(upbeat music) Oh my goodness. (audience cheering) It's nine o'clock in the morning and we've got a rowdy crowd. I love this. - No. - Live from CrookedCon. Welcome to Still Counting. I'm Gail and Group. - I'm Claire Malone. - And I'm Nate Silver. (audience cheering) On today's show, I don't know if you've heard, but Democrats had quite the night on Tuesday night. (audience cheering) There you go. I hear the people are living out at this convention. (audience laughing) But what comes next? That's a little bit of what we're gonna talk about today. What was the signal in the noise of all of the data that we got on Tuesday night? What do the voters want? Part of that is we are going to cast our eyes forward to 2028 and do a mini Democratic primary draft. Yes, you can share for that, get it? (audience cheering) - We're heavily pandering to this crowd. - I know. We might even talk about who won the last draft that we did pre-election. - Not me. - Obviously I did, right? Didn't I? - No, I think Gail and obviously won. - Yeah. - We'll talk about it. - It's two against one, Nate. (audience laughing) And for those listening at home after the fact, we are certainly going to do a what comes next for the Republican Party. There's a huge question mark there, but since we are here at CrookedCon, we did figure, as Claire said, that we would pander to the crowd. So let's start with the signal in the noise. As of this recording, Democrats have 54 Senate seats projected. - I mean, it's 56. Let's quit. (audience cheering) Nate heard pandering. - We need a pander, Foghorn like (mimicking) do you look at the prediction markets right now, which we don't, do we love the prediction markets right now, or are we in fighting with the prediction markets right now? - They stole valor from the New York Times, CNN polls, and from Flipper, right? But they're very good for election nights, and they hone in very quickly in the right results, and it's very hard to see a path back for Height Smith and Mississippi. I get a little nervous about vote counting and Mississippi, I suppose, right? And Alaska, I'm just kind of, I am kind of defaulting to prediction markets that Patilla campaign feels very confident. - Yeah, it's a 98% chance, according to the betting markets in both states, that Democrats take. - I mean, there is right choice voting in Alaska, right? So that's feels like a real 95 or 98% versus Mississippi is like in a perfunctory 98. But yeah. - So, Democrats have projected to win 54 seats, and may well be 56, at least 253 house seats, potentially more. There's just an absolutely overwhelming amount of data that comes out of an election like this. We focus so much on the data, pre-election, but it's so speculative, and now we have answers. So whether we're looking at who people elected, what issues they mentioned in exit polls, the demographic and geographic trends, what were voters saying on Tuesday night, Claire? - I mean, the way I've basically started to think about it is sort of it's the anti-2016. And it's, I think of it as kind of a, it's like a populist reversal. So I do think it was mostly an election about the economy and the economy encompassed by gas prices, as Diesel Dan has talked about over here a lot, but also like the corruption aspect and sort of feeling that there's something wrong with the direction of where money is going in the country. And it's just like, you know, I think it was, I can't remember what I was reading this morning. It might have been a piece that you sent, or a few stats that you sent over, but it was so interesting to see that most of the ads in the 2024 cycle had been about, row or about social issues, and this time it didn't even crack the top 10 issues that Democrats made ads about. And I thought that was so, so striking, and that this election has totally been about the economy, but in ways I think that, you know, 10 years ago, we wouldn't have thought that the economy concerns would encompass things like corruption. I think that in some ways it's like, the politics of Bernie Sanders has, like, I think a lot about the success of his 2016 campaign has been seeding that the way to talk about the politics of inequality. And I think you kind of saw this election reaching a broad audience. - Yeah, Nate. - No, it's, when things go really, really well, for a party it's almost harder to diagnose the why, right? And again, the sheer scale of this takes some time to get your head around, right? Like you told me at the start of 2026 that the Nick's football and the NBA championship and Democrats win a semi-decent Mississippi, I feel like it's already fucking crazy here. (laughing) But, (mimicking) (laughing) (mimicking) (laughing) (mimicking) - The simplest summation is that it's about Trump, and it's about like a relationship, it's about exiting a kind of toxic relationship in a way that feels very cathartic for Democrats, but like, you know, yeah, it's about-- - And Republicans. - And Republicans. - I thought it was, it was really notable on election night to watch Chris Christie on ABC or wherever he was, to watch the Fox Desk, to watch Laura Ingram blame Trump for the war. It was like people could finally say everything that they actually thought and like JD Vance tweeted it. - Well, I was gonna say, and Ron DeSantis, after the fact, he was like, mask off, I'm actually a member of-- - Yes. - Election Twitter. (laughing) Let me analyze my selection and just shove everything in everyone's face. He said, fuck Vivek Ramaswamy in not so many words. And, I mean, we're gonna get into this, but like, the takeaway from Republicans has been so interesting because you've seen both JD Vance and Ron DeSantis say that this was an election about persuasion and that so many Trump voters were voting for Democrats. And it takes a while to get really reliable data here, but that was certainly the case in Texas. I mean, the persuasion game in Texas was unbelievable for Democrats and there's also a turnout story there as well. But in a lot of other states, the signal seems to be more about Republicans staying home and Democrats turning out at like presidential rates while Republicans turned out at like 80% of presidential rates or even worse than some cases. And to me, that sort of little lie that, I mean, maybe they're not looking at the data, but I think they are. I mean, have you seen the polling pieces that like JD Vance has cited and Ron DeSantis joining election Twitter? The part of the reason they're saying it's all about persuasion even if most of the data points towards turnout is that they wanna change their fucking party, right? Like, they're not, I mean, there are people, maybe we'll hear from Paul Ryan sometime in the next few days. Like, there are people chanting at the bit to take the reins back and that's what you're seeing right now on the Republican side. - No, for Democrats, it felt like a presidential election, right? I'm not sure if I wanna like cite silver bulletin traffic numbers or podcast views, but like-- - Do it. - But like overall, no, but like overall turnout was high firm in term, right? 2018, if there was a big turnout gap, that means it was almost presidential level for Democrats and probably made for Republicans. - Not that low. - Do you remember early when we were recording still counting like one of the first episodes, I said that we could expect 50% turnout this election and you said, no, we're not. Do you know what the turnout rate was? - Like 52? - No, it's 50. - Okay. (audience laughs) - But it's, well, I'm curious, you know, I'll be honest, I didn't pay a ton of attention to like individual house races and I was talking to someone last night and they were mentioning Tom Perielo's race in Virginia, which he lost and I was, I will say that was an interest and it was because just sort of normal Republican turnout in that district, which I guess kind of does, it's like a sort of, you know, he's a, Perielo's a good kind of like, you know, a white, moderate seeming, thoughtful guy, he feels kind of Buttigieg-esque in some ways, because of all that and it was interesting to me that he lost, and I guess that's sort of like the example of, well, if Republicans had turned out in sort of a more normal rate, they could have picked off more seats. - I want to be clear though here, because I think on one hand, the turnout differential is a little bit of a warning sign for 2028, Republicans, I think in many ways, will turn back out at the presidential warning side for Democrats, but also, I don't see turnout and persuasion as like two completely different things. They lie on a spectrum and whereas like a zero is voting for the same person you voted for in the last election, a one is staying home and a two is switching your vote, the emotions that connect all of those are similar, but maybe like the gradient or the scale is different. And so I don't think it's like, oh, the answer to turnout is like you just need to rile up your base and turn them out more, persuadable voters are also deciding between the couch and the ballot box.
