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Democratic Governor Ted Strickland still trails his Republican challenger, John Kasich, by eight points in his bid for reelection in Ohio.
The latest Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone survey of Likely Voters shows Kasich picking up 47% support while Strickland draws the vote from 39%. Seven percent (7%) prefer another candidate in the race while another seven percent (7%) are undecided.
The latest results are little changed from those found two weeks ago, when Kasich attracted 48% of the vote while Strickland earned 40%. But the race had been close for months prior to the previous survey. Since December, the Republican’s support has ranged narrowly from 45% to 49%, while the Democrat in those same surveys has earned 38% to 45% of the vote.
This race remains Leans Republican in the Rasmussen Reports Election 2010 Gubernatorial Scorecard. Read More…
By David Catanese
Florida Gov. Charlie Crist will get a late fundraising burst for his independent Senate bid from Penthouse CEO Marc Bell, according to an invitation obtained by POLITICO.
The evening event will be held at Bell’s Boca Raton home on Oct. 7, less than a month before Crist faces Republican Marco Rubio and Democratic Rep. Kendrick Meek in one of the most closely watched Senate races in the country.
The invitation requests $500 per person to attend the general reception and $2,400 per couple for a VIP photo opportunity. Read More…
Republican Rob Portman now picks up 44% support while his opponent, Lieutenant Governor Lee Fisher, earns the vote from 39% in the latest Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone survey of Likely Voters of Ohio’s U.S. Senate race.
Seven percent (7%) prefer some other candidate while another 11% are undecided.
The race is a bit closer than it was two weeks ago, when Portman held a 45% to 37% lead over Fisher.
The latest numbers move this race from Leans Republican to Toss-Up in the Rasmussen Reports Senate Balance of Power rankings.
In every survey conducted this year, Portman’s support has stayed in the very narrow range of 42% to 45% of the vote. Fisher’s support has ranged from 37% to 43% in that same period. Read More…
The playing field of competitive House races has expanded substantially over the past two months, increasing the chances that Republicans will control the lower chamber next year.
The news is good for Republicans, as many open seats are trending to the GOP while dozens of Democratic incumbents are scrambling to keep their jobs.
Democratic leaders are on the defensive, making the case they can still retain the majority in November while playing defense in districts they weren’t expecting to be concerned about earlier in the cycle.
As the election environment has worsened for Democrats amid troubling new economic and polling data, Republicans have become increasingly bullish in their projections of major House gains.
The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) vice chairman, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), predicted Wednesday that as many as 80 seats will be in play this fall. To read more click here.
by Frank Newport
PRINCETON, NJ — Republicans lead by 51% to 41% among registered voters in Gallup weekly tracking of 2010 congressional voting preferences. The 10-percentage-point lead is the GOP’s largest so far this year and is its largest in Gallup’s history of tracking the midterm generic ballot for Congress.
By Jim Geraghty
On August 25, I offered an update on my assessment of the 105 vulnerable House Democrats and Democrat-held open seats, and the 5 or so vulnerable House Republicans and GOP-held open seats. I put 13 in the “GOP should win” category, 28 in the “GOP has good chance of winning” category, 36 in the “50/50″ category, 22 in the “GOP could win with luck or a wave” category, and 6 in the “GOP will need luck and a wave” category. Some readers figured this added up to a predicted gain of 50-60 seats, and that’s a fair description, although I note that with 60some days remaining, circumstances can change.
Mark Halperin, this morning, via Politico: “Mark Halperin e-mails elaboration on a “Morning Joe” prediction: “Based on the current national environment, the enthusiasm gap, the state of the economy, the failure to materialize of a lot of what Democrats were counting on (health care law getting more popular, and ‘recovery summer’ taking hold), and polling in individual races, on the current trajectory, with no unexpected intervening events, Republicans are in a position to pick up as many as 60 seats.” Swing needed for control: 39 seats. GOP netted 54 seats in ‘94.”
Everybody catches up eventually. Although I think as an absolute ceiling, 60 seats is too low.
“I’ve been stunned,” said Land, who directs public policy for the Southern Baptist Convention and who attended the Saturday rally at Beck’s invitation.
