Senate

House Agriculture subcommittee chairman Steve King leads by 12 points in a Loras College poll of 280 likely voters in the Fourth House District in northwestern Iowa.

Sen Pat Roberts, potentially Agriculture Committee chairman if Republicans win control of the Senate, rarely mentions his record on agriculture - defender of crop insurance and author of the 1996 Freedom to Farm law - on the campaign trail.

"The race for the U.S. Senate seat from Kansas is about to get nastier," says the Kansas City Star in a story headlined, "With a week to go, U.S. Senate candidates in Kansas still haven't closed the sale."

Republican Joni Ernst is back in the hog lot for a 30-second TV ad in her race against Democrat Bruce Braley for the Senate, says Politico.

The latest poll from Kansas shows a dead-even race for the Senate. Business Insider says "there's a simple reason" for incumbent Pat Roberts' rebound from trailing independent Greg Orman - Orman "has finally been put under the microscope."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and 70 other members of Congress, mostly Democrats, got perfect grades from advocacy group Food Policy Action for their votes on food and agriculture issues over the past two years.

In the first debate of the Senate race in Arkansas, Sen Mark Pryor, chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on agriculture, said opponent first-term Rep Tom Cotton, a Republican, is more interested in foreign policy than...

Republican Pat Roberts is the leader in newly released polls by CNN and Fox. Roberts, potentially the next chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, was ahead of independent Greg Orman 49-48 with 3 percent undecided in the CNN poll...

Republican Joni Ernst's folksiness seems to be paying off in the retail politics of Iowa, says the weekly political tip sheet Sabato's Crystal Ball, in rating the Senate race in the Hawkeye State as "leans Republican," vs the previous "Toss-up."

Kansas "is potentially a huge problem" for Republicans aiming to take control of the Senate, says Sabato's Crystal Ball, which currently projects the GOP to gain from 5-8 seats in the Nov 4 elections. The Crystal Ball points to polls that suggest a tie or that Independent Greg Orman may be leading incumbent Republican Pat Roberts, a senior member of the Senate Agriculture Committee. "We’re still calling the race Leans Republican but it may drift into Toss-up land soon," says the Crystal Ball.

Democrat Bruce Braley and Republican Joni Ernst are tied at 40 percent each with 15 percent undecided in a Suffolk/USA Today poll of one of the races that could determine control of the U.S. Senate.

Democrat Alison Grimes faulted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for missing many Agriculture Committee hearings and for not being one of the negotiators who wrote the 2014 farm law, says the Associated Press.

Lawmakers and advocates on both sides of the issue say immigration reform "is effectively dead and unlikely to be revived until after President Obama leaves office," said the Washington Post.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid set aside the "minibus" appropriations bill that includes fiscal 2015 funding for USDA after a disagreement over how to handle amendments.

The House would be limited to considering eight specified amendments under the terms proposed by the Rules Committee for debate of the CFTC reauthorization bill.

Senators voted, 95-3, to limit debate in the run-up to work on a "minibus" that includes the fiscal 2015 funding for the Agriculture Department.

The Senate Agriculture Committee opened work on reauthorization of child nutrition programs, including school lunch, with a 90-minute hearing that hailed the role of good nutrition in academic success and long-term health.

Two senators unveiled a bill that would remove two long-standing rules for U.S. food aid - that almost all the food be U.S.-grown and U.S.-flag vessels carry half of the donated food.