Maricopa County Recorder Tells Arizonans to Prepare for a ‘Blue Night’ in November Election

Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer shared Monday that voters should be ready for Democrats to initially lead on the night of November 8th as early votes are counted first.

“The results released at 8:00 PM on Election Night will be comprised of early ballots we receive by the weekend before Election Day,” tweeted Richer. “First moral of the story: In Arizona, Initial results will likely be much bluer than eventual final results. Second moral: if you want your ballot to be part of results released AT 8:00 PM on Election Night, return it before the weekend before Election Day.”

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GOP Support Swells for Arizona Democratic Senator Mark Kelly

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) has lined up numerous endorsements from prominent Arizona Republicans, announcing nearly 50 Republicans and independents behind him in July and over 40 more this month. As a Democrat in a traditionally red state, he is trying to portray himself as a moderate in the race against Trump-endorsed Republican candidate Blake Masters. 

Arizona political consultant Jason Rose told The Arizona Sun Times the endorsements may be very effective, pointing out how well they worked for a previous well-known Arizona Democratic politician and citing the endorsement of Mesa Mayor John Giles. “Former Governor Janet Napolitano reinvented effective Republican receptivity for Democrats,” he said. “Mark Kelly is now following that model. His ads along these lines are designed not for everyone but the narrow slice of swing voters that have and will determine such elections. Having them anchored by the Republican Mayor of one of the largest Republican cities in America is impressive, and will be effective. After all, where is Blake Masters’ Democrat group for him?”

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Poll: Republicans Favor Trump After FBI Raid

Republicans still hold largely positive views of former President Donald Trump and widely believe he can win the presidential election in 2024, an Ipsos/USA Today poll found.

The FBI’s Aug. 8 raid on Trump’s Florida residence at Mar-a-Lago does not appear to have hurt Trump’s popularity among Republicans, according to the poll, which was conducted Aug. 18-22. Republican voters in the survey were far more likely to support Trump running again in 2024 and to view him as possessing positive traits compared to Republicans who oppose him.

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Nearly 100 Republicans Urge Pelosi to Hold President Biden Accountable for Student Loan Plan

Nearly 100 Republican members of Congress have called on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to hold accountable President Joe Biden for what they say is his “illegal $300 billion student loan giveaway.”

Initially, the cost estimate was $300 billion. However, since then, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) projects that “cancelling up to $20,000 for some borrowers will cost taxpayers between $440 billion and $600 billion over the next ten years, with a central estimate of roughly $500 billion.”

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Younger Americans Identify as Independent More than Republicans, Democrats Combined

Younger Americans are still less willing to commit to one political party, newly released polling data shows.

Gallup released survey data Thursday showing that Millennials and Gen Z Americans are sticking with the “Independent” label. In fact, more of the surveyed Millennial and Gen Z Americans identify as Independent than as Republican and Democrat combined.

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Commentary: Virginia is Ground Zero for the ‘Latino Realignment’

The left denies it, but it’s truly happening – a massive realignment is underway in the American electorate as Latinos are leaning in with the GOP. This November, Republicans are running Hispanic nominees in key battleground districts, headlined by rising stars like Myra Flores, Cassy Garcia, and Monica De La Cruz in Texas, Michelle Garcia Holmes and Alexis Martinez Johnson in New Mexico, Lori Chavez-DeRemer in Oregon – and of course, Yesli Vega in Virginia. Over the past two years, the Old Dominion has been ground zero for this shift, providing a glimpse into what the future of the Republican Party might look like on a national scale.

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Al Franken Endorses Liz Cheney, Quips It Will ‘Carry a Lot of Weight’ with Wyoming GOP

Former Minnesota Democratic Sen. Al Franken endorsed Wyoming Republican Liz Cheney for reelection ahead of the primary this week.

“I’ve decided to endorse @RepLizCheney for the Republican nomination for the House seat In Wyoming it’s my first time endorsing in a GOP primary. But I think Al Franken’s support will carry a lot of weight with WY Republicans,” the former senator wrote Saturday in a tweet that garnered more than 100,000 likes, 12,000 retweets and 14,000 comments.

