Free Republic

With two weeks to go until the midterms, Republicans are virtually guaranteed to win the Senate. As of today, North Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Arizona, and Missouri appear safe. Just today, the third consecutive poll showing Dean Heller up in Nevada came out (Emerson) and he has expanded his lead now to seven. This would mean that as of today, the GOP would gain a net of two seats in the Senate. Races still supposedly up in the air are Montana, Indiana, West Virginia, Florida, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Ohio. Races where the Democrat has a lead outside the margin of...

Democrats running for re-election in the 2018 midterms are being advised to not speak about the issue of immigration as consultants admit the zero-enforcement, open borders positions of the Democrat Party are unpopular with swing voters. In a memo obtained by the New York Times, left-wing consultants with the Center for American Progress and the think tank, Third Way, advised Democrats running for election to spend “as little time as possible” talking about the immigration issue facing the nation, where more than 1.5 million immigrants are admitted to the country every year. The New York Times reported: “Sanctuary attacks pack...

Left-leaning groups are advising Democratic candidates in the November midterm elections to steer clear from discussing immigration in states and districts that President Trump won in 2016. A strategy memo co-authored by the Center for American Progress and Third Way -- two Washington-based think tanks -- recommended that certain Democrats speak about the topic as little as possible and instead focus on topics that will better resonate with their voters. Navin Nayak, executive director of the Center for American Progress Action, said that even though the memo was sent to a broad set of districts, it excluded ones with large...

Friends and family of a beloved Medieval knight re-enactor have been left “stunned” after the Virginia man accidentally impaled himself with his lance during a re-enactment event over the weekend. Peter Barclay, 53, was competing in an equestrian game in front of a crowd in Williamstown, Kentucky Saturday when he was fatally injured. Participating in events under the knight name of Master Terafan Greydragon, Peter went to spear a paper plate while on horseback when something went wrong and his lance impaled him under his sternum, WLWT confirms. Peter, a military veteran, was airlifted to a hospital but died en...

Democrats are already worried about turnout this November, particularly because polling shows that the youngest voters – college students in particular – are the least enthusiastic and the least likely to show up at the polls. That gap extends up through the age bracket of the youngest millennials but mostly focuses on what’s now being called Generation Z. In Virginia, however, it appears that enthusiasm isn’t the only problem they have. Young voters there are complaining that they can’t mail in their absentee ballots. Why? Because many of them can’t figure out where and how to purchase stamps to send...

House Republicans still want Glenn Simpson, the co-founder of the firm behind the anti-Trump dossier, to comply with their subpoena to appear on Capitol Hill despite his plans to invoke Fifth Amendment protections, a GOP House Judiciary Committee aide told Fox News on Friday. The tension with the Fusion GPS co-founder comes as new details emerge about just how widely distributed the unverified and politically funded dossier was back in 2016. A Fox News review of congressional testimony, British court records, emails and other documents indicate that at least five sources worked through other government agencies or fed the dossier...

RICHMOND —Rep. Scott Taylor (R-Va.) leads Democratic challenger Elaine Luria 50 percent to 43 percent in Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District, according to a new poll released Monday by Christopher Newport University’s Wason Center for Public Policy. Taylor has a 7-point lead among likely voters, suggesting that voters are not troubled by his involvement in a scandal in which his campaign staffers submitted fraudulent signatures in a failed effort to get another candidate onto the ballot. The poll had a margin of error of about 4 percentage points.

A semi-truck driver slammed into a firetruck Thursday evening that was assisting with a car crash on a Virginia Interstate, killing one firefighter and injuring several others. The tractor-trailer was traveling south on Interstate 295 around 9 p.m. when it rammed a firetruck, which was providing aid in a two-car crash in Hanover, Va., the Virginia State Police said in a press release. A Message from Career Builder Lt. Brad Clark died at the scene, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported early Friday, citing authorities. "Please join Hanover County Fire-EMS as we mourn the death of Lieutenant Brad Clark and keep his...

The worst of Hurricane Michael’s remnants were supposed to track south of tiny Charlotte County in southern Virginia, but a desperate 911 call Thursday night told a different story: A car had been washed away in a torrential flash flood. When sheriff’s deputies raced to the scene on Mount Harmony Road after 11 p.m., county administrator Daniel Witt said they heard the screams of a 17-year-old boy clinging to a guardrail. The sheriff’s deputies and some bystanders linked arms and waded into the raging water, before tossing the teen a rope. He was pulled to safety, but his father and...

University of Virginia Center for Politics Director Larry Sabato joins MSNBC's 'MTP Daily' with host Chuck Todd to discuss the Republicans struggling in states Trump won in 2016. Sabato said Trump is in trouble in the Midwest, a part of the country where he did well in 2016, and it "seems to be flipping" in the midterm year. He said the states he carried, it appears, to elect Democratic Senators. "Even if the Republicans hold the Senate given the very pro-Republican math that exists, President Trump is in trouble in some of these states," Sabato said. "He's fallen considerably as...

