Free Republic

Consistent: The topline results — Republicans are ahead. Inconsistent: The margins. NPR measures Obama’s job approval at (41/56) in states with contested Senate races, and an abysmal (29/67) among independents. But on the generic Senate ballot, the GOP leads by just three, fueled by a 16-point advantage among those aforementioned independents: In case you’re curious, NPR’s partisan sample is a reasonable, if slightly generous, D+4. Fox News’ pollster included two more states in their survey, but excluded Alaska. Results: Unless I’m missing something glaringly obvious (Fox’s poll sample is D+0, in line with 2010), I can’t quite wrap my...

A new USA Today/Suffolk University poll has his challenger, Greg Orman, beating him by five points, 46% to 41%. Here are five reasons that won’t happen: ....Obama is widely disliked in Kansas. His approval rating is 33%... ....Roberts is a known quantity. ...3. Nobody has ever heard of Greg Orman. (He would have a better chance of competing if his last name started with an “N.”) 4. Democrats can’t really help Mr. Orman.... ...5. The tea party has nowhere else to go. Tea partyers don’t want to be blamed for losing the Senate to Harry Reid.... ...Polls are a snapshot...

A new poll out Wednesday from Suffolk University and USA Today confirms something we kind of already knew: Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) is in a remarkable amount of trouble. The poll shows independent Greg Orman leading Roberts 46 percent to 41 percent with Democrat Chad Taylor now off the ballot. It has plenty of bad news for Roberts, but also some reasons to believe his goose isn't cooked just yet. Below, we're recapping three ominous signs for Roberts, and three reasons for hope. (And it all comes with the caveat that one poll shouldn't be taken as gospel.) First, the...

Cops can be fans, too. While the Kansas City Royals fought for their playoff lives Tuesday night in a 12-inning victory over the Oakland Athletics, Kansas City Police had a teeny request for citizens.

Why is the GOP struggling? This was supposed to be a “wave” election. The money isn’t coming in, says Karl Rove in a cautionary column titled “Why a GOP Senate Majority is Still in Doubt.” Races that were supposed to be push-overs are suddenly nail-biters. Kansas, that reddest of red states, is in turmoil over incumbent Republican Pat Roberts. In North Carolina, Thom Tillis, the candidate the GOP establishment assured was just the candidate to take Democrat Kay Hagan’s Senate seat, is now behind in the polls. The wave election that was once seen as a certainty is now seen...

A three-judge panel in Topeka ruled Wednesday that Kansas Democrats need not nominate a candidate for the 2014 Senate race. The ruling is expected to help independent Senate candidate Greg Orman’s campaign against incumbent Republican Sen. Pat Roberts. Chad Taylor, the Democrat nominated for the seat in August, dropped from the race Sept. 3. The Kansas Supreme Court later ruled the withdrawal followed state rules. …

Vanquished Republican Senate candidate Milton Wolf is expected to endorse Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback before the midterm elections, GOP sources said Wednesday. Brownback, a Republican, faces an unexpectedly tough re-election bid in usually deep red Kansas, and the GOP has worked hard to unite the party in the aftermath of a bitter Senate primary. (SNIP) National Tea Party endorsements have poured in for Roberts, among them pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson and talk radio host Laura Ingraham. Expected to roll through Kansas and endorse Roberts this month are Republican Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky, as well...

A Kansas court has ruled that Democrats can go without a U.S. Senate candidate after their nominee dropped out of the race against three-term Republican Sen. Pat Roberts. The ruling Wednesday is a blow to the GOP in a key race in the national battle over Senate control. A panel of three Shawnee County District Court judges said a state election law does not require Democrats to fill the candidate vacancy. The judges also said the disgruntled who filed a lawsuit to force Democrats to act didn’t prove his case because he failed to show up for a Monday hearing....

Independent businessman and political enigma Greg Orman (46 percent) is leading three-term Republican incumbent Pat Roberts (41 percent) in the race for U.S. Senate in Kansas, with 11 percent undecided, according to the latest Suffolk University/USA TODAY poll of likely voters in the general election. In the race for governor, Democratic state Rep. Paul Davis (46 percent) is leading incumbent Sam Brownback (42 percent), a Republican, with 6 percent undecided in the survey conducted by the Suffolk University Political Research Center in Boston.

