ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, a tea party favorite, announced Wednesday she will not run for another term in the U.S. House, saying her decision had nothing to do with ongoing investigations over finances related to her unsuccessful run for the Republican presidential nomination.

Bachmann, in a video posted on her website, also said her decision "was not influenced by any concerns about my being re-elected."

The polarizing conservative narrowly won a fourth term last year in her suburban Minneapolis district over Democrat Jim Graves, a hotel chain founder who is running again in 2014. A spokesman said Bachmann wouldn't be available for interviews, but her former chief of staff said he suspects she was anticipating a tough battle ahead and seemed to be stuck in place in Congress.

"This is a great chance to exit stage right rather than have a knockdown, drag-out re-election fight," said Ron Carey, also an ex-state GOP chairman. "The reality also set in that she is not a favorite of Republican leadership, so she is not going to be rising up to a committee chair or rising up in leadership."

In her video, Bachmann also said her decision "was not impacted in any way by the recent inquiries into the activities of my former presidential campaign" last year. In January, a former Bachmann aide filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, claiming the candidate made improper payments to an Iowa state senator who was the state chairman of her 2012 presidential run. The aide, Peter Waldron, also accused Bachmann of other FEC violations.

Bachmann had given few clues she was considering leaving Congress. Her fundraising operation was churning out the regular pitches for the small-dollar donations that Bachmann collected so well over the years, and she had an ad running on Twin Cities television talking about her role in opposing President Barack Obama's health law. The early timing of the ad suggested she was preparing for a tough fight against Graves.

Without the polarizing Bachmann on the ticket, Republicans could have an easier time holding a district that leans more heavily in the GOP direction than any other in Minnesota. A parade of hopefuls was expected. By Wednesday morning, state Rep. Matt Dean, a former House majority leader, said he was inclined to run.

"It is something I have thought about in the past if Michele were to not run again," Dean told The Associated Press. "It's not something that I just started thinking about this morning."

Graves said he thought Bachmann had "read the tea leaves."

"The district is changing," the Democrat said in an interview Wednesday with KARE-TV in Minneapolis. "They want somebody who really does have some business background and understands the economy and can get things done in Washington and back in the district."

Andy Aplikowski, who has long been active in the district's Republican Party chapter, said he expected Bachmann to run again but can understand why she didn't.

"It's a grueling thing to be in Congress. It's a grueling thing to be Michele Bachmann in Congress," he said. "Every move you make is criticized and put under a microscope."

Bachmann's strongly conservative views propelled her into politics, and once there, she never backed down.

She was a suburban mother of five in 1999 when she ran for a Minnesota school board seat because she thought state standards were designed to teach students values and beliefs.

She lost that race, but won a state Senate seat a year later. Once in St. Paul, she seized on gay marriage as an issue and led a charge to legally define marriage in Minnesota as between one man and one woman. That failed, but Bachmann had laid the foundation with social conservatives to help propel her into Congress in 2006.

In Washington, she turned to fiscal issues, attacking Democrats and President Barack Obama for government bailouts and the health care overhaul. Even in her early years in Congress, Bachmann frequently took those views to right-leaning cable talk programs, cultivating her national image even as she built a formidable fundraising base with like-minded viewers outside Minnesota.

But her penchant for provocative rhetoric sometimes backfired. She was hammered in 2008 for saying Obama might have "anti-American views," a statement that prompted a rare retreat by Bachmann and made her race that year closer than it would have been. She was also criticized by her fellow Republicans last July for making unsubstantiated allegations that an aide to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had family ties to Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood.

Her White House bid got off to a promising start, with a win in an Iowa GOP test vote. But Bachmann quickly faded and finished last when the real voting started in Iowa's leadoff caucuses, a result that caused her to drop out. Saddled with debt, Bachmann opted to campaign again for her Minnesota seat and squeaked through.

But the failed presidential campaign continued to dog her. Allegations of improper payments prompted ethics inquiries. Bachmann also faced a lawsuit from a former aide that alleged someone on the congresswoman's team stole a private email list of home-school supporters for use in the campaign. That case is pending.

On Wednesday, Bachmann - a vocal opponent of the Obama administration - promised her supporters, "I will continue to work overtime for the next 18 months in Congress defending the same Constitutional Conservative values we have worked so hard on together."

As for her plans beyond Congress, she said, "There is no future option or opportunity, be it directly in the political arena or otherwise, that I won't be giving serious consideration if it can help save and protect our great nation."

