Tag Archives: Vice President Mike Pence

Special Elections Update: LA Votes

https://www.facebook.com/Karen.Carter.Peterson/videos/2521633831472770/Karen Carter Peterson promotional video.


By Jim Ellis

March 22, 2021 — Five special congressional elections are now on the political calendar, and we see current action in all.

Beginning with the two Louisiana seats, voters went to the polls Saturday in the first round of elections in the state’s 2nd and 5th Congressional Districts.

The 2nd, anchored in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, is a Democratic seat left vacant when former Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-New Orleans) was appointed to a White House position in the Biden Administration. The northeastern Louisiana Republican 5th CD became vacant when Rep-Elect Luke Letlow (R), three weeks after winning the seat in a post-general runoff election, passed away from a heart attack and COVID.

The 2nd District sees 15 Democrats, Republicans, minor party, and Independent candidates all on a jungle primary ballot. The political odds favor two Democratic New Orleans state senators, Troy Carter and Karen Carter Peterson, advancing to a general election runoff on April 24. The tone of this week’s candidates’ ads, with Sen. Peterson already being attacked, suggest that the special general between Carter and Peterson is already underway.

Prospects were promising that we would see a winner in Saturday’s 5th District race. Though 12 candidates are on the ballot, just one has strong campaign resources and public backing. Julia Letlow (R), wife of the deceased congressman-elect, looks well positioned to exceed the majority support threshold tomorrow night meaning she would claim the seat outright.

Armed with a 9:1 fundraising lead over her closest competitor at the end of February and holding endorsements from former President Trump, former Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), the Louisiana Republican Party, and the Louisiana Sheriffs of the 5th Congressional District committee, among others, Ms. Letlow appears poised to score a convincing win over a crowded field.

The first poll for the Texas special election was just released. In this 6th District race, vacated because of Rep. Ron Wright’s (R-Arlington) death from cancer and COVID, a whopping 23 candidates are vying to replace the late incumbent. The first election is May 1. If no one receives majority support, which is likely, a runoff will be scheduled after the primary voters officially determine the final results.

Continue reading

The Presidential Debates Loom

By Jim Ellis

Sept. 1, 2020 — The Presidential Debate series looms on the political horizon, and controversy is beginning to swirl even though the first forum is still a month away.

The first in a series of currently three presidential debates is set for Sept. 29.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said last week that Democratic nominee Joe Biden shouldn’t debate President Trump. “I wouldn’t legitimize a conversation with him, nor a debate in terms of the presidency of the United States,” she was quoted as saying at a news conference.

At the end of July, former Bill Clinton news secretary Joe Lockhart wrote for CNN.com that Biden shouldn’t debate the president. “Whatever you do, don’t debate Trump. Trump has now made more than 20,000 misleading or false statements according to the Washington Post,” Lockhart penned as public advice to Biden.

Some on the Republican side argue that these Democratic leaders are beginning to lay the groundwork for Biden to avoid the debates because of concerns their candidate would fare poorly opposite President Trump.

For his part, Biden says he will debate the president, and become his own “fact checker on the floor.” He will also begin holding campaign events after Labor Day. In an Aug. 28 interview with the Associated Press, Biden said he’ll “meet people where it matters – not at irresponsible rallies or staged for TV to boost egos, but real people’s communities, in real local businesses, in their lives.” Biden further said he’ll “hold events consistent with the state rules about crowd sizes and other regulations.”

The first debate is scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 29, the second on Thursday, Oct. 15, and the final forum culminates a week later on Oct. 22. The vice presidential debate between incumbent Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) is scheduled for Wednesday, Oct. 7.

The debates have proven important in the past and always draw large audiences. According to the Pew Research Center, even the first televised debate, between then-Sen. John F. Kennedy and then-Vice President Richard Nixon, drew over 66 million viewers usually on black and white televisions, at a time when the US population was just under 181 million people, or approximately 55 percent of today’s total populace.

Continue reading

Kobach Announces in Controversy

By Jim Ellis

Former Kansas secretary of state and 2018 Republican gubernatorial nominee Kris Kobach

July 10, 2019 — In most runs for public office, the day a candidate announces is one of the best campaign days. For former Kansas secretary of state and 2018 Republican gubernatorial nominee Kris Kobach, his declaration that he would run for Sen. Pat Roberts (R) open seat looks to have turned out differently.

Kobach’s Senate announcement on Monday, though speculated upon for several weeks, was met with a considerable amount of negativity from members of his own party including a spokeswoman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC). Through a reported tweet from an interview with the Kansas City Star newspaper she said, “just last year [ex-Sec of State] Kris Kobach ran [as GOP nominee for governor] and lost to a Democrat. Now, he wants to do the same and simultaneously put President Trump’s presidency and [the GOP] Senate majority at risk.”

Kobach, the sitting secretary of state at the time, defeated Gov. Jeff Colyer in the 2018 Republican gubernatorial primary by just 343 votes of over 317,000 ballots cast. Colyer was the state’s lieutenant governor who ascended to the governorship when two-term incumbent Sam Brownback resigned to accept a federal appointment. Post-nomination, the Kobach general election campaign was routinely rated as poor, from a lack of fundraising to deficient campaign strategy and implementation that caused him to lose 48-43 percent to then-state Sen. Laura Kelly (D-Topeka) who attracted a significant amount of Republican support.

Prior to his running for governor, Kobach was tabbed by President Trump to be vice-chairman and lead administrator for the President’s Advisory Committee on Election Integrity under Vice President Mike Pence. But Kobach’s leadership of this organization was also called into question. Asking for voter information from states that even Republican chief election officials routinely refused to turn over, the panel was dissolved after only seven months of existence with no tangible accomplishment.

