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Link only due to copyright issues: http://www.uticaod.com/opinion/20180812/our-view-trump-on-stump-moment-in-area-history

Last week, Republican Troy Balderson struggled to beat Democrat Danny O’Connor in a House special election in suburban Columbus — an Ohio district the GOP has held for decades and President Trump won by 11 percentage points two years ago. (The race — still too close to call with a margin of 1,564 votes — won’t be declared until Aug. 24, when all the absentee ballots have been counted.) In May, Republican Rick Saccone lost a special election to Democrat Conor Lamb in Pennsylvania, another district that voted solidly Trump. Both Ohio and Pennsylvania represent the new coalition of Trump...

As more Democratic candidates say they will not support keeping Nancy Pelosi as Democratic leader next year, President Donald Trump is urging them to reconsider. “Democrats, please do not distance yourselves from Nancy Pelosi,” Trump tweeted Friday evening. “She is a wonderful person whose ideas & policies may be bad, but who should definitely be given a 4th chance. She is trying very hard & has every right to take down the Democrat Party if she has veered too far left!” The sarcasm-dripping tweet aside, Trump’s interest in Democrats backing the House minority leader is likely genuine. One of House...

GOP Rep. Devin Nunes was secretly recorded telling supporters that the Republicans have to keep control of the House to protect President Trump in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, according to a report. “If [Attorney General Jeff] Sessions won’t unrecuse and Mueller won’t clear the president, we’re the only ones,” Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said at a private fundraiser July 30, NBC News reported Wednesday. “Which is really the danger. … I mean we have to keep all these seats,” he continued. “We have to keep the majority. If we do not keep the majority, all...

Ohio officials have discovered 588 uncounted votes in this week’s special election for the 12th Congressional District, further tightening the already too-close-to-call race. “The votes from a portion of one voting location had not been processed into the tabulation system,” the Franklin County Board of Elections said in a press release Wednesday. The uncounted votes were from a Columbus suburb. Prior to the discovery, Republican Troy Balderson led Democrat Danny O’Connor by more than 1,700 votes. With the 588 votes included, the margin narrows to 1,564, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. President Donald Trump prematurely declared victory for Balderson on...

The last special congressional election before Election Day is turning into a nail-biter for Republicans. President Trump will make a campaign stop on Saturday for Troy Balderson, a Republican state senator running to represent Ohio's 12th congressional district, which includes affluent suburbs of Columbus as well as rural parts of central Ohio. The Aug. 7 election takes place in a district that voted 53-42 for President Trump in 2016 while returning Rep. Pat Tiberi, a Republican, to Congress by a large margin. But halfway through his term, Tiberi resigned out of frustration with the political climate and took a job...

If you don't have anything nice to say, should you really say it on Twitter? Especially when it's about the first lady. And compares her to a prostitute. "Did you know the First Lady works by the hour? #thinkdirty #hoebag," Mark Roberts, an Oregon Independent running for U.S. Congress, tweeted Monday night. This kind of Twitter behavior displayed by Roberts is not new. He has a history of tweeting provocative replies and suggestive comments about women, including lawmakers and other public figures. We've included them at the end of this article. But Roberts sparked particular criticism Monday in his reply...

Democrats seem to agree: A job guarantee will be part of the 2020 election debate. What they don't yet agree on is what a "job guarantee" is. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is working on a full blown national bill to enshrine the right to a job. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) has a bill that would essentially run a test pilot of Sanders' program. The Congressional Full Employment Caucus has been pushing yet another national job guarantee bill, with some differences from Sanders' plan, for years. Finally, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) just introduced his own bill, which would subsidize more private...

The US House of Representatives on Thursday passed a defense authorization bill that restricts any drawdown of American troops in South Korea. The John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act, which approves $716 billion for defense in fiscal year 2019, passed the House by a vote of 359-54. Upon Senate approval, it will be sent to US President Donald Trump to sign into law. The bill notes that about 28,500 American troops are currently stationed in South Korea as a demonstration of the US commitment to the bilateral alliance. Their "significant removal" is "a non-negotiable item as it relates to...

President Trump’s campaign announced on Thursday that it will donate to nearly 100 House Republicans up for reelection nearly three months out from the November midterm elections. Trump’s reelection campaign said that it maxed out to each of those candidates’ committees in its first round of contributions. The release didn’t specify which Republicans would receive donations from the campaign. “We donated these funds from our campaign directly to theirs as a boost to these Members of Congress so we can maintain the momentum of the Trump agenda, including record job creation and economic growth,” said Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale....

