by David M. Drucker, Senior Political Correspondent

Voters in swing House districts are fixated on rising inflation and rising gas prices, according to fresh Republican polling, highlighting the difficult political challenges confronting Democrats ahead of midterm elections.

In polling commissioned for former Vice President Mike Pence’s political nonprofit group, 25% of registered voters in four battleground House districts cited “inflation and rising gas prices” as the issues they are most concerned about. Another 12% said their top priority was the “economy and jobs.” With President Joe Biden struggling to connect with voters on these issues, the Democrats’ five-seat House majority is increasingly in jeopardy — as is their slim Senate majority.

Pence’s group, Advancing American Freedom, is in the middle of a $10 million campaign to boost Republican prospects in the midterm elections as the former vice president mulls a 2024 presidential bid. As a part of that investment, Advancing American Freedom hired veteran Republican pollster Dave Sackett to survey voters in four swing House districts to gain a broader understanding of the issues driving the electorate. As suggested in national polling, the economy, specifically inflation, is king.

Sackett, from the Tarrance Group, examined voter attitudes in Iowa’s Des Moines-anchored 3rd Congressional District; eastern Kansas’s 3rd Congressional District, dominated by the Kansas City suburbs; Minnesota’s St. Paul-anchored 2nd Congressional District; and northeastern Pennsylvania’s Scranton-anchored 8th Congressional District. The sample size was 400, with 100 coming from each district, and the margin of error was plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.

There was one bright spot for Democrats in the data. After inflation and rising gas prices, the issue most concerning to voters (20%) was the Supreme Court and a pending decision that could overturn Roe v. Wade, eliminating federal protection for abortion rights. Coming in third on voters’ priority list, at 14%, was climate change and the environment. But overall, the polling pointed to more advantages for the Republicans.

Among the survey’s key findings:

• Twenty-five percent of voters hold Biden “most” responsible for inflation and rising gas prices; another 12% blame Democrats in Congress. Twenty-one percent blame oil companies; 14% blame Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
• Among independents, 32% hold Biden or Democrats in Congress “most” responsible for inflation and rising gas prices.
• Among voters aged 45 and older, 30% blame Biden “most” for inflation and rising gas prices.
• Sixty percent of voters believe the Biden administration is not doing enough to increase domestic energy production.
• Fifty-nine percent of voters favor expediting construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, a project Biden has delayed indefinitely because of climate change concerns.
• Fifty-six percent of voters support the federal government granting energy companies new leases to drill for oil and gas on federal lands. The administration has moved slowly on granting new leases, also because of climate change concerns.

Accelerated activity by Advancing American Freedom is another sign that Pence is gearing up for a 2024 presidential run, although no decisions have been made.

The former vice president, who is traveling prodigiously to support GOP candidates on the 2022 ballot, has made several trips to key early primary states such as Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. Pence was recently in Georgia to support Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who held off a primary challenge from former Sen. David Perdue, who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump.

Pence is making it known that his decision on whether to seek the White House in 2024 is not predicated on Trump’s plans. In a March interview with the Washington Examiner, the former president said he was disinclined to pick Pence as his running mate should he run for president a third time and win the GOP nomination. Pence’s inner circle has made it clear that the feeling is mutual.

In comments Pence posted on Twitter just after Kemp’s victory over Perdue, the former vice president took a veiled shot at Trump and his focus on the last election. Trump continues to insist that the 2020 election was stolen and has made that issue both the centerpiece of his messaging and a priority when considering candidate endorsements.

“Republicans can only win by offering real, lasting solutions to the problems Democrats have created for the American people,” Pence tweeted. “If Republicans come together and focus on the future, we won’t just win the next election, we will win a future of freedom for all the American people.”

This article was published on WashingtonExaminer.com.

I’m old enough to remember when liberals accused big business of consistently being on the side of Republicans. But in 2022 the woke left is poised to conquer corporate America and has set in motion a strategy to enforce their radical environmental and social agenda on publicly traded corporations.A sudden abundance of liberal shareholders isn’t what’s driving this new trend of woke capitalism, and it certainly isn’t a reflection of consumer demand. Rather, the shift is entirely manufactured by a handful of very large and powerful Wall Street financiers promoting left-wing environmental, social and governance goals (ESG), and ignoring the interests of businesses and their employees.