- No, voting takes effort, it's an effortful act. Depending on where you live, maybe more or less effort. But like, if you're indifferent towards something, then it might be rational to make less of an effort. And so I endorsed that for sure. - But it was, I mean, I don't want to get ahead of us. But like, it was smart of Ron DeSantis to kind of capture the headlines again. I mean, yeah, it's-- - Going up in those betting markets. - He sure is. - So I think Democrats, like we talked about the signal on the noise, it was anti-Trump. It was cost of living the economy. I mean, you look at every single exit poll. It's the economy, the economy, the economy, gas prices, et cetera. I mean, corruption is up there as we talked about pre-election as well. But now Democrats have to make some choices. This is the hard part. Democrats have to make some choices about the party that they want to be in control of both houses of Congress. And they've never been in that position before with Trump. They only control the House. And so everything was a messaging bill. I mean, think back to HR1 in 2019, it was, you know, it was tying together ending partisan gerrymandering with forcing presidents to release their tax returns, with trying to make sure that like Russia can't meddle. It was sort of like every single thing that had been swirling around in one bill that the House passed and then the Senate never even read, right? - Yeah. And so the question now is now that Democrats have the ability to get legislation through both chambers of Congress and a large enough majority in the Senate that they could try to pick off enough Republicans to pass legislation that requires sick to Steve votes, especially if it's really popular legislation. Otherwise, they'll be forcing Republicans to vote against things like ending the war, ending tariffs, maybe ending partisan gerrymandering if it's a standalone bill and not tied with 23 other things. So I'm curious now that Democrats have to make this choice about who they want to be. Like, do you think they take messages from those exit polls and act on that? Is it more messaging bills? Like, what do you think we see from the Democratic Party? - Well, I mean, they shut down the government over healthcare. So I think that that's gonna be a big priority. And it's also unpopular, right? Like, they'll get what? Hawley and who else on the Republican side will join them on sort of trying to reverse some of the big beautiful bill cuts. And in a populist election, you're gonna have to try, you wanna respond to the populist concerns. I mean, I guess you can do some work with tariffs. It's basically like, but the thing is, they're not gonna be, and this is maybe a little bit of the problem for the presidential election, is like the effects of the tariffs and gas prices, like you're not gonna be able to roll those back in three months. Like, that stuff is gonna take, I was listening to some, you know, expert on the oil futures market. And he was like, at least a year until the things go back to normal. But it might just have sort of permanently elevated fuel prices. And this is the new status quo. So. - No, there isn't irony. There are certain things. Like, exerting more congressional authority over tariffs and more powers and things like that would probably be like good for lowercase D democracy, right? But on the other hand, if Trump is stepping in it and fucking his reelection, not reelection bit up, but his successor has been up, then why would you save him from himself, I suppose, is one question? - And obviously, you know, the news yesterday with Steven Miller, it's kind of like, yeah. - You know, double down city. I mean, yeah, and it was interesting to me. Like, I'm currently writing a book about the Maham movement in Bobby Kennedy. And it was so interesting to me to watch Kennedy. I think this was maybe right before the Steven Miller news had dropped. And everyone had kind of been expecting Kennedy to leave the administration. He tweeted something about how, you know, we were in the fight with Trump. And then, which makes sense, you know, I was texting with someone and I was saying like, well, I think he's, I think he's betting on the fact that like Miller will take care of him. And, you know, and they'll kind of go, they'll double down on like the Trumpy stuff in the last couple of years. It's kind of like the defiant going down fighting Trump. So, which will not be popular? - Oh, it's pretty, it's pretty, like, you know, Bill Clinton had this terrible midterm in 1994, right? And then you can disagree with it, but he made the rational response, the game theory response was like pivoting to the center. And like, that move of, I mean, I don't know. I get the Iq with Steven Miller, right? I try not to make this too personal, but like, (mimicking) (laughing) - I mean, it's interesting, right? The period after Bill Clinton and Democrats lost those midterms in 1994 was a period of an incredible amount of legislation getting passed. And Bill Clinton used the veto to sort of push back on Republicans to make compromises, but there was, you know, welfare reform, crime bill. There was, I mean, NAFTA, things that Democrats hate today, but things that ultimately made Bill Clinton quite popular and was an example of, actually, and it's the kind of the last time in American politics that a Congress and president from opposing parties worked together to pass a bunch of legislation not during a crisis. So, in, we saw another period of time in 2008, with tarp and troubled, again, all things that end up not being popular, but oftentimes what happens during a crisis moment, you know, you just got to act. But, you know, and of course, during COVID, there was bipartisan work on that stuff as well. And so, part of me wonders, like Will Trump just veto everything. He said that he doesn't want to be a president who vetoes everything, but then also, you know, got a hat with veto printed on it and put it on the resolute desk. So, you know, outside of a crisis, will there actually be incentive to work together on cost of living issues, things like that? Or is it, like, maybe if AI becomes a crisis, there's some sort of legislation there, but other than that, this is just budding heads. - Well, I think AI, I mean, AI is like an 80-20 issue for more regulation, right? I mean, Trump has been in that 20%, which is when they didn't help him on Tuesday very much. But no, Congress gets together in a crisis where you have, like, a supermajority on your side. Yeah, AI deserves some bucket of an issue that probably can't just be ignored until 2028, right? If you have a boom, maybe of superintelligence, if you have a bust, you might have an economic crisis. So, that's. - Well, and there are a couple of options there, right? Like, either Republicans can get together and work with Democrats, or Democrats can just force Republicans to vote no on popular bill. - By the way, you are able to override a presidential veto in Congress, it hasn't happened in a long time, but that's technically feasible when you have this majority. - Can I actually, as well, we're on this, while we're on the subject of AI, there was obviously like a huge market dip related to the election