Representative Elissa Slotkin (D-MI-08), who is running in the newly-drawn 7th Congressional District, released a new ad, pushing back on “partisan politics.”
Additionally, she touted her history in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and working for both President George Bush (R) and President Barack Obama (D).
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The overturning of Roe v. Wade by the U.S. Supreme Court and the future of legalized abortion in Wisconsin is now part of the political conversation in this fall’s races.
Wisconsin is one of two dozen states where abortion is now illegal without Roe.
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Campaign finance requirements govern how much money candidates may receive from individuals and organizations, how often they must report those contributions, and how much individuals, organizations, and political entities may contribute to campaigns.
While campaign finance is not the only factor in electoral outcomes, successful fundraising can provide a candidate with advantages during a campaign. Fundraising can also indicate party momentum.
This article lists top fundraisers in the Ohio House of Representatives, overall and by party. It is based on campaign finance reports that officeholders in and candidates for the House submitted to the Ohio Secretary of State. It includes activity between January 1, 2021, and December 31, 2021.
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Campaign finance requirements govern how much money candidates may receive from individuals and organizations, how often they must report those contributions, and how much individuals, organizations, and political entities may contribute to campaigns.
While campaign finance is not the only factor in electoral outcomes, successful fundraising can provide a candidate with advantages during a campaign. Fundraising can also indicate party momentum.
This article lists top fundraisers in the Arizona House of Representatives, overall and by party. It is based on campaign finance reports that officeholders in and candidates for the House submitted to the Arizona Secretary of State. It includes activity between Jan. 1, 2021, and Dec. 31, 2021.
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The investigation into the 2020 election in Wisconsin will last at least another month.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos on Tuesday extended former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Mike Gableman’s investigation until the end of April.
“The office of Special Counsel has done an outstanding job looking into the election concerns people all across Wisconsin had,” Vos said in a statement after signing a new contract with Gableman.
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Tom Sissom, a retired Murfreesboro Police Department lieutenant, announced his candidacy for Rutherford County Sheriff on Monday. Sissom, who has served 34 years with the Murfreesboro Police Department, will be on the Republican ballot in this May’s primary, according to a press release by his campaign.
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The infamous hacking group Anonymous appeared to declare an all-out digital war against Russia late this week, indicating the opening of a hacking front against Russian president Vladimir Putin amid his country’s invasion of Ukraine.
Anonymous is a loosely federated collective of hackers who regularly carry out digital sabotage of targets they claim deserve to be hacked. On Friday, a Twitter account purporting to represent some members of Anonymous issued a broad call for hackers to target the Russian government.
“Hackers all around the world: target Russia in the name of #Anonymous,” the account posted. “Let them know we do not forgive, we do not forget. Anonymous owns fascists, always.”
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Aquarter century ago as Whitewater prosecutors closed in on evidence that Bill and Hillary Clinton both gave factually inaccurate testimony, the then-first lady unleashed a blistering attack that stunned a capital city that in those days was far less rancorous.
Mrs. Clinton called the Whitewater probe “an effort to undo the results of two elections,” claiming it was run by a “politically motivated prosecutor who is allied with the right-wing opponents of my husband.”
Prosecutors have been “looking at every telephone call we’ve made, every check we’ve ever written, scratching for dirt, intimidating witnesses, doing everything possible to try to make some kind of accusation against my husband,” she declared in that 1998 interview with NBC’s “Today” show.
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Two years after COVID burst on the American scene, leading to lockdowns, school closures, mask and vaccine mandates, and trillions of dollars in emergency government spending, the question on many minds is: When will the emergency end?
The answer to that question is not an easy one. An examination of past emergencies does not resolve it. Rather, it is clear that emergency situations, including this one, may be understood through various lenses, yielding different perspectives on what the endpoint will be.
Take, by way of comparison, World War II, an emergency that had at least four distinct endings because it had at least four distinct faces:
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The Michigan Freedom Fund is seeking answers from Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson related to her decision to allow Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to disburse questionable campaign donations to other Democratic candidates.
The conservative MFF filed a formal request Friday for a declaratory judgment from Benson – who, like Whitmer, is a Democrat – over $3.4 million collected from 119 large donors. Michigan Campaign Finance law limits individual donations to $7,150, but allows an exemption to accept unlimited contributions if a governor is facing a recall attempt.
At the time Whitmer accepted the contributions, there was no active recall effort.