Read the full article on WSJ.com.

According to State Department spokesperson Ned Price, building Jewish homes in the West Bank was “completely inconsistent with efforts to lower tensions and to ensure calm, and it damages the prospects for a two-state solution” between Israel and the Palestinians.
The Biden administration also made it clear that Israel was aware of its view that Jerusalem should “refrain from actions that could be seen as ‘provocative’ and undermine efforts to achieve” peace.

Pence’s 501(c)(4), Advancing American Freedom, has submitted a FOIA request demanding records that “would likely contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations or activities of the government.”

“[T] he government activity at issue is the State Department’s establishment of a geopolitical policy position, and the consequent conveyance of said policy to Israel, a highly relevant and highly important geopolitical ally. Disclosure of the requested records is in the public interest because it is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of the government activity at issue,” Paul Teller, AAF’s executive director, wrote in the request.

The request calls for the transfer of all records informing the State Department’s definition of Israeli actions which would be deemed “provocative,” or that may damage a future peace settlement.

AAF’s stated mission includes “defending the successful policies of previous years that yielded unprecedented prosperity at home and restored America’s strength abroad, while elevating traditional American values.”

The group’s Freedom Agenda, released earlier this year, calls for “stand with Israel… help[ing] achieve peace, prosperity, and a brighter future for Israel and the Palestinian people.”

There are approximately half a million Jewish Israelis living in nearly 300 settlements in what is known as Area C of the West Bank.

Under the Trump administration, the U.S. said it no longer views Israeli settlements as a violation of international law – breaking with decades of U.S. policy. Former Secretary of State also conceded that the West Bank, known also by its biblical name of Judea and Samaria, was the “rightful homeland for the people of Israel.”

The State Department under Trump ceased using the nomenclature “Israel and The Occupied Territories” and instead began referring to the region as “Israel, Golan Heights, West Bank, and Gaza.”

Other than shunning the term “Occupied Territories,” (instead, recognizing them as “disputed,”) the strategically placed comma after the West Bank and Gaza separates the two areas and thus allows for more than one solution to the conflict.

Lumping them as one entity, as was the case before and as is still the case with the E.U. and the U.N., does not allow for any distinction between the Palestinian Authority-ruled West Bank, which has officially recognized Israel, and the Gaza Strip, ruled by the Hamas terror group, which does not recognize Israel and has vowed its destruction.

The Trump administration cut aid to the Palestinians over its boycott of the U.S. as well as its so-called pay-for-slay scheme, paying salaries to Palestinian terrorists and their families. One of the first moves that the Biden administration did was to resume aid in a bid to restore what it called “credible engagement” with the Palestinians and work towards resurrecting the long-dead two-state solution.

This article was published on BreitBart.com.

The non-profit organization founded by former Vice President Mike Pence, Advancing American Freedom (AAF), launched on Wednesday a Spanish-language commercial that is part of its advertising campaign in favor of U.S. energy independence.

In the ad, a Venezuelan-American citizen recounts her experience fleeing Nicolás Maduro’s dictatorship in Venezuela and resents that President Biden is now turning to “blood-stained” Venezuelan oil to supply demand in the United States.

“Oil in Venezuela is stained with blood, but Joe Biden wants America to depend on it,” the spot says. “We don’t need a radical environmental agenda, America needs energy independence.”

The ad is a call to Americans to demand that Congress stop supporting “freedom-hating dictators” and promote energy production in the United States.

It is the fourth installment of a $10 million ad campaign the AAF team launched in March that it is promoting domestic energy production as a method of addressing inflation in the U.S. ahead of the November midterms.

Former Vice President Mike Pence’s political action group has released a new national ad in Spanish, a sign that the Republican Party is continuing to ramp up its early outreach to Latino voters on a variety of issues.

The ad will run nationwide on Telemundo but is also targeted on cable and broadcast in the Las Vegas media market, hitting three competitive House seats held by Democrats (Representatives Susie Lee, Steven Horsford and Dina Titus).

It’s the fourth phase of a $10 million ad buy from Pence’s group, Advancing American Freedom, that targets vulnerable congressional Democrats on energy policy.

