The Pennsylvania Republican Senate primary is still too close to call and likely headed for a recount which could delay the declaration of a winner into mid-June.
Per the Associated Press, Dr. Mehmet Oz currently holds a narrow 1,079 vote lead over rival David McCormick, amounting to 0.08% of the 1,340,248 total votes.
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Republicans dominated the voter turnout totals in the Williamson County May 3 primary elections.
According to the Williamson County government elections website, 20,550 total votes were cast countywide. 18,240 of those votes were cast in Republican primaries. 2,310 were cast in Democrat primaries.
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Former President Donald Trump endorsed Republican Congressman Mike Carey (R-OH-15) for re-election on Thursday.
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Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin is looking to raise his national profile by establishing two new political groups in the aftermath of becoming the first Republican to win statewide in over a decade, Politico reported.
The move will allow the recently elected governor to have a larger role in the upcoming midterm elections, Politico reported. Youngkin, who is limited to one term as governor, has not expressed any interest in a 2024 presidential run, but has not ruled out the possibility.
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Tuesday morning on Always Right with Bob Frantz, weekday mornings on AM 1420 The Answer, host Frantz welcomed JD Vance to address tough questions about why he changed his mind about Trump and accepted his endorsement.
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Longtime Tennessee state Senate aide Tres Wittum officially announced his entry into the GOP primary for Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District seat.
In a video released by the campaign, Wittum said, “I’m Tres Wittum. I’m running for the 5th Congressional District. I’m in.”
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Nearly 100 House Republicans are urging Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden’s foreign business deals, saying they had the hallmarks of an influence peddling scandal.
The letter led by Reps. Tom Rice (R-S.C.) and Jim Banks (R-Ind.), the chair of the House GOP Study Committee, comes as the U.S. attorney in Delaware enters his third year investigating Hunter Biden’s taxes, foreign lobbying and money movements.
In all, 95 House GOP members signed the letter.
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A lot of Wisconsin parents are not happy with their local school boards. Conservative and Republicans candidates for school boards did well in their races Tuesday, many of them new challengers who unseated longtime incumbents.
“Last night was a great night for parents looking to take back control of their children’s education and for liberty-oriented candidates generally,” Eric Bott with Americans for Prosperity in Wisconsin told the Center Square.
The Wisconsin Republican Party said party-backed and conservative candidates won two-thirds of the races where they were active.
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Tuesday morning on Always Right with Bob Frantz, weekday mornings on AM 1420 The Answer, host Frantz welcomed Ohio senate candidate Josh Mandel to the show to announce how he’s been endorsed by Ted Cruz and taking on the Republican bosses in the US Senate.
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Monday morning on The John Fredericks Show, host Fredericks Georgia Senate District Six candidate Angelic Moore to talk about her campaign.
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A Republican representative blasted a House committee chair this week for not allowing groups with opposing views to testify against a clean fuel standards bill.
House File 2083 seeks to bring California’s clean fuel standard to Minnesota in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2035. Enforcing the standard could raise gas prices by 20 cents a gallon, according to research from the Center of the American Experiment.
The House Climate and Energy Committee held an informational hearing on the bill Tuesday and allowed several pro-climate justice groups to testify in favor of the bill.
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Television personality Dr. Oz is in a neck-and-neck race for first in the Pennsylvania GOP Senate primary race, according to a new Emerson poll
With 14% support of those polled, Oz ties businessman David McCormick for the lead, with no other candidates garnering over 10% support. Notably, 51% of voters remain undecided, suggesting the primary race remains anyone’s game.
Oz is running to replace retiring GOP Sen. Pat Toomey who served a single term in office after winning his seat in the 2016 election cycle.
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Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed official guest host Grant Henry in studio for another edition of Grant’s Rants.
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Analysis from election forecaster Sabato’s Crystal Ball released Thursday argues that Latino voters’ recent shift toward the Republican Party may not be permanent.
Former President Donald Trump performed better with Latinos in 2020 than he did in 2016, but there does not appear to be a long-term shift in the demographic’s voting habits, wrote political scientist Alan I. Abramowitz.
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Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles has officially announced his entry into the Republican primary for Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District.