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State Representative Jim Steineke (R-Kaukauna), who serves as the Majority Leader of the Wisconsin Assembly, will not run for re-election when his current term expires.
According to a release from his office, the lawmaker cited a desire to “pass the torch” to new state leaders as influence for his decision to step down from elected office.
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Wisconsin GOP gubernatorial candidate Rebecca Kleefisch collected more than $3 million during the first four months of her effort to defeat Governor Tony Evers, according to a release from her campaign.
Kleefisch hauled in approximately $3.3 million during the fundraising quarter, a number that outpaces previous campaigns for the state’s top position.
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Six party committees have raised a combined $716 million over the first ten months of the 2022 election cycle. In November, the committees raised $54 million, according to recent filings with the Federal Election Commission. This was the lowest cumulative fundraising month of the 2022 election cycle.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) raised $12.6 million and spent $6.4 million in November, while the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) raised $7.3 million and spent $7.9 million. So far in the 2022 election cycle, the DCCC has raised 6.8% more than the NRCC ($130.8 million to $122.1 million). November was the fifth consecutive month where the DCCC outraised the NRCC.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) raised $8.4 million and spent $8.0 million, while the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) raised $6.8 million and spent $4.5 million. So far in the 2022 election cycle, the NRSC has raised 14.3% more than the DSCC ($93.6 million to $81.1 million). This was the 10th consecutive month where the NRSC outraised the DSCC.
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Black Lives Matter (BLM) is attacking two of America’s most revered holidays, accusing Americans of “eating dry turkey and overcooked stuffing on stolen land” on Thanksgiving and promoting “white-supremacist capitalism” with Christmas.
The official Twitter account of the self-described “collective of liberators” posted, “YOU ARE ON STOLEN LAND” (original emphasis), with the subheading “Colonization never ended, it just became normalized.”
BLM posted a series of Tweets on Thanksgiving about its ideology.
For example, one tweet said, “This #Thanksgiving we send our deepest love to families whose loved ones were stolen by state-sanctioned violence and white-supremacy.
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The 2021 elections are filled with key lessons for Republicans.
Vice President Kamala Harris had already warned in a Virginia visit late in the campaign that “what happens in Virginia will in large part determine what happens in 2022, 2024 and on.”
If Republicans learn the lessons of 2021 – and apply them to 2022 and 2024 – they can prove Harris was truly prophetic.
It is already clear that the Democrats’ power structure in Washington has learned nothing. In 2009, after losing Virginia and New Jersey, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed through Obamacare four days later. Remember, she said cheerfully “Congress [has] to pass the bill so you can find out what’s in it.”
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I woke up Wednesday morning so grateful that my state, Virginia, had voted out abortion extremism. Abortion activists were supposed to sweep Terry McAuliffe back to the governor’s mansion. McAuliffe spent millions of dollars on ads blasting Glenn Youngkin for being pro-life and brought in outside speakers, including former President Obama, to campaign on the issue of abortion. Instead of keeping Virginia blue, these efforts may have propelled Youngkin to victory. The 5% of voters who said abortion was their top issue in the 2021 election backed Youngkin by a 12-percentage-point margin.
Some policy analysts seem shocked by how abortion radicalism blew up in McAuliffe’s face, but they shouldn’t be. More than three quarters of the American people support significant restrictions on abortion and are making their voices heard at the polls. Instead of listening to them, McAuliffe pandered to an extreme base that makes up a tiny portion of the electorate.
Protecting the most vulnerable is a winning issue, it should be a bipartisan issue, and Youngkin’s success paves the way for a wave of pro-life candidates in 2022 to win in purple and blue states by calling out the extreme pro-abortion views of their opponents.
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Former President Trump said in an interview on Saturday that Virginia GOP gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin will win if his base turns out to vote.
“I think he’s gonna do very well,” Trump said of Youngkin on Fox News’ “Justice with Judge Jeanine”.
Trump compared former Democratic Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s comment in a debate with Youngkin, saying parents shouldn’t tell schools what to teach their children, to Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” comment of Trump supporters during the 2016 presidential race.
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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Thursday endorsed India Walton, a democratic socialist, to be the next mayor of Buffalo.
“As Buffalo voters start to head to the polls this weekend, I urge them to cast their ballot for India Walton as the next mayor of Buffalo,” Schumer told The Buffalo News. “India is an inspiring community leader, mother, nurse and a lifelong Buffalonian with a clear progressive vision for her hometown.”