and related to tech stocks. I'm kind of curious, like, your Nate as someone who's, you know, your book, you wrote a lot about AI, like, how did you interpret that? Like, is it, and do you think Republicans or Trump will use that dip as sort of a, I don't know, an excuse for policy making, or sort of their line of thinking about AI? - You know, I have a slightly AI-weighted portfolios, a full disclosure, right? (laughing) I do some accounting shit, not a great data check your chase account necessarily. But no, look, I think it's, people in the AI industry are likely not to have been more regulated so far, right? It just, again, I'm kind of libertarian-ish, but like, it's like the most obvious case where you need government regulation of this technology that people say could, like, profoundly transform society, work, become super intelligent, kill everyone, whatever else, right? Like, that's a horrible market correction. - Well, it's how much is it being priced in, right? And, you know, sometimes regulation is helpful, but, yeah, this kind of, you know, we didn't like have private companies developing nuclear weapons and competing with other people to develop the best, quickest nuclear weapon. Still counting is brought to you by Give Directly. Give Directly is a non-profit that puts money directly into the hands of the world's poorest people, no strings attached. Give Directly sends your donations to a family across rural Africa living in poverty to spend how they see fit. A hundred bucks means about a hundred times more to them than it does to you. The price of a nice dinner out can be life-changing for someone in extreme poverty. It can buy livestock or a new roof, cover an urgent medical visit or get a kid back in school. It can start a business or get someone their first mattress. - When did you last spent a hundred dollars, Galen? - On frankly delivery over the past week while I have been walked in my apartment covering the midterms to be totally honest, which like, yeah, I could have actually done my grocery shopping and given Directly. I'll be frank about that. - Yeah, I got a nice little sushi lunch on election afternoon. It's actually kind of a slow day, but look, we have a lot of luxuries and that's what Give Directly is about. One reason Give Directly's model is so great is it respects people's autonomy. Rather than try to guess what people in poverty need, why not give them cash and let them decide? Aren't they best positioned to know what they need most? For too long, experts thousands of miles away decided what people in poverty will get, be it chickens or shoes or jugs of water. There's a very colonial mindset to some charity. We know best how to save people thousands of miles away. 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trust them to make their own decisions. That's dead wrong. Rather than waste the money family spend it wisely, that's exactly what they need. No two families have the same priorities or needs. One neighbor might use the money to start a business while another puts it toward farmland, and yet another, since they're kids to school. Only cash lets them decide. If you're just hearing about give directly, don't donate yet. Just go read some of the stories of how families use their give directly cash at give directly.org/counting. I did, and I found them eye opening. That's give directly.org/counting. You interviewed Alex Boris on your podcast. Do you think he's going to have any influence in policymaking or is he too? It's too like newbie on the blog. His goal is to influence the AI platform of the Democrat who wins the 2028 primary. And what he says is he wants to prevent the Democrats from having a circular firing squad where they just sort of come up with a bunch of bad policies and beat each other over the head with it. It's up to everyone to decide what's a good policy, what's a bad policy on AI. I want to take this AI question and point us towards the future for the Democratic Party, which is the past two years have been real focusing events for Democrats on material concerns. The war in Iran and gas prices and food prices and fertilizer prices related to that AI and concerns about jobs, you know, security in so many ways. Employment, actual sort of personal security and stability in the world. One of the podcasts who's actually here this weekend, Gabe Fleischer did an analysis of Democrats' first 10 bills when they were in the House and in every Congress during the Trump era. And it is almost to an issue post material concerns. So, you know, when they took the House back after the 2018 midterms, it was this is the list of bills that they passed in that they introduced in the House. It was voting rights and elections, infrastructure, healthcare, voting rights and elections again, LGBTQ issues, immigration, women's pay gap, guns, climate change. And I'm curious if after the and in a lot of those things stick around in subsequent Congresses, which that plays to the social concerns of the cultural concerns of the party that have been complicated for Democrats in the Trump era, do you think that after this election, Democrats say we're a materialist party again. We are going to like reinvigorate our labor roots. We're going to we're going to channel Sanders 2016, not Sanders 2020. Or do you think that the activist groups within the Democratic Party are like, no, you're not winning this big majority and then not passing the Equality Act? Yeah, look, I guess I'm struggling with this conversation because Democrats are not a thing, right? There's no central brain. Democrats are not a thing, quote, quote. That's the anti-pandor horse. I think this conference makes it different. No, but like there's no collective, you have two dozen people who possibly could be the nominee in 2028 and they're competing and you have the, you know, Schumer and Hakim Jeffries, who whose own power is somewhat imperial, particularly Schumer, right? You have outside groups, you have the media. And so like what would be like strictly rational, if this party wanted to maximize the chance of winning in 2028, does not map clearly on to like in the consequences of this very open, very competitive Democratic primary, potentially. Yeah, I mean, like I think that like material concerns are more persuasive to voters, right? But like the non-material concerns sometimes like click better, so to speak. Well, but I do, I'm actually genuinely interested in as a journalist in what is said today here and what is said at similar gatherings over the next month or two, because I think they will give an indication of where the Democratic brain trust is going. And my instinct is it is going to, we're going to fight structural inequality and we're going to go, we're going to use legislation to kind of attack the billionaire class, but maybe not make it in that unpopular rhetoric. And I think it's, and maybe you have a bill example there, but I think like I think Chuck Schumer and Hakim Jeffries will probably be the leaders. Like I think what will probably happen when everything settles is they'll say like we don't want to use our time in the sun and in the media spotlight to have international fights. Let's just, let's just get it done. I actually