Ogles made his announcement on Nashville’s Morning News with Dan Mandis, heard weekday mornings on WTN 99.7 FM in Nashville.
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No one ever said that the business of politics made good sense, but if you’re a politician, and the vast majority of your constituents — including a high percentage of those in your own party — no longer want you to represent them, shouldn’t you take their distaste as a hint and get the heck out of office?
Such is the case for notorious Donald Trump bashing RINO congresswoman Liz Cheney. As everyone knows by now, Cheney is the lone House representative from the huge but sparsely populated state of Wyoming, which means hers is the sole voice of every single Cowboy State resident and citizen in the lower chamber. Liz has never had an issue with winning elections in blood red Wyoming, which would seem to be an argument in her favor. But times and circumstances have changed markedly in the rocky mountain high plains and there’re hardly any folks there who hanker to send Cheney back to DC for another two years.
Yet onward Liz trudges. Because Cheney has fallen so far out of favor with conservatives and Republicans in her jurisdiction, she’s now relying on Democrats to try and (literally) save her seat. The optics alone are odd, but reality is even weirder. In a piece titled “Liz Cheney turns to Democrats to save her hide,” Tara Palmeri wrote at Politico:
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Another Republican-driven tax cut has been signed by Gov. Tony Evers.
Evers on Monday signed AB 717, which exempts any and all Restaurant Revitalization grants from state taxes.
“This will ensure that these funds are treated like the Paycheck Protection Loans by making them state-tax-exempt,” Evers said.
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Monday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed Tennessee’s Fifth Congressional District GOP candidate Morgan Ortagus in studio to discuss her residency and voting record.
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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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Former Director of National Intelligence and the first openly gay cabinet member in U.S. History, Ric Grenell, has endorsed Morgan Ortagus for Tennessee’s 5th Congressional district seat.
Prior to redistricting, Grenell had endorsed Robby Starbuck but he has pulled that endorsement. Both the Ortagus campaign and the Starbuck campaign have confirmed that Grenell’s previous endorsement of Starbuck was pulled.
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Former Trump administration Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has endorsed Morgan Ortagus in the race for Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The Tennessee Star reached out to Secretary Pompeo’s team for comment on his endorsement of Ortagus and Secretary Pompeo’s team dodged the issue of her recent immigration to Tennessee.
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Former Tennessee Speaker of the House Beth Harwell may be nearing a decision on whether to run for Tennessee’s 5th Congressional district seat.
Speaker Harwell told The Tennessee Star that she’s still considering whether to run. “I’m in the process of doing that right now.”
Harwell said that she has three factors in mind when considering a congressional bid. “One, you need to talk to people in the district and see what they want from their U.S. Representative in Congress. Two, you need to make sure your base of political and financial support is in place.”
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With midterm elections this year, Ohio’s 2022 congressional redistricting plans are under scrutiny. The state lost one congressional district last year, bringing the total number down to 15.
The Ohio Supreme Court recently struck down new redistricted maps and gave the Ohio Redistricting Commission until Feb. 17 to draw new maps. As the deadline approached, the Commission decided they were at an “impasse” and negotiations came to a halt as of this writing.
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Former Trump administration State Department spokesman Morgan Ortagus’ campaign said her voting record shows that she voted in every election she was eligible to vote in. Ortagus announced her candidacy for the GOP nomination in Tennessee’s Fifth Congressional District earlier this month.
The Tennessee Star obtained a document that is believed to be Morgan Ortagus’ New York voting records. This document shows that Ms. Ortagus voted in the 2016 GOP presidential primary and the general elections in 2014, 2016, and 2018 in New York State. According to these records, she did not vote in the NY 2018 statewide GOP primary or the NY GOP 2014 primaries.
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Former Trump administration State Department spokesman Morgan Ortagus made a dubious claim about why President Trump endorsed her in a national publication.
Ortagus recently sat down with the Jewish News Syndicate to discuss her candidacy for Tennessee’s 5th Congressional district seat.
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Bedford County Mayor Chad Graham officially announced his re-election campaign on Friday in a press release.
