Free Republic

Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) is trailing her Democratic rival, Gov. Maggie Hassan, by 10 points in what has been one of the tightest Senate races in the country, according to a new poll from WBUR Radio. The poll, which was conducted between July 19 and Aug. 1, shows 50 percent of respondents saying they would vote for Hassan if the election were held today, compared with 40 percent for Ayotte. Ayotte is one of the most vulnerable GOP senators up for reelection in a year in which Republicans can afford to lose only three seats if they hope to maintain...

Ayotte Leads Hassan in InsideSources/NH Journal Poll/Trump Takes 9-Point Lead Over Clinton in Granite State: An InsideSources/NH Journal poll finds that incumbent U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte is gaining momentum in her race against New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan. Ayotte leads Hassan 49 percent to 41.4 percent, with 9.6 percent undecided. Meanwhile, days after officially receiving the Republican nomination in Cleveland, the poll shows businessman Donald Trump leads former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton 47.9 percent to 38.5 percent in New Hampshire, with 13.6 percent undecided. InsideSources tested a negative message for each of the major party’s candidates for Senate. When...

Members of a secretive Turkish Islamic movement that is at the center of a congressional ethics committee investigation have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and to her family’s charity, a Daily Caller investigation has found.The largest donation from a leader of the Gulen movement, which is operated from Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains by a moderate Muslim cleric named Fethullah Gulen, came from Recep Ozkan. A former president of the Gulen-linked Turkish Cultural Center, Ozkan gave between $500,001 and $1,000,000 to the Clinton Foundation in recent months, the charity’s website shows. He also served as a national...

PARTY LEADERSHIP RECOMMENDING AVOID OHIO CONVENTION... Somewhat quietly, though not without some water-cooler discussion, the Republican Party Leadership is warning membership to stay away from the upcoming Cleveland Ohio convention. The media is describing the issue as centering around those elected politicians who may want to avoid the potential for divisive controversy. However, if you look at the actual landscape, and then look at the political ideology of those who are openly saying they are staying away, what you’ll notice is the RINO caucus, the ‘Decepticons’, are the most cautious. If you spend some time digging through the professional GOPe...

We knew this was coming, and here it is. NH Senator Kelly Ayotte has a primary Challenger. STARK360 ENDORSES JIM RUBENS IN THE US SENATE REPUBLICAN PRIMARY IN NEW HAMPSHIRE WILL SUPPORT ANDREW HEMINGWAY AS AN INDEPENDENT IN THE GENERAL ELECTION IF AYOTTE WINS THE PRIMARY A recent Gallup poll showed that 75% in the US now see widespread government corruption, and a Chapman University survey found that Americans now fear corruption of government officials over all other worries including terrorist attacks, bio-warfare and economic collapse. The Center for Public Integrity recently gave the State of New Hampshire a grade...

Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson has declined to rule out a future break with his party's presidential frontrunner, Donald Trump -- a shift from Johnson's past statements that he would back whoever the GOP nominates. Following Trump's reluctance to disavow a former Ku Klux Klan leader in a Sunday TV interview, Johnson told radio host Charlie Sykes that he's happy to disavow any form of white supremacy. Johnson, R-Oshkosh, said he's "praying" for leaders who won't be divisive and -- without naming Trump -- said he's demoralized by the current state of the presidential race. "It's depressing to see how...

John Kasich's campaign is disavowing an ad by a pro-Kasich super PAC that targets Marco Rubio for voting against legislation designed to curb violence against women. The 30-second spot, first reported by POLITICO on Sunday and set to begin airing in New Hampshire Tuesday as part of a $1 million buy, is also under fire from Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), who was featured in it without her knowledge. The ad by New Day for America super PAC shows a clip of Ayotte in 2013 calling for renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, then pivots to Rubio's opposition.

New Hamp­shire Sen­at­or Kelly Ayotte is at odds with GOP lead­er­ship and the vast ma­jor­ity of her Re­pub­lic­an col­leagues over cli­mate-change policy head­ing in­to the 2016 elec­tions. Ayotte, who is gird­ing for a dif­fi­cult reelec­tion fight, on Sunday be­came the first GOP sen­at­or to sup­port Pres­id­ent Obama’s sweep­ing reg­u­la­tion that man­dates car­bon-emis­sions cuts from the na­tion’s power plants.

Sen. Kelly Ayotte (N.H.) is pressing fellow Republican Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) to reveal his “strategy for success” as he risks a government shutdown in an attempt to end federal funding of Planned Parenthood. In a letter to Cruz on Thursday, Ayotte demanded to know why the firebrand Texas senator — and presidential candidate — is so strongly pushing legislation that the party can't pass. “It is abundantly clear that we lack the votes in the Senate to redirect these funds,” Ayotte, one of four female Republicans in the Senate, wrote in the letter. She goes out of her way...

