Republican

Second-term Rep. Roger Marshall easily won the Republican nomination for Senate in Kansas on Tuesday, handily defeating Kris Kobach, the party’s unsuccessful 2018 candidate for governor, in a state that has not elected a Democratic senator since 1932. Democrats nominated state Sen. Barbara …

The most partisan members of the Republican and Democratic parties — the people who vote in primary elections — cluster in different parts of the country. Democrats live in cities and Republicans in rural areas, says the Daily Yonder.

Founded four years ago as the first lobbying group for the food movement, Food Policy Action said it will work to defeat second-term Rep. David Valadao, a California republican and member of the House Appropriations subcommittee overseeing USDA and FDA funding.

The Republican nominee for Senate in Arkansas, Rep Tom Cotton, says in a campaign advertisement that he voted against the farm bill because it had "turned into a food stamp bill with billions (of dollars) more in spending," says the Associated Press. Cotton was the only Arkansas lawmaker to vote against the $500 billion, five-year farm bill. Democratic Sen Mark Pryor, chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee on agriculture, has criticized Cotton for the vote.

Political analyst Stuart Rothenberg says in a Roll Call blog the Senate race in Arkansas involving the chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee for agriculture, Democrat Mark Pryor, is a "dead heat, though with (Republican Tom) Cotton holding a small advantage."

Florida Republican Mario Diaz-Balart, an advocate of comprehensive immigration reform, said House Republican leaders told him "they have no intention to bring this bill to the floor this year,” said Roll Call. Diaz-Balart had drafted a reform bill. It was the latest setback for reform, stalled for a year in the GOP-controlled House. The outlook has been increasingly bleak for the past two weeks.

Some 231 U.S. representatives, including 18 committee chairmen, signed a letter asking the Obama administration to withdraw a proposed rule on federal jurisdiction over waterways, says Drovers CattleNetwork.

Republicans named four new members to the Senate Agriculture Committee, effective with the new legislative session beginning in January - David Perdue of Georgia, Joni Ernst of Iowa, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Ben Sasse of Nebraska - when the GOP becomes the majority party.

There will be eight new Republican members of the House Agriculture Committee when Congress opens its new session in January, said Mike Conaway, Texas Republican, the incoming chairman.

One of the rules of thumb in politics is that rural America is populated by social and fiscal conservatives, so residents vote Republican. The Daily Yonder looked at vote totals in all 3,143 counties in the Nov 5 elections for U.S. House...

Book-ending the Daily Yonder's data on Republicans winning a larger share of the rural vote in the mid-term election, political analyst Matt Barron says Democrats face problems ranging from poor recruitment of candidates...

Rural Americans, often socially and fiscally conservative, tend to vote at higher rates for Republicans than the nation overall. This year, when the country leaned Republican, the rate went up in rural areas too, says the Daily Yonder.

A dozen elections today may influence food and agriculture policy nationally, They range from the Kansas race that could determine the next chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee to referendums on soda taxes and GMO labeling.

Republican Joni Ernst led Democrat Bruce Braley by 7 points, 51-44, in the latest Iowa Poll of the Des Moines Register. It was Ernst's largest lead in any poll in a month.