Free Republic

The Louisiana Legislature adjourned from its special session on Friday, passing new congressional districts as required by a federal court order. Lawmakers also sent to Gov. Jeff Landry's desk for a possible signature a bill that would close the state's open primary system. Senate Bill 8, sponsored by Sen. Glen Womack, R-Madisonville, and preferred by Landry, would transform Republican U.S. Rep. Garret Graves’ 6th Congressional District into a second Black-majority district. The House favored it 86-16 and the Senate agreed to the lower chamber's changes 27-11. Lawmakers also passed an appropriation bill for SB8 that would provide $1.4 million to...

Former two-term South Carolina Governor and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley placed third in the Iowa caucuses on Monday.In August, Federalist columnist Eddie Scarry mocked former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley as “Hillary Clinton 2.0.”Talk about a take that aged well. In the fall, the DeSantis campaign even began using prior footage of Haley admiring the former secretary of state to tie the two together. By Iowa caucus month, Haley’s comparison to the first major party female presidential nominee had become a popular meme on platform X.Why would anyone support Nikki Haley aka Hillary Clinton 2.0? pic.twitter.com/FJoMZ4pkhD— Declaration of Memes (@LibertyCappy) January...

Thank you, Iowa! We have had an amazing 11 months here in the Hawkeye State. I came to Iowa early and often. And I kept coming back . . . even though the cold weather is brutal. The kindness of Iowans will never be lost on me. You’re faithful, patriotic, hardworking Americans. At one point in this campaign, there were 14 of us running. I was at two percent in the polls. But tonight, Iowa did what Iowa does so well. The pundits will analyze the results from every angle. But when you look at how we are doing in...

Nobody did it. Probably, at least. It’s the morning of the Iowa caucus and, in the words of the Des Moines Register, “Donald Trump retains a commanding lead.” This comes according to the outlet’s latest poll, which shows Trump with a staggering 28-point advantage going into the “coldest caucus” in years. This should chill the Beltway most of all. The Des Moines Register now puts Ron DeSantis in third place at 16 percent, down four points to Nikki Haley, a number just outside the margin of error. This is a shocking failure on the part of DeSantis, a successful populist...

Several presidential hopefuls had a fourth presidential debate last night at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. The debate was held on a site, NewsNation, which, despite hiring a high-profile newscaster like Megyn Kelly, many people hadn't heard of before the night. Notably absent for the fourth consecutive debate was former president Donald Trump. He's not wasting time on these debates, so why should everyone else? The Republican primary field keeps pretending that Trump isn't there. Perhaps they're hoping Trump will fall from one of the indictments in the Biden administration's unprecedented harassment of their political opposition, cynically waiting in...

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is in danger of not appearing on Maine's primary ballot after he fell short of the minimum 2,000 signatures needed from Maine voters to qualify for the state's Republican presidential primary, state officials said Friday. A letter from Maine's Director of Elections Heidi M. Peckham said Christie's campaign only submitted "844 names certified by municipal registrars." Candidates had to file signatures with the municipal clerks for certification before submitting them to the Secretary of State's office by 5 p.m. Friday. Christie has five days to appeal the decision in Maine Superior Court. "The campaign...

While the 2024 presidential election is still a year away, the Republican primaries are almost upon us. The Iowa caucuses are on January 15, and the following Tuesday, New Hampshire will hold its first-in-the-nation primary. That's not much time for former governor and UN ambassador Nike Haley to make up 50 points or more in the polls. Obviously, that's not going to happen. And realistically, Haley's chances depend on limiting Trump's victories in the early primary states and then winning some later contests in South Carolina and Michigan in late February. “Nikki Haley is certainly locking up a lot of...

Make America Great Again Inc., the super PAC backing former President Donald Trump, has spent a magnitude more on ads targeting 2024 rival Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis than on President Biden — despite Trump leading the GOP field by over 40 points on average. MAGA Inc. has spent over $23 million funding ads opposing DeSantis and over $6.7 million against Biden, according to data published by Rob Pyers, research director for the California Target Book. The large discrepancy in spending shows Trump’s camp is engaged in the primary election and is not merely focusing on beating Biden, as the former...

The Democrats running Reclaim Idaho and their supporters are pushing a voter initiative which they are deceptively calling the “Open Primary Initiative” and falsely claiming that “Leaders are handpicked by political party committees” and that somehow Idahoans do not have the freedom to vote in all elections. These ridiculous claims are easily disproven with a tiny bit of rational thinking. Initiatives allow the citizens to pass laws directly without going through the legislative process. It starts with submitting the proposed initiative language to the SOS for review. Then the proponents must gather signatures from 6% of the voters in at...

A presidential primary filing period marked by lights, cameras and (in)action has come to a close at the New Hampshire secretary of state’s office. Two weeks before he dropped out, former Vice President Mike Pence was the only candidate to have his own studio lights shining on him as he signed up for the yet-to-be-scheduled Republican contest next year. Former President Donald Trump’s staff ripped up tape from the carpet that reserved spots for local journalists and put his campaign photographer up front instead. President Joe Biden skipped signing up altogether, in deference to changes that the Democratic National Committee...

