Outside the Beltway

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

It’s now the most hated man in the Senate’s turn in the sun. Can it last?

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.

Notwithstanding the hopes of many Republicans, Donald Trump continues to be the person to beat in the race for the party’s 2016 Presidential nomination.

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’s plan to bar all Muslim immigration to the United States is being widely condemned by his fellow Republicans and others, but the proposal probably won’t hurt him politically in a Republican Party that is deeply bigoted against Muslims in general.

The no-fly list is a flawed, arbitrary mess that has kept innocent people from flying for years. Using it to deny people rights recognized by the Constitution is, quite honestly, insane.

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

Donald Trump’s speech yesterday at a meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition was as bizarre as anything else we’ve seen from him.

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.

Chris Christie has gotten the endorsement of the biggest newspaper in New Hampshire, but it’s not clear that this will have any impact on the race.

Polls are quite useful in the right circumstances, but knowledge, complexity, and timing all have to be taken into account in determining what they are telling us.

The GOP “establishment” isn’t planning to take on Donald Trump directly and instead relying on Republican primary voters to come to their senses. They may be waiting for something that will never happen.

Another poll shows Ted Cruz rising and Ben Carson falls in the Hawkeye State. The only question is who attacks who first, Donald Trump or Ted Cruz?

Nate Silver reminds us all that, even when it comes to Iowa and New Hampshire, it’s much earlier than we think, and that voters are still likely to change their minds.

In the news from the campaign trail and in the polls, there are clear signs that Ben Carson’s days as a top contender in the GOP Presidential race are coming to an end.

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.

John Kasich wants the United States Government to create an agency to spread ‘so-called ‘Judeo-Christian values.’

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.

To a large degree, the narrative you believe will govern the 2016 elections depend on which party you want to see win. But what’s the most likely outcome?

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.

Violence leads to irrational policy responses. Who does that help?

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.

Much more so than in the past, the race for the Republican Presidential race has become a battle to define what it means to be a ‘conservative.’ Especially on issues like immigration and national security, one side seems to be winning the battle.

The initial responses of the Republican candidates for President to the attacks in Paris are about what you’d expect, but it’s far too early to tell what impact the events of the weekend will have on the race for President here in the United States.

A new poll shows that a near majority of Republicans agree with even some of Donald Trump’s most controversial statements on immigration.

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.

Meet Ted Cruz: Religious Bigot

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.

Ben Carson’s campaign now admits that he fabricated a key portion of his biography.

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.

The juxtaposition of two headlines at memeorandum is amusing.

Donald Trump remains the favorite of those likely to vote in New Hampshire’s Republican Primary, but Marco Rubio is starting to inch up in the polls in the Granite State.

Marco Rubio has won the support of a top Republican donor and bundler, giving a much needed boost to his campaign.

Marco Rubio’s performance in this week’s debate is once again leading to speculation about whether is about to have a breakout moment.

As expected, the Senate easily passed the two-year budget deal early this morning.

While it did draw 14 million viewers, last night’s CNBC debate had the smallest audience of any Presidential debate so far. That was probably a good thing for CNBC considering how bad the debate was.

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