Continue reading

Indiana Rep. Susan Brooks to Retire

By Jim Ellis

Rep. Susan Brooks represented Indiana’s 5th District, a reliably Republican district over the years.

June 18, 2019 — The 2019-20 House open seat count reached double-digits as Indiana Rep. Susan Brooks (R-Carmel) announced late last week that she would not seek a fifth term next year.

With Brooks retiring and Montana at-large Rep. Greg Gianforte (R-Bozeman) announcing that he will run for governor, the open seat count grows to 10 including the two North Carolina special congressional elections that will be filled on Sept. 10.

Most news outlets were reporting the Brooks announcement as a surprise, in large part because she chairs the National Republican Congressional Committee’s candidate recruitment operation. But, rumors of Brooks moving on from the House have circulated before, and she did attempt to become governor when incumbent Mike Pence left office after being selected as Donald Trump’s running mate. There was also speculation that she could leave the House next year in order to run for state attorney general.

Immediately after Pence left his Hoosier State gubernatorial re-election effort to campaign for vice president, an Indiana Republican Party committee was empowered to choose a new gubernatorial nominee. Rep. Brooks, along with fellow US Rep. Todd Rokita, declared for the special nomination, but the party committee members instead chose then-Lt. Gov. Eric Holcomb who would go onto win the general election and now stands for re-election in 2020.

Rep. Brooks says her retirement decision is primed because of a desire to begin devoting her life to interests outside of politics. She will, however, continue in her NRCC role to lead the party’s recruitment apparatus in serving the balance of this current term.

Continue reading

Indiana: Wild and Entertaining

By Jim Ellis

April 20, 2018 — A new Gravis Marketing survey (April 6-11; 411 likely Indiana voters) produced a result in the Senate Republican primary ballot test that appears to have even surprised the pollsters.

The sample size of 411 likely voters includes all parties, so looking only at the GOP primary means the respondent cell size could number less than 200. This would make the results largely meaningless because the sampling universe would be too small to draw reasonably accurate conclusions. Gravis did not release the sampling numbers associated with the Republican primary questions, likely for obvious reasons.

But the results are interesting, nonetheless, and could give us a clue that former state Rep. Mike Braun, whose creative advertising has not only attracted attention but is strategically brilliant (see below), has a real chance to upset Republican congressmen Todd Rokita (R-Brownsburg/Lafayette) and Luke Messer (R-Greensburg/ Muncie). According to the Gravis results, Braun leads Reps. Rokita and Messer 26-16-13 percent in anticipation of the May 8 Indiana state primary.

https://youtu.be/jvKHqChRrYg

The Senate GOP primary turned into a three-way race almost from day one. Braun, then a state representative who would resign his seat to concentrate on the Senate campaign, owns a successful manufacturing business and spent heavily early to become known statewide.

As the campaign began, the thinking was that Rokita and Messer would target one another, assuming that both would view the other as his chief competitor. For Braun, it was believed that he would adopt the approach of staying above the negative fray and giving Republican voters an alternative from two individuals who would engage in what would likely become a bitter campaign.

Continue reading

Indiana in Full Throttle

By Jim Ellis

April 6, 2018 — Now just over a month before the May 8 Indiana Republican Senate primary, the three major candidates are simultaneously hitting the airwaves.

Not surprisingly in campaigning before the Hoosier State GOP electorate, each contender is trying to make the case that they are strongly conservative, pro-Trump, and anti-Washington. Though Vice President Mike Pence obviously hails from Indiana, surprisingly only one of the three new ads mentions him in the midst of each man doing his best to stake out the position furthest to the right.


Mike Braun’s ad


Though the campaign strategies of Reps. Todd Rokita (R-Brownsburg/Lafayette), Luke Messer (R-Greensburg/Muncie), and former state Rep. Mike Braun (R-Jasper) appear similar, each has his own clear angle. With little polling available, and none from the immediate past, it appears the electorate is in store for a mad dash to the political finish line.

Braun’s ad (above) takes the most unique position. While the other two candidates began with greater name identification, support, and financial bases, the former state representative’s personal wealth has allowed him to advertise early in order to make this a legitimate three-way race. His strategy is to turn the multi-candidate contest into a one-on-one campaign by establishing himself as the individual opposing both congressmen, which, in his past ads, describes them as being so interchangeable that few can tell them apart.

Continue reading

Kansas’ New Race

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) | Facebook

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) | Facebook

By Jim Ellis

Jan. 26, 2018 — Two events occurred two days ago that drastically changed the Kansas gubernatorial race.

First, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) won confirmation as President Trump’s ambassador-at large for International Religious Freedom and will soon be resigning as Kansas’ chief executive to accept his new position. Gov. Brownback barely passed muster in the Senate, a body in which he served 14 years before being elected governor in 2010. Vice President Mike Pence was called into the Senate chamber to break the 49-49 confirmation deadlock.

The move means that Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer (R), already a candidate for the state’s top post, will be ascending to the governorship by the end of this week. Colyer will become the fourth Republican lieutenant governor who will be running for governor as an unelected incumbent. Govs. Kay Ivey (R-Alabama), Kim Reynolds (R-Iowa), and Henry McMaster (R-South Carolina) are the other three who became governor last year when the individual elected in 2014 either left under an ethical cloud (Alabama) or accepted a Trump Administration appointment (Iowa; South Carolina; and now Kansas).

Second, Republicans also received good news over a development that could decimate the Democrat’s opportunity of running a viable general election campaign. Wealthy Independent Greg Orman, who challenged Sen. Pat Roberts (R) in 2014 and actually became the de facto Democratic nominee (he lost 53-42 percent), officially announced he will enter the governor’s campaign and as a non-affiliated candidate.

Continue reading