Outside the Beltway

A pair of new national polls shows a new trend in the GOP race heading into the final debate of 2015.

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul got a break today when CNN included him in the prime time debate on Tuesday even though he fell short of meeting the criteria.

Ted Cruz surges to a lead in the latest Iowa poll, setting up a seemingly inevitable showdown between the Texas Senator and Donald Trump.

Rand Paul is likely to miss the main stage for next Tuesday’s debate, so his campaign is already calling on CNN to change the rules.

The quadrennial fantasy of a brokered convention, which American politics has not seen since 1952, is rearing its head again, and it’s no more likely now than it was when we talked about this four years ago.

Donald Trump continues to have a commanding lead in the Granite State, but it’s unclear whether he can translate poll support into votes when the primary rolls around.

Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have mostly avoided attacking each other, but if the polls are any indication that detente may be about to come to an end in the Hawkeye State.

Donald Trump just keeps leading in the polls, and Republicans keep arguing that it can’t last.

The latest national poll of the Republican race shows Trump continuing to lead, Ben Carson fading, and Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio rising while the rest of the field is stagnant or sinking.

Marco Rubio is telling conservative Christians in Iowa and elsewhere what they want to hear on same-sex marriage. It just happens to be complete and utter nonsense.

Given his rhetoric, it’s fairly clear that Donald Trump is drawing from a poisonous political well. So there’s no point in failing to acknowledge reality.

We still don’t know very much about Robert Dear, the man who shot and killed three people at the site of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado, but that hasn’t stopped the usual suspects from politicizing the case.

Even as the focus of the Presidential race shifts to national security, Donald Trump continues to lead the race.

Different criteria than in the past, but there may not be much of a change in the participants.

Seemingly disproving yet another round of predictions of his imminent demise, Donald Trump continues to dominate the race for the Republican nomination.

Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee recently kept company with a very disturbing religious leader.

Republicans insist that uttering the words “Radical Islamic Terrorism” is somehow important in the fight against ISIS and other terror networks, but it is entirely unclear what doing so would accomplish.

Syrian refugees have quickly become political footballs in the United States in the wake of the Paris attacks, and it’s become an exceedingly shameful display of pandering and fearmongering by a group of largely Republican politicians.

Last night’s debate in Wisconsin was arguably the most substantive we’ve seen so far between the Republican candidates, and one that displayed quite starkly the policy differences between them.

Candidates who have been excluded from tomorrow’s Fox Business Network are complaining, but their complaints ignore the fact that polling is the best objective criteria we have to determine debate eligibility.

You may not be aware, but your local Starbucks is the new front in the ‘War On Christmas.’

The Supreme Court is diving back into the debate over the PPACA’s birth control coverage mandate.

Why Republicans nominate moderates for president and not other offices.

The debate stages for both the undercard and main debate next Tuesday will look different from what we’ve become used to.

Fluctuations continue, but the Republican Presidential field appears to be sorting itself out as we near the beginning of a new phase of the campaign.

Representatives from most of the Republican Presidential campaigns met to discuss reforms to the debate process, but none of their ideas will actually improve the quality of debates.

Everyone is sick of the current approach. The candidates are looking for a new one.

Several Republican candidates for President want to “fix” the debates, but they wouldn’t like the one thing that would definitely fix them.

The worst-moderated debate thus far may have reordered the field.

One unqualified outsider with a history of saying outrageous things replaces another unqualified outsider with a history of saying outrageous things, at least according to yet another new poll.

Another batch of polls confirms that Donald Trump has fallen from the top in the Hawkeye State.

Two new Iowa polls show Ben Carson passing Donald Trump in the Hawkeye State, but that’s not necessarily good news for Republicans.

Whether they like it or not, it’s becoming quite apparent that Republicans may have to get used to the idea that Donald Trump really could be their nominee next year.

A pair of new polls confirms that Republican hopes that Donald Trump would fade are failing to come true.

After complaints from several campaigns, and threats of a boycott by the men at the top of the field, CNBC and the RNC have agreed to some rule modifications for the upcoming Republican debate.

Donald Trump is threatening to boycott the next Republican debate if there aren’t format changes. The GOP should call his bluff.

Donald Trump and Ben Carson are still the top two candidates in the GOP race, while Chris Christie and John Kasich appear to be in danger of being relegated to the “KIds Table” debate at the end of the month.

While Donald Trump and Ben Carson have slipped somewhat in the polls, they both continue to lead the GOP field while Marco Rubio shows signs of breaking out of the middle of the pack.

Thanks mostly to Republicans unhappy with the Court’s decisions on same-sex marriage and the Affordable Care Act, public disapproval of the Supreme Court is nearing a new high.

The criteria for next month’s third Republican Presidential debate have been announced, and they’re likely to end up being bad news for several Republican candidates.

The next Republican debate is likely to be a lot smaller than the previous two, and that could prove fatal for several candidates.

She’s where she’ belongs.

One week after the second Republican debate, Donald Trump is still at the top of the GOP field, and that doesn’t seem likely to change any time soon.

The first significant national polls taken in the wake of last week’s debate show that Donald Trump has slipped somewhat, but still remains the clear leader of the Republican race for President.

The Republican candidates for President took to the stage last night for a debate that seemed to last forever and accomplished nothing.

To listen to many of the Republican candidates for President, it would appear that the lights have been turned out on Ronald Reagan’s shining city on a hill.