Bachmann's success in the talk media world led industry analysts to say she could easily move into a gig as a host.

Bachmann has been mentioned as a potential challenger to first-term Democratic Sen. Al Franken, but she has given little indication that she would take that step.

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Kesten reported from Washington.

(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

 

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(Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

 

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WASHINGTON (AP) - Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan acknowledges that he was shocked when he and presidential nominee Mitt Romney lost last week's election. The Wisconsin congressman says President Barack Obama won fair and square.

In an interview with ABC News being aired Tuesday, Ryan says he and Romney thought they had a very good chance of winning Nov. 6. He cites polling, other data, and what he calls "the smart people who watch this stuff" for his optimistic view election night.

Ryan says Obama deserves kudos for what Ryan calls "a fantastic ground game." The congressman says Obama received more votes and should be congratulated for that.

Had he been at the top of the ticket, Ryan says, he would have run exactly the kind of campaign that Romney ran.

(Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

 

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DENVER (AP) - Omayra Vasquez blinks and does a double take when asked why she voted to re-elect President Barack Obama. The reason for her was as natural as breathing.

"I feel closer to him," said Vasquez, a 43-year-old Federal Express worker from Denver. "He cares about the Spanish people."

Millions of Hispanic voters seconded that emotion Tuesday with resounding 71 percent support for Obama, tightening Democrats' grip on the White House and putting Republicans on notice that they must seriously court the nation's largest minority group if they want to win the presidency again.

According to initial exit polls, Republican candidate Mitt Romney, who backed hard-line immigration measures, came away with 27 percent Hispanic support, less than any presidential candidate in 16 years. It also was a sharp drop from the 44 percent claimed by President George W. Bush in his 2004 re-election after he embraced immigration reform.

"We could have won this election if the party had a better brand name with Hispanics," said Al Cardenas, chairman of the American Conservative Union. "I don't believe there's a path to the White House in the future that doesn't include 38 percent to 40 percent Hispanic support."

Cardenas said Hispanics were only a large part of a worrisome trend in the electorate, which is increasingly comprised of younger and minority voters who traditionally do not back Republicans. If the 1980 electorate looked like the 2012 version, he added, Jimmy Carter would have defeated Ronald Reagan.

Matt Schlapp, who was political director of George W. Bush's 2000 campaign, drew parallels between the GOP's standing with Hispanics and the party's troubles with African-Americans, who now routinely back Democrats by 9-1 margins. "The idea that we would somehow copy that with the Hispanic community is troubling," he said.

Hispanics have long favored Democrats. But they have been trending even more sharply toward that party since Republicans stymied Bush's immigration proposal and favored hard-line immigration measures that critics decried as racially motivated.

Romney tapped an author of Arizona's controversial immigration law to advise him during the GOP primaries and called for "self-deportation" to lower the number of illegal immigrants. Obama, meanwhile, announced in June that immigration authorities would grant work permits to people brought here illegally as children who graduated high school or served in the military. The directive energized a Hispanic electorate that had been disappointed by Obama's inability to overhaul the U.S. immigration system.

Recognizing the political impact, House Speaker John Boehner said Thursday that he wants the next Congress to tackle an immigration bill.

"This issue has been around far too long," Boehner said in an interview with ABC News' "World News." ''A comprehensive approach is long overdue, and I'm confident that the president, myself, others can find the common ground to take care of this issue once and for all."

Interviews with voters as they left their polling places this week found that Hispanics gave Obama his winning margin in Colorado, Nevada and Virginia. They also account for his narrow lead in Florida, where votes were still being counted on Thursday.

Even before the races were called, some Republicans took to the airwaves and social media to call on the party to pull back from its hard-line stance and embrace certain immigration reforms.

It's unclear whether the results would change the party's opposition to legalizing the status of some illegal immigrants. In a conversation with the Des Moines Register last month, Obama predicted that GOP opposition could crumble after Hispanics delivered the White House to him. The conversation was initially off the record but later published with the president's consent.

"And since this is off the record, I will just be very blunt," Obama said. "Should I win a second term, a big reason I will win a second term is because the Republican nominee and the Republican Party have so alienated the fastest-growing demographic group in the country, the Latino community."

On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he would introduce immigration legislation next year and that Republicans would reject it "at their peril."

Opponents of an immigration deal warned that Republicans should not take the Democrats' bait. Steve Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies noted that Hispanics have reliably backed Democrats for decades, even after President Ronald Reagan signed an immigration amnesty law in 1986 that gave many of them legal status. Those new American citizens, Camarota said, turned into Democrats.

