The familiar Washington narrative on the scrum for the U.S. Senate has been rinsed, recycled and delivered once again: Republicans are primed to pick up the six seats necessary to capture control of the upper chamber. The midterm atmosphere sure looks ripe, the polling appears favorable but, as it did in 2010 and 2012, the most competitive batch of races will likely come down to candidate quality. It’s the key component that stifled GOP chances before, and could very well again. .... .... A closer look at the most competitive contests demonstrates why a Senate majority in 2014 is again...

On Monday, Dr. Greg Brannon, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, handily won a key straw poll in the U.S. Senate primary at a candidate forum held in Guilford County, a county which has the third largest number of registered Republicans in the state. The Senate candidate forum, hosted by Conservatives for Guilford County, was attended by nearly 300 interested voters and conservative activists who were eager to hear from the candidates. With five candidates in the race for the Republican nomination, Brannon won more than two-thirds of the votes cast, beating his nearest challenger by a four to one margin....

When I won my primary for U.S. Senate in 2010, upsetting many in Washington, D.C., I began my speech that night by declaring, "We've come to take our government back." Since that election, I've fought hard to stop the reckless spending, rein in our massive deficit, repeal ObamaCare and protect our God-given liberties. But I'm only one man, and to truly take our government back, to truly pull Obama's radical agenda up by its roots, it's going to take more principled men and women who are willing to stand up and fight for our conservative values in Washington. That's why...

He’s calling it “America’s Most Pivotal Senate Race,” and Thom Tillis is bringing in the big guns. John Frank of Under the Dome reported Thursday morning that GOP strategist and longtime Republican king-maker Karl Rove will be traveling to North Carolina later this month to attend three fundraisers for US Senate candidate Thom Tillis. These three events will be in Cary, Fayetteville, and Charlotte. This really isn’t surprising considering Tillis attended an American Crossroads meeting last month, and the group launched a web campaign this week targeting Kay Hagan. American Crossroads is the political action committee ran by Rove which...

Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan’s approval rating has dropped, according to a new poll. Hagan has an approval rating of 36 percent, with 41 percent of voters disapproving of the job she is doing, according to a new survey by Public Policy Polling, a Democratic-leaning firm based in Raleigh. Another 23 percent were not sure. That is down from last month, when her approval rating was at 43 percent, her disapproval rating was 39 percent and 18 percent were not sure. Hagan still leads her prospective Republican opponents. She would defeat House Speaker Tom Tillis by a 47-40 percent margin, Charlotte...

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul endorsed Republican Greg Brannon for North Carolina’s marque U.S. Senate race, giving the Cary physician’s low-profile campaign a huge boost. “I enthusiastically endorse Greg Brannon for U.S. Senate because he’s a true constitutional conservative who will join me in fighting against business as usual in Washington,” Paul said in a statement Wednesday morning released by Brannon’s campaign. “Americans are looking for leaders who will honor their oath of office by fighting to ‘protect and defend’ the Constitution and Greg is the clear choice for conservatives in North Carolina.”

Raleigh, NC – In a demonstration of the Brannon campaign’s surging strength and support, the campaign announced today that it will report third quarter fundraising totals that more than double the previous quarter. Since the last filing in mid-July the campaign raised over $150,000 and heads into the fourth quarter with more than $100,000 cash-on-hand. The pro-life Obstetrician’s fundraising shows an impressive base of support with more than 3,000 individual contributors accounting for more than 4,000 contributions with an average contribution of less than $70. This brings the total raised to over $275,000 since the start of the campaign, solidifying...

Dr. Greg Brannon, practicing OB/GYN critical care surgeon out of Cary, NC, officially announced that he will run for Kay Hagan’s Senate Seat in the 2014 election. The announcement came months after a grassroots effort was formed to convince Brannon to run for the position. “Draft Dr. Greg Brannon to Senate Run 2014,” a social media page created by several grassroots supporters and friends in the North Carolina tea party and liberty activist movement, attempted to convince Brannon to throw his hat in the ring by displaying grassroots republican support for his potential candidacy.