2014 Elections

Here are eight reasons why Denver Post reporter Kurtis Lee's blog post, quoting Rep. Mike Coffman about personhood and abortion-for-rape-and-incest, was newsworthy and should not have been deleted from The Post's website. Prime among them: it was news!

Democratic worries about this November's elections, a lack of Senate votes and House opposition are forcing congressional gun-control supporters to significantly winnow their 2014 agenda, a year after lawmakers scuttled President Barack Obama's effort to pass new curbs on firearms. But with Reid wary of exposing Democratic senators facing tight re-election contests in some conservative and Western states to politically risky votes people aren't holding their breath waiting for proposed gun restrictions to reach the Senate floor before Election Day.

Midterm races are approaching, and tax returns continue to yield telling tidbits from the 2012 election. In their campaign finance reporting, ProPublica's Kim Barker and Theo Meyer look for ways to help Americans understand the effects of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United ruling on political spending.

Former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown is "testing the waters" for a run at one of New Hampshire's senate seat, but the campaign was stuck treading water at a recent stop on his Listening Tour. Watch the video after the jump for a hilariously awkward 57 seconds of political theater.

Vermont's first campaign finance reporting deadline has come and gone. And the big news — just about the only news of significance — is the size of Governor Shumlin's war chest: $1.7 million. While the majority of that money is leftover from his last breezy re-election, some of those moneys are from out-of-state donations.

Alabama's voter ID law gets its first test when primary voters go to the polls on June 3rd. Every voter will be required to present one form of state-mandated photo ID, so the effort is on to make sure every would-be voter has the proper identification. Residents are eligible to get a free non-driver's ID from the Department of Public safety or a free photo voter ID card from the state.

A GOP candidate for Colorado's governorship has called his would-be opponent, John Hickenlooper, "the most extreme governor in our state's history." Never mind that former Gov. Clarence Morely was handpicked by the KKK, eventually convicted of fraud and then sent to federal prison during the 1920s. Good thing most of the candidates are giving away AK-47s with each donation.

The headline grabber in the recent non-partisan Bluegrass Poll was Alison Grimes’ four percentage point lead over the Senate minority leader and five-term incumbent. Even so, the story had what we old reporters called a “hidden lead” buried in it: Grimes, Kentucky’s secretary of state, has a 12 point edge over McConnell, among women surveyed. And women make up 53 percent of registered voters in the state.

The stats from Wendy's report are impressive: 85 percent of her 84,704 individual donations were under $50, as over 71,843 people supported her campaign. She has donors from all 254 counties in Texas, and in-state money makes up 70 percent of her haul. Burnt Orange Report reacts to this news...in GIF form.

The longstanding "honored tradition" in the Texas Senate known as the two-thirds rule will be nothing more than a memory in the event that any of the four Republicans running for Lieutenant Governor take charge of the chamber in 2015. Last summer, the lack of the two-thirds rule in the Senate was the only way sweeping anti-choice legislation was able to pass at all during a couple special called sessions — which don't require the two-thirds rule.