“This guy’s on secular radio and television,” Land said Saturday, “but his shows sound like you’re listening to the Trinity Broadcasting Network, only it’s more orthodox and there’s no appeal for money … and today he sounded like Billy Graham.”
Beck’s speeches around his “Restoring Honor” rally have brimmed with religious language: “God dropped a giant sandbag on his head” to push him to organize the rally, he said Friday.
On Friday night, Beck held a religion-focused event at the Kennedy Center that was billed as Glenn Beck’s Divine Destiny. To read more click here.
By Ralph Reed
In recent days, the lamestream media has been in high dudgeon about evangelical leaders appearing at Glenn Beck’s Washington, DC Restore Honor rally. Isn’t it hypocritical, they ask, for mainline evangelicals to share the stage with a professed Mormon? As usual, the media misses the point.
The evangelicals participating in the Restore Honor event are not endorsing Glenn Beck’s theology, nor is he asking them to; they are joining in his clarion call to restore America’s honor and founding principles. Together, we and millions of our fellow citizens are calling America back to its Judeo-Christian values of faith, hard work, individual initiative, the centrality of marriage and family, hope, charity, and relying on God and civic and faith-based organizations rather than government for our security and prosperity.
We have always partnered with those with whom we had theological differences: the Jewish community in defending the state of Israel, Roman Catholics in defending life, Mormons in defending marriage. The media can’t have it both ways. Either evangelicals are theologically narrow and judgmental, or they are just as politically sophisticated and mature and capable of building coalitions with 80% friends who they do not view as 20% enemies. It seems they get criticized no matter what they do.
The high point of the civil rights movement was the cooperation between prominent Jewish supporters and African-American Christians to end segregation and what C. Vann Woodward called the strange career of Jim Crow. Historically, cross-ethnic and multi-denominational coalitions are a sign of strength, not weakness.
By Gregg Keller
I hope you’re as excited about our Faith & Freedom Conference and Strategy Briefing as we are. The Conference will be held at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC September 9-11. While most conferences are social and networking opportunities only, the primary focus of our Conference and Strategy Briefing is giving you the tools and know-how you need to turn out the conservative vote in November. We’ll show you how to use our proprietary voter identification database, Voter Trak. You’ll learn from us how best to harness social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to motivate and turn out our voters. You’ll learn all that and more.
Of course, that’s not to say that trainings, panels and breakouts is all the Conference will feature. In fact, we’ll have the most impressive array of celebrity conservative speakers of the year. Below is our list of confirmed speakers. If you haven’t yet, sign up today for the Conference! Read More…
by Frank Newport
PRINCETON, NJ — Muslim Americans continue to give President Barack Obama the highest job approval rating of any major religious group in the U.S., while Mormons give the president the lowest ratings.
By Ralph Reed
In recent days, the lamestream media has been in high dudgeon about evangelical leaders appearing at Glenn Beck’s Washington, DC Restore Honor rally. Isn’t it hypocritical, they ask, for mainline evangelicals to share the stage with a professed Mormon? As usual, the media misses the point.
The evangelicals participating in the Restore Honor event are not endorsing Glenn Beck’s theology, nor is he asking them to; they are joining in his clarion call to restore America’s honor and founding principles. Together, we and millions of our fellow citizens are calling America back to its Judeo-Christian values of faith, hard work, individual initiative, the centrality of marriage and family, hope, charity, and relying on God and civic and faith-based organizations rather than government for our security and prosperity.
We have always partnered with those with whom we had theological differences: the Jewish community in defending the state of Israel, Roman Catholics in defending life, Mormons in defending marriage. The media can’t have it both ways. Either evangelicals are theologically narrow and judgmental, or they are just as politically sophisticated and mature and capable of building coalitions with 80% friends who they do not view as 20% enemies. It seems they get criticized no matter what they do.
The high point of the civil rights movement was the cooperation between prominent Jewish supporters and African-American Christians to end segregation and what C. Vann Woodward called the strange career of Jim Crow. Historically, cross-ethnic and multi-denominational coalitions are a sign of strength, not weakness.
