Last Call for Takes!

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We've partnered with SimpliSafe to offer our listeners the biggest savings of the year, 70% off your new system with professional monitoring when you visit simplisafe.com slash crooked. That's simplisafe.com slash crooked. And when you order, type in Podsafe America at checkout. It lets them know we sent you and it really helps the show. SimpliSafe, ahead of crime in real time. SimpliSafe. Welcome to Podsafe America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. Tommy Vitor. On today's show, the midterms are finally here. And the final round of Time Sienna polls show what the averages have been saying all fall. Democrats have a great chance of retaking the Senate and an even better chance of taking the House. We'll go through the final state of play, state by state, and the message that Donald Trump is using to try to blunt that momentum. What could it be? Hmm. Uh, before we get to all this, quick reminder to join Alex Wagner tonight for a live stream of election results and analysis. The stream starts at 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific on the Podsafe America YouTube channel. She'll have lots of great guests from the network and beyond, including us, right after we get back from doing Jimmy Kimmel Live tonight. So check that out, too, if you'd like. And then we'll be recording a bonus episode tonight when we have a handle on all the results. Dan will be here, too. So look for that in your feed tomorrow. Also, if you haven't yet grabbed your tickets for Crooked Conference, CrookedCon this Saturday, today and tomorrow only, we're having a flash sale. Oh, are we? It's a flash sale. $30 off your ticket with code CCMIDTERMS26. CCMIDTERMS26. That's CCMIDTERMS26. CrookedConMidterms26. You got it. You figured it out. Sure. Got it. It's in the episode description as well. This flash sale ends Thursday, and it's the last chance for discounted tickets. What's a flash sale? Is it just a limited time? Yeah, it's a boom. We're set. It's on sale. Yeah, it's happening. Flash. Flash. And Haley Stevens is now coming, so that's exciting. Yeah. Headliner. Yeah. She's going to be there. She's going to moderate a panel. CrookedCon.com to get yours and see if Lovett's joking or not. See you this weekend in D.C. All right. The day has arrived. Our last show before polls close in the final midterm election of the Trump era in American politics. No president since Harry Truman has been this unpopular heading into Election Day. He got us into a war that spiked gas prices to record highs, imposed crushing tariffs on everyone, deployed paramilitary squads to terrorize communities, made billions of dollars for himself and his friends, put states into play that Democrats haven't won in decades. And on Monday, he delivered one final pitch at the Lincoln Memorial to Americans who still haven't made up their minds about whether to keep Republicans in control of Washington for two more years. Tremendous algae problems. And you have that picture with the algae? It's not an easy thing. The algae is brutal. The green, that's not grass, that's algae. It took over the entire pool. The pipes, the pipes now are totally renovated. They're brand new pipes put in. It's also something very important in terms of the algae. It creates the bubbles and creates what's necessary that the algae doesn't form. We fixed the granite. We re-caulked it. All of this has been re-caulked. The granite stone is so strong. It literally has thousands of years of life. The grass in front of us, in front of the White House, was a very inferior grass for many, many years. And that's a big deal, regressing. The sitting president doesn't win the midterms, but we gave this a very strong shot. I mean, if we don't win this one, fucking pack it in, guys. Pack it in. He's talking about sod. It was like a Resistance Lib joke came to life. My jaw dropped watching this. We were stunned. They brought the charts out. I couldn't believe this was actually happening. It takes a lot to surprise us 10 years into this bullshit. Yes. But we were watching it live on Fox, our favorite channel, with the chyron said like, President speaks one day before critical midterms. Guys, he literally said in his remarks, we have a lot of great things planned for the nation and we could get into that, but we don't have enough time. Don't have enough time. Sir, now is the time. Because there's a lot of grass. Talk about a lot of algae. After like, what, like 30 or 40 minutes on Reno, he then did a kind of sad, they're going to trans your children. Sad kind of low energy. Communist, jihadist kind of stuff. Right. And he did it with a mic in front of his face like this and a hat pulled down really low. So you couldn't even see him. His heart wasn't in it, but he also doesn't seem down oddly enough for thinking that he may lose the midterms, as he said there and looking at all the polls. He kind of just seems like, look, I'm here. This is what I care about. I'm trying to keep my moods lifted. Right. Yeah. He's heard that Americans are angry about all these construction projects and he thinks it's because of anger at them not going well enough as opposed to say the incorrect focus. Yeah, they don't know enough about the successes. Yeah, once they hear about what the bubbler's been up to and the challenging sod conditions we were working under, it's very hard to regress. Very challenging. I think he just doesn't give a shit. I think he doesn't give a shit either. It's also like, it really is a story about how his staff now has no control over him. I talked to Rom for like three minutes today. I got one of those two minute Rom phone calls and he was like, if you came into my office and pitched me on a day before the midterms event about the renovations at the reflecting pool, I would have ripped your arm off and thrown you out of the office. It's insane. I think he wouldn't have even done that at first because he would have laughed at you and thought it was like a practical joke like a prank that you guys would throw me in the fire. Did he do a follow-up thing on the arch afterwards? Well, everyone cut away so we cut away because we were like, I guess that's it. Because then Doug Burgum got up and spoke and then I guess he came back to talk about the arch. He came back after Doug? They cut away when I was watching after because I was literally. He had to get to all of his tele-rallies, Donald Trump. He's doing a lot of tele-rallies today. I was at the dentist in my deal and I was like, oh, I got to prepare for the pod so I don't have to do an odd conversation while you're on the dentist chair so I was watching from my dentist chair. So I've evolved on this. I'm now fully headphones in like noise cancellation, listening to something because first of all, I get huge anxiety at the dentist and it's also, you can't talk to them anyway when they try to talk to you. Yeah, I know, I know. Anyway, we're like Trump just talking about the dentist here on election day. In addition to all of Trump's governing fuck-ups, did you guys see that Semaphore put together a great roundup of Trump's political fuck-ups? Yes. That almost single-handedly put the Senate in play and which do you think were the most consequential? Great list. Yeah, so I think unforced error list, number one, I would say, is going to war with Iran. Yeah, we have all the governing ones. Right, but it's a tough category. I think Paxton, over Cornyn, is probably the cleanest because it just absolutely put, I mean, who knows what the actual race would be now if it were Cornyn versus Tallarico, but totally changed the dynamic. And they were saying even before Paxton was the nominee, their best case scenario was nominating Paxton. A win would require at least another $100 million. So that was the handicap before they even went through with it. So I'd say that. Maybe second being for inexplicably deciding that Darlene Graham shouldn't just be the interim senator, but should also go for the full term. That certainly put South Carolina on the map. It's crazy. I really, I think those are better choices and more accurate choices. I really like pushing this idea that choosing J.D. Vance was a historic mistake. Yeah, same wavelength. To put Ohio on the ballot in 26. And if he hadn't done that, if I hadn't chosen J.D., you could imagine Trump getting mad about this and ranting about how if I hadn't chosen J.D., things would be different. Yeah, because J.D. would still be, you know, senator from Ohio. Really annoying senator. There wouldn't be a race there. I also, I hadn't thought about Tillis either. Pushing Tillis. Now, look, I think And Kemp bowing out. I think Roy Cooper versus Tillis. I still would give that in this environment to Cooper, but certainly didn't help. But we're spending in that scenario, right? We're spending tens of millions of dollars. Like there's all this effort going into North Carolina and the party kind of walked away from it months ago. And Kemp is kind of a double there, right? Because if Trump wasn't president or Trump didn't hate Kemp, maybe Kemp would have run for Senate. That probably would have given up. The toughest race. But then Kemp had a guy, this guy Dooley, that he wanted to run against Ossoff. Trump took that guy out with Mike Collins, the bigot. And so, yeah, there goes Georgia. So that's what, so that's what, so Trump really helped put the Senate in play. So we'll see, see how that worked out for him. Not to get too far ahead of ourselves, but I think it's worth talking about what's next for Trump after Tuesday. Lots of reporting the last few days that Netanyahu is probably going to pressuring Trump to start striking Iran again, soon as this week um trump kind of sort of maybe threw some cold water on that to reporters today but he kind of he was like no not right afterwards i'm not gonna but maybe who knows like his usual shit um there was also some wild by wild i mean terrifying reporting from tucker carlson who cited anonymous sources close to trump saying that the president may be within days of launching a nuclear strike on iran's pickaxe mountain um where quote israeli intelligence claims the iranian government has restarted its nuclear enrichment program tommy what do you think of tucker's very long post this is a very long post it's always interesting when people write like the op-ed tweets like huh and he doesn't do that often he doesn't tweet he doesn't tweet a lot anyway yeah so the the iranians just floated a deal to reopen the straightover moves that included some things like lifting sanctions and billions and frozen asset relief that make it hard for me to imagine that trump would take a deal so i think renewed conflict is more likely than not um pickaxe mountain is more likely than not to be a target because it is it is the place you hear the neocons kind of froth in the mouth about because of potentially including