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Commentary: The Big Lies We Cannot Question

The following was posted on social media recently by a widely respected California-based journalist:

I don’t like being an alarmist but the epidemic of misinformation is becoming critical and increasingly dangerous. It was bad enough when we had a lying POTUS but it is now clear that it’s become a political tactic of a large part of one of our main political parties. And, if one major party can get away with mass lying, so can the other one, so I fear this will spread across ideological boundaries.

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Commentary: The Establishment’s Effort to ‘Destroy Trump’ Belies a Terrible Truth

For some time now, Michael Anton has been saying that the Establishment – Democrats tout court, of course, but also large swaths of the testosterone-challenged GOP – are dead set against allowing Donald Trump to run for president again. It’s been obvious from its beginnings that the January 6 committee – an illegally constituted kangaroo court – was interested in one thing and one thing only: eliminating Trump and his followers from the metabolism of American political life. The fact that its public face is Liz Cheney, a soon-to-be cashiered anti-Trump RINO, underscores Anton’s point, or part of it. 

It’s not just the Democrats who cannot countenance Trump. It is the entire certified political class, what Anton calls the bureaucratic “uniparty” that runs the government and maintains the Overton Window that determines what is and what is not acceptable in the political life of the country. Donald Trump is not in the picture frame. 

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GOP Lawmakers Question Constitutionality of State Department Grants to Spread Atheism Abroad

Republican lawmakers are questioning the constitutionality of a Biden State Department program to fund the spread of atheism and humanism internationally.

At the end of June, a group of 15 Republican members of Congress wrote to President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken about a State Department funding program from April 2021 that “would award grants of up to $500,000 to organizations committed to the practice and spread of atheism and humanism, namely in South/Central Asia and in the Middle East/North Africa.”

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Gallup Poll Shows Americans’ Distrust of Public Schools Along Party Lines

A new Gallup poll shows how declining trust in America’s public schools differs along party lines. 

Overall American trust in public schools remains low, with only 28% reporting that they have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in public schools, which is down from 32% last year. Both numbers are short of the 41% reported in 2020, a level of trust not seen since 2004, with only 29% of Americans reporting having a “great deal” or  “quite a lot” of confidence in public schools in 2018 and 2019. 

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Concerns Arise That Cochise County Elections Official Skeptical of Election Fraud Is Screening Election Integrity Proponents from Working at the Polls

Arizonans applying for poll worker positions in Cochise County during this fall’s election are being asked to answer some unusual questions, including regarding their motives. Cochise County Elections Director Lisa Marra added the questions this year to the application that applicants fill out, some believe in an effort to screen out those with concerns about election fraud, which Marra speaks derisively about frequently on Twitter.

Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward tweeted in May that she heard “Election Departments around Arizona are requiring illegal ‘ideological tests’ of poll workers & that they are actively discriminating against #AmericaFirst Republican applicants.”

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Poll: Democrats Are Quickly Becoming the Party of White Elites

More college-educated white voters than minorities are backing the Democratic Party, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll released Tuesday,

The poll found that 57% of white voters with a bachelor’s degree would prefer Democrats to control Congress after the 2022 elections, compared to just 36% who would want Republicans to do so. Meanwhile, Republicans are having increasing success with minority voters, with Hispanics essentially split in their responses on which party they prefer to control Congress, and non-Hispanic, non-black minorities actually preferring Republican control by a margin of 39% to 34%, the poll found.

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Ned Ryun Commentary: You Can Bet Trump Will Be Back in 2024

We’re going to get a massive red wave this fall. The 2021 results in Virginia, out of control inflation, Joe Biden’s dismal approval ratings in recent polls (for perspective, Obama’s approval rating was 44.7 percent in October 2010, just before the midterm mauling Democrats got that year), soaring gas prices, and a porous southern border indicate that even places Biden won by 20 points in 2020 are in play this fall.

