2012 U.s. Presidential Election, Republican | featured news

Michele Bachmann captured the famed Iowa straw poll in Ames Saturday, reaching a high-profile benchmark in her meteoric rise to a top-tier presidential candidate.

Hardly the start he'd hoped for, Newt Gingrich's first week as a presidential candidate has been riddled with missteps that have angered many of his fellow Republicans and exposed campaign vulnerabilities....

Out with Sarah. In with The Donald. President Barack Obama has launched his re-election bid in a low-key manner, but the Republican Party's search for a challenger seems stranger by the day.

Over the last few weeks, Washington conventional wisdom has begun to coalesce around the idea that Sarah Palin won't run for president. A number of news outlets and commentators have pointed out that she isn't doing the sorts of things that serious candidates usually do at this point in the calendar, hiring veteran staffers in the key early primary states, visiting those states regularly, and delivering speeches that begin to lay one's "vision" for the country. Roger Ailes of Fox News pointedly did not suspend her contract, as he did those of two other candidates, because, he said, she has given no sign that she is planning a campaign.

Libertarian Republican Congressman Ron Paul won a presidential straw poll of conservatives on Saturday in a result that showed Republicans have far to go to pick a challenger to President Barack Obama in 2012.

Property tycoon Donald Trump says he is considering running for US president as a Republican in 2012, in an interview with ABC News.

That's been the Romney way this fall. Head down, low profile, tending to the business of deepening relationships in a Republican Party that turned aside his bid for the presidential nomination in 2008. While other potential GOP presidential candidates have sought or drawn attention this fall, Romney seemingly has done the opposite.

If John McCain hadn't made it clear before, he's leaving no doubt that the presidency is a dream gone by.

Sarah Palin may be edging closer to a 2012 presidential run, telling Fox News "I would give it a shot" if the American people think she's "the one."

The former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee was in Des Moines, Iowa, Friday for the Reagan Dinner, a big GOP fundraiser in the heart of water-testing country for presidential candidates.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich won backing for a potential presidential bid from an unlikely place Sunday -- the former head of the Democratic Party.