a new nuclear site um i personally think the nuclear weapons part is made up it doesn't make sense really militarily or strategically i think this could be some gulf source like you know someone in qatar or uae or whatever talking to tucker and trying to spin him up um there were other reports that trump might want to drop something called the moab the mother of all bombs on pickaxe that's a really big bomb it's a conventional weapon but it weighs like 21 000 pounds um it that option makes sense because it would have no strategic impact but it would be a thing trump would like to talk about it's kind of the perfect world for him um but you know the whole thing was weird i mean the the war is not over iran attacked 35 ships in october alone the journal had a great piece over the weekend about the escort mission it requires 50 000 u.s troops 20 navy ships two carrier strike groups an additional two to three billion dollars a month above normal military spending in perpetuity in perpetuity to keep it open um the other thing about the tucker post it said obama opposes a deal which like i don't buy the sourcing there but also that could be someone said to me what if that's just a genius way for tucker to try to get trump to like the deal if obama that would be some real chess from tucker carlson there does seem like no matter what happens uh in the elections all trump has is foreign policy stuff like this and reno's home reno's that's about i'd rather do the reno's i've heard the regime change abroad renovations at home i've heard that rubio besant and ratcliffe kind of want to keep the economic pressure on and stay the course that vance and wickoff want a deal and so the gulf i'm sure vance does oh absolutely yeah excuse me i'm going to be running for president in this yeah and then you'll never guess who really wants to run it back and do war 2.0 pete hex out there of course apparently and i think trump is leaning that way because i think he doesn't care about politics i mean look like we said at the top the the ballroom press events to like close out the midterms shows he doesn't care about politics anymore um i think he just wants to show that he can dominate the iranians and will probably do it he wants a few like if things don't go well in the midterms he wants a few good headlines yeah he doesn't care how long they last right he's not looking for like some permanent peace or negotiation he just wants a few good headlines so if he bombs some things maybe people will be like oh he dropped some bombs he's strong again that's yeah this is this is as far as the thinking goes it wasn't else it wasn't as if when uh bush held that press conference after the shellacking in 2006 where uh he relieved donald rumsfeld that suddenly everyone was like oh good yeah it didn't didn't buy a lot of goodwill did not it's the right thing to do but didn't buy him goodwill pod save america is brought to you by article article makes it effortless to build a home that lasts without the boutique markup their curated collections of mid-century coastal and scandi furniture are designed to mix and match perfectly so you can create a cohesive designer look that will stand the test of time we have a ton of article furniture at this very office we have really comfortable chairs i think we have bookshelves couches maybe i've lost track they don't put the mid and mid-century no they do not they're excellent they show up fast they are far more affordable than a lot of other options we highly recommend you check it out an article offers fast affordable shipping across the u.s and canada with options for professional 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come from yeah yeah all the places we're from uh let zip recruiter find the right people for your roles seasonal or otherwise try it for free today at zip recruiter.com slash crooked that's zip recruiter.com slash crooked meet your match on zip recruiter all right on sunday night we got the final batch of time sienna polls by the way i'm going to show you a sunday night release uh you know i was up it was four in the morning yeah it was rude i was i thought it was going to happen friday thursday morning friday morning saturday morning checking the checking the phone and then all of a sudden sunday it's like dinner time pacific and i'm like what now we're getting them i had to drop everything terrible football game on we're doing things anyway these polls gave democrats across the country a sinking feeling in our stomachs for the sole reason that they seem too good to be true yeah we don't that's where we're right now we don't try bad polls we feel the bad the pit in our stomach good polls we feel the pit in our stomach because it's not real good feelings aren't real that's not real only only only anxiety is real that's our pattern that's our pattern that we seek to recreate in our politics and yet we still read them anyway with great interest all right abdul el sayed up 11 in michigan hot pole hot pole a little hot uh talk about that one james talarico up seven in texas troy jackson up six in maine sherrod brown up five in ohio adam hamilton up five in kansas mary paltolla up two in alaska josh turek up one in iowa um we will take these state by state we'll start with michigan uh again time sienna has abdul up 11 over mike rogers 53 42 that's the biggest margin of the group uh nate silver's average has abdul up just shy of five points uh all very encouraging signs that are just getting slightly overshadowed by hayley stevens uh shocking decision to endorse mike rogers on sunday morning which included going to church with him in holding a press conference afterwards uh stevens had told fellow democrats literally the night before hours before i think that she that she definitely would not endorse rogers um and so that was a turn of events that stevens had just a bit of trouble explaining in an incredibly awkward interview with anderson cooper on sunday night um we're gonna play a bunch of it i'm gonna do a longer it's just it's unbelievable it's one of the most unbelievable interviews i've seen debbie dingle said that she talked to you at midnight last night and that you told her you were not going to endorse mike rogers if that is true what changed between then and this morning well look this is just a weight off my shoulders okay abdul has been getting angrier and angrier back in august you posted on social media quote mike rogers will be another rubber stamp for donald trump's dangerous agenda we can't avoid it you posted on social media quote mike rogers will be another rubber stamp for donald trump's dangerous agenda we can't avoid it how do you why is it okay now why can you afford now to give maga another senate seat in november well why is it okay to have the democratic party and a top nominee that you know ejecting uh you know this type of or injecting rather this type of of anger and lack of kindness it sounds like you're upset with me too anderson no i'm not you're not really answering any of my questions so i'm it's somewhat frustrating i absolutely do i just i'm just casting my vote this one way michigan there's a lot of people out there voting i but with all due respect you're casting your vote that way and you're on television right now talking about it and you have a press conference earlier there's reports that more than half of your staff has quit is that accurate look i have an incredible team in washington and i'm going to tell you a little bit about that um obviously they cast their votes you said in a press conference today we can't stand with hate do you believe that Abdul el-sayed is hateful or an anti-semite I'm just sick of who he stands with he's picking a son piker and the uncle to be at a public event with him up until some point I guess yesterday and I it's just an interesting change and I think a lot of people are curious to try to understand it was that a question no I wanted to see if you wanted to fill in silence yeah you told Debbie Dingle you were not gonna do this is that correct last night at some point Anderson that that is that is you know nice editorializing and nice bits of information that you have about what's going on with Michigan politics I'm giving you the courtesy of saying what actually happened I had an opportunity to go to a church service and have a prayerful moment it was Sunday it was very beautiful it was about friendship which I have many incredible friends in the Democratic Party and I care a lot about them you don't want to say whether you had a conversation with Debbie Dingle okay Congressman Haley I really hail the Stephens thank you very much appreciate your time so i had not watched it on normal speed it is so much worse than it like 2x oh man so like i you know dan and i uh did a reaction to the news um on sunday on youtube and you know i sort of got all my anger out there and then i watched that sunday night and i suddenly like shifted to just feeling like people have got to just someone who knows her who uh she's still listening to has to just like get her off tv and stop doing press and because like something is just something is off there that's it yeah what do you guys think i felt bad for her after the cnn interview and then this morning i woke up and saw that she was talking to the free press and scott jennings's radio program and was on this endless media tour and so i think i went back to not feeling bad for her yeah to be clear i don't feel bad for it all i feel like um for her for her own sake but also for like doing the damage all the rest of the damage she's doing like i think everyone including hayley you would be better off if hayley stevens just went away yeah i think she's doing the most damage to herself right now i mean i think like for abdul obviously this is not how you want to close out the campaign this is not the message you want to be talking about and it's it is catnip for the media um and you could see a bit of his frustration coming through when he was getting asked only about this i think abdul actually handled the questions about hayley quite well at the press conferences he did and tried to stay focused on the issues but like i spent my weekend rage tweeting i can't imagine how he felt or the people work for him um i kind of think her answer to that is that she's doing the most damage to herself right now i mean i think like if you're having doubts about abdul did you need hayley stevens to tell you not to vote for him like i don't know she also seems i think genuinely unwell um she may be in the midst of a mental health crisis so she's probably not the best messenger especially as she continued talking over and over again um there is a chance maybe this route rallies the base too i don't know but she looked like she was going to be the best messenger for abdul and she's probably not the so petty and small and i think it laid bare the standard the double standard that abdul has held to