Free Republic

The final votes are being counted from the 2018 election. They confirm that the Democrats crushed Republicans. Let's start in the seat count. Republican Rep. David Valadao of California's 21st District conceded on Thursday to Democrat T.J. Cox. Cox's victory combined with other election results means that Democrats have picked up a net gain of 40 seats. As has oft been repeated, this is the largest Democratic House gain since 1974. It's a larger gain than Democrats had in the wave elections of both 1982 and 2006. We can go back even further and see how unusual it is that...

TALLAHASSEE — Florida’s newly elected agriculture commissioner is vowing to conduct a “deep dive” into the state’s concealed weapons permit program once she is sworn into office. Nikki Fried, who appeared on South Florida news programs on Sunday, said she has already begun talking about possible changes to the program with employees in the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Her push to revamp the program comes amid a likely legislative battle over whether the program should be moved to a different state agency. Earlier this year it was revealed that there were lapses in the program that is currently...

Latino comedian and actor Paul Rodriguez said he’s been the target of death threats ever since he voiced support for President Trump earlier this month. “Everybody’s entitled to their opinion, I’m not in the closet anymore,” Mr. Rodriguez... Mr. Rodriguez, who also chairs the California Latino Water Coalition, said he’s faced a lot of backlash since he praised Mr. Trump for his support for major water projects in California in a Nov. 5 interview with the same outlet. “Even as I did that interview I knew it’d have repercussions … but I stand by what I say,” Mr. Rodriguez said...

Of course the Democrats are still mad for Beto: He is who they are. Some of my conservative friends are mystified by the apparently enduring appeal of Robert Francis O’Rourke, a.k.a. “Beto,” the faux-Hispanic progressive from El Paso who failed to unseat conservative stalwart Senator Ted Cruz in spite of a flood of money and a tsunami of media adulation. “He lost, didn’t he?” they ask, perplexed. There is an answer to this riddle: snobbery. The Democratic party is the political home of snobbery, a word and a concept often misunderstood. Snobbery does not refer to the cultivated preferences of...