10/27/26: Saudis Beg For Deal With Houthis, Israel Shocked By Bibi Iran Plot, GOP Floods Millions Into Deep Red Districts

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Catch up on Breaking Points with our free daily newsletter. You'll get our breakdown of every daily story. And lots of links in your inbox every day. So, head over. BreakingPoints.com. You can sign up for the newsletter at the top for free today. Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. Lots unfolding here and around the world. First off, Trita Parsi is going to join us to talk about a flurry of activity in Iran and what this very fraught moment where you're between the Israeli elections and the U.S. elections might mean and what we might see transpire. We also are going to talk to him about those Israeli elections which are unfolding today amidst a chaotic situation in Israel. Logan Phillips is going to join us to talk about some numbers. He's breaking down on the midterms. Which house district? Which house districts are in play? Where is the money going? We're following the money this morning with Logan about which seats are in play and how big the midterm landslide may be for Democrats. We're also taking a look at the world of AI. Anthropic just filed their S1. That's the paperwork they need to in order to go public. And they have quite a list of interesting risks that they're tracking as part of these business filings. And finally, we're looking at what might happen after the midterms next week as Trump makes increasing indicators. We're also looking at what might happen after the midterms next week. So Ken Klippenstein has a report on the, quote, doomsday scenarios that the feds are planning for. That's right. Thank you to everybody who's been supporting our show and bearing with the sickness, which is rolling through the ball in Jetty, Grimm and Jashinsky households over this week. So seriously, thank you to everybody bearing with us if you hear any sniffles or anything like that as we continue to broadcast. But also, I have good news to report. We are about 80% of the way there whenever it comes to our Fish Concert Contest. As a reminder of the 1,000 people that sign up before Election Day, it means that one of those people will be able to get to go to the Fish Concert, Madison Square Garden, with Ryan Grimm. And one of our existing premium subscribers will also be able to get to go with a friend along with the great Ryan Grimm as well. And, of course, you could also just sign up to support the show, especially ahead of this crazy election season. So thank you all very much for continuing to do so. You've still got a few more days to get in and hopefully to be able to reach that mark 1,000. If you're watching this on YouTube, please hit subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you're listening to the podcast, please share an episode with a friend. It really helps other people find the show. But with all of that, let's get to our great friend, Dr. Trita Parsi, who's standing by. Dr. Parsi, it's good to see you. Thanks for joining us. Good to be with you guys again. Let's go ahead and start. There's been a flurry of diplomatic activity. Let's put A1 up here on the screen. There's a lot really to say and to think about here. But Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan made this rare joint visit to Tehran yesterday amid reports that the U.S. and Israel were drawing up plans to renew their attacks on Iran. So there's a lot of conflicting information that came out. We do know that the diplomats summited and that there was at least some discussion of some sort of narrow ceasefire deal. There's been some breaking news this morning of the Ayatollah coming out and saying we need to have a discussion about terms of ending the war. Obviously, though, that could mean a lot of different things. What's your general reaction to the summit and what it means? Look, the summit is a huge PR win for the Iranians. And it's, you know, I mean, they've gone to great extent making that point. But it is, the optics of it is quite interesting to see these three countries sending very, very senior officials to Tehran and essentially coming there asking for Tehran's help. And the key thing that was driving this summit is what is happening between al-Sarallah, the Houthis, and Saudi Arabia, in which the Saudis are in an absolutely terrible situation. Of course, the Pakistanis and Turks, when they signed the MECA agreement, had not envisioned that it would lead to this type of a scenario so quickly in which their credibility would be put online. But bottom line, when you take a look at what came out of the summit, it's just like one sentence statement that says that they're going to continue to talk. And I think it reflects that at the end of the day, there wasn't a huge amount of progress made, and perhaps that's unrealistic to expect, because this is a complex issue at the end of the day. But perhaps most importantly, the Saudis essentially started a war that they cannot win on the battlefield, and at the same time, they're not willing to give the concessions that are necessary in order to end it at the diplomatic table. which from the Iranian perspective, essentially, they're saying that this makes the Saudis very similar to Trump. He also started a war unnecessarily that he cannot end at the battlefield and he's not willing to give the concessions at the negotiating table to end it. And in the case of the Houthis, they are demanding an end to the air blockade as a condition to stop their shooting at Saudi Arabia. And the reason why the Iranians, the reason why perhaps there wasn't that much progress, or at least to be reported on, is because the Iranians are not going to put pressure on the Houthis to drop that demand, because it is a mirror image of Iran's own demand. As you recall, the Iranians refused to end the war just because Trump wanted a ceasefire. They needed a lifting of the blockade as a way of them agreeing to a ceasefire. And now the Houthis are essentially making exactly the same ask. An end to the blockade is the condition for them to and their war. So the Iranians are not putting that pressure on them, despite the fact that their reports, of course, as the Saudis offered a billion dollars to the Houthis, which obviously would not be a small amount in any way, shape or form. But again, it's very similar to the situation between the US and Iran. There's a misunderstanding of what the actual strategic situation is. The Houthis are in a very strong position. And as a result, they're not going to be bought off with $1 billion. They want a strategic concessions from the Saudis, which is the lifting of the air blockade. Similarly with the Iranians, they do not feel that time is on America's side, as Scott Besant is saying. They feel that they are in a strong position and as a result, they're