Recent News

The crushing defeat that shaped Scott Walker

As he introduces himself to GOP primary voters nationwide, Scott Walker points to his long list of election wins in the swing state of Wisconsin — 11, to be exact.

Yet it’s a single defeat, Republicans back home say, that reveals the most about his political character.

He doesn’t talk about the race on the campaign trail. But the hard-earned lessons from his failed, slapdash run for governor in 2006 have shaped Walker’s career since, putting him on a trajectory that has led him to become one of the early front-runners for the 2016 GOP nomination.

Martin O’Malley: Presidency not a ‘crown’ to be shared by 2 families

Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley took a swipe at likely 2016 contenders Hillary Rodham Clinton and Jeb Bush on Sunday, saying that “the presidency of the United States is not some crown to be passed between two families.”

Appearing on ABC’s “This Week,” O’Malley, who is weighing a possible run against Clinton for the Democratic nomination, called the presidency “an awesome and sacred trust to be earned and exercised on behalf of the American people.”

Ohio governor John Kasich didn’t go to any lengths to play to his crowd on Wednesday night.

Dining with a group of influential pro-growth conservatives at the Four Seasons restaurant in Manhattan on Wednesday — economists Larry Kudlow, Arthur Laffer, and Stephen Moore, Fox News hosts Bill Hemmer and John Stossel, and Gristedes Foods founder John Catsimatidis were all in attendance — Kasich voiced his support for Medicaid and for renewing a spirit of bipartisanship within the Republican party.

Kasich, a former nine-term congressman who won a resounding reelection victory in November, is eyeing a presidential bid but, at the dinner’s close, there was little appetite for a Kasich presidency among those who’d assembled to hear him.

New Hampshire is considered critical to Gov. Chris Christie’s potential presidential bid, and a new poll of the state’s GOP primary voters voters doesn’t have good news for him.

The Suffolk University survey of 500 likely Republican voters in New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation 2016 primary election found that Christie is tied for fifth place. Nineteen percent named Jeb Bush as their first choice, followed by 14 percent for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and 7 percent for U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.

Donald Trump was the top pick of 6 percent, followed by Christie and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who are tied at 5 percent.

A dispute over Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s position on immigration erupted on Thursday, highlighting the Republican’s struggle to appeal to conservatives on the explosive issue as he prepares to launch a Republican presidential bid.

The two-term governor has consistently opposed what he calls “amnesty” for immigrants in the country illegally, but his definition of amnesty has evolved. In a recent closed-door meeting with top New Hampshire Republicans, Walker said such immigrants should be allowed to stay in the country legally.

Santorum: Obama determined to shut down coal-burning plants

President Barack Obama has a “quasi-religious” zeal to close down coal-burning power plants, past and potential Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum said Thursday.

The former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania was in Raleigh to speak to conservative groups and dropped by the state Legislature for an impromptu talk. He said he’ll decide by early summer whether to run for president in 2016 as he did in 2012.

Santorum criticized the Obama administration’s regulations aimed at reducing power plant emissions of mercury and other hazardous air pollutants, which was part of a case heard in the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday.

Republicans Have Little to Fear From a Divisive Primary

Will the fight for the G.O.P. presidential nomination be Hillary Clinton’s secret weapon in the 2016 election? Not according to the best political science research.

It’s often thought that divisive primary fights damage presidential nominees in the general election. People close to Hillary Clinton endorsed this theory in a Politico article Tuesday, which reported that “a core element of Clinton’s plan was to get out of the way and let the dueling wings of the Republican Party savage each other.” In their view, Mrs. Clinton benefits from the Republicans’ “wild and messy primary contest,” which will result in “a bloodied GOP nominee.”