Free Republic

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) has won the special election for Oakland mayor in a close contest over “moderate” Loren Taylor, giving “progressives” hope and defying efforts by Democrats to shift their party to the center. Lee, 78, defeated Taylor, 47, thanks to late-arriving postal ballots, after Taylor led on Election Night. She will take the helm of a city suffering from poor left-wing governance in the wake of a corruption scandal involving former mayor Sheng Thao, also a “progressive.” Oakland had recently begun to emerge from the shadows of San Francisco — its wealthier, glitzier neighbor across the Bay —...

President Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon predicted Thursday that President Trump will go to prison if a Democrat wins back the White House in 2028. “God forbid we don’t win in ’28, President Trump is going to prison,” Bannon, who was Trump’s adviser in his first presidency, said Thursday during an appearance on Real America’s Voice. “And people are sitting around — still with the glow of Nov. 4 and all the inaugurations and all the balls. We’re at war, and things that’ve happened in the last 72 hours — if you don’t understand we’re in political warfare, you’re not...

The Senate GOP has been working in overdrive to confirm key officials for President Donald Trump's administration faster than his predecessors. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and Republicans in the upper chamber have successfully approved 18 of the 22 Cabinet positions. The most recent was former Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who was confirmed to lead Trump's Small Business Administration (SBA). With the successful confirmation of Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick last week, the 17th official put in place, Republicans and Trump officially outpaced former President Joe Biden, who had just seven nominees confirmed at the same point in 2021. Senate...

Incumbent President of Ecuador Daniel Noboa narrowly defeated establishment socialist candidate Luisa González on Sunday in the first round of the nation’s 2025 presidential elections. Both candidates, who faced each other in 2023, will once again compete in a runoff election scheduled for Sunday, April 13, as neither obtained the required votes to be elected in the first round. Sunday saw over ten million Ecuadorians head to the polls and cast their votes to elect the president, vice president, and members of the National Assembly. At press time, voter results published by Ecuador’s National Electoral Council (CNE) indicate that, with...

Republican Dave McCormick will be the next senator from the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, even as networks refuse to call the race and incumbent Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) refuses to concede. McCormick declared victory Thursday afternoon. “McCormick is up 30,679 votes with more to come, as ruby red Cambria County is still outstanding,” McCormick campaign communications director Elizabeth Gregory said in a statement. “While votes continue to be counted, any way you slice it, Dave McCormick will be the next United States Senator from Pennsylvania.” With more than 95% of the vote in, McCormick had 3,337,473 votes to Casey’s 3,306,240 —...

Americans should prepare for “unrest’ if former President Donald Trump completes the greatest political comeback in modern American politics, Democrats told the Wall Street Journal on Monday. The potential for Democrats to perpetrate political violence undermines their narrative that Republicans, and especially the America First movement, are a threat to democracy. “I think there’ll be some violence. I think there’ll be workplace fights. There’ll be fights at kids’ birthday parties. I think they’ll be protests and will turn violent,” Mark Halperin recently told Tucker Carlson

“My gut says” former President Donald Trump will win the election, Nate Silver wrote Wednesday, with a warning not to trust “anyone’s gut” instinct. Silver, a statistician, writer, and poker player, says the election remains a “50/50” coin flip, a characterization that many political experts argue is true with just 13 days until Election Day. Newsweek reported on Silver’s history of predicting elections: 2008: Nate Silver successfully predicted the winner in 49 out of 50 states in the presidential election. 2012: He correctly predicted the winner in all 50 states. 2016: Although Donald Trump won in an upset, Silver’s model...

Early vote trends in swing states favor of former President Donald Trump and suggest “the election will be over on election day before we know who votes,” political analyst Mark Halperin said Tuesday on The Morning Meeting. The trends will likely cause the Harris campaign to hit the panic button in the coming days with increased heated rhetoric meant to drive turnout among its supporters. Halperin, an analyst who attempts to report data without spin, said the early vote in Nevada and North Carolina looks strong for Trump, which is far “more important than the polls right now.” Surveys show...

Democratic strategist James Carville said Monday on MSNBC’s “The Beat” that he and host Ari Melber will be arrested if former President Donald Trump wins the election. Carville said, “Trump goes out, and he says I’m going to use the military to arrest my political enemies, and then Mike Johnson’s and Lindsey Graham, and the Wall Street Journal editorial pages say oh no, that’s not what he meant and then he comes back and says yeah, that’s exactly what I meant. You know what’ll happen? You pointed it out; if he wins, he will say, I told people I was...