asking for strategic concessions in order to agree to end their war with the United States. Trump reiterated something that he seems to outline that he seems to be saying we should either finish it or make a deal. And he's trying to make up his mind. Let's take a listen to A2. Do you notice this isn't a Jimmy Carter attack or an Obama attack? This is a real attack. We don't play games. Yes, sir. And so what happens is I have a decision to make. Do I finish it off, which would be very easy to do? Or do I make a deal? That's a decision. So more big threats there. You know, Trita, what do you make of this period that we're in right now? We're in a very strange moment where you've got the Israeli elections today. We're going to talk to you about that in a minute. We've got the U.S. midterm elections next week. What do you think the Iranian calculation is about when their leverage is maximized given these major political events that are unfolding? Very interesting. I mean, this is a very tense period, of course, and the speculation had been that the Israelis might start the war before their elections. And clearly we've seen now the reporting that Netanyahu was pushing for an attack and got some pushback from the head of the chief of staff of the IDF, which I think the story is a little bit more complex than that, because what has also not been reported, and I wrote on my substack last night, is that the Iranians actually say that there were Israeli airplanes that breached Iranian airspace over the weekend, which one would have thought would have led to an Iranian retaliation, or perhaps the Iranians just starting the war preemptively. But instead, the Iranians chose not to respond at all. And my understanding is that this is because they had come to the conclusion that the Israelis were trying to goad them into a trap, that Trump truly had not made up his mind yet, that Netanyahu needed this war at this moment, and the Iranians were not gonna walk into that trap and give Netanyahu what he wanted, both a benefit to him in his elections, making the decision for Trump, much easier by essentially making the decision for him. If the Iranians had struck at Israel, the war would have started. And then it didn't matter if Trump was still weighing his options and potentially just 5%, 10% that he wouldn't have started the war, which is still a bit surprising given the fact that so far the Iranians have tried to assert an image in which the red lines are completely uncompromising. This is not the strategic patience of a couple of years ago in which they took a lot of hits from the Israelis without responding. But in this specific case, it seems to have been one in which they weighed exactly the sensitivity of the moment, as you pointed out, Crystal, and realized that this was more likely to be a trap than a genuine effort. And mindful of the fact that we have not seen the Israelis do much more since then, it does appear that it probably was a trap. So that's what I'm trying to work my head around. Let's put A5, if we can, up on the screen, because we have this. This is really a provocation. I don't even know if it's fair to say it's an Israeli provocation because Pete Hegseth was apparently in the Joint Operations Command whenever this was happening with Prime Minister Netanyahu, kind of waiting for this to happen in Israel. Meanwhile, you know, you have all of these reporting. This is from CNN. There's multiple others saying U.S. has plans for major Iran strikes if Trump chooses ready to strike the country in 96 hours after giving the order. So what exactly does Iran see? Because multiple times, I mean, you've reported this multiple times as well. You're like, look, they believe we are in the same situation as February. They're stringing us along. Trump, even last night at a rally, just said, you know, ceasefire is useless. Obviously, we played his earlier comments that were made yesterday. There's no point. We're just going to go ahead and attack. Why do they not want to seize the strategic initiative? Is it for, you know, the global outlook to be seen not as the aggressor? It is a military situation. It's hard for me to kind of understand their strategic thinking. Well, there's a huge amount of risks involved if the Iranians were to take preemptive strikes, recognizing that the U.S. is about to attack them. I mean, the reporting at this point is just so extensive that they clearly would be able to make a case that this was a case of anticipatory self-defense in international law. But I think it's important to remember at the same time that the third round of this war, as it is envisioned by both sides, even what the Israelis are saying, that they will go after all of Iran's infrastructure, given the fact that Trump is talking about finishing them off, it suggests that there would be massive destruction on all sides. And at the end of the day, even though the Iranians believe that they have a strategic edge in that type of a scenario, it does not mean that it is not an absolutely terrible scenario for Iran as well. So it's a decision that you go down the path up only when you are. Fully, fully convinced that there is no other way, that there is no way avoiding it because it is not a positive scenario at the end of the day for either side. And I think the test of it was really this weekend in which the Israelis had been already making a lot of exercises in Syria and Iraqi airspace. They had gotten closer and closer to Iranian airspace and eventually did breach it. And the Iranians chose not to respond, not because I don't think they can, but because at the end of the day, they are not going to be able to do that. And so I think it's a very, very important decision. And I think it's important to note when it comes to this story about the chief of staff of the IDF, Zamir, pushing back, I don't think it is about whether he agrees that there should be a war with Iran or not, or if he has a completely different view as to whether Iran is a threat to Israel or not. I think they're on completely same page. It's just a question of the fingerprint on a decision two days or three days before the Israeli elections, which would very likely tip the elections in some direction that, and that's the responsibility he doesn't want to have. But if it is true that the Israelis were breaching Iranian airspace, they wouldn't have done that without IDF's approval, which means that he's okay with it as long as he doesn't have his fingerprints on it. Let's put A7 up on the screen. We keep getting all these indications that something may be imminent in the Middle East. This is the latest one from the Wall Street Journal, WaysMidi's Outposts. After a suspected Iranian plot to target Americans, we previously had news that diplomats and even some troops were being removed from the region. We've also had a lot more military assets