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Arizona Republican Gubernatorial Primary Race Reveals Divide Between Moderates and Conservatives as Ducey Endorses Robson

The race for the Republican gubernatorial nomination has intensified over the recent days, as key candidates and political players make their moves to influence the outcome of the upcoming primary election. Former Congressman Matt Salmon’s exit and subsequent endorsement of Karrin Taylor Robson was followed by Gov. Doug Ducey, who offered the Phoenix-area businesswoman a full-throated statement of support of his own.

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TN-01 Rep. Harshbarger Comments on Speaker Pelosi’s Absence and Holding Biden and Mayorkas Accountable as Southern Border Invasion Continues

Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed State Representative Diana Harshbarger (R-TN-01) to the newsmaker line to talk about Speaker Pelosi’s lack of communication with Republicans in Congress and her actions to hold President Biden and Alejandro Mayorkas responsible for the invasion at the southern border. 

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Green Activists Are Using Business, Bypassing Congress to End Fossil Fuels

Without sufficient support in Congress and state legislatures to pass sweeping green energy measures, environmentalists are now targeting the oil and gas industry through a financial movement that pressures companies to support liberal policies, according to critics.

“ESG promotes and implements policies through private businesses that could be adopted through a legislative process,” said Utah Treasurer Marlo Oaks. “The Green New Deal didn’t make it through Congress, so its proponents shifted the battlefield to the capital markets.”

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Manchin, Sinema Defy Biden on Removing Filibuster for Abortion Law as Republicans Rally Opposition

U.S. Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz. and Joe Manchin, D-W.V., both told news outlets Thursday they would not go along with President Joe Biden’s request that Congress remove the Senate filibuster to “codify Roe v. Wade.”

At a news conference in Spain Thursday during Biden’s last day of an overseas trip, Biden called on Congress to codify abortion protections in response to the Supreme Court’s recent ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, but before his plane landed in the U.S. later that day, the two Democratic senators had already stopped his plan dead in its tracks.

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Jim Renacci: I Will Lead the American Greatness Fund to Make Sure ‘the MAGA Movement Continues’

Neil W. McCabe, the national political editor of The Star News Network, interviewed former Republican Ohio congressman Jim Renacci about his new position leading the American Greatness Fund. Renacci said he was joining the fund so that he could help revive the MAGA movement, and create scorecards to hold politicians accountable to the voters.

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Commentary: Republicans Have an Opportunity to Help the Middle Class

Right now, Americans are experiencing the dire effects of the most regressive and unjust tax of all: government-engineered and government-fueled inflation. Let us consider the matter. What is an extra $50 at the gas tank to the rich man? He can absorb the loss. What if a box of cookies at Walmart costs $5 instead of $2? He doesn’t go there anyway. Why, he can offset the extra expense of the high price of oil, which becomes the extra expense of everything else either made of oil or delivered by oil or gasoline, by eating at home a little more often than at his favorite restaurant.

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Wisconsin Democrats Condemn, Republicans Celebrate End of Roe

The reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade and the end of abortion in Wisconsin is clear and split by political party.

Wisconsin is one of nearly two dozen states where abortion is now illegal because Roe is no more as a result of its decision in the case, Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.  

Republican leaders at the Wisconsin Capitol celebrated the 6-3 SCOTUS decision.

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Poll: Majority of Republicans, Independents Fear Abuse of ‘Red Flag’ Laws

The majority of Republican and Independent voters think “red flag” gun laws that allow judges to confiscate individuals’ firearms can be abused for political reasons, according to a new poll.

Convention of States Action, along with the Trafalgar Group, released polling data Wednesday that shows that 72.2% of Republicans and 52.3% of Independents “believe that ‘red flag’ gun control laws that are designed to temporarily take guns away from individuals have the potential to be abused by local authorities and government officials to disarm their political opponents and/or citizens who disagree with them.”

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Republican Attorneys General, 26 of 27, Challenge New Sex-Based Discrimination Federal Guidance

Half of the state attorneys general in the country want the Biden administration to walk back new federal guidance on sex-based discrimination for schools and other organizations that receive federal money for food programs.

