From ‘Trump Curious’ to ‘Trump Furious’: Inside the Midterm Odds

With just under two weeks until the midterms, Democrats have reason for cautious optimism. Analysts at the Cook Political Report project the party could flip the House. The Senate, meanwhile, has swung from Republican confidence earlier this year to a jump ball, and the Democratic party is also poised to regain a majority of governorships for the first time since 2010. But voters have been burned by polls before. Kara sits down with a panel of experts to talk about whether a “blue wave” is coming, or if a lack of enthusiasm from GOP voters will result in a “red undertow.” They also discuss the impact of prediction markets and the affordability crisis on voters’ decision making, how Gen Z is thinking about all political parties and what the midterms could signal for 2028. Kristen Soltis Anderson is a Republican pollster, founding partner of Echelon Insights and focus group moderator for The New York Times Opinion section’s America in Focus series. She’s also the author of "The Selfie Vote: Where Millennials Are Leading America (and How Republicans Can Keep Up)." David Wasserman is a senior editor and elections analyst for the non-partisan Cook Political Report with Amy Walter. Terrance Woodbury is a Democratic pollster and president and founding partner of HIT Strategies, a research firm specializing in young voters and voters of color. Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  We've had midterms that have been about unpopular wars like '06, unpopular legislation like 2010, when the ACA cost Democrats 63 House seats, and unpopular prices and inflation when Democrats lost the House in '22. But at least in my lifetime, we've never had an election that's been about all three of those things at once.

• 0:33Kara Swisher?

  Hi, everyone. From New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network, this is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. We're just days away from the midterms, and things are looking optimistic for the Democrats. Analysts at The Cook Political Report are projecting the party could flip the House. The Senate, meanwhile, is also shifting further in Democrats' favor, and Democrats are poised to regain a majority of governorships for the first time since 2010, according to Cook analysts. Today, we're gathering a panel of experts to talk about what's actually happening in some of the tightest races, where the biggest shifts are playing out, how voters are feeling, and how to think about polling in 2026. Pollsters and analysts are all over the place, and often, they're not right, but often, they are. And so it's really important to sort of assess as we're moving in,

• 1:16Kara Swisher?

  because I think people really, this is a substantive election, even though midterms are never seen that way. But it truly is, because it could spell the end of Donald Trump's power. And going forward to 2028, it will matter a great deal. Kristin Saltis Anderson is a Republican pollster and leads focus groups for the New York Times Opinion Section's America in Focus series. She's the author of The Selfie Vote: Where Millennials Are Leading America and How Republicans Can Keep Up. She's also a founding partner of Echelon Insights, an opinion research and analytics firm, and she's super smart. Dave Wasserman is a senior editor and elections analyst for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report with Amy Walter. He's recognized as one of the nation's top election forecasters,

• 2:01Kara Swisher?

  also very smart. And another smarty, Terrence Woodbury, is the president and founding partner of Hit Strategies, a research firm that specializes in young people and people of color. He's also a Democratic pollster with a background as a campaign operative. Our expert question today comes from Ben Wickler, political organizer, former Wisconsin Democratic chair, and author of the book, This is the Plan: How to End America's Meltdown and Save Democracy. So stick around.

• 2:37Kara Swisher?

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• 4:04Speaker 03

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• 4:27Kara Swisher?

  Kristin, Dave, and Terrence, thanks for coming on On. Thank you for having us.

• 4:32Speaker 00

  Thanks, Kara.

• 4:32Speaker 04

  Happy to be here.

• 4:33Kara Swisher?

  So we're taping this on Monday morning, and things are moving quickly. As of this week, polling is increasingly optimistic for the Democrats' chances of retaking a majority in the House. The Senate went from Republican confidence in holding onto power earlier this year to quite competitive a few weeks out. I'd like each of you to talk about one recent shift in polling that surprised you and why. And we're going to get into more detail, but let's start there. Kristin, you go first, and Dave and Terrence.

• 5:00Speaker 05

  So my answer is the shift that didn't happen back toward the Republicans. You know, if you look at the polls over the last two midterm elections, it's kind of normal for them to be pretty bullish on Democrats during the summer, and then to converge more toward reality as Election Day approaches, where it's a little bit less of a big wave, where Republicans sort of close the gap a little. That narrowing hasn't happened. I have seen in some of my polling Republicans expressing a little more enthusiasm to vote than they were over the summer. And Democrats have been fired up for over a year. They have been ready for this midterm, ready to go. Where Republicans have been a little more checked out, I don't want to talk about politics, I don't want to think about it.

• 5:45Speaker 05

  The expectation is that as Election Day approached and as hundreds of millions of dollars got spent on air, they would tune back in. But that's only happening somewhat, and the polls have not moved in a big, you know, Republican direction since we got past Labor Day. So to me, the biggest surprise shift is actually the shift that didn't happen.

• 6:05Kara Swisher?

  Hasn't happened yet, at least. Dave?

• 6:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, Kara, for the last decade or so, we've been locked into this mentality that we're down to a very narrow trading range of districts and states that decide our elections and control of the House and Senate. What has surprised me in the last month or so, since we saw even the Republican numbers ebb downwards a bit at the beginning of September, as we saw diesel spike, as gas prices spiked, is that we're seeing shocking polling numbers for Democratic opportunities in districts that didn't just vote for Trump by five or 10 points in 2024, but in some cases, 15 or even 20 points. The fact that we're talking about Kentucky's 6th District, which is a seat that I thought Republicans have kind of locked the door

• 6:52Speaker 00

  and thrown away the key 14 years ago. Now, we're seeing polls showing a Democrat who's close with Governor Randy Beshear running competitively against a Republican who was former Governor Matt Bevin's running mate. Many years ago, Bevin is still unpopular in the state, or at least the Phoenix District in the north country of New York, where we're seeing a very MAGA Republican who's alienated some of the mainline Republicans in the district, tied or even trailing in some polls against a Democratic dairy farmer who really wasn't on the party's radar a year ago. And the fact we're even talking about Kansas or Nebraska in as competitive Senate races tells you everything you need to know

• 7:36Speaker 00

  about how bad things have gotten for Republicans in rural parts of the country.

• 7:41Kara Swisher?

  Terrence?

