Free Republic

An early look at likely Iowa Republican Caucus participants shows a strong conservative tilt as Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker leads the pack with 25 percent, twice as high as his nearest rival, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. Voters who identify as "very conservative" make up 45 percent of the caucus participants surveyed by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University. Tea Party supporters make up 32 percent of likely caucus-goers and Walker gets 33 percent of that Tea Party vote. There is a horse race for second place, with 13 percent for U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, 11...

PPP's newest national Republican poll finds a clear leader in the race for the first time: Scott Walker is at 25% to 18% for Ben Carson, 17% for Jeb Bush, and 10% for Mike Huckabee. Rounding out the field of contenders are Chris Christie and Ted Cruz at 5%, Rand Paul at 4%, and Rick Perry and Marco Rubio at 3%. Walker has more than doubled his support since his 11% standing on our January national poll, and Carson has moved up 3 points. Bush, Huckabee, Paul, and Perry have largely stayed in place while Cruz has dropped 4 points...

Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, stood in front of reporters before a book signing here, pondering the question that has dogged him ever since Jeb Bush announced his plans to pursue a presidential bid: How does a Bush candidacy complicate Mr. Rubio’s own Oval Office aspirations, especially among donors? “I’ve never had that question before,” Mr. Rubio said, with a laugh.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has erased U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz’s strong lead among Texas Republicans in the volatile and still-developing race for the party’s 2016 presidential nomination, according to the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll. Cruz’s 25 percentage-point lead over Walker in October has vanished: The Texan won the support of 20 percent of the state’s registered voters to Walker’s 19 percent — a statistical tie. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and author Ben Carson were tied at 9 percent, and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry was next at 8 percent. “Scott Walker is clearly breathing some of the...

How do you know that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has taken at least temporary custody of frontrunner status in the race for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016? Beyond, of course, the polls that show him rocketing to the front of the pack in critical early primary states like Iowa? The political press is coming down hard on him and his nascent campaign. After three unambiguous statewide victories in a Democratic state in just four years, Scott Walker is thoroughly vetted. If there were skeletons in his closet, the media and the myriad opposition researchers scrutinizing his past would...

Jeb Bush plans to name Tim Miller, executive director of America Rising PAC, as his top communications aide, Republican sources told POLITICO on Friday. Miller initially will be a senior adviser to Bush’s Right to Rise PAC, and is expected to become communications director if Bush launches his campaign. Kristy Campbell, who has been the PAC’s chief spokesperson, likely will be national press secretary of the campaign, or have some senior communications adviser role.

A top Jeb Bush ally said that Jeb Bush will not back down on his support for comprehensive amnesty legislation and is willing to win or lose the GOP nomination based on the issue. On Thursday, Clint Bolick, who co-wrote Immigration Wars with the former Florida governor, said Bush “is either going to win or lose with a mandate on immigration.” “He’s not going to shift his position on this,”Bolick told MSNBC’s Jose Diaz Balart. “He believes in this with his absolute heart and soul.”

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on Wednesday offered a vocal defense of the National Security Agency's mass collection of U.S. phone call data, saying the program is "hugely important" to keeping Americans safe from terrorists. During a foreign policy speech in Chicago, the likely Republican candidate for president said the mass surveillance is an essential ingredient in the fight against those seeking to do harm to the United States. "That requires responsible intelligence-gathering and analysis, including the NSA metadata program, which contributes to awareness of potential terrorist cells and interdiction efforts on a global scale," Bush said. "For the life...

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush could be poised to raise more than $4 million in the Windy City on Wednesday as he prepares to run for president, according to people helping to organize two fundraising events there. "It will be a blockbuster day in Illinois," said one, who said Bush's total haul "should be north of $4 million."

Scott Walker was definitive when asked about his position on illegal immigration earlier this month: “We need to secure the border. I think we need to enforce the legal system. I’m not for amnesty,” he told ABC News. “I’m not an advocate of the plans that have been pushed here in Washington.” But the likely presidential candidate apparently stood on another side of that debate as the Milwaukee County Executive in 2006. That year, he signed a resolution calling on Congress to pass the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act, a bill authored by John McCain and Teddy Kennedy that...

