Free Republic

Gov. Kristi Noem is facing legal action after her latest endorsement caused an online furor that now risks taking a bite out of her standing in South Dakota at a time when she’s rumored to be among the front-runners on Donald Trump’s vice presidential shortlist.

Around 95,000 Afghan refugees could be settled around the U.S., including in Ohio, following President Joe Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. Republicans have largely been vocal about fears over the Biden administration’s sloppy vetting process — though some in the GOP, including current Ohio Governor Mike DeWine (R), are accepting refugees by the hundreds and thousands. Former Rep. Jim Renacci (R), who is looking to challenge DeWine for the governorship in 2022, said DeWine’s refugee stance is not a popular position among Republicans on the campaign trail. “What I’m hearing from people on the ground is they want us to...

Now that the race for the 2020 Democratic nomination has officially started, one of the big issues that will likely come up is which candidate is the most electable. One way to find that out is to see how the different possible candidates have done in the past. Of course, it's difficult to compare candidates when they run for different offices in different years. There are, however, six potential 2020 Democratic contenders ran who ran for the US Senate in 2018. The big takeaway from those results: Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Sherrod Brown of Ohio are above-average candidates...

WESTERVILLE, Ohio—At an event in an ice cream shop downtown in this small suburb of Columbus, hours before Democrats’ presidential debate blocks away, Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez held court with a dozen or so young, rising Ohio Democrats to declare that the national party was here for a reason. “We’re here in Ohio because Ohio’s a battleground,” Perez said, “and I’m confident we can win Ohio.” Perez wasn’t just trying to cheer up the troops. He was weighing in on a live, controversial question: Should Democrats give up on Ohio? For more than half a century, this question...

2020 Democratic White House hopeful and U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii broke with 11 other Democrats on the Ohio debate stage Tuesday night, branding President Donald Trump’s impeachment as “divisive.” “If impeachment is driven by these hyper-partisan interests, it will only further divide an already terribly divided country,” Gabbard said. The Hawaii congresswoman made clear her belief that an investigation should move forward, but cautioned Democrats not to rush the process as acquittal in the Senate would allow the president to claim vindication, playing into Trump’s message that House Democrats are out to get him.

A new survey from a left-leaning polling outlet finds President Trump running even with the top contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination in Ohio, which the president carried by 8 points in 2016. The latest Public Policy Polling survey, conducted on behalf of the progressive group Innovation Ohio, found former Vice President Joe Biden edging Trump 48 percent to 46 percent in Ohio, which is within the survey’s margin of error. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are tied with Trump at 47 percent each. The survey found Trump trailing a generic Democratic presidential candidate 48 percent to...

President Donald Trump will attend a Houston rally next week featuring Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India and visit an Australian-owned manufacturing facility in Ohio with Australia’s prime minister. The White House says the president will visit Houston, Texas and Wapakoneta, Ohio on Sunday, September 22 to underscore the important partnerships between the United States and India, and Australia. President Trump will use the “Howdy, Modi! Shared Dreams, Bright Futures” event in Houston to “emphasize the strong ties between the people of the United States and India” and reaffirm the two countries’ strategic partnership. He hopes to discuss ways to...

It will be a day at the beach for President Trump’s re-election campaign on Labor Day. The campaign is taking to the skies on Labor Day to fly banners over beach-goers to show its thanks for workers fueling the economy. “Labor Day is the perfect time to thank American workers for everything they do for our country,” said Tim Murtaugh, Trump campaign communications director. “Under President Trump’s policies, the economy is strong and growing, and more Americans are working than ever before. The American economy is the envy of the world and our American workers are the best on the...

DES MOINES — Democratic presidential candidates descended on Iowa in a flurry of activity this weekend, attending the annual Wing Ding dinner and speaking at the Iowa State Fair, meeting as many voters as they could and kicking off the primary season in earnest. Top-tier candidates like Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders attracted huge crowds who followed their every move as they ate corn dogs and looked at the cow made of butter. And then, more quietly, there was Bill Weld. Weld, the former governor of Massachusetts, arrived at the fair Sunday morning as a drizzly rain started to...

Booker and Beto O'Rourke both cited the president's rhetoric and stoking of racial division in the wake of the Texas shooting. Sen. Cory Booker placed blame on President Donald Trump and his racist rhetoric for a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, that left at least 20 people dead. The shooting is being investigated as an act of domestic terror and a hate crime after officials said that they believed, but have not confirmed, a manifesto filled with anti-immigrant and white supremacist language was posted online and written by the gunman. “I think, at the end of the day, especially...

