Harry Enten and Julian Borger: Voting with Fear and Loathing

Hey, it's Mario Lopez from the All Mario Lopez Daily Podcast. All right. Quick question. You ever notice how some cars just steal the spotlight? Well, that's the 2026 Toyota RAV4. It's got bold standout style, intuitive tech inside, and now hybrid power standard, which means efficiency without the need to plug in. So whether you care about looks, smarts, or just everyday practicality, RAV4 brings all of it. If you've been holding out for the right SUV, this is your sign. Check out the 2026 Toyota RAV4 at your local Toyota dealer or visit toyota.com. See packages and options at toyota.com for future availability. This is Matt Rogers from Lost Culture East. That's with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from Lost Culture East. We've been talking about Kewpie Mayo for a minute now. And wow, so many of you already love this stuff. And if you're thinking, wait, what is Kewpie? Do you not have the internet? It's the OG Japanese mayonnaise. The one with the red. The one with the red cap. What makes it different? Egg yolks. Kewpie is made with egg yolks only, giving it this rich umami flavor that elevates everything. Chefs use it. Restaurants use it. Where chefs work, of course. Food and flavor lovers use it. You haven't tried it yet? Well, find the red cap and see what everyone's talking about, why don't ya? Kewpie. The original Japanese mayonnaise. Kewpie. Kewpie. The original mayonnaise. Kewpie. getting into the data as we are one week out from the midterm elections. And so we are calling in Kewpie. Kewpie. Kewpie. the chief data analyst for CNN, the sexiest man of Boca Raton. Oh, yes, yes. Harry Enten. At Del Boca Vista, they voted you sexiest man in their monthly newsletter. And I wasn't impeached, Unlike, you know, Frank Costanza. So you weren't impeached yet? Not yet. All right, Harry. We're going to go into a couple of races in particular I'm curious your thoughts on. And we're also going to talk about how Donald Trump's been, you know, kind of turning you into a piece of man meat as well. He has? A little bit. We'll talk about that. But first, let's just do big picture. Yeah. And look at the House of Representatives. Just level setting for people listening. Right now the Republicans have a four-seat majority in the House. I was looking at your analysis, and you said the chance for Democrats to get to 230 seats, that'd be a 16-seat gain, was 69%, which I thought was very nice. Yeah. So I figured we'd start there. Sure. Is that, you know, kind of what you are seeing as a baseline for the Democrats, a 16-seat pickup? Yeah, look, one way to kind of look at this, that was my wonderful YouTube video, was this morning, you know, I looked at the race ratings. know, your Cook, your your Sabados, et cetera. And right now, seats that are at least leaning towards the Democrats is something on average like 223, which if you know something about the race raters, they tend to be a little bit more conservative. Right. And in fact, you look back at the 2018 midterm, they weren't anywhere close to giving Democrats 223 in terms of the lean. And in five of the five midterms since 2006, the opposition party in those midterms picked up more seats, then we're just leaning. And just in 2018, just to remind us, where did the Democrats end up? They ended up, what, with 240? They had a gain of 40 seats. And so, you know, to me, I think if Democrats end up south of 230, I would say that, you know, in the grand scheme of things, yes, they would win a majority, but that would definitely be south. I think the question here is, do Democrats get north of 235, 240? That may be a little bit much, but I think that- Could you give me 250? Could I get you 250? can I get you 250? Can I get you 250? But you know, we're here at the price is right. We always try to get the closest to the price without actually going over. So I think somewhere between 230 and 240, you're probably in pretty safe ground at that point. You're talking about seats that were, you know, kind of, you know, plus five, plus six, plus seven. Yeah, I think, I think that's right. I, you know, there's sort of, you know, Sean Trendate over real clear kind of, you know, points out that, you know, you get the plus nine, plus 10. I think that's the number. Once you get north of there, it's almost like you get this deluge of all these Republican seats. I mean, I guess that's my question. I'm glad you brought that up because I have been, you know, over the past couple of months been been positing that I think that the Democrats could crack that deluge. And just to explain to people just kind of a little of the basics, basically what happened is there's this handful of seats that are the toss up seats that I think everybody thinks the Democrats are going to win. And then there's another batch of seats that are like, you know, where it's a Republican district, but not by really all that much. And it seems like the Democrats are likely going to win. Then there's kind of this a little bit of a valley where there aren't a lot of seats, you know, in districts that Trump won by, say, eight or whatever, seven, eight. And that's a lot due to gerrymandering. And in gerrymandering, I think a lot of the Republicans tried to get, you know, finagle the seats so that they were, you know, Trump plus 11, Trump plus 12, because they figured those would be safe. And, you know, we've been talking about a lot of those seats here, because I think that in wave years, 2006, 2018, a lot of times you see surprises like that happen. What's your sense of whether the Democrats might be able to crack into that territory at all? Well, I think it depends which national House ballot you choose to believe, right? It's sort of choose your own adventure. If it's double digits, which the New York Times and CNN have shown, then there's a real chance that they could crack it? Or does it end up closer to seven or eight, right? I think the Marist poll had it eight among likely voters. Then you kind of fall short. But