“For many years, our county lagged behind surrounding counties in benefiting from regional economic growth,” Mayor Graham said in a statement. “While we certainly want an improved economic environment, we also don’t want to sacrifice our quality of life to unbridled growth, traffic congestion and crime. I believe we have the right approach and now is the time to continue building on our recent successes for the sake of future generations and make Bedford County even better.”
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Republican lawmakers and Gov. Tony Evers are, perhaps surprisingly, on the same page when it comes to spending more money on childcare in Wisconsin.
The state’s budget-writing panel, the Joint Finance Committee, on Wednesday unanimously approved a plan to spend $194 million in federal funds to support childcare across the state.
“$194 million is a lot of money,” Rep Amy Loudenbeck, R-Clinton, told lawmakers. “This is our job as a committee and members of the legislature to have a voice in how these programs are supported or created or expanded. Or in some cases not created and not expanded.”
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A newly announced TN-5 candidate is receiving a lot of national attention.
Former Trump administration State Department spokesman Morgan Ortagus’ first week as a candidate in the Republican primary for Tennessee’s 5th Congressional seat included several national interviews.
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Questions continue to surround a candidate’s voting history in the race for Tennessee’s 5th Congressional seat.
Former Trump administration State Department spokesman Morgan Ortagus’ voter history remains unclear. Davidson County election officials say Ortagus registered to vote in Tennessee on November 29, 2022.
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The Ohio Supreme Court agreed with two Democrats on the Ohio Redistricting Commission and denied a motion from Attorney General Dave Yost to relegate the two to “friend of the court” status in ongoing legal challenges to new state legislative districts.
Commission co-chair Sen. Vernon Sykes, D-Akron, and House Minority Leader Allison Russo, D-Upper Arlington, called Yost’s motion an attempt to silence the two, who had voted against the original maps and ones reconfigured by order of the court.
“I am relieved to see that a fair process is continuing in the courts,” Russo said. “We spoke up for the people against unconstitutional maps, while the Attorney General tried to silence us. AG Yost should not have tried to put his thumb on the scale in this process. Now, we wait the court’s decision on the submitted maps and let the process play out with greater transparency.”
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Records indicate that a candidate running in the Tennessee 5th Congressional District Republican primary does not live in the district.
Records read to The Tennessee Star say that former Trump administration State Department spokesman Morgan Ortagus’ current address is in the 7th Congressional District, not the 5th District that she is seeking to represent.
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Former Brig. Gen. Kurt Winstead has filed federal candidacy forms with the Federal Elections Commission, signaling his entry into the TN-5 race.
General Winstead filed his FEC forms on February 7, 2022. Winstead retired from the Tennessee National Guard on February 6, 2022.
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Former Trump Administration State Department spokesman Morgan Ortagus officially announced her candidacy for the Republican nomination to represent Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District early Monday morning.
Ortagus’ campaign sent out a press release announcing the candidacy, along with a campaign video. Ortagus then joined Nashville’s Morning News with Dan Mandis to discuss her candidacy. Mandis immediately asked her about her previous comments disparaging President Trump.
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President Donald J. Trump says he stands by his offered endorsement of Morgan Ortagus and that he didn’t know Robby Starbuck but heard that he voted for Obama.
President Donald J. Trump appeared on the Newsmax program Rob Schmitt Tonight on Tuesday. He was asked about the blowback his offered endorsement of potential candidate and former Trump Administration State Department spokesman Morgan Ortagus received.
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As part of his Contract with America, House Speaker (and my former boss) Newt Gingrich helped first introduce the Child Tax Credit (CTC), passing it in 1997. Originally the idea of President Ronald Reagan, the CTC was founded on the conservative principles that raising children is God’s work, and parents should not be punished or held back for choosing family in a country that is always moving forward. President Trump continued this tradition by doubling the CTC in 2017. As Speaker Gingrich said during a 1995 speech, “We believe that parents ought to have the first claim on money to take care of their children rather than bureaucrats.”
Democrats reformed the CTC in 2021, as part of their wildly overdone American Rescue Plan. They’ve sought to continue their changes to the CTC in the even-more-overdone Build Back Better Act (BBB), a hulking Frankenstein of bad Democratic ideas. But the new version of the CTC may be an exception. It continues fulfilling Speaker Gingrich’s contract, empowering families to work and earn, and to raise their children with their own values. The spirit and core of that policy is even better reflected by flat, poverty-busting monthly disbursement of the credit. It’s the only salvageable ship in the sinking BBB fleet.