rushed to the region. Is this week a particularly dangerous moment after the Israeli elections, but before the U.S. elections, where there could be an Iranian calculation of, all right, we think that a strike before the Israeli elections would help Netanyahu. We don't want to do that. But a restarting of the war before the U.S. elections would hurt Trump, we do want that outcome and a sense that, okay, there's some restarting of the war is probably inevitable anyways. Is this a particularly fraught moment that we're in? It is. It is a very fraught moment. But I would, and I've written about this earlier on, that this is one of the different options the Iranians were looking at. And they were looking at doing it just a couple of days before the midterms in order to give a shock to the markets and give Trump a chance to win. And I think that's a very important moment. And I think that's a little time as possible to be able to clean it up. But I am not as convinced any longer that this is necessarily the direction they will go. They might. But the Iranians do not give the slightest impression that they are in a desperate situation. On the contrary, they come across as being very confident and very comfortable with the current situation. I'm not saying that they're doing great in any way, shape or form. Their economy clearly is suffering. But they do not seem to be particularly pressed. And under those circumstances, they're not going to be able to do anything. And I think perhaps they will choose not to go down this path. Again, I think it very much depends on whether they see a very strong, almost inevitable likelihood of an attack by the United States after the war. And I think one of the things that makes such a decision very difficult, in addition to the other factors that I mentioned, is that we're dealing with Trump. Trump has numerous times, I think the count is now at seven, made very, very clear, very convincing threats only to back off at the end of the day. And I think that's a very, very important point. And if he were to back off at the last moment, that clearly would be a preferential situation for the Iranians, rather than going down this path of an absolutely disastrous war that would leave the entire region in a terrible shape, including Iran itself. No credit checks, just flexible repayment options. When unexpected expenses pop up, Clio can help give you a little extra breathing room. Download Clio today and make checkout a little easier. Depending on eligibility, you can get a $500 cash advance. It's the rage bait. If we got clear facts, maybe we can calm down a little. This is Jacob Goldstein from What's Your Problem? Running a business is hard enough. Don't make it harder with a dozen apps that don't talk to each other. One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. That software overload. Odoo is the all-in-one platform that replaces them all. CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR, fully integrated, easy to use, and built to grow with your business. Thousands have already made the switch. Why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's odoo.com. Let's switch now to Israel, obviously, and their ongoing elections. We'll start again with the piece that you wrote. Let's put it up here on the screen. Obviously, we'll add it in post-production. You say Israel breached Iranian airspace this weekend, but Iran chose not to respond. How can you contextualize this, Dr. Parsi, in the context of these Israeli elections? So obviously, it was a ploy by Netanyahu to tip the balance, but it does beg the question, what will some future Israeli government do? Will Donald Trump make a deal with Eisenkant's government if he does form some sort of a deal with Israel? What will he do? What will he do? What will he do? What will he do? What will he do? What will he do? What will he do? What will he do? What will he do? What will he do? How do you see, like you were saying earlier, the actual mind of the IDF behind what they decided to go along with Netanyahu in this case? Well, I think the first thing to keep in mind is it's a very unlikely scenario that we will have a quick resolution to the Israeli elections. We've seen in the past that these formations of governments can take weeks. If not months, they can fail. I think Israel ended up having like three or so elections within a year as a result of a failure to form governments. So during that period, Netanyahu will continue to be prime minister, and he may continue to push and eventually may succeed in getting an attack because he calculates that it will be helping him in his formation and his ability to form a government. Now, in this scenario, which, again, I don't know what the likelihood of it is. It's difficult to predict what the Israeli outcome will be in this election. But let's say that we have a lot of wins and wins rather clearly. And as a result, there's a quick formation of government in this period. ends up becoming very short. Even though I don't believe that the new Israeli government will have a particularly different outlook on matters. I don't think, you know, we talked about last time how the Israeli security doctrine has shifted. I don't think you're going to see significant changes on that. You may see some changes in the West Bank, but at the end of the day, the broader direction of Israel towards the region, towards Iran, towards the Palestinians, I don't think it's going to change that dramatically. But one factor that could have an impact on all of this, not as an insurmountable obstacle, but as a complicating factor for Trump is the relationship that he has with Netanyahu. Even though it's very fraught, they don't trust each other. Nevertheless, they have dealt with each other for more than 12 years. I don't think he has any relationship with Isaac Kott. And as a result, if they're going to go to war together, I think that's going to complicate matters. It may add more time to the clock because there's going to be a lot of issues to sort out. And I think that's going to complicate matters. And Isaac Kott may also have a calculation. It has nothing to do with whether he believes Iran is a threat or not, but with the fact that if Trump fears very badly in the midterm elections, and he's now dealing with a democratic Congress, a democratic House and a Senate, and a likely democratic president in 2028, Isaac Kott may not want to go down the path of having his name on a war that will be utterly unpopular amongst the American public, as it were. already is, but also with the next administration of the United States. So I think there's a slight possibility that that outcome may actually cause the type of tight-knit coalition between Israel and the United States to become a little bit more complicated. And the driving force of this, which so far has been Netanyahu, will be taken out of