Who among the nascent field of 2016 contenders represents the future? For half of Americans, it's Hillary Clinton. Asked in a new CNN/ORC poll whether seven possible candidates better represent the future or the past, 50% said Clinton evoked the future, more than said so of any other candidate. By contrast, Joe Biden and Jeb Bush, whose names have been in the political conversation even longer than Clinton's, were each seen as representing the past by 64% of Americans.

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush will announce his foreign policy vision in a speech Wednesday in Chicago. Accompanying that speech is a rollout of a slate of experts who will help guide the candidate on foreign policy issues. If Bush's goal is to present himself as his "own man," that list of advisers undermines the point somewhat: 19 of the 21 people on it worked in the administrations of his father or brother. We've identified the roles each played in the past three Republican administrations, divvying them up as needed in the following Venn diagram.

In November 2013, Jeb Bush took to the rostrum at New York’s Marriott Marquis for the annual meeting of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, alongside such industry stars as Goldman Sachs’ Lloyd Blankfein and Blackrock’s Larry Fink. Bush’s remarks, and his chatting afterwards, left many attendees convinced he was preparing to run for president. Word of Bush’s interest ricocheted around the political world. But Bush, a private citizen for eight years since leaving the Florida governor’s mansion, had no real infrastructure to handle such an endeavor. And as the third member of a storied political family to seek...

ess than a year before the first presidential contests begin, a trio of new NBC News/Marist polls show that the Republican race is wide open in the early nominating states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. In fact, seven different possible Republican candidates get double-digit support in at least one of the states. But only two candidates — former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker — are in double digits in all three states.

On Tuesday, the Observer broke the story of a high-dollar fundraiser hosted by Henry and Marie-Josée Kravis where donors could meet Jeb Bush and contribute to Right to Rise, the PAC set up to enable a third Bush presidency. Later that day, Politico revealed that the requested dollar amount would be a staggering $100,000. The event went off as planned last night and according to one attendee was even better attended than expected. “More than forty contributors showed up, and it wasn’t just KKR people,” said the attendee, who insisted on anonymity because of the perceptions about paying such a...

Leading figures in Republican fundraising will hold a teleconference next week calling for an overhaul to U.S. immigration policy — a move that could put pressure on GOP presidential hopefuls as they head toward 2016. The Tuesday call, which will be moderated by longtime conservative immigration advocate Grover Norquist, will include Mitt Romney’s former finance director Spencer Zwick; California-based fast food CEO Andrew Puzder; and billionaire health care executive Mike Fernandez.

A potential candidate no more, Mitt Romney is charting an aggressive course to help shape the Republican presidential field in 2016. The GOP's 2012 presidential nominee will be a keynote speaker at the Republican Jewish Coalition's spring meeting in Las Vegas, one of several high-profile appearances he has scheduled to try and remain relevant in party affairs despite his recent decision not to launch a third presidential campaign. "The thing that Mitt Romney has going for him is he has a microphone," said Spencer Zwick, who led the Romney campaign's massive fundraising operation and remains one of his closest advisers....

If Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee run for president, their Iowa supporters could have a choice between the head or the heart. Or vote for someone else. Santorum and Huckabee won remarkable victories in the Iowa caucuses, galvanizing social conservatives to pull off unlikely upsets against amazing odds. But while the two had very different paths to victory in Iowa, they achieved it with similar coalitions of social conservatives and evangelical leaders.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is the clear favorite in Virginia among potential presidential candidates, according to a Christopher Newport University poll released on Thursday. Clinton beats a lineup of potential Republican candidates in hypothetical head-to-head contests, with former Florida Governor Jeb Bush losing by the closest margin, 48 percent to 43 percent. The poll held mixed results for New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. He was the only other Republican contender in the poll to hold Clinton below a majority (49 percent to 42 percent), but his favorable rating among Virginia voters fell from 46 percent a year ago...

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush will raise money on Wall Street on Wednesday at an eye-popping $100,000 per-ticket Park Avenue event hosted by private equity mogul Henry Kravis and his wife. The price of admission to the event, which will raise funds for Bush’s “Right to Rise” super PAC, surprised even Wall Street veterans used to high-dollar fundraisers.