Free Republic

Top advisers to Donald Trump are plotting an overhaul of the Republican Party platform that will dramatically slash its size and refocus the GOP around the former president’s agenda for a second term. A memo from Trump campaign managers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles dated Thursday criticized past platforms as too long and too heavily influenced by special interests and outside groups. A “clear, concise and easily digestible” platform will be easier for voters to understand and harder for political opponents to attack, they wrote. “Publishing an unnecessarily verbose treatise will provide more fuel for our opponent’s fire of misinformation...

With seven months to go until November's presidential election and the majority of polls showing the presumptive presidential candidates Donald Trump and Joe Biden are basically neck-and-neck, the pair both need every vote they can to secure the keys to the White House. But Trump, the Republican former president, may be hampering his chances at success because of his standing with one key demographic in the adult voting population: women. Polls show that the proportion of women who plan to vote for Trump in November is less than the proportion who voted for him in the 2020 election. Meanwhile, experts...

**SNIP** Democrats and the liberal media have a ready distraction. Every day is Trump, Trump, Trump. And, of course, The Don is happy to oblige their monomania. Trump’s followers may think they’re sticking it to this consortium by continuing to back him. But Trump is only in it for himself, both as retribution for the election he lost and a get-out-of-jail free card for the prosecutions he faces. January 6 was a national travesty, and he is to blame for it. Some of the prosecutions may be unfair, but Trump is no victim. He did try to overturn an election....

A new survey from the Texas Republican Party has Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) defeating former President Trump by 11 points in a hypothetical match-up. Among voters likely to participate in a 2024 presidential primary in Texas, 43 percent said they would support DeSantis and 32 percent said they back Trump, according to the survey results. DeSantis, a rising star in the Republican Party who has flirted with a 2024 White House bid, continues to gain ground in hypothetical match-ups against the former president. Texas GOP Chairman Matt Rinaldi tweeted his support for DeSantis after the Florida governor cruised to...

Though the conservative Supreme Court appears poised to strike down Roe v. Wade, Democrats control slim majorities in both chambers of Congress, and they have a president in the White House supportive of abortion rights. They also have public opinion on their side. But one thing stops them from passing a federal law protecting abortion rights and codifying Roe into law: the filibuster. The filibuster is a Senate rule that requires 60 votes to pass most legislation. Most controversial legislation is passed on party-line votes these days, and it’s very rare for parties to have 60 senators. Democrats only have...

Republicans thought they had learned a lesson after 2012: Turning off Latino voters ensures defeat in the general election. But as the disruptive presidential candidacy of Donald J. Trump continues to gain support, his hard line on immigration has driven rivals to match his biting anti-immigrant language and positions long considered extreme. It risks another general election cycle in which Hispanics view the party as unfriendly no matter who the nominee is, Republican strategists warned. This week, several of Mr. Trump’s Republican rivals, including Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, echoed his call to end automatic citizenship for the American-born children...