Recent News

USA TODAY GOP Power Rankings: Carson and Fiorina fading

2016 begins with some outsider candidates finding themselves out of the picture in USA TODAY’s weekly GOP Power Rankings.

Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina tallied their worst scores this week since we started this survey Sept. 1, asking 30 political experts who is the strongest candidate in the GOP field.

With just a handful of weeks until the Iowa Caucuses, the race for the Republican presidential nomination is entering the home stretch.

Here’s a look at the 13 candidates remaining in the Republican field - and their path to victory … or defeat.

To get Graham’s endorsement, a presidential candidate must challenge Trump, Cruz

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said Wednesday that he’ll expect any presidential candidate who gets his endorsement to challenge Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, the two candidates currently leading the contest for the Republican nomination.

The Republican Graham said he hasn’t decided whether to endorse one of his former competitors for the White House, but it won’t be Trump or Cruz because he considers them too extreme to beat Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee.

Donald Trump has 14-point lead in New Hampshire: poll

Billionaire businessman and GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump has a 14-point lead over his nearest Republican rival, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, in a new poll on the early state of New Hampshire.

Mr. Trump was at 29 percent in the survey from the Democratic-leaning firm Public Policy Polling, with Mr. Rubio at 15 percent.

The latest poll out of New Hampshire shows Donald Trump maintaining a big lead, sitting at 29 percent a full 14 to 19 percent over Rubio, Cruz, Bush, Kasich, and Christie.

But those are just the headline numbers of the poll. If you really want to understand the significance of a poll, you can’t merely consume the headline numbers. You have to read a poll, and parse it.

Every­one already knows the struggle for con­trol of the White House will be the biggest do­mest­ic story of 2016. The cam­paign has already gen­er­ated re­cord tele­vi­sion rat­ings and vol­can­ic erup­tions of vit­ri­ol. By Novem­ber, it is likely to be­come the most ex­pens­ive polit­ic­al race ever. Already, it is un­like any cam­paign Amer­ic­ans have seen be­fore.

Hank Greenberg Gives $10 Million to Super PAC Backing Jeb Bush

Maurice R. “Hank” Greenberg, who built American International Group Inc. into a world-wide financial powerhouse before its controversial government bailout, has donated $10 million to the super PAC backing Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush, making him one of the largest contributors in the 2016 race.