ROCHESTER, N.H. – Nikki Haley is having a great fall. The former two-term South Carolina governor who later served as ambassador to the United Nations in then-President Donald Trump's administration has been on the rise in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. While Trump remains the commanding front-runner in the GOP race,Haley has seen her poll numbers rise nationally and in the crucial early voting states, thanks in part to two well-regarded performances in the first two Republican presidential debates. "We can feel the momentum on the ground," Haley said in an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital...

The Republican presidential primaries continue to heat up as the candidates vie to become the main challenger to former President Donald Trump, who still maintains a considerable lead over the rest of the field. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has stayed in 2nd place in the polling, has experienced a slump in his campaign, which has allowed entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy to pose a significant threat to his position.Perhaps this is the reason why DeSantis-aligned organizations are reportedly targeting the upstart. But if DeSantis manages to fend off Ramaswamy’s ascension, when will he finally begin taking on Trump?Politico obtained an audio...

It’s debate night and I have to say, I’m ready for it. Let’s see the contenders for the Republican presidential nomination on a stage, all together, and see how they fare against each other. One notable absence will be Donald Trump. Trump, being Trump, is doing his event in the form of a pre-taped interview with Tucker Carlson. Look for Trump to be doing his form of live-blogging the debate on his Truth Social account. Some odd things have been happening today. This morning a pro-DeSantis PAC, the Never Back Down PAC, was suspended on X (formerly Twitter), before it...

CNN/YOUTUBE Environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and self-help author Marianne Williamson are both polling ahead of former GOP New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in their respective presidential primaries. In fact, the latest polling shows Williamson with double Christie’s support, and RFK Jr. with quadruple the support of the former governor. But it’s not Williamson and Kennedy who are making it on the airwaves. According to RealClearPolitics’ latest aggregate of surveys, Christie is running in the GOP presidential race with roughly 3 percent support. In the last major poll conducted by CBS and YouGov, the brash-talking governor, who’s running...

Election season is rapidly approaching. The first Republican debate is this week. The Iowa caucus is in January, and the New Hampshire primary is soon thereafter. With over a dozen declared candidates, the marathon placements are starting to take shape. For now, don't lean too heavily on polls. First, we're too far out, and too much can happen. Second, we all know how we feel about polls. The poll showing our candidate doing well is Gospel. The poll showing our candidate faring poorly is Soros-funded dreck. As the polls change direction, so too change their designations. Rinse. Repeat. But taking...

Mike Pence has met the requirements for the first Republican presidential debate. He finally reached the donor threshold. His campaign confirmed the news late Monday. Pence capitalized on Trump’s indictment and allegations that Trump tried to pressure Pence to reject the 2020 election results. There must have been a level of humiliation felt by Pence and his campaign as the former vice president failed to get the necessary donor level to qualify for the debate. His campaigned reached the polling requirement but had difficulty getting 40,000 unique donations. Pence is a former congressman, governor, and vice president and he only...

Democratic 2024 presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. has called for a "real investigation" on President Joe Biden and his family. Kennedy made his statement during an appearance on Sunday Morning Futures when Fox News host Maria Bartiromo asked him about corruption in government, specifically about bank records from the House Oversight Committee showing that Biden "took in millions of dollars. Kennedy said that while he has avoided criticizing the president in an attempt to "bring people together," he did express concern over the new revelations from Congress in the past week. * * * Kennedy was also asked about corruption...

Former New Jersey Governor and GOP Presidential candidate Chris Christie continues to slam GOP frontrunner Donald Trump, a man he once supported so strongly that he helped Trump prepare for his debates with Hillary Clinton. Christie says he began to see Trump in a new light after Trump’s one-term presidency, and he now believes Trump is unfit to serve as he campaigns — while under multiple indictments — for a second term in office. Christie has repeatedly characterized Trump as a liar, recently adding “con artist” and “grifter” to his Trump name-calling. (Christie also says that "most Republicans" know that...

Sticking with Biden prevents open primaries that might demonstrate the appeal RFK Jr.’s ideas have among millions of ordinary voters. Joe Biden is a walking dead man, politically. His approval ratings are in the tank, and a stunning 72 percent of Americans think the country is on the “wrong track,” according to a recent survey. Biden’s cognitive decline is embarrassingly obvious. He is already 80 years old — the oldest president the country has ever had. He would be 86 at the end of a second term, assuming he lived that long, which troubles even his supporters. On top of...

Former President Donald Trump is in a stronger position so far in the 2024 Republican presidential primary race than he was in the 2016 presidential primary cycle, according to former Republican campaign strategist Matthew Dowd.Mr. Dowd, who served as the chief strategist on George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign, evaluated the current Republican presidential primary field during a Tuesday panel discussion on MSNBC’s “Lindsey Reiser Reports” program. Mr. Dowd’s political loyalties have shifted since serving on Mr. Bush’s re-election campaign, and in 2021 he entered the race to become the Texas lieutenant governor, running a failed campaign on the Democratic...