Free Republic

Two new polls from a top Republican polling firm — provided exclusively to Axios — find Florida Gov. DeSantis is running more competitively with former President Trump in Iowa and New Hampshire than he is faring in national surveys. Driving the news: The surveys, conducted by Public Opinion Strategies from March 21 to 23 for an outside client (not a candidate or super PAC) found DeSantis leading Trump by eight points (45%-37%) in a head-to-head matchup in Iowa and tied with Trump (39%-39%) in New Hampshire.

Shifts in the demographics of the two parties' supporters — taking place before our eyes — are arguably the biggest political story of our time. The big picture: Republicans are becoming more working class and a little more multiracial. Democrats are becoming more elite and a little more white. Why it matters: Democrats' hopes for retaining power rest on nonwhite voters remaining a reliable part of the party's coalition. Democrats' theory of the case collapses if Republicans make even incremental gains with those voters. Even small inroads with Hispanic voters could tip a number of Democratic-held swing seats to the...

Before we get into the meat of this story from the National Journal, let me just note that this – “One of the most underappreciated stories in recent years is the deterioration of the Democratic bench under President Obama’s tenure in office” – has always been properly appreciated by me. I noticed this issue a while back. Sorry, but I felt the need to establish that. Moving on… …less attention has been paid to how the shrinking number of Democratic officeholders in the House and in statewide offices is affecting the party’s Senate races. It’s awfully unusual to see how...

From the first day of 2011, Mitt Romney was the favorite to win the 2012 Republican presidential primary campaign. No one else was even close. The 2016 outlook could not be more different. Offered the choice to bet on one single candidate to win the nomination versus the rest of the field, the choice would have to be "the field." For the first time in years, there is no one next in line. And without a former vice president or powerhouse former candidate looking likely to run, Republicans are shaping up to spend the next year and a half fighting...

Donors are overrating brand-name contenders and missing the vulnerability their insider credentials will carry. Far too often, political coverage is based on the thinking of consultants and donors, and doesn't pay enough attention to what the voters are actually thinking. It's why we focus on presidential horse-race numbers in Iowa and New Hampshire, which couldn't be less predictive, and are often slow to pick up on the issues driving grassroots anger, like Common Core. It's why immigration reform rates as a top legislative priority in the minds of strategists over proposing an economic agenda to assuage voter anxieties. And it's...

Herman Cain’s presidential campaign is admitting that campaign manager Mark Block had his facts wrong when he said on Fox News that one of the women who has accused Cain of sexual harassment is the mother of a reporter at Politico, the news outlet that first published the allegations ten days ago. Appearing with host Sean Hannity on Tuesday night, Block said it had been “confirmed” by the campaign that accuser Karen Kraushaar’s son works at Politico. But soon after Block made that statement, Josh Kraushaar, a former Politico reporter who Block didn’t specifically name but who he was referencing,...

The Daily, the tablet newspaper, named one of the women who filed a sexual harassment claim against Republican front-runner Herman Cain while he was CEO of the National Restaurant Association. The woman, identified by the paper as Karen Kraushaar, now works as communications director at the Treasury Department's Office of the Inspector General.Cain has sought to downplay the charge — calling it frivolous — saying she overreacted to a gesture comparing her height to his wife's.But the paper spoke to friends and family members of Kraushaar who vouch for her honesty — saying she is not the type to bring false allegations.“She wouldn’t...