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Vice President Pence tried Saturday to deliver a pep-talk to Americans after fellow Republicans failed effort to overhaul ObamaCare -- admitting that members are back to the drawing board but vowing that President Trump will keep fighting.

Pence spoke in the aftermath of House Speaker Paul Ryan on Friday cancelling the final vote for the ObamaCare replacement bill, upon concluding he didnt have enough votes despite the chambers GOP majority.

The Republican congressman and the president, after announcing the cancellation, sounded as if efforts to fulfill campaign promises to repeal and replace the 2010 health care law were essentially finished.

Ryan publicly said Americans would be living with ObamaCare for the foreseeable future, while Trump simply told The New York Times, Its enough already.

However, Trump and Pence on Saturday seemed to come back fighting.

ObamaCare will explode, and we will all get together and piece together a great healthcare plan for THE PEOPLE, Trump tweeted. Do not worry!

Pence later said at a business event in Charleston, West Virginia, that small-business owners in the state repeatedly tell him about the need to dismantle ObamaCare because it stifles growth and slows job creation.

President Trump is never going to stop fighting to keep his promises to the American people, he said

He also argued those who claimed victory in Republicans failure Friday are merely championing the status quo and said, I promise you, that victory wont last for long.

Pence also put pressure on West Virginia Sens. Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican, and Joe Manchin, a Democrat, to confirm Judge Neil Gorsuch as the next Supreme Court justice.

However, he also made clear that Gorsuch, Trumps pick, would be confirmed one way or another, implying that Senate Republican leaders would invoke parliamentary tactics to win confirmation with a simple, 51-vote majority.

Pence was joined at the first event by Small Business Administration leader Linda McMahon, who helped start and run World Wrestling Entertainment.

Maybe we could have used a couple of WWE superstars on Capitol Hill yesterday, Pence, who did his share of arm-twisting for ObamaCare reform, said jokingly.

On Friday, after the vote was cancelled, Trump appeared to already be focusing on tax reform and returning to his plan to allow ObamaCare to continue -- with the expectation that the 2010 health care law would implode amid increasing costs and dwindling options for Americans.

Still, his tweet Saturday suggested a potential willingness to work on a bipartisan plan on overhauling the law -- albeit a scenario in which Democrats come to the GOP-controlled Congress to work together on improvements.

Late Friday, Tennessee GOP Sen. Bob Corker also suggested the fight to replace ObamaCare was not finished.

At some point, on behalf of the American people, we have to resolve the issues that are driving up costs, limiting choices, and causing the individual market to spiral downward, he said. I stand ready to work with the administration and my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in order to fix our broken health care system.

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Pence vows Trump will continue ObamaCare fight, calls out Democrats and Republicans - Fox News

Five Democratic lawmakers are raising ethics concerns about a Chinese conglomerates potential investment in a Manhattan office building owned by the family of Jared Kushner, President Donald Trumps son-in-law and a senior White House adviser.

The lawmakers asked the White House in a March 24 letter to explain whether Kushner was involved in any talks about the possible partnership with Chinas Anbang Insurance Group Co. They also asked for additional details on Kushners divestment from his familys company, Kushner Cos.

This deal, if executed, would appear to present a clear conflict of interest, the lawmakers wrote to Stefan Passantino, White Housedeputy counsel. Anbang has close ties to the Chinese state, they added.

The White House didnt respond immediately to a request for comment.

Bloomberg reported earlier this month on a financing proposal that would make Anbang and Kushner Cos. partners in the marquee office tower, located at 666 Fifth Ave. Some real estate experts considered the terms of the $4 billion transaction unusually favorable to the Kushners. The property has struggled financially.

Anbang subsequently denied there was a planned deal, saying in a statement that there is no investment.

Kushner has said he sold his stake in the building to family members to comply with federal ethics rules.

Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Tom Carper of Delaware, Gary Peters of Michigan andSherrod Brown of Ohio, along with Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland, signed the letter.

They wrote separately to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who heads the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which reviews foreign business transactions on whether they could jeopardize U.S. national security. The committee previously rejected a proposed Anbang property acquisition because of its proximity to a naval base in San Diego.

