Have Republicans Already Blown the Midterms?

This is LeVar Arrington from Two Pros and a Cup of Joe. Running a small business means keeping track of a lot, but your finances shouldn't feel complicated. Let me tell you about Xero. That's X-E-R-O. Xero brings accounting, payments, payroll, and analytics together, giving you one clear view of your business. With easy-to-read dashboards, you can see your cash flow and understand exactly what's coming in and what's going out. Xero's AI can save you time and provide insights to help you make smarter decisions while keeping everything simple and accessible. It's powerful enough for an accountant, but simple enough for you. Xero is the all-in-one to get business done. Learn more at Xero.com. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Today, you're going to hear my conversation with Amy Walter, the publisher and editor-in-chief of the Cook Political Report. The midterms are now less than two weeks away, and I thought Amy would be the perfect person to set the scene as we head into the final stretch. We talk about the latest in the Senate races, the House map, whether Republicans redisclose, Mr. King gambit worked, and voters' attitudes towards Trump, the economy, and the war in Iran, and so much more. We'll get to that conversation in a moment, but before we do, Crooked Con is fast approaching. The weekend after the midterms, November 5th through 7th, we'll be in D.C. for a weekend full of live shows, conversations, and so much more. If you're anyone working in politics or interested in politics, this is a can't-miss event. We'll be breaking down what just happened in the midterms and setting the stage for what's to come in 2028. Head over to CrookedCon.com to get your tickets now. And while I have you, I want to make a pitch for The Message Box, my sub-stack newsletter. It's the best way to get serious analysis of the midterms based on the data and my way-too-long experience working in politics. When the election happens, I'll help you understand what happened, why it happened, and what it means for 2028. I have a special pre-election discount for Pod Save America listeners. Go to Crooked.com slash YesWeDan to get 20% off for an entire year. Okay, here's my conversation with Amy Walter. Amy Walter, welcome back to Pod Save America. Hi, Dan. I'm very happy to be here. A little more than two weeks to go before the election. I know. Feels like we would never, I know. These are going to be the longest two weeks we've had in a very long time. How are you feeling? I'm tired. And I feel like every voter in a swing state who's saying, just let it end. Let's just let it be over. As you very well know, the last two weeks of the campaign and probably the last five days are the absolute worst because it's now everybody just posting theories and conspiracies and conversations they had with someone they went to high school with and what does this mean? And, you know, we're not going to get any polling, I think, that's going to make us change any of our theories of the case of this election between now and election day. We're really basically locked in. And, you know, we got to wait for the results. Yeah. I'm counting on some more polls, I'll be honest with you. I feel like Nate, I mean, we'll have more polls. We're going to get more polling. I'm just saying, I wouldn't expect that all of a sudden you're going to open up polls that show, oh, wow, this is really, oh, so-and-so's opened a seven-point lead now. Yeah, that's right. So you wrote back a few weeks ago on October 7th that this political environment is as brutal for Republicans as any you've seen in at least 20 years. We're now a couple weeks, a week and a half after that. Yeah. Yeah. I assume that assessment still holds. Why is this political environment so brutal for Republicans? And Dan, you remember this election quite well. Oh, I do, yes. We're all coming back. This feels very 2006 deja vu because you have a president with an approval rating under 40%, which is where George W. Bush was at this point in 2006, an unpopular war. And corruption being sort of the center of the conversation in Washington. Back then it was Jack Abramoff. Now it is, all of the things. There were also some sex scandals that were going on in 2006. We have that carryover in 2026. But really a feeling among the American public about, you know, a deep, deep frustration with the direction of the country, even deeper frustration in 2026 with the direction of the economy, with inflation being a big factor. But what. What you're also seeing that reminds me of 2006 is the real energy and enthusiasm difference between Democrats and Republicans. For most of the Trump era, even when Democrats were more enthusiastic in 2018, Republicans didn't fall through the floor, right? I mean, it helped that the Kavanaugh hearings came out a couple of weeks before the election. I think that helped to energize some of those, less engaged Republican voters. So that was something of a boost. But I think even going into that election, the expectation was that there were going to be some places where, because of how badly Trump was doing with independents and how motivated Democrats were, those swing seats, those seats that Hillary Clinton won, those were going to be all but impossible for Republicans to hang on to. But that, how deep into the Trump seats they could go was literally, limited by the fact that Republicans showed up. This year, and I think this was the case in 2006, how deep Democrats go into Republican territory is really driven by the fact that independents are going to show up for Democrats. Democrats are going to show up for Democrats, but are Republicans going to sit home or are they going to show up? And every indication we have right now is that they're not enthusiastic. They're frustrated with the president for it, the whole range of reasons, but mostly the cost of stuff and the war in Iran. And we've spent, how much money has been spent in the last three weeks in these races, right? More than $200 million. Millions and millions of dollars. Yeah, more than $200 million. To try, exactly. And if you're in Alaska or Texas or Ohio or Iowa, your goal isn't to try to win persuadable independents. It's, you are sending signals to your base about why it's important for you to turn out. And thus far, I mean, to me, what's the most telling in some of the polling we've seen recently is that opinions of the Democrats remain above water and opinions of the Republican candidates are below water, which says, boy, you've spent a lot of money and I don't know that you're