Free Republic

While Democrats consider more than 20 candidates hoping to become their party's nominee, the Republican National Committee is forging ahead with an August ground-game push to boost President Trump's reelection campaign in more than a dozen states. The RNC and the Trump Victory Committee launched an "Open for Business" tour last week featuring more than 30 events across 17 states to highlight the administration's economic achievements. In conjunction with the events hosted by surrogates, the committees have launched a six-figure digital ad buy targeting cities like Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, West Palm Beach, Miami and Las Vegas. The ads, which...

The Republican Federated Women of The Villages heard firsthand Thursday about President Trump’s 2020 campaign and passed a resolution to show their support for the commander in chief. Kevin Cabrera, who is serving as the Florida Trump 2020 political director, spoke to the group that is comprised of active women who have moved to Florida’s Friendliest Hometown from throughout the country. “We were very pleased to have him and listen to what he had to say about the plans to win in 2020,” said Marina Woolcock, who serves as president of the group. Woolcock said she told a story that...

TALLAHASSEE — Have gun, will vote? Florida Republicans working to reelect President Donald Trump will send volunteers to a gun show this weekend as part of a broader effort to sign up new voters in the battleground state. An internal “Trump Victory Team” email circulated Thursday, days after a pair of mass shootings stunned the nation, said the upcoming gun show in South Florida was “a great opportunity to make sure people are up to date on their voter registration and know more about the efforts of the Trump administration to address public safety and second amendments rights.” Democrats quickly...

“Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough issued a damning warning to donors to President Trump’s reelection campaign on Monday morning following a bloody weekend of mass shootings that left nearly 30 people dead. “For those of you funding Donald Trump’s reelection campaign, you may want to take note: Because you keep writing checks to this president, it’s on you,” he said. “It really is, it’s all on you because you are funding this white supremacist campaign, CEOs. You really are. Business people, millionaires and billionaires, it’s your money that is funding this white supremacy because you won’t tell him to stop.”...

Pollster Lee Carter measured the responses of a group of 100 voters to President Trump’s rally in Cincinnati and she said Friday that independents are leaning toward the president's immigration stance. At one point in the speech, Trump said Democrats’ greatest “betrayal” was supporting “open borders’ and Democratic lawmakers “care more about illegal aliens than they care about their own constituents." “We’re not going to do that,” Trump said to his base at the rally on Thursday. Carter, president of communications consulting firm Maslansky + Partners, said the voter-reaction analysis showed independents tracking closer to Republicans than Democrats in response...

Joe Biden survived the second round of Democratic presidential debates, but it became more apparent that over half the 22-person field is irrelevant and should get out, the sooner the better. The former vice president was repeatedly under attack on health care, criminal justice, immigration and abortion. He stumbled sometimes, but overall was sharper than his mediocre performance in the first debate a month ago. This won't assuage fears of mainstream Democrats that the 76-year-old Biden may not be up to the challenge of a protracted primary fight and bitter battle against Donald Trump. Still he was sufficiently engaged to...

Never has there been a presidential race as sprawling and wide-open as the 2020 Democratic primary. It would be a landscape entirely without a map, except that a small handful of battle-hardened veterans have navigated similar terrain before. At the kickoff of the primary debate season four years ago, no fewer than 16 candidates were jockeying for position in the largest Republican presidential field in history—only to end up being mowed down by Donald J. Trump in what became a slaughterhouse of a campaign. What’s in store for this year’s Democrats? To get an insider’s view, POLITICO Magazine invited four...

President Donald Trump recently announced his bid for reelection in the swing state of Florida, a state that has played a crucial role in past presidential elections. Trump talked of his achievements the past 2 years; from economic gains to historic unemployment levels, to companies coming back, fair trade deals underway and working hard for all Americans, with a promise to “never, ever let you down”. Trump was cheered like a winning QB or a Super Bowl team in front of a crowd of 20,000 strong supporters who showed up on June 18. While he touted his gains, he also...

President Donald Trump over the weekend backed off a threat to have Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conduct massive nationwide raids to deport "millions" of migrants illegally in the United States, an act that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says came after she phoned the president last week. "When I spoke to the president, I said, 'Look, I'm a mom, I have five kids, nine grandchildren and children are scared. You're scaring the children of America, not just in those families, but their neighbors and their communities,'" the California Democrat said Monday while discussing immigration at an event in Queens, New...

When Donald Trump’s campaign manager said in Miami recently that he planned to launch a national Hispanic outreach effort in Florida, Democrats took notice. The state’s 2.2 million Hispanic voters make up an outsized portion of Florida’s electorate, and nearly two-thirds voted in 2016 for Hillary Clinton. Last year, Trump’s hard-line immigration policies and rhetoric contributed to sweeping Republican losses around the country as strong Hispanic turnout helped Democrats take the House of Representatives. But the belief in demographic destiny is dead among Florida Democrats, crushed in November by victorious Trump-backed candidates who more than reversed his 2016 losses among...

