Free Republic

Joni Ernst, the Iowa state senator and Iraq War veteran, was standing in a barn in a purple flannel shirt and an unzipped vest. Beside her, various swine burrowed in the hog lot; two small pigs spooned; there was copious squealing. When Ernst, who grew up on a farm castrating hogs, opened her mouth to speak, she drew the inevitable connection between her upbringing and her current role as a Republican candidate for the United States Senate. “When I get to Washington, I’ll know how to cut pork,” Ernst said, smiling. Title cards reinforced her credentials. (“Joni Ernst: Mother. Soldier....

Going into the final week, the close Senate races are beginning to shake out — and perhaps get caught in the national wave. That may be the case in Georgia, where Survey USA’s polling shows a five-point shift in the race between Michelle Nunn and David Perdue to replace Saxby Chambliss. Last week, Nunn edged Perdue 46/44, but Perdue now leads 48/45 with seven days left. The “dramatic” difference, Survey USA reports, is among women: Compared to a WXIA-TV pre-election tracking poll one week ago, Democrat Michelle Nunn is upside down. One week ago, Nunn led Republican David Perdue...

The Democratic Party is systematically destroying America and other than Barack Obama, no one deserves more blame for it than Harry Reid. He may be an excellent politician who runs circles around Mitch McConnell the way Bugs Bunny baffles Elmer Fudd, but he's also a habitually dishonest, mean-spirited sociopath who cares absolutely nothing about the good of the country. The Democrat senators who put Reid into power and went along with Obama deserve to be punished for what they’ve done. Certainly, that doesn't mean the Republicans are wonderful. Just the fact that they allow themselves to be led by a...

Registered Democrats have out-voted Republicans by double-digit margins among ballots cast early in two bitter southern Senate races. But the political climate favors Republicans nationally, and the GOP remains bullish on its overall momentum toward gaining the Senate majority. State tallies of early voting put Democrats ahead of Republicans by nearly 18 percentage points among ballots cast early in Louisiana, where Sen. Mary Landrieu faces an uphill battle to keep her seat. And in North Carolina, Democrats hold an early 17-point lead as another Democratic incumbent, Sen. Kay Hagan, fights for re-election. Both margins are wider than in 2010, the...

Over the weekend, NBC News and Marist College dropped a bunch of new polls in key Senate races, just over a week before Election Day. Colorado -- The trend among pollsters here is consistent; Cory Gardner (R) has seen polls move in his direction pretty consistently. Except in Quinnipiac polling, which in September was an outlier and now has merged with the consensus. Georgia -- A lot of the polling in this race has been done by firms not in the eight we identified above, which is interesting in and of itself. But the SurveyUSA trend (and those two other...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell plans to counter the influx of Democratic spending aimed at defeating him by writing a big personal check. The Republican leader is loaning his campaign $1.8 million out of his own bank account, exceeding a $1.5 million investment by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Senate Majority PAC to bolster the prospects of Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes. A McConnell campaign official told POLITICO Friday that his boss is making the donation because he has long said that the National Republican Senatorial Committee should spend money in other hotly contested races — not his own. “Sen....

A seven-year-old law created after congressional Republicans pressured lobbying firms to hire their former staffers could be invoked against Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia. Earlier this year, when then-Virginia state senator Phillip Puckett was considering resigning so his daughter could become a state judge without a conflict of interest, Warner intervened in an effort to convince him to stay. In an hour-long conversation, Warner described other job opportunities he could help the state senator's daughter get instead of the state judgeship, Puckett’s son told investigators....

In the latest wave of the New York Times/CBS/YouGov poll, Cory Booker leads Jeff Bell 51-39. Bell's admirers (of which I'm one) might be tempted to conclude: Not a bad showing for Bell in a race where the conventional wisdom has been that Booker would win by at least 20 points. Bell's run an interesting campaign, he's raised important issues, it looks as if he'll achieve a respectable if losing result while being massively outspent, and one can leave it at that. Not quite so fast. Take a look at some of the poll's internals. Booker is winning Democrats by...

On Sunday, Sen. Al Franken (D., Minn.) avoided questions on travel bans and quarantines to limit the spread of Ebola in the United States. After being prodded to answer, a moderator asked Franken, “I mean, which is it, do you support a travel ban or not?”

Joni Ernst, U.S. Senate candidate, has a banana, a cup of coffee, and a 31-foot RV painted with American flags, landscapes of corn, and hogs. She also has Iowa stretching vastly out in front of her. Seven counties today, eight counties yesterday, 99 counties in 44 days, and a tour she’s calling “Iowa Knows Best” that is intended to persuade Iowans to send her to Washington so she can show the federal government a better way: “the Iowa way.” The Iowa way is fiscal responsibility, she has been telling the people on this tour. The Iowa way is cutting taxes...

