Senate

In a major upset, Sen. Lisa Murkowski conceded her GOP Senate primary race Tuesday night to Tea Party Express favorite Joe Miller.

Miller, a Fairbanks attorney, led by 1,630 votes after more than 15,000 absentee ballots were counted late Tuesday, a week after the election.

"I don't see a scenario in which the primary will turn out in my favor," Murkowski said in her concession speech...

Tallahassee, FL (LifeNews.com) -- Florida voters backed pro-life candidates for Senate and governor on Tuesday night and set up battles pitting pro-life and pro-abortion candidates against each other. In the gubernatorial race, pro-life Republican candidate Rick Scott defeated Attorney General Bill McCollum.

And in the Senate race, pro-life former House Speaker Marco Rubio is now preparing to take on pro-abortion Gov. Charlie Crist and pro-abortion Rep. Kendrick Meek.

Scott took 47 percent of the vote to 43 for McCollum in the Republican gubernatorial primary...

A decorated Gulf War veteran was holding a narrow lead over Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the Alaska Republican Senate primary, as ballots continued to be counted Wednesday in what could shape up to be a stunning political upset.

Polls taken before primary day had shown Murkowski, a two-term senator from an Alaska political dynasty, leading handily against the first-time candidate. But challenger Joe Miller insisted all along that the state's polling was unreliable -- as of Wednesday morning, Miller held a 2,000-vote lead.

With 98 percent of precincts reporting, he had 51 percent and Murkowski had 49 percent. The number of uncounted absentee ballots, though, exceeded the number of votes separating the candidates...

Sen. John McCain fended off Republican challenger J.D. Hayworth in the Arizona Senate primary Tuesday, virtually assuring he'll keep his seat in November despite signs earlier in the year that an anti-Washington wave could wipe out one of Capitol Hill's most influential leaders.

Hayworth at one point in the campaign seemed poised to leverage Tea Party support and give McCain a run for his political life. Outsider challenges had already led to the primary defeats for Republican Utah Sen. Bob Bennett and Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, and McCain was potentially vulnerable nearly two years after losing the 2008 presidential election to Barack Obama.

But Hayworth struggled to build his anti-establishment credentials and seriously erode McCain's popularity in the polls. Though Hayworth slammed McCain for voting for the Wall Street bailout and allegedly being soft on illegal immigration, McCain worked hard to show he was tough on border security...

A grand jury on Friday indicted U.S. Senate candidate Alvin Greene on two charges, including a a felony charge of showing pornography to a South Carolina college student.

Greene was indicted for disseminating, procuring or promoting obscenity, a felony and a misdemeanor charge of communicating obscene materials to a person without consent.

Greene told FoxNews.com that "my lawyer's dealing with it" before hanging up. When reached again by phone and asked who his lawyer is, Greene said, "It doesn't matter"...

The Senate will take a brief break from its summer recess Thursday and go back into session to pass a $600 million border security bill, a spokesman for Majority Leader Harry Reid said Wednesday.

Democrats and Republicans agreed to convene the unusual special session to approve the border bill that passed the House on Tuesday, as well as approve a resolution on the death of former Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), spokesman Jim Manley said.

“This will be an extremely short session as we will just be doing these two items,” Manley said...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- President Barack Obama hit new lows today in his approval ratings measured by the Rasmussen Reports polling firm. The new low ratings follow closely on the heels of the Senate approving his pro-abortion nominee for the Supreme Court, Elena Kagan.

Obama's total approval rating now stands at 43 percent with 24 percent of Americans saying they strongly approve of the job Obama is now doing.

That stands in contrast with the 56 percent of Americans who disapprove of Obama's track record in the White House and a new high of 46 percent who strongly disapprove...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A new analysis from the Gallup polling organization provides more good news for pro-life advocates heading into the 2010 elections. Its review of presidential approval ratings just before midterm congressional elections finds presidents like Barack Obama with lower ratings see their party lose seats.

If that is any indication of the potential November results this year, the pro-life movement can expect to see a slew of pro-abortion members of the House and Senate lose their seats.

"Presidents who retain majority job approval from Americans at the time of midterm elections are much less likely to see their party suffer heavy seat losses than are those with sub-50% approval ratings," Gallup finds in its analysis today. "Since 1946, when presidents are above 50% approval, their party loses an average of 14 seats in the U.S. House in the midterm elections, compared with an average loss of 36 seats when presidents are below that mark"...

While Washington is obsessing over what the results of Missouri’s anti-health care reform ballot initiative mean for President Barack Obama, the state’s political insiders are debating whether it’s Democratic Senate nominee Robin Carnahan who needs to be worried.

A staggering 71 percent of Show-Me state primary voters cast ballots Tuesday opposing the new federal health care law — a symbolic yet resounding message that places Carnahan on the opposite side of a supermajority of the electorate.

The overwhelming vote in favor of Proposition C, a measure crafted to reject a portion of the law that requires most people to carry health insurance by 2014 or pay a fine, is the first tangible demonstration of how unpopular the president’s signature achievement remains in the Midwestern state...

LOS ANGELES | Nevada U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle sees her campaign as a battle to stop Washington's Democrats who want to expand entitlement programs and "make government our God."

In an interview with a Christian radio network, Mrs. Angle describes her effort to oust Majority Leader Harry Reid as a religious calling in "a war of ideology, it's a war of thoughts and of faith."

Mr. Reid, President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have pushed "entitlement programs built to make government our God," says Mrs. Angle, who has called for privatizing Social Security and Medicare for younger workers...