Hillary Clinton hit back in amusing style after President Donald Trump ranted about her during his 2020 reelection campaign launch in Orlando on Tuesday night. The former secretary of state joked about being “blessed with stamina” to keep running through the president’s mind in a Twitter exchange with Democratic former Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum. Clinton, who Trump defeated in the 2016 election, also dinged POTUS with a jibe about Infowars, the conspiracy theory website run by far-right personality Alex Jones...

Hours after he formally kicked off his 2020 re-election campaign, a new national poll offers some encouraging numbers for President Trump. The release Wednesday of a Suffolk University survey for USA Today comes a day after another poll in the crucial presidential battleground state of Florida showed the president trailing -- and as several other polls have similarly shown high-profile Democratic candidates ahead. But the USA Today/Suffolk University survey showed 49 percent of Americans approving of the job Trump’s doing as president, with 48 percent giving him a thumbs down. That’s a more positive showing for Trump compared with other...

When Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon Martin's mom, decided to run for office, she was already familiar with life on the campaign trail. She'd been out on the road with former Secretary of State and then presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016. In a new interview on The Hill's "Rising" program for Hill.TV, Trayvon Martin's mom said Hillary Clinton inspired her run for office. She said it pushed her in "the right direction." "Campaigning for Secretary Clinton made a big difference," Fulton told Hill.TV. "It kind of planted the seed for me, but I still wasn't ready until I prayed on it,...

When Donald Trump launches his presidential re-election campaign next week, he will do it at a rally in the Amway Center – home to sports teams Orlando Magic, Orlando Solar Bears and Orlando Predators – in a part of Florida better known for Cape Canaveral and Walt Disney World. It will be four years and two days since the property developer and reality TV star descended an escalator at Trump Tower in New York to launch the longest of long-shot campaigns by raging against unfair trade deals and promising to “build a great wall” on the US-Mexico border. He was...

President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden are in a dead heat in the crucial swing state of Florida, according to a new poll released Wednesday by Florida Atlantic University (FAU). Trump and Biden each got 50 percent support among registered voters surveyed in the Sunshine State, possibly previewing a contentious showdown in a state that is a key battleground in the 2020 election. Trump is buoyed by a net-positive approval rating in Florida, with 47 percent of registered voters saying they approve of the job he’s doing while 44 percent disapprove. The result is a three-point uptick from...

Prepare yourselves. President Donald Trump will host a rally at the Aaron Bessant Park Amphitheater on Wednesday in Panama City. So what should attendees expect? A #MAGA rally doesn’t hold to the script as tightly as many political events, but you can count on characteristic spectacle. We spoke with some of the political figures planning to attend and here’s what they told us to expect. 1.Major Crowds Packing the house has long been a tradition for Trump, even when polls showed weakening support in 2016. So expect a serious show of strength as the President arrives in Florida’s conservative Panhandle....

Members of President Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign are planning a rally for May 8 at Aaron Bessant Park, according to documents filed with the city and obtained by the News Herald. Emails show members of Trump’s team reached out to the city last week about the plans and permits needed to secure the site. After some back and forth, Panama City Beach City Manager Mario Gisbert signed the special event agreement on Monday. This will be the first time Trump has visited Panama City Beach since his last campaign rally in October 2016, though he did visit areas on the...

President Donald Trump and Melania have landed in Mar-a-Lago for the Easter weekend in Palm Beach •The couple were joined by son Barron and Donald's daughter Tiffany for the long holiday weekend •On landing on Thursday night Trump told supporters at the airport: 'Game over folks, now it's back to work' •Crowds of supporters in MAGA hats were pictured waiting as Air Force One arrived at Palm Beach airport •Later fans holding homemade signs lined the streets as Trump's motorcade passed through Florida •He had earlier not stopped to take questions from the press as he left the White House...

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said Sunday Dreamers, children of immigrants brought into the country illegally, should get legal status. "Well, it's been put in place by President Obama and I believe we have a responsibility to fulfill what is a presidential pledge and commitment. So that's in the past. I would provide legal status for those Dreamers in the country," Romney said on NBC's "Meet the Press," referring to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that shields these individuals from deportation. "That's something the president's put on the table. I think we should get that job done, and hope,...

Jeb Bush calls on Republicans to challenge Trump Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush says Donald Trump should face a Republican primary challenge in 2020. Bush, who ran for president in 2016, told CNN the party “ought to be a given a choice.” “I think someone should run. Just because Republicans ought to be given a choice,” he said. “To have a conversation about what it is to be a conservative I think is important...And our country needs to have competing ideologies that people -- that are dynamic, that focus on the world we’re in and the world we’re moving towards...