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As is usually the case in the months leading up to presidential primaries, national focus has centered around polling in early primary states to determine which candidates are soaring and which are tanking. Crowdpac took a poll of a different sort - one that measures which states are doling out the most campaign money to the 2016 hopefuls. Here’s what we found: One thing is clear, the home field advantage is real. Jeb Bush has cleared a whopping $35 million from his home state of Florida, where

Update: On October 29, the Commission on Presidential Debates released its criteria for the 2016 fall debates. It maintains its 15% polling threshold for candidate inclusion. What polling agencies the Commission will use are still unknown. Senator Jim Webb, one of the five candidates in the first Democratic primary debate, dropped out of the race for president, but left the door open for a run as an independent. Here's what he said: "Poll after poll shows that a strong plurality of Americans i

The House Freedom Caucus. Chances are if there is a story about gridlock in the U.S. House over budgetary issues or the intra-party conflict within the GOP over who will replace outgoing U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, this name will appear at least once. Pew Research reports that the House Freedom Caucus is composed of at least 36 of the most conservative members of the House. The caucus is likely a little larger than this, but 36 is the number Pew was able to confirm. Chances are if a lawma

The House Freedom Caucus ensured that Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) would have the support to secure the position of Speaker of the House next week following a vote on Wednesday night. However, while Ryan did receive two-thirds of the vote, he did not receive the 80 percent required for an endorsement, and the group stated that it would not accept all of his terms for Speaker. After the meeting, Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) said, “We are not meeting all his demands, but if he wants to be speaker, he ha

Earlier this year, now-presidential candidate Bernie Sanders proposed a bill to spend $1 trillion over a five-year period in order to "rebuild America’s crumbling network of roads, bridges and transit systems." Yet his refrain about the need to repair the nation's "crumbling infrastructure" invites the basic question, just how bad is America's infrastructure? The most comprehensive and authoritative diagnosis comes from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). Its 2013 report card assess

Much effort has been put into making the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal into the largest trade agreement in the history of the United States. It is that expansiveness and the president’s imprint of the rule-making process that has some Republicans calling it “Obamatrade.” Ironically, it did not begin with Obama nor did it even originate in the U.S; rather it began with three much smaller Pacific nations -- Brunei, New Zealand, and Singapore -- and rapidly expanded to nine more countries.

Last week, California Republican Kevin McCarthy abruptly scratched himself from the list of Republican members of Congress seeking the Speaker of the House position. McCarthy, widely hailed as a more moderate Republican (we gave him a Crowdpac score of 5.2), was the clear favorite to replace Ohio Republican and current Speaker of the House, John Boehner. Now that he’s out of the way, winning the Speaker’s position is any man’s game.So, who else is vying for this now wide open position?Nearly hal

Over the weekend, Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz accused U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of holding a fundraiser in a home with Nazi paraphernalia. While such items are in the home of real estate developer Harlan Crow, so are historical documents connected to Winston Churchill, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln. However, the reference to Rubio and Nazis is actually part of a troubling, but little reported foreign policy position for the Republican senator and severa

The lawsuit that Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas filed against five makers of opioid painkillers was recently dismissed. This case is a great example of why local governments should not partner with private attorneys to sue businesses. We give governmental prosecutors great power because they can lock people up and because they represent us, the people. However, we also expect them to have a higher ethical duty – to try to be just and fair. Private attorneys have a different dut

The federal government is now two weeks away from experiencing the second government shutdown in two years if it does not pass a continuing resolution (CR) by October 1. In 2013, the cause of the government shutdown was a tussle between the Republican-led House and the Democrat-controlled Senate over funding for the Affordable Care Act. This time, the debate is between Republicans in the House over whether to deprive Planned Parenthood of $500 million in federal funds. President Obama has sai