Tag: GOP

Commentary: Trump’s Coyness on Debate Participation All Part of His Grand Strategy

Virginia Star Staff
Donald Trump

The first Republican primary debate of the 2024 presidential nominating cycle is set for one month from yesterday – on August 23, 2023. On that day, presumably, all major candidates for the GOP presidential nomination will assemble in Wisconsin to present their campaign pitches to the American public.

There isn’t an incumbent president in this year’s extravaganza, so it’s only natural that several hopefuls have expressed interest in a campaign. Deference is usually afforded a party president during his reelection run (as Democrats have announced there will be no debates on their side with senile Joe Biden currently in office), yet this year is different.

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Haley Says She Would Support Trump If He is 2024 GOP Nominee

Just the News

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley on Monday said she would support former President Donald Trump if he becomes the GOP nominee for the 2024 presidential election.

However, Haley also said she does not think Trump is capable of winning the general election.

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Vivek Ramaswamy on His Rise in the Polls: ‘The Secret Sauce Is, Speak the Truth and Do It Without Apology’

Admin

The Star News Network’s national political editor Matt Kittle sat in Tuesday to guest host The Simon Conway Show, broadcast live from WHO Des Moines, an iHeart radio station at KDRB 100.3HZ, where he interviewed Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.

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Commentary: GOP Split on How to Handle Absentee Votes

RealClearWire

“I can’t begin to understand what ballot harvesting is,” Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the former Republican House Speaker, said in an interview in the wake of a 2018 political upset in Orange County, California. Democrats had swept the congressional seats in one of California’s few Republican strongholds, largely due to a well-executed strategy of harvesting, or the collection and submission of ballots by someone other than the voter.    

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Pence Says Trump and DeSantis Are Wrong on Ukraine and America’s Role as Arsenal of Democracy

M.D. Kittle

Former Vice President Mike Pence says his “former running mate,” among others in the Republican Party presidential nomination chase, are missing the significance of the U.S. coming to the aid of Ukraine.

Pence said he recently paid a call on the war-torn European nation and its president to see firsthand “the results of the extraordinary, unprovoked invasion by Russia” as well as the “tenacity and toughness” of the Ukrainian military.

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Trump, Biden Dominate Latest Granite State Poll, but Many Don’t Want to See a Re-Match

M.D. Kittle

Former President Donald Trump has upped his support over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in the Granite State and President Joe Biden leads his Democratic Party challengers by more than 50 percentage points, according to a new poll conducted by the Saint Anselm College Survey Center at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics.

But the latest poll also finds that a majority of New Hampshire voters believe a repeat of 2020 presidential candidates in 2024 would mark a “broken” U.S. political system.  

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Commentary: The Crumbling Relationship Between Big Business and the GOP

Virginia Star Staff

Relationships don’t always last forever. As with friendships, neighbors, employment, and even marriages, sadly, longstanding political bonds can be severed. Today, the supposed “marriage” between big business and the Republican Party seems on the rocks. It might even be in a slow-motion breakup.

A recent Wall Street Journal article recounts the growing rift between the GOP and big business. Republican leaders are more willing to criticize corporations, Republican lawmakers are proposing more legislation regulating business, and the GOP is becoming less and less dependent on corporate donations.

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Don’t Be a ‘Disciple of the Donor Class:’ Ramaswamy Calls on Fellow Presidential Candidates to Commit to Pardoning Trump on Classified Records Charges

M.D. Kittle

Political outsider and GOP presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy is calling on all of his 2024 competitors — Republicans and Democrats — to commit to pardoning former President Donald Trump should he be convicted of the federal classified documents charges against him.

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North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum Launches Bid for White House, Joining Crowded Field of GOP Contenders

M.D. Kittle

At a Fargo events center packed with family, friends and neighbors, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum stressed his small-town roots, his success in building a multi-billion dollar software business on the Great Plains, governing a growing state, and his vision for an innovative America in announcing his bid for the White House.

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Commentary: ‘Chasing’ Ballots is Not Enough

Admin

Apparently there’s some confusion about what some of us are actually proposing for winning in 2024. The best place to start in clearing up that confusion is by defining terms correctly.

We argued here and here, that if MAGA wishes to turn out its voters and win, the movement and its candidates must aggressively pursue their vote by securing their consent, and then, protecting them by implementing that agenda. Some have found these arguments less than persuasive because they fear Republicans are joining the Democrats in their less-than-honest methods of securing votes. So, we must explain further for those who appear confused.