Camarota and other supporters of immigration restrictions contend that Hispanics lean Democratic because they favor government social programs and higher taxes on the wealthy. The GOP changed the national electorate through the 1986 law "and now they have to move with the electorate," he said. "For 30 years that we have data, Hispanics have been voting Democratic. There's no reason to think that's going to change unless the Republican Party moves away from its low-tax, low-regulation position."

NumbersUSA President Roy Beck, whose group advocates reductions in immigration levels, argues that Republicans like Romney need to explain to Hispanic voters why immigration restrictions are in their interest. "He should have talked about Hispanic unemployment and how much high immigration hurts Hispanic employment."

Rep. Lou Barletta, R-Pa., an immigration hawk, agreed and said economic issues, not immigration, are key to winning Hispanics. "You should never sacrifice your core beliefs for political reasons," he said.

The debate is nothing new for the GOP.

Mario H. Lopez, president of the conservative Hispanic Leadership Fund, said he's heard arguments like that before - after every election in which Hispanics lean more Democratic and Republicans suffer. "The clock has been ticking," Lopez said. "Some of us have been talking about it for years. It's up to them if they want to listen or have more nights like Tuesday night."

(Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

 

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CORPUS CHRISTI - The excitement of election night may be over, but for Corpus Christi's mayor elect, the excitement just started.

I sat down with Corpus Christi's newly elected mayor, Nelda Martinez, to find out about her plans for the future of the city.

Last night, it was all cheers and hugs for Martinez while she watched the results of Tuesday's election and found out she would be the new mayor of Corpus Christi. Today the celebration is over, and it's time to get to work.

Martinez says, "Corpus Christi, we can't say we are the city of potential anymore. We have a lot of work to do and I'm ready to roll up my sleeves and get it done."

Martinez added, "Right now my number one goal is to follow through on a promise that we had on the street solution. This is a fundamental service that we should never let slip away from us."

She hopes to have a plan to fix some major roadways in the next 6 to 8 weeks.

Martinez also wants to repair city buildings that are in bad shape, like the Science and History Museum, which we reported last month has a leaky roof.

Another short term goal is to create more local jobs through companies like Eagle Ford Shale and MMG Resins, which she predicts will bring in over 200 jobs.

Martinez also has long term goals. One of which is to make Corpus Christi a city residents can be proud of, and a city tourists want to visit.

Martinez says, "More people know about Corpus Christi not only as a national destination but ultimately become a world class destination because of our beautiful natural resources."

Martinez also plans to help local business by creating more tax incentives.

But first things first, Martinez did make a promise last night, "The first thing I want to do is clean up all of my signs."

And she stuck to that promise by waking up at 4 this morning, and to start picking up her signs.

 

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(Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

 

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Proposition 1 passed with 74 percent of voters in favor of the $55 million dollar bond project to improve the condition of city streets.

Proposition 2, the City Hall Improvements measure, failed by a smaller margin with 54% opposed to issuing bonds in the amount of $1,750,000 to repair the building.

Proposition 3 passed with 54% of the voters in favor of $4,750,000 in bonds to improve the city's service center.

Proposition 4 passed by a large margin with 67% in favor of making $16,000,000 in improvements to the city's parks and recreation facilities.

Proposition 5 asked the voters to approve $2,340,000 to make improvements to museum and libraries. Voters overwhelmingly said yes with 65% of the vote.

Proposition 6 also passed with 67% approving $820,000 to improve public health facilities.

Proposition 7 passed with 52% of votes in favor of $700,000 to improve the vehicle impound yard and other unnamed improvements.

Proposition 8 passed with 61% of voters in favor of issuing $8,400,000 for economic development projects.

 

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CORPUS CHRISTI - The 105th District Attorney's race pitted two longtime prosecutors against each other. Democratic incumbent Mark Skurka faced a challenge from former Nueces County prosecutor James Sales. Skurka ended up with 56% of the vote.

"I think it's my qualifications and experience speak volumes. I'm no one knew at this position. I've been here 25 years. I've stabilized that office. I've done some new things at that office and for the last two years. I've run it effectively. I think that's what people want," Skurka said.

 

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CORPUS CHRISTI - One of the most heated local races was the one for Nueces County Sheriff as both candidates accused the other of misconduct. In the end, incumbent Jim Kaelin will hold on to the seat he's had since 2006. He picked up a win with 54% of the vote.