getting what you thought you were going to get from all of it. It is, there's so much to unpack there. You know, the 2006 is the most obvious historical analogy. I do think you look at a whole bunch of different factors. This is a worse political environment for Republicans than 2006 was. The, you can argue maybe the Democrats were better positioned in 2006 than they are now just because of the brand at the time. But either way, Trump is more unpopular than Bush by some measures. The economy is obviously much worse. You know, he's under 30, he's 30 points underwater on the economy, 50 points underwater on gas prices and some polling. Yeah, gas being over $4 a gallon is, you know, that's a political killer. The, you know, so like it, it could be, I would say these midterms are always hard to judge because we, the typical, you and I are a little different, I think, but the typical person judges in terms of seats won, not House popular vote, which is what it really is because everyone's like, wow, Obama lost 63 seats. That must be the worst midterm ever, but Obama only lost the popular vote by like six and a half points. It just happened to be they're all these seats in play. But on its face, this is a very, very bad map for Republicans. And I do feel like they have fewer levers to pull than they did in 2006 in part because TV ads clearly matter less than they did back then. I mean, it's like, that's to me is the big question of they spent all this money as far as we know, and we're all trusting the polls and we'll talk about whether we can do that a little bit. But if you trust the polls, they have not moved. The Democrats are no less popular than they were before in a typical environment where you were spending hundreds of millions of dollars on an election. You would see, even if you- They're not, they're negatives. The negatives won't go up. The negatives aren't moving. And I don't know if that's because, and I'd be interested if you're taking this, is it because the attacks are the wrong ones and it's mostly trans-cultural attacks, you know, anti-trans-cultural stuff, or is it that people aren't, the people you're, trying to reach aren't seeing the ads because of how hard it is to see ads, or people have just tuned out, they've already made their decision and none of this information is going to make a difference. I don't know what you're thinking. I know. I was just asking someone this very same question. And it's probably, like everything, a combination of everything you just laid out. The first is, I think Republicans came into, as they saw the environment deteriorating, they were like, okay, this isn't great for us, but here are the things we have going for us. Socialism, look, test it in a poll. Everybody hates socialism. So we're going to link everything to socialism. We still, even as we're underwater, this would be a Republican saying this, even if we're underwater on inflation and the economy, we are still above water on immigration, crime, taxes. So let's just lean into those four things. We'll lean into immigration, right? If my opponent gets in, he's going to reopen the borders, give all your money away to illegal immigrants. By the way, he'd also raise your taxes. I cut your taxes. Remember, we had that no tax on tips. Wasn't that great? And then finally, if you put Democrats in charge, all these crazy woke things are going to happen. And it's not that voters don't care about those issues, but when you compare it to, wait a minute, it just cost me $100 to fill up my car. And you're telling me that I have to pay for my car? I have to worry about these other things? No tax on tips? Like, that's fine. Okay. And yeah, I'm really happy the president closed the border and I don't want to give welfare to illegals. But that is not my priority today. I need you, Republicans, to give me an answer for how you're going to get the cost down, which is what the president told me he was going to do in 2024. He was going to lower costs. He wasn't going to lower costs. He wasn't going to get us into a forever war in the Middle East. Those two promises have been broken and I don't see you trying to fix it because the only way they would be able to fix it, Dan, is to come out and say, this war needs to end. I'm not going to vote to continue the war. We got to get the straight open and I'll do everything I can. You know, when the president's right, I stick with him. But in this case, he's wrong, but they can't. They're in a total bind there. The other thing, and I heard this from a Republican really early in the cycle when I wrote something about are these socialism attacks going to work? And this person, this Republican said, you know, I've been doing a lot of polling on this and the challenge is that, you know, people don't really know what they think about socialism. It's still a concept in a way that, so if you ask it in a poll, do you like socialism? People go like, I don't know. That sounds like it's kind of a bad word, right? I hear it in context. It seems like, or out of context, I'm sorry. It seems like something negative. But then if you ask me to describe it, I don't exactly know what that means. And so we've tested these messages and I've seen other people test them as well in polling. You know, somebody who's identified as MAGA versus somebody who's identified as a socialist. And the MAGA, the MAGA label is more toxic than the socialist label in part because people know what MAGA is, right? They're like, oh, I get that. I know what that is. Socialist, I don't 100% know. It's Bernie Sanders, but it just doesn't relate in the same way. And look, if Democrats get in charge, if there was a Democratic president who said, hi, I'm a socialist and these are the five things we're doing, then yes, it couldn't be a bigger problem for Democrats to have to, decide, am I gonna associate with this candidate and their policies or not? But right now it's just this big overarching term that is being thrown at people that is not resonating in the way that I think many Republicans had hoped it would. It doesn't probably help the Republicans' case that one of the two most prominent socialists in American politics is someone who Trump keeps fawning over, inviting to the White House, and hanging out with his mom, Donnie. Yes, because I mean, everyone remembers that. I mean, even Democrats, like the folks at Third Way were in a panic that if Mom Donnie became the mayor, he would be weaponized because all these Democrats and, you know, Mom Donnie isn't showing up in a single ad anywhere. Yep. In part because I think, one, it's absurd to use the mayor of New York to run, to associate with someone running the second district of Iowa. Like that was never gonna work under any scenario, but also Trump has buddied up with him and he's had a bunch of these things that are seem very, you know, he's filling potholes and he's helping people out. Well, that's the thing. If Mom Donnie had come in and, you know, was like- Fired the police chief. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Crime goes out of control. All businesses leave New York City, right? Then yes, that would have been a more effective cudgel. But just the name and even the AOC Bernie stuff. I mean, this is where the conversation about, you know, ideology, personality, and the environment and personality and partisanship all kind of muddled together. It's not as clear, you know, again, ask people, do you like socialism? Not really. Do you like Medicare for all? Yeah, that sounds pretty good, right? Do you think that, do you like capitalism? Yeah, sure. Do you think we should have more taxes on billionaires? Yeah, yeah. I like that too, right? So people are a little bit all over the place when it comes, the things that Bernie Sanders is talking about, tax corporations and give Medicare for all, is not a toxic position today. So that also, I think, takes the sting out of the socialism attack. Yeah, it's been, you know, I've been in these rooms, I know how this goes, where it's like every poll, every piece of research says all people care about is costs. Like it's one, two, and three on everyone's agenda, you know? And so then you're like, well, we're gonna test a bunch of our cost messages and then those aren't gonna move voters. We're gonna talk about something else. But the problem of that, that is a very understandable checkers move. But the problem is that if you, the main thing is always the main thing. And if you're off the main thing, you look like you're ignoring, you're just reinforcing the critique that you don't care about costs, because anytime you turn on the TV, all you see is Republicans in Republican ads talking about something other than costs. And I think that's kind of the problem with this. I think that's kind of the problem with this. And that's kind of the problem with this. Definitely, it's always a backlash. um to whoever is in power so that's true to me what i took from that analogy what it is look here's the blue way the blue wave is the democratic enthusiasm which has been there right since 2025 we saw in the governor's races we've seen it in special elections we've seen at primaries added to that blue wave are independents which we haven't talked about yet but man even in 2006 i can't remember what democrats won independence by maybe it was 20 uh it might have been a little bit maybe it was in the teens but they're leading right now by like 23 points a generic democrat with independence trump's approval rating with independence is 26 percent i mean the if you're sitting in a swing district you cannot win when the as a republican and the president's at 26 percent with independence like that's just deadly right so you can't win when the president's at 26 percent with independence like that's just deadly right so that's the blue wave is democrats enthusiasm really angry independence but what could keep what could make this wave go into territory where it doesn't belong i.e trump plus 10 12 13 districts and states is the undertow are republicans who aren't showing up and that democrats wave is dependent on a whole bunch of republicans staying home um even in places where they you know they have such a decided advantage like alaska and texas and um that i feel like is is the um the difference between democrats having a good night a great night or like a historic night is is the is the undertow piece the other um the other thing that that i do think is important to appreciate about where democrats go on this and somebody else wrote about this i can't uh remember where i saw this but the gap between democrats approval rating and their lead on the generic ballot your net approval rating like let's say the net approval rating for democrats were five and they were leading on the generic ballot by eight okay so that's a three point difference but what we're seeing now that is his could be historic is how unpopular democrats are but how big their lead in the generic ballot is right so that there is there usually you you're not those two things are not supposed to work together you're not supposed to be this unpopular but have this big of a lead some of that unpopularity though as we know and comes from democrats themselves right like democrats don't like their own party um for various reasons but they're gonna turn out and they're voting for democrats um the uh i think the challenge for the democratic leadership going into 2027 with a democratic house and maybe a democratic house and senate is the expectations of the base now are so different from where they were in 2018 or even 2006 this is more they want more than just putting a check on trump they want a real change to the system um and they want something more substantive than um than just you know we're kind of moving around the edges so i i think that's going to be the more challenging dynamic going into 2027 than whether democrats are liked by the broader public yeah it's it's also interesting because the reason the red undertone matters so much is here is because the map is so much of the map is taking place in red america yes i mean even the vast majority of swing districts are in districts that you won by even a little bit and then the senate like if this was a senate map where we were that looked a little bit more like 2006 or somewhere else we're we're running someone and we're trying to or even what could be the 20 you know the 2028 map where we're trying to win in wisconsin more swing states or more blue states exactly then we would be less totally different exactly you don't need i i was i've been saying that for a long time if the senate map ran through like wisconsin pennsylvania arizona nevada and georgia like that that's a no-brainer for what happens but that's not where it's going and when i also make the comparison so when democrats lost those 60 seats in 2010 there were 60 districts that democrats held in 2010 that obama either lost or won by less than five 60 there were 37 of those in 2018 republicans held hillary clinton seats or trump won by less than five they're basically now a little over a dozen of those so if you were picking up more than if the net right when democrats are the bigger the gains in