• 7:41Speaker 04

  Ah, yeah. So, you know, a lot of pollsters look at voter enthusiasm, right, as a proxy for who's going to actually turn out. And we found that with the young voters and with voters of color, that they don't always vote enthusiastically, and so those numbers often trail their actual turnout. Another metric we've been watching is perception of power. We asked the question, regardless of how often you vote, how much power do you believe your vote has to make a difference? And all through 2025, we saw, especially amongst young voters, that those perceptions of power had plummeted well below 50%. And that as voting has started, as we've gotten into voting season and past, you know, the campaign season, that those perceptions of power have increased amongst black voters,

• 8:22Speaker 04

  amongst young voters, and we've seen that same increase in turnout amongst young voters and voters of color in early voting in places like Georgia and North Carolina. That's very promising.

• 8:32Kara Swisher?

  That's it. So it's across young people, or is it certain groups of young people?

• 8:36Speaker 04

  Specifically amongst younger voters of color, especially in Georgia and North Carolina.

• 8:41Kara Swisher?

  So their vote counts, in other words?

• 8:42Speaker 04

  That's exactly right. You know, the higher you perceive the power of your vote, the less likely you are to waste it. It's kind of intuitive. But we've seen it also as a, you know, a direct correlation to turnout. And so we've seen young voters' perceptions of power increasing to almost 60%. Young voters of color are almost 60%. And hopefully, that, you know, we continue to see their participation surging as well.

• 9:02Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, it's interesting, because both my sons were like, it doesn't matter. And now they're like, I'm voting. Like, it's weird. I'm not sure what happened. I think they're excited by some of the candidates. So we all know, you know, the old trope of the polling is a snapshot in time, that polls aren't just like predictive of outcomes, but they can show you trend lines. Let's go to a current snapshot, in the moment, about two weeks before the midterm. Dave, let's start with the House. Last week, your outlet, The Cook Political Report, moved 11 more House races towards Democrats, many in red states that Trump had won handily in 2024. What's prompting these shifts two weeks out from Election Day? And what's the latest projection?

• 9:39Speaker 00

  It's the polling that we're seeing from these individual races. And it's coming in, in many cases, you know, five or 10 points more favorable to Democrats than our prior expectations. We're in particular noticing some of these open seats that Republicans are defending. Slide away from them. And the reason is that Republicans who have established brands independent from Trump, whether it's Susan Collins, or Ashley Hinson, or Brian Fitzpatrick in Pennsylvania, they're still in the ballgame and in some cases ahead. But it's Republicans who are less well known, who are getting dragged down by Trump's low approval. And so in the mountains of Western North Carolina, a House seat that Trump carried by about 10 points

• 10:21Speaker 00

  in 2024, we're seeing the Democrat, a farmer named Jamie Agar, ahead in that district, or in Nevada's second district, or in, I mentioned Kentucky's sixth, New York 21. These are all places where Republicans have unexpected migraines. And Republicans had tried to bolster their majority by instructing every red state to eliminate as many Democratic seats as possible through redistricting in the middle of the decade. And yet, that has only yielded perhaps three or four additional Republican seats. Democrats only needed to flip three Republican seats to win the House majority. And now we've got more than 20 Republican

• 11:02Speaker 00

  seats that are toss up or worse. And so from today's standpoint, I think the median outcome is a Democratic gain somewhere in the 15 to 20 seat range.

• 11:11Kara Swisher?

  Right, right. And obviously a trend towards farmers. Looking at the Senate, the Cook Political Report is also calling 13 races competitive out of the Senate seats. Where are the Democrats facing the strongest headwinds? And what are the possible paths to a Democratic majority?

• 11:27Speaker 00

  Democrats have to lock down their own seats to win the majority. Michigan is the most vulnerable of them because Abdul El Sayed has had to, to expand his base and convince voters that he's an acceptable successor in this open seat, given that Democrats were quite fractured in the primary. But then Democrats have more roots to the Senate majority than they thought they would at the outset of the cycle. North Carolina is the best pickup opportunity for them. They need to win three more Republican seats, at least, if they hold all their own. And although Maine started out looking like the best next shot today, it's looking like Ohio and Alaska are Democrats' next best opportunities, followed

• 12:12Speaker 00

  by kind of a tie between Texas and Maine, and then Iowa, and Kansas, and Nebraska is the ultimate long shot. But Democrats, on a really good night, could get up to as many as 54 Senate seats, or they could fall just short by winning 48 or 49.

• 12:30Kara Swisher?

  Right. So we've been, obviously, burned by polls. Back in 2016, polls consistently projected Hillary Clinton beating Donald Trump. And in 2024, the Des Moines Register poll, a gold standard poll, gave Kamala Harris a narrow lead over President Trump in Iowa that didn't pan out. Kristin and Terrence, from your perspective as pollsters, what's different this time around? And what can we trust about polls in 2026? I know you all have been under siege, obviously, and we'll get to the inevitable Kalshi and polymarket question. But what are you and other pollsters changed about your modeling and overall approaches in the past 10 years? So people can understand, because it's real easy to trash polls. Kristin, why don't you start?

• 13:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, Kristin, why don't you defend our entire industry?

• 13:12Speaker 05

  So first, I would say, you know, you mentioned a couple of examples, things like the, the Des Moines Register poll in 2024. I think for a lot of folks in the field, you could look at that poll and see, you didn't have to look too far under the hood to see, you know, I really don't think that white senior citizen men in Iowa are breaking for Kamala Harris. Like, something, something is not, not right here. Where right now, what I think is challenging for the industry is the polls have been off in years when Donald Trump is on the ballot. He brings out a type of voter who is very hard to poll. In general, polls have a bias toward overcounting people who are really politically engaged and excited

• 13:55Speaker 05

  to share their opinion. The good news for political pollsters is that's a helpful bias in a midterm year. It's helping you screen down more closely to those types of folks who actually turn out to vote. And so the midterm polls in 2018 and 2022, well, not perfect, were actually pretty good. And nobody should have been surprised by the results on either of those two nights. So the absence of Donald Trump on the ballot, pollsters are hoping, means that that, that certain type of voter who just turns out for him, you know, he keeps going around the country in his stump speech, saying, pretend like I'm on the ballot. Pollsters are like, no, please don't. Because when he's on the ballot, that's, those are the years that, that it, it's just more and more challenging. So I think this

• 14:40Speaker 05

  year, when I look under the hood, both, you know, certainly at my own polls, but at other people's polls, there's nothing obvious that's wrong. We assume that Democrats are a little bit more fired up than Republicans, but otherwise, you know, have the right balance of folks with college degrees and without college degrees, Republicans and Democrats.