which is he has called on to denounce this random ad all sorts of things in her statement but she has no problem endorsing a candidate who is running one of the most bigoted nakedly racist campaigns that i've ever seen yeah so so i when when when i saw this happen i was like not in my stomach and i saw people kind of wish casting like oh maybe this will backfire and i'm like pretty convinced it will backfire in part because she is so incoherent and watching someone say that they want there to be a democratic senate but they are voting against abdul and being unable to defend it and being unable to defend how they could violate so many of their principles including saying they are campaigning against hate uh having made a series of demands of abdul including the most important one for her that he met in which she praised him for meeting and then turning around so which which condemning the the contents of the rebellion yeah there's the rebellion can add by uh uh jank uger and uncle the uncle the uncle clearly impactful clearly like his insertion into this race was was wonderfully helpful for fantastic work but he but abdul did denounce first of all he had already disavowed it he then disavowed and disagreed with it great like i had thought it was a good thing for him to do not because he was trying to win over hayley stevens but because for some small subset of people who were maybe undecided and reluctant and who are jewish democrats specifically in michigan being deluged with anti-abdul hysteria was a free opportunity to dis to to disentangle having extreme criticisms of israel while being able to call out anti-semitism glad he does that she still changes her mind uh so she endorses unendorses endorses and then unendorses abdul while claiming nothing has changed for her all of that to me adds up to kind of democrats kind of coalescing around abdul and like you have really strong statements from everyone from chuck schumer to the to the left saying that they uh uh uh are extremely upset with hayley stevens for doing this so in the end i think it becomes a unifying moment plus he raises a bunch of money off of it so in the end do i think she makes a big difference like there's probably a lot that fiance uh was saying how she was getting a standing ovation from thousands i don't know where that was taking place uh some some event i saw some clip of it yeah there's a jewish community about a fundraiser yeah i i have a feeling that she is getting a lot of money off of it i don't know why she's getting a lot of money off of it i don't know why she's getting a lot of money off of it i don't know why she's getting a lot of money off of it i don't know who is being brought along by hayley stevens and for everybody else i think it's a unifying moment about the stakes in the election and by the way abdul's remarks right after where he talked about i just thought were excellent uh and uh that's it it's just worth pointing out too that like for those listening and thinking why didn't he just denounce the ad earlier her ransom note included much more than just denouncing the ad it was like the ad didn't invent its argumentary it dramatized one of dr el sayed has made in his own words so she wanted him to basically condemn his own past statements and policies also uh get get israel out of his explanation for everything michigan can't afford apparently we can't talk about the iran war increasing costs she also wanted him to uh take down his advertisement featuring tucker carlson which by the way just what she said was an insult to the black community like it was just like this crazy all over the place statement from her i was saying that i've had this sort of um uh uh this sort of experience of being on both sides of the algorithm in the last couple days right because straight shooter well because we posted we posted a video of my saying that jewish voters in michigan have a moral obligation that's just for abdul which uh got me just absolutely built like i just oh you know you would have you would have been a jew loading people on the fucking trains like that level kind of fun that's terrific and then i i point out that i actually do think that that chank ad is anti-semitic and that abdul should denounce it uh uh not because of the fact that he's against anti-semitism but just because i thought it was a free opportunity to demonstrate the points he's been making about the difference between uh having a disagreement on israel and when a ton of people feel as though uh they're being targeted that he'll stand up for them fine uh i think those two things do go together and i think you see why when you have someone like hayley stevens uh who is abandoning everything that she claims to care about and claiming to making a decision based on hate while siding with mike rogers and making zero demands of abdul she makes ridiculous demands of abdul not just to disavow an ad which i thought abdul should denounce before hayley stevens ever put out a statement but also to basically re-litigate the disagreements they had over the course of the primary and a completely specious attack on an ad with tucker carlson if tucker carlson is saying bad things about mike rogers damn right get that in front of people let's stop being babies it's ridiculous fake attack but then also going over to mike rogers no no no problem with the hateful rhetoric from mike rogers no reassurances needed for hayley stevens on any of that well this is i mean i i had a suspicion around the time when she was uh you know the calls to for him to condemn the ad and all that like none of this was on the level that uh and the reason that abdul's team did not want to make a big deal of going even further to condemn the ad is because they knew that no condemnation is going to be enough for hayley stevens and the people around hayley stevens and the people criticizing abdul and it's like apologize for this okay i apologize for this denounce this ad all right denounce this ad don't say this and it's like what you want is for you to be able to condemn the ad for him not to have the position he has on israel that's what you want and also like beyond that like it's never it's never in the level and then when your criticism of abdul uh doesn't seem like it's working with enough uh you know jewish democrats in michigan now you're going to throw in that he uh is somehow that like black democrats in michigan should be wary of abdul because of because tucker carlson is in an ad for five seconds saying that he wouldn't vote for mike rogers with a gun to his head as if that is some like you know beyond the pale thing to include in an ad so the whole thing is fucking bullshit and she proved it because he goes and denounces the ad and then she's like i don't want you to just denounce the ad i want you to denounce what you said in the primary about israel and it's like well the primary happened uh he won you endorsed him without a problem then and now you're going back and saying he should i mean it's just ridiculous yeah i i feel like these are separate things like i i agree you're not i don't think abdul should denounce the ad to please hayley stevens or the people that will that for whom there will never be enough i thought it was the right thing to do to announce the ad in part because it's being shared around michigan as being his ad which i don't think is fair uh and the fact that he went from you know of valiant to say disagrees with the statement and which, which Haley Stevens seemed to celebrate, like it points out that Haley Stevens is not on the level. It doesn't mean that he isn't, that it isn't the right thing to do in that case. Like I thought it was, I think it got harder as the week went on. Like, I think if he had just said that he disagreed with it from the beginning, I don't think it would have changed Haley Stevens, but clearly like this was a roiling issue. Like I think it was a, I think it was a roiling issue online in certain communities. I think in crass political terms, Abdul's job is to talk about the things he wants to talk about in a campaign and keep the focus on the issues he wants to focus on. So like I could make a political argument for why you don't denounce that ad because you don't want to get sucked into this morass of like re-litigating all the shit that we fought about in the primary. Like I could also make the argument that denounce it and put out a statement and move on. Right. I think it's like, I just think, I think you could go either way. I think he ultimately does disavow it, right? Like he does. And it didn't help. It didn't help with Haley Stevens. Right. And it like it, it like, well, first of all, I mean, who knows? We can't making decisions about what to do in politics. It's a messaging focus one, which is like, she, this wasn't about the ad. Like this feels like a political rollout that started with her fiance, which led to this crazy statement, which led to this weird back and forth and her lying to like everyone she knows in her life, her political mentors, people she was with at dinner and then culminating in like, this is what Anderson Cooper was trying to get out. Like what changed between midnight, like Saturday and Sunday morning? It's inexplicable. Yes. Right. Which is why I just like, don't trust that any of this would have helped because she was the one creating the like firestorm. Yeah. When I'm trying to separate out, I agree with that. What I'm trying to separate out is the fact that Haley Stevens ultimately said she was pleased with his statement and then does this crazy back and forth, uh, Hamlet routine until abandoning Abdul part of whatever's going on in that relationship, whatever she's saying, lying, whatever. I don't have to worry about Haley Stevens. She seems fucking out of her mind. Fine. Uh, whether or not it was helpful to denounce the ad, like, I think it was the right thing to do. I was glad he did it. And I was glad that Haley Stevens said, it was the, that he, that, that she was pleased by the statement, which seemed to have resolved it. Like I hear, take your point. Like, uh, he could have, whether it was like necessary to go further in that first statement, whether he could have dispelled with it right at the beginning. I don't know that that changes anything to do with Haley Stevens. I just, as I like, just want to separate out Haley. Haley Stevens does not get to be the arbiter of what counts as antisemitism. She does not get to be the person that sets the standard, uh, for what, uh, is sort of, uh, helpful to a small subset of reluctant Jewish voters in Michigan. Also that small set subset of reluctant Jewish voters aren't going to be the difference maker in this election to your point, which is why they ended up bringing in all this other bullshit about how the Tucker Carlson is anti-black fine. Uh, I just think those things should be separated because I like, I am glad that Abdul denounced the ad in part