Free Republic

BARACK OBAMA hopes to wrap up the Democratic nomination next week, as the three last primaries, combined with an expected slew of superdelegate announcements, carry him over the threshold of victory. Already, his team is focusing on winning the White House. With an electorate sick of war, costly petrol and George Bush, the odds favour him. Intrade, a betting site, puts his chances at 58%. If he (or, should a miracle occur, Mrs Clinton) stumbles, however, it may be because the electoral college has worked against the Democrats. With five months of campaigning still ahead, all predictions should be taken...

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in Ohio shows a toss-up between John McCain and Barack Obama. McCain attracts support from 45% of the Buckeye State’s Likely Voters while Obama earns support from 44%. Nationally, the race between McCain and Obama is also very competitive in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll.

The latest Rasmussen Reports poll in Michigan shows McCain attracting 45% of the vote while Barack Obama earns 44%. Six percent (6%) say they would vote for a third-party candidate and 5% remain undecided. Those results are similar to a late-March survey that also showed McCain with a statistically insignificant one-point advantage. In February, McCain had a three-point lead.

Washington - If you ranked all of the TV markets in "blue-state" America according to how much advertising they saw from the 2004 Bush campaign and its allies, the list would begin like this: Milwaukee. Green Bay. Wausau. Pittsburgh, Pa. Scranton-Wilkes Barre, Pa. Madison. La Crosse-Eau Claire. That pretty much says it all about Wisconsin's place on the electoral map. Few blue states are fatter targets for Republicans.That was true for George W. Bush, who lost the state twice by an average of three-tenths of a percentage point. And it will be true again for John McCain, now busy crafting...

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's top aides yesterday accused Sen. Barack Obama of ignoring West Virginia, saying Democrats must win the state in the fall and using her 43-point poll lead there as evidence that her longshot bid deserves to run its course. "What is the basis for the so-called 'presumptive nominee' not competing in a state that would be a key swing state?" Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson asked reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast, adding that a Tuesday victory could be a turning point for his boss. A 15-point win for Mrs. Clinton, "in an atmosphere in which...

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in Wisconsin shows John McCain holding identical leads over both potential democratic candidates. McCain tops both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama by a 47% to 43% margin. In late March, McCain and Obama were in a toss-up Clinton trailed the GOP hopeful by eleven points. McCain enjoys double-digit leads over both candidates among men, but trails both candidates among women in the Badger State. The GOP candidate also leads both candidates by double-digits among voters not affiliated with either major political party. Nationally, while the fundamentals of Election 2008 favor the Democrats, McCain remains...

Hillary Clinton kept her hopes for winning the Democratic Presidential nomination alive with a big win in the Ohio Primary just over a week ago. But, the first general election poll conducted since that Primary shows John McCain has gained ground in the Buckeye State. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in Ohio shows John McCain leading both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama by identical 46% to 40% margins. In the last poll conducted before the hard fought Democratic Primary, McCain had a statistically insignificant one-point lead over Obama and a three-point edge over Clinton. McCain leads Clinton by twenty-one...

McCain Turns Purple States Red?   By Floyd and Mary Beth BrownFrontPageMagazine.com | Friday, March 07, 2008 Much of the current analysis of the presidential campaign battle is missing the point. All of the media attention is focused on the Hillary Clinton vs. Barack Obama heavyweight fight as if it will decide the election. But it seems observers in Washington, D.C. haven’t yet sensed the undercurrent running in the country, which for the first time in four years has turned and is running the Republican’s direction. The election map is changing. And with the changes, it will offer a...

McCain's Fate Rests Upon A New Gang of 14 by Martha Zoller With Senator John McCain becoming apparent winner of the Republican nomination for President, we should begin looking at the electoral map shaping up for the November general election. Remember McCain's "Gang of 14," that loose group of 14 "swing" Senators of varying political stripes put together by McCain to break the deadlock on President Bush's judicial nominees? The Gang enabled Justices Alito and Roberts to be confirmed to the Supreme Court, but also abandoned of many other good conservatives for other appointments. Now McCain faces a new “Gang...

Barack Obama and John McCain are essentially tied in the contest to win Wisconsin’s ten Electoral College votes in November. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds Obama attracting 44% of the vote while McCain picks up 43%. Eight percent (8%) say they would vote for some other candidate while 4% are not sure. If Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee, McCain has a twelve point lead, 50% to 38%.

by Antenna Wilde As the GOP struggles to find it's "voice", the nation seems to have run off with Obama. Looking over the charts and numbers, I find it increasing difficult to come to any other conclusion. Not only is he mopping up the blue states, he seems to be doing as well—if not better—in the red ones. Take Idaho: huge victory for the GOP in 2004 (Bush won the state with 69%). And here's Obama sweeping Idaho on Super Tuesday with a stunning 80%... to Hillary Clinton's 17. While all of Hillary victories (except Arkansas) have been in the...