• 14:59Kara Swisher?

  So no secret thing, or a poll that's just out of line?

• 15:02Speaker 05

  There will always be outlier polls. But one of the things that we, that I am apprehensive about this time around is not that you've got this huge, secret Trump vote, or whatever, that's, that's staying home. But rather, when we look under the hood at our data, in many cases, the Democrats are the most eager to take the polls. Like, they're the first ones showing up in the data file. And so you, as a thoughtful analyst and researcher and pollster, can do things to correct for that. But I'm not saying I think there's going to be a massive polling error. But the thing that does keep me up at night is, at what point does the type of polling error that affects Trump elections begin to bleed into a midterm like

• 15:44Speaker 05

  this? And is there, in a state like an Iowa, does it just, you know, ultimately, there are folks who are never going to vote for a Democrat, but they're also never going to talk to a pollster. And we can do all kinds of things to try to correct for it. But that's the one thing that makes me a little bit nervous. Terrence?

• 16:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, I'll double down on that. You know, the Trump effect, I think, has been the, the largest impact on the kind of variance amongst polling. And I think that Trump effect comes in two ways. One is in surging more rural white voters than we, than we, you know, included in our sample. But the other is in the swing. It's not just in who votes, but who they're voting for, that young people, and young people of color particularly, and men of color, are significantly more likely to vote for Donald Trump than they are to vote for other Republican candidates. In fact, from 2020 to 2024, we saw a 16-point swing amongst men of color, where even Hispanic, you know, Hispanic men under the age of 50, a majority supported Donald Trump for the first time, I think, of any Republican candidate

• 16:44Speaker 04

  in my lifetime. But that is a uniquely Trump effect, that other Republican candidates are not winning 50% plus of Hispanic men, especially Hispanic men out of the age of 50. And so there's one more effect here, and that is that Trump's approval rating amongst these same voters has plummeted, right? I call them Trump curious voters. They didn't like either candidate, but they were willing to give Trump a shot. Well, now they, they not only dislike him, but they disapprove of the job that he's done. And so it's kind of returning to this medium. And I think that is hopefully contributing to more accuracy in the polling.

• 17:19Kara Swisher?

  So in other words, they're not attracted to like, oh, John Kennedy, what a charming foghorn, leghorn he is.

• 17:24Speaker 04

  Or Ken Paxton, right? Ken Paxton doesn't have the same appeal to young, young black men or young Hispanic men that Donald Trump did.

• 17:31Kara Swisher?

  He does have the appeal to many people, but go ahead.

• 17:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, Kara, if I could also just jump in, though, and say, in addition to, you know, I just made the case for why the polls could be off in a direction that is underestimating Republicans, and that in some of these races where it's looking like Democrats are ahead, maybe they revert back to some kind of norm. There's also an alternate, you know, polling error doesn't always break the same way. In Virginia in 2025, I am proud that Echelon's polls were among the closest when it came to Abigail Spanberger, like, winning by double digits. But even we, on the down ballot races, didn't necessarily get it right. We had modeled the electorate correctly, but we underestimated Jay Jones versus Jason Mijares, because we

• 18:14Speaker 05

  had a bunch of undecideds in our poll. And in the end, those undecideds all broke for the Democrats. So smart consumers of polls, look at what percentage of a sample is undecided, because even if a pollster has modeled the electorate correctly, you don't know what those undecideds are going to do. And that could have huge implications for the margin in a race.

• 18:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, to Terrence's point, there were an awful lot of voters, including young men, young voters of color, who rehired Trump to the White House in 2024 because they were nostalgic for what things cost during his first term, or they believed his promises to, to lower prices. And now we're seeing massive reversion to, to Democrats. And that's what contributes to this back to the future dynamic, where some of the places where we've seen the most Democratic upside are the places that had swung towards Trump the most over the last 10 years. But this is still fluid as well. And Terrence alluded to this, we're seeing in our surveys of battleground districts, they're around 8 or 9% of voters who dislike

• 19:18Speaker 00

  the job that the president's doing, but are not yet in Democrats' column, and are still somewhat up in the air on their congressional vote choice. And these voters are twice as young, twice as likely to be under the age of 40. They're a little less white than the rest of the electorate. And although they have very negative views of the left of the Democratic Party, AOC and Democratic Socialists, they also don't have overwhelmingly positive views of capitalism. They favor capitalism 58 to 38. And the one critical pain point that threatens to cleave these voters from Republicans ultimately is high gas prices.

• 19:57Kara Swisher?

  So one of the things, obviously, you're also in competition with the prediction markets. Kalshi and polymarket have surged in popularity, as you're no doubt aware. According to Reuters, traders have bet more than $220 million on the 2026 midterm elections across platforms so far. It's only going to increase in the next two weeks. Some have warned the prediction markets could spread misinformation to voters. What are your biggest concerns about unregulated betting markets in elections? Are they competing with polls, or are they offering something different? Terrence, why don't you start? And then Kristin and Dave?

• 20:26Speaker 04

  You know, I think we're still early in elections with betting markets. I think they remain a very unregulated, you know, kind of industry where folks with inside information are still trading and can, putting their finger on the scale. And so I am highly suspicious of the betting markets. I think it's yet to be determined what impact they will have on these elections. And I think after this election, we'll see how much

• 20:50Kara Swisher?

  How accurate?

• 20:51Speaker 04

  How accurate they are, and how much people are, you know, putting stock into them as prediction markets and not just betting markets.

• 20:57Kara Swisher?

  And then Kristin?