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Democrats Question Potential Kushner Deal With China's Anbang - Bloomberg

Pretty much everyone thinks the Houses failure to pass the GOPs repeal-and-replace bill is a disaster for Republicans. The Democrats are giddy with glee, and Matt Drudge calls it a catastrophe. Perhaps they are right, but I doubt it.

Obamacare is in a death spiral. It is rapidly collapsing, and steadily becoming more unpopular as it fails more and more Americans. Congress will now move on to other tasks, like cutting taxes and building up the military. The Democrats had one chance to save Obamacare and they blew it: why isnt that the conventional narrative?

Minnesotas own Amy Klobuchar writes on Facebook:

So now what? Are we just going to walk away, as the White House suggested? Or are we going to work together to bring healthcare costs down? Theres so much we can do reduce prescription drug costs, help out people on the exchange, reform delivery systems, eliminate the medical device tax and more. We cant walk away from the American people. Moving beyond healthcare isnt an option.

Oh, yes, it is. If the Democrats have ideas on reducing prescription drug costs, helping people on the exchange, and so on, where have they been for the last seven years? And since when are Democrats interested in working together? They passed Obamacare with zero input from Republicans and zero Republican votes. When they had an opportunity this week to save Obamacare, not a single House Democrat was willing to vote for it.

Fine. Democrats are stuck with the Obamacare they passed. It wont be reformed, and it will limp along for the time being. But the day will come, before long, when Obamacares collapse is so complete and so manifest that repeal will be revisited. In the meantime, I see no reason why Republicans should take the hit for the Democrats disastrous overreach.

Is that too optimistic a view of the situation? Maybe. But that is how it looks to me.

Excerpt from:
Democrats' Celebration Is Premature - Power Line (blog)

Renegade Democrat Tim Sheldon's LD-35, which is located west of Tacoma, swung from 51-46 Obama to 47-44 Trump. However, Democrats may have a Sheldon-proof majority a year before the 2018 elections. Last year, Republican state Sen. Andy Hill died of lung cancer, and there will be a special election in November of 2017 for his old LD-45. This seat, which is located east of Seattle, went from 58-40 Obama all the way to 65-28 Clinton, making it the bluest GOP-held seat in either chamber.

Republican Dino Rossi, who ran for governor in 2004 and 2008 and the U.S. Senate in 2010, was appointed to replace Hill, but Rossi says he's not interested in running in the special. Democrats have consolidated behind prosecutor Manka Dhingra, while it's unclear whom the GOP will field. If Democrats can flip this seat, they'll have control of the Senate for the first time since Sheldon and now-former state Sen. Rodney Tom launched their coup in late 2012.

LD-45 will be up again in the fall of 2018, and Democrats have a few other GOP-held Senate seats they can target next year. LD-30, held by Republican Mark Miloscia (a former Democratic state representative) went from 59-39 Obama to 57-36 Clinton. LD-47, represented by Republican Joe Fain, went from 56-42 Obama to 54-38 Clinton. Both Miloscia and Fain decisively won during the 2014 GOP wave but if next year is good for Democrats, they could be in for a tougher fight. The GOP-held LD-26 and LD-42 both narrowly backed Clinton (she carried the latter seat by just 10 votes), but they'll be tough targets.

Democrats could also try exacting revenge on Sheldon next year, but their best bet may be to deny him a place in the general election rather than try beating him in November. Indeed, this almost happened in 2014, when Democrat Irene Bowling took first in the top-two primary with 35 percent while Sheldon edged Republican Travis Couture by just 600 votes for the second-place spot. However, Sheldon ended up beating Bowling 54-46 a few months later.

We'll turn next to the state House. In the 2014 GOP wave, Republicans chipped the Democratic majority down from 55-43 to just 51-47; in the fall of 2015, the GOP picked up a Democratic seat in a special election. Democrats hoped that the presidential race would allow them to expand their majority, but their narrow 50-48 majority didn't move.