I think at this point, the way I might just sort of phrase it is Democrats are kind of playing with house money. Hello. And they're going to get the majority unless something goes totally awry. And the question is just how high does that quote unquote wave build? Total New Jersey or Colorado sweep for you or Virginia? Yeah, those are the things I'm watching. I think that those are sort of, you know, there are two questions that I have, right? Which are, do you get those sweeps in those states? And although we're talking about the House, we'll get to the Senate, I'm sure, in a minute. Is this going to be the first time, I think, ever, at least since the founding of the Republican Party, that New England is completely Democratic in terms of its congressional delegations? Those, I think, are kind of the sweep fund questions that we're kind of digging into right now. That's what I'm going to be looking at early in the House, kind of what's happening in New Jersey and outside of this place. Is there anything else early you're looking at on election night next week? I think, you know, Kentucky six, right? I think that's, we've been talking about that. I think that's the Lexington district. Correct. Correct. That's the old, that's the old Ben Chandler seat. And the question is, you know, those polls close at six o'clock. You should get a pretty decent idea fairly early in terms of, of, of where the house is going. We'll be live. The next level will be live on YouTube. So come on, subscribe to us or watch Harry or multi-screen. You can multi-stream. We're going to be going live at 7 o'clock, so you can start at 6 and then on the CNN All Access app, and I believe YouTube as well, will be going at 7 o'clock. So I'll be there, and I'll be hyped up on much cream soda. All right. You love that cream soda. I do. All right, let's go to the Senate. Right now, 53-47 to the R's. It looked like, I'm telling you if this is wrong, it seems like you think the mode results, like the most likely results if you ran a bunch of simulations on this, would be the Democrats. at 52? Something like that. Which is a Fetterman-proof majority. That it would be if he decided that he wanted to go independent and then dare say caucus with the Republicans. He could not change the majority. Obviously, the House, as I said, we know which way is going. The Senate, this is, as you said, it's the modal result, right? It's what we think is the most likely, but there is a margin of error around it. I mean, that's pretty wild just to kind of run through this for people, like what that means, what a 52-seat majority would mean. Because if I had you on this show October of last year, I think we would have said this is a preposterous thing to even suggest. Because 52 means they'd have to win Maine, North Carolina, Michigan, Georgia, you know, which are the bluish purple states. And then they'd have to win Ohio and two of Iowa, Alaska, Texas. That's how you get to 52. Like anything short of that, you know, you're at 51, you're in Fetterman territory. Or, you know, if you don't win any of Iowa, Alaska, Texas, then or you lose Michigan and trade it or something like that, then you're down at 50. Yeah. And to me, one poll that is just tells you everything you need to know was the New York Times poll that came out that had the race tied in South Carolina, which has not elected a Democratic senator since Fritz Hollings in 1998. What are we talking about here? That's why that's the modal result. Not in a million years what I've thought a year ago that this would be the position we're in. But that's what the polling data is telling us. You're at that aforementioned poll. So here's what we have. This is this morning. Annie Andrews, 48. Darlene Graham, 48. I thought that was significant because that's that's meaningfully different than 45, 45. You got it. That's exactly right. You know, it's one thing to be tied at, you know, 45, 45, 10 percent undecided third party. I'd have to go back. I mean, that would also be even if if Annie Andrews lost, that 48 percent would be the highest share of the vote that a Democrat has gotten for the Senate in South Carolina this century. Yeah. And then the other two polls they had, Florida has Ashley Moody, 50, Angie Nixon, 44. Florida seems like the toughest one to crack at this point. Minnesota. Peggy Flanagan, 54. Michelle Tafoya, 40. Good news for me, since I had said that I was going to fly to Duluth, get down to my boxers and hold a sign that said tampon Tim with an arrow to me if Michelle Tafoya won. Bad news for the people that wanted to see me shirtless, but that seems to have been a Republican pipe dream. So just kind of looking at those together. And I think the Minnesota thing is telling because I look at that and obviously there are different dynamics in Minnesota than in Maine, where Susan Collins is an institution versus Michelle Tafoya, who is a football side by a reporter or Michigan, where there's like kind of these unique things happening with Abdul. But it's hard for me to like look at where we're at and see the Republicans cracking Maine or Michigan. Is that is that crazy? I'll say two things. First off, you can just go shirtless regardless of the result in Minnesota. So, you know, that's just an excuse from you. People got to work. People got to earn it. Well, you know, that can be like the higher subscription tier. That's true. Michigan to me, which has not elected a Republican senator since what Spencer Abraham in 1994. You know, obviously there are unique things that are going on there. But I do kind of feel like we think Michigan is a state that it no longer is in some ways, especially, you know, Middle East politics. And so I have been of the belief, you know, there was the initial Fox poll, I think, back in August that had Mike Rogers ahead by four. But basically since then, most of the reputable polls have had Abdul Al-Sayed ahead. Look, could Mike Rogers win? Absolutely. But that would be surprising to me. It really would be at this point. I kind of put Maine and