• 20:58Speaker 05

  So I don't view prediction markets as competition for what a pollster does. You know, candidates are not, or clients are not hiring pollsters to tell them who is going to win an election. They're hiring them to tell them how to shape an outcome. What can I say or do strategically to make a difference? They don't want to predict the future. They want to write the future. And so to me, I view prediction markets in some ways as another use case for polls. There was that famous case in 2024 of a guy who bet on Trump winning on, I think it was Polymarket. And, you know, he had commissioned his own polls to figure out how to make that bet on

• 21:41Speaker 05

  Trump against the conventional wisdom. So I don't view them as competitive. I view them as a different way that someone who really wants to look at what the future's going to hold to engage with that and bet money on it if they want to, or invest, or whatever terminology we're going to use. But it's very different than what a pollster is doing for a candidate or a client.

• 22:02Kara Swisher?

  Good, Dave.

• 22:03Speaker 00

  We're in a unique vantage point as political analysts and handicappers because for a long time, there's been kind of a two-tiered polling knowledge structure where you've got the public polls, right, that are increasingly rare in House races because media doesn't have the budget to do what they used to. But then we also are looking at a lot of data that the parties and super PACs are compiling, right? Because they're polling these races constantly to try and make resource allocation decisions. And we build those source relationships.

• 22:40Speaker 00

  But to a kind of an armchair political better, they might not be privy to that kind of data. Or, you know, we don't know how many people who are privy to that data are making big bets on these races. And there's nothing that anyone can really do to police it at this juncture. For us, yes, we see an increase in the number of outlets that are citing prediction markets instead of traditional political handicappers. But at the same time, we are getting subscription interest from people who are actively wagering on these races. And so it kind of evens out.

• 23:19Kara Swisher?

  Well, that's good for you. Every episode, we get a question from an outside expert. Here's yours.

• 23:24Speaker 06

  Hey, this is Ben Wickler, the former Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair and author of This is the Plan: How to End America's Meltdown and Save Democracy. My question for Dave and Kristen and Terrence is what messengers and what mediums to deliver those messages are actually trusted by voters right now that campaigns are under focused on? What is the best path to cut through the wall of noise and actually deliver signal in an environment where no one trusts anyone and people try to block out everything?

• 23:53Kara Swisher?

  Terrence, you go first, then Kristen, then Dave?

• 23:56Speaker 04

  I think the way he ended the question is actually the answer to the question, right, is that the voters that we need to mobilize the most, you know, these kind of less likely midterm voters, voters that participate in every presidential but don't always participate in midterms, those are the voters that will determine the outcome of this thing, which, you know, set of those voters show up, that those voters don't trust politicians, they don't trust celebrities, they don't trust surrogates, they don't trust the pastors, they don't, they trust each other, right? I mean, we ask this question all the time, on this list of people who you trust the most and the one that's always at the top are people like me or my friends and family and peers, which is why we have to continue to arm and mobilize young people to be their own messengers, but also where these kind of influencer programs come in that if you're

• 24:41Speaker 04

  able to arm the influencers that they have selected to follow and selected to get information from.

• 24:47Kara Swisher?

  And trust.

• 24:48Speaker 04

  That those, and that's exactly right. By following, selecting, liking, and resharing, they are demonstrating their trust of that information. And so those are frankly, just the most trusted messengers are the people like them.

• 24:58Kara Swisher?

  Friends.

• 24:59Speaker 04

  Friends and family, that's right.

• 25:00Kara Swisher?

  All right, Kristen?

• 25:01Speaker 05

  Yeah, I agree that there's not one single answer to this question. I think one thing that I love about my job is that I get to talk to folks who are inside the political bubble all day and remind them of what people outside the political bubble really think, feel, how they're really getting information. And, and the answer is, I mean, there are, there are, whether it's, you know, I don't want to just say influencers because that seems, that feels very silly, right? Like, oh, it's just somebody who pops up a, you know, a live stream and says whatever they want and they're moving the needle. And for a lot of voters, older voters are still watching a lot of local TV news. I mean, I don't want to be totally dismissive of traditional media, but I do think that

• 25:45Speaker 05

  there's not one single answer anymore and that folks, when they hear something that sort of confirms their priors, it's not as though, ah, I trust this person, therefore I believe what they're saying. But it's that you, you hear a little bit of like, oh, I heard somebody say this thing that confirms what I already kind of believe and therefore, ah, they must be a trustworthy person. So it, I would invert that, you know, I'm going to go look for information from a trusted person. Sometimes that the causality arrow points the other direction.

• 26:17Kara Swisher?

  Okay, Dave?

• 26:18Speaker 00

  I think this year demonstrates the advantage of being in the out party because Democrats have the ability to run candidates in every state and district who may vary in their viewpoints, but kind of have a better idea of what resonates and what, what media breaks through in a rural district or a, you know, a more college town type of district. Whereas the message from the top on the Republican side is that the economy is great, it's never been better, and it's setting up this cognitive dissonance with voters who can't unsee the prices they're paying at the grocery store or the pump. And so that distrust is real.

• 26:56Kara Swisher?

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• 30:40Kara Swisher?

  Now, let's get back to the Democratic issue that you just raised, Dave. Many are predicting a blue wave win by Democrats, but as Dave's boss Charlie Cook wrote last month, he sees instead much more of a red undertow, which may pull many Republicans under and significantly trim the margins for many others. He says the Democratic brand is still, quote, in tatters. So that's a riptide, essentially. Let's start with each of you. Dave, why don't you start? What's your sense of the Democratic brand, especially among the groups that moved to Trump that Terrence was talking about?

• 31:07Speaker 00

  Democratic brand's not good. It's roughly 30% favorability. And the irony is not even Democrats like Democrats at the moment. But there's an enthusiasm gap, and 70% of Democrats in our most recent survey of the 37 battleground districts rate their election interest as a 10 out of 10 compared to 58% of Republicans. And for Democrats, this brand issue is really a 2028 problem. They've got to hash it out in the primaries and determine who the face of their party is going to be. But Donald Trump continues to insert himself into this election in ways that are taking

• 31:49Speaker 00

  the spotlight away from Democrats and onto himself. And keep in mind that he's underwater in our tracker by 24 points, 37 to 61 approve, disapprove. And the generic congressional ballot, take Nate Silver's average, any other average out there, has Democrats ahead 50 to 41. If you're Republicans, would you rather be fighting out this election at a nine-point deficit or a 24-point deficit? Because every time Donald Trump holds a midterm convention or promises $5,000 checks

• 32:27Speaker 00

  or whatever he's up to that day, it's shifting it back towards that negative 24 dimension.