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GOP Presidential Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy Makes the Cut for the GOP Debates

M.D. Kittle

Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy has risen in the polls to a top 5 candidate. Now the Ohio businessman and political outsider has secured a spot on the Republican National Committee debate stage.

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Scott, Haley’s South Carolina Roots Aren’t Enough to Secure Victory in the State’s Early Primary, GOP Operatives Say

Admin

South Carolina has two natives in the 2024 presidential race, with former Gov. Nikki Haley and Sen. Tim Scott, but Republican operatives from the state don’t believe it’s enough to secure them a victory in the early state primary, they told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Although the two Republicans have served their state for years, former President Donald Trump still has a stronghold in South Carolina and would likely win the state’s primary if it were held today, several GOP political experts told the DCNF. For either Scott or Haley to be competitive in South Carolina’s primary, which is critical in determining the eventual Republican nominee, the experts said they would need to show a strong performance in key early primary states like Iowa and New Hampshire.

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DeSantis Enters Presidential Race with ‘Skewed’ Narrative He’s Better Positioned to Beat Biden than Trump

M.D. Kittle

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis officially launched his presidential campaign Wednesday, ending months of speculation and ratcheting up what promises to be an intense battle for the Republican Party nomination. 

DeSantis enters the race as a top tier candidate, but still lagging far behind frontrunner Donald Trump, according to just about every poll out there. 

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Democrats Try to Shift Blame for Classified Documents Away from Biden and Say GOP Claims Are Racist

Just the News

House Oversight Committee Democrats are attempting to shift the blame away from President Biden and his family for the classified documents found in his home and office while also saying statement on the matter by committee GOP Chairman James Comer regarding former Biden aide Kathy Chung are “xenophobic” and “racist.”

Committee Democrats released the 16-page memo Wednesday to show “the extent to which Committee Republicans have lied about Ms. Chung, including the purpose of her position in the White House,” said Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, the panel’s top Democrat. 

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Republican Presidential Hopeful Ramaswamy Lays Out ‘Path to Victory’ — America First 2.0

M.D. Kittle

While pundits bill Ohio businessman Vivek Ramaswamy as a “long-shot” candidate for president, the Republican political outsider isn’t campaigning as a long shot. 

As his poll numbers continue to rise a little more than two months into his campaign, Ramaswamy believes he has a clear path to victory — America First 2.0. 

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Commentary: The GOP Has an Obligation to Protect Its Voters

Virginia Star Staff

One of the most startling gaps in the literature on the function of political parties is the lack of discussion about the most important reason they exist: to protect their voters from the abuses of government and the totalitarian temptations of the opposition party.

The formation of political parties grew from a need to organize people and get them to the polls around a set of ideas that could be put into practical action. As they originally functioned, there was a reciprocal relationship between citizens and parties. Yet, on a practical and self-interested level, the party had appeal for voters because of the benefits it bestowed on those who supported it.

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Commentary: Asian Voters Have Democrats Worried after Midterm Shift Toward Republicans

Admin

The marked shifts of Black and Hispanic voters away from the Democratic Party is something Americans for Limited Government Foundation (ALGF) has covered in depth, but new data shows Asian Americans are also abandoning the left.

The New York Times recently published analysis of voter turnout in the 2022 gubernatorial election in New York and showed New York City neighborhoods with a heavy Asian population shifted toward the GOP by 23 points compared to 2018. The Times analysis showed, it was the “largest electoral shift in Asian neighborhoods in the period from 2006 to 2022.” 

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Ex-Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson Says He’s Running for President

Just the News

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Sunday he has decided to run for president and plans on formally announcing his campaign in April. 

“My decision is, I’m going to run for president of the United States,” he told ABC News’ “This Week” during an interview. He said he will formally announce his campaign in his hometown of Bentonville, Arkansas, later this month.

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Donald Trump Tops National Primary Polls, But DeSantis Leads in Key States

Admin

While former President Donald Trump continues to lead national polls for the 2024 GOP primaries, state polling is more of a determining factor, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is topping several important states.

In states with the most recent primary polling, DeSantis leads in five– Alabama, California, Michigan, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. There are several other states in which he leads, but with several caveats.

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Commentary: Young Men Hold More Conservative Views than Young Women

Virginia Star Staff

A favorite argument the left propagates is that demographics are destiny, and that a tidal wave of young left-wing voters will erode GOP margins beyond repair. The argument that demographics are destiny is of course inescapable, but the argument that these demographics favor the left exclusively is misleading.       