kind of a separate camp if only because Susan Collins has defied polling before and she has been the senator now there for 30 years. But if Donald Trump's approval rating is what the polls suggested is. I definitely would rather be Troy Jackson at this point than Susan. You alluded to this, but let's just talk about what you're referencing there where you said that people might be misinterpreting what the Middle East, you know, discourse and impact is on the Michigan Senate race. I've been saying this for a while. I think that there is a lot of people in the commentariat, you know, who have a lot of folks in their life that are, you know, Democrats who care about Israel or a kind of moderate Democrats for whom Abdul isn't exactly their cup of tea and Mike Rogers is maybe somewhat appealing. And I just think that that is such a tiny part of the election. I think that that's a tiny part of the election. I think that that's a electorate that just self-selects around the people who talk about politics a bit. And you were talking about this as well recently, where you're like, I think this is contra-conventional wisdom, which is like the Israel issue, if you look at the data, is actually helping Abdul not hurting him. Yeah, this is one of these things where why I like polls, right? Because you can actually test different hypotheses. And what we know is it's not just a national phenomenon. We see it in Michigan as well. We see that views of Israel are have significantly decreased, deteriorated over the last few years. And, you know, I thought the Fox News poll in Michigan was quite telling amongst those voters who said that U.S. policy towards Israel was extremely important to their vote. El-Sayed actually did better than he did overall. And I just think that people are kind of stuck in this viewpoint of five, 10 years ago. I think, you know, as younger people have aged into the electorate, as, you know, the war in Gaza has taken, you know, as Americans have seen happen there, their viewpoints on that conflict and the policy towards Israel have shifted significantly, not just from 10 years ago, but from two, three, four years ago. All right, guys, we're back with our friends from Noble Travel. Travel is stressful when you're on a live tour. And I got to tell you, do you want me to admit something embarrassing? I ran out of socks and underwear on the live tour. Okay. I was one short for each day. Came home, my daughter, said to me, she's eight. She says to me, Papa, she goes, it's not a problem. It wasn't a problem that you were out of underwear. You can just turn it around and use the other side. Where did you learn that idea? So that's a little concerning that she came up with that. 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So if we look at the Senate map extended, when I just laid out that path to 52, I didn't mention. Kansas. I did not mention South Carolina, except, you know, we talked about the poll. Didn't mention Mississippi. Scott Colom versus Cindy Hyde-Smith. Very interesting add-up in Mississippi going after Cindy Hyde-Smith over allowing, you know, the Chinese to buy land in Mississippi. I mean, like they're playing to win down there, Scott Colom is. There's some independent races that people are eyeing. Osborne in Nebraska, maybe. Maybe Montana, but the Democrats still being on the ballot makes that a bit of a stretch. If you look at the hopium, states, is there anything where you think, man, if there's a big surprise next Tuesday in the Senate, this would be the one that you would think it would be? I don't know if it would be a big surprise at this point, but I think, you know, Kansas, look, I get sort of the skepticism in so far as, you know, 12 years ago when Greg Orman was running as that independent candidate, there was this idea, you know, that he could win in that race. I think it was against Pat Roberts, if my mind is still working for me. That's right. But this to me is different. It's different for any number of reasons. First off, the fundamentals that you're made no sense, right? It was Obama who was a unpopular Democratic president at the time in a historically deeply red state that, you know, hasn't elected a Democratic senator since 1932. This is different for any number of reasons. First off, 1932, my father who had me in his sixties was five years old. That's how long ago it was. And I kind of feel like I take after him as the elderly Jewish anyway. You know, you think about it and you say, okay, but here's the thing about Kansas that has changed significantly during the Trump era. If you kind of look at sort of how Republican the state is versus the nation as a whole, it was, you know, I think it was like the ninth or 10th most Republican state, you know, more than a decade ago. And now it's like the 17th or 18th or 19th most Republican state. Ergo, it's been shifting to the left versus what we've seen nationally. Their type of Republicanism, is not Donald Trump Republicanism. And you see that, you see how unpopular Trump is in that state and you go to yourself, you combine that it's been kind of shifted. I mean, Trump did win by 16 points two years ago. He did, but how much did he win by in Texas? He won by 13, was it 13? Yeah, 12, I think it was 12 or 13. Yeah, the two are not that far apart. You combine that with the fact that is quite popular and you combine it with the fact that Roger Marshall in the polling isn't, I'm not saying they're going to win there. I'm just saying that the picture, it makes sense to me. Dammit, I shouldn't have challenged you. You were right. 