because my argument to Jewish voters who may not make a difference in the election, but who I care about because I'm part of that community. I want them to understand why I believe feel so strongly that it is important because of Jewish values to support this campaign. And I think what Haley Stevens is doing is helping to make that case. Yeah. And I do think that, I mean, we'll see how the results go, but just looking at this back to the time Sienna poll. So this was like, obviously, you know, probably Abdul's best result in a poll that we've seen. It is, he matches, uh, Jocelyn Benson's margin pretty much in this poll. He matches, he and Benson matched the generic ballot in Michigan in this poll. So it's about what, 10 or 11 points. Um, if Trump win one Michigan by what, one, two points, and there's a shift to the nation, uh, the shift of the entire nation left about nine points on average in some of these polls that pretty much lines up with where Michigan would be in the poll. Abdul is winning 96% of Kamala Harris voters, and only 2% of Kamala Harris voters are voting for Mike Rogers. So Democrats for Mike Rogers is not a real thing, at least in this poll, unless the poll is completely wrong. Now, uh, this was versus 91%, 91.5 was the split in September. So it's time Sienna did this. Abdul is winning 91% of Democrats, 5%. We're with Mike Rogers and now it's 96.2. Abdul's fav, favorability rating in this poll, 50% favorable, 38% unfavorable. Rogers is 37.49. Trump is 34.60. Abdul is favored on cost of living by 54.37. Foreign wars, 52.39. Best for, uh, Michiganders like you, 53.39. So again, we could be waking up Wednesday and the media narrative, which is pushed obviously by Republicans, but also some centrist Democrats, some Democrats is that like Abdul is extreme. He's too far left, hateful, footsies with that, all this kind of stuff. Like none of that is showing up in the actual numbers in these numbers that we've seen. Again, there could be something hidden, but at least in what we've seen, they're not sure. Where did the uncle rank? Yeah. It was actually, it was like cost of living uncle, uncle, uh, and then, and, and, and hate and just hate. And then it was, uh, the economy again. It was interesting about the poll. And look, you had Nate Cohen to his credit, uh, talked about why they put this out, even though obviously it is, um, if, like, if it turns out that it's closer, they're going to be like, oh, wow, they were so off. They were so in favor of the Democrats in this poll. And they talked about the challenge of reaching Republican voters and they released the data of what the poll would look like if they kind of adjusted it down and Democrats are still winning, uh, in the, in that polling. But let's say that, that even if the polling is a little bit off, it's not crazy off. Right. And, and Abdul really does have a sizable lead. I do think a lot of the debate that you see that clearly Haley Stevens is steeped in, her fiance is steeped in, uh, is about what it would have looked like if it was much closer, right? The urgent need for him to make concessions on specific policies around Israel, right? The urgent, like the effort to tar him in this specific way for a subset, a small subset of voters in Michigan, right? Jewish voters are a small subset of Michigan. Uh, but based on this polling, that's just really not what's going on, which is making Jewish voters in Michigan because there are plenty of Jewish voters in Michigan that are behind Abdul. And then there are plenty of people who are not Jewish at all, who have been propagating these narratives about Abdul, including Mike Rogers. I should be, no, no, sorry. I should be, I should be, I think that like the, the effort to appeal to Jewish voters in this way and to appeal to voters who may not, this may not be their number one issue, but it's a kind of shibboleth about being a lefty. Fine. No, yes. And that, that will have turned, we'll see, we'll see how important that was. One other thing I just, I watched the, the Ross Douthat conversation with Abdul, the full, full conversation. Yeah. And that's the, that's must see TV. Uh, well, and, and yeah, as long as there's an NFL lead in some people agree with you. Well, this is the only available online. This is the unedited clip, right? This is the Trump insisted on pure, pure, uncut Douthat Abdul. Uncut Douthat. That's what I want. Yeah. Uh, but, uh, I don't know. I assume it is an uncut Douthat. Okay. Well, it's Catholic. I don't know how it works over there, but so anyway, he's a traditionalist. Uh, it's a great conversation and obviously the parts that have been clipped out have been about Israel, but it was just interesting to watch Abdul have a long substantive, somewhat contentious conversation about healthcare, about data centers, about the economy and capitalism, about democratic socialists. And it was just a reminder to that, like Abdul in the Senate, uh, will just be an interesting, thoughtful policy voice around a whole range of issues. And he's an incredibly smart and talented politician and, uh, like thinker, about democratic politics and policy. And that also, I think gets lost in this Haley Stevens, uh, uh, uh, chaos, but that I was reminded of that today. This episode of pods of America is brought to you by our friends at wild grain. Cozy season is here, which means cooler temperatures, warm ovens, and the perfect time to enjoy fresh baked breads and seasonal treats at home. Wild grain delivers sourdough pastries and French butter made with simple recognizable ingredients by small independent bakeries, all delivered to your door and ready to bake straight from frozen in 25 minutes or less customize your box with classic gluten-free vegan or protein options and skip or cancel at any time. And right now wild grain is celebrating carbs, giving their biggest sale of the year with their best offer of the year. 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All right, let's go to Kansas, where Time Sienna has Adam Hamilton leading Roger Marshall by five points, 49 to 44. Silver Bulletin's average has him ahead by a bit more than three points. As we've discussed, Hamilton has done a great job of making an issue of Roger Marshall's history of sending debt collectors after his patients back when he was an OBGYN. And in some cases leading to them going to jail. Marshall apparently got sick of his campaign's refusal to respond more forcefully to these charges. And according to the New York Times, he went around his staff. This is always when, you know, things are getting good. He went around his staff. He went around his staff to record this ad with his own film crew, which he then posted on Twitter. Amazing. Let's watch. I'm Dr. Roger Marshall, and you should know the truth about Adam Hamilton's ads. They're false, plain and simple. Now, to ensure that 40,000 Kansans would still have access to care, we did have to keep the lights on. So we occasionally handed some accounts over to collection agency, just like nearly every private medical practice does. To be crystal clear, the Kansas Bill of Rights ensures that. No one can go to prison because of indebtedness. And I would never wish that on any patient I had the privilege to serve. My involvement in any patient's account ended the minute it was turned over to an outside agency. I never had anyone arrested. Not once. And Adam Hamilton knows. Never had anyone arrested is your closing message. In case you want to parse what he's saying there, it is in the Kansas Bill of Rights that you can't go to jail for having debt. But what happened was people who got the debt collection notices. and might not have debt collection notices. and might not have known, then got a summons. If they didn't appear in court for the summons, then they went to jail as a result. There was an arrest warrant from the bench for them as a result. So it is still true that people, because of the debt collection, ended up arrested. That's unfair. I saw this ad, and I actually hadn't seen the reporting about it. I saw this ad, and the first thing I thought is, he made them do this. He is furious. Like, Haley Stevens is in these crazy text messages. That's riling her up. He was riling himself up with his doctor buddies about how he's getting the fucking shaft in this campaign. It's weird. One of them was Jason Turkish? Yeah. The mastermind. The mastermind behind the whole goddamn thing. Well, I'm sure, yeah, he's probably got the group chat going. Everyone's spinning him up. He's like, you know what? I'm going to grab my Merlot shirt, and I'm going to go out there, and I'm going to talk about how I never knowingly had any new mothers arrested. And I think this is going to work for me, because the Kansas Bill of Rights says no one can go to prison because of indebtedness. But they might. It's like, what do you. It's insane. Someone get me that folksy. There's a guitar riff that's in all those ads. We don't need much more than that. Now, I want to be holding the fence. Yeah, yeah. I want to be off to the side of the shot. One hand on the fence. And, like, the way they rolled it out was the staff refused to air the thing, so he emailed it to random people. So one guy posted. So you get all the earned media of this ad kicking back up the stories about him getting the woman who just had a C-section arrested three times. But you get none of the benefit of paid media getting your message in front of people. It is the biggest, like, campaign cell phone I could imagine. The first time I was really, like, that the race really caught my attention was when they had a debate at the state fair. And, first of all, Hamilton is just a great candidate. But then Roger Marshall couldn't get a word out because he was being booed over this. And this has clearly just been dogging him everywhere he's going. And it must have been driving him crazy. And their internals must not look so great because he's saying, well, fuck it. I want this message out there. And the staff is refusing to air it. And leaking. That they're refusing to air it. And it sounds so corrupt. That staff sounds terrible. Yeah. This poll has Hamilton leading a sample in the poll that leans Republican by nine points. And he's ahead by five points. The House ballot in the poll is 50 to 47 Republicans. So there's a three-point lead on the House ballot. It's a nine-point lean in the state. And Adam Hamilton is still up five with this electorate in the poll. Another thing that was interesting is the – the number of voters who had either no opinion or didn't know, have never heard of him. Adam Hamilton fell from 36 percent last time there was a good poll from New York Times-Siena in this state to just 13 percent. So as he has gotten much more well-known, usually your approval rating goes down if the negative ads are working. But for him, it's only gotten better. And he's got 13 percent of Republicans supporting him. And Roger Marshall, his