think like the old school, you know, again, Bernie Sanders, I think 10 years later, is probably one of the most like seismic communicator changes in the Democratic Party. I mean, you know, all the like, us off and all the others are kind of doing the, the faux Obama rhetorical stuff, but the message is all Sanders. And like ultimately I do think a lot of Americans, as you saw, Democrat and Republican and all races, do feel that there is an imbalance of economic power in the country. And that's what unions were when they were robust. It was, we are in theory and University of Chicago can come at me with the economic theories here, but like, but that they were always the balance of, you know, the corporations have this power, the unions have the power. Unfortunately, unions did become corrupt in a lot of ways, right? The unions got incredibly unpopular. By the way, teachers unions really shot themselves in the foot during COVID, right? Like I think, you know, unfortunately, teachers are kind of an, in some ways a more malign profession than you'd think, you know? So there's a lot of, I think there's a lot of work to hone that message, but I do think the Democrats kind of go to it for the couple of years. I mean, obviously we can check the list that I mentioned. Healthcare is a, is a material concern. Ultimately, infrastructure is in some ways a job as a program. But like, there's no minimum wage bill there, right? Like we see minimum wage ballot initiatives passing in the red estates in America. It is phenomenally popular. The last time we raise the minimum wage in the country was after Democrats won in 2006. And so, you know, if 2027 is going to be a repeat of 2007, I think we see, we do see more of that materialist concern type stuff. Like I don't think anyone is eager to dive back into the culture wars of the mid-Trump era. But I am curious though, right number, the number three concern or something like that on Tuesday night was corruption. What does that mean to people? Like do they want Trump officials investigated, hauled before, yes, I know that you, yeah, like, you know, you do. You know, you do. But like, is corruption about the way that the economy works? Is it about Kimberly Gilfoil's 4 AM nights in Athens? And sort of Don Jr.'s wedding paid for by whatever oligarch? Like the stuff that makes it to MS now? Or is it a fundamental sense that the rich people, the people in power in Washington have rigged the economy in their favor? And that's corruption? Or is it all of the above? Is the answer? But like, I think, what message are Americans going to get from Democrats over the next two years? Is it like, the vibe going to be rush a gate 2.0? Or is the vibe going to be like, yeah, right? I think there's a couple like, by the way, just to add to the materialist concerns, I would be interested to see how much play child care platforms get. I mean, I actually think one of the, another seismic messaging change from the 2020 primary when there were three prominent women candidates is that child care, which is part of the affordability crisis, went up the ranks. And I think that's a way of sort of reaching social issues on a certain level. But I think it's obvious that like the rush a gate stuff was ultimately not popular with the broader part of the country. I think the Democrats are in a sticky situation because they don't want to, there's genuine problems with rule of law. And like, the Trump administration has ignored court orders. I would argue in some cases on some like, media law stuff, including Supreme Court orders. Like, there are genuine things to answer for. And I think that like, on a democracy level, again, democracy was not a popular issue, right? Like, running a presidential election. They do have to do some stuff. But it's like a real balance of what's actually hitting the bloodstream. Yeah, if you're the dog that catches the car, that can be like, it's what you want, right? But it's all can be, also can be like, disarming in a way. And I think sometimes the tendency toward all of the above this and everything bagelness for Democrats can get them into trouble. Like, I think one thing that we saw about this election was that like, all these candidates, Tallariko or Adam Hamilton or any Andrews or whoever else, Gina Hosa, it felt new and fresh, right? Like, we weren't really getting the same issues over and over again. And like, finding some way to do that. I mean, look, there's a lot of good government stuff. I don't know if there's room for like a grand bargain on redistricting. But like, you could argue that like Republicans got more than they bargained for there potentially, you know, reasserting congressional authority. It's ironic. If Democrats win the presidency in 2028, maybe they'll want stronger executive powers, but like, but like raining in executive powers feels like kind of a win-win, right? It probably won't work. It'll get vetoed. But like, it would pull well and make Trump seem more imperial and things like that or
- I'm also think a congressional stock trading ban? - For sure. - I mean, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, like, to me, I see the lesson learned from the campaigns that you mentioned, being like, get in there, raise the minimum wage, congressional stock trading ban. Like, bring back the enhanced substance. I mean, I think it is complicated, right? Because the place where Democrats often go is by supporting people with government transfers, right? Like, Obamacare enhanced subsidies. Kamala Harris wanted to, like, help people with their down payments on houses, things like that. What you see with the, like, middle status people, the people that I've mentioned make sort of, you know, like, 50 to 90K in America, they're not rich, they're not poor, and there are a lot of the people who are not getting the enhanced Obamacare subsidies anyway, but swung decidedly to the right in the Trump era and swung back noticeably on Tuesday night. They want housing to be affordable period. They want mortgage rates to go down. They don't want, like, necessarily a government program that's like paying them to buy a house. They want to see prices fall. Now, obviously, a deflationary sort of downward spiral is like not what would be good for the American economy either, but like, this is not a muscle that Democrats are necessarily used to flexing is that. - Well, not to enter the abundance discourse. (laughter) But this is-- - Would that be a foghorn or an anti-foghorn? - I don't know, yeah. - Audience? (laughter) Ezra? - Yeah, what do you think of cutting red tape in order to increase housing production? Yeah, your name. (applause) - So this is-- - Tap it, tap it. - Tap it. I mean, all three of us are New York City voters and the ballot issues in New York, this election were basically that. - They were all supported by Zorn Mamdani, a socialist, and they were all about cutting red tape. - They were all about cutting red tape, and I-- So, I mean, yeah, I don't know if I have-- It's a-- I will be interested to see-- - Get ready for the panderhorn. (laughter) - Like, what Ossof does? Like, what, because it's-- - We're gonna get, we got too many draft, don't you learn? - Yeah, no, I know. But