Just like in the state Senate, ticket-splitting overwhelmingly helps the GOP. Eleven Republican represent Clinton seats, while state Rep. Brian Blake is the one Democrat to hail from a Trump district. Blake represents the same aforementioned LD-19 that sends Dean Takko to the state Senate. After Blake, the House Democrats in the reddest seat are Mike Chapman and Steve Tharinger, whose LD-24 went from 54-43 Obama to 49-43 Clinton.

Team Blue will get the chance to play offensive next year. The bluest GOP-held seat is LD-05, which elects Republican state Reps. Jay Rodne and Paul Graves to the lower house, even though it has a Democratic state senator. This seat, located east of Seattle, went from 53-44 Obama to 55-37 Clinton, but Rodne won a seventh term 52-48 while Graves won his first term 54-46. Three other Republicans hold seats where Clinton's margin of victory was over 10 percent, while those remaining six Republicans hold districts where her margin was no greater than 3.2 percent.

AL-Gov: Next year's open-seat GOP primary has not been easy to follow. To begin with, it's not clear that this will be an open seat. GOP Gov. Robert Bentley is under investigation for allegedly using state resources to conceal an affair with a staffer. If the state House votes to impeach him, Bentley's powers will pass to GOP Lt. Gov. Kay Ivey unless the state Senate acquits him; if the state Senate votes to convict Bentley, Ivey will officially become governor. It also doesn't help that, while several Alabama Republicans have made noises about running for governor, many of the biggest names in state politics have been publicly silent. Political columnist Steve Flowers provides some new details about what some of the potential GOP candidates are up to, but we may be waiting a while for this contest to take shape.

One of the names we've occasionally heard mentioned is Public Service Commission President Twinkle Cavanaugh. However, Flowers says that Cavanaugh is "already out running for governor," though Cavanaugh has yet to announce anything publicly and her social media pages don't identify her as a candidate. Flowers also says that state Agriculture Commissioner John McMillan, a longtime politician who was first elected to the legislature in 1974 as a Democrat, is planning to get in. Flowers adds that Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle is "seriously considering," but that while Secretary of State John Merrill is being encouraged, Flowers doubts he'll go for it. State Treasurer Young Boozer (who won in 2010 with the tagline "Funny name, serious leadership") is keeping his 2018 plans very quiet.

But wait there's more! Roy Moore, the twice-disgraced former chief justice of the state supreme court, has been publicly flirting with a third run for governor, but he's also talked about challenging appointed GOP Sen. Luther Strange or running for attorney general. Moore was suspended from office last year for defying federal courtorders on same-sex marriage; In 2003, Moore was outright removed from the bench for refusing to comply with a federal judge's order to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from the grounds of the state supreme court. But while Moore's 2006 primary challenge to incumbent Bob Riley badly failed and he took a distant fourth in 2010, Flowers writes that unreleased polls show that Moore is popular in this very conservative state.

State Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh is also talking about running for either the Senate or for governor, but he likely starts with little name recognition. But Flowers says that Marsh reportedly is wealthy, and he's "itching to pull the trigger on the governor's race."

We've also heard from plenty of other Republicans, though some seem more serious than others. State Auditor Jim Zeigler, a longtime Bentley critic, is talking about running, and he even recently self-published a novel about a candidate who "stood up in the Bentley years and, in 2018, stood out from the rest." We've also heard interest from Jefferson County Commissioner David Carrington; Troy University Chancellor Jack Hawkins Jr.; and former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville, while Rep. Rep. Bradley Byrne hasn't said no. One person who has been quiet is Ivey, who may end up becoming governor without being elected to the post.

NJ-Gov: On Tuesday, Democratic state Assemblyman John Wisniewski announced that he had raised the $450,000 he needed to qualify for state public matching funds in the June primary. Under this system, candidates receive $2 for every $1 they raise, though they're not allowed to spend more than $6.4 million in the primary. Clinton-era U.S. Undersecretary of the Treasury Jim Johnson has already qualified, while state Sen. Ray Lesniak recently said he doubts he'll raise enough. Phil Murphy, a former Goldman Sachs executive and ambassador to Germany who is backed by the state's powerful Democratic establishment, is personally wealthy and can spend whatever he needs to spend.

