Free Republic

What to make of the results of the first two of this spring’s special House elections? Start off by putting them in perspective. They pose a challenge to both political parties, but especially to Republicans, who have been used to an unusually stable partisan alignment, an alignment that has become scrambled by Donald Trump. Those of us who can remember the 1964–84 years have seen much greater partisan churning. Almost half of the congressional districts that voted for Richard Nixon in 1972 elected Democratic congressmen. Some 191 districts split tickets. In 2012, that number was down to 26, the...

There is no greater feeling than winning. And for Trump supporters, it is indeed Christmas every day. The pipelines are getting built. Abortionists and their organizations are losing funding. Congress has restored and respected the sovereignty of the several states. It’s safe to purchase and own a fire arm. Neil Gorsuch has been confirmed. The other appointments to Trump’s cabinet are opening a new wave of policy changes and enforcement. However, these winning appointments have exposed an embarrassment of riches. As conservatives move up the chain of command, someone has to take their place. Indeed, like Dorothy Gale reaching the...

WASHINGTON ― After staying away for much of the race, the Democratic Party came to the aid of James Thompson, the Democrat running to fill the House seat vacated by Donald Trump appointee Mike Pompeo, just before voters went to the polls Tuesday. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee on Monday began doing live calls to 25,000 households in Kansas’ 4th Congressional District, urging residents to vote in Tuesday’s unexpectedly competitive special election. National Democrats have held off committing their resources to Thompson’s campaign, citing the difficulty of flipping an ultra-conservative district that Trump carried by nearly 30 percentage points in...

Upset over Trump’s victory, grassroots Democrats enlist in nationwide efforts to swing special House elections, state contests and mayoral races; Republicans dig in, citing a lack of results so far.

Republicans continued their electoral winning streak on Tuesday night in the first congressional election of the Trump administration. [Snip] Now that the election is over, Democrats are trying to figure out who is to blame for the loss, and Twitter exploded with finger pointing. Some believe that the Democratic national party abandoned the race, while others argue that if the national party got involved, it would have hurt Thompson. Former President Barack Obama's speechwriter Jon Favreau said the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) shouldn't ignore races like the one in Kansas. [Snip] Star Trek actor Wil Wheaton suggested that people...

Republicans pulled out a victory in Kansas in the first of four U.S. House special elections to replace GOP congressmen named to top jobs in President Donald Trump's administration, but the next contest for a seat in Georgia could be tougher to hold. The margin of victory Tuesday for Kansas Republican Ron Estes in the 4th District special election slid to only seven percentage points from a 31-point margin in November, when incumbent Mike Pompeo was running before he was appointed Trump's CIA director. In a further warning sign for Republicans, Estes narrowly lost the district's most populous county around...

Kansas state Treasurer Ron Estes held off a stronger-than-expected challenge from Democratic civil rights attorney James Thompson Tuesday night as the GOP won the first special congressional election since President Trump's inauguration. The election was held to fill the House seat vacated by CIA Director Mike Pompeo, a former three-term representative of Kansas' 4th district. With 94 percent of the precincts reporting, Estes had won 52 percent of the vote to 46 percent for Thompson. The Republican's margin was just under 6,500 votes. By contrast, Pompeo's narrowest victory, in 2014, was by just under 70,000 votes. The race had been...

GOP SURVIVES FIRST TEST Kansas state Treasurer Ron Estes held off a stronger-than-expected challenge from Democratic civil rights attorney James Thompson Tuesday night as the GOP won the first special congressional election since President Trump’s inauguration. Estes won 53 percent of the vote to take the seat vacated by CIA Director Mike Pompeo.

Democratic activists are claiming a moral victory in Kansas despite narrowly losing a special congressional election there Tuesday night. Democrat James Thompson came within 10 points of Republican Kansas State Treasurer Ron Estes in the state's safely GOP 4th congressional district. President Trump carried the district by 27 points in November. Rep. Mike Pompeo, who resigned earlier this year to serve as director of the CIA, won it by 31 points. [Snip] Estes, however, is set to prevail by less than 7 points, a warning sign for the House Republican majority less than 100 days into the Trump administration.

Republican Ron Estes defeated his Democratic rival in a high-profile special congressional election in Kansas Tuesday that had been seen as a referendum on President Donald Trump. But the narrower-than-expected outcome may worry Republicans across the country as they try to decipher how much Trump's low approval ratings might hurt his party's candidates. Trump and former Rep. Mike Pompeo, who vacated the seat to become CIA director, had both won the district by nearly 30 percentage points in November. But Estes appears to have dramatically underperformed that margin, with early returns showing him leading Democrat James Thompson by just about...

Poll results are available there. Ron Estes (Republican) James Thompson (Democratic)

Vice President Pence is stepping into Kansas's special House election, recording a robocall urging Republican voters to cast their ballots for the party's congressional nominee on Tuesday, the Washington Examiner reported on Friday. The robocall comes amid shaky support for Kansas State Treasurer Ron Estes, who is running against Democrat James Thompson to fill the House seat vacated by Mike Pompeo, who is now President Trump's CIA director. President Trump won Kansas's 4th District by almost 30 points in November. But Democrats in the district have been energized by the president's low-approval ratings and controversies in his first months in...