Schumer’s endorsement is the most high-profile one Walton has received. Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, another democratic socialist, called Walton’s nomination an “important step forward for the working people of Buffalo” in June, but other New York Democrats, including Gov. Kathy Hochul and Rep. Brian Higgins, who represents Buffalo in the House, have stayed silent.
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Though still undeclared, former President Donald Trump used his latest rally to shape a potential 2024 platform with sharp attacks on Joe Biden’s border policies, congressional Democrats’ socialist spending plans and Republican weakness on the debt ceiling.
In vintage campaign form, Trump electrified a capacity crowd at the Iowa State Fairgrounds on Saturday night, putting on display his continued high popularity in America’s first voting state while imploring Republicans to do more to fight the Biden-Democrat agenda.
“We must declare with one united voice that we cannot allow America to ever become a socialist country,” he said in urging defeat of $4.5 trillion in spending plans pending in Congress.
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Last night former Nashville Mayor David Briley reflected on his role in the Occupy Wall Street movement on its tenth anniversary. In 2011, the movement took place at Nashville’s Legislative Plaza and Briley was one of its many attenders. Briley said that when “free speech and free association were being threatened at the most public forum of the state,” that he was proud to represent and preserve the rights of those in Nashville.
Briley announced his running for Circuit Court judge on July 15, 2021, saying that he’s running “to ensure that the law is enforced fairly, and [he] will always act with independence, integrity and impartiality.”
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A bit more information has emerged from the John Durham investigation into Russiagate (or “Spygate,” as it is known hereabouts).
This is due to what is likely a leak from one or more of the targets to their loyal propagandists at CNN. (In the article, the reporters do their best to downgrade the scandal they fanned for years as no more than a trivial “dirty trick” that all campaigns do. There’s a well-known word for that adapted into the English language.)
The import of these leaks is usually to soften the impact on the target(s), but it also gives us another indication Durham is still active.
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On Friday, Tennessee Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) offered his support after Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) announced that he’s running for re-election in 2022. On Friday at 4 a.m. on Twitter, Senator Grassley announced his campaign with a short video of him on an early morning run.
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On Wednesday, Memphis City Council member JB Smiley Jr. announced he is running for Tennessee Governor. Smiley, a Democrat, held an event at the Orpheum Theater in Memphis and posted a video on social media debuting his announcement.
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Former prosecutor and Border Patrol section chief for the U.S. Attorney’s Office Lacy Cooper has launched her campaign for Arizona Attorney General.
“I can’t sit back while the state I love is suffering so greatly from the consequences of the federal government’s failure to prioritize public safety,” Cooper explained as her reasoning for entering the race.
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Months after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer flew on a secret trip to Florida, Michiganders are starting to find answers.
Whitmer’s campaign committee will pay for her March Florida flight to visit her father after she initially attempted to use a nonprofit to charter the flight through a separate company.
The flight sparked an Federal Aviation Agency investigation, because the jet company was not authorized to operate charter flights.
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Former State Representative and U.S Senate candidate Joe Carr announced on Tuesday that he will run for mayor of Rutherford County.
Carr spent years in the Tennessee state legislature and championed several key pieces of legislation that conservatives celebrated.
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Former Democratic nominee for Georgia governor and liberal activist Stacy Abrams will speak in Nashville on November 16.
She will host a conversation at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center (TPAC) on a wide range of topics, according to TPAC’s website.
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Rep. Larry Householder (R-72-Glenford) accepted campaign contributions over the legal limit in 2019 and 2020, according to an examination of campaign finance reports, said Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose on Friday.
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Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles formed a Facebook group called “Andy’s Army TN” for “patriots and Fans of Andy Ogles who believe in taking a stand for our Constitution and Liberties.”
The private group’s page is here. Since it is a private group, people have to request to join. Facebook showed the membership to be approximately 1,800 as of Monday.
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A group that called a political candidate “literally Hitler” in a flyer won its case challenging a law that criminalizes the use of “false language” in campaign literature. The judge presiding over the case, which was heard Thursday, called the law “incompatible with the First Amendment.”
Tennesseans for Sensible Elections Laws (TSEL), an organization that describes itself as “a nonpartisan group of concerned citizens who care about protecting Tennessee’s democratic process,” was subject to criminal penalties for a political flier claiming that Representative Bruce Griffey was “literally Hitler.”