The CTC – in its 2021 form – does not stray too far from the $500-per-child tax cut that was initially passed in 1997. The payments, which provided eligible families with up to $300 per month for each qualifying child under age 6 and up to $250 per month for each qualifying child aged 6 to 17, stimulated regional economies, protected families from rising costs, provided direct cash relief, and removed bureaucratic hurdles.
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President Trump is strongly encouraging Morgan Ortagus to run for Congress in the race for Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District but the former state department spokesman has had strong words for him in the past.
When she was a spokeman for the Jeb Bush campaign, Morgan Ortagus referred to President Trump’s words as disgusting and expressed on MSNBC that she was unsure if she would vote for him if he was to become the Republican nominee.
Those previous comments appear to be water under the bridge for President Trump and Ortagus’ relationship. It was previously reported that President Trump issued the following statement on Morgan Ortagus’ potential candidacy:
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It looks like bad blood is forming in the Republican race for governor, and the race hasn’t officially begun yet.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos on Wednesday suggested that Kevin Nicholson not run for governor against Rebecca Kleefisch.
“If Kevin Nicholson is listening, you need to not run for governor,” Vos said at a political lunch meeting in Madison. “You need to be able to focus on something like 2024.”
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A federal district court judge granted the Biden administration’s request to dismiss a lawsuit filed by more than 20 Republican attorneys general challenging the Keystone XL Pipeline’s permit revocation.
Judge Jeffrey Brown, of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, ruled that he couldn’t determine the constitutionality of President Joe Biden’s action because TC Energy, the pipeline’s developer, had abandoned the project. On June 9, TC Energy announced its intention to permanently halt construction of the pipeline, saying it would focus on other projects.
Biden canceled the pipeline’s federal permit immediately after taking office on Jan. 20 in an executive order. The order said the U.S. “must prioritize the development of a clean energy economy” and that the Keystone project would undermine the nation’s role as a climate leader on the world stage.
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At least nine Republican U.S. senators are continuing to pressure the Department of Homeland Security for answers over its vetting process of Afghan evacuees entering the U.S.
Three Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee members sent a letter last week to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and to Secretary of State Antony Blinken requesting information about Afghan evacuees. This week, six additional senators sent a letter to DHS asking for an overdue report they were supposed to have received Nov. 30.
Their letters followed news reports that the State Department didn’t have reliable data on everyone who evacuated Afghanistan and what types of visas they qualified for, and after a convicted rapist on an evacuation flight reached Washington-Dulles Airport. The letters also were sent after assaults and arrests were reported at military bases in New Mexico and Wisconsin where evacuees were being housed, and after several of the senators expressed concerns at a senate committee hearing in September.
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Members of the Shelby County GOP and the Shelby County Democratic Party have opted not to put up candidates to run for their local school board. Shelby County Administrator of Elections Linda Phillips relayed the news to The Tennessee Star on Tuesday.
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Canadian energy firm Pembina Pipeline Corp. pulled the plug on a years-long project that would have led to greater natural gas exports from to Canada to the U.S.
The multi-billion-dollar Jordan Cove project included plans to construct a marine export terminal, which would have been the first of its kind in the continental U.S., and a 230-mile pipeline across Oregon, The Associated Press reported. The terminal would have liquefied up to 1.04 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day for export and hosted two full-containment storage tanks on site, according to previous federal permit records.
But the project, which dates back to 2004, was fiercely opposed by environmentalists while state officials created permitting roadblocks that Pembina struggled to hurdle. In 2020, the Republican-majority Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved the project, but the agency rescinded approval in January, upholding Oregon’s rejection of the plans.
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Bob Dole, a son of the prairie from Russell, Kan., who survived grievous injuries during World War II to battle for decades as a Republican Senate leader and presidential candidate, died Sunday at the age of 98 after a battle with lung cancer.
His death was announced by the Elizabeth Dole Foundation founded by his wife and former North Carolina senator.