The AGs, 26 of the 27 Republicans in those offices across the country, claim in a letter to President Biden the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s guidance means states, local agencies and programs that receive federal food dollars through the Food and Nutrition Act and the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program could lose funding if they don’t comply, including in hiring practices.

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Five Republicans Voted for Democrats Gun Control Bill

Five House Republicans voted with Democrats to pass a gun control package Wednesday evening that would raise the purchasing age to buy a semi-automatic firearm to 21 if signed into law.

The majority of House Republicans voted against the Protecting Our Kids Act introduced by Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, which sought to raise the purchasing age of people buying semi-automatic rifles to 21, mandate gun owners store their firearms in a safe and increase regulation on bump stocks. Republican Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio, Chris Jacobs of New York, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Fred Upton of Michigan joined Democrats in voting to pass the bill.

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New York GOP Rep. Chris Jacobs Will Not Seek Re-Election After Gun Control Support Backlash

New York GOP Rep. Chris Jacobs announced on Friday that he would not seek re-election after his support for an assault weapons ban generated backlash within his own party.

Jacobs announced last week, in the wake of a mass shooting in Buffalo, N.Y., that he would back a federal ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, according to the New York Times. Jacobs represents the 27th Congressional District of New York, which includes some of the Buffalo suburbs.

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Wisconsin Republicans Vote Against Decertifying 2020 Election Results, Removing Assembly Speaker

Wisconsin Republicans over the weekend rejected resolutions to rescind the state’s Electoral College votes that were cast for President Joe Biden and to remove Robin Vos as speaker of the state Assembly.

Delegates at the state party’s annual convention outside of the capital city of Madison rejected both resolutions, while adopting close to 50 others that include calling for all ballots in the state to be cast on paper and hand-counted on Election Day, according to the Associated Press.

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Senate Republicans Vow to Shut Down ‘Domestic Terrorism’ Bill

Josh Hawley

Republicans in the United States Senate appear united in opposition to a recently-passed bill that allegedly aims to combat “domestic terrorism” in the United States, which was passed in the aftermath of the Buffalo massacre.

According to The Hill, Republicans have called out the bill’s blatant partisanship, with Democrats immediately blaming Republicans for the shooting before introducing the bill as a mostly symbolic gesture.

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Kari Lake Outraises Democratic Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs’ in Gubernatorial Race During First Quarter of 2022

Democrats are mostly resigned to supporting Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs as their candidate for Arizona governor, despite the fact she admitted to participating in furthering systemic racism, by firing a black staffer which resulted in a $2.5 million dollar jury verdict. Yet despite the near consensus supporting Hobbs, her fundraising numbers were stagnant for the first quarter of 2022.

Hobbs triumphantly issued a press release after compiling her total fundraising numbers for 2021, nearly $3 million. But she hasn’t gained any momentum despite the party starting to coalesce around her; during the first quarter of 2022 she raised about $750,000, which is in line with the same rate she raised money last year. A Democratic insider told The Arizona Sun Times in January that the party was resigned to Hobbs getting the nomination, yet there was no bump to reflect this.

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Roe v. Wade Has Completely Transformed the Midterms

Both Republicans and Democrats have been forced to reconfigure their election strategies only six months before the midterms due to the unprecedented leak from the Supreme Court indicating Roe v. Wade will be overturned.

Many Democrats have made clear they intend to hammer opponents across the aisle on the implications of Roe being overturned and while Republicans have celebrated the decision, several have largely focused on the leak and others have been reluctant to press the abortion issue.

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Ohio Redistricting Commission Republicans Argue for Previously Tossed Maps

Republicans on the Ohio Redistricting Commission want the state’s Supreme Court to put legal challenges to proposed district maps on hold until after the November general election.

The commission majority wants to use state legislative district maps already ruled unconstitutional to hold an Aug. 2 primary and the general election. It wants the court not to order the commission to draw new maps until after November.

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