What the data shows is there have been small but discernible shifts away from the Democrat Party over the past few years. The bulk of the research on younger voters also shows a widening gender gap. Younger women are becoming increasingly liberal and younger men are not. Recent research shows that younger men hold more conservative views than older men on gender issues, including the transgender question.  

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Commentary: Voters Can No Longer Tolerate Business as Usual, So It’s Time for Ronna McDaniel to Go

Admin

Kevin McCarthy’s speakership vote should have sent a clear message to GOP establishmentarians everywhere: conservatives have real power to leverage against Establishment-era Republicans, and they aren’t afraid to use it.

Even before the battle began on the floor of Congress, polling from Trafalgar Group and Convention of States revealed that Republican voters were dissatisfied with Republican Party congressional leadership. Capitalizing on the frustration of their constituents, a small band of Congressmen rebelled against the status quo and successfully managed to break up business as usual in our broken federal government.

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Trump Leads GOP Primary with DeSantis as Runner-Up: Poll

Just the News

Former President Donald Trump is the top choice for the 2024 Republican presidential primary, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis coming in as the runner-up, according to a new poll.

The Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll released Friday found that 48 percent of GOP voters said they would support Trump if the primary were held today, while 25 percent said they would vote for DeSantis. If Trump does not run in 2024, 48 percent of GOP voters said they would support DeSantis, with former Vice President Mike Pence as the runner-up with 15 percent support.

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Commentary: RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel Must Go

Virginia Star Staff

Illustrating that they won’t take their own side in a dispute, Republicans typically choose as their party chieftains hacks who betray little evidence of having read the GOP platform and even less evidence of supporting it. Current Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel falls into that category. She appears as conversant with the party platform as the late Bob Dole, who famously said that he never bothered to read it.

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Commentary: Rebuilding the Right in the Age of the Moderate Majority

Virginia Star Staff

The failure of the Republican Party to achieve its much-ballyhooed red wave is a reflection of just how badly the GOP has failed its voters and the nation. While it is fair to lay some of the blame at the feet of former President Donald Trump, the rest of the party must carry an equal, if not greater, share of it. 

This failure comes down to one thing: misapprehending the permanently changed dynamics of the electorate. 

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Commentary: Governors Conference Shows GOP May Not Have Learned Anything from Midterms

Virginia Star Staff

In terms of sheer numbers, Republicans did the worst in governorships among all the electoral positions up for grabs this year. Republicans did make gains, although modest, in the House. In the Senate, Republicans will either have a net gain of zero or be down one seat, depending on how the Georgia runoff goes in December. But Republicans lost a net of two gubernatorial seats. While former President Donald Trump, the Republican National Committee, Senate Republicans, and House Republicans have faced a lot of scrutiny for their poor showing, the Republican Governors Association has avoided this scrutiny. The lack of humility at the Republican Governors Association’s latest meeting presents an ominous sign on whether Republicans will learn from their mistakes in 2022.

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Commentary: Four Issues to Unify the GOP and Realign America

Virginia Star Staff

If Republicans hope to unify their party and realign American politics in their favor, they will need to do more than pour billions of dollars into television ads that highlight rampaging looters and the despairing jobless. They have to offer hope tied to an achievable agenda. Americans are ready for an alternative to Democratic fearmongering and stagnation. Give it to them.

Standing in the way of Republicans developing a comprehensive agenda they can agree on is the deepening rift within the party. On one side is the legacy party, represented by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah), and other so-called moderate Republicans. Opposing them is the MAGA movement led by Donald Trump and backed up by, among other groups, the Freedom Caucus, which now constitutes a majority of House Republicans.

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Commentary: America Needs a National Conservative Party

Virginia Star Staff

“For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

Abraham Lincoln and other future-minded Whigs recognized this in 1854 when they created the Republican Party. The Whig Party, a contributor of good ideas and good leaders during its heyday, had been on a losing streak and was divided between incompatible factions, one opposing slavery and the other supporting it. Six years later, Lincoln won the presidency on the Republican ticket, and the Whig Party disbanded.

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New Republican Majority Plans to Target ‘Woke’ Businesses

Virginia Star Staff
exterior of BlackRock

One of the top agenda items for the GOP’s new majority in the House of Representatives is the targeting of “woke” corporations on Wall Street, threatening investigations and other government action if such companies do not reverse anti-American policies and practices.