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State Rep. Nino Vitale (R-Urbana) says reports of his Facebook campaign page’s demise are greatly exaggerated — it was down temporarily, but the social media giant was very cooperative in restoring it.
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Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg currently has 800 organizers and staffers on his payroll, with more than 500 of them spread out among more than 30 states.
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Tennessee Republican Party Executive Director Michael Sullivan is leaving to serve as campaign manager for Bill Hagerty’s U.S. Senate campaign, the Nashville Post said.
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President Trump’s campaign rallies were an unprecedented political phenomenon in the 2016 presidential campaign.
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President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign is set to report that it raised more than $30 million in the first quarter of 2019, edging out his top two Democratic rivals combined, according to figures it provided to The Associated Press. The haul brings the campaign’s cash on hand to $40.8 million, an unprecedented war chest for an incumbent president this early in a campaign. The Trump campaign said nearly 99% of its donations were of $200 or less, with an average donation of $34.26. Trump’s fundraising ability was matched by the Republican National Committee, which brought in $45.8 million in the first quarter — its best non-election year total. Combined, the pro-Trump effort is reporting $82 million in the bank, with $40.8 million belonging to the campaign alone. Trump formally launched his reelection effort just hours after taking office in 2017, earlier than any incumbent has in prior years. By contrast, former President Barack Obama launched his 2012 effort in April 2011 and had under $2 million on hand at this point in the campaign. Obama went on to raise more than $720 million for his reelection. Trump’s reelection effort has set a $1 billion target for 2020. Trump campaign manager…
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Nashville mayoral candidate Carol Swain said she raised $118,000 in less than a month. The Swain campaign spent less than 7 percent of the money raised compared to incumbent Mayor David Briley who spent about 62 percent of the funds raised this past quarter, Swain said in a statement. Swain said, “We are pleased with our first quarter fundraising and have no intention of slowing down. Our fundraising momentum proves that Nashville is ready and eager for new leadership, and I am ready to serve. We are proud to have a donor base that is incredibly diverse in every sense of the word. This campaign is one that ALL citizens can rally behind regardless of gender, race, age, or political affiliation. I look forward to utilizing the funds generously donated to our campaign to take our message directly to the voters. Together we can elect a mayor who will address our transit issues, partner with law enforcement to lower crime rates, and work to provide affordable housing options.” The former Vanderbilt University professor announced her candidacy in March during her keynote address at a faculty breakfast club event hosted at Tennessee State University in Nashville, The Tennessee Star reported. Swain…
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Monday, 2020 presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke made his first appearance in the Buckeye State. It’s safe to say that former Congressman was hoping the visit could shake off what has been somewhat of a mixed campaign rollout. The Republican National Committee (RNC) Spokesperson Mandi Merritt was quick to note that: It’s been a rough few days for 2020 candidate Beto O’Rourke. From his campaign turning into an apology tour less than 48 hours after announcing, to flip-flopping on the issues and his past GOP ties, O’Rourke is going to have a tough time living up to his party’s litmus tests and convincing the progressive base that he should be their nominee. While the RNC has made their feelings about Beto’s presidential campaign clear, the onetime Senate candidate has now earned bipartisan criticism. Within the first few days of announcing his campaign, Beto committed a litany of gaffes, political faux pas, and some minor scandals. His campaign announcement, coinciding with what was intended to be a glowing Vanity Fair cover story about his intent to run. He stated “I’m just born to be in it,” which was met with widespread criticism from progressive opinion leaders, accusing him of abusing his “privilege.” Many criticized the media for sexist coverage, as he received a far more positive media…
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by Molly Prince Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke spent millions of dollars on a consulting firm during the final stretch of the campaign despite repeatedly declaring that his campaign would not use any consultants. O’Rourke, who is running for Senate in Texas against incumbent Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, has been promoting his campaign as PAC-free, special interest-free and consultant-free since it first kicked off. O’Rourke told The Dallas Morning News in March 2017 he would not utilize poll-testing or be “consulting with consultants” and has repeated that claim at countless rallies and media events. However, filings from the Federal Election Commission, first reported by Fox News Wednesday, show that O’Rourke’s campaign has been paying a consulting firm, Screen Strategies Media, almost $18 million during the last quarter. “We don’t have a pollster, we don’t have consultants. We don’t use focus groups,” O’Rourke told The Dallas Morning News in February. “This is the power of the people, and you have shown so much — so much, so far.” Only a month after O’Rourke spoke to The Dallas Morning News, the Texas Tribune revealed that the El Paso congressman had, in fact, hired two separate consulting firms prior to launching his campaign. At…