13 was Texas. You know your numbers. I try. Let me just go back to Mississippi for a second and see if there's anything there. Sure. The one thing I would say, and I have not actually seen the Mississippi early vote data, but, you know, I follow a guy, John Colvian, who does like the early vote data in Louisiana, where I live, and he is a Republican and he's like blown away by the black turnout so far, an early vote. And again, sometimes, you know, maybe that ends up being cannibalizing election day. Like, we'll see. But like, in a state like Mississippi where the share of the black vote is so high, anything there that you think is? Well, I think the thing that you pointed out is that we are seeing, you know, in the Southern United States that there does seem to be a surge in black turnout. And if you're going to see that effect anywhere in any of the competitive races besides, say, you know, a Georgia, which, you know, I think also tells you everything you need to know in terms of this election. It's been just taken off the board in terms of the Senate. You're going to see it in Mississippi. I think the question is that voting in Mississippi is so racially polarized. And you know what? The last Democrat to win a governor's race there was what? Nineteen hundred and ninety nine with Ronnie Musgrove. You know, obviously they had some success in the AG races. You saw Presley come close a few years ago in Mississippi in that governor's race. But getting to that majority is tough there. I'm not saying that it can't happen. That's a state, though. I'll believe it when I see it. - Let's do hyperventilation. The main hyperventilation is is poll air. And you can look at it a couple of ways. There has been an overstating of Democratic vote kind of in October, the last few midterm elections. But like the polls haven't been off by as much as people remember. Like in 2022, it was like the pundits that were off more than the polls were, you know, kind of similar in 2016. And there was a miss, but it wasn't as big as I think people remember. How do you kind of look at if there is a poll miss, what does that mean for the Democrats? OK, so I think there are two questions there. First, we should point out that in Maine, each of the last three cycles in which Susan Collins has run, she's outperformed her polls. So that's the. However, look at 2022. Look at that midterm election. Look at the close Senate races. That is the states that were polling within five points in the final 10 days of that election. You know who is underestimated in the final polls? It was not Republicans. It was Democrats in all of the races and all of them. They were underestimated. So this idea that a poll error will necessarily undercount the Republicans, that doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Now, it could happen. We saw it in 2024. We saw obviously in 2020. But in the last midterm election, it didn't happen. And I will also note when it comes to Maine, Susan Collins is more unpopular than she has ever been. That doesn't mean that she won't pull, you know, a rabbit out of her hat. But the fundamentals here are different than they have been in past years. And look, a lot of what is underlying, you told me, this is wrong. How I understand this to work when I talk to my stats nerds is the misses are driven a lot by the fact that there is a non-response issue among MAGA voters compared to Democratic voters. Democratic voters just are more likely to respond to these polls. And so what's happening? The pollsters are weighting the numbers, you know, to try to make sure they're getting a representative sample of MAGA. And it's like that mistake could go either way. Like they might be overweighting it, you know, like, or they might be, again, missing something that's out there, because people aren't answering their polls in a systemic way. A hundred percent correct. I mean, another way to think of it is if you are waiting to pass presidential vote that many of these polls are doing now, and you get a sample that, let's say, is two or three or four points more favorable to Kamala Harris than the result was, you might say, oh, I have to bring that result back and, you know, align it with what the actual vote is. But the truth is, it could be that there are some Trump voters, not MAGA, but perhaps non-MAGA Republicans who have soured on the president who don't want to admit that they voted for President Trump. So it could go either way. There's no way to know it until we obviously, you know, get the results. If there is a 2020 style poll mess, like what's the low watermark for the Democrats in the Senate? Do you think 49? Oh, I think they could. If you have a low watermark, I think you could go even further south than that. I think you could end up 47. I think you could. I'm not. 47? I think it's possible. I think 47, 48. I mean, North Carolina and Georgia. Yeah, 47, 48, I should say. Yeah. Okay. Now that has people hyperventilating. All right. Listen up, fellas. That's right. This ad is for the fellas. Fall is here. Football is back. And that means game day meal, Sunday hosting, and man time in the kitchen. Whether you're making burgers for kickoff, wings, or, you know, getting the family some breakfast before a full day of sitting on the couch, your cookware. It matters. It matters. It makes a difference. Because when people are cooking, they're cooking. They're cooking. They're cooking. They're cooking. 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Only our listeners get 10% off your order with our exclusive link. Just head to hexclad.com slash the bulwark, support our show and check them out at H-E-X-C-L-A-D.com slash the bulwark. Make sure to let them know we sent you. Two things really quick. Here's what Trump said about you recently. The best person on CNN is pollster Harry Enten because he was willing to show that Donald J. Trump is six times more popular than Abraham Lincoln or any other president. He's got credibility. He has got a wonderful ass. Don't fire him. One of those sentences wasn't true, but the rest of it he did say. Yeah, I can only wonder which one was not true, but you know, we're not true in terms of said. In terms of truth, I think it's, you know, open judgment. Exactly. Look, among Republicans, that was what that poll was. It was among Republicans asking which president that they most admire and Trump ran away with it. Among the electorate overall, in fact, the plurality winner in terms of most admired president is not Trump. It's