Free Republic

Democrats are fighting tooth and nail to hold on to their ultra-narrow Senate majority this year in a midterm election cycle that has several of the party’s most vulnerable incumbents facing voters amid rising inflation and surging gas prices. Republicans need to net just one new seat this year to reclaim control of the upper chamber. Still, Democrats are more optimistic about their chances of holding their Senate majority than they are their House majority and are eyeing several opportunities to flip GOP-held seats.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) is grinding the gears of the Senate to a halt as it seeks to move forward with President Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill. It is just the latest step by Johnson, who is up for reelection in a state narrowly won by Biden, to burnish his Trump credentials, whether that’s by repeating unfounded theories about the Jan. 6 attack or becoming the face of GOP opposition to the coronavirus bill that is broadly popular even among Republicans. Johnson is taking a two-pronged approach to his hardball tactics: First, he’s forcing the Senate clerks to read...

Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson on Monday announced a run for the Senate seat currently held by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), becoming the first Democrat to enter what is expected to be a crowded 2022 race. In an ad posted on YouTube Monday morning, Nelson accused Johnson and other Republican senators of mismanaging the United States' response to the COVID-19 pandemic."There's just no help in sight," Nelson says. "And people like Ron Johnson have made this worse." “Who gets tested for COVID and then goes to a party and puts people at risk?” he adds, referring to Johnson's attendance at...

Full Title: Sen. John McCain's pallbearers to include Warren Beatty, Joe Biden, Gary Hart, plus billionaire Michael Bloomberg and FedEx CEO while his ushers include health and telecom execs McCain's office announced his pallbearers and other aspects of three days of services for hero Actor Warren Beatty will be among those serving as pall bearers Vice President Joe Biden, a friend from the Senate, also will be there Former Sens. Gary Hart, Phil Gramm, and Russ Feingold will join, as well Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse Among those paying tribute to McCain at his memorial services will be Jeff Flake, Joe...

MADISON (WKOW) -- Just months after losing his bid to return to the U.S. Senate, Middleton Democrat Russ Feingold is starting a new political organization with a stated goal of abolishing the U.S. Electoral College. Feingold announced the creation of LegitAction Wednesday in a press release, calling it "an organization committed to restoring our country’s democratic legitimacy." Under that premise, LegitAction will "focus on four central pillars of our democracy." - Protecting the Right to Vote - Reforming our campaign finance system- Empowering the national popular vote by abolishing the Electoral College- Protecting the independence and credibility of the Supreme...

Russ Feingold's bad week just got a little worse. A a jaw-dropping expose in the Boston Globe , reports that employees of a prominent Democratic law firm in Boston, had been operating a straw donor scheme to benefit various U.S. Senate campaigns since 2010. The law firm, Strouss and Bradley, would have employees give the maximum legal donations to Democratic Senate campaigns and then reimburse them their money as "bonuses."

ObamaCare has suddenly been injected back into the 2016 election debate, on the news of the law’s 25%-plus average premium increase for 2017. Even Donald Trump is talking about it. With only two weeks to go, this is a moment for voters to hold accountable the Democrats who imposed this debacle on the country over voter objections. Next year’s enormous price increases are merely the latest expression of ObamaCare’s underlying problems, and the dysfunction is undermining the health security of Americans who lack employer coverage. A wave of major insurers have quit the exchanges, and those that are left have...

Democrat Hillary Clinton continued to hold a lead over Republican Donald Trump in Wisconsin's presidential battle, while Democrat Russ Feingold increased his lead over Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson in their pivotal contest, according to Wednesday's Marquette University Law School Poll. Among likely voters, those who say they're going to the polls, Clinton had 44% and Trump had 42%. Twelve percent haven't made a decision

MADISON, Wis. - Former U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold spent part of his first interview of the election year defending President Obama's nuclear deal with Iran - a deal most Americans are leery about, to say the least. The Democrat, who is running against U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson to reclaim the seat he lost in the 2010 Republican revolution, said it's only right to talk about the "great things the president has done." "He has accomplished some foreign policy goals we have had for a very long time," Feingold told Sherwin Hughes, host of "The Forum," Friday on Milwaukee's 860 AM,...

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson and Democratic challenger Russ Feingold agree on very little. But one thing is likely to be true of both by the time their rematch race reaches its election day finish in November: Neither guy is going to be very popular with voters. "Historically, rematches between candidates are often pretty negative affairs," said Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette University Law School poll. The Johnson-Feingold race is shaping up as one of the more important Senate contests in the country and outside groups are already spending millions of dollars on the campaign. What does that mean? Expect...