like, you know, Kamala Harris got very popular for her sort of like, prosecutorial interrogations in the Senate, right? Like, that was kind of her pathway to the presidency in a lot of ways, and I, I don't know, it'll be-- - We're gonna find out-- - But also, Trump will also do stuff with Stephen Miller as his chief of staff that I think will be own goals, and I think that the Democrats can just like, you know, maybe, I don't think, I think they're gonna do investigations, but sort of focusing the spotlight on stuff that Trump does, and just letting him, whatever he's gonna do. - Yeah, I know it's a huge cliche. I just need to say like, in midterms, standing against something is perfectly sufficient, right? In presidential years, you have to stand for something too, right, just a basic-- - Yeah. (applause) - No, okay, there we go. - Still counting is brought to you by Ethos. You know, as much as I'd like to be, eternally young, right? Like, I woke up, I had an appointment, I didn't really wake up at six, I had an appointment at 8/15 this morning. I'm a property owner now. I, you know, I do have to do fucking adult shit sometimes and think about the future. But, I mean, how about you guys are a little younger? Maybe-- - You're currently young in my eyes. - We're all middle age, none of us are young, and which is why we need life insurance. (laughing) - Exactly. But there are risks to people who are unprepared. And, unfortunately, talk about risks on this show. Sometimes unfortunate things can happen. Ethos, if you're in that camp or hedging your bets, ethos makes getting life insurance fast and easy. It's 100% online. You can get a quote in seconds, apply it in minutes, and get same-day coverage. There's no medical exam, and you can answer just a few simple health questions. You can get up to $3 million in coverage. Some policies are as low as $30 a month, and you get your lowest rate from the network of trusted carriers. So, take 10 minutes to get covered today with life insurance through ethos. Get your free quote at ethos.com/
[email protected]/count. Application is actually very-- rates may vary. (upbeat music) - So, I want to actually talk about, speaking of presidential's, you've been doing back of the napkin math about how likely it is that Democrats control all levers of power in Washington after the 2020 election. Preview, before we get to that, I want to follow up on something, Claire said, Claire said that both Schumer and Jeffries are going to be the leaders in Washington in 2027. What, wait, can we got it? Can we get-- - We know what they're going to say. - Can we get a applaud if you think, yes, Jeffries and Schumer. A applaud if you think, no. (audience applauds) We have a more bipartisan crowd than I think. - Three to one opposed, I'd say. - Okay, so, what do you think, Claire, you said what you believe, what do you believe? - I am not so much on insider speculation about that kind of move. I mean, Schumer's very vulnerable in the primary, right? We're going to-- - Yes. - The question is, will he be primary by AOC or in other programs in America? - That's a big question. - But Chris Van Hollen, who, like, I think El Siet said maybe one or two days ago on television that he would like support Chris Van Hollen as the majority leader. Well, then I saw-- (audience applauds) Yeah, but sorry to rain on your parade. Then I saw like a couple items, saying from, you know, whatever, a blind source. But no, Van Hollen's not going to challenge Schumer. So you're sort of seeing stuff play out that makes me a little bit skeptical that there is actually going to be that challenge. - We cover elections, and this is ultimately about an election. In the house, you have to win a majority support of all of the seats in the house. In the Senate, you have to win a majority of your caucus, which is 27-- - Secret ballot? - Or-- - One of them is a seat-- - And it's a seat, in the Senate, it's also a secret ballot, and you only have to win support from 27 senators. So, like, or maybe 28. Ultimately, a lot of people will be able to, even say that they voted against Schumer, but be like, well, you know, the Democratic Party didn't agree. And ultimately, I think there's been a lot of frustration within the Democratic Party that Schumer and Jeffries have not been good communicators, have not been strong leaders in this for the anti-Trump second term movement. But guess what? No one is going to be paying any fucking attention to them by three months into next year when we have 10 people already running for president, right? Like, those are going to be the leaders of the party. And they're going to be, like, Schumer and Jeffries are going to be the behind the scenes people trying to figure out, do we try to raise the minimum wage or do we try to investigate seven more people who are members of the Trump administration? And like, I don't know. Like, maybe you guys have a sense of who you would want doing that, but is it somebody who is, like, a star on TV? Maybe not. Like, maybe it's just somebody who can, like, count votes and read the polls, as, like, unglamorous as that sounds. - Yeah. - Oh, okay, we got you. (laughing) I don't see why you would. I mean, it's probably, Schumer's not a very popular guy, right? And if you're trying to, like, put on, like, a good face for the American voters, you know, and sometimes I don't know why you would want to continue with him, but I mean, there's a thing where, like, when a really good outcome happens, and again, Democrats won the popular vote for the House by 13 and a half points, it's, like, still hard to, like, wrap your head around, right? But let's say you go in with a bunch of your buddies and you go in on a lottery ticket and you win the lottery, right? And you're celebrating and having a party, right? And you're like, okay, so who actually gets what here? Right, we have, like, an informal contract and, like, we have this big debate about, you know, how this is gonna be litigated and who's paying which taxes and whatever else, right? And, like, Democrats will, you know, after their fund celebration this weekend will realize they have a lot of questions to answer a very unsettled nomination process for 2028. And, like, and, you know, and winning comes with responsibility and, and involve difficult decisions. And, like, and I'm doing, Nate, about the likelihood, Democrats, control, everything after 2028, given their performance on Tuesday. Yeah, 56 centers is a lot of centers and those centers, almost too many, you know, too many, too many centers. Except for Ashley Moody in Florida and Sher Brown in Ohio, who in special elections, they'll all be serving for the entirety of the next of the 48th presidents' first term. But the simple rule is that, like, 56, if Republicans have, like, a, 2024-like year and win back the presidency, but in a narrow, popular vote contest, they probably gain back, like, two or three senators, but 56 probably doesn't go to 50. If there's a repeat of Tuesday, then it's crazy to say, but yeah, I mean, mathematically, a 60-seat majority would be on, would be on the table. The obvious wins are in Wisconsin and North Carolina, right? Those could flip, even in, like, a normal environment.
