Free Republic

New York Democratic leaders say they want more people to vote — except they won’t allow anyone but registered Democrats to vote in party primaries. The New York State Democratic Party plans on blocking a proposed resolution at its May 23-24 convention that would allow independent or “unaffiliated” voters to vote in this year’s Democratic primary for governor. New York’s restrictive voting laws became a national embarrassment in 2016 as many younger voters realized they couldn’t vote for Bernie Sanders in the presidential primary against Hillary Clinton because they missed the deadline to enroll as Democrats.

SOUTHINGTON, CT — In alphabetical order, a majority of Democratic and one unaffiliated candidates for governor endorsed the idea of installing electronic tolls on Connecticut’s highways and received applause for it. The nine candidates participated in a forum Friday sponsored by the Connecticut Construction Industries Association. The same group sponsored a similar forum in December for the Republican gubernatorial candidates as well. None of the candidates who are still in the “exploratory” phase of their campaigns for governor were invited to either forum — only the declared candidates. The problem: Connecticut’s special transportation fund will start running a deficit in...

Southington — Oz Griebel, a petitioning candidate for governor who once led the state Transportation Strategy Board, told an audience of construction executives and union members Friday that Connecticut must embrace electronic tolling and higher gasoline taxes to preserve and improve its transportation infrastructure.At a transportation forum for Democratic and unaffiliated candidates, Griebel offered the broadest prescription for how to stabilize and grow a special transportation fund now projected to hit insolvency by 2022, leaving the state unable to borrow money to address a growing backlog of transportation needs.Many of the Democrats, unlike the Republican field at a similar event...

One of the major potential weaknesses of Robert Mueller's Russia investigation is that voters could consider it a political hack job. This is especially a problem since several (former) members of his team are partisan Democrats who aggressively criticized President Trump when he was still a candidate for president. Clearly, voters -- especially Republicans and independents -- are paying attention. According to a new CBS News poll, 81 percent of Republican voters believe that the investigation into Trump associates and Russia is "politically motivated." 48 percent of independents feel the same way. Only 17 percent of Republican voters and 42...

Conspicuously good numbers for a president whom Democrats despise and whose job approval has been stuck in the high 30s/low 40s for months. It’s hard to imagine Dems ever coming around on Trump, especially when so many view his victory as illegitimate due to Russiagate, but between the good vibes over his storm handling and his sudden outreach to Schumer and Pelosi, there may be some Strange New Respect in opinions about him soon. Of course, if things go to hell in Florida when Hurricane Irma hits, all bets are off. The President gets especially good ratings when it comes...

RALEIGH – The latest Civitas poll has found that 43 percent of likely North Carolina unaffiliated voters say if the presidential election were held again today, they would vote for Donald J. Trump while just 39 percent of them said they would vote for Hillary Clinton.

A majority of Democrats find it stressful to talk with supporters of President Donald Trump, according to a Pew Research Center poll released Thursday. The latest national survey by Pew, conducted June 27 through July 9 among 2,505 adults, found that 68 percent of both Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents find it “stressful and frustrating” to talk about politics with people who have a different opinion of Trump. Just 28 percent of the two groups found it “interesting and informative.” Republicans in the same poll were more split on the question. Only 52 percent of Republicans or Republican-leaning independents said that...

Donald Trump’s compulsion to exaggerate the magnitude of his election victory––talking about a landslide that didn’t happen and miscounting electoral votes––has distracted from the true strategic importance of his triumph. From one perspective, the size of Trump’s win wasn’t so impressive. He received 45.9 percent of the popular vote––two points less than his opponent and four points shy of a majority––and he captured fewer electoral votes than the winners of seven of the last nine elections. From another angle, Trump’s win was very impressive. He won the battleground states of Ohio, Florida, North Carolina and Iowa––states that swing back and...

Is the party—the Republican party, that is—over? That's what Joe Scarborough is predicting. On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough surmised that "Donald Trump, by the end, will blow apart the Republican party" and that people are "going to look at George W. Bush as the last Republican president." Scarborough depicted Trump as "in a sense, the first independent president." Joe also suggested that Bernie Sanders might have the same party-demolishing impact on the Democrats. View the video here.