By Gregg Keller
I hope you’re as excited about our Faith & Freedom Conference and Strategy Briefing as we are. The Conference will be held at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC September 9-11. While most conferences are social and networking opportunities only, the primary focus of our Conference and Strategy Briefing is giving you the tools and know-how you need to turn out the conservative vote in November. We’ll show you how to use our proprietary voter identification database, Voter Trak. You’ll learn from us how best to harness social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to motivate and turn out our voters. You’ll learn all that and more.
Of course, that’s not to say that trainings, panels and breakouts is all the Conference will feature. In fact, we’ll have the most impressive array of celebrity conservative speakers of the year. Below is our list of confirmed speakers. If you haven’t yet, sign up today for the Conference! Read More…
By Ken Blackwell
Same-sex marriage is back as a front-burner issue in American politics.
On August 4, a federal judge in San Francisco held that there is a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, striking down part of the California Constitution defining marriage as one man and one woman. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has ordered an expedited schedule to consider this case, with arguments to be held in December.
Now former RNC chairman and 2004 Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman came out this week, announcing he’s homosexual, and pushing the Republican Party to support the homosexual-rights agenda. Republicans leaders are beginning to weigh in on where they stand, including on the agenda’s centerpiece: Redefining marriage.
The Republican Party has an official position on same-sex marriage. It’s found in the 2008 GOP platform, which is the clear and uncontestable Republican position until the 2012 convention. When one of your authors (Blackwell) was serving as vice chairman of the GOP Platform Committee, there was a singular focus on producing a party platform that fully reflects the vast majority of Republican Party members.
The GOP platform could not be more explicit: Marriage is the union of one man and one woman. The fundamental institution of human civilization should be preserved as it has been known through the entirety of American history and Western civilization. Supporters of same-sex marriage had the full opportunity to make their case to the party. They made it, and they lost. Read More…
By: Gregg Keller
As the summer comes to an end, Faith & Freedom Coalition is holding Citizen Action Seminars in 25 target states. Our Citizen Action Seminars give conservatives the training, knowledge and tools they need to identify, educate, and turn out the conservative vote for the November 2 elections. Want to know how to use Voter Trak, FFC’s proprietary voter identification database available only to our volunteers? Then come to a Citizen Action Seminar in your area. We’ll also teach you how to harness the potential of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, found a local FFC chapter and various other crucial tasks that will help ensure record-smashing conservative turnout in November.
FFC National Field Director Billy Kirkand and Minnesota Faith & Freedom Coalition board members Carol Schulstad and Gary Borgendale held successful Citizen Action Seminars in the Twin Cities this last weekend. We’ll be doing more trainings in Minnesota and in all of our target states as summer turns to fall.
“Our Citizen Action Seminars give FFC members the hands-on political training they need to turn out the conservative vote in their area,” said Faith & Freedom National Executive Director Gregg Keller. “We’re training a political army for November 2 and will be in every target state in the country this year with our Citizen Action Seminars. This is the training seminar for conservatives to want to win in November.”
Yesterday Democrats in the Senate failed in their effort to invoke cloture (that is, end debate) on the DISCLOSE Act, perhaps the most Orwellian-named piece of legislation in recent memory.
The bill would have subjected donors of grassroots organizations to public scrutiny and regulatory harassment whether their contribution was used for the broadcast of an ad advocating the election or defeat of a candidate or not. So, for example, if someone wrote a large contribution to an organization opposing higher taxes, even if other funds were used to broadcast an express advocacy communication, the donor would be reported to the Federal Election Commission. It is an attempt by the Democrats in the Senate to regulate and restrict speech, silence critics of their extremist policies, and intimidate opponents of the administration and the Democratic majority.
It tramples on the First Amendment and the freedom of association. Unless, that is, you are a labor union—groups funded with membership dues are largely exempt. What a surprise! As is the Sierra Club. And the National Rifle Association, which vowed to score a vote for the DISCLOSE Act as a vote against gun rights. Democrats knew that would defeat the bill so they carved out a safe harbor for the NRA. This is not equal protection under the law; it is Chicago-style thuggery.
Read More…
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