Free Republic

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) will use a high-profile appearance at Ronald Reagan’s presidential library on Tuesday to lay out a vision for the future of a bigger-tent Republican Party, one that does not include former President Donald Trump. In prepared remarks shared with The Hill, Hogan will accuse Trump of leaving the GOP in its worst position since the 1930s, an era when Franklin Roosevelt consigned Republicans to deep minorities in both the House and Senate.

Maryland Democrats are considering a radical overhaul of congressional district lines that would give them a chance to win all eight of the state’s seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, putting the lone Republican representative at risk. Two of the four draft maps released by the General Assembly’s Legislative Redistricting Advisory Commission spell trouble for Rep. Andy Harris (R), who represents a district that covers the Eastern Shore. Those proposals would add hundreds of thousands of voters from Anne Arundel County, home of Annapolis, in with voters from the less populous counties on the Eastern Shore. The two halves...

Fewer than 4 in 10 California voters support removing Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) from office in this month’s recall election, according to a new poll of likely voters released just over a week before ballots are due to be returned. Just 39 percent of likely voters told pollsters at the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) they would vote to recall Newsom, while 58 percent said they would vote against the recall. Those figures are in line with earlier PPIC polls in March and May, which showed Newsom surviving by roughly the same margin. About 4 in 5 Republicans will...

With just weeks until the Census Bureau faces a critical deadline to finish counting 330 million Americans, cities and states are racing to get through to hard-to-reach communities who risk being left out of the final tally. At stake are billions of dollars through hundreds of federally administered programs - and political power for the next decade. Some states are so close to the cutoff point at which they would earn or lose a House seat in the apportionment that will come from census figures that just a few thousand missing people could mean a smaller congressional delegation. "The census...

Three years after a presidential election that came down to 77,000 votes in three Midwestern battlegrounds, Democrats and Republicans are eyeing a much larger battlefield ahead of the 2020 contests, one that stretches from the picturesque coastline of rural Maine to the high desert of Arizona. Both President Trump’s campaign and the Democrats vying to replace him are scrutinizing a political map in flux, one in which attitudes and alignments are shifting and new regions are coming into play.As many as a dozen states could be up for grabs next year as economic and international uncertainty pairs with a cauldron...

House Republicans plotting to win back their majority in Congress fear they are on the brink of a massive wave of retirements that could force them to play defense in a high-stakes presidential election year. Three House Republicans said last week they would not seek another term next year, catching party strategists off guard. Those announcements came earlier than in a typical election cycle, when members who are ready to hang up their voting cards usually wait until after the August recess or after the Christmas break. Republicans in Congress strategizing to win back the House say the rush to...

The senators who are most likely to reject President Trump's nominees are the very ones who want to challenge him in 2020. The Hill's review of two-and-a-half years of vote totals shows Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) voted against more Trump nominees than any other senator. At the same time, Republicans voted virtually in lock step for Trump's nominees; the average GOP senator backed 99 percent of his picks, and the one who went rogue most often -- Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) -- still voted to confirm 93 percent of his nominees. Trump's picks...

The ranks of Republican governors are poised to thin after this year’s midterm elections, and some party strategists are bracing for major Democratic gains even in some of the most conservative states in the country. Voters in 36 states will elect governors on Tuesday, including 26 states where Republicans currently hold the top job. Democrats are defending nine seats, and both sides are fighting over Alaska, where independent Gov. Bill Walker dropped his reelection bid late last month. Virtually all of the most contested races are being fought on Republican turf. Democrats are overwhelmingly likely to pick up governorships in...

House Republicans struggling to preserve their majority are facing a wave of Democratic money and enthusiasm in suburban districts across the country, as well-educated and moderate voters consider new checks on President Trump. An analysis of the types of districts in play shows that two-thirds of the Republican-held seats that a top election handicapper sees as vulnerable are in suburban areas. That has Republicans on defense in an area where Trump has bled support, even in the 2016 election he won. The Cook Political Report lists 64 Republican-held seats as either pure toss-ups, or leaning slightly toward Democrats or Republicans....

Democratic enthusiasm and a GOP malaise surrounding President Trump have set the stage for a potentially devastating midterm election for the House Republican majority. In a series of special elections mostly in reliably GOP districts, Democratic candidates have routinely outperformed Hillary Clinton’s share of the vote from 2016. At the same time, Republican candidates have underperformed President Trump's vote share in all but two special elections. If that pattern holds in November, the worst-case scenario for the GOP is a truly historic wipeout of as many as 72 House seats, according to The Hill’s analysis of special election results and...

President Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs withdrew his name from consideration this week after a number of serious allegations were raised about his stewardship as White House physician, including that he drank on the job....Washington, D.C., has the highest rates of binge and problem drinking in America.

FTA: Trump continues to lead the Republican primary field. Thirty-six percent of registered voters who watched the debate said they would choose Trump, compared with 12 percent for Carson and 10 percent for Fiorina. Rubio placed fourth, at 9 percent, followed by 7 percent for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and 6 percent for Bush and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R).

Fred Thompson's window of opportunity could hardly have been wider. His opponents were fatally flawed in the eyes of the socially conservative Republican base; he's well-known, can raise money, and speaks language that both Republicans and independents leaning right can embrace. Even thinking of entering the race put him above double digits in polls. But, thanks to a number of missteps and opportunities his pseudo-campaign has failed to capitalize on, Thompson's window is now closed... The Law & Order star, running a "testing the waters" committee, raised approximately $3.46 million in June after launching June 4th. The campaign's goal was...