Trump has an 8-point edge over Clinton among independents (41-33 percent). That’s down from his 13-point advantage last week (41-28 percent). Johnson takes 11 percent.

Another good day for the registered Republicans and relevant poor day for registered Democrats. The good guys continue to show up more than they did in 2012 and the Democrats are fewer, especially black voters. Unaffiliated votes are the biggest surprise this time as 35% more of them early voting relative to 2016. It's a long blog, but towards the end is a most interesting find, based on Dr. Bitzer's analysis: "Finally, I was interested in the rise of the unaffiliated voter and if they had participated in the state's March 2016 presidential primary election in one of the two...

Synopsis: There is a massive surge for Trump from HS Graduates. Analysis of Fox News polling shows a massive surge for Trump with both men and women who have HS education. Last week, Trump was 18 pts ahead with HS educated men. Now he is 30 points ahead. Last week, Trump was ahead with HS educated women by 27 pts. He is now 34 pts ahead with this group. Neither group can stand Hillary. This is highly significant because while the College educated voting group has "maxed out" in terms of what percentage of them have previously voted and who...

The eighth Congressional District of Minnesota is a working class area in Eastern Minnesota. It has voted for a Democrat in the last four Presidential elections. It has a Democrat Congressman and will likely be the most expensive Congressional race this year. Usually, a Democrat Presidential candidate would win. But a recent poll held a shock: Donald Trump is up 12 points! And more: Trump is winning among women. And the Democrat Party is losing members. They’re becoming Independents.

https://twitter.com/rasmussen_poll/status/790651239658876929

YouGov’s post-debate poll finds Hillary Clinton winning the third presidential debate by a 10-point margin over Donald Trump, 49 percent to 39 percent. However, undecided and third-party voters gave Trump a 22-point lead. (VIDEO-AT-LINK) When asked to chose only between Clinton and Trump in the 2016 election, 61 percent of undecided and third-party candidates picked Trump after the third debate, versus 39 percent for Clinton. This could be an encouraging result for Trump, because 9 percent of respondents to YouGov preferred a third-party candidate, or professed themselves undecided. A statistically insignificant number said they did not plan to vote at...

Full title: "#NeverTrump GOP Candidate McMullin Admits His Goal is to Prevent Trump from Winning (Pro-Hillary)" This is what we expected all along. The #NeverTrump GOP candidate Evan McMullin is working to eliminate Donald Trump and elect Hillary Clinton. The #NeverTrump Republican candidate last week told reporters Republicans are racist. The #NeverTrump movement hopes McMullin will steal enough votes from Trump for Hillary to win Utah.

ALEIGH - A poll released Thursday shows that Donald Trump is leading Hillary Clinton among unaffiliated voters in North Carolina 38 to 28 percent. The poll is from N.C. conservative think tank the Civitas Institute and also shows that unaffiliated voters have an increasingly favorable view Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican, at 46 percent favorable, compared to 40 percent this time last year. His opponent, Democrat Roy Cooper, is polling 31 percent favorable. Cooper had his unfavorable numbers double in a year, jumping from 14 percent to 26 percent. The poll found that among unaffiliated voters, McCrory leads Cooper 43...

YouGov Poll Debate Winner Among Independents: Trump 51 (+15) Clinton 36

Republican pollster Frank Luntz said Donald Trump is back in the game after a strong performance at Sunday night's debate. "I may have made a mistake in writing off Trump," Luntz tweeted after the second presidential debate. "After talking with voters tonight, he's back in this race." Sunday's debate came at the tail end of the most tumultuous weekend of the Republican presidential nominee's campaign so far. Trump landed in hot water on Friday when a leaked recording showed him boasting about trying to sleep with a married woman and remarking that he could "grab" women "by the p---y" because...

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has opened up a 5-point lead over Republican Donald Trump nationally as independent voters have moved strongly into her corner, a new poll finds.