Democratic New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen was jeered with cries of “Rude!” Sunday after she interrupted her Republican opponent Scott Brown’s closing debate remarks to make a statement about the Koch Brothers. After Brown asserted that he was endorsed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Shaheen butted in to call the Chamber a “Koch-funded organization.” Members in the crowd yelled “rude” at her. Brown received a round of applause moments later for criticizing Shaheen’s lack of decorum.

You might expect a headline on the WallStreetJournal.com website over the weekend that read:"Poll: GOP Expands Advantage Days Before Midterm Election"But this line at the top of an MSNBC piece on the state of major Senate campaigns might surprise you:"The momentum in these races, however, has swung mostly in the Republican Party's direction, giving the GOP a clear path to winning the majority."And here is how the Washington-based website Politico wrote its headline:"Polls Give Republicans Edge in Critical States"What got everyone's attention were two polls taken in the major battleground states and released over the weekend.South Dakota, Wyoming, and West Virginia...

When the left-leaning Denver Post shocked Colorado and the political world by endorsing Republican challenger Cory Gardner over Democrat incumbent Mark Udall in Colorado’s close race for US Senate, national Democrats were punched as silly as a victim of the knockout game. “One of the worst endorsement decisions by any serious newspaper in my lifetime,” raged former Colorado Senator Gary Hart. “Naïve! What was the Denver Post thinking?” sputtered The New Republic. “Asinine,” intoned Salon, for good measure. Liberals are enraged a liberal leaning paper endorsed a conservative challenger over a lackluster liberal incumbent. But expressing that would expose their...

One week to go for the imminent decision on the new course that Americans will take their country. And there really are only two options nationally; the beginnings of recovery for a badly bruised intellect – or – unbridled bat guano crazy. While the sparkle has come off Barack Obama’s crown, voters no longer have the opportunity to vote him off the throne. But next week, citizens will decide whether to checkmate the President by giving the Republicans a majority in the United States Senate. Here are seven reasons that America will vote Republican this year: 1. National Defense –...

Haven’t been following the US midterm elections closely? Here’s a roundup of the most notable – and notorious – races. KENTUCKY SENATE Running Incumbent Mitch McConnell (Republican) v Alison Lundergan Grimes (Democrat) Snapshot There is no single candidate Democrats would love to knock off more than McConnell, their Senate nemesis, who is so close to becoming majority leader he can smell it. And if any Democrat can crack Kentucky, it may be Grimes, a 35-year-old rock-star secretary of state. Polling An average of projections has McConnell winning by 4 points. KANSAS SENATE Running Incumbent Pat Roberts (R) v Greg Orman...

NBC News/Marist Polls Show Tight Contests in Key States BY MARK MURRAY Control of the U.S. Senate is coming down to the wire, with Democrats and Republicans locked in tight races in the key contests that will determine the majority in that chamber of Congress, according to six new NBC News/Marist polls. The momentum in these races, however, has swung mostly in the Republican Party’s direction, giving the GOP a clear path to winning the majority. In Colorado’s Senate contest, Republican challenger Cory Gardner holds a one-point lead among likely voters over incumbent Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., 46 percent to...

BROOKHAVEN, W.Va - If you don't look in the weeds, sometimes you miss the signs. Late this summer, along the edges of this Mountain State town, a homemade sign jutted from the edge of a country road. It read, simply: “Change is coming.” A few miles west, toward Coopers Rock State Forest, another sign almost hidden by a cornfield read, “Change is in the air.” West Virginians always have had a distinct disdain for big government, yet poverty has kept them dependent on the one political party that provided just enough free stuff to lock them into voting for it....

HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. — The quiet murmur of several dozen Republican activists crammed in a small office in this Denver suburb was broken Saturday morning by a jocular cry: “Hey, everybody, what’s going on?” Rep. Cory Gardner, the party’s Senate candidate — and its best shot at breaking a decade-long losing streak in top Colorado races — burst into the room wearing a blue-checkered work shirt and jeans, and immediately began shaking hands and posing for pictures. Rick Murray, 69, a financial broker, shook his head in admiration. “You see enthusiasm like that out of anybody else?” he said. It’s...

In a new ad from Kentucky Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes, a handful of women from the Bluegrass state stare straight into the camera and blast Republican incumbent Mitch McConnell for his shameful 30-year record on women. “Shame on you Mitch McConnell,” an African-American woman says, arms crossed. “You’ve turned your back on our mothers, our daughters, and me,” another woman continues. More women lambaste the Senate minority leader for voting against the Paycheck Fairness Act and declining to vote for an expanded Violence Against Women Act in 2012: “Instead of enforcing equal pay for equal work, you called it...

Independent or third-party politicians often roil American elections, and the current battle for Senate control could be determined by any of several unconventional candidates, including a pizza-delivering Libertarian in North Carolina. GREG ORMAN: This independent received a dramatic boost in the Kansas Senate race when the Democrat suddenly dropped out... SEAN HAUGH: A folksy, mild-mannered Libertarian who delivers pizza around Durham could hold the key to North Carolina on November 4. He is polling at six percent in a race where Democratic Senator Kay Hagan leads Republican Thom Tillis by half that margin.