Politico reports that some of the measures the GOP will be scrutinizing include “ESG (environmental, social, and governance)” policies, divesting from fossil fuels, and race-based affirmative action hiring policies for the sake of “diversity.”

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GOP Learning to Love Mail-In Ballots, Curing, Legal Harvesting as It Seeks to Level Playing Field

Justin Ethridge

In a 180-degree turn, Republicans are adopting the Democratic strategy for winning elections in states where mail-in voting, ballot curing and ballot harvesting are legal.

Republicans have repeatedly sounded the alarm over universal mail-in voting, ballot curing, and ballot harvesting because of the heightened possibility for fraud, but as Democrats have used these methods to help their candidates win elections, the GOP is belatedly accepting that they must play the same game.

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Commentary: GOP Botched Early-Voting Ground Game

RealClearWire

Two days before Brian Kemp bested Stacey Abrams by more than seven percentage points in their closely watched rematch, the Georgia governor did something unusual for a Republican candidate in the 2022 midterms: He expressed confidence about where he stood and cited early voting as a top reason.

“We’ve also had record turnout for early voting, which ended this Friday. It’s been an incredible turnout, and we feel good about things,” Kemp told Trey Gowdy, the former congressman and host of Fox News’ “Sunday Night in America.”

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Republicans Win Control of the House

Virginia Star Staff

Republicans gained control of the United State House of Representatives, edging out a narrow victory in the tightly-contested midterm elections.

The GOP currently holds 218 seats after mail-in ballots caused over a week of delays in results, The Associated Press reported, though that number may grow as the last few remaining races wrap up. The elections were far closer than pre-midterm projections, with most pollsters predicting Republicans would take between 225 and 255 seats.

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DeSantis Gains Ground with Conservatives over Trump for 2024 Nominee: Poll

Just the News

More Republicans and GOP-leaning independents say they would prefer Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to run for president in 2024 over former President Donald Trump, according to a new poll. 

While 35% of Republicans and Republican-leaners want Trump to run in 2024, 42% said they wanted DeSantis to run, according to a Yahoo News/YouGov poll released Saturday. Even among those classified as “strong Republicans,” Trump is two points ahead of DeSantis for 2024 at 45% to 43%. 

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Democrats Flip Several State Legislatures

Virginia Star Staff

Adding to the list of disappointments for the GOP in the 2022 midterm elections, Democrats appear to have mostly made gains in state legislative chambers across the country, as well as fending off Republican challengers to several key swing state governors.

According to Axios, Democrats are currently fighting to hold both state houses in Nevada; if they manage to do so, it will mark the first time that the presidential party has not lost any state legislative chambers in a midterm election since 1934.

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Polls Show Double-Digit Lead for GOP Among Independents

Virginia Star Staff

Republicans have the double-digit support of independent voters on the generic Congressional ballot across most major polls, according to releases by polling firms over the week.

Congressional Republicans are leading Democrats by 11 points among independent voters according to Data for Progress, a left-wing polling firm that works closely with the Democratic Party, which conducted the poll. Republicans are also capturing a majority of independents’ support, with 52% for them versus 41% for Democrats.

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GOP Won Legal Curbs on 2020 Election Issues, but Slow to Answer Plan to Tilt 2022 Playing Field

Just the News

In response to Republican legal challenges, courts have curbed some of the worst usurpations of state legislative authority over elections in 2020, says conservative election watchdog Phill Kline, but the right, he cautions, has failed to anticipate and counter a reconfigured alliance of the federal government, Big Tech and Democrat-friendly nonprofits to microtarget and turn out Democrat voters in 2022.

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Liz Cheney Says She Will Leave GOP if Donald Trump is 2024 Nominee

Just the News

Rejected by her own voters in Wyoming, Rep. Liz Cheney says she won’t remain a Republican if Donald Trump is the GOP presidential nominee in 2024.

“I’m going to make sure Donald Trump, I’m going to do everything I can to make sure he is not the nominee. And if he is the nominee, I won’t be a Republican,” Cheney told the Texas Tribune festival on Saturday.

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Commentary: GOP’s New Plan Proves America First Policies Are Making a Huge Comeback

Virginia Star Staff

In 1994, it was called the Contract with America. Between 2016 and 2020, it was just known as America First. If you want to return to the policies that worked, there is a simple solution — the policies of the newly released “Commitment to America.” Simply put, it is the policies that put America First.