Mirror’s man in US enters fray at Trump rally to see why supporters love him Standing among the crowd wearing Make America Great Again caps and T-shirts while some of them screamed “Shove gun control up your a**” and “Trump Rambo”, I was nervous. Typically I’d cover Donald Trump’s rallies from either behind the penned barricades or from the safety of a live feed off a TV news channel. But this time it was different. For, after braving five hours waiting to board the Trump Train at the President’s latest 2020 re-election rally, I joined thousands of his supporters in...

This week’s Democratic debates didn’t offer many hints about who will be the face of the party next year. In fact, they highlighted how far the Democrats are from deciding what their pitch will be to voters and who will make it. On the Republican side, however, it was clear at President Trump’s campaign rally Thursday night in Cincinnati, that the general election is already underway. I hadn’t been to a Trump rally since 2016 — right before he won the South Carolina primary and long before he had the nomination wrapped up. Back then, voters were drawn to Trump’s...

Responding to President Trump's Cincinnati rally, Ohio's Democratic Party chairman said Friday on "America's Newsroom" that promises to Ohioans have not been kept and that's why Trump's poll numbers are lagging in the state. David Pepper argued that Trump made "very specific" promises to Ohio voters about jobs and infrastructure in 2016, but questioned the results. "The truth is, what he didn't talk about last night was all those promises. He can't talk about them because he's broken them all," said Pepper, accusing Trump of "doing nothing about" the closure of a General Motors plant in Lordstown.

Pollster Lee Carter measured the responses of a group of 100 voters to President Trump’s rally in Cincinnati and she said Friday that independents are leaning toward the president's immigration stance. At one point in the speech, Trump said Democrats’ greatest “betrayal” was supporting “open borders’ and Democratic lawmakers “care more about illegal aliens than they care about their own constituents." “We’re not going to do that,” Trump said to his base at the rally on Thursday. Carter, president of communications consulting firm Maslansky + Partners, said the voter-reaction analysis showed independents tracking closer to Republicans than Democrats in response...

Joe Biden survived the second round of Democratic presidential debates, but it became more apparent that over half the 22-person field is irrelevant and should get out, the sooner the better. The former vice president was repeatedly under attack on health care, criminal justice, immigration and abortion. He stumbled sometimes, but overall was sharper than his mediocre performance in the first debate a month ago. This won't assuage fears of mainstream Democrats that the 76-year-old Biden may not be up to the challenge of a protracted primary fight and bitter battle against Donald Trump. Still he was sufficiently engaged to...

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Never has there been a presidential race as sprawling and wide-open as the 2020 Democratic primary. It would be a landscape entirely without a map, except that a small handful of battle-hardened veterans have navigated similar terrain before. At the kickoff of the primary debate season four years ago, no fewer than 16 candidates were jockeying for position in the largest Republican presidential field in history—only to end up being mowed down by Donald J. Trump in what became a slaughterhouse of a campaign. What’s in store for this year’s Democrats? To get an insider’s view, POLITICO Magazine invited four...

The Massachusetts senator talked up economic policies she says will benefit America's working and middle classes at a campaign event today You probably wouldn't usually go to Cincinnati's cavernous music venue Bogart's at 11 a.m. for a 45-minute talk about economic policy, but roughly 1,000 prospective voters supporting or curious about Democratic presidential primary contender U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren did today. Minus a couple flubs, Warren brought enough energy to fill the room, showcasing a wonky but neatly-packaged policy platform aimed squarely at voters disenchanted with the nation's economic and political structures and a controversial Republican administration. The Massachusetts senator,...

MADISON, Wis. (AP) - U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders returned to the friendly terrain of Wisconsin on Friday, promising to build a coalition that will defeat President Donald Trump as he kicked off a swing through pivotal states that are part of the Democratic "blue wall" strategy for 2020. Sanders, speaking to a crowd of about 2,400 who braved 40-degree (4 Celsius) temperatures with a stiff 20 mph (32 kph) wind, pledged to flip Midwestern states such as Wisconsin that Trump narrowly won in 2016. "Together, we are going to make sure that does not happen again," Sanders said to cheers....

Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) is throwing his support behind President Trump’s 2020 reelection bid, a move that could stir trouble for his own electoral prospects next year. Gardner, a onetime critic of Trump, told IJR that he was backing the president, because he believed Trump would do right by the people of Colorado. “Look, there are things here – look, I’ve made it very clear that where I agree with the president, we will agree or where I disagree, we will disagree,” Gardner said. “But I’m going to fight like hell for Colorado, and we’ve done some good things for...