Free Republic

President Biden is entering the new year with approval ratings that are close to the lowest levels seen in his presidency, despite the shot-in the-arm the White House received from a relatively successful midterm election that saw Democrats hold the Senate and keep House losses to a minimum. A Reuters-Ipsos poll out on Thursday showed that 40 percent of Americans approved of Biden’s job performance. It was a point higher than last month’s survey, but low enough to stir angst among Democrats reading for a 2024 reelection signal from Biden that is expected to come after the State of the...

Four months into her time as vice president, Kamala Harris is still finding her footing in the role. Harris is seen as a major reason why President Biden won the White House, and she’s considered an heir apparent for the Democratic nomination in 2024 or 2028. But she has struggled to break through as she juggles an evolving portfolio, adapts to a new staff and builds a relationship with Biden, who has a completely different style than her own.

Former President Barack Obama reportedly said the former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg couldn’t win the presidency because “he’s gay” and “short,” according to a new book on the 2020 presidential election. Obama expressed confidence in former presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren during an October 2019 meeting with elite black donors in New York City, The Hill’s Amie Parnes and NBC’s Jonathan Allen described in the new book “Lucky: How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency.” During the same meeting, the former president also joked about Buttigieg, citing his age, sexuality, and height, as reasons why he could not win the...

Former President Obama is set to endorse Joe Biden’s White House bid later on Tuesday, according to two sources familiar with the plans. The endorsement comes as Biden all but locked up the Democratic presidential nomination after Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), his lone remaining rival, withdrew from the race last week. Sanders endorsed Biden on Monday. While Obama has long spoken of his affinity for Biden, he maintained that he would not endorse in the presidential race until a clear nominee had emerged.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) strong performance in this week’s Democratic presidential debates invigorated supporters who see her as slowly but surely making the case that she’s the best Democrat to take on President Trump. Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) were widely seen as the biggest winners of the two debates, along with Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), who tangled with former Vice President Joe Biden in the week’s second debate. Sanders and Warren were the stars on the first night, and they avoided battling one another while presenting a united front against centrists arguing against the progressive proposals.

Joe Biden is ready to scrap. The former vice president is firing back at his rivals and vowing to be more aggressive at the second presidential debates after weeks of sustained attacks against his civil rights record left his supporters frustrated and worried about his passive approach. The tipping point, according to allies and campaign strategists, came on Wednesday at a NAACP presidential candidate forum, where Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) accused Biden of being the “architect of mass incarceration” for supporting a 1994 crime bill. “You can't be called the architect of mass incarceration and remain quiet,” a Biden ally...

Former Vice President Joe Biden will run for president in 2020, a senior Democratic lawmaker told The Hill on Tuesday, a move that will shake up the crowded Democratic primary field and make him the clear front-runner for his party’s nomination against President Trump. “I’m giving it a shot,” Biden said matter-of-factly during a phone call with a House Democratic lawmaker within the past week — a conversation the congressman recounted to The Hill and interpreted as a sure sign that Biden will run in 2020. In the brief phone call, the former vice president asked if he could bounce...

Former President Obama's talk about how politics need “new blood” is being seen as a blow to Joe Biden, the former vice president that Obama did not back to succeed him in 2016. Sources close to both men describe Obama and Biden as friends who share an admiration and respect for one another. But they also acknowledge recent remarks like the one Obama made this week in Hawaii represent a sort of threat to Biden, who has told allies in recent days that he’s likely to enter the 2020 presidential race. Obama was speaking broadly about the need for new...

Democrats are worried that they have a problem: The three people leading polls in the very early stages of their presidential race are all white men. The party traditionally battles over identity politics and wants to be seen as promoting diversity. Its last three nominees have been Barack Obama, who became the nation’s first African-American president, and Hillary Clinton, the first woman to win the popular vote. Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) are this year’s top-tier candidates, according to a recent and very early Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom poll. It showed that 32...

Hillary Clinton is not running for president again, longtime advisers and confidants said on Monday as they pushed back on reports that the 2016 Democratic nominee is weighing another White House run. The allies acknowledge Clinton is wistful about what could have been had she won the presidential election against Donald Trump and wants to continue to help the Democratic Party. But they say her plans do not include another presidential bid. “She’s more likely to win Powerball,” Philippe Reines, Clinton’s longtime adviser, told The Hill on Monday. Another longtime confidant added, “She’s not running. I think it would be...

Democrats are sounding growing alarms in the final push before the midterm elections that the party lacks the message it needs to combat President Trump and win back Democratic majorities in Congress. Some of the comments are positively biting, and illustrate that nerves are on edge less than two weeks before Election Day. They also hint at the fights that will take place if Democrats under-perform and fail to at least win back the House majority, which would count as a significant disappointment at this stage. **SNIP** "There's one issue in this election: Donald Trump. That is it," Rep. Peter...

The new Clinton campaign tell-all, Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign, reveals how Hillary Clinton personally placed blame for her bruising defeat on Russian meddling “within twenty-four hours of her concession speech.”The blistering behind-the-scenes book, by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, illustrates how Hillary Clinton furiously blamed her defeat on the FBI investigation into her private emails, Russian interference, and Trump’s supposed support from “white nationalists.”From Shattered: On a phone call with a longtime friend a couple of days after the election, Hillary was much less accepting of her defeat. She put a fine point on the factors she believed cost her the presidency: the...

<p>Donald J. Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton in November came as a shock to the world. Polls, news reports and everything the Clinton campaign was hearing in the final days pointed to her becoming the first female president in American history.</p>

President Obama urged Republican governors to move forward and allow the Affordable Care Act expansion of Medicaid in their states, using an appearance in Dallas to make the case that the governors should stop playing politics. While Obama didn't call out Texas Gov. Rick Perry by name for not participating in the expansion, he asked states like Texas, to take advantage of the program and not deny people healthcare because of ideology. "There's no state that actually needs this more than Texas," Obama said, speaking briefly at local synagogue in the Lone Star state, before moving on to a fundraiser....

NEW YORK – John McCain hung his final presidential debate performance on an Ohio plumber who campaign aides never vetted. A day after making Joseph Wurzelbacher famous, referencing him in the debate almost two dozen times as someone who would pay higher taxes under Barack Obama, McCain learned the fine print Thursday on the plumber’s not-so-tidy personal story: He owes back taxes. He is not a licensed plumber. And it turns out that Wurzelbacher makes less than $250,000 a year, which means he would receive a tax cut if Obama were elected president. McCain likes to say that he isn’t...