Senate GOP shifts tone on impeachment

Senate GOP shifts tone on impeachment-thehill: Senate Republicans are taking the House impeachment proceedings against President Trump more seriously as damaging revelations against the president mount and the possibility of a quick dismissal of the charges shrinks. Earlier this year, GOP senators pledged to quickly quash any articles of impeachment passed by the House. But as the Democrats compile more evidence that Trump withheld military assistance from Ukraine to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, they are adopting a more sober tone.

Medicaid at issue in 2019 races for governor

Medicaid at issue in 2019 races for governor-rollcall: Races next month for governor in three states could affect the medical coverage of hundreds of thousands of people and offer test cases of how voters might view health care issues, particularly Medicaid for lower-income people. Republicans in Kentucky, Mississippi and Louisiana vow to scale back or block expansion.

Greg Walden to retire in latest sign of GOP doubts about retaking House

Greg Walden to retire in latest sign of GOP doubts about retaking House-politico: Rep. Greg Walden, the top Republican on the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, will retire at the end of this Congress, the latest sign that Republicans see a struggle to retake the House in 2020. The 62-year-old Walden, who was first elected in 1998, said he was confident he'd win reelection but decided instead to end his congressional career in January 2021.

100 days to Iowa: Uncertainty reigns over fluid race

100 days to Iowa: Uncertainty reigns over fluid race-thehill: With just 100 days to go before the Iowa caucuses, the Democratic race for the White House is clouded in uncertainty. What had once looked like a three-person race is showing signs of widening as Iowa voters debate the electability question that has dominated the battle since its beginning: Which of their candidates is most likely to defeat President Trump?

Tim Ryan drops out of 2020 presidential race

Tim Ryan drops out of 2020 presidential race-thehill: Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) announced he will exit the 2020 presidential race, ending a long-shot bid that failed to gain traction amid a crowded field of high-profile candidates. “I got into this race in April to really give voice to the forgotten people of our country. I look forward to continuing that fight. Thank you, to everyone who supported this campaign,” Ryan said in a video posted to his Twitter account.

Why North Carolina might be the most innovative health care state in America

Why North Carolina might be the most innovative health care state in America-politico: The state and its largest private insurer are working together to transform how health care is delivered state-wide.

Four spending bills on the move; Democrats eye allocations

Four spending bills on the move; Democrats eye allocations deal-rollcall: Democratic leaders Tuesday called for bicameral talks to reconcile competing spending allocations for long-delayed fiscal 2020 appropriations bills. With barely five weeks left before the current stopgap funding measure runs dry, congressional leaders are scrambling to make headway on appropriations for the fiscal year that began on Oct.1. Lawmakers have already acknowledged that another stopgap could be needed to fund at least part of the government and avoid a shutdown before Thanksgiving.

Cash surge puts more Senate races in play

Cash surge puts more Senate races in play-thehill: An early rush of big money into key states has both Democrats and Republicans eyeing as many as a dozen potentially competitive U.S. Senate seats up for election next year as voter interest in a riveting presidential contest upends what had appeared to be a narrow map. Both parties have spent a year fighting for position in states like Arizona, Colorado and Maine, where vulnerable Republicans are seeking reelection, and in Alabama, where Sen. Doug Jones (D) is running for a full term in a deep-red state.

Buttigieg surges in Iowa poll

Buttigieg surges in Iowa poll-politico: A new Iowa survey of the 2020 Democratic presidential race shows Pete Buttigieg surging in the first-in-the-nation caucus state, locked in a three-way race with front-runners Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren. Eighteen percent of likely Democratic caucus-goers back the former vice president, while 17 percent favor the Massachusetts senator and 13 percent prefer the South Bend, Indiana, mayor, according to a Suffolk University/USA TODAY poll released Monday.