actually Barack Obama. So you say the president has not been fully contextualizing your reporting when he brings you up. I would say that that slide that I put up was quite clear and he read it in the way that, or interpreted in the way that he wished to interpret it. All right. As mentioned, segment two, where to go, kind of around the world and talk about elections. But I watched your Twitter. You were monitoring the Israel election overnight and, you know, votes are still rolling in there. But just wondering what you're seeing in Israel. Bibi Netanyahu manages to pull rabbits out of hats. I think the question ultimately is, could, you know, his opposition potentially form a minority government, right? That's essentially when you're south of the 61 seats necessary, but somehow you keep the, you know, denying you or having a no confidence vote. Or maybe Netanyahu is able to pull off a few people and he's able to form a majority. I think at this point, the most likely outcome, again, the votes are still being counted and you had the initial exit polls that said one thing and then, you know, Netanyahu seemed to do better. Is this just going to be another case in which we have another election like we did a few years ago, where you just had to have these elections over and over again? And the tweet that you're referring to was for a brief period of time in the late 90s and early 2000s. You know, I think that's going to be a big thing. I think that's going to be a big thing. I directly elected the prime minister in Israel. And I think, you know, if I were over there and given how unclear these results have been, I wonder if there's going to be a question whether or not Israel might decide. I'm not saying that they will. I'm not saying there's a high percentage chance. But if I were there over there, I'd be seriously considering perhaps directly electing the prime minister again so that, you know, there's actually a clear result because this result has been anything but clear. I lied. I have one other place that has a weird election system I wanted to talk about, and then I'll let you go. Not in the lower 48, but Alaska. I skipped this because we do have a big news item this morning I didn't want to overlook. Lisa Murkowski endorsed Jonathan Grace Tompkins, the Democratic candidate for Alaska governor. I haven't covered that race at all. I have covered the House race. And I think that that is one of those stretch races we're talking about. It's kind of just right on the other side of that delta. Could the Democrats get there? Bill Hill is the Democrat against Nick Begich. There's been a lot of discussion about Paltola I had her on the show. I'm just wondering if you have any, it's just so hard. It's hard to poll and it's hard to measure. Like, what is the rank choice voting situation going to do? I'm just kind of wondering how you assess those. Is it really possible the Democrats could win two or three of those races? I mean, look, Alaska has such a small population. You know, if there haven't been that many polls, it becomes difficult to really know what's going on. I think we'll get a few polls, at least one, you know, in the final week to try and understand what's going on. There are two things I would keep in mind in terms of Alaska. One, on the rank choice voting, even if Paltola ends up south of 50% in round one, I still think if she's a clear plurality leader, that is, you know, let's say she's at 48 and then, you know, you have Sullivan, the incumbent, you know, at like 43, 44, I would still consider Paltola a favorite if for no other reason. It's not like he's going to get all of the other votes. There are going to be some that go to Paltola. And more than that, there are going to be some people who just bullet hole vote, right? They just vote for one person. And then there's one candidate. So I think that's one thing. And then the other thing I should just, on the other end, just sort of make sure people remember, there has been one Democrat elected to the Senate from Alaska this century. And that was Mark Begich, when the incumbent Ted Stevens had literally been convicted in a federal trial. And you combine that with the fact that Dems haven't won a midterm Senate race in Alaska since 1974. And that was Mike Revell, who most of the audience probably knows better for the stones along the pond. - Yeah. the guy in the debate. That was at the 08 debate. Yeah, that was the 08 debate. The two great debaters were Gravel and Biden in those debates. Patola, if she wins, is as much of a statement about how unpopular Donald Trump is, but it is also very much a statement on Patola's potentially unique appeal to win a Senate race in Alaska. Well, shout out Lisa Murkowski with the Jonathan Chris Tompkins endorsement. Holy, it'll, we'll be up late. We'll be up late, baby. Alaska? Oh, you know, Alaska. Are you staying up for it? Where else would I rather be than right here, right now? And that would be me on election night, but also currently as the dear, great Marv Levy used to say. We should do like a 4 a.m. collab on election night with the Alaska updates. Hey everyone, what's going on? How's everyone doing? Yeah, you know, I'm on zero hours of sleep. I haven't slept since 2025, but you know what? Cheers. Yeah, but look at what the, look what we got out of the Igloo precinct. You know, some momentum. Jonathan Chris Tompkins. Mary Patola said I could do it. She told me that I could do it. She allowed me. All right. There you go. Everybody, that's Harry Enten. I appreciate you very much. Thank you. All right. Thanks so much to Harry Enten. Up next, Julian Borger. We're going around the world. This is Troy Millings from Earn Your Leisure. If you run a small business, you know how important it is to stay on top of your numbers. That's why I want to tell you about Xero. That's X-E-R-O. Xero brings accounting, payments, payroll, and analytics together in one platform, giving you a clear picture of your business. With reports, visual dashboards, forecasts, and AI insights, Xero can help you