favorite. His favorable rating is 39 percent in this poll. 39 percent is also his very unfavorable rating. So not just total unfavorable. It's people who have an extremely unfavorable view of him is also the same as those who have a favorable view of him. Then this is a state where I'm skeptical of the polling for demographic reasons and because, I don't know, it seems like it's hard to poll Kansas. But Nate Cohen had a piece where he wrote about how the Times in 2022 had a poll that had Sharice Davids up 14 points in the third congressional district. And Kansas, they downplayed it because it seemed unrealistic. And then she won by 12. So they have a track record of actually calling the ball right in Kansas, which was interesting. I had forgotten about that one. The other one I thought about is in 2022, the abortion ban. So, like, we've now, I mean, it sounds, the whole Kansas thing sounds crazy. But when you think about the Sharice Davids race, when you think about the abortion ban, which was a statewide ballot initiative, you think about the fact that Laura Kelly is governor right now, Democrat, Kathleen Sebelius, our friend Kathleen Sebelius. Sebelius has been, you know, very popular Democratic governor. Like, it's not crazy that they would be a Democrat elected in Kansas, or at least not as crazy as it seems at first look. Yeah, I think there are a lot of people that have taken the current specific conditions of red states as sort of like some immutable fact of politics. The ACA passes in part because you have people like Ben Nelson in Nebraska, right? It's just not, we're not that far off from having Democrats as senators in these places. But it's better to talk about abolishing the Senate than actually competing and winning these places, I think, is pretty foolish. Closing message from Matt Schlapp. Remember Matt Schlapp? Yeah, yeah. He did some, he did some, he did some schlapping. He did some schlapping. He got him in trouble. Conservative, national conservative, Trump guy. He posted, dear Kansas conservatives, if we lose the Senate race in Kansas, we most likely lose the majority in the Senate. Vote Republican tomorrow, even those of you who are hurting. If you don't, it will all get much worse. Your message of frustration has been heard loudly. Loudly and clearly. What a, what a message. And also, has it, has it been heard loudly and clearly? By who? By who? Who has heard the message? Right. I mean, it's just so hard. The other part of this, which is hard to untangle from the polls, is, okay, there's a concern that some of these rural voters, these Trump voters may not be as enthusiastic. And either they're not going to vote or they're just not talking to pollsters. But also, we know that the tariffs and the war has had this disproportionate impact. And so, it's just hard to disentangle what that will be. And actually, you know, that's, that's why I think it's, the kind of hurting and polling, it leads to either everyone moving together correctly or everyone moving together incorrectly. But in this case, I think we have a slightly of an, a slightly outlier poll. It's saying, like, maybe things are actually moving in this direction for real. We'll see. Over in Alaska, the race is closer with Mary Peltola. Just two points up on Dan Sullivan, according to the Times. It's not far off from where Nate's model has the race, where Peltola's up by around two and a half points. It is the only poll in the Times' last batch of polls where the margin has gotten tighter for Democrats. I think she was up six or seven in the last one. We also got an update on the Dan Sullivan, Dan Sullivan ballot stacking scandal. The two Dan Sullivans. The Dan Sullivan. On Sunday, a federal judge dismissed the Department of Justice's Trump-ordered lawsuit trying to block the election. If the incumbent, Sullivan, lost, Trump is still complaining about the ballot stacking. Of course, he talked about it at the Reflecting Pool event on Monday after posting a photo of the final Alaska ballot with the word scam. You got Tim Sheehy, who's the senator from Montana, saying, of course, we should never seat Mary Peltola if she wins. What's your level of concern about the ballot stacking issue at this late stage? I'm a little, there's like two levels to it. One, is this going to bother undecided voters and turn them away from Peltola? We don't know. I'm skeptical that there's going to be a lot of people, but it could move enough at the margin. And then, two, it's like, will Trump try to use this story as a pretext to overturn the results if Republicans lose? I think, one, we don't know. Two, absolutely. And the DOJ amended their lawsuit to include all the New York Times reporting before it was tossed. So it's very frustrating because even, like, I don't think this is going to really impact the vote all that much because of the way Alaska votes. But it was a ham-handed, foolish attempt. It was a ham-handed, foolish attempt. It was a ham-handed, foolish attempt to do some dirty tricks that I think is backfiring pretty badly. This is the one where. Where I think the one race where I was, like, my view of the race has gone from the most bullish to, like, now I don't really know. A, Alaska is very, very hard to poll. It's just hard to get people on the phone there. It's hard to get people on the phone anywhere, but especially in Alaska. Also, I think. Because it's so cold. I wonder where that is. You'd think if it's so cold, you'd be inside. Yeah, I think it's just that, like, it's so rural and people are so spread out. It's all over. I think it's just, it's a tough electorate to kind of. But they're not going through the door. I mean, I agree with you. I'm not saying you're doing a great, but I actually haven't thought about it. Like, why does them being far apart from one another change the way they answer the phone? Yeah, well, they also, I mean, they're doing mail. They're doing online surveys. They're doing all that kind of stuff. I think that also that Dan Sullivan is a, he's like, you're seeing in these polls, he's, like, more well-liked. Than some of these Republican nominees. So that's, it's just hard to, it's hard to tell. What's actually going to happen there. And so it's, you know, it's, it's, it's up in the air. Yeah. The only, the third thing I would just add to Tommy's list is even if there is nothing inherently illegal with having some random other Dan Sullivan run. Is there any exposure in the effort to keep it a secret? And the, the, the deception about it, which I think would play into Trump's hand as well. Trump's DOJ's hands as well. We'll see. Here's my question. If there, if the, if the response is, well, it doesn't really matter because there's ranked choice voting, what was the value of doing it? We, Dan and I talked about this on Friday and it, like, there wasn't a ton of value in doing it there. If you really dig into it, if you rank the different choices, like there's some. Some people drop off, maybe they only vote one. I think it's, like, yes. Here's the thing. Every, every Alaskan voter that they've interviewed since then have been like, first of all, we knew this was happening the whole time. You have to, you have to think we're fucking idiots to not understand. Which, which is, says something bad, both about the effort to do it and the effort to make people think that the effort to do it was sleazy and beyond the pale, because most people in Alaska, I think, are just like, yeah, of course we know the difference and, like, what the fuck? It is sleazy, but it's a question whether it'd be efficacious. Right. That's what I'm saying. Right. Which is, I think that people in Alaska were skeptical about. I think weirdly in 2014, there were two Dan Sullivans on the ballot at the same time, just by happenstance. Yeah. Gosh. But, um, just to be clear, like the Republicans do it too in Alaska, I think because of the system, there's always just efforts to, like, Yeah. Yeah. to, like, reach away a few votes from each side. And I think this cycle, uh, the main Republican super PAC spent, like, 500 grand to get a Green Party candidate who lives in Arizona to run. And there was, like, there was a lot of paid communications, like $800,000 worth of paid communications designed to siphon votes away from Democrats to fringe candidates. So, for some reason, everyone just fucks around in Alaska. I would say Sarah Longwell's, um, final focus group was Alaska voters. Uh, I was listening to the episode over the weekend, and she's talking to Amy Walter. First of all, she's talking about why. It's hard to poll Alaska. Sarah could only get three Alaska voters for the focus group. That's, she was, like, looking far and wide. Um, and you did hear. One of them was a moose. You did hear these, these three women who were, like, pretty conservative saying, like, don't like Trump. But, like, Dan Sullivan's always been. They all know Dan Sullivan. They all know Mary Paul Toller, right? Because it's a small enough state. Um, but the best anecdote, which will confirm all of our priors, was, um, there's this woman who's a Trump 24 voter, Sullivan 22 voter. Or Sullivan 20 voter. Sorry. Six years. Six years ago. Um, and was like, you know, I was gonna, I don't, I'm not happy with Donald Trump, but I like Dan Sullivan. And I was just gonna, I was gonna vote for him again and just vote the same way. But then Trump came to the state and did that rally. That's great. And now, not gonna do it, voting for Peltola. It's like, it's so funny that Trump goes to Alaska and his rally turned off a voter. Yeah. The other thing, too, is the, these polls are all, obviously, very good news for Democrats if they hold. Uh, but one, I talked about this with Dan this morning, uh, on the rapid response. That, uh, it also shows late-breaking voters going towards Republicans by plus nine, which is a little bit confusing. Uh, but take that as a fact. Then, if people really are breaking towards Republicans, it really won't matter if the margins are where they're at in these other states. You have a bunch of Democrats over 50. But here in, in Iowa, in Alaska, where it's this close, people late-breaking, uh, could close the gap. Yeah, I think, I think it makes sense, but it's also not something to, it's not unexpected because these are red states that Donald Trump won by. It's double digits. And so, the undecided vote is naturally going to be mostly Republican voters. And so, you're going to get some, to the extent that the Republican creeps up, you're going to get voters coming home, which is why you're getting, like, these late-deciders or later-deciders who tune, who, who are just tuning in late, actually go, just coming home to Republicans. Well, it would be, yeah, I, yes, it would be that there are late-deciders in an environment where a lot of Republicans who have decided early decided to vote for a Democrat. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Democrat. Yes. Right. Um, all right, let's talk Texas, uh, where the Times had Tallarico up by seven points and leading Ken Paxton by, uh, three and a half points in Nate's model. Like Trump, Paxton's also closing strong. His campaign appeared to cancel the final event of his "Come and Take It" tour, which was set to take place at the Alamo. He canceled the event at the Alamo. Well, your other option is get slaughtered by Santa Ana's guys, so. It's just funny, it's funny, too, because I can see being talked into this. I can see being talked into the Alamo metaphor, and then also being talked out of the Alamo metaphor, because it is a, it is perhaps a place to do your last stand, but of course the reason we do remember the Alamo. You gotta stand, though. You gotta go, you can't forget the Alamo. It's gotta be a stand in order to be the last stand. You gotta stand there, but also, it's not like it's a metaphor about winning, it's a metaphor about getting. Imminent death. Getting the big L, and it's where Pee Wee Herman's bicycle was. No basement. Most importantly. No basement in the Alamo. No basement. That's what we learned. Paxton also closed his speech on Sunday by saying, quote, "Texas has never been this close to slipping away. We've never been this close to losing everything that we hold dear. If Texas falls, we don't have another Texas to move to." Which is technically true, so. It's just gonna float down the gulf. I also just, that's a very funny kind of sentence for just a losing candidate. It's just like, hey, do you think there's a chance that you're talking about yourself? Are you a little worried? You know, it's like, this is a very big deal for you to lose. I feel it's very emotional for you, Ken Paxton. Last thoughts on Texas? Blue Texas, is it happening? I mean, it's weird to feel good about Texas. It's mostly because of the demographics, like 40% Latino. It's because Paxton is such a historically terrible candidate. I mean, he gave a pedophile a sweetheart deal. He stole from his friends. His staff reported him to the FBI. He was impeached by Republicans. And he seems to have a hard time keeping it within the confines of his marriage. Everything, like, he does. What's funny about that is. That's a nice way to say it. Basically, those all apply to Trump. Yeah, that's true. Every single one. That's true. I also think they tried really hard to make Tallarico into a boogeyman. It just doesn't seem like it's worked particularly well. I don't know. Yeah. Tallarico's skilled. James Tallarico is too much of a pussy for Texas. Just didn't work. I think, like, he's his favorable rating in this poll is like plus 10. And Paxton is negative 21. Now, if Paxton ends up pulling this out and winning. You can see here he gets Paxton in this poll gets 44% of the vote, even though he's at 33% approval. So this is like do enough Texas Republicans hold their nose and vote for Ken Paxton. Not because they like Ken Paxton, not even necessarily because they dislike James Tallarico, but just because they're Republicans and they can't vote for Democrats like that is because, again, this is a state where Trump won. It's Texas. And so, you know, it's a it's a it's a hard partisan lean to overcome. It's also funny to think about mismatch. I mean, I think the fact that the president is going to be in Texas for the rest of the year is going to be a big deal. Now, I think that's probably a more conservative group than a typical California voter. But it is also going to be a subset of people who are very motivated around the economy and just not as susceptible to kind of hippy dippy persuasion. Yeah. And so Gina Hosa is up in this poll as well. That race has been clear. Tallarico's like two points ahead of Hinojosa and Paxson's four points behind Abbott. And so, you know, the governor's race is obviously much tighter, but we will see. In Iowa, the race continues to look pretty tight as well. Time Sienna has Josh Turek up just one point on Ashley Hinson, 48-47. And, you know, Nate and his average has it at 0.7. So by any measure, it's effectively a tie. Trump was in Dubuque on Sunday where he tried to break the race open by rallying his supporters around this message i knew ashley for a long time and she was a little bit heavier she knew the weight that was on her really literally the weight and she knew the importance of what she was doing and she went out the old-fashioned way too not with you know give me a shot boy she put herself she went on a regimen she put herself in shape she's in perfect shape she was good i thought it was great the other way but she put herself in shape and she did that for you me i put on a couple of pounds i hated that i had not seen that i cannot fucking believe that is real oh yeah oh yeah he did that that was his route what well because you know what he's he wants to treat both genders equally right yeah if he's going to be talking about john husted's ass non-stop he's gotta say something about the female candidates look donald trump and she didn't she didn't she did it the old-fashioned way yeah she didn't fucking take the shot like i did yeah all of a sudden yeah donald trump the one issue he's a fucking calvinist on his weight loss the uh the uh also it's funny too it's like trump's sexuality has always been really interesting and for him it's about the person cpo sexual yeah he's just like he he like john husted that does it for him ashley hinson That does it for him. He just, what he's attracted to, yeah, it's a body. It's a body, but it's also a mind. And he doesn't see gender, you know, the way that we do. So that's kind of cool about him. I asked Harry Enten if there's, you know, the polls tell us anything about a benefit from being caked up. So you got to listen to the Sunday episode to hear that. What's caked up? Having a big, thick, juicy ass. Hell yeah. Bounce a quarter off it. Like a Hustad, yeah. Get two dimes and a nickel back. As we've discussed, Democrat Rob Sands seems to be running way ahead of Turek in the governor's race. He's at more than seven in Nate's average. Tommy, what do you think? Do you think there's going to be a bunch of ticket splitters here? Do you think that Rob could help Josh get over the finish line at the end? I hope so. I mean, yeah, Rob's running a really good campaign. It's a unique campaign. It's sort of this nonpartisan campaign. He's also benefiting because his opponent lives in Kansas. That's always a good thing when you can run against someone who doesn't live in the state. But, like, I was talking to you on— How many points do you give him for looking like you? Dozens. Dozens? Dozens. It's worth, like, a point or two at least in the home stretch. That's four X being caked up, in my opinion. Caked up. I was talking to J.D. Shulton earlier today. He served in the Iowa State Legislature, ran for Congress. He personally knocked on a thousand doors, probably in western Iowa, where he lives. He says it's the best environment of his political career, meaning, like, the best targeting, the best lists, more persuasion conversations, the best conversations overall, and, like, more people knowing what the hell is going on. So that is optimistic. That tells me that Rob's got a really good field program because he's got a lot of money. And then he can hopefully turn out more Democrats and then independents that are Democratic-leaning that you need in that state to win. The pessimistic case for Josh Turek in that Senate race is the Republicans spent, I think, $100 million against him, and Ashley is a way better opponent, regardless of what Trump thinks about her appearance and how she lost weight. I think the question— Well, he loves it. Yeah, he does love it. The question for Turek's—the question I think will be answered by the election is, do tariffs and do diesel prices keep home enough conservatives? Are there farmers that are enraged about the economy? Yeah, I think this—I think you're exactly right. This is a environment election more than it is candidates on the Senate side, right? Because, first of all, got to give Josh Turek his due here. I think when you talk to people about all these races and all these candidates and you talk about Josh Turek, everyone's like, yeah, he's a good candidate. He's a good candidate. He has the best Democratic net favorability of any of the candidates polled in the seven states set by New York Times. And, like, it's just so funny because everyone, you know, a lot about Abdul and James Tallarico and who's popular and who's not. Josh Turek, most favorable—highest favorable rating of anyone in the poll. Now, Ashley Hinson has the highest favorable rating of any Republican of the seven. So now the two people who are the most favorable— It's a nice off. Now, hers is still 43-43. Like, that's what it takes to be the best rated Republican of anyone in these states. But so I think that's why it ends up being like— Just does Iowa as a state get over the hump of, like, what the partisan lean is of that state? Because, you know, Democrat hasn't won it since Barack Obama did. Pots of America is brought to you by Walmart. Every single week, Walmart keeps prices low for 150 million Americans across the country. It is all part of their decades-long commitment to hardworking families that started back in 1962. With a simple tagline, always low prices, always. 