“Senator Robert J. Dole died early this morning in his sleep. At his death, at age 98, he had served the United States of America faithfully for 79 years,” the statement said.
The family had announced in February he was diagnosed with lung cancer and was beginning treatments.
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On Friday, Democratic Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers vetoed five bills restricting abortion that were passed by the Republican-majority state legislature.
“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again today: as long as I’m governor, I will veto any legislation that turns back the clock on reproductive rights in this state—and that’s a promise,” Evers tweeted.
He said he firmly opposed all five bills, which would have restricted abortion by allowing third parties to pursue damage claims in cases of unwanted abortions and requiring more stringent reporting requirements on patients and providers, according to The Hill.
One of the bills, the Shield the Vulnerable Act, would have banned abortions performed on the basis of race, sex, or disability diagnosis of the unborn baby. It would have also allowed third parties such as a spouse, partner, or family member of a woman to bring damages to court if they did not want her to have the abortion, the news outlet reported.
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On Thursday, the state of Oklahoma filed a lawsuit to exempt members of the state’s National Guard from the nationwide coronavirus vaccine mandate, The Hill reports.
The suit, filed in federal court by Governor Kevin Stitt (R-Okla.) and Attorney General John O’Connor (R-Okla.), names Joe Biden and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin as defendants. The suit requests that the courts declare the national vaccine mandate for all members of the armed services to be unconstitutional, and thus enjoin the federal government from enforcing it on the Oklahoma National Guard; the suit also seeks to prevent the federal government from imposing its penalty for refusal to comply, which would include withholding federal funds from the state’s National Guard.
“This mandate ensures that many Oklahoma National Guard members will simply quit instead of getting a vaccine,” the suit reads in part, “a situation that will irreparably harm Oklahomans’ safety and security.”
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The incoming chairman of the House Freedom Caucus says congressional Republicans must create a clear agenda and messaging in the 2022 election to overcome voter perceptions that there’s little difference between the establishment parties in an era of freewheeling spending and large government.
“We need to be in contact with more individual citizens and every single district in every state bringing the message to them so that they understand what the difference is and that there is a true difference,” Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) told Just the News.
“A lot of people say, ‘Well, look, there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between Republicans and Democrats.’ And you know this, John, when it comes to the establishment cartel in Washington that can’t stop spending taxpayer money, there is some truth to that,” he acknowledged, adding that “we should be here to say, ‘Just do what you said you were going to do.'”
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Rep. Ilhan Omar appeared to misuse the English language in an attempt to hit back at a Republican colleague.
On Wednesday Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, a freshman member of Congress, took the opportunity to blast some of her colleagues after the House voted to censure Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona and strip him of his committee assignments.
One of Gosar’s Twitter accounts had retweeted a doctored anime clip depicting him slaying Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, though according to House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy he “didn’t see it before it posted.”
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Monthly polling of Arizonans shows Independents have shifted to align more with Republicans in terms of handling the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since the pandemic-related mitigations began in early 2020, registered Independent voters in Arizona have treaded evenly between Republican opinions on how to mitigate the spread of the virus and those of Democrats.
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Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski announced Friday that she will seek reelection in 2022, setting up another tough primary battle that includes efforts by former President Trump to unseat her.
A campaign video for Murkowski does not directly mention the challenge from Trump but warns voters about the race attracting much outside interest.
“In this election, lower 48 outsiders are going to try to grab Alaska’s Senate seat for their partisan agendas. They don’t understand our state and frankly, they couldn’t care less about your future,” she says.
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Tennessee State Senator Mike Bell (R-Riceville) will not be a candidate for re-election in 2022, according to a press release Monday from the Tennessee Senate Republican Caucus. Bell represents Senate District 9 which covers Bradley, McMinn, Meigs, Monroe and Polk Counties.
Bell was first elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives in 2006 before moving to the State Senate in 2010.
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Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz snapped at reporters Friday when he was asked about Republican priorities for a special session that has been in the works for months.
“They wanted an absolute ban on vaccine passports, which we don’t have a damn vaccine passport so quit pretending on the politics. My patience level is gone,” Walz said Friday during a visit to North Memorial Hospital.
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