CA-49: Last cycle, Republican Rep. Darrell Issa pulled off a 1,621-vote victory over Marine veteran Doug Applegate in a contest that looked completely uncompetitive for most of the cycle. Applegate quickly announced he would seek a rematch, but this time, he'll have some intra-party competition. Environmental attorney Mike Levin, who served as executive director of the Orange County Democratic Party a decade ago, kicked off his bid earlier this month, but Applegate is arguing that he has the inside track to face Issa again. Applegate is out with a Strategies 360 poll of the June 2018 top two primary that gives Issa a 43-39 lead, while Levin takes third with just 9. In California, the two candidates with the most votes in the June primary advance to the general regardless of party.

Levin unsurprisingly starts out almost completely unknown, while Democratic voters have a good opinion of Applegate after he almost beat the hated Issa. This seat, which includes both the San Diego media market and the very expensive Los Angeles market, is not cheap to advertise in at all. Things could very well change if Levin can raise or self-fund enough to get his name out, but it's too early to know Levin's capabilities. This suburban San Diego seat swung from 52-46 Romney to 51-43 Clinton, and both parties are likely to get involved here far earlier this time.

MN-03: Last cycle, this suburban Minneapolis seat swung from 50-49 Obama to 51-41 Clinton, but Republican Rep. Erik Paulsen decisively beat highly-touted Democratic state Sen. Terri Bonoff 57-43. Paulsen is a very strong fundraiser and a formidable campaigner, but if Trump damages the GOP brand across the country, he could be vulnerable. No one has publicly expressed interest in challenging Paulsen, though the Minneapolis Star-Tribune says that Dean Phillips, a businessman and philanthropist who is the heir to the Phillips Distilling Company fortune, may be interested. According to state Rep. Jon Applebaum, "a lot of national and local people are asking him to run and that he is strongly considering it." The paper says that Phillips, who is also the grandson of the original Dear Abby, can self-fund.

Special Elections: On Tuesday, Pennsylvania Democrats competed for HD-197, a Philadelphia seat that gave Obama 97 percent of the vote but there was no Democrat on the ballot. As Johnny Longtorso recently explained, the Democrats originally nominated Freddie Ramirez, who was struck from the ballot when it was determined that he didn't live in the district. After the courts ruled that it was too late for Democrat Emilio Vasquez to make the ballot, Team Blue mounted a write-in campaign for him. So, how did it go? Johnny Longtorso checks in:

Democrats handed out stamps spelling "Emilio Vazquez" outside of polling places, while the Green Party did the same thing for their write-in candidate, Cheri Honkala. Another Democrat, Edward Loyd, also launched a write-in campaign, but he didn't have any organizational muscle behind him.

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, and Stephen Wolf, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, and James Lambert.

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Morning Digest: Washington Democrats might retake the state Senate as soon as this November - Daily Kos

Money is flooding into Democrat Jon Ossoffs campaign. The national party has started running focus groups on his behalf. Thousands of volunteers have flocked to his team to help him win his April special election for a vacant Atlanta-area congressional seat.

The race for Georgias 6th District has suddenly become a focal point, viewed as a chance to send Donald Trump a message by channeling the partys grass-roots rage, energy and frustration into a single contest. But party leaders are growing increasingly frustrated by the nationalization of this race and another in Montana and worried about unrealistic expectations in Republican-friendly seats where the Democrats are at a decided disadvantage.

Story Continued Below

Just a few high-profile losses in races framed as referendums on the Trump agenda, Democrats fear, and the currently heightened level of engagement and hope might fall off the cliff.

I would caution heavily against resting the entire future of a party on the outcome of a special election, warned Rebecca DeHart, the Georgia Democratic Partys executive director.

You can make two mistakes with special elections. One is to over-read and assume that because you won or lost, that is a predictor of the midterms. The flip side is that you can under-read, said strategist Jesse Ferguson, a former top official at the House Democrats campaign wing.