the equation. Let's put B1 up on the screen. This is a concept that's been floated. I don't know how realistic this is, but Netanyahu, with Trump's backing, could lose the election. and still lead a divided Israel. The concept here is that him and Eisenkot would form a unity government. This is something that Eisenkot has ruled out up to this point, but I guess you never know how this could come to fruition. I was also thinking, Trita, about how Netanyahu got the endorsement of Trump, but apparently he wanted Trump to do more than he ultimately did and to be more vocal. And he put out multiple true social posts, but I guess Netanyahu was hoping for more from Trump. Trump was constantly bragging about how he was going to win the election. Trump was constantly bragging about how popular he is personally in Israel, saying he's got 99% support in the state of Israel, which I don't know if that is the bragging point that he thinks it is. But in any case, do you think that something like this is a possibility? And what does it display about Trump's sentiment towards Netanyahu? First of all, Netanyahu is probably also one of the very few people in this world right now that are actually seeking Trump's endorsement. I don't think he has that value anywhere else. Look, Israeli coalition building teachers and politics is very, very complicated, and it may very well end up in a scenario in which an Isaac Netanyahu government could end up leading the country. The question at that point will be, will Isaac agree to it, or is it better for him to actually move towards new elections? And the factors that go into that decision are too vast, and I have not enough knowledge to be sure of. So part of me that finds it's very unlikely that he would really want to govern together with Netanyahu at this point, because I think there's a desire to really see Netanyahu's political career come to an end. And as a result, if he's seen as the one who's actually prolonging it, it would probably be quite negative for him in his own constituency. So again, I think the bottom line is that when it comes to the coalition building in Israel, it's going to be very, very complicated, and a lot of it's going to be depending upon how well or badly Netanyahu does. Because if Eisenkot can form a coalition, with a bunch of other parties and exclude Netanyahu from it, that clearly is going to be his first option. So sticking with here with the Israeli elections, we recently had this interesting, you know, interview with Eisenkot on Israeli TV. Let's put B2 up here, and I'll read a little bit of what he said. He was asked specifically about the supposed Iran nuclear threat. And he says that Netanyahu, quote, is a delusional person. He knows they didn't have any evidence to lie. He's talking specifically about Netanyahu's most recent claim that Iran is once again somehow days away from a nuclear weapon. So this does fit a little bit with what you're saying. You know, Eisenkot is a different character. His English is not very good. You know, Netanyahu, obviously, he's like bored in the United States, right? Or raised in the United States. I mean, he's extremely articulate in English and has a deep relationship with Trump. He seems to be somebody different. I'm not saying that he's better necessarily for U.S. interests, but it does highlight the problem that you are saying for some future Israeli leadership. But nonetheless, you don't see a fundamental change in Israeli security doctrine, that some attack on Iran in some form will likely take shape no matter who is prime minister. Is that right? I believe that the trajectory of Israel will not change in a meaningful way with just one election. It will take much more than that. I find it absolutely fascinating what Eisenkot said here, in which he even pushed back on what Netanyahu was saying about the Iranians getting a nuclear weapon. Because at the end of the day, that has been one thing that the entire Israeli political establishment has not challenged. They've all played that Iran card at various points in their political life. And if there's one thing that has been like a consensus issue on, it's been Iran inside of the Israeli electorate and political establishment. So to see that challenge against Netanyahu by a leading Israeli politician could indicate a very important change that may come. But that doesn't mean that the Israelis are going to believe that Iran is not a threat or that Iran is not a challenge to them. We're still far, far away from that. But the use of this never-ending excuse of saying the Iranians are two weeks away from a nuclear war may actually start to become discounted in Israel, given what we just heard here. And particularly if the result of the elections means that Netanyahu's massive exaggerations about this just in the last couple of days ended up not working with the Israeli electorate. One thing that's also very important to recognize is that we can make an assumption that the, you know, the desires, the orientation of the Israeli leaders may not be particularly different or whatever difference they are, it's not meaningful. But what is meaningful is exactly what you pointed out, Sagar, which is Netanyahu's ability to influence the American political system, his knowledge of it, manipulated, if you so wish, is really heads and shoulders above any other Israeli political figure and certainly above the capacity of an Eisenkant. So that, at the end of the day, is going to be an important factor, regardless of the trajectory of the Israelis. And last question for you, Trita, related to that, you know, the Democratic base has really turned on Israel just completely across the board. But what a lot of liberal Zionist elected officials hang on to is they're now happy to criticize the Netanyahu government, but they want to put all of the problems, you know, with Israel and violations of human rights and committing genocide, they want to put it just on the shoulders of Netanyahu. So if you did have Netanyahu out of power, what do you think it would mean here in terms of the, you know, the ability to sort of maintain that posture from liberal Zionists in the U.S.? There will be a massive push to say that everything was Netanyahu's fault and that now we need to reset our relationship with the good guys in Israel. And there will be massive accusations against anyone or any entities that are pushing for a broader change vis-a-vis Israel to say, well, this is now evidence of some form of anti-Israeli sentiment, perhaps even anti-Semitism, because you're going after the country, whereas in reality, the one person who bears responsibility for this is Netanyahu and is no longer in government. So I think there's going to lead to, it's going to lead to a major fight in Washington about this, but it's a fight that is absolutely necessary. It's a fight that actually, in some ways, would bring forward a real debate. Is this just a Netanyahu phenomenon or is it an Israel phenomenon? It's a conversation that has not yet been had. And it would be started at the worst possible circumstances for the standpoint of the liberals. I'm not a Zionist that would be pushing this because as you pointed out, Israel standing has just completely plummeted. And if you take a look at the polls, it's not Netanyahu standing, it's Israel standing that has plummeted. Yes. Right. I think a lot of people will wake up after the very first security incident in the West Bank and we see not very much change whatsoever. Dr. Parsi, thank you as always for your time. We appreciate it. And we'll see what happens in Israel at the elections. I think 4 p.m. Eastern time is when we're going to see the answer. Thank you, sir. Yeah. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Cash Advance. i turned off news altogether i hate to say it but i don't trust much of anything it's the rage bait it feels like it's trying to divide people we got clear facts maybe we can calm down a little nbc news brings you clear reporting let's meet at the facts let's move forward from there nbc news reporting for america this is jacob goldstein from what's your problem running a business is hard enough don't make it harder with a dozen apps that don't talk to each other one for sales another for inventory a separate one for accounting that's software overload odoo is the all-in-one platform that replaces them all crm accounting inventory e-commerce hr fully integrated easy to use and built to grow with your business thousands have already made the switch why not you try odoo for free at odoo.com that's odoo.com joining us now is our great friend logan phillips of race to the white house.com which everybody should go and visit it's good to see you logan for our weekly check-in hey great to be on as always guys all right let's go ahead and put this up here on the screen we have asked logan to compile all of this data which thank you seriously for doing this we're currently looking at house district polls on the left-hand side we see the districts themselves we see the polling lead and then we also see where they voted in the 2024 presidential election you also logan have done us the service of showing us the shift toward democrats in those districts why don't you tell a story about this election through these 14 different polls over the last couple of days and what it tells us about the national environment yeah that's a great question well the problem we've had this cycle is almost all the polling that is uh coming from non-partisan sources has been focused on the senate and governor races and so we've just had an enormous amount of partisan polls that we don't know if we can trust or not but this is where we finally have some indication about where the voters um actually might be um from some high quality sources and it is a lot worse than i think folks were thinking going in um democrats are just doing so well in race to the white house and so we're going to have to do some stuff to race here and logan how do we explain the difference between the fact that in the north carolina's 11th district you have a 23 point nearly shift towards democrats but then all the way down in pa1 we're only looking at a two-point shift towards democrats in fact the um outside of pennsylvania 8 it looks like the shift in pennsylvania is less than in some of the other places you know how are you thinking about the range of possibilities that are reflected in these high quality polls yeah i think what we're seeing in north carolina combined with the early vote is that this state might be democrats michigan from 2022 all signs are kind of going north carolina the turnout has been overwhelmingly democrat compared to four years ago and two years ago uh and you know roy cooper is doing a great job and also like i think there's a reaction to the republican state legislator here which has moved really far to the right compared to north carolina they've kind of acted like they're in a deep red state i think that's been turned off some voters and so uh you know between that and the gerrymander democratic voters candidates seem to be doing really well across the board uh and in nc11 this was a race where the incumbent had to drop out chuck edwards due to ethical issues um and voters seem to be frustrated and looking for a new direction so i actually buy the polls correct because i think we've seen something like a 10 to 20 percent more democratic electorate in that early vote well let's take a look at some of these other races can you give me a character check-in for example on like texas 35 or arizona 2 these are places where in your polling average shift you see they voted between r10 and 15 in 2024 you have a d plus 17 swing in both of those any connective tissue is there like a rural urban matchup or something that you see that when you were looking into these things that you thought maybe you could extrapolate to the national level yeah well my ac2 is a little bit different i think it's a little bit different i think it's a little bit different i think it's a little bit different right that is uh a race where you have the navajo president running for officers is a very significant native american race uh population in that race uh so it might end up being a little bit different than other races now this isn't a race that it was always kind of like the ultimate reach race um but now that the polling showing it's competitive i think we have to take it seriously and then texas 35 is part of like this larger picture republicans are just seriously underperforming with latino voters in texas and so we will see if that ends up being as bad as the polls have suggested but across the board they're doing you know double digits sometimes 20 plus drop-offs with those groups of voters and that moves all these districts that people thought were going to be very republican even in a wave year um into being hyper competitive yeah but even if you look at all these polls even in the the best case scenario you still see you know a pretty significant democratic shift let's go and put the next graphic that you've prepared up on the screen here this is um house spending in redistricted states of course you had this big um mid-decade redistricting push republicans thinking this was going to net them a bunch of seats in states that they control florida texas being chief among them they redrew the maps hoping that this was going to give them a big buffer and maybe they would be able to keep the house and so what you're focused on here is the spending in these redistricted states so what are you getting from these numbers here logan yeah i think that this might have been i don't think they expected one the biggest wave you're going to get is the spending in these redistricted