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Not much to say here other than the fact that the state has apparently set a midterms early voting record. Also, though, they have this horrible law there. There's like one early midterm voting location per county, which is why it's been so fucking hard to do. Well, because, you know, there's the counties. Some are very big and some are very small. Right, exactly, exactly. Vance was also in the state on Monday where he closed out the campaign by, you know, fear-mongering about, quote, illegal communities of Somali immigrants, quote, coordinating to flood the polls and drown out Ohio voters. Excellent. Wonderful stuff from the vice president in his home state. What do you guys think about this one? This is another. This is sort of like Alaska where as we get closer to the end, I'm like, can we do it in Ohio? Because it's such a it's become such a tough state for Democrats. Again, I've always believed if anyone can do it, it's Sherrod. And I also and like in this poll, Amy Acton is also forty nine, forty three over the fake, which is very close to the margin, Sherrod's margin. And so, you know, Brown's favorables in this poll is forty six, forty four. Husted is thirty six, forty eight. So it's not like anyone likes John Husted and people do like Sherrod Brown. But again, you know, Donald Trump won this by double digits. So, yeah, I share your fear. It's it's such a tough state. I think it's trending against us. I'm so used to seeing polls in the end that have the Democrat like forty six, forty seven. And then we lose. Harry Enten pointed out to me, I mean, obviously Sherrod's a great candidate. He's like the best candidate we could have run. Harry Enten pointed out that there are people, respondents in polls who think that Sherrod is the incumbent. Yes, which is like a funny, goofy thing to imagine. Here's my big hope. I am hoping that Vivek Ramaswamy being the worst person in the world and running one of the most shameful ads in history against Amy Acton will collapse the electorate, throw the election to both Acton and Sherrod Brown and hopefully turn the state to us. That's my great hope. Yeah. Yeah, that's my. That's my feeling, too, that that like people have got to be demoralized if you're watching your gubernatorial nominee do this despicable ad campaign that has completely backfired on him. There's another moment where he's confronted by someone else. Just he's just constantly being kind of hounded by questions following this. He can't defend it. It's just he's got to bring people down. And in this poll, right, Sherrod is up by five. One second. Leave it in. That's pundit. That's pundit. Sherrod's up by five, right? Like there's still there's still room for the poll to be wrong. It's a dumb Emerson poll that came out. Rick, a four-year-old that has Houston up three. You ruined my day. Did you see the photos? There's a tweet that was went pretty viral of Vivek Ramaswamy's haircut. And it just said Vivek went to his barber and said, fuck my shit up. He's just so unappealing. I guess the other point of optimism is like it doesn't really make like if it really is this close in in Iowa, in Kansas, right, in South Carolina, wherever. It just wouldn't make sense that Iowa Iowa's not a hard state compared to those states. Appalachia, every state that touches Appalachia is the so it's like eastern Ohio, western Pennsylvania. You start getting these areas of the country that are different than the the Republican voters in the Plain states. But the other thing is you have like, you know, Hamilton County, where Cincinnati is, has become like much more Democratic. Right. So, like, does that offset the rest of the state in some of the rural areas? And do you get enough to turn out in Cleveland? Which sometimes lags, but like, you know, Sherrod did this eight years ago. Now, eight years ago is a long time. But in 2018 was a Trump midterm with that was eight years ago. Yeah. Jesus Christ. We're doing this a long time, a long time. But, you know, he did it with a midterm electorate. So all he has to do is, you know, how much how much is Ohio change the electorate change in eight years question. And the other thing different from 18 is Trump is much less popular than he was when Sherrod won the state in 2018. So if he wins, that's the explanation. Yeah, it's worth saying to talk about this with Dan. Earlier as well, that in 2018, the economy had a positive approval rating. Donald Trump was not nearly as unpopular. He is right now. There wasn't a war in Iran. Right. There's a lot of reasons to believe that this should feel different than 20. Yep. Right. Yeah. That brings us to our last state, Maine. Time Sienna has Troy Jackson leading Susan Collins by six. Fifty one to forty five. Woo hoo. Nate has it in your. Put that in your Bobo. Didn't go for a cord of wood joke. There. So pretty stable. It's a pretty stable, if not overwhelming lead for Jackson. That's actually expanded a bit over the course of the fall. I don't know what how you guys feel. We felt tense about this one for a while. But, you know, this is one where on paper the evidence keeps getting better for Jackson as we get to the close. I get to I get to me and I have face blindness. I got nothing. I got nothing going on there. Yeah, we don't. Yeah. I mean, here's the here's the one that if you're just we know feel for it on the other side. We've been talking about all these red states that have partisan leans where Trump won them by double digits and they're just really Republican states. It's going to take a real overperformance by the Democratic candidate to put them over the top in Alaska, Ohio, Iowa. This is one where if you're just doing like partisan lean and like that and you're doing the generic ballot shifts nine or 10 points, then means like a plus 17 Democratic state. Right. Right. And I know everyone's like Susan Collins is magic and she's Teflon and all this kind of stuff. But. Like her approvals way down. Her approval. Yeah. Her approval in this poll is 48, 49. right, which is still good, but not what it was, not what it was. Jackson's still underwater, but he's 45, 48. The independents in the poll, the Times poll where she was leading by three were 47, 47. It is now 52, 41 in favor of Troy Jackson in this poll. So that is probably a big reason why he is leading in the House generic ballot now. And Hannah Pingree is running for governor. They're like more 55, 42. So they're now closer to where Troy Jackson is, which tells you that the partisan lean of the state and the polarization of the state is sort of just naturally, you know, like all the, if you're a Democrat and you weren't sure about Jackson, you're kind of coming home at this point. At least that's what the numbers are showing. She's a good politician. I never thought she was magic. She's a good politician, right? She has, and she has done a lot of just good old fashioned politics in Maine for a very, very, very long time. And that bought her a lot of goodwill and credibility. The question is, can that, is that a strong enough, you know, seawall? against the waters that are rising, and hopefully the answer is no. A little metaphor. - They really are in Maine. - Yeah, I like that, sure. - Yeah, how about that? - But in Maine, they love their invertebrates, like Susan Collins. You know what I'm saying? We're doing metaphors, right? - Right. Yeah, because then also lobsters are invertebrates. - Yeah, we went from surf to turf, from the oyster guy to the lager guy. - If you think about a lobster, it's kind of like a big bug. - They're big, gross bugs. - Big, delicious bugs. - You boil them alive, and that's okay for people. - Hoping to keep all these occasional or new listeners after the election, but that's kind of- - You don't have to- - Get out of here. This is the show, fuck off, you don't like it. - Sorry, yeah, no skin off my fucking back. Listen. - No exoskeleton off my- - Best part of the show is when it gets a little loopy. - Yeah, I just want to be clear, you don't have to boil a lobster alive. You take the lobster, you put it down, you take a knife, you go right in, and you pull back, and then you boil it. - Are you doing that? - Yes, I've done it. I've done it, but do it again. - Okay, great. - Do it again. It's not aesthetically pleasing, but it's more ethical. - This is a tough process. Final thoughts, guys. This is the section called Final Thoughts. We've reached it. - Got it. - We generally prefer not to play pundit here. Who said that? - What? Who wrote that? - No. - Who wrote that? - You know what? It's my fault for not looking at this closely. This is on me, this is on me. I got lazy at the end. We don't like to predict here. We, of course, play pundit. - That's all we- - That is what we've done the whole fucking episode. - We're actually, honestly, we're not playing pundit, we're living it. - We are, yeah. - The only thing I'm qualified to do. - We wish we were playing. - The whole world's a stage for us. - We're living, anyway, we generally do love, we like to live pundit here. - Yeah. - Live, laugh, pundit. - There's a dog named pundit. - Yeah, there's a dog named pundit in the room. - We try not to do too many predictions, but we're gonna do some sort of broader picture stuff at the end here. - Wonderful. - There's been some discussion about how anything less than winning both chambers will feel like a loss for Democrats at this point. Do you guys buy that? - Yeah. - Yeah. - 100%. - So much so. - Yeah, yeah. - Expectations are fucked. - Yeah, no, I'm sorry, like, you know, play this if I try to say otherwise after. In this environment, with a president this despicable, with an illegal war, with the tariffs, with the Republican Congress rubber-stamping this ridiculous, vile, lawless administration, if we can't win both chambers, then yes, that will be a loss. - Yeah. I think I, like, I'm not dodging it, 'cause, yeah, like, expectations is way out of control, and, like, Republicans will be crowing, like, you know, forever if we don't win the Senate. But I really, like, to me, it's binary, right? Like, you, it's about the consequences of winning the Senate or not, or, like, the consequences of not winning the Senate. Like, we're probably gonna win the House. Like, I'm almost, Nate's up to, like, 95%, right? And everyone can look at the old Hillary chart in 2016. It was never at 95%, okay? - No, it was at 70. - So, we get the House, no more Donald Trump legislation that Democrats don't approve. So, like, that part of the presidency. - Because he's been on a legislative tear. - Yeah, right, yeah. - No more big, one big, beautiful bill, right? - No, that was terrible. - None of that shit. - Yeah. - The Senate, it really, like, we get the Senate, we can hold off two Supreme Court, one or two Supreme Court appointments, and, like, dozens of other judges. And if we don't, Alito and, Alito, probably, and maybe Thomas, then we're gonna get two more justices that are, like, fuckin', you know, Eileen Cannon or worse, in their 30s for decades. So, that, to me, is the binary in the Senate. - Of course, that's why it would not just feel like a loss, but would be a loss. But I would also, like, I don't, I think, if we can win the Senate, that is it, that is an incredible feat, given this environment. Right, and it wasn't that long ago that it looked, if not impossible, very, very difficult, given the places we're talking about competing now. We're just, we are the day before an election, and we have a poll that has us up in some of the reddest states in the country. Like, that's remarkable, I hope they're right. But I also do worry, we just went through this Haley Stevens news cycle, I take Fetterman at his word that he doesn't wanna switch parties. I also don't, wouldn't, you know, bet my life on it, especially when, the way we have these arguments online, we definitely are not sort of, you know, coaxing, right? There's a lot of, like, vitriol directed at Fetterman. These are people that are clearly very online. Haley Stevens is clearly very online. I think John Fetterman is very online. And so, boy, 52-seat Senate, really inures against that problem. - I kinda think it's also, it matters which red states we win or potentially lose here, for long term, right? Like, we have known since the Obama era that states like Iowa, Ohio, are like just moving away from Democrats just because of demographics long term. Like, it's going to be harder and harder for Democrats to win Ohio, to win even Michigan and Pennsylvania, like, as we go