When people look at the current state of our country, most don’t like what they see. Inflation is the highest it has been in 40 years. The price of eggs, milk, and groceries has increased by double digits. Many people must decide whether to fill their gas tank or buy food. Some are cutting back on travel and entertainment. Many wonder if they will have to cut back on Christmas gifts for their children this year.

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Dems Reject GOP Calls for Investigation into Safety of Unaccompanied Minors at Border

Virginia Star Staff

On Wednesday, Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee voted against a resolution introduced by Republicans calling for an investigation into the safety of unaccompanied illegal alien minors who cross the southern border.

Fox News reports that the resolution of inquiry asked for the Biden Administration to turn over a wide range of documents and information regarding the federal response to this particular aspect of the immigration crisis, as the number of unaccompanied minors has skyrocketed on Biden’s watch.

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Commentary: Trump Took a Sledgehammer to the Establishment. America Needs Him to Do It Again in 2024

Admin

Tucker Carlson, who seems to have his finger on the pulse of the America First movement, signs off his nightly Fox News show as “the sworn enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness and group think.”

The “lying” and “pomposity” surely represent the tactics of a Democrat/media complex who will stop at nothing — including using the power of the state to persecute their political enemies. President Joe Biden’s reprehensible speech in Philadelphia all but confirmed it.

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Commentary: Good Riddance, Liz Cheney

Virginia Star Staff

Bush Republicanism, that zombie political persuasion which in its heyday did for the GOP and the conservative movement what Jimmy Carter and Mike Dukakis did for the Democrats, might not quite be dead. But rigor mortis set in several years ago to be sure.

Just ask Liz Cheney, whose political career was zombified in January 2021 when she opted to not just turn on Donald Trump in a public fashion — Cheney was always a Never Trumper; she just didn’t out herself as one until she thought the coast was clear — but to harp on the question.

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Commentary: Donald Trump’s 2015 Presidential Announcement Speech, Seven Years Later

Admin

Immigration. Trade. War. The GOP already has the formula it needs for sweeping victory in this fall’s midterm elections. Republicans just need to follow it.

Donald Trump showed the way. His presidential announcement speech in 2015 was a masterpiece of political rhetoric. It was also a blueprint for a message that could cut through the nightmare web of corruption, decay, and incompetence that characterizes our modern political system.

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Commentary: Adam Schiff Is Hiding Something

Admin

Jeffrey Rosen had a secret on January 6, 2021.

The then-acting attorney general—Rosen was appointed on December 24, 2020 to replace departing Attorney General William Barr—had assembled a team of elite and highly skilled government agents at Quantico, a nexus point between the FBI and U.S. military, the weekend before Congress met to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election. At the same time he was rejecting President Donald Trump’s last-minute appeals to investigate election fraud, Rosen was managing a hush-hush operation in advance of planned rallies and protests in Washington on January 6.

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Commentary: Keys to GOP’s Hispanic Outreach in Pennsylvania and Nationwide

RealClearWire

After this month’s historic special election win in South Texas, Republican strategists nationwide are asking themselves: how can we replicate now-Congresswoman Mayra Flores’s success in flipping an 84% Hispanic district to the GOP? Meantime, Democrats are burying their heads in the South Texas sand as Hispanic voters flee their party.

It’s not rocket science to appeal to Hispanic voters and persuade them to vote Republican. My firm’s work with the Hispanic Republican Coalition of Pennsylvania shows how to do it.

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Pennsylvania GOP Senate Race May Not See Winner Until June

Virginia Star Staff

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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Commentary: Biden Needs to Take the Blame for Inflation

RealClearWire

Last week, President Biden gave a speech listing everyone and everything allegedly responsible for record high inflation. His list included corporate greed and price gouging, Vladimir Putin, and “ultra-MAGA” Republicans. The president said that his policies, and the nearly $7 trillion in spending he authorized, have nothing to do with inflation.

None of this holds up under scrutiny. While President Biden claims that corporations are ripping off Americans, the costs of their supplies have been increasing at a record rate. In reality, many companies that Biden claims are stiffing consumers have actually lost money because they don’t want to alienate their customers by raising prices too quickly.

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GOP Message to Faith Voters After Roe Leak: Thank God for President Trump, Elections Matter

Julie Carr

Neil W. McCabe, the national political editor of The Star News Network, interviewed Paris Dennard, the national spokesman for the Republican National Committee, about the political aftermath after the German media outlet ‘Politico’ leaked the draft of Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health case, which would overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

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