A Virginia transgender student was reportedly barred from seeking shelter inside her middle school's locker rooms during a safety drill last month. WUSA reports that the student, who identifies as female, was unable to go inside the girls' or boys' locker rooms during the drill designed to prepare children for school shootings. The student's name and the name of her school are not being released in order to protect her identity. Equality Stafford, an LGBT rights group based in Stafford County, Virginia, posted about the incident on Facebook: According to the post, the student was instructed to sit in the...

A top lawyer working with the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign contacted the FBI’s general counsel in late 2016 and provided documents for the Russia probe as federal investigators prepared a surveillance warrant for Trump campaign aide Carter Page, sources close to a congressional investigation told Fox News, citing new testimony. The FBI official who was contacted, James Baker, revealed the exchange to congressional investigators during a closed-door deposition Wednesday. He said Perkins Coie lawyer Michael Sussmann initiated contact with him and provided documents as well as computer storage devices on Russian hacking. The sources said Baker described the...

The Washington Post’s continued labeling of blogger Jennifer Rubin as a “conservative” in the years since she has repeatedly rejected conservative ideas and principles is an example of why the American people are unable to trust the media, more than three dozen top conservative leaders say.“In truth, it is nearly impossible to discern any conservatism in Rubin’s contemporary writing,” the leaders said in an October 3 letter to the Washington Post editorial board. Citing the rejection of her previous positions on climate change, gun control, Middle East foreign policy, tax cuts, immigration, and abortion, the group said the notion that...

Scientists believe Tangier Island, in the Virginia waters of the Chesapeake Bay, could vanish within the next 25 years. Two-thirds of Tangier's land mass has disappeared since the time of the Civil War, and in recent years sea-level rise caused by global warming took more acres from the island. Fewer than 500 people remain there. Many of them voted for Donald J. Trump, share his rejection of climate change as the reason for their existential challenge and insist that a seawall around the island would save it from further "wave erosion." The deeply religious islanders have frequently been in the...

Voters in most Southern states are expected to back Republican candidates in the upcoming midterms, according to a new NBC News/SurveyMonkey online poll. The poll found that voters in most Southern states are more likely to support a Republican for Congress than the nation as a whole, with 48 percent of Southerners saying they would vote for a GOP candidate if the midterms were held today compared to 43 percent that would back Democrats. Forty-nine percent of voters nationally would vote for a Democratic candidate if the elections were held right now while 42 percent would vote for a Republican,...

Former FBI Director James Comey has rejected a request from Republicans in Congress to sit for a closed-door interview as part of their efforts to probe allegations of bias at the Justice Department and the FBI. Comey instead offered to testify publicly, according to a letter sent by his attorney to leaders of the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees on Monday. “Mr. Comey respectfully declines your request for a private interview,” David Kelley, Comey’s attorney, wrote in the letter, which was obtained by The Hill. “He would, however, welcome the opportunity to testify at a public hearing.” Reps. Bob Goodlatte...

A major gun control group is investing $5 million in digital ads focused on 15 Republican House districts that could turn blue in the upcoming midterm elections, Politico reported. Everytown for Gun Safety, which was founded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is targeting 15 suburban districts highlighted in the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's "Red to Blue" target list, according to the news outlet.The districts, which are mostly outside of cities, include communities in New Jersey, Georgia, Virginia, Colorado, Michigan and more, it added. “Suburban swing districts are going to make this election, and gun safety resonates extremely...

Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), the House Judiciary Committee chairman, said Sunday that Nellie Ohr, the wife of Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, is cooperating with the committee and will testify in October. “Nellie Ohr is cooperating. We have a date for her appearance before the committee for an interview on Oct. 19," Goodlatte said on Fox News's "Sunday Morning Futures." Goodlatte's comments come after Republicans last week threatened to subpoena Nellie Ohr after a deal fell apart that would have led to her testimony last week. The Ohrs have come under GOP scrutiny for their ties to a controversial dossier...

Officials with the Virginia Wildlife Management and Control took to Facebook to share “extremely rare photos” of a two-headed copperhead snake. The snake was spotted last week in a Woodbridge, Va. resident’s backyard, according to the department. In addition to the photos, wildlife management officials shared a video of the two-headed serpent twisting and wriggling inside a container . . .

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam is poised to implement a new regulation without legislative approval to join 10 other states in a climate change agreement based on restricting carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants.But lawmakers, policy analysts, and tea party activists in Virginia who oppose what they consider costly regulations of industry are raising questions about the economic and scientific arguments underpinning the proposed rule.They say the Virginia General Assembly should have a straight up-or-down vote on Northam’s plan, in part to ensure that any revenue the governor raises from “carbon trading” is collected and dispersed in a manner consistent...