RICHMOND. Va. (AP) — The Virginia State Board of Elections on Tuesday certified the apparent narrow defeat of Republican Rep. Bob Good, one of America’s most conservative congressmen, to a challenger endorsed by former President Donald Trump in the state’s June 18 primaries. The board’s unanimous vote to certify the results does not end the matter, though. Good, who chairs the hard-right House Freedom Caucus in Congress, has said he will seek a recount now that the state has declared his opponent, state Sen. John McGuire, the winner of the primary in Virginia’s 5th Congressional District.

Donald Trump added another victory Tuesday night in the Beehive State after voting difficulties delayed reporting of the outcome. Utah will deliver all of its 40 delegates to Trump in a resounding caucus victory for the former president in a state where he did not win the primary in 2016. Utah gives all its delegates to a candidate exceeding 50 percent of the vote. The results were delayed by a comedy of voting system errors, including an overwhelmed website the state party attributed to turnout that exceeded expectations. The Associated Press did not call the race for Trump until 3:59...

Pennsylvania Democrats won a trio of state House special elections Tuesday night, handing them a clear majority. The victories give Democrats the upper hand in a chamber that has seesawed in control since the November elections, resulting in a bipartisan "independent" speaker arrangement that quickly went sour. But with Tuesday's wins, the Democratic Party now is in a stronger position to block GOP-led initiatives, including a potential anti-abortion ballot measure. Democrats won in three districts, according to projections by The Associated Press: 32nd District: Democrat Joe McAndrew defeated Republican Clay Walker. The seat was left vacant after the death in...

Republican Young Kim has defeated Democrat Asif Mahmood in her bid for California’s 40th U.S Congressional District, successfully defending her seat after winning in 2020. With 54 percent reporting as of Wednesday night, Rep. Young Kim appears to have coasted to victory by earning 58 percent of the vote versus Mahmood’s 41 percent. BREAKING: Young Kim (R-inc) defeats Asif Mahmood (D) in California's 40th Congressional District @DecisionDeskHQ pic.twitter.com/KX1QL3h5Fa — InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) November 10, 2022

New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) is hopeful that Rep. Lee Zeldin (R) will beat Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) on Tuesday so that he can advance his initiatives on crime and public safety, the New York Post reported. Although Adams has publicly endorsed and campaigned for Gov. Hochul, three anonymous sources who allegedly have longtime ties to Adams and the New York City Council told the Post that Adams would see more of an opportunity to address crime within New York City if Zeldin were elected governor on Tuesday.

The Virginia Military Institute is celebrating the 25th anniversary of the presence of women at the nation’s oldest state military college with an appearance by Kimberly Dark: a fat rights activist and author of lesbian fanfic who wants to “reimagine masculinity”.“Why couldn’t we see that America has been racist forever, sexist forever?” Dark ranted in a post titled, “For those who do not want a Trump presidency — this is what we will do now.”Under Superintendent Cedric Wins, this is what the Virginia Military Institute has become.“How have you benefited from adherence to your gender role?” a VMI diversity training...

Former President Donald Trump told Breitbart News exclusively that conservative victories in Brazil, Italy, Sweden, Hungary, and more are proof that the “great movement” he leads is spreading worldwide. “The whole thing is a great movement that’s taken place and now it’s happening all over the world,” Trump said in a phone interview on Tuesday. “It’s a very simple movement: Give us borders, give us safe streets, we don’t want crime, give us good education, give us dignity and give us respect as a nation. It’s not complicated.”

Fresh Hollywood aspirant Barack Obama won an Emmy on Saturday night for narrating his Netflix documentary series Our Great National Parks. The award goes alongside two Grammys previously garnered for talking about himself in the audiobook reading of two of his published memoirs, The Audacity of Hope and Dreams of My Father.

A Democratic New York state Senate candidate backed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., celebrated her primary election victory by declaring "socialism wins." Kristen Gonzalez, a tech worker whose campaign for the New York state Senate was backed by the Democratic Socialists of America and left-wing lawmakers including Ocasio-Cortez, made the declaration to cheering supporters on Tuesday after winning her primary election. "I know we’re saving the speeches for a little later, but today we really proved that socialism wins!" Gonzalez said as her supporters cheered.

Democrats, months away from the midterm election where the GOP is favored to take back the House, are looking to pass bills to show they have been able to do something productive for the country while having total control of Washington, DC, as Republicans also look to put them on the record opposing hard-line bills. As Politico pointed out, the Democrats have used this past week to pass legislation on a wide range of areas by playing “whack-a-mole” with the multiple national crises, such as a shortage of baby formula, skyrocketing inflation, and high gas prices, so they can buff...

Rep. Tim Ryan won Ohio’s Democratic Senate primary on Tuesday, advancing to what will be one of the most closely watched general election battles of the midterms. The Associated Press called the race at 7:56 p.m. ET. Ryan defeated fellow Democrats Morgan Harper, Traci Johnson and LaShondra Tinsley.