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The Republican Governors Association had a pretty darn good couple of months: The Republican Governors Association announced its largest fundraising quarter in history today. The RGA has raised $18.9 million for the 2nd quarter, bringing its fundraising haul for the year to $28 million. The RGA currently holds $40 million cash on hand after spending $10 million in political expenditures for the year.

If you're a Republican running for Congress, you want to be on the National Republican Congressional Committee's "Young Guns" list of promising candidates. Getting on the list shows donors that Washington takes your campaign seriously, and that you've built what political professionals see as a potentially winning campaign infrastructure. Here are the names the NRCC is adding today: Andy Barr in Kentucky's 6th district; Rick Crawford in Arkansas' 1st district; Robert Dold in Illinois' 10th district; Keith Fimian in Virginia's 11th district; Stephen Fincher in Tennessee's 8th district; Mike Fitzpatrick in Pennsylvania's 8th district; David Harmer in California's 11th district;...

Republican State Party Chairman Chris Healy announced his endorsement of fellow State Party Chairman Saul Anuzis today in a letter to RNC Members, according to the blog on the Anuzis for Chair official blog. As the leader of one of the biggest, best run, most transparent and most technologically savvy state party organizations in America, he is a perfect fit to take on the challenge of leading the RNC. Saul’s vision of putting new social marketing techniques and communications tools to work, bypassing the media, engaging both donors and voters and mobilizing the grassroots is exactly what our party needs...

Obama leads McCain in Virginia (NEWPORT NEWS, VA) – With just under three weeks to go before Election Day, Senator Barack Obama leads Senator John McCain in Virginia by 6.0% among likely voters, 49.2% to 43.2%. Obama’s lead appears to be driven by voter concerns about the economy. Asked to name the top issue that they would like candidates to address between now and Election Day, just over six in ten likely voters say the economy. No other issue breaks double digits. These findings are from the Christopher Newport University Virginia Poll conducted October 11-14 of 500 likely voters. When...

WESTBROOK — - Harry Ruppenicker has seen the signs of a bad economy in and around his boatyard. Boaters worried about rising fuel costs aren't joy riding. Sport fishermen are splitting the costs of sharing one boat. Cash-strapped owners are selling their beloved vessels for bargain prices. Ruppenicker can also feel the financial strain. Increased costs of running his boatyard and a spike in health care prices kept Ruppenicker from replacing an employee who recently left to go to a boat-building school in Rhode Island. "The marine industry is hurting, just like every other industry right now," said Ruppenicker, who...

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The New Orleans VooDoo Dolls last Wednesday in Lafayette Square helping to promote the campaign of Helena Moreno, candidate for US Congress in Louisiana’s 2nd District.

It’s Election Day in Connecticut. Voters in the 32nd Senatorial District (Bethlehem, Bridgewater, Middlebury, Oxford, Woodbury, Roxbury, Seymour, Southbury, Thomaston, Watertown) head to the polls today to choose between Watertown Town Councilor Rob Kane and Kenny Curran, the Democrat Town Committee Chairman in Bethlehem and the former employee of corrupt Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez. The Waterbury Rep-Am has the story. Capitol Watch weighs in, too. The first Senate race run with public dollars, Headless Horseman commented, gotten nasty of late, as Curran criticized Rob Kane for missing Town Council meetings. Damning, yes? Well, it turns out that Mr. Kane did...

Andre Carson, the grandson of the late Rep. Julia Carson (D-Ind.), will face Republican state Rep. Jon Elrod in a March special election to fill the remainder of the term. The six-term congresswoman died last December after a bout with lung cancer. Andre Carson, a newly elected Indianapolis city councilor, won the Democratic nomination on the first ballot at a Saturday caucus among district-wide precinct committee chairmen. He easily outdistanced his leading rivals, state Reps. David Orentlicher, Carolene Mays and Marion County Treasurer Peter Rodman. But he’ll face a serious fight for the seat against Elrod, who overwhelmingly won the...

In Iowa for the Christmas holidays, IÂ’ve posted the following as a three part series on the impending Iowa Caucuses and observations on the process from the ground level. On Saturday, December 22nd, I was on the campus of the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa. From Sunday, December 23 until Christmas Day, I was in the tiny farming town of Dunlap, Iowa in western Iowa. Saturday, December 22nd Heavy fog hung over the plains of eastern Iowa today, posing a significant impediment to seeing much of anything beyond a 1000 feet away. Nonetheless, even a passive observer wouldnÂ’t...

On July 25, 2004, the Red Sox and Yankees tussled at Boston’s historic Fenway Park. The then-presumptive Democratic nominee for President was Massachusetts’ own John Kerry. On the campaign trail, Kerry had routinely professed to be a die-hard Sox fan, even though in an interview a month earlier he named as his all time favorite Sox player a man who never actually played for the Red Sox. In order to demonstrate his Ordinary Joe bona fides to a watchful and suspicious nation, Kerry made a splashy show of attending that evening’s game. To celebrate Kerry’s rare mingling with the hoi...