There have been hundreds of television ads this election cycle hitting President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and other incumbent senators — just not all in the same spot. But to Kansas independent Greg Orman — the man who could rewrite 2014’s political script — Washington is a hive of dysfunction. And he wants to get there so badly he’s pulverizing both parties. In an ad released on Wednesday by his Senate campaign, Orman name-checks the Senate’s Republican and Democratic leaders and calls them an equal part of Washington’s problems. Obama is too,...

Kansas Tea Party supporters are threatening to sit out the state’s pivotal Senate election, potentially dealing another blow to the reelection hopes of Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.). Though schisms within the GOP base rarely have such an outsized impact on a general election contest, the lack of support from the conservative base could be devastating to the vulnerable Roberts’s chances against surging independent Greg Orman. Multiple sources tell The Hill that a group of Tea Party leaders in the state are meeting Wednesday to try to decide whether they should go to bat for the incumbent this fall or sit...

On Tuesday, Rosie O'Donnell, the obnoxious 9/11 truther who has made her share of racist comments, thinks that a 15-yard penalty against Kansas City Chiefs safety Husain Abdullah for a Muslim prayer in the end zone on Monday night is reflective of a systemic anti-Muslim bias that can propel the country to war.

After Kansas City Chiefs safety Husain Abdullah was penalized for "going to the ground" and engaging in an Islamic prayer after returning a Tom Brady interception for a touchdown on Monday Night Football, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) pressured the NFL to "clarify its policies" on "unsportsmanlike conduct" penalties.

The midterm elections of 2010 were good for Republicans nearly everywhere, but amid the national Tea Party insurgency, it was easy to overlook the revolution that was brewing in Kansas. That year, the GOP won every federal and statewide office. Sam Brownback, a genial U.S. senator best known for his ardent social conservatism, captured the governor’s mansion with nearly double the votes of his Democratic opponent. And having conquered Kansas so convincingly, he was determined not to squander the opportunity. His administration, he declared, would be a “real live experiment” that would prove, once and for all, that the way...

Greg Orman, the upstart Senate candidate threatening to unseat longtime Republican incumbent Pat Roberts in Kansas, says it’s liberating to run as an independent: “I can go to Washington as a problem solver, not a partisan.” But not having a party also liberates Orman from taking positions — especially on controversial issues that might alienate partisans. Greenlight the Keystone XL pipeline? Orman said he doesn’t have enough information to say yes or no. What about gun control? He said gun restrictions should be “strengthened” but would not specify whether he backs an assault-weapons ban. And on the biggest question of...

Republicans are scrambling to save a seat that they thought was in the bag. Republican chances to win control of the Senate in the 2014 midterms, requiring a pickup of six seats, have taken a blow. Kansas, a state no one considered anything other than a safe hold for the party a few months ago, now appears to be slipping away. After a contentious primary resulting in a victory for the 78-year incumbent Pat Roberts over tea party challenger Milton Wolf, things have gone steadily south for Roberts. Wolf refused to close ranks and endorse Roberts. A self-funded independent, 45-year-old...

A good old friend of mine is a viable candidate for the House in Kansas. I'd like to direct fellow FReepers to him and his Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/DougForKansasHouse - I've known him since the 1980s - he's the real deal and worthy of your vote and support.

One perk of sitting on the Senate Banking Committee, as Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby has for three decades, is that its regulated industries provide a deep-pocketed donor base. But to adapt scripture, to whom much is given, much should be required. Mr. Shelby has amassed $17.8 million in his war chest, according to his campaign committee's second-quarter filing with the Federal Election Commission. His committee has spent about $179,000 this cycle, which includes $4,400 at the Senate Gift Shop and $1,000 at Chick-fil-A. That's a lot of cole slaw and chicken nuggets. The Senate baron has also rung up $10,400...

Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) declared his opposition to granting amnesty for illegal immigrants and contrasted this with his Independent opponent’s support for amnesty on Friday’s “Laura Ingraham Show.” “[Orman] says he that wants to grant citizenship to all illegal aliens if they pay a small fine and promise to obey the law, these people have already broken the law. I have fought amnesty every time I will always fight amnesty, that’s a big difference in our debate" he said. Roberts added that he would “absolutely not” support increasing guest workers in the United States.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Health officials are investigating nine cases of muscle weakness or paralysis in Colorado children and whether the culprit might be a virus causing severe respiratory illness across the country. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday sent doctors an alert about the polio-like cases and said the germ - enterovirus 68 - was detected in four out of eight of the sick children who had a certain medical test. The status of the ninth case is unclear. The virus can cause paralysis but other germs can, too. Health officials don't know whether the virus...