Kaelin told us last night, "My opponent threw an awful lot of mud at me in the campaign. It took a great deal of restraint on my part not to throw back. When I'm accused of a felony, accused of being a coward, accused of.. just go down the litany of things he accused me of wrongdoing. He attacked the very core of my character."

Despite all of the drama in this race, challenger Isaac Valencia, a 29-year veteran of the Corpus Christi Police Department says he is proud of the way his campaign was handled.

"It was a difficult race, we had our issues that we wanted to put out there and did the best we could to get it out there. The bottom line is this the public makes that final determination. You can say would you have done something differently, anyone can armchair quarterback that, but the bottom line is this, we're proud of our campaign," Valencia said.

 

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CORPUS CHRISTI - In the race for the State Representative District 34 seat it was a rematch between Republican Connie Scott and Democrat Abel Herrero.
Herrero took back the seat he lost two years ago to Scott and he's ready to get back to business.

Abel Herrero told us, "We're excited. We're ready to work already again and so we'll start again tomorrow meeting with people, trying to see what we can do to make improvements in public education and other issues."

 

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CORPUS CHRISTI - Republican Blake Farenthold will hold on to his District 27 Congressional seat that he won from longtime incumbent Solomon Ortiz in the last general election. The demographics of the district have significantly changed with redistricting, as the area no longer represents the Rio Grande Valley, but still includes northern parts of the Coastal Bend.

Farenthold faced a strong challenge from Democrat Rose Meza Harrison. He received 57% of the vote by night's end. Farenthold credits his record for his re-election.

"I feel like in my case it's saying I done a good job. I've reached out to both sides of aisle and represented folks whether they voted for me the first time or didn't and it's something i'm going to continue to do," Farenthold said.

 

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CORPUS CHRISTI - Three City of Corpus Christi Council seats were up for grabs last night. Incumbents Priscilla Leal (district 3), David Loeb (At-Large) and Mark Scott (At-Large) held onto their seats and will be joined by Lilian Riojas (At-Large), Chad Magill (District 2), Colleen McIntyre (District 4) and Rudy Garza (District 5)

Mark Scott told us, "In the next two years, there are profound things happening in Corpus Christi. We could see ten billion dollars of construction beginning. That's exciting. So, I'm excited to be part of the council that will deal with that. Schlitterbahn is going to open in 16 months. This is a grand time to be on the City Council."

Lilian Riojas said, "We do have challenges and I'm ready to admit that but I think people see some positive things happening for our community. I think they... I think I represent that."

David Loeb said, "We have a bunch of new council members. and of course a new mayor. From going to the different candidate forums and listening to the new council members, I think we really have a shared vision on that."

Chad Magill received 54% of the vote over Brian Riojas to join the council to represent District 2. Incumbent John Marez left the council to run for, and win, a seat on the CCISD school board.

In District 3, voters saw a flipped rematch of the 2007 election as Jesse Noyola went up against incumbent Priscilla Leal. Leal held onto her seat with 65% of the vote.

In District 4, incumbent Chris Adler was not on the ballot for the race as she unsuccessfully made a bid to become the next mayor. Voters overwhelmingly chose Colleen McIntyre with 76% of the vote over Jano Andrasik and Webster Pell.

In District 5, Larry Elizondo decided not to run for re-election, so voters had a choice of Rudy Garza or RTA Board Chairman John Valls. Garza edged out Valls with 56% of the vote.

"I feel real good. I'm happy with the results. I think my family and my friends and the community has shown great support for me," Garza said.

Nelda Martinez will still be around in council chambers. The At-Large council member picked up 53% of the vote to become the city's next mayor.

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CORPUS CHRISTI - In the race for Mayor of the City of Corpus Christi, At-Large Council Member Nelda Martinez marched to victory with 53% of the vote.

"I think the people want someone who is going to be straight with them. That's going to be accountable with their tax dollars. They want someone who will take care of our streets that have been neglected for so many years. That's gonna make sure when they move forward with their city. They are going to build forward with their strengths. They know this is a city they can all be proud of in Corpus Christi, Texas," said Martinez late last night.

Other results in the race: District Four Council Member Chris Adler ended the evening with 37%, community activist Ray Madrigal received 6%, and local business owner Josey Wales picked up 4%.

Nelda Martinez will replace Joe Adame, who was not seeking re-election.

 

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(Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

 

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(Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

 

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(Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

 

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