Presidential races

Hillary Clinton is popular enough to have a real shot at carrying heavily Republican Texas if she runs for president in 2016, according to the Democratic-affiliated Public Policy Polling.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) will speak at the 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference, the American Conservative Union announced Tuesday morning.

CPAC regularly draws potential GOP presidential candidates, and this year is no exception. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) have already agreed to speak at the March event.

Walker is a hero on the right for taking on his state's unions and winning, and has been discussed as a possible presidential contender, though he and Ryan are close and would be unlikely to run against one another.

The group filed as a super-PAC with the Federal Election Commission last week and has nearly 50,000 Twitter followers. 

The senator and former Florida governor are bumping elbows on immigration and education reform.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus was formally reelected for another two-year term on Friday at the RNC's annual winter meeting in Charlotte, N.C.

Priebus's reelection had been all but certain since December, when he announced he had the backing of 150 of the committee's 168 members. Some committee members who were Ron Paul supporters sought to oust him, but he easily beat back the challenge, even wooing some Paulites from the Nevada state GOP to formally nominate him for the position.

The chairman has had great success at turning around the committee's fundraising, though in its other job, voter turnout, the RNC badly lagged Democrats in 2012.

He acknowledged that problem — and said the party needs to make great strides in technology as well as put a much stronger emphasis on outreach to communities that have in recent years been written off, like younger voters and minorities.

"We're still in the middle of a comprehensive review, but there is one clear, overriding lesson from November: We didn’t have enough voters. I'm no math whiz; I'm an attorney. But I don't need a calculator to know we need to win more votes. We have to find more supporters. We have to go places we haven’t been, and we have to invite new people to join us," he said. "And we want to be Republicans for everybody. We have to take our message of opportunity where it’s not being heard. We have to build better relationships in minority communities, urban centers and college towns. We need a permanent, growing presence."

The head of the conservative group says the N.J. governor "lost an opportunity" to establish his credentials on fiscal reform. 

Republicans in the Virginia state Senate are moving forward with a plan that would give the GOP presidential nominee a big boost at winning most of the state's electoral votes even if the Democratic candidate won the statewide vote.

The bill, which was passed out of a state Senate subcommittee on a tied 3-3 vote, with one Republican voting against it, would allocate the state's electoral votes based on who wins each congressional district. It is likely to pass out of the full committee, which would send it to a full Senate vote.

Because Virginia Republicans had the upper hand in redistricting the state's congressional map, they hold eight of the state's 11 congressional districts. If this law had been in place for the last election, Mitt Romney would have won nine or 10 of the state's 13 electoral votes despite losing the statewide vote to President Obama by 4 percentage points.

There are a number of states Obama won that are controlled by Republican governors and legislatures that drew congressional maps very favorable to the GOP, and if all passed similar laws Romney would have likely won the presidency despite losing the popular vote by a considerable margin. Republicans in other states including Wisconsin and Pennsylvania have discussed such plans, which have been endorsed by Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, but it's unclear whether any are likely to pass.

It's also far from certain that the Virginia bill is likely to pass into law: The state Senate is split 20-20, so if even one Republican defects the plan would likely be doomed, and one already did during the subcommittee vote.

But Republicans are also pushing for a re-redistricting of the state Senate that would give them the upper hand at winning the chamber, in which case they could do what they want — though Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) was critical of the legislative tactics they used to pass that plan because they waited until a Democrat was absent to vote on it.

A new poll shows Clinton better poised than Biden to take the 2016 Democratic nomination.

"I haven't made that decision and I don't have to make that decision for a while," Vice President Biden said.

A group that combats the influence of outside money on politics is calling for President Obama to dismantle Organizing for Action, the new manifestation of Obama's campaign arm that will advocate for and organize around Obama's second-term agenda.

Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer warned in a statement that OFA follows the slippery slope of other, similar nonprofits, in that it could provide outside interests unprecedented influence on the White House.

"President Obama should shut down Organizing for Action now before it creates the appearance of influence buying and/or scandals for the second term of his Administration," he writes.

Former Obama campaign aides announced last Friday that the president's campaign arm would break off from the Democratic National Committee and transform into a nonprofit that will do advocacy work and mobilize the grassroots in support of Obama's policies.