On the last Sunday of May, 30 angry black men stormed into the heart of the old Jewish quarter, terrorizing residents, shopkeepers, and Sunday strollers. The self-styled militia of the Ka Tribe, a black separatist group originally connected to the no-longer funny black comic Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala, embodied the worst fears of a Jewish community exposed, since January 2006, to a new rise in anti-Semitic attacks. Three months after the torture-murder of Ilan Halimi, the intimidating incursion of the Ka militia into the narrow “Jewish” street of the Marais looks like an ominous sign of worse to come. The Ka...

Guest contributor Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Political Report, sees good things for House Democrats in the months ahead. With a little over nine months to go until Election Day, Democrats are headed for gains in the United States House of Representatives. The only question is exactly how big those gains will be. Democrats need a net gain of fifteen seats to get to the magic number of 218 seats and control of the chamber. That would make Representative Nancy Pelosi Speaker, install Democrats as chairs of House committees, and fundamentally change the political environment on Capitol Hill and...

Democratic strategists and Stuart Rothenberg predict House Democrats will make significant gains, six seats or more, but probably not enough to capture the chamber. Analyst Rothenberg said declines in Congress' job-approval polls and increased dissatisfaction with the country's direction have created negative "atmospherics" that could benefit Democrats. "With President Bush's ratings battered by the war in Iraq, high gas prices and public dissatisfaction with the economy, 2006 looks to be a golden opportunity for House Democrats," Mr. Rothenberg told clients. A growing chorus of pundits and Democratic strategists point to poll numbers, such as this week's by Newsweek, which says...

September 6, 2005--Republican Senator Jim Talent is tied with his Democrat Claire McCaskill in the first Rasmussen Reports poll for this Election 2006 match-up. This early election poll finds both candidates attracting 46% of the vote. Talent narrowly won his Senate seat four years ago by defeating Jean Carnahan. Carnahan had been appointed to hold the seat on an interim basis after her husband died in a plane crash. McCaskill currently serves as State Auditor. Support for each candidate is closely correlated to perceptions of President George W. Bush. Among those who Strongly Approve of the President's job performance, Talent...

Determined to rebuild their party after a decade of decline, Nebraska Democrats are embarking this week on an ambitious 93-county grassroots strategy. A regional training session for Democratic activists and candidates in North Platte this weekend is the marker jump-starting a determined bid to create a two-party state. "This will be a concerted effort to build a structure in all 93 counties (and) compete in areas that now may be considered hostile," said Barry Rubin, the Nebraska Democratic Party's executive director. Not since the party-building days of Jim Exon in the 1960s and during his governorship in the 1970s has...

WASHINGTON - Democrats raised $86.3 million in the first half of this year, beating their total for the same period in 2003 by more than 50 percent. Republican fundraising increased slightly over the same nonelection-year periods. Overall, the GOP still held a sizable fundraising edge, taking in $142.7 million from January to June of this year, according to Federal Election Commission figures released Thursday. That total was 2 percent more than the party raised in the first half of 2003. The financial reports covered the Republican and Democratic National Committees, plus party groups that raise money for House and Senate...

DETROIT -- A new poll of likely voters shows challenger Freman Hendrix leading incumbent Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick by 15 percentage points with the mayoral primary just over two weeks away. Kilpatrick has been plagued by the city's $300 million budget deficit, hundreds of layoffs, scrutiny over his use of a city credit card and the city's lease of a luxury SUV for his family. Asked whom they would vote for in a four-way race between Hendrix, Kilpatrick, City Councilwoman Sharon McPhail and state Sen. Hansen Clarke, 38 percent of those surveyed said Hendrix, 23 percent said Kilpatrick, 14 percent said...

.........Their conflicted feelings are important because experts say the state's 6th Congressional District is a barometer of national opinion. "If there is a bellwether district with an incumbent sitting in it, I would pick this district," said Amy Walters, who analyzes House races for the Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan organization based in Washington. No neat political categories The congressman, Republican Rep. Jim Gerlach, won a second term with 51 percent of the vote in 2004, as the district narrowly voted for Democrat John Kerry in the presidential race. While partisanship in Washington has reached a fevered pitch, many of...

  Sorted▼ APPROVAL RATING FOR PRESIDENT GEORGE W BUSH  (Released 06/28/05) SORTED ALPHBETICALLY BY STATE  (scroll down for other sorts) 05/05 06/05 Change 05/05 to 06/05 # State '04 ECV Approve Disapprove Approve Disapprove Approve Disapprove 1 Alabama Bush 50% 44% 54% 41% +4% -3% 2 Alaska Bush 50% 44% 53% 43% +3% -1% 3 Arizona Bush 44% 51% 46% 49% +2% -2% 4 Arkansas Bush 41% 53% 44% 52% +3% -1% 5 California Kerry 39% 54% 37% 58% -2% +4% 6 Colorado Bush 43% 51% 45% 52% +2% +1% 7 Connecticut Kerry 40% 54% 37% 58% -3% +4%...