California Democrat Maxine Waters has distanced herself from supporters who burned a US flag outside her office as they counter-protested a far-right militia group. A few dozen supporters made a rebellious appearance outside the congresswoman's Los Angeles office on Thursday to counter the expected protest by the far-right Oath Keepers group. The flag-burning incident occurred soon after the Oath Keepers group failed to show despite vowing that it would rally against the Waters. Photos from the protest show a group stomping on the flag before circling around and cheering when it erupted into flames. The Democratic counter-protesters were heard chanting:...

It's a busy life for a congressman who is up for re-election in November, but it wasn't too busy for U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman, R-Watersmeet, to jump on a plane and head to South Korea earlier the month. Bergman, a retired U.S. Marine Corps lieutenant general, is the highest-ranking combat veteran ever elected to Congress. He said because of that, he is often consulted on matters of the military. "It's a chance for me to be a resource, a mentor for folks who want to make a good vote and have questions about the military," he said. His expertise meant...

Rep. Maxine Waters warned supporters on Wednesday of potential "armed protests" against her after an extremist group called for ongoing demonstrations outside her office in Los Angeles. In a lengthy statement issued late Wednesday, Waters, D-Calif., said she’d been notified about forthcoming protests by the Oath Keepers, which she described as "an anti-government militia" that's staged armed protests in cities across the country. She warned her supporters against being "baited" into counter-demonstrations or confrontations with the organization, which she said has a track record of "violent and provocative behavior." "I am requesting those individuals and groups planning a counter-protest to...

New York Democratic congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez caused a stir for criticizing Israel’s "occupation” of Palestine in a recent interview. Ocasio-Cortez, who surprisingly won a New York Democratic primary on a socialist platform, made the remark during an interview on PBS’s "Firing Line" on Friday. The 28-year-old political newcomer was roundly criticized for making the statement then admitting that she is "not the expert at geopolitics on this issue." It wasn't the only controversial thing Ocasio-Cortez said during the "Firing Line" interview...

Rep. Maxine Waters continued her war of words with President Trump Saturday in Oakland, with the Los Angeles Democrat saying Trump was “embarrassing us every day” during his trip through Europe. “He’s over there supposedly meeting on NATO. He doesn’t know a darn thing about it,” Waters, a Los Angeles Democrat told a meeting of the California Democratic Party’s women’s caucus. “He doesn’t even understand what GDP is. As a matter of fact, he doesn’t even know how to spell his own wife’s name.” (VIDEO-AT-LINK) Waters has been critcized by Trump and by some of her fellow Democrats, including House...

When it comes to supporting families, paid parental leave is a solution to a number of problems. Studies show that paid leave can reduce infant mortality, increase breastfeeding rates, can improve maternal mental health and strengthen the connection between fathers and babies. There are a ton of benefits to parental leave, ones that American families should be seeing, but aren't. While some employers have been modernizing parental leave policies, federal policy lags behind. The last major policy change came in 1993, when the Family and Medical Leave Act passed with bipartisan support, guarantees more than half of American workers 12...

American politics is a wonder for the world to behold. Our free speech traditions produce all kinds of interesting folderol, over the top in its theatrics and yet usually deeply meaningful to those participating in it. It was on display Monday, in front of the United States Supreme Court building, appearing seemingly by magic moments after President Donald Trump announced he’d chosen D.C. Appellate Judge Brett Kavanaugh to replace retiring Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy. The right was there. And the left, each itching to get their point across. They had signs, including some urging opposition to nominees not picked, pre-printed...

An irate man threatened to kill a campaign volunteer — and Donald Trump supporters — at a Long Island Congressman’s campaign headquarters on Long Island Friday, police said. Martin Astrof, 75, charged at Donato Panico at Rep. Lee Zeldin’s Nesconset campaign office around 11:15 a.m., harassed him and verbally attacked Zeldin and Trump fans, Suffolk County cops said. When the agitated Astrof drove off, he almost hit Panico, police said. He was arrested outside his home several blocks away a short time later. Astrof was charged with making a terroristic threat and reckless endangerment, authorities said, and is expected to...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) slammed President Trump over his comments about Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) during a rally on Thursday night. Trump at the campaign-style rally in Montana called Waters a “low-IQ individual,” a claim that he has repeated many times. He speculated her IQ is “somewhere in the mid-60s.” The average IQ is 85-114, and a mid-60s IQ indicates mental challenges....

In these hyperbolic times, it's easy to fall into overstatement. Somehow, the farm-to-table dining preferences of Sarah Huckabee Sanders or the subliminal, sartorial messages of the first lady have become the subject of breathless debate. Cotton-candy controversies swirl for a moment and then disappear. The replacement of retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy is not like that. It is, to paraphrase former Vice President Joe Biden, a big doggone deal. So big that Biden's old boss, former President Barack Obama, has descended from his Olympian remove to fire up the troops Thursday. He urged Democrats to quit moping, avoid complacency...