Free Republic

The battle for Senate control has been close all year, but also remarkably consistent. Way back in March, we described Republicans as slight favorites to pick up the chamber. And since FiveThirtyEight officially launched its forecast model this month, Republicans have had between a 53 and a 65 percent chance of winning the Senate. Our most recent update, as of Thursday evening, is close to the middle of that range, putting Republicans’ takeover chances at about 58 percent. SENATEUPDATE There’s no guarantee things will remain this way. At just about this time two years ago, Democrats broke open what had...

With six weeks to go, the fight for control of the Senate is down to five states, four of them currently held by Democrats. Republicans must win only two of those contests to guarantee the 51 seats they need to control the Senate for the last two years of Barack Obama’s presidency. And they need to win only one of the Democratic states if they hold the only GOP seat at serious risk. While things could still change — and national polls continue to show an environment that may produce a substantial GOP wave in the House and Senate —...

Control of the Senate is potentially at stake in Kansas, and the GOP is beginning to double down. With a two-man race now looking all but certain, national Republicans are planning a scorched-earth offensive to frame Sen. Pat Roberts’s (R-Kan.) independent opponent, Greg Orman, as a shady businessman. Their first volley this weekend: reports that Orman represented Rajat Gupta — the former Goldman Sachs board member who incurred criminal and civil fines of more than $18 million and was jailed earlier this year for securities fraud — on a two-person board of a Cayman Islands private equity partnership. Kansas Republicans...

Green groups are fearful of Republicans winning the Senate majority in November, predicting it could lead to a “whittling away” of environmental regulations at the hands of GOP leaders. While environmental groups are spending millions of dollars trying to save the Senate for Democrats, they acknowledge the possibility that they could be forced to play defense against an all-Republican Congress in 2015. “I think that the wholesale repeal of environmental legislation, repealing [Environmental Protection Agency] greenhouse gas authority, things like that, that’s unlikely to happen,” said Ben Schreiber, director of the climate program at Friends of the Earth. “It is...

Throughout her political career, including during her current race against former GOP Sen. Scott Brown, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D., N.H.) has touted her experience as a small business owner. Shaheen’s small business “experience” was co-running a store that once sold thousands of dollars-worth of stolen jewelry. “As the former owner and manager of a small retail business, Senator Shaheen knows what it’s like to worry about meeting payroll and inventory costs to keep a business going,” the Issues section of her Senate website declares. Her Senate biography also describes her as a “former small business owner.” This week, the Shaheen...

To the great delight of those who value and cherish American freedoms, Barack Obama has once again failed to put the power to destroy our Constitution in the hands of Debo Adegbile. Monday this warrior of destruction was forced to withdraw his name from consideration as Obama’s attack dog at the Department of Justice. He would have been the chief Civil Rights lawyer for Eric Holder, another enemy of our freedoms. The magnitude of this victory cannot be overstated. What we have avoided is the placement of a yet another man who is essentially a foreigner being placed in a...

A group helmed by a major donor and policy adviser to Democratic Senate candidate Michele Nunn is under investigation by the Georgia secretary of State for alleged voter fraud. Secretary of State Brian Kemp (R) said in a memo, reported by WSB-TV, that his office has “received numerous complaints about voter applications submitted by the New Georgia Project,” an organization launched to register and turn out voters to the polls. “Preliminary investigation has revealed significant illegal activities, including forged voter registration applications, forged signatures on releases, and applications with false or inaccurate information,” Kemp wrote in the memo. Nunn is...

Sometimes the good guys do win and beat the devils in the end. Sometimes if you are right, you know you are right and you don’t give up, your dreams do come true. Late Tuesday afternoon the Mississippi State Supreme Court agreed to consider the mountain of evidence State Senator Chris McDaniel has put together to prove his allegations of voter fraud committed by Republican United States Senator Thad Cochran and several members of his staff. The case revolves around a contest to secure the Republican nomination to run for the US Senate from Mississippi. The history of this case...

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-05/mississippi-high-court-may-be-next-stop-in-senate-runoff-fight.html

The tentacles of Obama’s web of corruption yet again expose the stinking cesspool that is Chicago. Rod Blagojevich, the fourth Illinois governor to reside in a gray bar inn, may be rearranging his schedule for an anticipated Get Out of Jail Somewhat Free Card as political maneuverings and legal efforts reveal Obama’s reach. “It’s f’n golden,” said Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich prior to his trip to prison. He was referring to his right as Governor to appoint a US Senator to fill the vacancy that occurred when Obama went to Washington to organize that community. That seat on the Democrat...

oe Miller has shown he is the only true conservative in the Alaska United States Senate Republican primary. His opponents are beholden to exactly the people who have brought us the mess we are in; and either one would only make things worse. He can be supported at Joeforliberty.com The primary is August 26, 2014. When the Alaska Family Action debate moderator asked the right questions, Joe Miller had the right answers and his opponents in the Republican U.S. Senate primary did not. Those are the simple facts. On Illegal aliens pouring into our country, Miller explained he is against...

