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Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) on Friday endorsed former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders as his successor, saying that his state “will be in good hands” under her leadership. “I’ve known Sarah Huckabee Sanders most of her life and know firsthand her love for our state and her heart for public service,” Hutchinson said in a statement. “Sarah has earned the Republican nomination and I’m delighted today to endorse her for Governor.”

Former President Donald Trump is gloating over Republican Glenn Youngkin’s lead in the Virginia governor’s race as results continue to trickle in. In a statement on Tuesday night, Trump said that he didn’t even have to rally for Youngkin in the Virginia governor’s race because McAuliffe constantly tied his Republican rival to the former president. That ultimately boosted Youngkin’s standing heading into the Tuesday election, Trump said. “It is looking like Terry McAuliffe's campaign against a certain person named ‘Trump’ has very much helped Glenn Youngkin,” Trump said in a statement. “All McAuliffe did was talk Trump, Trump, Trump and...

Matthew Dowd, the former chief strategist of President George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection bid, is running as a Democrat for Texas lieutenant governor, kicking off a difficult fight to oust incumbent Dan Patrick. In a video announcing his campaign, Dowd railed against Patrick as a representative of only a small minority of Texans. He blamed Patrick for hampering local governments’ ability to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and failing to take charge after the state’s electric grid crashed earlier this year. “The GOP politicians have failed us, especially the cruel and craven lieutenant governor,” Dowd said.

A Republican-led audit of the 2020 election in Arizona’s largest county found that President Biden actually won by a larger margin than the county’s official results show. The review revealed that Biden won 1,040,873 votes in Maricopa County in November, according to a draft audit report, 99 more votes than the certified ballot count last year showed. Former President Trump’s vote total, meanwhile, dropped from 995,665 to 995,404 after the audit — a difference of 261 votes. In total, the audit found that Biden beat Trump by 360 more votes than previously recorded, according to the draft report. The official...

Republicans angling for potential 2024 presidential runs are at risk of colliding with former President Donald Trump. For months, Trump has floated the idea of a 2024 rematch against President Biden. But in recent weeks, he has begun to signal that he may be more likely to run again than not, intensifying a collective headache for other would-be White House contenders who have already started laying the groundwork for their own campaigns. There’s little appetite within the GOP to challenge Trump for the 2024 presidential nod. He’s still the most influential Republican in the country, and running against him in...

Republicans who voted earlier this year to impeach former President Trump are outpacing their primary challengers in the money race. Now the 10 House Republicans who broke party lines in the chamber’s January impeachment vote are heading into the second half of 2021 flush with cash, financial reports filed on Thursday with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) show. Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), who was ousted from her post as the No. 3 House Republican in May, raked in the most cash of the group in the second quarter of the year, raising nearly $1.9 million and closing out June with...

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) meteoric rise in Republican politics is putting him on track for a possible clash with former President Trump, who is dangling the prospect of a third White House campaign. DeSantis’s popularity among the GOP faithful has mushroomed over his handling of the coronavirus, and he’s found himself at the center of several news cycles, including over his signing of a controversial voting restriction bill and the collapse of a south Florida condominium building. That support and attention, combined with his reelection fight next year, are fueling speculation that DeSantis is gearing up for a 2024...

The Democratic candidate challenging Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, a controversial figure who has promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory, for a Georgia House seat abruptly ended his campaign on Friday, announcing that he is leaving the state. In a statement, Kevin Van Ausdal attributed his decision to withdraw from the race to “family and personal reasons,” but did not elaborate on what had prompted him to end his campaign.

Neal beats back primary challenge from progressive Alex Morse in Massachusetts BY MAX GREENWOOD - 09/01/20 09:44 PM EDT 53 166 Rep. Stephen Lynch beats back progressive challenger in Massachusetts Neal beats back primary challenge from progressive Alex Morse in Massachusetts Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), the chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, fended off a primary challenge from Holyoke, Mass., Mayor Alex Morse on Tuesday in a blow to progressives who had hoped to unseat the longtime incumbent. The Associated Press called the race for Neal just before 9:45 p.m. local time. The incumbent was ahead by...

