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Cruz wins in Maine, Kansas, but Trump scores in the South
Hillary Clinton carries Democratic primary in Louisiana
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
BATON ROUGE (CFP) — U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas bolstered his argument that he should be considered the alternative to Donald Trump in the GOP presidential race by scoring clear victories in Kansas and Maine.
However, Trump held on in the two Southern contests held on March 5, narrowly beating Cruz in a primary in Louisiana and a caucus in Kentucky.
Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton, as expected, won going away in Louisiana, a state with a large African-American population. Democrats did not vote in Kentucky.
The biggest loser of the night was U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, who finished third in Kansas, Kentucky and Louisiana and scraped in dead last in Maine, where he was shut out of the delegate count.
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz
Speaking to supporters in Boise, Idaho, Cruz hailed the results as “a very good day.”
“We’re seeing Republicans coming together. We’re seeing conservatives coming together,” he said. Cruz told reporters that the GOP field needs to continue to narrow in order to defeat Trump.
But Rubio, speaking at a rally in Jacksonville, Florida before the results began rolling in, showed no signs he was going anywhere, noting that he had successfully battled long odds to win a Senate seat in 2010.
“If you watch the press, they say he’s an underdog. He’s taking on an incredible task,” Rubio said, referring to himself. “Let me tell you something–America is country of underdogs.”
In Louisiana, Trump took 42 percent of the vote to 38 percent for Cruz. In Kentucky, Trump won 36 percent to Cruz’s 31 percent.
Among Democrats, Clinton won 71 percent to 24 percent for Bernie Sanders.
The next Southern stops in the presidential race are:
◾Tuesday, March 8: Mississippi (primary)
◾Tuesday, March 15: Florida (primary); North Carolina (primary)
◾Tuesday, May 19: West Virginia (primary)
U.S. Senator Rand Paul drops out of presidential race to concentrate on Senate re-election
Paul’s decision comes two days after he finished fifth in the Iowa GOP caucus
LOUISVILLE (CFP) — U.S. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky has ended his quest for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination and will now concentrate on winning a second term in the Senate.
U.S. Senator Rand Paul
“Today, I end where I began, ready and willing to fight for the cause of liberty,” Paul said in a statement announcing his departure. “Brushfires of liberty were ignited, and those will carry on, as will I.”
Paul’s decision came just two days after he finished in fifth place in the Iowa presidential caucus, winning just 4.5 percent of the vote. He will now turn to his re-election race in Kentucky, which he was pursuing simultaneously with his presidential bid.
Paul, 53, ran a campaign appealing to the GOP’s libertarian wing, differing from many of his competitors by calling for less international intervention and opposing counterterrorism surveillance programs that he believed threatened civil liberties.
Considered a potential frontrunner early in the campaign, Paul’s campaign failed to catch fire and became mired in single digits in national polls.
The Kentucky GOP changed its presidential nominating contest to a caucus to facilitate Paul’s political double-dipping. But he had been under increasing pressure from within his party to abandon his floundering White House quest and focus on the Senate race, which intensified after he drew a high-profile Democratic challenger, Lexington Mayor Jim Gray.
Paul, an eye surgeon from Bowling Green, won election to the Senate in 2010 with Tea Party support. He is the son of former U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, who made three unsuccessful tries for the White House.
Paul’s departure leaves three Southern Republicans in the presidential race — U.S. senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush,
U.S. Senator Rand Paul gets well-heeled challenger in Kentucky
Lexington Mayor Jim Gray’s entry into race may increase pressure on Paul to drop presidential bid
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
FRANKFORT, Kentucky (CFP) — As he battles to keep his presidential hopes alive, U.S. Senator Rand Paul has drawn a high-profile, independently wealthy Democratic challenger in his Senate re-election challenge back home in Kentucky.
Lexington Mayor Jim Gray
Lexington Mayor Jim Gray, chairman of his family’s international construction company, announced January 26 that he would challenge Paul, a first-term Republican who is simultaneously seeking the GOP presidential nomination and re-election to the Senate.
“Washington offers dysfunction and gridlock, and Senator Paul confuses talking with getting results,” Gray said in a video announcing his campaign. “He offers ideas that will weaken our country at home and abroad, and he puts himself and his own ambitions above Kentucky.
In 2014, Gray, 62, was elected to his second term as mayor of Lexington, the commonwealth’s second-largest city. He is one of seven Democrats who filed to run against Paul and–given his political profile and ability to self-fund his campaign–is the prohibitive favorite to be Paul’s opponent in November.
However, Gray is also openly gay, a probable complication in a state where Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis became a cause celebre after she want to jail last year for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Democrats have not won a Senate race in Kentucky since 1992. But Paul’s decision to run for two offices at once has put the Bluegrass State on the Democrats’ radar.