• 32:35Kara Swisher?

  Right, rather than that. Now, at the same time, in a recent Reuters Ipsos poll, found that voters who backed Kamala Harris in 2024 are more enthusiastic about voting in the midterms than those who support president, as you noted, Kristin. Is the so-called enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans reflected in your data? How do you see that playing out?

• 32:51Speaker 05

  Yeah, so there's two different types of questions that I've asked to try to gauge this. One shows the enthusiasm gap has closed a little bit, and that's simply where we ask people, how motivated are you to vote? The percentage of voters who say they are extremely or very motivated to vote used to favor Democrats earlier this year by a 10, 15-point margin. That's now shrunk somewhat to where Republicans are now saying they're more motivated to vote than they were a few months ago. However, we also ask a question about what do you think the stakes of this midterm are? And so for those in our poll who said they're planning to, they lean more toward voting for Democrats. We said, how important is it that Democrats win this election and stop Donald Trump from

• 33:36Speaker 05

  implementing his agenda? And Democrats are through the roof on enthusiasm on that question. It is extremely important. When we ask Republicans an inversion of that question, so it's not the same, but we say, how important is it to you that Republicans maintain control of Congress and continue to help Donald Trump implement his agenda? It's like 16 points, I think, lower among Republicans, saying that they think that's an extremely important thing to do. So that doesn't mean that they won't vote. Someone who feels meh about things can still cast a vote that counts the same as someone who's really fired up. But ultimately, you'd rather have it be easier to get your folks out to the polls. You'd rather them want to go than feel that they're being dragged.

• 34:15Kara Swisher?

  Meh, is not a good political strategy.

• 34:17Speaker 05

  Meh is not what you want from your base.

• 34:19Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, but in that regard, Terrence, Trump continues to campaign and hold these rallies despite low approval ratings. Cook had his average approval rating around 37%. Real Clear Politics aggregate is around 38. So others are even lower. Is he helping or hurting when he reminds these voters, especially GOP voters or people who were Trump curious last time?

• 34:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, as many of those Trump curious voters have become quite Trump furious. I mean, I think many of the Democratic candidates I'm working for are welcoming Air Force One into places like Georgia and Texas. Please come more often. We would love to have you here every day. Because it is exactly.

• 35:01Kara Swisher?

  Bring that Qatari jet in here.

• 35:02Speaker 04

  That's exactly right. But we asked a very similar question to Kristin, that only about 40% of the black voters in the poll we got out last week, 40% of black voters are certain that if Democrats win Congress, that their lives will get better. But almost 80% are certain that if Republicans win Congress, their lives will get worse, right? And so that they're being mobilized by the other side.

• 35:26Kara Swisher?

  So they're more scared than hopeful.

• 35:28Speaker 04

  That's right. They're being mobilized to stop the pain, to stop the hurting. This is where this red undertow, I think is how you described it, that that red undertow could result in places like Texas or Georgia, where Tyler Rico becomes a senator with less votes than Beethoven got, or Keisha Lance Bottoms becomes governor with less votes than Stacey Abrams ever got, because of that red undertow that's dragging so many Republican voters back to the couch.

• 35:56Kara Swisher?

  Right, possibly disgusted. Now, Carl Hulse in the New York Times is making comparisons to the 2006 midterms, where we had a second-term unpopular president, high economic anxiety, and an unpopular war in the Mideast. Democrats beat expectations that year and picked up 31 seats in the House and six in the Senate. Dave, what's changed 20 years later, and is there a similarity?

• 36:15Speaker 00

  Well, keep in mind, Democrats are starting out from a higher floor this time of 215 seats. So a 20-seat gain would get Democrats to roughly the same place they ended up in 2006 or 2018. If it goes higher than that, then that's even more impressive, because there are fewer competitive seats today than there were in either of those years. We've had midterms that have been about unpopular wars like '06, unpopular legislation like 2010, when the ACA cost Democrats 63 House seats, and unpopular prices and inflation when Democrats lost the House in '22. But at least in my lifetime, we've never had an election that's been about all three of those things at once. And I'd add in a fourth midterm as well.

• 37:00Speaker 00

  That's 1986, 40 years ago. Now, I don't remember it too well, because I was two years old at the time, but.

• 37:06Kara Swisher?

  I do.

• 37:07Speaker 00

  Back then, there was a 25% foreclosure rate on family farms, and Democrats picked up eight Senate seats. There was a young guy elected to the Senate named Tom Daschle that year. And today, we have the worst anxiety in farm country since any point since 1986. And it's not just that diesel spike. It's also high interest rates, record input costs for fertilizer, and then a trade war, and the White House importing beef, which has created this blowback among cattle ranchers in Iowa and Kansas and Texas. And it's not that those voters are going to defect en masse to Democrats, because they're just culturally incompatible with today's Democratic Party.

• 37:51Speaker 00

  But to Terrence's point, it's back to the couch. And if those voters don't vote, their vote's coming directly out of the Republican column vis a vis 2024.

• 38:00Kara Swisher?

  So it could be numbers that go down, rather than rushing over to the Democrats. Republicans have a significant financial advantage in this cycle. Recent Federal Election Commission filings show that Republicans had roughly $614 million in cash versus $392 million for Democrats. I talked about election spending with Hillary Clinton in our podcast last week. She said the money could make a difference on the margins where races are tight. Does campaign cash and ad spending matter as much as it did before, Kristin? You see the money's impact in these tight races? I'm not so sure that money's the biggest issue, but I'm an idiot, so I don't know.

• 38:33Speaker 05

  I think there is an enormous diminishing returns problem, and there are some of these races. So let me give you an example. I am a University of Florida graduate, I'm a huge Gator football fan, and we defeated Texas this past weekend, and I was so excited. And watching on my couch in Washington, DC, do you know how many ads about James Talarico and Ken Paxton I got to watch?

• 38:59Kara Swisher?

  How many?

• 39:00Speaker 05

  Too many, too many. Like, there is just too much money.

• 39:03Kara Swisher?

  Which side? The Clear Hearts one, or Ken Paxton as a Qatari national?