the house they are coming from places that trump won by six seven ten points um and even on the senate side in 2006 you had um john tester win in montana state that bush had carried by 20 points but every other state democrats flipped bush had won by single digits so this would be really has you know something we haven't seen before which is a party flipping to win control yet democrats have to do this which is to flip two double digit seats in a time where as you rightly pointed out we're even more partisan and more dug into partisanship so yeah those states you know 20 years ago had it was very it was very common to have a democratic senator yeah and all these plus 20 seats in republican you know susan collins olympia snowe in place of a Republican senator yeah and all these plus 20 seats in Republican places like Maine. We're in a different world now. The other interesting thing here is, you know, people are, I was at a fundraiser the other night for a candidate I won't name, and there were a bunch of former Obamas and Democratic staffers there, part of the Bay Area diaspora, and we were talking, and these are all hardened political professionals with many commitments about everyone afraid to believe the polls, right? Everyone very nervous about the polls. The, what I, like, understandably so, after 2016 and 2020, people very nervous about the polls, Democrats in particular were very worried about getting our hearts broken. We're a very sensitive group. What I found interesting is that in previous elections, even in 2020, when the polls look really good, there would be all these Republicans out there saying to people like you, to Politico, elsewhere, or releasing internal polls that show something very different, or saying, like, laughing at Democrats who were optimistic, like, in 2020 about, you know, Iowa, Alaska, South Carolina Senate seats. You don't, you may hear something different, because you talk to a lot more people than us, than I do, certainly, certainly more Republicans, but I, you don't really hear that this time. Like, and if you look at the spending patterns, Republicans seem to believe the polls. No, you heard this, and I think that's, I think that's exactly right. I mean, are there differences in the ways that the two parties see a handful of these states, especially ones that are further out in the margins, for sure, but you're not gonna hear Republicans say, no, I don't, I don't think Alaska's real, right? I don't think Ohio and Iowa are real. I think what they are counting on, and what your friends fear, what Republicans are hoping, what Democrats fear is the polling, all of the polls are within the margin, right? So that's always dangerous. No, even for these polls where the Democrats are ahead, no one's at 50, and you start to think, okay, well, have Democrats, basically, has the Democratic candidate peaked? They've gotten all the available voters, and they're at 48%. That's where they're gonna end up, and that all the people who haven't been participating in the polls, again, it's not because these polls are biased or whatever, you can't find people who are who don't want to take, participate in giving their opinion. Many of those people are gonna be sort of disaffected Republicans. If they just decide on election day, like, screw it, I'm gonna go out, I'm gonna just suck it up and vote for the Republicans, because even though I'm mad at Trump and I am mad about this war, it would be worse to have Democrats in control of the Senate. That, that's a, for today, that's the one thing I can control. I can't control Trump, I can control this. And that, yeah, these races just kind of get there. The other is, you know, what are these undecided, so that's piece number one, is, you know, those, those Republicans who show up, who we, we aren't capturing in the polls. On either side, I mean, both sides will admit that's what we don't know, what we don't know. To me, the other big question is, you know, I'm sitting here in Maine right now, and, you know, no one knows what's going to happen up here. You know, there is this, and this is the real interesting tension point and the different tension points. I look at a place like Maine, where if you just, all I told you, Dan, was Trump's approval rating in the state is like 32%. And the generic is Dem plus like six or something like that, right? So they're like, we wanted Democratic Senate and we don't like Trump. Well, then the Democrats should win, right? But there still are people holding on, the people who don't want Trump and they don't want a Republican Senate are still having reservations about Troy Jackson or have some affinity to Susan Collins. Similar thing happening in Michigan. Do those folks ultimately stay home? Do they show up? That is a big, or do they all just break at once, right? That's what we, if we just assume that everything's partisan and which has been the theory of many Republicans from the beginning of the cycle, that at the end of the day, we're going to do all this and everyone's just going to throw their jersey on. And so the red states, the deep, deep red states will barely stay red, but we're going to, you know, the blue ones and the purple ones go, then, right, you end up with an outcome where Democrats could come up short even though they came really close. Yeah. I mean, that is, like, that's the thing that if you, like, are trying to put the hopium aside for a second and, like, you know the good, you know all the positive arguments, right? But we have, I would argue, certainly in these Senate races, in most cases, we have much better, Democrats have much better candidates. We have- All of it. Political environment, I think, are running hands down better campaigns and how they've used their money. We're raising money on the, we're raising money on the, we're running, you know, we're sort of narrowing that money advantage by running more ads. We're doing all these things. But at the end of the day, you need almost every single thing to break your way to win a Trump plus 11 state. And in the, at least in the New York Times, Santa polls in all of these states, all these red states for the Senate states, the majority of voters, or the plurality of voters at least, want a Republican control of the Senate. Right. And so that's true in Ohio. Yeah. I mean, I think the hardest one, this is where it gets really complicated because the hardest one is like Texas, I think is one of the, you're right, I can't remember now the Siena polls. I think Ohio, that flipped. So Ohio is now more Democratic than it was earlier. So the Siena polls in the