on. If we, I mean, we're gonna win Georgia, most likely, North Carolina, if we can also win Texas, and then we, and, - South Carolina, Mississippi? - Right, like, if we start doing better, like, that matters not just for the Senate, like, so let's say we lose the Senate, right? But we win, like, Texas. And North Carolina, and, like, that says for 28 and beyond that on the presidential level, that we now can compete in some of these southern Sunbelt states in a real way that we couldn't before, and I think that would be, like, - That'd be cool. - If we lose Texas, if we lose, like, if we lose all of them at once, then that's gonna be fucking terrible. - Not for nothing, could you, like, look, we all feel pressure, no one wants to die. - That's right. - Okay? - Most people, but, yeah. - We gotta take care of ourselves. - Sure. - For ourselves, for our families. Could you imagine the pressure you feel to stay alive if you're a liberal judge in the Trump administration, like, on the Supreme Court? You are, like, on the treadmill. - Get yourself, keep in that bubble. - You are crushing up Lipitor, and doing lines with that guy in the morning. - Yeah, you're listening to that guy that lives forever that talks about his life. - Yeah, that guy imagining his son's erections after he was in Brian Johnson. - Yeah, yeah, that guy, yeah. - You're making me remember when RBG did that wedding, and performed that wedding, remember, during COVID, there was some moment. - She planking or something. - Then there was that. - I don't even remember that. - Next question. - I think pundit farted, by the way. - I was just gonna ask you, I'm like, you have to look on your face, like, pundit farted. Sure enough. - It was pundit, Tommy. Blame the dog. It probably was her. She's doing that a lot. - What is an outcome, anywhere on the map, or the whole outcome, that would change something you believed about politics heading into the election? - Full sweep would show that the fever's broken completely. - Ooh. - Right. - We got a fever. Broken fever. - Texas, Iowa, Kansas, South Carolina, Mississippi, for God's sake, new paradigm. Trump is over. - Yeah. - Bye-bye. - I would say that there's been this debate about Michigan, and Abdul's performance in Michigan, and I think there's been these very kind of, like, polar questions about will he overperform, or underperform more center-left candidates, and who would be responsible if that were the case, right? There's a lot of, like, there's a lot of people, like, pre-score settling on this already, which I find very annoying, and it's like, hey, guys, this, do you think we're not gonna have time for score settling after the election? That's all that we'll have time to do. That's what Cricket Con's about. But I do think that if Abdul runs close to Jocelyn Benson, doesn't have to get right up next to Jocelyn Benson, but doesn't kind of perform, I think, far under in the way that I think a lot of more center figures are predicting, I think that would tell you a lot about the left-center-left dynamics going into the presidential. And I would definitely take that. I don't know, I would say that I'm, like, learning so much from that, but that would be a really important data point for understanding what comes next. - I think if Democrats have a bad night, it would change my view about people voting with their pocketbooks. Like, I can't remember an election where people have been, like-- - Economic interests. - Yeah. I mean, it's, look, that has obviously been disconnected from a lot of, you know, polarization has helped disconnect that from people's voting habits for quite a while, but this is a situation specifically, - Yeah. - where, like, I mean, it's, look, that has obviously been disconnected from a lot of, you know, polarization has helped disconnect that from people's voting habits for quite a while, but this is a situation specifically, where it's not just unemployment rates, it's inflation that has hit everyone, plus the terror, plus the gas price, like all of it. And if that does not do it, then that's gonna be quite a signal. If Democrats have a great night, I think it's also gonna change my view, which is also, it's started to shift a little bit about how important money is in politics, because they have spent more money than God. And if the 200 million plus that they spent in just Texas alone doesn't do it, then it's gonna, I think it's gonna tell us something about the value of spending a lot of money. - Yeah, well, the next question on the outline, apologies for jumping ahead. - Do it, let's go over there. - Is what happens, if results are worse, what's the cause? And my answer is we're polarization. It's just a depressing sign that, especially lower term, midterm, like lower turnout midterms are about the team you're on more than anything else, and then the money. Because if Elon Musk can spend half a billion dollars in these races, and the crypto industry can spend $200 million in these races, if that, that money can get Ken Paxton over the finish line, the most odious human being in the worst environment imaginable, it's a reminder that elections can be bought, and we're in like a very terrible, terrible, post-Citizens United new paradigm here. What about you, Lloyd? If we wake up to, everyone wakes up tomorrow morning, the results are worse than we expected. What happened? So first of all, fewer people voted for Democrats. Yeah, that'd be for sure. You can't use that one. So first of all, there would be a polling error, a really big polling error, which would once again tell you something about the electorate. And I think one thing that that would mean is that the midterm electorate actually did look more like a presidential than we realized. And it tells you something not just about polarization, but just for how people are engaging in politics, because it just would mean a lot of people, they're not responding to pollsters, they're not showing up in a lot of the data, but they were just ready to vote and that they're going to vote every two years, not just every four years. And we do have a huge low engagement population of people voting. And then I do think it would just have to be a lot of soul searching, not just about whether economic issues drive people, but it would be a real, like, I think like maybe as much as more than 24, which had, I think, specific endogenous explanations would require a lot of soul searching about the failure of Democrats to be able to persuade people in an environment like this, right? Yeah. Here's what I think that's a little simpler and maybe more understandable for Democrats. Like, so let's say the generic ballot polling is correct, right, nationally, and the whole country moves to the left. It's plus nine, right? And the whole country moves to the left. That still means that just based on fundamentals, Alaska, Ohio, Iowa, and Texas are still R plus, I think Nate has it, 0.3 to two, just to plus two on the simple fundamentals. So a huge, like the generic ballot polling was correct nationally. The whole country moves left. We win the House. But those states are still a little more Republican. And the Democratic candidate could not quite overcome that generic ballot. So that's a huge, huge, huge problem. So that means, and that says something too that's tough because it's like, these are more moderate candidates in those states. They have basically done everything that all the smart people have said that you do to win in a red state, and they just couldn't get there. And then Cook had an interesting, in Amy Walter's final analysis piece, she put this in perspective. She's like, Democrats have to flip at least two seats that Donald Trump carried by double digits. Cook has five Republican held Senate seats in the toss up column that Trump carried by more than 10 points. Which is wild. No election in at least the last 16 years has seen the party in the White House lose more than one Senate seat that the president had carried by double digits. So like what we are, it is kind of like a both side, like if Democrats do great and win the Senate, it's like historic, right? If they lose though, it will be because that just, it rarely happens that the party out of power or that the president's party loses a Senate seat that they, that he won by more than two digits. More than double digits. Yes. And that is certainly what would be the explanation, except go one step below that. Donald Trump is an extraordinary president. Of course. And I know, you know that, but it's just like, hey, like how did normal, how did we allow as a party, normal politics to prevail in an environment like that? And I, by the way, I wouldn't just be blaming Democrats. I think there'd be a lot of, of hand-wringing about Democrats. It's a societal problem that someone like Donald Trump is winning these states by 10 digits after launching an insurrection, right? Like there's a, there's a real. Yeah. Like kind of a culture that has, that has sort of allowed someone like Trump to rise, but we continue to struggle to make the case to people that he is an extraordinary threat and the people that enable him deserve to be held accountable. And that will continue to be the case when someone like J.D. Vance tries to run for president. Basically denying the version of Trump we all recognize is real. So yeah. Yeah. And I think in the opposite scenario where we wake up and everything's wonderful and maybe Annie Andrews. Pulls it out in South Carolina or Scott Colman in Mississippi, right? Um, then it's a whole bunch of Republicans who voted in 24, stayed home. Some of them decided to vote Democrat and a lot of these low propensity voters who either backed Trump in 24 or didn't vote, uh, in 24, just came out in droves because of costs or ice in their communities, whatever it may be that, that that's the upside. Yeah. And I also think that has a big impact potentially as a big impact on 28, because that tells you to Tommy's point that the bottom really has. Has fallen out and something big is changing. Yeah. All right. That's our show for today. Uh, reminder to tune into the live stream with Alex on the PSA YouTube channel. Um, we will be back late, late tonight with our reaction to the results. Hopefully we will still have this tone in our voices. Won't be, although we've been basket cases, I don't have good memories of that in the past, like elections, but we'll see, uh, keep your eye on our YouTube for any updates after that go vote if you haven't already. Yeah. Bring your friends to vote, vote, save america.com if you need any help and, uh, we'll see you on the other side. Pods of America is a crooked media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Michael Goldsmith with Reed Cherlin, 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 Farrell, David Tolles, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi single. Our staff is proudly unionized with the writers guild of America East.