Majorities of voters in red, blue, and battleground “green” states want President Barack Obama to modify his agenda to take House Republican proposals into account, according to a new Zogby International poll. The results were announced Tuesday, in the run-up to House and Senate votes expected this week on a short-term spending deal that would avert a government shutdown and prolong the budget fight.

Zogby’s poll of 10,000 likely voters took place just days after Obama’s State of the Union speech. It divided voters into three camps:

* Red states that did not vote for Obama in 2008 and are unlikely to do so in 2012.
* Blue states that did not vote for McCain in 2008 and are unlikely to vote GOP in 2012
* And the following battleground “green” states that could go either way in 2012: Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin....

A conservative author and columnist is making positive predictions that a balanced budget amendment will be brought to fruition in the near future.

During a recent appearance on American Family Radio's Today's Issues program, Family Research Council (FRC) senior fellow Ken Blackwell said the tea party movement was largely successful in bringing change to Washington in the midterm elections. And considering the work the lame-duck Congress has accomplished over the past ten days, he says that will only help the grassroots movement.

"I think the tea party is going to challenge itself by demanding more and more of the Congress and the president that we stop this deficit spending; that we, in fact, protect our borders; [and] that we get the economy growing again [and] producing jobs," he suggests...

Coming off an election in which voters unleashed their fury over Washington's perceived inability to grapple with tough issues, lawmakers spent much of the first week of the lame-duck session going after low-hanging fruit while leaving a number of big-ticket items on the table.

As a result, when they return from their Thanksgiving break on Nov. 29, they'll have four weeks before Christmas to tackle a slew of spending and tax-related issues that have divided party leaders on Capitol Hill for months.

Atop the to-do list is how to fund the federal government through the end of the year. Lawmakers passed a stopgap bill before the election that will keep the government from shutting down through Dec. 3...

A conservative activist and former presidential candidate says the Democrats' decision to make Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) the new House minority leader in the upcoming Congress is like a gift to Republicans that keeps on giving.

North Carolina moderate Democrat Heath Shuler, whom Pelosi defeated for the position, believed the new minority leader's ultra left-wing agenda was the reason the party took such a drubbing in the midterm elections earlier this month. So he has mounted a challenge to the outgoing House speaker. But many of Shuler's fellow moderates who might have supported him were defeated by Republicans November 2, leaving many of Pelosi's liberal allies to choose her as the next minority leader...

JUNEAU, Alaska -- Sen. Lisa Murkowski built a 1,706 vote lead over GOP nominee Joe Miller in Alaska's still-undecided Senate race after election
officials added the last big batch of absentee ballots on Monday.

Murkowski, the Republican incumbent who waged a write-in campaign after losing the party nomination to Miller in August, has 92,164 votes. But that total includes 7,601 write-in votes that have been challenged by the Miller campaign.

Miller has 90,458 votes...

The head of a non-partisan seniors' advocacy group is pointing out that the tea party is not the only group responsible for helping Republicans win more seats in Congress.

Voters over the age of 65 favored Republicans by a 21-point margin in the 2010 midterm elections after siding with Democrats in 2006 -- a shift 60 Plus Association chairman Jim Martin says he foresaw last year when seniors began protesting the healthcare bill at town hall meetings.

"The senior citizens, of course, read the healthcare bill; they called it 'bad medicine' for seniors," he points out. "As I said back then, there was a tsunami headed toward Capitol Hill. In this case, it was a senior citizen tsunami -- and that tsunami came ashore [on] Tuesday, November 2, on election night"...

In a bit of Deja vu, it appears two “pro-life Democrats” will play a key role in determining how hard the new Congress will push back against ObamaCare and its abortion funding.

Republicans captured the House of Representatives in last week’s congressional elections thereby giving pro-life advocates inroads to toppling or limiting the reach of ObamaCare and its abortion funding.

But the Senate, where GOP candidates fell short in their efforts to both defeat pro-abortion Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and to wrest control of the chamber, will likely decide the unpopular health care law’s fate...

Of course it was huge news last week that the GOP made tremendous gains in Congress, but those election results seem to have drown out an even more impressive wave in state legislatures.

Republicans picked up 680 seats which is the largest ever for them. The only other turnover that comes close was the 1974 elections following the Watergate scandal in which Democrats picked up 628 seats in state legislatures.

This is of vital importance to pro-lifers because chances of passing pro-life legislation are dead in the water in legislatures controlled by pro-abortion Democrats. There are a total of 99 state-level chambers [houses and senates]. After the mid-term elections, the GOP has majorities in 58. For some states, this is the first time the GOP has had control of both chambers...

WASHINGTON -- In a fresh sign of turmoil among defeated Democrats, a growing number of the rank and file say they won't support House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a politically symbolic roll call when the new Congress meets in January.

"The reality is that she is politically toxic," said Illinois Rep. Mike Quigley, one of several Democrats who are trying to pressure Pelosi to step aside as her party's leader in the wake of historic election losses to Republicans last week.

Pelosi startled many Democrats with a quick postelection announcement that she would run for minority leader. She has yet to draw an opponent for the post. Party elections are scheduled for next week, although a postponement is possible...

JUNEAU, Alaska -- Election officials planned to begin poring over more than 92,500 write-in ballots in the Alaska Senate race on Wednesday, in spite of a federal lawsuit that's challenging the way the count was to be conducted.

Republican nominee Joe Miller sued Tuesday to prevent the state from using discretion in determining voter intent on write-in ballots. But Lt. Gov. Craig Campbell, the Republican overseer of Alaska elections, said the count would go forward on Wednesday as planned.

Miller's GOP rival, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, mounted a write-in campaign after losing their party's primary to him in August...