summer certainly pointed that way in June and July, said these Democrats are looking strong, but every one of these, dark red states, Alaska, Ohio, Texas, Iowa, they prefer a generic Republican. But the Siena polls that came out in September showed something a little bit different, which was, as I remember, you took, let's say Alaska goes from plus eight to plus two, right? Like, oh, well, that's winnable, but that's still also a Republican, right? They generically, it's just, it's in their DNA want to see Republicans more than Democrats in charge of the Senate. And so, you know, again, if you just looked at the generic and said, how many of these do Democrats win? You say, well, they want Democrats in Michigan, Ohio, Maine, maybe they're evenly, I can't remember where they were evenly divided in one of those states, but they're narrowly, Republicans are narrowly ahead in the other deep red states. Now, again, the generic doesn't really mean anything if what voters are seeing is, well, I'd really like a Republican Senate, but I just do not like Ken Paxton, right? And that's where the disconnect is real. And that's where the disconnect is real in Maine and Michigan too. Like, I really want a Democratic Senate, but I don't know that I could go for El Sayed. I don't, right? So, that's why we love campaigns. Yeah. The polling error thing is interesting because everyone's worried about polling error. There can be, as you point out, there could be zero polling error and Republicans could win three of those four seats we're talking about and keep the Senate. Or, and there's also possible, like I almost hesitate to say this, but it is also possible the polling error operates in the wrong direction. Absolutely. And these all break, including like Kansas. Yes. You put Nebraska, right? Right. Like we have, we always know there's a surprise. Usually it's in the House, especially in this day and age that we don't get surprised in Senate races, but Governor's race. In 06 we did. I think it was, I mean, maybe you weren't surprised, but the fact when- Were you surprised by which one? Webb, I think. I think we were all surprised because we, which is so funny to think about. Like, you guys were, you thought that you couldn't flip Virginia. It was like, Virginia was very different in 2006. Yes, yeah. I mean, it's so hard. It's like, this is, you and I have been in the game for a long time now, but like at the, at the time you had a guy who was not a very good candidate, like on the stump, but obviously Jim Webb, very, very powerful candidate on paper, beating a guy who was the leading contender to be the next Republican nominee at the time. And George Allen, a former NFL player. That's right. Just like, and, because that was the one that put him over the top. Yeah, very, very popular. But I think, but I think there is, the polls, like people forget this because it's funny, Democrats only care about the poll error yourself. It's happening when they go against us. Yes. And the polls were quite wrong in 2025. They underestimated Democrats. Yeah. Or overestimated Republican turnout. They over, yeah, yeah. Especially in New Jersey. Yeah, especially in New Jersey. And that could happen again because of the statistical tools being used to jam these Trump voters into the polls to have accurate representation because you're trying to, you know, people are trying to model these off of the 2024 results when that coalition maybe has collapsed. So we don't, we don't actually know what's going to happen to the polls. We don't really know. And we are, right. I mean, polls are, it's an art and a science, right? You're making assumptions about an electorate that may not, it will come close to that, but it, you just move a couple of these demographic groups, a few points either way, and there's, you know, 5,000 votes and 10,000 votes and there's the election. Yeah, I think it was, I can't remember who, maybe it was the New York Times who had the tool that you could use in 2020. 2024 where you could move things by, you know, move the Latino vote by a couple of points, both in terms of turnout and vote choice and get entirely different results. Let's talk about Trump for a second here because obviously the subjects of all of this is Trump's very unpopular. He's the one who people believe raised their costs. He started the war everyone hates. In a typical midterm with an unpopular incumbent, whether it be Joe Biden in 2022, the George, George W. Bush in 2006, Obama in 2010, the incumbent president kind of hangs out in the White House and doesn't really, tries to sit, tries to back out. Trump's doing the opposite. He's campaigning. He's doing rallies every day. He's headed to Georgia right now as we're recording this. He's going to be in Kansas, Michigan, Ohio, a bunch of other places for the end of the election. I'm trying to imagine what the strategic upside of that is for these Republicans. Do you have thoughts on that? I don't see much upside. At a time where, you know, when he is on the, when he's in people's consciousness, it only reminds people of him, right? If you are a Republican in one of these red states, what is going to get your voters to the polls is not, oh, that's right. I need to do this for the president. It is, oh, that's right. If I vote for, if I don't show up, Democrats are going to be in charge and then bad things are going to happen again. So I quote the echelon poll that they did for Puck recently a lot. Because I think this tells also the story of where the Republican voter is today. You know, back in January of 2025, I think it was something like 60% of Republicans identified as a Trump Republican. And now it's like 34% identify as Trump Republican. So when Trump says, pretend I'm on the ballot, vote like, you know, this is about the MAGA movement. Well, 34% of Republicans are like, okay, great, that speaks to me. But the other whatever percent are saying, well, no, that doesn't resonate with me, right? That's not what's going to motivate me to get to the polls. And, you know, not to be a knock on your old boss, but I remember in 2014, you know, here was Obama went, I, he did go, on the trail in many places to say like, this is, you're doing this for me, right? Like help, when you vote for these guys, you're helping my agenda, let's do this. It's just a, it's a hard, it is hard to get people who are already feeling pretty disconnected from politics to make a connection with some House or Senate candidate that a president who you're kind of right now disappointed in, or at the very least feeling like Like, I don't feel great about the