better understand your cash flow and what's coming in and going out. It's a simple but powerful platform built for small business owners and designed to make managing your business a lot easier. Xero is a powerful platform built for your business finances easier from day one. Join 5 million customers worldwide who use Xero to manage their finances. Learn more at Xero.com. And we're back. He's a senior international correspondent for The Guardian based in London. Previously, he was a correspondent in the U.S., the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and the Balkans. So he's got around. He's the author of two books, I Seek a Kind Person and The Butcher's Trail. And he's coming at us from Nazareth, I think. It's Julian Borger. Yeah, I'm in Jerusalem at the moment, but I was in Nazareth yesterday during the vote. Well, it's good to see you. Thank you for coming on the show. I guess we cover this just a little bit with Harry in segment one, but let's kind of do a baseline of where the Israel election stands. And then I kind of want to broaden it out and talk about Brazil and Serbia as well. Okay, well, pretty much all the ballots that were cast on Tuesday have been counted. So that leaves the absentee ballots yet to be counted, and that should be done by tomorrow. At the moment, I'm looking at Netanyahu's block with about 53, Eisenkot, the Jewish opposition, about 48. But the big sort of surges in this election being the Arab-Israeli parties, which are looking like they've got possibly 19. So that's really the sort of mold-breaking factor in all this. But the bottom line is neither of the. The Jewish bloc's government and opposition have enough to make a majority, and making a majority may involve going to some sort of agreement with the Arab-Israelis, the Palestinians of Israeli citizenship. And that would really break the mold if that were to happen. But a lot of question marks still. What explained the surge of the Arab parties? I think people were frightened. People were frightened of Ben-Gavir, Smotrich. They've seen what they've done. In the West Bank, in terms of driving people out, they fear that Ben-Gavir and Smotrich were going to come for them and start questioning their right to live in Israel and start really going after them and their citizenship. They felt that they had to come out and try and stop this particular far-right government that is overtly racist before what's happened in Gaza and the West Bank starts to sort of lapse. So I think that's what's happening in the Arab-Israeli towns. And for people who aren't as familiar with what's happening in the Israel politics, like it doesn't really kind of map on what we're doing here. I mean, the leader of the opposition party, Gadi Eisenkot, I mean, at least before the vote, and we'll see what happens now, sometimes pragmatism has to come in place. But he had balked at forming a governing coalition with the Arab parties, was not running on, you know, a major change from Bibi on, you know, treatment of Palestinians. In particular, I mean, it was more about corruption, competence, etc. So like, where does that leave us? Well, I think even if Eisenkot was to form a government, you're absolutely right that the basis of Israeli policy in the West Bank, in Gaza, wouldn't really change. Only at the margins, without Smotrich and without Ben-Gavir, you probably have fewer attacks by the hilltop youth in the settlements, all these attacks. And ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the West Bank, that's probably where the difference would be. It would be supportive of settlements and the overall project of gradually annexing the West Bank. But it would be done in a more sort of organized, polite way without all these militias roaming around lawlessly making attacks on Arab villages across the West Bank. The differences would be, as far as Palestinians were concerned, would be very much at the margin. Angel Pfeiffer, the economist, was on X last night, was talking about this and, you know, basically said that they see that the Netanyahu strategy is going to be to run a delegitimization campaign against any government supported by Arab parties, try to break that opposition, and, you know, then maybe even hold another election, which he'd have a better chance of winning. What do you think that looks like? Yeah, that's where he started. I mean, that was underway during the campaign. His slogan was, the right or Palestine, which rhymes in Hebrew. And he had a picture of him with a big Israeli flag on one side, and then the opposition with various Arab-Israeli leaders looking kind of menacing in conjunction with opposition figures like Eisenhower, as if if you let him go, then suddenly Israel would turn into Palestine. That's very much what he was running on in this election. If you let him go, then suddenly Israel would turn into Palestine. If the opposition do manage to enter some kind of agreement, maybe a minority government with Palestinian party support, then he could be expected to double down on that and run on it in the next election, very much so. So, NetNet, where do you think this thing lands next by the time, you know, next week? I think it's up in the air. I mean, there are various possibilities. Talks are going on at the moment between the Eisenhower bloc and the Palestinian parties about focusing first on the Neset. We kind of forget about the Neset, that it is a government. It's been very much a rubber stamp. But the idea of the opposition bloc is that they could start first with the speaker of the Neset, replace him and pass some legislation in the meantime that all can agree on. And so that would mean that the Palestinian parties would get something out of it for their own benefit. And that would mean that the Palestinian parties would have their constituencies and show that turning out to vote, as they did yesterday, makes a difference to their lives. So that is an approach that could lead to the formation of a sort of minority government with Palestinian support. The other option