Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, as chair of the Republican Governors Association (RGA), responded to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on Thursday by saying conservative-led states are a “steady reminder that America’s best days are still ahead.”
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The Republican governors of 25 states have released a joint statement proclaiming their support for Texas Governor Greg Abbott and the steps his state has taken at its border with Mexico to prevent illegal immigrant crossings.
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All-star panelist Clint Brewer joined Tuesday’s edition of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy where he discussed the reasoning behind Tennessee Governor Bill Lee’s exclusion from a letter sent by Republican governors to President Joe Biden in regards to his administration’s “mandates” electric vehicle (EVs) mandates.
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Tennessee Governor Bill Lee (R) confirmed he will not endorse in the race to secure the Republican Party’s presidential nomination in a Thursday interview, insisting his new role as the chair of the Republican Governor’s Association (RGA) precludes him from weighing in on the race.
Asked if he intended to make an endorsement in the Republican presidential primary, Lee told German-owned Politico he has “an obligation not to endorse” due to his position as “chairman of the RGA.”
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Tennessee Governor Bill Lee was elected to serve as the next chair of the Republican Governors Association (RGA).
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A group of Republican governors have sent a letter to President Joe Biden urging his administration to “project American strength” by fully supporting Israel’s “unquestioned right to respond and defend Itself” following Hamas’ terrorist attack on the county last weekend.
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On Tuesday, 25 Republican Governors sent a letter to President Joe Biden requesting information on how the crisis at the southern border is impacting every state.
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Pennsylvania state Senator Doug Mastriano’s plans to soon announce whether he’ll run for U.S. Senate next year have Pennsylvania’s movement conservatives brimming with feelings — not all of them positive.
The Republican who represents Gettysburg, Chambersburg and surrounding communities suffered an overwhelming defeat last year when he ran for governor against Democrat Josh Shapiro. After Mastriano indicated he would publicly decide on a bid against Democratic Senator Bob Casey in just days, state Representative Russ Diamond (R-Jonestown) wrote a tweetstorm Monday urging fellow Republicans to entreat Mastriano not to run.
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In terms of sheer numbers, Republicans did the worst in governorships among all the electoral positions up for grabs this year. Republicans did make gains, although modest, in the House. In the Senate, Republicans will either have a net gain of zero or be down one seat, depending on how the Georgia runoff goes in December. But Republicans lost a net of two gubernatorial seats. While former President Donald Trump, the Republican National Committee, Senate Republicans, and House Republicans have faced a lot of scrutiny for their poor showing, the Republican Governors Association has avoided this scrutiny. The lack of humility at the Republican Governors Association’s latest meeting presents an ominous sign on whether Republicans will learn from their mistakes in 2022.
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National Republicans now view the Minnesota gubernatorial contest as a potential pickup and are sending in reinforcements with two weeks to go before the election.
The Republican Governors Association (RGA) transferred $750,000 to a local group called Heal Minnesota Tuesday and more money could be on the way. Heal Minnesota placed an initial ad buy with WCCO.
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The Republican Governors Association (RGA) blasted Arizona’s Democrat gubernatorial nominee, Katie Hobbs, for appearing unable to share a specific way the Hispanic community has impacted her.
“Katie Hobbs and her team know her largest liability is her inability to connect with voters on issues that matter,” said RGA spokesman Will Reinert. “Yet, Hobbs still struck out when asked an important, yet softball question, that a third of the voters in Arizona deem incredibly important.”
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As the heated Arizona gubernatorial campaign between Trump-endorsed Kari Lake and Democratic Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs continues, Lake is pulling ahead with spending related to her campaign. Through a funding maneuver, Republicans figured out how to adjust their TV ad buys in order to get better purchasing power, allowing them to obtain more than double the spots Democrats had purchased. At the same time, independent expenditures (IEs) in the race greatly favor Lake over Hobbs by over four to one.
The Republican Governors Association (RGA) has spent over $4 million on ads attacking Hobbs. That strategy is shifting, as the RGA has decided to coordinate with the Yuma Republican Party in order to get more out of their money. Since candidates and their local political parties get better airtime rates than outside groups, the RGA will fund the Yuma GOP $6.5 million to buy a total of $7.1 million in ads through election day on Nov. 8. State law allows political parties to coordinate with candidates, not out-of-state independent expenditure (IE) organizations. The first ad attacked Hobbs on border security and the second ad on taxes and spending.
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Pennsylvania’s Republican nominee for governor — that would be state Sen. Doug Mastriano — is under attack by the establishment elite for not being … part of the establishment elite. And, of all people, the Republican Governors Association has signed on for the attack.