That question aside, Ohio remains the center of attention. The 2006 midterm elections saw it swing forcefully to the Democratic side. The Republican secretary of state, who was regarded as a major player in suppression of Democratic votes in 2004, ran for governor and was trounced. Democrats further elected a senator and a new secretary of state -- who now controls the electoral process. All indicators are that Ohio's 20 electoral votes will go Democratic this November, totally changing the equation: If all other states remain the same as in 2004, the Democrat would win 272 electoral votes and the...

The College Republicans at Central Michigan University introduced their concept for a "Turn Michigan Red in '08" t-shirt in April of 2007, both as a fundraiser for their origanization and in an effort to show Republican unity heading into the 2008 elections. In the last few years, Central Michigan University has hosted liberal speakers such as Michael Moore, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Thomas Hayden and Wes Clark. There have been no high profile conservative speakers brought to campus in recent history.

In just over a month, the first round of presidential decision-making will kick off with the 2008 Iowa caucuses. Yet, despite the early state focus, several Republican front-runners already are directing their attention to the Evergreen State, which they believe could be competitive next year. Surprising, isn't it? Washington has not gone to a Republican since Ronald Reagan in 1984, and the state boasts two Democratic senators, six Democratic members of Congress, a Democratic governor and a Democratic-controlled Legislature. Of course, Washington has elected Republicans from outside the conservative mainstream, such as Sens. Slade Gorton and Dan Evans (who also...

In Tuesday's off-year elections, Democrats continued to gather steam in Virginia and Kentucky--making it even more obvious that these two Southern states are up for grabs in 2008. Kentucky's Republican Governor Ernie Fletcher, hand-picked for the job by US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in 2003, did not merely lose his re-election bid to Democrat Steve Beshear--he got pummeled, obliterated and all-around embarrassed by a "has-been" candidate who'd dropped out of politics a decade ago after losing races for governor and Senate. Beshear won almost 60 percent of the vote. Much of Fletcher's trouble was Fletcher himself--he ran in 2003...

Republicans need all the votes they can get next November if they are to have any hope of retaining the White House and winning back control of Congress. But one group of voters – among whom the GOP has gained considerable ground over the last few elections – now seems about to slip away, perhaps permanently. Hispanic voters are poised to turn several red states blue come 2008, virtually guaranteeing a Democratic presidential victory and a pickup in congressional seats as well, according to a new analysis of Hispanic voting behavior. "Border Wars: The Impact of Immigration on the Latino...

A funny thing happened in red-state Nevada over the past year. It turned blue. An analysis of voter registration reports over the past 12 months shows many more new voters are registering as Democrats — enough to tilt Nevada to a considerable Democratic majority for the first time since the 1992 presidential election. Back then, Nevada was a solid blue state. Registered Democrats outnumbered registered Republicans by 7 percentage points, and the state voted for Bill Clinton. Today, the unpopular Iraq war and enthusiasm for the Democratic presidential caucuses are playing major roles in giving Nevada Democrats their first significant...

Dan Walters: Voter data suggest California may be more purple than blueBy Dan Walters -- Bee Columnist Published 2:15 am PST Monday, February 6, 2006 The conventional wisdom these days is that California is a solidly blue state - based on Democrats' near-sweep of major political contests over the last decade and especially George W. Bush's two million-plus-vote losses in the state. More accurately, however, California is a purple state, as new voter registration data indicate. California's 15.8 million registered voters now divide themselves into 6.7 million Democrats (42.68 percent), 5.9 million Republicans (34.68 percent), 2.9 million independents (18.8 percent)...

Deep-blue New York could become a red state in the 2008 presidential election, a new poll reveals. The state voted for President Bush over Sen. John Kerry in the 2004 election, 58 percent to 41 percent. But if the 2008 election were held today, New Yorkers said they would vote for former New York City Republican Mayor Rudy Giuliani over Kerry, 49 percent to 42 percent, with the rest uncertain, according to the Fox News Poll. Giuliani also had a 2-percentage-point edge over the state’s own Democratic senator, Hillary Clinton. Even Sen. John McCain beat out Sen. Clinton in the...

While Sen. Hillary Clinton (search) easily tops several Republican opponents in hypothetical 2006 U.S. Senate match-ups, New York voters are fairly evenly divided when it comes to possible 2008 presidential candidates, according to a FOX News Poll.