is that Netanyahu is able to peel away members of the Eisenhower, the opposition bloc, and make a new kind of government that would have Trump's endorsement and maybe drop the alt-right. Maybe drop Ben-Gavir. They can't afford to drop too many in order to bring others in. But that is possible, some kind of more secular right-wing government. In the short term, when it comes to choosing a government, obviously it's now the turn of the president, Isaac Herzog, to choose who gets the first go at trying to put a meaningful coalition together. And then do you have any thoughts on this? I mean, I think we've been hearing about what this means about, you know, kind of what's next with Iran. And, you know, I mean, I think there's been a lot of reporting out of America that I think Trump plans to at least have some sort of escalation. Maybe it's just a short term kind of shock and awe and then pullback thing. But, you know, there's been a lot of reporting on this. What do you think? Do you think there's any impact on what happens next in Iran based on last night's results? Well, I think the military action in Iran remains very likely, given what you wrote, you point out by what Trump has said. And, of course, Netanyahu, during all these negotiations, will remain in a caretaker government. And the question is, in a caretaker role, what authority does he have? Eisenhower has reached out to the hierarchy, the brass in the IDF and the Israeli army, saying, don't allow yourself to be, you know, turned into political tools. But if the U.S. was going to relaunch hostilities in Iran, and it was a question of whether Israel would be able to would go along, I think the IDF hierarchy is likely to go follow on from their U.S. counterparts and get involved under a caretaker government. So I think that the chances of resumed military action against Iran are high. That's X-E-R-O. It's a simple but powerful platform built for small business owners and designed to make managing your business finances easier from day one. Join 5 million customers worldwide who use Xero. to manage their finances. In the opposition to the authoritarian parties, you just mentioned it, among the Arab parties in Israel, Lula added 10 million votes between the two rounds of the Brazilian election. That is crazy. Usually the number goes down in runoff elections. And then Serbia, I know the least about, but obviously seems like, you know, huge mobilization efforts there. Like that was one takeaway for me. Wondering what your thoughts are of that and any other kind of thematic observations. Yeah, I think you draw that out that this is the common band. This is the common theme in Brazil, Serbia, and here that it's all about getting out the vote on the day. And I think certainly in Brazil and here to extent, the drive was fear. In Brazil, you know, they have the advantage of having two rounds. And so it really concentrated the minds of many people in Brazil, the left, liberals, the vulnerable minorities to really mobilize because they stared the prospect. And another Bolsonaro regime right in the face. And I think that as it often happened, has happened up to now in France, where you get two rounds, the prospect of a hard right win is a mobilizing factor. And again, as we were talking about earlier, fear was really a factor here with the Arab-Israeli, the Palestinian-Israeli vote. With Serbia, yeah, it was a different story. It's about just the energy of youth, the ability of the Serbian students, they had this campaign of sending a student to every village, because the rural electorate was the base on which Vucic, Serbia's former autocratic leader, that's where he had his hold, his party had a hold in the rural electorate. And I was told when I was there, no one and nothing can mess with that. That's beyond the reach of the students. Obviously, it wasn't. Students went into the villages, they talked to people, they had a dialogue. Obviously, they had a dialogue with some of the students are the sons and daughters of people in the villages. And they broke that mold. And it was an example of how new imaginative forms of direct democracy can break the hold of autocratic authoritarian regimes. It's a rare optimistic note for the Bullwork podcast. I just want to put a finer point on it. Because I do mention this a lot. A lot of times, not always, obviously, crackdowns on voting rights can work. They've worked all over the world, but they can fire. And we are seeing early signs of it here. We'll know for sure next week. But we talked about this a little bit with Harry in segment one. But the backlash against the Calais decision that gutted the Voting Rights Act seems to be leading to a big uptick in turnout among Black voters, particularly in the Deep South. We're seeing huge turnout numbers in Hispanic counties all across the country, particularly in Texas. We saw it in New Jersey in 2025 here in America. So I do think that sometimes it's later than maybe people would want. But we have seen kind of the limits a little bit of this new, whatever you want to call it, more softer authoritarian model that they were trying in Brazil and Israel and Serbia here, which is obviously different than the Chinese authoritarian model. We're kind of seeing the limits of that a little bit. Also in Hungary, we saw the limits. Yeah, absolutely. And the thing about authoritarian models is, as I say, stay in government, lose more and more political support and popular support because they are usually governing for a small minority, a sort of clique, then they are faced with the choice of either doubling down in terms of repression or facing their ouster. And certainly in Serbia, Vucic looked around him and didn't have the support, I think, in the apparatus of state security to crush the students. And so, eventually, they were able to do that. And so, I think, he was destined to lose. I think authoritarian regimes either have to keep on doubling down on violence, the use of violence, or they're ultimately ousted. If you just kind of look at the