For those who have not followed the tale, Mastriano is a 30-year active-duty combat veteran who retired as a colonel in the Army. Apart from being deployed to Iraq for Operation Desert Storm (1991), assigned to the U.S. forces liberating Kuwait, in the post–9/11 world he was assigned to NATO and had three tours in Afghanistan. He ended his military career as a professor at the U.S. Army War College, in nearby (to me) Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He has four master’s degrees and holds a doctorate in history.
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In May, state Sen. Doug Mastriano won the Republican nomination for governor of Pennsylvania – much to the consternation of his party. Many Republicans felt that Mastriano had no chance of winning because of the far-right positions he took in the primary and during his brief career as a state senator. They pointed out that Democrats had even spent money to help make Mastriano the nominee because he was such a weak candidate.
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The Republican Governor’s Association (RGA) Wednesday released an attack ad on Democrat gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, who will square off for a rematch against Gov. Brian Kemp (R) in the Peach State’s November election.
“Typical Stacey Abrams. She believes only she knows what’s best,” the ad opens after quoting Abrams, who once said that she thinks people need to be told what to do.
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45th President of the United States, Donald Trump, stated on Wednesday that Georgia Governor, Brian Kemp, is ‘the worst election integrity Governor in the country.’
Trump added that Kemp, “loaded the great state of Georgia up with RINOs.”
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Just before President Joe Biden visited Wisconsin on Wednesday, a U.S. Senator from the state released a scathing statement on the 46th president’s Tuesday night State of the Union address.
“In spite of President Biden’s inaugural speech promise that his number one goal was to heal and unify our nation, today, America is even further divided due to his mismanagement of the economy, our southern border, foreign policy, and COVID-19,” Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) said in a statement.
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Members of The Republican Governors Association (RGA) are contributing money to assist Georgia Governor Brian Kemp’s reelection campaign. This, even though former U.S. Senator David Perdue, also a Republican, has challenged Perdue for his seat.
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Members of the Republican Governors Association (RGA) on Monday launched a new digital ad in Georgia that highlights a photo of elementary-aged school children wearing COVID-19 masks behind Stacey Abrams, who was maskless. The five-figure ad will run on multiple social media platforms starting this week, members of the RGA said in a statement.
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The man who led the Republican Governors Association (RGA) during the 2009-2010 Tea Party wave that swept Republicans into eight governorship pickups and control of the House expressed caution about predicting big GOP wins in 2022 this early in the cycle.
“There is still a long way to go before there is a ‘this wave,’ said former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour, who was the RGA chairman from June 2009 through the 2010 midterms, when the GOP won 2009 governor races in Virginia and New Jersey, and including 2010 wins in crucial battleground states Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan.
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Wednesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed National Political Editor for The Tennessee Star, Neil McCabe live on the road in Arizona to report on the Republican Governor’s Association.
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Virginia’s gubernatorial candidates together raised $28.3 million in the first three weeks of October. Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe raised $12.9 million, with $1.9 million cash on hand. GOP candidate Glenn Youngkin raised $15.4 million, with nearly $7.9 million cash on hand at the end of the reporting period, according to The Virginia Public Access Project. Youngkin’s fundraising includes another $3.5 million in self-loans, for a total $20 million that he has loaned himself throughout the campaign.
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After a group of 26 Republican governors, spearheaded by Gov. Doug Ducey (R), sent a letter to the Biden Administration requesting to meet and discuss the ongoing crisis at the border, the group is pushing forward with solutions.
That letter, sent in late September, was ignored by the White House.
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Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) is refusing to challenge President Joe Biden (D) about the surge of illegal aliens at the southern border, the Republican Governors Association (RGA) claimed Monday.
The group, which views the Michigan governor’s race as one of its top priorities in 2022, noted 26 Republican governors have requested a meeting with Biden “to demand the end to the crisis at the border” and added Whitmer “refuses to acknowledge the crisis.”
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Republican gubernatorial candidate Jim Renacci has asked Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost and Secretary of State Frank LaRose to open another line of investigation into the FirstEnergy Corp. public corruption scandal and incumbent GOP Governor Mike DeWine’s re-election campaign.
Renacci transmitted the joint letter to the Republican statewide officeholders Monday late afternoon in the latest attack attempting to more closely tie DeWine and the corruption scheme from the House Bill 6 passed in July 2019. FirstEnergy pushed the legislation to allow it to tap Ohio electric customers both inside its service territory and that of other investor-owned electric utilities to financially support its two old nuclear power plants located along the Lake Erie shores to the tune of $1.1 billion.