Democrats just won races in South Carolina, Kansas, Mississippi, probably, Alaska, probably. You can't look at a map and say, oh, we're gonna rule out the other seat in Kansas, flipping, right? Also, we can't do that. Can I say for a second, you know how Republicans are always just like after the polls underestimate them, like, fuck the polls, we're gonna sue Ann Celser, blah, blah, blah. I wanna say, like, Democrats in this audience, if the polls had been correct, maybe you guys would have invested in Louisiana and won there. Maybe you guys would have, like, I don't know, put more thought into Montana. Like, if the polls had been correct, there's a world in which you got closer to a 60-perint Florida, yeah, exactly. So I don't know, maybe you guys should be mad that the polls underestimated Democrats by a larger margin than they underestimated Republicans in 2016. Just saying, what do you guys think? (laughing) Let's sue a pollster. No, I'm kidding. I'm joking, I'm joking, I'm joking. (laughing) See what you can do with the live audience? Well, I do think that-- Should we talk about the Marist poll? Let's give them a break, right? But like-- Yeah, you should-- No, I don't listen to all that. I'm not a New York Times see any. We have the kind of crowd that can just shout out the pollster that they like and they like and don't like. And I love it. You guys are amazing. Okay, sorry. Do you wanna tie up loose ends on the likelihood? Was there anything else to say? No, no, no, no. Let's sue our mini draft. Okay. (cheering) Okay, all right, here we go. So there are a elaborate set of rules for how we score this draft. We're gonna spare you all of that. We'll probably put it in the show notes when we publish this podcast. But the most important part is that we have to figure out the order. Should we say what the goal is here? No, but who our teams were last time? Oh, yeah, we said-- Yeah, we did this, we did this what two months ago. Yeah, clear, clear. You have the honors of-- I don't wanna get too cocky here. All right, unfortunately, I did clearly lose. But okay, our teams last time. My team was, my number one pick was Gavin Newsom, Mark Kelly, Josh Shapiro, Rokana, and Andy Beshear. Galen-- Share if you think, well-- No, wait for after, wait for after, wait for after. Okay, Galen had John Ossoff, this is number one pick. Pete Buttigieg, James Talrico, Mary Peltola, and Westmore. And Nate had AOC, Kamala Harris, Ruben Gallego, Abdul El Sayed, and Gretchen Whitmer. Okay. Who thinks-- who thinks I won? This is-- this is a humiliation, Rachel. It is humiliation, Rachel. It's totally fine. I'm woman enough for it. Who thinks Galen won? [APPLAUSE] And who thinks did the annual one? Whoo! All right. Thank you, guys. I really appreciate that. Well, we're going to-- we're going to long week. That's been a long week. We're going to do an abbreviated version of our draft. Yeah, a little update. Yeah, a mini draft. And what we are drafting is the people that we think will win the nomination, not the people that we think will be best positioned to win the presidency if they win the nomination, which is maybe one of the critiques of the people that I picked. We also get to be for people who are definitely going to run. Yeah, you get to play-- Or was my theory behind Gavin Newsom? Exactly. And Rokana. And Rokana. Already, the draft Rokana effort has already started by-- I don't know-- a guy with a mustache named Ko-Rana. I stole that joke from Twitter, guys. That wasn't original. I got to be transparent. Are we picking order? The order is really important here, because there is some high-value first pick. So Claire, I'm going to let you pick. The first is going to be whoever you pick. Nate. Yeah. OK, who's next? Me. OK, and then me. All right, I'll do my darnedest, but Nate, take it away. With the first pick, in the fifth version of our Democratic primary draft, I select John Assof, the Senator from Georgia. [APPLAUSE] I just think this is a pretty obvious choice. He won by what was, like, 16, 17, 18 points or something. 18 points. 18 points. He'd be urging on 19, yeah. In a swing state, by the way, because Georgia has a Democratic governor now, either Senator from Georgia would not cost Democrats a Senate seat, which is pretty important. But no, he seems like the uniformly compromised candidate between the progressive and the more centrist factions of the party. He seems very talented. I don't know if he's, like, looks-maxing or something, right? He's, like, lifting up. He looks like he thinks like that. Good looking guy. Where's the, like, vent diagram between, like, John Hustard and John Assof? Assoforschup. [LAUGHTER] Hey, that one was from the game, as I know. It's early. I think it's such a slam dunk number one pick. I'm not going to even waste any more of your time explaining why. I'm going to hand over to Claire. OK. I did check the prediction markets this morning, and I think my pick will be against what the prediction markets say. OK. But I am going to go with AOC, as my number two. [APPLAUSE] I believe prediction markets still have Gavin Newsom as-- Gavin's falling a little bit. Yeah, but I want to make that mistake again. I'm cowed. I still think that AOC really might not run for precedent. I really think that that's a possibility. And the one thing I will say about sort of this era of maybe it's sort of like the podcast election stuff. But both Rokana and AOC have been sort of almost admirably transparent with like, hey, I'm thinking about running, or like in the case of Rokana, like, hell, yeah, I'm running. I'm like, no, don't force it. But I think AOC-- especially with like, the Schumer stuff going on, she might just genuinely decide, I'm going to go with the Senate. This is not the moment for me. I think that's a real possibility. Also, again, like-- Also, does she want to be president? Well, she also-- I mean, in a real life way, I'm of a similar age to AOC. She's deciding whether or not to have kids. Like, that's a real thing. And I think it would be incredibly hard. Like, it's just a really hard decision. And I'm still not entirely sure she's going to run it all. But she is still my pick. I think it's the moment of euphoria that Democrats are experiencing. She's obviously, besides Sanders, the most prominent progressive figure in the country. Nate, you have a little grin on your face. No, look, I think she's a very talented politician. But like, yeah, I guess the big question we're not quite answering is like, was Tuesday good for progressives or for