Free Republic

Many Donald Trump supporters think he is a slam dunk to beat Hillary Clinton in the general election. The candidate himself certainly takes this view. But Trump's analysis of current public polls is preposterous. In the RealClearPolitics.com average of recent polls, Trump trails Clinton by 6 points, 47 to 41 percent. Ted Cruz, in contrast, leads Clinton 46 to 45 percent. Ex-candidate Marco Rubio and splinter candidate John Kasich have been running even better. All at least equal the 46 percent that is the lowest percentage won by either party's nominee this century. Against each of them Clinton falls short...

Sen. Ted Cruz landed an immediate blow on GOP presidential rival Donald Trump, who spoke before him Monday at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference, for how the front-runner referred to the Palestinian people. "Let me say at the outset, perhaps to the surprise of the previous speaker, Palestine has not existed since 1948," Cruz said to lead off his speech in Washington. Trump repeatedly referred to the Palestinian people as "Palestine" during his remarks just minutes before Cruz. Neither the United States nor Israel recognizes Palestine as a country...

<p>The 2016 presidential campaign, like most, has spawned many myths – half-truths, delusions and some outright falsehoods – that spread through the Internet and over the airwaves. These four have taken on outsized prominence.</p> <p>Myth No. 1: Donald Trump has drawn “millions” of Democrats, independents and previously disengaged citizens into the GOP.</p>

Donald Trump Will (Almost Certainly) Never Be Elected President. Here’s Why. By Greg Sargent March 21 With Donald Trump steamrolling towards the GOP nomination, the political chatter is increasingly focused on whether Trump could win a general election by making surprise inroads into states in the industrial Midwest. Many Democrats and nonpartisan observers see this as probably the only plausible (if that’s even the right word for it) path for Trump, who might do this mainly by running up huge numbers among white voters — particularly blue collar whites. But a new examination of the demographics and projected voting patterns...

Ted Cruz's foreign policy team is taking aim at Donald Trump's bromance with Vladimir Putin as it courts wary anti-Trump elements within the Republican establishment. Daniel Vajdich, a member of Cruz’s recently announced national security team, blasted out an email last week inviting “GOP Russia hands” to join a Ted Cruz Russia Working Group, slamming Trump’s praise for the Russian president last year and asking for help “pushing back against Donald Trump’s dangerous Russia policy.” ...

With the prospect of a contested convention looming over the Republican presidential primary, Donald J. Trump on Sunday complained about the party’s rules requiring a candidate to have a majority of delegates to clinch the nomination outright. Asked by George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week” why he should be “guaranteed the nomination” if he failed to amass the 1,237 delegates needed to win it on the first ballot, Mr. Trump said that he might be unable to clear that threshold. But he blamed the number of contenders in the Republican field. “If I’m a little bit short – and one...

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said that "professional agitators" bore much of the blame for violence at his rallies as video showed a protester being beaten and another apparently being grabbed by Trump's campaign manager. Speaking on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday, Trump defended campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and declined to condemn supporters who have attacked protesters at his increasingly chaotic rallies. Nor did he back down from his warning that there would be riots in the streets if the Republican Party denied him the nomination for the November election, despite his being the most popular candidate among Republican voters....

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump is fighting efforts to hold a trial in a federal class-action lawsuit over his Trump University real-estate program either just before or after the Republican National Convention in July. Such a trial has the potential to pull Trump off the campaign trail in order to serve as a witness. And in a filing late Friday night in federal court in San Diego, lawyers for Trump said plaintiffs' lawyers are intentionally trying to schedule the trial to interfere with his presidential campaign. "Plaintiffs’ request to set a trial date in June or August of this year...