Planned Parenthood is at the center of a funding debate in Washington, but in a new ad targeting U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, the organization is firing back. . The women's health organization has been the focus of controversy after videos were released showing Planned Parenthood officials discussing the donation and selling of fetal tissue. Supporters of Planned Parenthood said the videos were deceptively edited to smear the organization, but critics have used the videos in a push to defund it. The ad, which will air in a short-run buy, has a familiar but time-tested approach. "First, Kelly Ayotte voted to...

Donald Trump heaped praise on Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire in a Friday interview with a Concord radio station, calling the idea of having a woman as his running mate “absolutely great.” Trump referenced his private meeting with Ayotte earlier this year, as well as “a couple of times” they had met, in his discussion with WKXL. Calling the New Hampshire senator “a terrific woman” and “tremendous,” Trump said that he really liked her a lot and “would be somebody that you would consider” as veep.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz stood next to former New Hampshire House Speaker Bill O’Brien on Friday and called Sen. Kelly Ayotte “a friend.” He also called embattled U.S. Rep. Frank Guinta “a good man." Cruz would not say whether he agreed with O’Brien that Ayotte should face a primary next year, saying that he is “focused on my own primary.” (SNIP) And I think it is incumbent on every elected official to make the case to his or her constituents that we’re going to do the job we’re elected to do. And so I will leave those suggestions to the...

The people who run the Republican party want two things heading into the 2016 election. They want the new, unified Republican Congress to “show the party can govern,” avoiding the shutdowns and debt default threats and vote-counting calamities on the House floor, while perhaps even working with the president to pass a significant achievement like corporate tax reform. (SNIP) If King were from Kansas, his nuttery could be avoidable and isolated. He would be a Tim Huelskamp, a highway tourist trap that’s not worth the lost driving time. (SNIP) And before the State of the Union, he introduced the word...

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senators Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), Kelly Ayotte (R-New Hampshire), and John McCain (R-Arizona) released the following statement today regarding the Administration's announcement last night that it has transferred four Guantanamo detainees to Oman and one to Estonia: "As this week's transfer demonstrates, the Administration continues to transfer Guantanamo detainees while providing virtually no details to the American people regarding the risk the detainees present to our country and our allies, as well as the detainees' affiliations with terrorist groups and the conditions of their transfer. "Of the five Yemenis transferred this week, four were sent to Oman,...

Mia Love, a pro-amnesty Marxist, is a favorite among low-information Republicans. Last year, Love distanced herself from the Tea Party, and publicly opposed the effort to defund Obamacare… Congressional candidate Mia Love rejected the tea party label Wednesday and said she disagreed with how Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and others in the conservative grass-roots movement fought the new health care law. … “I think I would have taken a different approach.” (SNIP) On Tuesday, Love, along with the entire incoming class of Republican congressbimbos, voted to reelect John Boehner as Speaker… Rep. Barbara Comstock, R-Va., had told CNN on Sunday...

That’s what the DC establishment’s steno pool over at The Politico would have us believe: (SNIP) Seven of the 20 Republicans who voted against Cruz are up for reelection in two years, including Sens. Dan Coats of Indiana, Mark Kirk of Illinois, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Lisa Murkowksi of Alaska. (SNIP) “It was real simple: It was saying the president didn’t have the constitutional authority to do what he did,” said Burr, who is up for reelection in 2016 and could face a primary challenge. “I agree with [Cruz].”[…] Do not fall for this. This is a man who...

RUSH: I allowed one interruption from what I said the agenda for this hour was going to be, because you have to hear this. You just have to hear this. This afternoon in Washington on the Senate floor. You've heard, by the way -- I don't remember who said it, but -- it's been said in recent days that if women were running this show, none of this would have happened. There wouldn't have been a shutdown. I think the... (interruption) (SNIP) RUSH: I am reminded of Jimmy Carter, who said once that he learned everything about nuclear warfare from...

It has been a busy few weeks in Washington lately, from the president's executive order on immigration to the resignation of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. (SNIP) Ayotte said she also believes the president's executive order on immigration last week was a mistake. "Right now, as someone who wants to solve this problem, I think it makes it more difficult to address the underlying immigration problem, and he should not have acted unilaterally," she said.

In Last Tuesday’s win over Chris McDaniel, Senator Thad Cochran engaged in all manner of political chicanery and racial subterfuge. In a scheme concocted Haley Barbour, the Cochran campaign accused Chris McDaniel and the Tea Party of plotting to disenfranchise African-Americans. When asked to comment about Team Cochran’s unethical and borderline illegal tactics– NH GOP Senate candidate Scott Brown giggled demonically…. “I know you’re not gonna like it, but…I don’t really care about what happened in Mississippi.

Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) told Fox News Sunday that she worried President Barack Obama was only confronting ISIS to help Democrats in the upcoming midterms, and that he would ease up on the Sunni militants after the election. “I think we have a problem where the president’s foreign policy is being trapped by his campaign rhetoric,” Ayotte said. “I’m very fearful as we look at the current military strategy that it is surrounding the November elections, and he won’t have the resolve to follow through with what needs to be done in a sustained effort to destroy ISIS.”