Free Republic

Two days before American voters head to the polls for this year’s mid-term elections, there are growing signs the long-awaited “Blue Wave” could fail to materialize, says the leader of the Republican Party’s overseas office in Israel. A US-born attorney now living in Gush Etzion south of Jerusalem, Marc Zell, 65, is Vice President of Republicans Overseas, and chief of Republicans Overseas Israel. […] “When it comes to mid-term elections, the traditional wisdom in the United States is the party in power loses seats in both the Senate and the House. Because the difference between Republicans in the Senate, for...

More than 30 million Americans have cast early ballots ahead of Tuesday’s midterm elections, eclipsing the 2014 early totals nationally and suggesting a high overall turnout for contests that could define the final two years of President Donald Trump’s term. At least 28 states have surpassed their 2014 early votes. And perhaps even more indicative of the unusual enthusiasm this midterm cycle, some states are approaching their early turnout from the 2016 presidential election. […] … The total early vote in 2014 was 28.3 million in an election where more than 83 million Americans voted. That was a low turnout...

Sweeping accusations that the Kremlin tried to sway the 2016 U.S. election haven’t chastened Russian trolls, hackers and spies — and might even have emboldened them. U.S. officials and tech companies say Russians have continued online activity targeted at American voters during the campaign for Tuesday’s election, masquerading as U.S. institutions and creating faux-American social media posts to aggravate tensions around issues like migration and gun control. Russia denies any interference. So far U.S. authorities haven’t announced any huge hacks or the kind of multipronged campaign suspected in the 2016 election, and it’s hard to judge whether the more recent...

For many voters in America’s affluent suburbs, a flourishing economy is forcing a thorny dilemma for the midterm elections. Do they vote Democratic, in part to protest President Donald Trump for behavior some see as divisive and unpresidential? Or do they back Republicans in hopes that the economy will continue thriving under the majority party? A healthy economy has at least complicated their decision and blurred the outcome of the midterm elections . On Friday, the government reported that employers added a robust 250,000 jobs in October. And the unemployment rate stayed at a five-decade low of 3.7 percent. […]...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi made yet another bold prediction in the days leading up to the midterm elections—Democrats “will win” the House. Pelosi, D-Calif., who is hoping to take back the gavel and assume her former position as House speaker, has projected confidence for months about her party's chances of regaining the majority. But in her latest comments, she predicted victory, with no caveats, while suggesting Democrats could even take the Senate -- though recent polling still reflects a GOP advantage in the upper chamber. “Let me say this. Up until today, I would’ve said, ‘If the election were...

Barely two days after Democrat Andrew Gillum was leading in most polls for governor of Florida, a Strategic Research Associates poll conducted for Gray Television and released Wednesday showed Republican and former Rep. Ron DeSantis pulling into the lead, 48 to 45 percent. The margin of error was +/-3.46 percent. The poll is the first since the primaries last month to put the conservative DeSantis ahead of Bernie Sanders supporter Gillum. Virtually every expert who spoke to Newsmax agreed that Gillun was damaged by recent revelations Gillun had misstated that he reimbursed a lobbyist for a ticket to the Broadway...

Heidi Heitkamp squeezed dozens of hands and posed for pictures with college students at North Dakota State University recently, bubbling with characteristic exuberance that belied the Democratic senator’s uncertain future. “I want everybody to just do something for me,” Heitkamp said, her voice hoarse. “Everybody stand up! I want you to reach as high as you can. Now, I want you to reach about six inches higher. That’s what we’ve got to do to win! We’ve got to go higher.” An already tenuous bid for a second term has taken on new urgency for Heitkamp since she voted against Brett...

It was this week two years ago that Hillary Clinton’s victory looked assured, when the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape of Donald Trump bragging about sexual assault appeared all but certain to end his campaign. Jesse Ferguson remembers it well. The deputy press secretary for Clinton’s campaign also remembers what happened a month later. It’s why this veteran Democratic operative can’t shake the feeling that, as promising as the next election looks for his party, it might still all turn out wrong. “Election Day will either prove to me I have PTSD or show I’ve been living déjà vu,” Ferguson said....