trends, and again, they're counterexamples to this, but painting with a broad brush, you see places where the right-wing authoritarian parties are now on the rise in Latin America, but in France, a lot of times it's places where there have been more stagnant center-left governments that people have complaints about or unhappiness with. And so, I think, it's a good idea to look at the trends and, again, they're counter-examples to this, and we are not seeing staying power. The places where now they're having hiccups or where they're losing or being defeated is places where they've been in power for a minute, whether it be Orban over a decade, Vucic over a decade, Trump now a decade. And we've seen a weakness and ability to kind of adapt to the governing and being responsive to the people that put them there. Yeah. And also, the opposition, the pro-democracy, the democratic left, actually come up with new ideas about the challenge of authoritarianism. And that definitely happened in Serbia. You saw it happened in Israeli towns here. And that's really redrawn the political landscape here. So, eventually, it does lead to a pushback, new ideas, and eventual sort of revitalization of popular democracy. And if the authoritarians in question have it in them to really go out and kill people, then eventually, they will fall. Just a little bit more on Serbia, because I think that's the thing we've covered the least, and probably a lot of my audience doesn't know a lot about it. I mean, just in your article, you were talking about how the student protest movement had a simple slogan, Serbia or mafia, also kind of connecting where you are now, Israel to Serbia, that there was some evidence that the students were being spied on by the Israeli-built Pegasus spyware. You reported on that as there's some global coalition of authoritarianism that is also developing simultaneously. But the thing that surprised me the most was just the scale of the victory in Serbia was pretty significant. And it wasn't really even close. And I just, I don't know, the whole thing, it's so strange. It's like, it was really just random professors that were put on a list, and they won to that degree. Yeah, I mean, they were not random in that they were chosen by the students, but they were little known. But there is respect for sort of academics in Central Europe in a way that probably, you know, is hard to imagine in the US. I saw some stat, it's crazy. It's like the Serbian legislature has the highest, it's like, I forget what it was. They had 250 candidates, they had over 160 doctorates among them. Yeah, this is a well- It's like, and here we've got a MAGA rapper selling bumper stickers running for Congress in New York, you know? Yeah, it's a political experiment. The students ran a movement based on direct democracy. Every decision had to be made by a plenum. If I wanted to go and interview someone out, you know, out canvassing, the decision was made by a student plenum. And then it led to neighborhoods making their own plenum, sort of people's committees to communicate and to do business with the students. How this is going to work when their candidates now, these university professors, they've basically chose their favorite university professors with a sprinkling of farmers and retired sports people. Okay, all right, now it's sounding American. All right, we've got a farmer, we've got a former football kicker. Yeah, sports guys. But mostly it's professors is, you know, that is going to be, if they manage to get their act together to put a government together, it'll be a technocratic government. And their message is, we can't even start to talk about policy until, until this whole political system works like it's supposed to, like it says on the paper, like it says in the constitution. As long as it was crony regime run by Vujic and the SNS, then we're never going to be able to make decisions as a society. So they want to reform the structure so it works according like it's supposed to work. And then they say, well, we'll worry about policy. Well, this is a good place to leave it because that is maybe a good lesson for the, you know, pro-democracy, democratic left in America, because, you know, sometimes it feels like there is, you know, Trump has two plus years left in power. power and there is fights to the death over whether it's going to be Medicare for all or Medicare for all who want it. And it's kind of like, okay, like maybe, you know, having a broad unity around anti-corruption and accountability and also like engaging people from, you know, the whole swath of society, you know, is a model that is showing some success. You saw that in Hungary too. Absolutely. All right. Thanks so much. That was Julian Borger. 10 Days to Shake the World, Democratic Norms at Stake and Four Pivotal Elections. Thanks for sharing your expertise and we'll keep us posted. All right. Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me on. All right. Thanks so much to Julian and to Harry. We'll be back tomorrow with one of your faves. We'll see you all then. Peace. Out once again, find me a friend. Someone to walk with too. Too many boys, too small a town. Feels like I'm always wandering the ground You call me up, I let it ring Heartbreaking me, only one thing Got me again, it's the end of the world Done with this year, I miss drinking beer Miss singing songs for you Too slow to hate, summer came late Fires on the west side I'm rollin' the waves, let's misbehave Catch it before it's almost gone Try to pretend it's the end of the world So kiss me to death, there's nothing left to decide Nothing to prove, nothing to lose, only to die Go tell me a name We'll burn our mistakes and just fly To the end of the world The Bulwark Daily is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Dante DiCicco, and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown. All right, quick question. Check out the 2026 Toyota RAV4 at your local Toyota dealer. Or visit Toyota.com. See packages and options at Toyota.com for feature availability.