• 39:08Speaker 05

  There were, James Talarico is bad, there was, Ken Paxton is good. I actually, I mean, I feel like it was mostly pro-Paxton and anti-Talarico ads were what I was saying. But there's just, there's so much money in that race. There's literally nowhere else to spend it. And I think there is an extent to which, if you are in a race where there are candidates who have low name ID, and you get to do the job of educating voters about, who's this person? What are they all about? Money can really matter to get that message out there. But you hit a point where there's just nowhere else to put it. And there's no, has any voter in the state of Michigan not heard extensively about Abdul Saad, Mike Rogers, at this point?

• 39:49Speaker 05

  So I think we've just, there's so much money, and there just hits a point where dumping it on television, just you run out of people to persuade.

• 39:58Kara Swisher?

  And then when it's all Elon Musk, it's like, now this rich guy's trying to move things around in ways that seem questionable.

• 40:05Speaker 00

  And these ad reservations weren't made until very late in the campaign. So they're, once again, they're paying four or five, or even in some cases, 10 times the rate for the same amount of spots.

• 40:16Kara Swisher?

  Same amount of spots. Now, Terrence, a landmark Supreme Court ruling earlier this year struck down Louisiana's second-majority black congressional district and declared it an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. In addition to weakening the Voting Rights Act, redistricting efforts have made some House races less competitive. Recent polling conducted by Hit Strategies revealed how black voters are responding to Supreme Court's Cal A ruling. Can you talk a little bit about that?

• 40:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, you know, we've been calling this a backlash, that when you try to oppress black votes, and you don't do it privately, the way they typically do across the South, that when it becomes overt, when you start drawing out black members of Congress, eliminating districts, and then, most notably, gutting the final section of the Voting Rights Act, that that comes with consequences. And those consequences are a backlash. And that backlash has shown, and not only increased in turnout in every one of the primaries that happened across the South after the Cal A decision, we saw heightened turnout from black voters. But in early voting over the past week, in North Carolina and in Georgia, black voters have become an increased share of the electorate, and have become quite mobilized.

• 41:25Speaker 04

  But the other thing that we started to see right around April, when the decision happened, was that black voters just became more engaged and more likely to take all political action. So not only were they more likely to vote, they were more likely to start posting about politics, to start sharing information, to start boycotting, petitioning, showing up to rallies and town halls, that all of those actions lend to those perceptions of power that I started at, that their political power's under attack. But the other thing that we found in this research is that. When we asked black voters what they were willing to fight for, that while about 60% said they were willing to fight for American democracy, that there was a huge generational divide there, that it's 80% of black seniors that are willing to fight

• 42:09Speaker 04

  for American democracy, but less than 50% of black Gen Z, that for black Gen Z, what they were showing up for, what they are, their backlash is more about defending black voting rights, defending racial justice and defending freedom than it is about defending American democracy. And that's important in our closing message that we mobilize them around what they care about and not just what we care about.

• 42:31Kara Swisher?

  That is democracy, too. I mean, in a lot of ways, it is. Go ahead, Dave.

• 42:36Speaker 00

  The redistricting changes that we've seen in Tennessee and Alabama and Louisiana, these were things that were unthinkable just, you know, five or 10 years ago, when it, it seems if, if the Voting Rights Act existed for any reason, it was to establish the opportunity for communities in these states to elect candidates of choice, particularly dismantling the district in Memphis, where you have a very compact, where you had a very compact black majority district for more than, than three decades. Now there are other states that could be on the chopping block for 2028. It's that Voting Rights Act reinterpretation by the Supreme Court, that as long as your motives are partisan rather

• 43:17Speaker 00

  than racial, you can redraw any, any map you want, how you want it. That's kind of removed the last remaining guardrail protecting these black majority seats. And, and now that it's gone, it could have big implications for whether Democrats are able to retain control of the House in 2028.

• 43:35Kara Swisher?

  We'll be back in a minute.

• 43:51Speaker 02

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• 44:35Speaker 05

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• 45:06Speaker 03

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• 45:33Kara Swisher?

  Let's finish up talking a little bit about policy. This is a much more policy-heavy election, it feels like, at least. The latest inflation numbers released last week show that consumer prices rose 3.7% from a year prior. Consumer sentiment is also down. A new survey from Pew found that 70% of US adults say they've cut back on spending for extras. In the Michigan Senate race, Republican nominee Mike Rogers notably called for an end to Trump's trade war with Canada. Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed has focused on soaring healthcare costs, among other issues. Dave, you start, based on the data you're seeing, do Democrats have an upper hand on affordability issues? And also, how is it playing out in the very tight Michigan race?

• 46:14Speaker 00

  There are myriad reasons voters are disenchanted with the economy that all fall under cost and affordability. When it comes to the reconciliation bill, voters are hugely concerned about the increase in healthcare premiums and what the, the looming cuts to Medicaid mean for, for healthcare availability and providers in their community. Even though it's taken a backseat to the war, it's still showing up as, as one of voters' top pocketbook concerns, right up there with gas and housing. But then, when it comes to the war, voters aren't opposed to the war because they fear a protracted conflict with boots on the ground.

• 46:59Speaker 00

  That's not really on the horizon. Instead, they're intuitively linking it to high prices and inflation here. That's why 69, 70% of voters in these polls believe that our involvement in Iran has not been worth it.

• 47:12Kara Swisher?

  Same thing. And Terrence?

• 47:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, you know, we often say that every election is about the economy. Does the economy mean something different every time, right? Sometimes the economy means foreclosure, sometimes it means jobs, sometimes it's in this election, the economy means cost. It's all costs, healthcare costs, housing costs, energy costs, all costs. And so I think to Dave's point, to the extent that voters have raised concerns around some of the, you know, the more democracy issues, that it is because they are connecting them to a lot of these economic outcomes. The other thing that I'd say, though, is that while cost remains the number one issue, a lot of the identity issues that people are not naming as number one, things like abortion, immigration, racism, and racial justice, that while those are

• 47:57Speaker 04

  not rising as top issues, they're still the most mobilizing issues. They're still the issues that get people to take action, to take to the streets, to, to demonstrate, and ultimately to vote. And those are still the issues that Democrats have some of the biggest advantages on.

• 48:12Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, you saw the huge note, well, you didn't see the no king stuff, but it was out there this weekend.