Mulvaney admission deals blow to White House impeachment defense

Mulvaney admission deals blow to White House impeachment defense-thehill: The White House defense against Democrats’ impeachment inquiry suffered a major blow Thursday with acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney’s admission that aid for Ukraine was linked to President Trump’s desire for the country to pursue a political probe related to the 2016 election. The stunning admission marked the first time a White House official had publicly undermined Trump's repeated denials of any quid pro quo. It also coincided with a host of current and former administration officials raising concerns during closed-door testimony about the administration’s Ukraine policy

U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings dies; longtime Baltimore advocate was key figure in Trump impeachment inquiry

U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings dies; longtime Baltimore advocate was key figure in Trump impeachment inquiry-baltimoresun: U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings of Baltimore, a committee chairman known for his devotion to Baltimore and civil rights and for blunt and passionate speechmaking, died of longstanding health problems early Thursday morning, his office said. He was 68 years old. The Democrat, a key figure in the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump as chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, died at Gilchrist Hospice Care at approximately 2:45 A.M., a spokeswoman said.

Schumer seeks focus on health care amid impeachment fever

Schumer seeks focus on health care amid impeachment fever-thehill: Senate Democrats plan to force vulnerable Republicans to vote on legislation that would overturn a controversial Trump administration directive on ObamaCare. The strategy shows Democrats will continue playing offense on ObamaCare, which for years was a political liability for the party. The 2010 law was by and large unpopular until the GOP nearly eradicated it during the last Congress.

Democrats stop faking it — and have a serious debate

Democrats stop faking it — and have a serious debate-politico: There was something different going on with 12 Democrats on the debate stage in Ohio on Tuesday night. It was a serious conversation about how to bring change to the party and the country, waged by people making serious claims about what they would do if elected president of the United States.

‘Advantage Warren’ as Dems ready for pivotal

‘Advantage Warren’ as Dems ready for pivotal debate-politico: Bernie Sanders is recovering from his heart attack. Joe Biden is under siege, and laying into Donald Trump. And the entire Democratic presidential field has become consumed with the House’s impeachment inquiry into the Republican president. With so many candidates responding to circumstances beyond their control, and the threat of a destabilizing moment running high on a stage that’s expanding to 12 candidates from 10, it’s raising the specter of a debate Tuesday that finally breaks the Democratic primary logjam.

Warren enters crucial debate with big momentum

Warren enters crucial debate with big momentum-thehill: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is the candidate with the most momentum as the Democratic presidential field heads into a critical debate on Tuesday. Warren has surged in front of former Vice President Joe Biden in recent polls in Iowa and New Hampshire and in some national polls. She also is seeing some encouraging numbers within the polls. Surveys show she has started to appeal to moderate voters and black voters, cultivating a coalition across the party and robbing the Biden campaign of one of its popular talking points.

House Appropriations chairwoman Nita Lowey to retire

House Appropriations chairwoman Nita Lowey to retire-thehill: House Appropriations Chairwoman Nita Lowey (D-NY) on Thursday announced she will retire at the end of this Congress and not seek reelection in 2020. The 82-year-old New York Democrat was first elected to Congress in 1988 and rose to become the most senior member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, and the first woman to hold the post. Before becoming a lawmaker, Lowey served as Assistant Secretary of State for the State of New York.

Why Biden declared war on Trump — and poked at Warren

Why Biden declared war on Trump — and poked at Warren-politico: After calling for Donald Trump’s impeachment for the first time, Joe Biden experienced something here he rarely sees on the campaign trail: a sustained standing ovation. His Rudy Giuliani joke had the crowd roaring, as did his digs on Trump’s tax secrecy. It was just the kind of crowd energy that the Biden campaign had hoped to tap as it abruptly shifted gears on Wednesday, revealing a new intensity and an amped up response to the president’s relentless attacks.

Sanders and Warren transform how presidential campaigns are paid for

Sanders and Warren transform how presidential campaigns are paid for-politico: The latest batch of fundraising reports released this week confirmed a new reality of presidential politics: the traditional, big-dollar model of funding a presidential campaign is going the way of landlines and the VCR. With Elizabeth Warren’s announcement Friday that she had raised nearly $25 million in the last three months, slightly less than Bernie Sanders reported Tuesday, two candidates who didn’t hold traditional donor events became the top two fundraisers in Democratic primary.

Biden faces dual challenges from Trump, Warren

Biden faces dual challenges from Trump, Warren-thehill: Joe Biden is at a crossroads in his quest for the Democratic presidential nomination, as President Trump fights an impeachment inquiry by unloading on the former vice president and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) overtakes him in some polls.