Other races

A deeply religious Republican, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach says Rick Santorum and Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins have it all wrong.

Its fake Valentine's Day cards jab at Dennis Kucinich for being short and mock Obama and Biden, among others.

Research released Tuesday shows the country is spending more on voter registration while getting worse results than other nations.

A brief altercation broke out when protesters entered the conference and blocked a TV showing Romney's speech

EMILY's List has doubled its membership since John Boehner (R-Ohio) took over as House Speaker, the organization’s president said Thursday.

Stephanie Schriock said her group, a political action committee that supports female Democrats who favor abortion rights, has topped 1 million members in its quest to put an unprecedented number of women into office in 2012.

And it’s on track to raise more money this cycle than in any previous cycle, Schriock noted, although she wouldn’t give an exact figure. The group raised almost $39 million in the last cycle.

"When women vote, Democrats win," she told reporters. "It's not just that their views are better or worse. They're just different, and we need that."

Coming off a Tuesday victory in a special House race in Oregon, where EMILY's List-backed Democrat Suzanne Bonamici delivered a double-digit defeat to her GOP opponent, the PAC said it has endorsed 11 Senate and 17 House candidates for 2012, with more on the way.

The map of races where EMILY's List is getting involved closely mirrors the map of states that handed a victory to President Obama in 2008: the West Coast, Midwestern states surrounding Illinois, Florida, Hawaii and a few Northeastern states.

The United States has made major advancements in the past two years in offering access to ballot and voting to members of the military serving overseas, according to a study released Friday by the Pew Center on the States.

To comply with the passage of the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) Act in 2009, 47 states plus the District of Columbia have enacted laws to ensure members of the military and citizens overseas have enough time to vote absentee, and have access to the blank ballots they need to be able to vote.

"Everyone assumes that military men and women, since they're being sent around the world by our government, surely our government is making sure they can vote. But that just has not historically been the case," said retired Rear Adm. James Carey, who has been working with Pew on the issue.

The Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act, which both enjoy bipartisan support, are reeling against a strong backlash.

An omnibus spending bill that easily passed the House on Friday with bipartisan support gave conservative Republicans — and some liberal Democrats — an opportunity to vote "no," taking an oppositional stand they can use to their advantage on the campaign trail.

Republicans are dismissing Democratic claims that the pendulum in Arizona is swinging to their side.

Usually a state written off by Democrats in statewide and presidential races, Arizona is now at the top of a short list of traditionally red states where Democrats believe they stand a chance to expand their map.

All statewide partisan offices are held by the GOP in Arizona, and President Obama lost there in 2008. But Democrats point to the fact that Arizona Sen. John McCain (R) won't be on the ballot opposite Obama next year. They're also placing big hopes in Richard Carmona, their popular, independent-minded recruit in the race to replace retiring Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.).

And Democrats say their prospects will be buoyed by a growing Hispanic population and voter resistance to GOP-led efforts to crack down on immigration. McCain told CNN on Sunday that his home state and other southwest states "can be up for grabs" in upcoming elections due to demographic changes.

But the Republican National Committee isn't having any of it.

"Team Obama may spin they are on offense, but some advice for them would be to double down on defense or the president will have plenty of time to vacation in sunny Arizona after the election," RNC Political Director Rick Wiley wrote Friday.

Democrats on Thursday launched a new effort to protect the rights of voters ahead of the 2012 elections, pushing back on recently passed laws in a number of states that they claim disenfranchise voters, and particularly Democrats.

Rules requiring voters to show identification before they cast ballots and others that limit early voting and same-day voter registration are all on the list of barriers Democrats maintain are surreptitiously intended to keep Democrats from the polls. As many as 40 states are affected, they said.

"It's just so obvious and transparent, but not obvious to the average voter, who expects they would have easy access to the polls," Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) said Thursday on MSNBC.

Democrats argue that minority voters are disproportionately affected when restrictions are placed on voter registration drives. In Texas, South Carolina and Tennessee, student IDs aren't accepted at the polls, which Democrats claim is an effort to silence the voices of a voter bloc that tends to support Democratic candidates, including President Obama.