states so what years uh in the last you know 20 plus years and maybe they this wasn't the right year to make such an aggressive move because in addition to the fact that it puts more of these types of seats in play the other danger is now the incumbents don't know their voters so they don't have like this entrenched support of people who say i might not like what's happening nationally but i trust my guy or i trust my gal and i know they're going to have my back now they're like who is this person it makes them more aware of the fact that they did gerrymandering which i don't think decides a race but it definitely is not something helpful because it comes across as pretty corrupt for understandable reasons uh and it's kind of interesting that you're seeing this it's not just in texas and it's not just in florida uh you're seeing this all across the board uh in all these states that redistricted now the one that really surprised me on this list is louisiana first now it's very rare at this point in election that i start hearing about a district with outside spending or a rating change that i've literally never heard of or paid even a second of attention to that's because it's steve scolese's district it's an r plus 38 district i'm not thinking democrats are going to win this i have it a soft r but maybe steve scolese is just feeling nervous and he's like just in case republican allies uh why don't you spend an extra five million my way okay so this spending dollar figure including with your lean figure how indicative it is in the past for example like when they spend money it's based on something real or in the scolese case as you just said it's based on his feelings and he wants to run up that you want to be some sort of a potential speaker uh in the future he wants to make sure he shows that he's strong but in the rest of the cases is this a sign that they're really in trouble logan like these people kind of know what they're doing at least in your experience yeah i think it is i think it's a sign that uh i mean they could be wrong people are wrong all the time about these things but the republicans uh seem to think it's a worse way than the democrats do they're they're panicked they shouldn't be spending in some of these races that's wild i mean just looking at these numbers put it back up on the screen guys this is spending in districts that are like okay r plus 38 maybe we put that outside because you got the steve scolese situation but outside of that r plus 10 r plus 12 r plus 21 r plus 17 r plus 15 these are seats that in any not even like a normal cycle even in a cycle where you do have a backlash you wouldn't have to think about an r plus 17 district and yet clearly in florida nine both parties think that there's a race here democrats dropping three million and republicans also dropping 1.6 million so it does just underscore look the polls could be wrong but both sides certainly their polling is showing them that districts are in play that no one would ever have imagined could be at in jeopardy yeah and i think one way to look at it right is when you have like a d plus 10 wave i'd say which maybe this would be uh all of a sudden you have races d plus two or r plus two sorry to like r plus you know 16 17 18 that could be in play because individual candidates will dramatically over underperform and their unique coalition shifts within that dynamic like with latino voters and so if you have a candidate that is not let's say they're not doing the best job they're not the best campaigner they've never run a competitive race in their life since they won their first primary they might not know how to run they might be turning off voters more than extra and they might this might be a rescue operation uh for someone really well-known in the country and they might not know how to run they might be wasn't meant to build play on this high level level another thing logan maybe you could dig into is the demographics of these gerrymandered districts i for example flagged this early on in texas i was like hey you know you're playing with fire here you're trying to go 52 48 just betting uh 52 48 in terms of the trump 2024 vote and now you've got look like with the latino voters i love it because they're like oh there are voters now even though they voted r plus 50 for hillary like what 10 years ago and so all of a sudden they just said oh their total lock. I mean, from what we're seeing right here, it might be one of the biggest backfires strategically because something that we both were talking about in our last segment was not only are they now about to potentially lose a gerrymandered district, they have opened up basically the ground to mid-season redistricting in state legislators. And we haven't even tracked, we haven't even prepared what could be happening at the state legislator level across many of these competitive states, which could significantly flip it away from them in the future. Is that right, Logan? Yeah, yeah. Let's play 3D chess for a second, right? Let's take a few years ahead. Democrats are probably going to have a big year this year, probably going to win a lot of races, and maybe a little less because of some of these moves, but not that much less. And they've mostly been in congressional races versus state legislator races that they'll be able to control this type of thing. Republicans on paper, like this is most likely outcome for me, at least. I think, Democrats will be favored in 2028, which means Republicans will be favored in 2040, and they could potentially have control over all these state legislators just in time to do another massive gerrymander like they did to Democrats in the 2010s. But if they open up the can of worms here, Democrats could potentially be able to limit how much they are able to take if they start gerrymandering aggressively in all of these places they potentially win this year. And in 28, really diluting the GOP's ability to take as big of an advantage. So this dynamic, I mean, look, it's bad but it might actually end up hurting specifically the GOP more. Because now there's kind of a clean pathway for Dems to, you know, you never know, maybe it'll be in the same position. We'll say how dumb they were if they do aggressive moves in 28 leading up to 2030, right? But on paper, there's a pathway to make this a lot less bad for Dems. Nobody likes playing calculator at the grocery store. You're standing at checkout watching the total go up and wondering if you're still on budget. With Clio, you can request up to a $500 cash advance to help cover what you need. No interest, no credit checks, just flexible repayment options. It's the rage bait. That's software overload. Why not you? That's odoo.com. All right, let's put the next graphic up on the screen. These are districts that Democrats are moving money into. They see these as new targets as they