Recent News

Jim Gilmore plans to live-tweet the debate

Jim Gilmore’s steamed that CNN has excluded him, and only him, from Wednesday’s Republican debates, but he’s going to jump into the fray anyway—on Twitter.

The former Virginia governor, who was a late addition to the first GOP debate in Cleveland last month and is currently polling at just a hair above 0 percent nationally, is planning to hunker down in his Alexandria, VA headquarters while his rivals clash again out in California.

Previewing the CNN Debate

Eleven Republican candidates will face off tonight in the main debate on CNN, and four more who didn’t qualify for the prime-time event will be featured in the early “undercard” debate. There’s no shortage of advice for the candidates, suggestions on what to look for, or assessments of what they need to do to win.

Politico suggests that the candidate with the biggest stake in tonight’s debate is Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker:

Scott Walker’s last best chance

Scott Walker needs to reassure his ... Read More >>

Businessman Donald Trump leads retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson in the New Hampshire Republican presidential primary, 22 percent to 18 percent, according to WBUR’s first poll of the race.

At 27 percent nationally, Donald Trump maintains his frontrunner status among Republican primary voters, but Ben Carson is now close behind him, a new CBS News/New York Times poll finds.

Perry’s Exit May Have an Impact on the Race

The news at the end of last week that former Texas Gov. Rick Perry was suspending his campaign for the GOP nomination and exiting the race took few by surprise, as numerous stories in recent weeks had reported on his campaign’s lack of funds and poor showing in the polls. The New York Times this morning has an interesting story detailing polling data that show Perry lost more than half of his support to businessman Donald Trump when the latter ... Read More >>

A lot of the support for Donald Trump is fueled by outrage against the Republican establishment. But those who ask us to understand this anger—as if it were a totally new phenomenon that none of us had ever noticed before—are ignoring the fact that Trump divides the right just as much as the establishment does.

As current New Jersey Republican Chris Christie struggles to qualify for next week’s prime-time debate on CNN, other candidates are just hoping to achieve relevance and rise past (or even get to) the 1 percent level in polls. Several “super PACs” plan to ride to the rescue to boost these faltering candidates’ chances (super PACs can raise unlimited contributions but cannot legally coordinate their efforts with campaigns, although the definition of “coordinate” is a bit tricky). Here’s a sample of ... Read More >>