MADISON, Wisconsin — Oftentimes the best way to know where you’re heading is by looking back to see where you’ve been. The same holds for politicians. A review of Russ Feingold’s voting record shows a politician who built his U.S. Senate career on raising taxes and growing government. Based on his campaign to return to the seat he lost to Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson in 2010, it’s clear that ultra-liberal Russ Feingold hasn’t had an epiphany-driven conversion on slowing growth of government. During his tenure, from 1993 to 2011, Feingold voted to raise taxes nearly 290 times, costing American...

To win a tough re-election race next year, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson needs one of two things to happen. He needs his party to carry Wisconsin for president, which hasn’t happened in 31 years. Or he needs to out-perform his party’s presidential nominee by a margin big enough to overcome a Republican loss at the top of the ticket. Either could happen, but past history and recent polling show why each scenario poses a challenge for the first-term GOP incumbent. Johnson trails Democratic challenger Russ Feingold by an average of 9 points in the last two statewide polls by the...

MADISON, Wis. — Former U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, one of the louder critics of speaking fees for government officials, still hasn’t answered his critics’ calls to release the full amount of honoraria the Democrat has pocketed. A Milwaukee Journal Sentinel piece this week revealed Feingold took in more than $100,000 in speaking fees between February 2012 and June 2013, much of that money for discussions on the corrupting influence of money in politics. The Wisconsin GOP, however, believes Feingold, the godfather of campaign finance reform, has yet to reveal all of his earnings from speaking engagements before that period. “To...

Before we get into the meat of this story from the National Journal, let me just note that this – “One of the most underappreciated stories in recent years is the deterioration of the Democratic bench under President Obama’s tenure in office” – has always been properly appreciated by me. I noticed this issue a while back. Sorry, but I felt the need to establish that. Moving on… …less attention has been paid to how the shrinking number of Democratic officeholders in the House and in statewide offices is affecting the party’s Senate races. It’s awfully unusual to see how...

Russ Feingold, the only US senator who voted against the 2001 Patriot Act, has announced he will launch a campaign to regain his seat in 2016. Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, lost a re-election bid in 2010 to Ron Johnson, a Tea Party Republican. Feingold had served three terms. In a video released on Thursday and first obtained by the Huffington Post, Feingold says that “billionaires and big corporations are calling the shots” and “we need to get started fixing all this”. “Let’s fight together for change,” Feingold says. “That means helping to bring back to the US Senate strong independence,...

It took Republicans three tries to win control of the US Senate and consolidate Congress under their leadership. In the end, the landscape left by the 2008 Democratic triumph left them uniquely vulnerable in the sixth-year midterm of an unpopular presidency. The tables will turn in 2016, warns National Journal’s Charlie Cook, as the gains of 2010 will make Republicans highly vulnerable to losing control of the Senate once again: Today, The Cook Political Report puts two Republican-held seats in the “Toss Up” category—the open seat in Florida and Kirk in Illinois. That toss-up column will certainly grow as...

Republicans are debating whether their path to the presidency in 2016 runs through the blue-collar Rust Belt states, or the demographically changing new South and Sunbelt states. For Democrats looking to retake the Senate, however, the formula is more clear-cut: Win back white working-class voters, or be consigned to a longer-term minority. Most of the Senate battlegrounds run through the Midwest—Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio—along with New Hampshire, which carries demographic similarities with those older, whiter Great Lakes states. To defeat the vulnerable Republican incumbents, Democrats have a challenging task ahead: Making inroads with blue-collar voters, who have been stubbornly resistant...

Russ Feingold will deliver his last speech as special envoy at the State Department next week, as he departs Foggy Bottom amid growing speculation over a potential campaign to return to the Senate, according to the Huffington Post. Should he decide to run, the Wisconsin Democrat, who served in the Senate from 1993 to 2011, would go up against Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who defeated him for re-election during the tea party wave of 2010. Story Continued Below Though the former senator has not taken definitive steps to join the race, National Republicans have already begun setting their sights on...

He's mad .. and rightfully so. Without any notice, his Sat. radio address was televised live. He's putting Congress and the press on notice that he's got the authority to do what he's done to protect US .. that Congress was notified at least a dozen times about these NSA oversights .. and that the press leaks and any such security leaks are illegal and are aiding and abetting the enemy. Whoo .. fireworks to come, and go get 'em W!

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)There are 65 prominent people who might run for president in 2016. The Democratic and Republican fields contrast sharply. Hillary Clinton is the clear front-runner, while there is no front-runner on the Republican side. Twenty-three Democrats have been mentioned as a candidate or are eyeing a bid, according to an analysis by The Hill. The GOP side has 42. Most of the people on this list won’t run, and some have adamantly claimed that they’re not interested. But many politicians have changed their minds on seeking the White House. Before mounting his 2008 bid, then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said he...