The polarizing nature of the presidential election and the early months of the Trump administration are already amplifying the noise surrounding not just the Georgia special election but a handful of congressional special elections slated in coming months. The national press, and activists and officials in both parties, are looking for clues to understand Trumps newly refashioned political landscape in places like Montana, where theres a contest to replace Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke; in South Carolina, where Budget Director Mick Mulvaneys former seat is vacant; in Kansas, where CIA Director Mike Pompeos seat is open; and in California, where theres a crowded contest to succeed Xavier Becerra, now the states attorney general.

Nowhere is grass-roots Democratic optimism more acute than in Georgia, where Ossoff, a 30-year-old documentary filmmaker, is vying to capture the suburban Atlanta seat left vacant by Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price. The state is trending toward battleground status, and Trump won the district in question by a single percentage point.

Ossoff has raised millions of dollars online from angry activists, and he spent Thursday night at a fundraiser hosted for him by party bigwigs like Reps. Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, James Clyburn and John Lewis at Democratic National Committee headquarters.

A Pelosi-signed fundraising email for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee claimed on Thursday that the energy surrounding the race has Republicans terrified.

But local and national Democrats alike see risk in raising expectations too high. Trump may have underperformed there in November, but Price typically won the seat by landslide margins. At best, Ossoff is a long shot and local party officials fear even a narrow Ossoff loss could create the impression that Georgia is still too red to warrant attention from the national party.

Special elections are indicators, not prognosticators. They are testing grounds, but not conclusive proof-points, [so] it can be a mistake to read into a special election as giving the party a perfect road map for where to invest in the future. But at the same time, ignoring the consequences of these testing grounds comes at your peril," said Ferguson.

The Georgia race will feature an April primary with candidates of all parties, and assuming none reaches 50 percent, there will be a June runoff thats widely expected to pit Ossoff against a Republican who will likely be the favorite.

If Jon Ossoff is the future of the Democratic Party, the future is very bright for Republicans. Jon Ossoff has a better chance of being cast as Han Solo in the next 'Star Wars' movie than becoming a member of Congress, said Corry Bliss, executive director of the American Action Network and Congressional Leadership Fund, groups tied to GOP House leadership which has run anti-Ossoff ads. He was alluding to clips that have circulated of Ossoff dressed as that character in college.

Not all of the special elections are viewed as Trump-era barometers. The South Carolina and Kansas seats are expected to remain in GOP hands, while the Los Angeles-area seat is almost certain to remain in Democratic control. But along with the Georgia contest, the May special election for Montanas at-large House seat is being watched closely, and some Democrats see it as a promising if slightly more difficult pick-up opportunity.

In its endorsement of Rob Quist, the Democratic nominee, the popular liberal website Daily Kos described the race as "the perfect test, then, of a populist outsider versus an out-of-touch one-percenter.

But the conventional wisdom in Montana is that in order to win statewide, a Democrat needs exceedingly high name recognition. That doesnt describe Quist, a musician who is running against Greg Gianforte, a businessman who waged an unsuccessful challenge against Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock in 2016.

There are some people on the national level who are saying this is the referendum of whatll happen with Trump, because our state went for Trump. But the reality is its local. Our state is unique: We elected Steve Bullock and Trump by a wide margin, said Jim Larson, chairman of the state Democratic Party.

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Bullock himself warned against attempts to nationalize the race.

We havent really seen what this election is going to look like, he said. Its hard to say its going to be one thing or another until it starts to be a little more defined.

Montana GOP chairman Jeff Essmann, a local legislator and former state Senate president, said hes skeptical about Democratic chances in a state where Trump won easily.

If they want a laboratory for that, they need to do it in a state where Trump didnt win by 20 percent, like Montana, said Essmann. Hes very popular, his policies are, and I think this race is going to simply come down to a race between one experienced candidate who will support the Trump agenda and one who will oppose it."

Even local Democrats are hesitant to use their race as a potential piece of evidence regarding Trumps standing among voters.

For Democrats and Republicans to [look at the results and] say, Oh, America hates Trump, or America loves Trump? Well, both of that is true, said Larson. Can there be lessons learned on elections that we win? Well, what worked in Delaware isnt necessarily going to work in Montana."

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Democrats gripped by special election performance anxiety - Politico