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ARLINGTON, Virginia – President Joe Biden joined Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe at Lubber Run Community Center on Friday evening. Biden, McAuliffe, and leading Virginia Democrats hyped progress made under their administrations and repeatedly linked GOP gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin to former President Donald Trump.
“Terry and I, we share a lot in common. I ran against Donald Trump, so is Terry,” Biden said to laughter and applause. “And I beat Donald Trump in Virginia and so will Terry.”
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Glenn Youngkin and Terry McAuliffe have already raised a combined $40 million, according to new finance data through June, reported by the Virginia Public Access Project. A VPAP graphic shows that previous years through 2001, previous fundraising through June never reached $20 million. The June period is the first reporting period after the parties nominated their candidates.
Due to $12 million in personal loans, Youngkin out-raised McAuliffe in the January through May period. But McAuliffe’s June fundraising beat Youngkin. McAuliffe raised about $7.5 million in June, while Youngkin raised about $3.6 million.
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After months of testing the waters and teasing a run for governor, Florida’s Agriculture Commissioner has officially launched her bid to take on incumbent Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).
Fried announced the run Tuesday afternoon, posting a video to her official Twitter account.
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Republican Governors from across the country traveled to the Volunteer State this week for a series of multi-day meetings and presentations.
The Nashville event has allowed hundreds of people to attend the conference, as this is the first major event the organization has held since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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On Tuesday, the Republican Governors Association (RGA) reportedly ejected MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell from their spring conference in Nashville.
Lindell claimed that he’d been invited to the event; his spokespersons didn’t respond to The Star about these claims. Earlier that same day, Lindell announced publicly on Steve Bannon’s show, War Room Pandemic, that he would confront Arizona Governor Doug Ducey and Georgia Governor Brian Kemp over the election.
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Former Governor Terry McAuliffe officially entered Virginia’s 2021 gubernatorial election on Wednesday after months of educated speculation that the long-time Democrat would throw his name into the contest and seek another four years in the Executive Mansion.
McAuliffe, 63, made the announcement during a press conference in front of Miles Jerome Jones Elementary School in Richmond’s southside that was streamed live to his Facebook page.
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Three months after Richard Cordray soundly beat Ohio mainstay, former congressman Dennis Kucinich for the chance for the Buckeye State’s top executive, the Republican Governor’s Association (RGA) launched a withering attack ad impugning Cordray’s performance as President Barack Obama’s first Director of the constitutionally dubious Consumer Bureau of Financial Protection – or CBFP. From 2012 through 2017, the empowered progressive stripped over $12 billion from Wall Street, as reported by Vox. In the same time period, however, the newly created bureau was hacked hundreds of times, exposing the financial records of Americans, sticking them with years of risk from identity theft and other financial crimes. In a statement, the RGA said the new television ad launched Thursday highlights “Washington D.C. Bureaucrat Richard Cordray’s secret collection of financial information from millions of Americans that he then failed to protect from hacking.” “After collecting personal financial data from millions of American consumers without their knowledge, Richard Cordray failed to safeguard their information, leaving it vulnerable to be hacked over 200 times,” said RGA Communications Director Jon Thompson. “When Americans needed Cordray to protect them, he failed. Cordray’s record of incompetence as a Washington D.C. bureaucrat shows that Ohioans can’t trust him to…
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The New York Times confirmed on Friday a story first reported in The Tennessee Star that officials with the Republican Governors Association (RGA) are lobbying President Trump not to endorse Rep. Diane Black (R-TN-06) in the August 2 Republican primary for governor of Tennessee.
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For the second time in four years, our own Bill Haslam has been elected by his fellow Governors to serve as the Chairman of the Republican Governors’ Association (RGA). “Governor Bill Haslam is a proven conservative leader, and with his record of getting results for the people of Tennessee, I’m confident that his capable leadership and tireless work ethic will greatly benefit the RGA in 2018,” outgoing RGA Chairman Governor Scott Walker said in a statement released Thursday. “The achievements Governor Haslam has made in Tennessee are enormously impressive, and his experience providing common sense, pro-growth policies will be vital to ensuring our governors have the resources they need to compete and win in 36 gubernatorial elections scheduled to occur over the next year. It has been an honor to serve with him on the RGA’s Executive Committee for this past year and I look forward to the success he will achieve in 2018 as Chairman of the RGA,” Walker said. Nebraska’s Governor Pete Ricketts was named Vice-Chair. “Governor Pete Ricketts’ capable leadership will be a major asset to the RGA’s efforts in the upcoming year,” Governor Walker said. “He has been a tireless advocate for the people of Nebraska, working…
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