way things are going in the country, that that's going to be somehow motivating for them. So, look, I think the reality, and we've seen this for the last two years, but especially in this last year, the reigning theory of the case in the Trump world is let Trump be Trump. There is no telling him, like, this isn't really the strategy. We got to kind of, here, let's go do this, but we should probably not say that. Please don't say this, but do say this. So, that's part number one. Part number two, I think he loves proving people wrong. You guys keep saying we're going to lose. You guys keep saying that I'm a drag on the party, that this is so unpopular, that the MAGA has lost its way. I'm going to prove all of you. I'm going to prove you wrong because I always do prove you wrong. You laughed at me in 2016. You laughed at me in 2022, laughed at me in 2024, and I come back every single time. That is kind of what it feels like, right? Like, I'm going to do this for that reason. And so, whether it's strategic, it's clearly not. Yeah, I could retcon a strategic argument for why he can be helpful in Alaska and Iowa and Canada. This is in particular, these are states he won by double digits. We know the undecided voters there are like 91% Trump voters or whatever. I think someone who's approved, strong approval rating among Republicans, which is 20 points lower now than it was in 24 or even in 2018, is probably not the draw he used to be, but you could do that. What I can't, what you can't tell me is that him going to Michigan is helpful. Yeah. A state where he's 20 points underwater. That's fair. That's fair. And we're the best thing for Mike Rogers, who would possibly be. To make this campaign all about Abdul. All about, yeah. Make it all about Abdul. Yeah. Yeah. And then if Trump shows up, that makes it very hard. And Trump, these guys are in such a prison because Mike Rogers can't not go. That's right. Right. So, he's got to go. Positive America is brought to you by Stamps.com. We could all use a few more hours, even minutes in the day for ourselves, Tim. Oh, God. Skip your trip to the post office and stop letting mailing. Steal your precious little time with Stamps.com. 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Go to Stamps.com slash PSA to get this offer today. That's S-T-A-M-P-S dot com slash PSA. Stamps.com. S-T-A-M-P-S dot com slash PSA. Taxes and fees apply. Pod Save America is brought to you by Hungry Root. Why does figuring out what to eat always feel harder than it should? There's so much decision paralysis. Seemingly never enough time to fit a grocery store run into your busy weeknight schedule. Food is personal. We all do our best to feed our families wholesome, nutritious meals, but life gets in the way. And that's where Hungry Root comes in. Hungry Root gets to know what you like and don't like, your health goals, and what fits into your lifestyle, then recommends groceries tailored to you. Hungry Root doesn't just give you more options. It personalizes the options that are right for you. Get back to what matters instead of spending mental energy, grocery planning, and shopping. Look forward to discovering new favorites instead of dreading the daily decision of what to eat. Great thing about Hungry Root is that it's not just a generic grocery delivery. It actually learns what you like and then customizes your weekly delivery. All the ingredients you need to prepare your meals are included in your delivery. All the meats and produce along with easy-to-follow recipes are included. You get delicious meals like a tzatziki chicken shawarma bowl plus easy stir-fry, dry meals, and pastas. You're going to love Hungry Root as much as I do. For a limited time, get 40% off your first order plus a free item in every box for life. Go to HungryRoot.com slash Crooked and use code Crooked. That's HungryRoot.com slash Crooked. Code Crooked for 40% off your first box and a free item of your choice for life. I want to pivot to the house here because we talked about the Senate. I'm going to get back to the Senate maybe a little bit later, but we talk about the Senate on this podcast all the time. Like everyone else, we're obsessed with these. The Senate, with the Senate, we're talking about the candidates. We don't talk enough about the specifics of the battle to win the house. Today, on Friday morning, Cook Political Report moved 11 more races in the Democratic direction. I was struck by two of these in particular. The first is Florida 25, which is the district that represented by Democrat Jared Moskowitz that Republicans redrew to try to make it a pickup. And the second district in Montana where Sam Forstag, the smokejumper, is running. What's going on here? Yeah. I mean, they're two very different states, right? Yes. I would say Jared Moskowitz and Sam Forstag are very different candidates. Yes. People don't know Sam Forstag is a former smokejumper. One jumps out of airplanes. Yeah. One's a smokejumper. Jared Moskowitz. I don't think he. Maybe he would do it. I don't know. I haven't asked him. He might do it if there was a TV camera there. Yes. So, I think there are so many. I love the house because there's so many different storylines, right? Yeah. The first storyline on election night is going to be, how did this whole redistricting thing work out? And Florida and Texas, obviously, will take center stage. And as you know, the Texas and Florida maps were redrawn, basically, with the theory that the Republicans would do as well with Latinos as they did, as Trump did, and as Republicans did in 2024, which is clearly not working out. And if you look, for example, at those Texas seats, three of them, Trump won by double digits, but Biden had carried those, right? So, if we just. Just by going back to not even the greatest that Democrats have ever done, but just go back to the 2020 number, those seats no longer look safe. The Florida 25 is another good example of that. That was a district that Biden won, even though I think it's a Trump. eight or nine, something like that, district. Moskowitz is, obviously, is a very aggressive candidate, has raised a ton of money. And, you know, the same thing with. You have, like, the. We have it in lean right now, but Maria Salazar down in South Florida, that was a district Trump barely won in 2020. I won it by about 15, I think, in 2024. Yes. In the new version, yes. Yeah. And the 22nd, which we have as a toss-up, another one that. This is that district that goes all the way across South Florida, like from the east to the west coast. And that's another one that Trump carried by double