monarchs? Well, it's really good. I mean, and that's why I'm sort of picking against what, I think, the polls and the markets say. It's like, it's a primary. And obviously, we have talked about in the podcast, the progressive candidates or the most progressive candidates underperformed, compared to-- No, look, I would have taken a-- I took her with my first pick last time. And I would have taken her number to this time, because that is a very valuable lane. I don't want to be reductionist, right? Like, there are people who are progressives. They're an increasing faction of the Democratic Party. And like, and the fact that Zora Munga-Dani is from Uganda and Bernie Sanders is 85 years old, right? That kind of defaults to AOC being the most powerful figure in that lane. And she's canny and smart. And like, you have to, it's a high floor, I guess, right? She might not run, though. I agree with that. I mean, I think which faction of the Democratic Party won on Tuesday night is a question for us in the media to talk about, I think, most people in America, even most people in America who are going to be deciding the 20-28 Democratic primary, like, aren't necessarily thinking about it that way. When you look at the data, yes, like, the most over-performing candidates were the more-- yes, like, moderate, but also really conciliatory. Like, I want your-- sort of, I want James Talleriko's-- The politics of love. It's the air of Obama. And Paxton, he's a child of God. And that versus, like, what I'm doing outside said on Podsave America, I think, last night, but the night before, it was like, if they're going to play schoolyard politics, I'm going to play schoolyard politics. And so it's like a different-- it's not just policy here, right? It's like a different posture, a different approach. And I do kind of want to give him, like, if we're going to look at Watergate as, like, a comparative moment, like, Jimmy Carter was more a child of God, sort of, like, cleans the palette, post-watergate. He and Talleriko even look a little, like, he's screaming, the Jimmy's, the Jimmy's. OK, so with that said, like, I am going to pick Peter Buddha Judge. [APPLAUSE] Peter? Presumably, his given name is not Pete. Yeah, I don't know. It might be-- he might be, you know. So my thinking here is that-- I mean, John also has said many times that he's not going to run for president. I think that the most strategic position to take when you are running for a different lower office is to lie. And so I think that there's still a good chance that he runs. But I've talked to reporters who cover him quite closely in Georgia, who have said, like, no, his focus is on his young girls, and he really doesn't want to drag them into the spotlight. And we know that Pete Buddha Judge is running. - I mean like, like. - He moved to Michigan. - You can't run.
run more than like yeah I watched the marathon last weekend and like I saw more running from Pete Buttigieg's than I saw in that marathon by the way notable Pete Buttigieg and Abdul al-Sahead always go on Fox News always which is like a sign of I mean obviously you know whatever for for al-Sahead it's obviously part of his electoral strategy in a state like Michigan but I just feel like it's a really notable thing when a democratic politician is a consistent guest on Fox it's like I want to run for president by the way we did it the first game openly openly it's an important qualifier game male center elected on Tuesday in the form of Chris Papas and New Hampshire okay do I need to say more like I think that he's going to like I think he is a smart person who understands American politics pretty well will play into the like economic populism while being and like he doesn't really talk about his identity very much I think that like his identity in itself will signal to some that he is more socially progressive and he doesn't need to say that in a way like he can be he can embody the one economic populism and I think we talked about this the last time but like the one challenge for a candidate like Buttigieg who has never run or won an election in a state that has or a city that has a you know a large black population is South Carolina is the first primary now like I don't remember the order with second but basically it's like it's Nevada next it's a couple hard states for Buttigieg and obviously there are like wider states but like that's a that is I think the new order of operation for the primary but you did you get like Michigan and Virginia and New Hampshire and New Hampshire where the I think it's actually kind of Bernie Sanders won basically no voters of color in 2016 and then he came back in 2020 and was cleaning up with the Latino vote and so like I don't think that the first performance is necessarily indicative of second performance like I don't know people judge also knows that you know I think he will still probably under performance voters of color nonetheless my next pick this is tricky like I would what I really want to do is pick a program a non-AOC progressive yeah who can pick up the mantle if she doesn't run I just do not see it being Rokana I'm I'm so sorry I like is Rokana might be here if you would the real Rokana please stand up Josh Shapiro is here today I think he is this is really hard for me do I play my blah blah blah okay I'm going to pick he may tell the be called a pick because this is like this is a world in which by June it's it's like a mess it's a disaster and on the Democrats on the Democratic side damson disarray like they're scant like it turns out that like John also does run but like under national scrutiny like there's some sort of scandal or like what I don't know and like P Buttigieg has like you know is is is floundering in the polls and like AOC and Rokana both run and like I you know something like yeah and this is obviously Janosa one and so filling that seat is more straightforward I think if we're going to play the Jimmy Carter sort of response to Watergate card then you know here here's here's what I'm like a little bit just talking here's what these people paid I know here's what I want to say here's what I want to say there is college educated people in the north and south vote differently and college educated people even throughout the Trump era have voted more Republican in the south than in the north because of religion we saw that division decline a bit and the south is where we really did see a lot more persuasion and people crossing party lines and we also saw a lot of religiosity from the