Democrats’ hopes of capturing statewide office in Georgia may have been dashed in 2018, but this year the party appears on the cusp of a breakthrough. The state’s two Republican senators are facing increasingly competitive reelection bids, and President Trump’s poll numbers are suffering there as he scrambles to get a handle on the coronavirus pandemic and respond to ongoing civil unrest over racial injustice and police brutality. Democrats, meanwhile, say that changing demographics in Georgia have made the state ripe for political change. Some 322,000 new voters joined the state’s rolls last year, including many young voters and people...

A church attended by George Washington will take down a memorial to the nation's first president, a move church leaders say is intended to make the place of worship more welcoming. The Washington Times reported Friday that Christ Church in Alexandria, Va., will remove memorials of Washington and former Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, which stand on either side of the church's altar. “The plaques in our sanctuary make some in our presence feel unsafe or unwelcome," church leaders said. "Some visitors and guests who worship with us choose not to return because they receive an unintended message from the...

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) said on Tuesday that she has had an “opening conversation” with Joe Biden’s campaign about her potential as a running mate pick for the former vice president and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. In an interview on NBC’s “The Third Hour of Today,” Whitmer revealed that she has had a “conversation with some folks” about the running mate slot, but said that she did not see the discussion as particularly formal and is solely committed for the time being to her official duties as governor. “It was just an opening conversation and it’s not something that...

Republican Mark Harris on Thursday called for a new election in North Carolina’s 9th congressional district, saying that allegations of ballot tampering have shaken the public’s confidence in the race’s outcome. Harris’s request, which came at a hearing of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, was a stunning reversal for the Republican House candidate, who has for months urged state elections officials to certify him as the winner in the race. --This is a developing story.

Yesterday, Dahoser helpfully posted this outrageously deceptive article from The Hill. Thank you, Dahoser. The post received much attention from Freepers, who made many good comments. Since most people likely don't have the time to wade through all 131 comments, I will summarize here some particularly astute observations as well as add my own. I hope that it will be a helpful exercise in highlighting many of the ways the media attempts to deceive us, particularly with statistics. We should be concerned not just to avoid being deceived ourselves but also to recognize the powerful influence articles like this have...

Nearly 60 percent of U.S. voters surveyed say President Trump should be either impeached and removed from office or formally censured, according to a new Harvard CAPS/Harris poll released exclusively to The Hill. The poll shows that a majority of voters polled think some kind of action should be taken against Trump, though they are divided on how far lawmakers should go as Democrats prepare to take over the House majority. Asked whether Trump should be impeached and removed from office for his actions, censured by Congress or whether Congress should take no action, 39 percent of respondents said Trump...

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) on Tuesday fiercely denied allegations that he failed to stop a sports physician from sexually abusing student athletes at Ohio State University when he was a wrestling coach there. Jordan told Politico in an interview that he would have intervened had he known about the doctor's alleged behavior. "It’s not true," Jordan told Politico. "I never knew about any type of abuse. If I did, I would have done something about it. And look, if there are people who are abused, then that’s terrible and we want justice to happen." Three former wrestlers at OSU told...

Allegations that Rep. Jim Jordan failed to stop a team doctor from sexually abusing student athletes when the Ohio Republican was a college wrestling coach is complicating his possible bid for Speaker of the House. The NBC News story dropped Tuesday just as Jordan began reaching out to GOP colleagues, urging them to ditch Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and instead back him for the top job in the House GOP conference. Jordan, 54, the powerful founding chairman of the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus, has not formally announced a bid for Speaker but has said he plans to be “part of...

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said on Friday that he will travel Washington in July to meet with President Trump amid an escalating trade war between the U.S. and Europe. Juncker said that Europe stands committed to "free and fair, multilateral based trade," and announced that he would meet with the U.S. president before the end of July, according to a European Commission spokeswoman. That meeting will not take place before July 24, he said. A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to The Hill's request for comment. ETC...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Thursday after attending a classified briefing that he continues to support special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow. McConnell told NPR that Mueller's investigation and a separate probe by the Justice Department's inspector general into the FBI's actions during the 2016 election will ultimately provide answers to a number of questions swirling around the presidential race. "The two investigations going on that I think will give us the answers to the questions that you raise — the [inspector general] investigation in the Justice Department and the...