expand the playing field here, so to speak. We've got Arkansas's second congressional district represented by French Hill, Colorado's third, Florida 27, New York 21, Nevada 2, and Tennessee 9. That's Justin Pearson is the challenger there. Tennessee being another state where they redistricted and tried to make it so that there wouldn't be a single Democratic representative. My understanding is there's now two districts in Tennessee. That's the challenge there. That's the in play that Democrats could theoretically have a chance to win. So let's keep this up on the screen. Logan, what are you seeing in these districts that are now being contested by Democrats? Yeah, this is an impressive list. I mean, a lot of these races were not ones that most people had on their radar at all. You have Elise Stefanik's district in here, which, and you have Florida 27, you have two Cuban journalists that have ironically both interviewed Castro in the past. They're running against each other. This is a race no one thought would be in play. I believe she won by 20 last time. And she's been warning about how competitive her district is. She famously broke with Donald Trump and immigration, like soft broke, but managed to make it a national story. You also came after her for that, right? Yeah, he did. He did. And honestly, I think he helped her. Normally that doesn't help Republicans, but I think she baited him and he took it and she did just enough to probably create a lot more separation than any of the words he actually said. I mean, she just said she was concerned, basically, and don't take it. Granted, but didn't I think she I think she blamed the staff. It wasn't really like one of those real condemnations, you know? And so, Logan, you know, these are a lot harder racist forecasts, like you said. I mean, race by race polling is notoriously unreliable. Maybe we can gauge a little bit statewide and demographics. What are some of the ingredients where you would see all of these targets end up going blue? Like what's the common theme? Is it just dissatisfaction with Trump? The economy is demographic thing. Take us through it. Yeah, I think there's a few things, right? I think dissatisfaction of Trump is by far the biggest factor here. You have some real candidate quality gaps on this map in some races, but above all else, it is because voters are unhappy with the way the president's governing. They're upset about prices and you're seeing it happen in like this is a super focus in some of the areas that have been most affected. Role areas have been really hurt economically by the price of diesel, by all of these things. I mean, look, a lot of these are first, second, third generation immigrants. They're going to feel the economic impacts more than most, which is why they vote more on the economy than other people do. Combined with ISIS actions, there's a lot of room for them to lose there too. So this is sort of like a super focused map or super focused list of races that is like the place where Democrats have that extra room to grow a touch more. Let's put the last graphic we prepared here up on the screen. This is races that have been left behind by the Republicans. So at the same time that Democrats are going on the offense in more districts, you have Republicans who are saying, sorry, this one is just not going to happen. One of them there, New York 3, this is Tom Suozzi's district, Democratic incumbent. This was originally seen as a top target because this was a district that's represented by a Democrat, but Donald Trump won by over four points. Another one there, really noteworthy, Henry Cuellar, viewers of this show will be pretty familiar with him as the district Trump won by over 10 points. Cuellar was pardoned by Trump, actually, a very interesting sort of corrupt horseshoe going on there. But they have decided, no, this one is not going to happen this time. And it's rated as likely D by your outlet. So what are you seeing in some of these races? Because I'll tell you, when I look at this, when I look at the previous graphic about the Democratic seats that they're going on the offense, when I look at the places that both parties are targeting with funds, it's really all over the place. And I feel like any one of these locations you could tell a specific story about. You could look at Texas and you could say, OK, you've got this huge Latino vote and there's this backlash over the economy, but also over ice. Florida, you also have an immigration backlash. The heartland, you have massive backlash over the tariffs and over the fertilizer prices and the Iran war. But it's you know, it's you're hard pressed to find any part of the country that you can't tell some story about why in particular this place has been negatively affected and is upset over what Trump has done the second time around. Yeah. And I also think there's some districts here that like Republicans were very excited to get like Kevin Lincoln to run in California 13th. Mayor of Stockton, California. You see Zach Nunn, who's a veteran that they viewed as one of their best candidates. The fact that they're leaving some of these guys behind is extremely notable. And honestly, I think the GOP might have been a little too ambitious early. I don't think there was any chance they were going to beat Swazi from the beginning. I'll be honest. Like this guy's a really strong performer. He's won in tougher conditions. The only chance you have of beating Swazis in a red wave. So I would say this is a combination of them being a little too aggressive for most of the race and maybe not having a full awareness of where the American people were at and that it's a midterm. And the second part of this, too, there's so much more money in politics than there used to be. So this list is probably a reflection of that. I mean, some of these races, like NC11, we've seen like, I think, 20 million spent there. That's like more than most Senate races normally get. For one congressional district of 330,000 people, it's kind of insane. That is so nuts because, you know, the Thomas Massey primary was like 35 million. And he, at the time, was like, oh, this is the most expensive House primary race literally ever. And there's been tens of millions of dollars. To the money point, let's put C4 up here on the screen. Honestly, mind boggling figure. Elon has now spent more than four hundred and forty two million dollars in the midterms, pouring another seventy seven million into his pack over the last month. America PAC, which was launched in 2024, has now spent $336 million on top of that $76 million and additionally a $276 million campaign donation to other various Republican groups just in the three-month stretch between July and September alone. in September alone. Logan, what do we know about where Elon's spending his money? it uh money well spent like what are they using it