U.S. Senator Rand Paul
While the Kentucky GOP changed its presidential nominating contest to a caucus to facilitate Paul’s political double-dipping, he has been under increasing pressure from within his party to abandon his White House quest and focus on the Senate race–pressure that is likely to intensify now that he has a potentially formidable Democratic challenger.
The latest national polls in the Republican presidential contest show Paul mired in single digits.
Paul, 53, an eye surgeon from Bowling Green, won election to the Senate in 2010 with Tea Party support, besting a candidate backed by Kentucky’s Republican establishment. He is the son of former U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, who made three unsuccessful tries for the White House.
Republican Matt Bevin wins Kentucky governor’s race
Bevin’s victory over Attorney General Jack Conway is another takeaway for the GOP in the South
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
LOUISVILLE (CFP) — Just a year after losing a bruising primary battle against U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Louisville businessman and Tea Party favorite Matt Bevin has won the Kentucky governorship, taking away one of the Democrats’ three remaining governor’s seats in the South.
Kentucky Governor-elect Matt Bevin
Unofficial results from the Secretary of State’s office showed Bevin with 53 percent to 44 percent for Democratic Attorney General Jack Conway in the November 3 vote.
The win marks a remarkable feat for Bevin, 48, who jumped into the race right before the filing deadline, won the Republican primary by less than 100 votes and trailed Conway in the polls throughout the general election.
“What an extraordinary night this is,” Bevin told cheering supporters in Louisville. “This is a chance for a fresh start, it truly is, and we desperately need it.”
Bevin also issued a call for unity, saying, “We are one Kentucky–black, white, rural, urban, at both ends of the socio-economic spectrum.”
A turning point in the race may have come in September, when Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis was jailed for refusing to issue marriage licenses for same-sex couples on religious grounds.
Bevin embraced Davis’s fight, meeting with her and calling on Democratic Governor Steve Beshear to issue an executive order relieving Davis of the responsibility for signing marriage licenses.
Republicans had a good night across the board in the Bluegrass State, taking five of the seven statewide constitutional offices, with the attorney general’s race too close to call. The only outright Democratic winner was Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, who also challenged McConnell unsuccessfully in 2014.
Bevin’s running mate for lieutenant governor, Jenean Hampton, a Tea Party activist and former Air Force captain, is the first African-American ever elected to statewide office in Kentucky.
Although the commonwealth has become reliably Republican at the federal level, Bevin is just the second Republican in the last 44 years to be elected governor. Beshear was term limited.
With the GOP’s takeaway in Kentucky, Democrats hold governorships in only two of the 14 Southern states, Virginia and West Virginia, with a race in Louisiana to be decided in a November 21 runoff between Democratic State Rep. John Bel Edwards and Republican U.S. Senator David Vitter.
On The Trail: Rand Paul pitches smaller government, constitutional rights at New Hampshire event
Kentucky senator says labeling genetically modified foods would be overregulation
♦By Patrick Scanlan, Chickenfriedpolitics.com contributor
SALEM, New Hampshire (CFP) — Before an enthusiastic crowd of about 75 voters, U.S. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky took his GOP presidential campaign to the first-in-the-nation primary state of New Hampshire, offering up his critique of a government that he says has become too large, spends too much money and is too oppressive toward its citizens.
In a September 25 town hall event organized by the Greater Salem Chamber of Commerce, Paul expressed his wish that “our government should be minding their own business more,” citing examples of NSA spying, welfare programs, and Planned Parenthood funding.
Rand Paul in Salem, New Hampshire
He did not, however, place the blame solely on Democrats, saying these problems aren’t solely the fault of one party. He said the first priority of the national government should be defense, while most other programs, especially social programs, should be left up to state governments to design and implement.
Paul also said the Republican Party can attract younger voters by advocating strict protection of constitutional guarantees in the Bill of Rights. In that regard, he highlighted his support for the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, touching on another issue important to conservative voters.
Paul also answered questions from attendees at the event, who hailed from New Hampshire as well as neighboring Massachusetts.
One question concerned dealing with undocumented immigrants, to which Paul responded by saying that “immigrants who came to the U.S. are by and large good people, but we must secure the border.”
A woman representing group supporting labeling of genetically modified foods asked Paul how he would vote on current legislation imposing such labeling, an issue important to many New Hampshire residents who are part of local and sustainable food movements. He responded that if the movement is popular, then labeling should be left up to the marketplace because he views this, and other similar issues, as overregulation.
When asked about Iran, Paul reiterated that negotiations and open communication are essential to maintaining an effective relationship with Iran. He said that sanctions have gone a long way to pushing Iran in the right direction, but he still does not trust the Tehran regime.
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