• 48:17Speaker 04

  That's exactly right.

• 48:18Kara Swisher?

  It wasn't in the media. But Chris, let me, let me form this in a different way. The record high cost of gas and diesel is also in focus, as we still have noted, particularly in the Midwest, diesel prices in Iowa are currently around $6 a gallon. Incredible. Cost of living topped the list of voter concern in Echelon's latest midterm survey. But how are you seeing Senate Republican candidate Ashley Hinson and Democrat Josh Turek navigate the issue? Iowa will also be electing a new governor, and the polls favor Democrat Rob Sand over Republican Zach Lane.

• 48:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, there are a couple of different things that feed into the issue of affordability, whether it's diesel prices, whether it's tariffs, you know, a lot of voters who, I think in the abstract might say, you know, I'm supportive of reciprocal tariffs. I don't think it's fair if one country tariff, puts a tariff on our stuff, but we don't hit them right back. But it feels as though it's become arbitrary and it's really had an effect on, on ag. But you also, I think, in addition to just the overall cost of living question, the other thing that I'm seeing pop in my polling is concern about corruption as the sort of issue one B to affordability's one A. And that's what's put even a good candidate, like in some of these races, Ken Paxton, not a good candidate. You know, there are

• 49:32Speaker 05

  places where Republicans are facing a bad environment with a bad candidate to boot, and it's not making things any better. In this case, Ashley Hinson is a very good candidate. But just the question of, do you want to send more Republicans to Washington when right now Donald Trump and his party are viewed as being, you know, that, that it's not just that things cost a lot, but it's that if you are wealthy or you're buddies with the folks in power, maybe you can get a special deal for yourself. I hear that come up in focus groups as a real concern, and I think it makes this corruption issue certainly a piece of the puzzle. And, you know, you mentioned earlier, the 2006 midterm, Dave

• 50:14Speaker 05

  will certainly remember this. I mean, that was also an election where corruption and I think that was like the Tom Delay, you know, narrative, that, that was also a piece of the puzzle that made it just harder for Republicans to win. But the final thing that I would add to the affordability conversation is you're starting to see candidates talk more and more about things like data centers in their ads. And there is no poll that I've done where I've seen data centers pop as like the number one issue for a voter. But to the extent that it's another way that you can signal, I'm on your side, I want to make sure your energy bills are cheaper, it's, it is kind of the background music that's setting the mood. And, and the whole bigger question of AI is going to be a huge issue in the 2028 campaign. But for now, it's showing up as data centers as a proxy

• 50:59Speaker 05

  for both affordability and insiders cutting special deals.

• 51:02Kara Swisher?

  No, it's a proxy for everything.

• 51:04Speaker 00

  Yeah. And Iowa is also a really interesting state in this regard, because Zach Lane, the Republican nominee, a Trump endorsed candidate in the Republican primary by campaigning

• 51:16Speaker 00

  In favor of a data center moratorium and at odds with the Trump administration's position, green lighting AI and data centers. And he managed to win on a platform of putting Iowa lands back in Iowa hands. Yet he's got some residency issues because he's got family in Kansas. He voted in Kansas up until very recently, and he's come under attack from Rob Sand, the Democrat, over it. And so he's trailing in that governor's race. But another theme we're seeing is ticket splitting. Because in Iowa, Ashley Hinson, the Republican Senate candidate, is in a much stronger position than Lane, the Republican candidate for governor. How?

• 51:56Speaker 00

  Because she has spent the last couple of months presenting herself as a bipartisan Republican who will work with Democrats to get things done. Now, I'm not sure that's really borne out by her voting record. She did vote for the reconciliation bill. She voted against resolutions condemning the tariffs. But it has worked to some extent, and she stands a good chance to deny Democrats that Senate seat.

• 52:21Kara Swisher?

  Right, right, absolutely. And I do think data centers will become more in the future. I mean, Terrence, is that a concern with the young people? It seems to be for my kids, I can tell you that.

• 52:31Speaker 04

  I think Kristin is spot on. I think it is a, it's a proxy issue of corporations and special interests who, frankly, young people now are identifying corporations and special interests as the number one cause of their pain, even higher than Republicans, higher than Trump, higher than MAGA, higher than Democrats, higher than politics. It is corporations and special interests. I think that's a part of this kind of leftward swing we've seen in the Democratic primary even, towards socialist is, is not just that young people are identifying as socialists, is that they are identifying a new villain. And they've only seen one party that's willing to take on that villain. Where Democrats and Republicans both seem to be, you know, given the special deal, and special interests are getting a better deal than me.

• 53:13Kara Swisher?

  That's exactly how they articulate. And Dave, in these 36 governor's races, I think several of them have flipped, and that's been helpful for them.

• 53:20Speaker 00

  Kara, we saw a switch flip almost in March or April when we began to see data centers polled for really the first time. It's hard to believe we don't have, like, you know, longitudinal data going back years on this. But all of a sudden, candidates for governor saw a political opportunity. If I jump on voters' concerns about data centers, then I have an opportunity to overcome whatever political leaning my state might be. And we saw that, you know, on the Republican side, candidates, including Elaine in Iowa, but also Keisha Lance Bottoms in Georgia. And it's going to be a real test this November.

• 54:02Speaker 00

  If these pro-moratorium candidates break through, I think it sets up a litmus test, particularly for the Democrats in 2028, as to where you stand on construction and fighting big AI companies. For Democrats, it's not just about environmental impact or not in my backyard, it's about the concentration of wealth.

• 54:23Kara Swisher?

  Right, 100%.

• 54:25Speaker 00

  It could be extremely difficult for a Democratic governor who has tried to split the baby and enforce regulations but attract jobs to their state, tech jobs, to navigate this issue and pitch themselves to a Democratic electorate.

• 54:41Kara Swisher?

  They all seem to be going in that direction. But let's go to Texas, where early voting began this week. Polls show Republicans are losing support among Latino voters. Eyes are on the Rio Grande Valley, which swung for Trump in 2024. Meanwhile, it's a nail-biter between Republican candidate Ken Paxton and Democratic James Talarico. Real cooler politics has Talarico with a two-point edge as of Monday morning. Polly Market and the others, he's up significantly. New York Times reports the race has surpassed $500 million in ad spending. As you noted, Kristin, could become the most expensive non-presidential contest in U.S. history. What tips voters, Kristin, in Texas? And Terrence, having studied the Texas Democratic Coalition earlier this year during the Senate primary, what do you make of the party's chances? Kristin, you go first.

