House races

The Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC working to elect Republicans to the House, is out with its first ads of the 2014 cycle, targeting Reps. Joe Garcia (D-Fla.) and Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) for the lack of a balanced budget in Washington.

Mark Sanford’s lone remaining opponent for the Republican nomination in a special House election Thursday won the endorsement of the race’s sixth-place finisher.

But two days after Sanford lapped the field in the first round of the GOP primary, there’s not yet any organized effort by other failed candidates to rally against the former governor.

Former South Carolina state Sen. John Kuhn told The Hill he planned to endorse attorney Curtis Bostic in the April 2 runoff election against Sanford for the GOP nomination.

Kuhn, who finished sixth in a field of 16 contenders, said he’d work hard to help Bostic win.

“I think that Curtis Bostic is a great guy. He's honest, he's honorable and he's hard-working, a strict constitutionalist. I got to know him on the campaign trail and like him a lot," Kuhn said. "I'm definitely throwing my support behind Curtis Bostic.

“I will not back Sanford under any circumstances including in the general [election]. That doesn't mean I'd vote for the Democrat either, but I would not back Sanford under any circumstance. I think he's lied too many times to the public of South Carolina.”

As Democrats work to make Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wis.) budget the centerpiece of their 2014 offense, two top Democratic targets sought to inoculate themselves from the attack by voting against the bill on Thursday.

South Carolina state Sen. Larry Grooms has officially conceded he doesn't have the votes to catch attorney Curtis Bostic, clearing the way for Bostic to face former Gov. Mark Sanford in a Republican runoff election for the state's 1st congressional district. Read more...

While supporters applaud his determination to rehabilitate his image, many Republican activists say his candidacy is a gift to Democrats.

All seven Democratic House members who are top Republican targets for 2014 voted against their party's Senate budget on Wednesday.

Though House Democrats were instructed to vote for the Senate Democratic budget, 35 in total defected.

The National Republican Congressional Committee announced earlier this year that Reps. Ann Kirkpatrick and Ron Barber of Arizona, John Barrow of Georgia, Colin Peterson of Minnesota, Mike McIntyre of North Carolina, Jim Matheson of Utah and Nick Rahall of West Virginia are all top pickup opportunities for Republicans in 2014.

All seven of those districts lean Republican, and went to GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney last cycle. 

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Israel, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said he hasn't phoned Clinton yet, but he's itching to.

The South Carolina special election was the former governor's first since a scandal involving an affair with an Argentine woman.

It's official: Elizabeth Colbert Busch is the Democratic nominee for South Carolina's open House seat.

The House on Tuesday approved a resolution that dismissed what appears to be an arbitrary and capricious challenge to the 2012 election of Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) to Congress.

Cuellar's challenger, Republican William Hayward, lost handily to Cuellar last November in a 68-30 rout.