Michael Kelly, the legendary journalist who died covering the invasion of Iraq in 2003, once wrote that the “animating impulse” of modern liberalism was to “marginalize itself and then enjoy its own company. And to make itself as unattractive to as many as possible.” “If it were a person,” he added, “it would pierce its tongue.” [snip] t pierced its tongue on CNN this week, when Hillary Clinton told Christiane Amanpour that “you cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about.” And when former Attorney General Eric Holder said...

Wednesday, October 10, 2018 Republicans are madder about the Kavanaugh controversy than Democrats are and more determined to vote in the upcoming elections because of it. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 54% of all Likely U.S. Voters say they are more likely to vote in the upcoming midterm elections because of the controversy surrounding President Trump’s U.S. Supreme Court nominee. Only nine percent (9%) say they are less likely to vote. Thirty-four percent (34%) say the controversy will have no impact on their vote. (To see survey question wording, click here.) Sixty-two percent (62%)...

[snip]Last year, as protesters crashed his events in the midst of a House push to repeal former President Barack Obama’s healthcare program, Brat remarked that “women are in my grille no matter where I go.” Those words have followed him ever since.[snip]

Two of California’s best-known Democrats are slipping in the polls as the calendar advances closer to Election Day. In fact, both Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein have only single-digit leads over their opponents, the results show. In the race for governor, a Probolsky Research poll, conducted between Aug. 29-Sept. 2, shows Newsom leading Republican businessman John Cox by a mere 5 points, with 17 percent of respondents undecided, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Feinstein faces similar problems, with the poll showing her with only an 8-point advantage over progressive challenger Kevin de León. A quarter of...

Increasingly convinced that the West Wing is wholly unprepared to handle the expected assault from Democrats if they win the House in November, President Donald Trump’s aides and allies are privately raising alarm as his circle of legal and communications advisers continues to shrink. With vacancies abounding in the White House and more departures on the horizon, there is growing concern among Trump allies that the brain drain at the center of the administration could hardly come at a more perilous time. Special counsel Robert Mueller’s swirling probe of Russian election interference and potential obstruction of justice by Trump has...

Nancy Pelosi is the chief villain of Republican campaign ads. The leader some Democrats promise to vote against. The subject of much speculation that her grip on power is coming to an end. Nevertheless, she says she’s not going anywhere — and certainly not while President Donald Trump is in the White House. “This is not anything to make a big fuss over, it’s politics,” Pelosi said in a 35-minute phone interview with The Associated Press. “I can take the heat and that’s why I stay in the kitchen.” Pushing back on those who say her leadership position is in...

During their first televised debate, the two Democrats vying to represent Massachusetts’ Seventh District saved their toughest words for President Trump and his administration, instead of each other.

University of Virginia political analyst Larry Sabato says Democrats for the first time are the favorites to retake control of the House in this year's midterm elections. Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball at the university's Center for Politics, said Tuesday that Democrats are now "soft favorites" for control of the chamber. "[F]or most of this election cycle the generic ballot has shown a consistent Democratic lead that suggests a very competitive battle for the majority. A high number of open seats — the highest number of any postwar election save 1992 — give Democrats many more targets...

A Gallup Poll released Monday showed President Trump earning his highest approval rating since shortly after he took office, even as his administration faces growing criticism over its immigration policies. The Gallup Poll found 45 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s job performance as of Sunday, while 50 percent disapprove. The approval number matches Trump’s highest to date from Gallup. He previously received the same rating for the week ending on Jan. 29, 2017. Trump’s current approval rating rose 3 percentage points since June 10. ETC...

It is no secret that money is tight on the Democrat side. Consequently, while there will be many candidates that will be able to hire top shelf consultants, there won’t be as many as could be expected in the first mid-term elections of a Republican Administration. What this means is that consultants who work for Democrats will have to WoW their potential clients with tales of a Blue Wave whether or not they believe what they are saying. There would be no advantage to a Frank Luntz or a Charlie Cook to admit that the problems their clients will face...

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) received more votes in the 2018 Republican Primary election than the entire turnout of voters in the Democratic Primary. The results shed a new perspective on the media-hyped “blue wave” stories from the weeks leading up to election day. In the Republican Primary of 2018, Senator Cruz received 1,317,450 votes in a race with four challengers. His Democrat opponent, U.S. Representative Beto O’Rourke only received 641,311 votes against two opponents. Figures from the Secretary of State’s office show that just over one million voters turned out in the Democratic Primary in general across Texas. Cruz...