digits, but Obama won. So, those are. Again, it's not a dummy-mander, because a dummy-mander is, oh, you made some. You made a Republican less safe, by trying to draw out a Democrat. In this case, it's just that they're not going to make the gains that they thought they would. Montana is as much about. You know, this is. There's this other group of states, Montana, we have Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Iowa, places that had been drifting to the right in 2024, and even to a certain extent in 2020. But if you go back. If you go back not that long ago to the Obama era, or if you go back even further to the Clinton era, these were the kind of districts that Democrats were winning. Now, Montana's changed a lot since then, obviously, and this is the more Democratic part of the state anyway. But I think what you're seeing in somebody like Forstag is he's a really strong. You know, he has a great appeal because of his story as being a smokejumper and. Like this blue-collar guy. And that these are the kinds of voters in these sort of ancestrally Democratic areas that for them, voting for a Democrat, they've moved off from them culturally, but not necessarily economically. I would say North Carolina 11 fits into that category too. That's the old Heath-Schuler district. People remember that Western North Carolina where there's a Heath-Schuler-like Democrat running there. Is that the Jamie Agar seat? That's the Jamie Agar seat. Right, yeah. So you've got. And then the Iowa districts that, let's face it, they do swing a lot in swing years. But if Democrats sweep all of those Iowa districts, which at one time a Democrat did hold all three of those, the ones that Democrats never win is the one furthest west that's the most rural. You know, that's kind of going back to where Democrats had been with a lot of these sort of working class white voters. Also, Macomb County, there's a very competitive race there as well. So if it's a good night for Democrats, they win in all the places where because of the Hispanic shift and because of independence cratering, they pick up the Floridas or they hold the Floridas and the Texas and the swing seats in Arizona and Pennsylvania and New Jersey. If it's a good, like a great night, that's when you start knocking off the seats in the. They're more traditionally blue collar, working class areas that had shifted. Scranton is another one where there's a great race there. That's Paige Cagnetti. Here's a top notch Democratic candidate. Yeah. So that would be a really, really good night. And then, you know, an absolute. Whooping of a night for Democrats would be that they're now moving into territory that, again, these were seats that flipped in 2006, but we don't think of as competitive now. They've moved so far to the right since then. But in Kentucky, the Lexington, Kentucky district, which was redrawn to be even more Republican. And then Minnesota won the home of then Congressman. Walt won in 2006. He was, that was an upset race. Huge upset. Huge upset. It was a huge upset. So that's, that's when you start getting into, into like tsunami territory. I want to flag the Kentucky one just for our audience because Kentucky, Kentucky's polls closed first. And so if you're looking for a canary in the coal mine in either direction, how things come in and that Kentucky six race. Where Democrats have a very good candidate in Zach Dembo, we'll begin to tell you a little bit, I think, about what kind of night it's going to look like. I think that's right. I think. And so right now, for example, we have that in lean Republican. And if, if the Republican does end up winning here, what that would suggest is, okay, the battlefield now is much narrower, right? There could be some surprises over here on the, on the further edges and the deeper red states. But that for the most part, the, the. The battle is going to be taking place in, you know, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Texas. And thankfully, a lot of those races will come in pretty early too. Hopefully Texas comes in. They, they count pretty quickly. Florida counts pretty quickly. Very fast. Yeah. We like. Ohio counts quickly. Yeah. Ohio's good. And Virginia is another good place to watch on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The district that almost always flips in a wave is the second district, which right now is Elaine Luria running to get her seat back from Jen Kiggins, the congresswoman there. If Democrats flip the first district, that is now getting into like, oh, wow, this is, this is a very, very good night for Democrats. If they, if Tom Perriello comes back, another name blast from the past, the 2008 past, but not 2006. But if he wins that area, it's now more rural district, but around Charlottesville. Well, now that's a, now Katie bar the door kind of election. It's going to be interesting because it may not be uniform across the country. 100%. Because. It's usually not. And there's a couple of factors here. And you wrote an excellent column about this just the other day about how, what, about how different fractured the Trump coalition can work. But like you could. We could lose Kentucky and lose some of these more white districts that are Trump, you know, Trump 10, Trump 12, Trump 15. But when Trump 15, 20, 20 districts that are mostly Latino. Yeah. Right. And you can see, and then you look at a race like Alabama too, which is the redrawn district that currently has Democrat Shumari figures in it. Trump campaigned there recently. And that, but because of what could be a sky high turnout. Among black voters after the Kalei decision. So you could have some of these districts in the South with large black votes, districts in the, in the Sunbelt with large Latino votes that can shift. And then maybe more suburban districts, you know, it's all going to be very interesting. It can be very lumpy. Exactly. I think people hear wave and they assume that it goes across. Yeah. Everything goes. And it's like, it's more, it's more like a tornado. You know how a tornado can come through a neighborhood and like skip over. An entire block. Yeah. But then it takes out an entire neighborhood over here. And so look, you know, Iowa, every one of those seats is competitive. And so that's, what's nice about that state is that it can tell us it's literally, you can go like, is this a category one, two or three storm based on, you know, the first going, the third going. And then the, I think a category three storm would be that the second goes as well. And so they sweep the whole state, which is, I think what happened