Democrats running in the south and whoop that over there and like I people tell me that Raphael Warnock is not running like otherwise I would just I know I just swap out and say like there's more picks to be made gala I'm I feel like basically I think I think Democrats take the signal about religion in 2026 okay well that's a good segue for is it me yeah no it's a say you get okay well I'll pick up on that angsting because like I'll just be honest that like yeah I think Raphael like if John Ossoff doesn't run that does open up a lane for Raphael Warnock right they're not gonna run against each other and I think right now I'm thinking between Raphael Warnock and Josh Shapiro right and it's like a little help from the audience there I mean I think that I think Shapiro is very clearly going to run he's done he's done he's written the book he's from Pennsylvania he like huge cash of electoral votes Warnock on the other hand just to like talk it out will certainly do well on the primary map fits the the kind of bill of he's a pastor right like if we're in this new era of democratic Christian politicians I think some people are a little worried about his scandal like some of the scandals that came up during his election I mean maybe that's why different like the insiders that you hear from I think I think I think Josh Shapiro is a more sure bet so I'm gonna go with Josh Shapiro as my pick and he's kind of going in that you know my first pick was AOC I need to pick a a clear moderate so Shapiro and I'll be quick because we have diminishing time okay Nate maybe we can make it through we we have enough time for a third round you pick tuning okay sure I'll take Warnock yeah yeah Raphael Warnock and then a boring pick I just have to be a man of my word and go with value I'm lower relative to the market but like it with a seventh pick Gavin Newsom has too much value I'm trying to actually win this but it's amazing Newsom was my first pick two months ago because that's where the betting markets were that's where everything it was kind of like yeah I mean it's it's crazy how much I think you start to see like a little bit of a drop off here right yeah in part because like this class of 2026 like will they really turn around like you know I'll say it has an incredibly ambitious game plan I think right can I imagine him running in like basically immediately I'm not I'm not sure about that although that would apply to Taloriko as well right yeah can it suit you to suffer an electoral penalty when they immediately begin running for something if they were just just elected it would have to be a more earnest draft how it couldn't be like a oh no but like no don't make me like it would have to really be like Democrats are not figuring themselves out and people are like look at how much money that guy raised like we want to win Texas if we win Texas this map is fucked for Republicans like let's yeah LFG you haven't you wait no but I think you have it you know you have a new some suffer the most in prediction markets after Tuesday which I think is a rational story right a you have a whole new crop of you know new and very exciting talented democratic politicians and and B it feels like Democrats kind of like turn the page and not in the old 2024 playbook as much so it makes sense but at some point he's probably gonna run he's gonna raise lots of money he's not lacking in talent as a politician you know by the way I mean he played the redistricting thing well too and like it with the seventh pick it's just too much value to pass up okay I'm gonna go quickly here and I'm gonna return to someone who this I agree with you things start to fall off after here I'm just gonna return to Mark Kelly he has the obvious will purple state personal story both professionally and personally with his wife I just think he's kind of like a solid like yes this is like a person that people could coalesce behind so yeah yeah I'm going to round us out with so part of my like philosophy when I we did this draft before was like I think people I think Democrats feel sick of the version of themselves that they've been seeing for the past 10 years and they do just want to turn the page like what was it Tim Waltz's wife during the Democratic Convention turn the page I remember that was a real great great real deep cut um so I think it's gonna be hard for this person to gain traction because he like has not gotten very much attention for the past two years but I'm gonna pick Westmore yeah yeah I know that's gandles well is he here today is he here to in my Westmore Westmore um well that's there's a there's a sign of wanting to run right yeah just be like being here be on the lookout if you see a politician they have designs on higher office it's true um okay so by the way notice who didn't get picked um Kamala Kamala Harris yeah boy real like I could I would have taken her ahead as some of the last couple of picks that you guys made to be honest oh
- Wow, shady shit name. - Why? - I think there's a weird thing where Democrats are like, we've been fucking Texas and Kansas, we can do whatever the fuck we want, right? Well, I'm gonna come all out. - But they don't want her. - We love her. There was a, we love her from the audience. Okay, so my, can I even remember, we'll go through, my bits were Peabootage Edge, James Tellerigo, Westmore, I just redrafted three of the people I'd already picked, Claire. - I was AOC, Josh Shapiro, and Mark Kelly. I've got the two centers from Georgia and Devon Newsom. - All right, and tell us in the comments when you listen to this later, who ultimately ended up winning. But that is it for our early morning live taping (audience applauding) of Still Counting. We hope that you enjoyed yourselves. Listen wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe on YouTube at youtube.com/@stillcountingpodcast. We will be back on Wednesday evening with our regular episode. Perhaps talking about the future for Republicans. Thank you so much for coming out. We really appreciate it. Have a great day, everybody. (audience applauding) - Still Counting is a crooked media production. Executive produced by Gaelin Drew, Claire Malone, and Nate Silver. Our team includes Saul Rubin, Emily Four, Claudia Shang, Charlotte Landis, Reed Turlin, Johanna Case, Ben Heffkoat, Matt DeGroat, Katie Long, and Adrian Hill. Our music is by Break Master Sylinder. Our production staff is probably unionized with the writer's guilds of America East. (upbeat music)
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