for and why uh they are dumping so much money in nor in texas and in ohio to the point that i think it's beyond solvency like you know like when water can't take any more salt i don't really know if this is going to make a difference when you spend that much uh yeah i will say obviously you don't want that money spent on you and it's definitely been a little a negative and texas has gotten more competitive uh of late but elon's now giving them an opportunity uh because voters for very justified reasons don't like the richest men in the world or any of the richest men or women in the world telling them uh how their political system should work and spending everything in their power to do to uh make that a reality and so talarico has been running um ads where he has like 20 different types of ads that uh elon musk has specifically paid for they're all going in the background behind him and saying all this is coming from elon musk and saying like what do you think he's getting in return for this money uh we're now seeing uh gina hinojosa is now the governor candidate for dems in texas uh for the state legislator has um gotten access to emails between greg abbott and elon musk uh that'll be released to her that's a potential attack point so you'd much rather not have it but since it's there they got to use it to their advantage and there's certainly some room to play we saw that in wisconsin the supreme court race where what did democrats win by like 20 15 something like that yeah like an insane margin yes it was a blowout yeah and they made the race about elon so it might be a little late to really do that they have so much more to run on but he's going to keep doing this cycle after cycle and uh you know it kind of feels like george soros on steroids there's some room to run with this right yeah well so i mean republicans are just walloping democrats on the the big money fundraising and you know in race after race democrats are getting outspent but one area where democrats are really outpacing republicans is on the grassroots fundraising and g elliott morris compiled these graphics let's put this up on the screen we can see in some of the key senate races the the differences this is c2 or uh what is it c3 that we have these maps yeah here we go um you can see in texas so the deeper blue obviously the more uh funds are coming from that county and he's looking specifically at like in-state grassroots donations because he finds that's a good correlation to who is likely to prevail in that contest you can see kansas there my goodness um you know hamilton is just crushing marshall on the fundraising front from people who live in kansas let's put the next graphic up on the screen we can see michigan same thing abdul doing better than mike rogers in terms of the grassroots fundraising and i oh sorry ohio same thing with um sherrod brown really outpacing um the the his competitor in ohio john houston who's the head of the famously great ass according to donald trump um so apparently that isn't bringing in the money for him in the small dollar donation that he may like to see so do you also find this to be a significant factor how should we think about these maps we're seeing yeah yeah that's way more predictive than super packs i mean we've never seen this i i'm almost certain that we've never seen a party both completely crush it in money from actual donors that aren't from packs that aren't from uh mega billionaires donating through uh super packs or even mega millionaires uh and while at the same time um the other party is crushing it in terms of total numbers because they're getting so much outside donations from those same super packs right so uh normally uh the actual donors are much more predictive and a part of that a little bit of it is because you can do a lot more with the money there candidates get cheaper rates but the second part of that is it's a real signal of how strong of a campaign you're running it doesn't you know a lot of these people that are getting lots of money spent on their behalf doesn't mean they were doing anything right it doesn't mean they were doing anything right it doesn't mean they were doing anything wrong like ken paxton in texas and they know they're in trouble uh so my model is looking at the fundraising ironically as a positive for democrats because it's such a signal of candidate quality and key race after key race this will be the ultimate test of it though um when you know maybe the super pack stuff's more important we're going to find out soon but if democrats have a great race anyway and they overperform in these places and i think it goes to show us that obviously you'd rather have that money but it doesn't mean as much as we think last question for you logan what are you seeing in the early vote seeing anything interesting any trends you want to highlight here on the show yeah this time i was ready for it so i've been doing my early vote research and it has been very strong for democrats but it hasn't it's been relatively on par with the signals that we're seeing they have many states where the turnout seems really strong um north carolina georgia strong black voter turnout iowa looks fantastic for them which fits in line with what we're seeing michigan looks like it's um the same or a little bit worse from 2022 which they did great year then but michigan seems to be the state where they're underperforming and those races are closer than they'd expect though i still think it'll be a big enough year that they'll be able to win um them most likely anyway uh and then you know it's a little harder to see what's happening in some states texas we know turnout is amazing it's a lot harder to figure out if that's good for dems or not i think it's partly based off persuasion um but you know there's more money being spent than anywhere there so uh it makes sense that voters are engaged they know it's a really important race and i guess that's probably lightly bad for democrats because if everyone's voting uh even though i think they're going to do great on persuasion uh the turnout dynamic being in their favor would be a better signal i also think it's going to be a good year for them because they're in general if you just had total number turnout as a whole being lower is almost good for dems if you don't know what the coalition is because uh we know democratic voters are going to vote based off what we've seen in primaries based off what we've seen in special elections the real question is are the republican faithful going to vote uh maybe they're not faithful but the ones who like trump who go out in presidential elections who sometimes vote in midterms but might be like i don't really see anything they're doing for me so why am i going to come out here and vote right makes sense all right thank you very much 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