Rep. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) was basking in the national spotlight of delivering the GOP’s response to President Obama’s weekly radio and internet address July 27, while the man whose job he wants, Sen. John Walsh (D-Mont.), was reeling from charges of plagiarizing a healthy portion of his U.S. Army War College master’s thesis. The contest has never been a contest, although Walsh did pull closer to Daines just before the plagiarism scandal broke July 23. Daines is slaughtering Walsh in the polls. The latest survey of likely Montana voters from Public Policy Polling, which leans toward Democrats, has the Republican...

First-time political candidate David Perdue won a surprise victory over favored Rep. Jack Kingston in the Republican runoff for the US Senate nomination in Georgia. Kingston, who had the backing of the US Chamber of Commerce as well as conservatives such as my Salem colleague Erick Erickson, had been leading in almost every poll as the runoff approached. In the end, Perdue’s outsider message may have won the day: Businessman David Perdue stunned Georgia’s Republican political establishment Tuesday by capturing the party’s U.S. Senate nomination in his first run for office.The former CEO of Reebok and Dollar General toppled 11-term...

Senate Democrats’ effort to reverse the Supreme Court’s “Hobby Lobby” ruling on birth control could not overcome a Republican filibuster Wednesday, exposing the partisan divide over how to balance women’s health rights with religious liberty ahead of November’s congressional contests. The chamber’s 56-43 vote was not enough to green-light the “Not My Boss’ Business Act” for final consideration, even though Republicans Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Mark Kirk of Illinois and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska broke party ranks and voted to put the bill on the floor. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, changed his vote to “no” at...

History will be made in West Virginia this year when Mountain State voters elect their first female U.S. senator. They will choose between Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito and Secretary of State Natalie Tennant for the seat being vacated by Democratic incumbent Sen. Jay Rockefeller. The GOP has targeted West Virginia as one of six Senate seats it needs to win to gain control of the Senate. The others include: Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana, North Carolina and South Carolina. In this increasingly Red State, Tennant brought out a firebrand liberal, Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Capito shot back with...

In 2010, Fairbanks attorney and Tea Party firebrand Joe Miller pulled off one of the biggest upsets in recent political history by defeating Alaska’s incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the Republican primary. Perhaps just as surprisingly, Murkowski was able to hold onto her seat less than three months later when she won a general election write-in campaign, taking advantage of Miller’s growing reputation as a loose cannon to defeat him and a Democratic challenger. Four years later, Miller is again a candidate in the GOP Senate primary (set for Aug. 19), this time vying for the right to take on...

How far did the establishment GOP forces backing Senator Thad Cochran go in Mississippi this week? Too far, and their tactics are likely to leave permanent scars in a civil war with Tea Party forces that are out of all proportion to the importance the establishment placed on saving one 76-year-old senator’s ability to please Washington’s K Street lobbying interests. “This is a win for the establishment, but it’s a win with an asterisk, because it’s so tainted that it might be one of those things where they’re going to be sorry they ever won the runoff in Mississippi,” Craig...

Meet what appears to be one of the keys to Thad CochranÂ’s black-turnout operation, Mitzi Bickers. She is, from all appearances, something of a renaissance woman: She is not only the pastor of AtlantaÂ’s Emmanuel Baptist Church but also a former president of the Atlanta school board, a former construction-company executive, and a Democratic staffer and political strategist with a checkered past. Last year, she left her job as a senior adviser to Atlanta mayor Kasim Reed after news surfaced that she had filed a fraudulent financial-disclosure statement. In a bizarre turn of events, it seems that Bickers was in...

By now you've probably seen the reaction to Tuesday night’s Mississippi Republican Senate primary election, in which shaky incumbent Thad Cochran eked out a victory over Tea Party insurgent Chris McDaniel by making use of some rather unconventional electoral tactics.Cochran dedicated most of his efforts to pursuing Democrats, and specifically the black community. He went so far as to threaten his new voting base by saying McDaniel would cut food stamps,and made conspicuous charges of racism against both McDaniel and the Tea Party. There were further allegations, substantiated in news reports, of “street money” paid to Democratic fixers to turn...

In an ad posted on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's YouTube page on Wednesday, former NFL quarterback Brett Favre, a product of the coastal town of Kiln, MS that played college ball at the University of Southern Mississippi, came out to support incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS). “I’ve learned through football that strong leadership makes the difference between winning and losing. And when it comes to our state’s future, trust me: Mississippi can win and win big with Thad Cochran,” Favre said. “Thad Cochran always delivers, just like he did during Katrina." Cochran is locked into a runoff battle with...