The latest ad, a six-figure buy, features a woman who fled Venezuela and criticizes the Biden administration for sending officials to Venezuela, a heavy oil-producing country that hasn’t had formal diplomatic relations with the U.S. since 2019.

“We don’t need that radical, environmental agenda. America needs energy independence. Tell Congress to support American energy production, not dictators who hate freedom,” Alessandra Torres, a Florida resident, says in the ad.

Pence, a potential 2024 Republican presidential candidate, is building on early Republican outreach to Latino voters, as the party tries to grow its support in this voting bloc in a political climate that currently favors the GOP. Democrats hold slim majorities in Washington as the economy continues to struggle with inflation and high gas prices.

“It’s time to demonstrate American leadership and unlock American opportunity by supporting American energy production that will lower prices at the pump and provide much needed financial relief to the nation,” Pence said in a statement.

Marc Short, Pence’s former chief of staff, told CBS News in April that the former vice president would be doing a lot of travel for House races ahead of the 2022 November elections.

Republican Senator Rick Scott of Florida, chair of the Senate GOP campaign arm and another potential 2024 Republican presidential candidate, launched a multi-million dollar initiative in April to organize and target Latino voters. The National Republican Senatorial Committee has also run four T.V. and radio ads in Spanish this midterm election cycle. A conservative Spanish-language national radio show also launched on Sirius XM in March, the first of its kind.

A March CBS News poll found that inflation and economy were the highest-ranking issues for Latino voters.

EXCLUSIVE: Former Vice President Mike Pence calls President Biden’s “MAGA crowd” extremism charge a “desperate” deflection by the administration “grasping for straws” due to its tanking approval rating.

Biden labeled MAGA as the “most extreme” political organization in recent U.S. history on Wednesday, in reaction to a leaked draft Supreme Court opinion overturning landmark abortion case Roe v. Wade, and support by Republicans for the end of federal protections for abortion and returning that power to states.

“What are the next things that are going to be attacked?” Biden asked. “Because this MAGA crowd is really the most extreme political organization that’s existed in American history—-in recent American history.”

“With all due respect, President Biden sounds desperate. It sounds like the rhetoric of an administration grasping for straws,” Pence told Fox News Digital during an exclusive interview Saturday ahead of his commencement speech at Patrick Henry College in Virginia.

“I mean, look, the president’s approval rating speaks for itself. He is exploring of the bowels of American approval numbers in modern history. And it’s because the American people see the failed policies of this administration at home and abroad,” Pence continued.

Last month, Biden’s approval rating tumbled to the lowest point of his presidency, with just 33% of Americans approving of his job performance.

“And I think there’s no amount of, you know, any effort by this administration to demean the 74 million people that supported this [MAGA] movement. And millions of Americans who know our economy can be strong, our borders can be secure, and that that America can be respected on the world stage and our values can be respected in our courts, [values] that they love.”

Pence said that Biden’s dig at MAGA will likely have the opposite effect that he may have anticipated.

“That kind of rhetoric [by Biden] will only serve to motivate people that share our values and our vision for the country to turn out to vote,” said the former vice president.

Pence told Fox News Digital Saturday that Biden’s remarks were likely an attempt to distract from his “failed policies” over the last year as the country approaches midterm elections in November.

“I honestly believe that there is no more important issue in the life of the nation than the sanctity of life,” Pence said. “And so for me, that’s that’s where this debate lies,” Pence said.”Now with regard to its impact on elections, I must tell you that, look, the failed policies of the Biden administration are almost too many to recount. The disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, the emboldening of the enemies of freedom around the world. The inflation at a 40-year high, the worst border crisis in history, a crime wave in our cities. All are a testament to the failed left-wing policies of the Biden administration.”

“And I fully expect that voters are going to carry their strong feelings about that into the voting booth.”

Biden’s comments digging at MAGA last week came after former President Trump, Pence and other former administration officials lauded the draft opinion, calling it a win for the sanctity of life.

“MAGA is saving America,” Trump told Fox News Digital on Thursday in response to Biden’s remarks. “Our country is going to hell. MAGA is saving America.”

This article was published by FoxNews.com.