Free Republic

Although Mr. Trump was convicted in New York, he’s a Florida resident residing at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach.“Florida defers to other state laws when it comes to disenfranchising voters who are tried and convicted elsewhere. … [In New York], those convicted of felonies who do not go to prison never lose their voting rights,” said Blair Bowie, director of the Campaign Legal Center’s Restore Your Vote project.The only way Mr. Trump wouldn’t be able to vote is if New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan sends him to jail for his conviction. Sentencing is set for July 11.The former president...

the Trump campaign needs to be aware of an emerging thread of data that suggests that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis may do better in the general election. New survey results from Public Opinion Strategies build on previous results and are starting to frame a coherent story about how the general election might look with different Republican candidates. The new survey results indicate that Mr. DeSantis would do better than Mr. Trump in the general election in specific battleground states. For example, in Georgia, Mr. DeSantis leads President Biden by 3 percentage points in a general election matchup. In the same...

Former President Donald Trump still wields some power in public opinion polls. “Just over a year out from the Republican Party’s first presidential nominating contest, Trump remains the front-runner in a hypothetical crowded field, backed by 46% of potential Republican primary voters. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is expected to launch a campaign later this year, is backed by 33% of the potential GOP electorate,” reports Eli Yokley, a Morning Consult analyst. “No. 45’s buzz is improving, but his favorability is not: Potential Republican primary voters have been increasingly likely over the past month to say they’ve heard something positive...

The new slim Republican majority in the House of Representatives lacks something besides its slim majority and the battle over leadership positions. It lacks intellectual depth. The Reagan administration may have been the last one to challenge Americans to think for themselves, and for that matter, just to think. Perhaps this lack of thinking and intellectual depth in our politics is caused by instruments and websites that do the thinking for us. We now tune in to whatever newspaper, cable network or website reinforces our beliefs and care little about how ideas were developed, whether they work and who benefits...

On Dec. 10, 1991, a conservative pundit who had worked for three presidents and become a celebrity by hosting a cable television debate show declared he would run for elected office for the first time – and not just any office. Pat Buchanan, a veteran of the Nixon, Ford and Reagan White Houses, announced his campaign for the presidency in front of a small yet raucous gathering of his supporters in New Hampshire. He would challenge in the upcoming primaries incumbent Republican President George H. W. Bush who, in Mr. Buchanan’s view, was a globalist who had lost touch with...

President Joe Biden is said to be spending this holiday season in deep thought about another run for the Senate, err, make that another run as President Kamala Harris’ sidekick, err, oops, make that a third term in the White House. Or something, something, anyway. Which is it, Joe? If this is the hope of the Democrats, Republicans are poised to breeze into the White House 2024. “Biden, who just turned 80, remains in many Democrats’ minds the party’s best shot at retaining the White House in 2024,” The Hill wrote, in a piece that was headlined, “Biden mulls 2024...

Donors just didn’t want to back a loser — and that’s just what Mr. Trump is now — a loser. “Hedge fund manager Ken Griffin, the second-most prolific GOP donor of the midterms, said Tuesday that he would support [Florida Gov. Ron] DeSantis over Trump, pointing to the Florida governor’s dominant reelection victory in a state that was considered competitive until recently,” The Hill reported this week. “I’d like to think that the Republican Party is ready to move on from somebody who has been for this party a three-time loser,” said Mr. Griffin, who funded a pro-Trump super political...

Our thousands of nuclear weapons were designed, tested and built in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s to win the Cold War. None of these weapons has been tested since 1992, over a quarter century ago. Nor has a single new weapon been designed, tested or built during this same period. The tens of thousands of active nuclear weapons scientists in our three nuclear weapons labs have never designed, tested and built a nuclear weapon. Nuclear weapons are the most complex systems ever created by man. The detonation of a nuclear weapon is so complex that there are many activities and...

The Aug. 8 search of former President Donald Trump’s home and the unprecedented criminal investigation into his possession of White House documents all began with David Ferriero, the now-retired national archivist who alerted the Justice Department after finding classified information in boxes he retrieved from Mar-a-Lago. Critics say Mr. Ferriero is a partisan who changed the rules to help excuse Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when she was under scrutiny for mishandling classified documents on her private, unsecured email server. They also say the raid for a criminal investigation is just another politically motivated scheme to take down Mr. Trump,...

Voters, unenthusiastic about a Trump vs. Biden rematch in 2024, are increasingly open to dumping the Republican and Democrat ticket entirely for an independent candidate. Two recent polls show a majority of Republican, Democratic and independent voters would consider a “moderate independent candidate” for president if President Biden and former President Trump run again in 2024. “Our observed aversion to the former and current president as voters begin thinking about 2024 tickets is a major opening for an independent presidential ticket,” Mark Penn, chairman of the Harvard-CAPS Harris Poll, which conducted the two surveys, said. The poll of registered voters,...