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By Molly Prince A lawsuit was filed against Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke’s campaign Friday alleging the Texas senatorial hopeful sent constituents text messages despite not receiving permission to do so. Sameer Syeed, a resident of Collins County, filed the class action lawsuit in the Northern District of Texas Court, arguing the Beto for Texas campaign violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, reported The Star-Telegram. The lawsuit alleges that Syeed received numerous unsolicited text messages from Beto for Texas and was unable to stop the automated messages despite both replying to the messages and reaching out to the listed phone number, only to get an error message or dial tone, according to The Star-Telegram. The suit further insists the campaign pay at last $500 per text message to the lawsuit’s plaintiffs. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act bans the use of “automated telephone equipment to send texts or calls to a person’s cellphone without their permission except for emergency purposes,” according to The Star-Telegram. This is not the first time O’Rourke’s campaign has faced backlash for claims of inappropriate use of text messages. The campaign came under fire in September for allegedly sending a text message to voters asking for “volunteers to help transport…
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Franklin-area business man and gubernatorial candidate Bill Lee reported Monday that as of the close of this fiscal reporting period, his campaign has over $3.5 million cash-on-hand. The campaign noted that amount includes receipts of over $400,000 in the second quarter of the year. “Momentum is building for Bill Lee at the perfect time. He has the resources and the support to win, and he is outworking every candidate in the field,” Lee’s Campaign Finance Chairman Stuart McWhorter said in a statement. “I’m honored to work with Bill as he gets ready to win the August Primary, and I’ll be proud to call him ‘Governor’ after he wins in November.” Senior Advisor and Campaign Manager Chris Devaney added, “Our strong second quarter fundraising numbers, along with our solid cash on hand, show that Bill Lee has the resources to continue his surge in the polls and ultimately to win the primary race for governor on August 2nd. “Our fundraising momentum continues as Bill is rising in the polls and continues to outperform other candidates in debates and forums. Donors and voters alike recognize that Bill Lee is the only conservative outsider in the race,” Devaney concluded. With primary election day less…
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Americans for Prosperity (AFP) announced Friday it has launched the first in a series of ads calling on members of Congress to “un-rig” the U.S. economy by passing pro-growth tax reform. The ad campaign will run in the six-figure range, and appear on digital platforms targeting abut a dozen members of Congress as a part of a summer-long push to shape the House of Representative’s tax-reform efforts around five pro-growth principles. Rep. Black chairs the Budget Committee and is a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, which will write the tax reform bill the House will consider later this year. AFP – Tennessee’s State Director Andy Ogles said in a statement, “Americans want a tax system that is honest and fair, which will grow the economy and create jobs.” Ogles added: We hope Rep. Black will fight back against the current rigged tax system by leading the effort to pass pro-growth tax reform based on AFP’s 5 Principles of simplicity, efficiency, equitability, predictability, and no new burden on taxpayers. That means opposing a border adjustment tax – a trillion-dollar tax on consumers masquerading as a tax on imports. Included in the first round of ads is one…
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“Follow the money” is a catchphrase made popular in the 1976 movie, “All The President’s Men,” based on the actual events of the Watergate Break-in and suggests a money trail or corruption scheme within the political arena. While campaign receipts are no guarantee of how an elected official will vote on a particular issue, when a politician’s vote comes as a surprise to their constituents and political pundits, the behind-the-scenes world of money and power may shed light on the matter. The situation of campaign financing in the state of Tennessee is a complex web of individual and Political Action Committee (PAC) contributions and receipts to and from each other. The Tennessee Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance defines a PAC as a “multi-candidate politician campaign committee that participates in any state or local election. ‘Multi-candidate committee’ is defined as a committee that makes expenditures to support or oppose two or more candidates for public office or two or more measures in a referenda election. T.C.A. 2-10-102(9).” The State of Tennessee’s Online Campaign Finance webpage includes a searchable database for contributions and expenditures to candidates and PACs and from candidates, PACs, private individuals or businesses/organizations. The complexity, special interests…
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