in 2006. So like all of Iowa went in 2006, but some of the districts we thought were going to be definitely flipping like suburban Philadelphia and suburban New York did not. So you can't look at this list and go, oh my gosh, if Democrats don't win this seat, then that means they're going to lose. Or if Republicans don't win this, then it's going to be a 50 seat gain. It's like. You gotta just like, look at it, as you said, look at it as, you know, the distinct regions and appreciating that it may be better in one place and not as good in another. And another, this is like, I kind of looked at that in terms of like voter demographics, but there is this regional question in the Midwest, particularly the farm belt about whether Trump's policies on tariffs, diesel prices have put Republicans in a particular problem there, which is. One of the reasons why, you know, we're Democrats are so competitive at Iowa and in Kansas. Like I can understand why Democrats are competitive in Ohio and Alaska in Texas, because we have great candidates, you know, shared Brown, Mary Patola have one statewide. They have brands independent of the democratic party, which is helpful in a red state. Tallarico is obviously very talented. Ken Paxton is a different kind of candidate than that. Um, has, uh, he brings some baggage with them, but in like Iowa mature, you don't have to say it has a very powerful story, but what's happening in Iowa is made that competitive. What's happening in Kansas has potentially made that competitive. So that also is another, there's a geographic thing. Pot of America is brought to you by beam. It's no secret that the difference we feel after a good night's sleep versus a poor one is pretty dramatic. You can set yourself. Up for sleep success with beams. Dream powder beams. Dream powder is made with clean, natural ingredients like reishi, magnesium and L-theanine, apigenin and melatonin formulated to help you fall asleep fast, stay asleep and wake up refreshed. Try it and see why dream by beam is improved for 30 million nights of sleep for people across the country. Dream by beam. It tastes great. They comes in a bunch of different flavors. There is sea salt caramel. There's pumpkin spice. There's brownie batter. I've tried them all. 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I'm Stacey Abrams, voting rights advocate and host of Assembly Required. In my podcast, I'm talking with some of the sharpest minds in politics and in civic activism to help us figure out how to fight authoritarianism and win. My podcast doesn't just diagnose problems. We give actionable steps to help you feel a little more connected and a lot more empowered to make change in your communities. So check out my podcast, Assembly Required. New episodes drop every Tuesday. On YouTube or wherever you get your podcast. That's X-E-R-O. zero is a financial management platform that loves giving small business owners the clarity to have the confidence in their numbers it puts accounting payments payroll and analytics all in one place so you always have one clear picture of your business with visual dashboards zero makes it easy to understand your cash flow you know exactly what's coming in and what's going out so you can make smarter decisions that can help grow your business zero's ai can even offer insights to help you make your best move it's powerful enough for an accountant and simple enough for you zero is the all-in-one to get business done learn more at zero.com there is this question i think that does worry a lot of democrats which is what's going to happen if you don't make smart decisions to Washington. So you have that going for you. And then finally, you have to have a very weak Republican candidate. And Roger Marshall didn't, you know, I think I came into this thinking like, yeah, you know, okay, he, you know, hasn't really had a race before. And is he going to be prepared for this? And, you know, there were always the talk about how he doesn't live there and he's going to have to talk about his residency. But I think that the hits just keep coming, right? And the piece that came out in the New York Times about suing his patients, I think that one just really, because again, it combines all of those things. It's not just, oh my God, I can't believe this guy's sued and arrested women who had just given birth. But we're at a time where we're talking about cost of living and affordability, issues and people feeling so stretched. And this is a guy who's doing this, right? So it's not just that, if this were just about like, where's his residency? Does he really live here? I don't know that that would be enough to get people to go over fire. But all of that together is what has set this moment up. And you're right, it would be really, it is funny how Kansas, even though the states around it, those other farm states were electing Democrats through the Obama era, right? In South Dakota and North Dakota and Nebraska. And so, you know, I don't think we should say, well, it's been 100 years, so I guess that means they will never elect a Democrat. But it is, you know, the fact that Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, all are feeling this, right? They're all moving in a similar way, you know, moving away from Trump is, I think, a lot about where we sit in the political environment. And then Marshall and the Democrat, Adam Hamilton, they're all moving in a similar way. And so, you know, I think that's, I think that makes this, he offers a permission structure that I think another Democrat might not. Amy Walter, it is always so much fun to talk to you. This was really fun. Good luck over these next two weeks. You too. Hydrate. Everything you write and post is essential reading for anyone who's a true political junkie. We'll be looking for your analysis on election night and beyond. It's always great to have you on Pod Save America. Talk to you again soon. See you soon. Thanks, Amy Walter. Love it, Tommy and John. We'll be back in your feed on Tuesday. Have a great weekend. Have a great weekend, everyone. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Michael Goldsmith, with Ree Churlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hefcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Kenny Moffitt, Adam Lippert, Joseph Dutra, Desmond Taylor, Dan Farrow, David Tolles, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Singel. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. Corrupting our democracy works best when we forget that we, the people, are in charge. on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.