• 55:26Speaker 05

  So I did a focus group for the New York Times a few weeks ago of voters who in 2024 voted for Donald Trump, but this time around have said that they are not planning to vote for Ken Paxton. Some of them outright said they liked James Talarico, others said they didn't really like James Talarico, but they were considering just leaving that line blank on their ballot if they participated. And the concerns were twofold. One was just overall, I'm disappointed in Donald Trump, I don't love his policies. You saw both the economic issues, as well as the way Donald Trump has handled immigration, pop up as an issue, where many of these voters were giving Trump credit for securing the border, but also saying, yeah, but then there was this raid on the, you know, and then there were these grandmas, and that, but that, he said it was just going to be people

• 56:11Speaker 05

  who were criminals. And where it was, it was less that he was being tough on illegal immigration and more the how and the who he was really going after that was setting people off. But then you had the second set of concerns where, you know, I said, look, if Republicans had nominated John Corden, would you be voting for John Corden or James Talarico? And a lot of them were like, yeah, if you had just given me a quote unquote "normal Republican," I could probably get over a lot of my concerns about how Trump and his administration have gone in the last two years and pulled the lever for them. But Ken Paxton, you know, when we said, give us one word to describe him, we got a lot of, he's a crook, he's a criminal. He just has so much personal baggage that is just distasteful to Republicans.

• 56:55Speaker 05

  And, and even, you know, a lot of the independents who voted for Trump but are just now saying, no, thank you. So it's this one-two punch of both a bad national environment and a deeply flawed candidate that have made Texas vulnerable to, to Talarico.

• 57:08Kara Swisher?

  Which Trump pushed on the Republican Party there. Terrence, what do you make of the Democratic Party's chances now at this point?

• 57:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, you know, I've, I've spent quite a bit, I'm in Texas now and spent quite a bit of time here trying to help figure out, you know, what the path to victory is here. And I think that there's a couple of things contributing to very good odds for Democrats. The first is candidate selection on both sides, right? I think that they both pick the candidates for the electorate. When we talk about the spending, I mean, frankly, in focus groups across Texas, I am hearing the ads repeat it back to me, right? I am hearing he was divorced on biblical grounds or about Paxton, and I'm hearing Tyler Freco, you know, from Republicans, they're literally reciting it back to me. The difference is, though, is that, you know, a lot of the trans attacks that they are trying to land on Tyler Rico, the, you know, the gender and sexuality attacks that were

• 57:59Speaker 04

  similar to what we experienced under Kamala Harris' campaign, when Donald Trump's ad said that she was for them and they, but he is for you. But the big difference is that there was actually a sophistication to the Trump ads that were, they are taking your tax dollars and using them for gender surgeries for inmates, right? And that's not what Paxton is doing. It's just kind of mean and cruel, like, don't like trans people because they're trans. And, and so one, I think they're less sophisticated. But the other is that I think Tyler Rico has finally landed a response to these ads that may become, if it works, becomes a model for Democrats. And that is, they want you to focus on the wrong 1%. That it's not, it's not this 1% that's the reason for your pain, it's those damn billionaires

• 58:43Speaker 04

  that have more than, than you and them. And I think that we've seen in focus groups that that, that that response is, is also resonating. And that will, well, first, that he responded at all, but that it is a response that's resonating.

• 58:55Kara Swisher?

  Right, right, absolutely. And which Kamala Harris didn't do at all. The New York Times recently took a look at young voters and their power in the election. Young men swung for Trump in 2020, as we've noticed. But recent times, CNN polling shows support GOP among young men and women is declining more, obviously more significantly among women. Kristin, you've written about millennial voters, many of whom are now approaching middle age. Can you talk about how Gen Z voters are different and what extent will be a deciding factor in the midterms and beyond?

• 59:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, so Gen Z voters are different in that, think about the things that have happened as they have kind of come of political age. If you're a millennial, you remember the Obama administration. And whether you liked it or didn't like it, you can argue that that was a quote unquote "normal" period of time in American politics, or even during the George W. Bush administration. It was kind of normal. The last decade has been pretty abnormal, whether it's the Trump presidency, the COVID pandemic. And so Gen Z is a generation that they have only known abnormal as the normal. This, the new normal is, is a world where politics is combat, where there is no single, you know, we're not all tuning into the same newscast every night.

• 1:00:10Speaker 05

  We're getting our news from people who are our skincare and sports influencers. And it's just, it's a totally different universe. And that means, what I've seen, one is, the millennial generation was trending more leftward, and Gen Z has accelerated some of that trend. With the one blip of the 2024 election, where I think Democrats completely dropped the ball, did not talk to them, thought that Gen Z would just find Kamala Harris to be cool and let the Trump campaign come in and actually speak directly to young people in places where Democrats weren't. Democrats have tried to correct for some of that. And so you are now seeing this reversion where Gen Z has ping ponged back again

• 1:00:53Speaker 05

  away from Republicans. And there's also a pretty big gender split among Gen Z, where for Gen Z men, they're the ones that I think are swinging the most, where Gen Z women, they were not really drawn to the Trump campaign at all in 2024 and have continued their movement leftward.

• 1:01:12Kara Swisher?

  All right, go ahead, Dave.

• 1:01:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, these voters are looking for systemic change, but they don't necessarily want to hitch their wagons to one end of the extreme. In fact, they don't even see politics through the same traditional ideological spectrum that the media frames it as. And I don't know if they really care that much that AOC or Mam Dany identify as democratic socialists, because to them capitalism has not worked all that great. And so they're really open to anyone who will bring about systemic change, fight corruption, but they're not that easy to pigeonhole. I mean, when we look at these voters that I call the doubly disenchanted

• 1:01:59Speaker 00

  in our survey, who are in neither camp right now, they have roughly even views on ICE, but they also have very positive views of Medicare for all. Try and square that circle.

• 1:02:17Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, oh, that's all they talk about. I have to say, it's really interesting. And effective things like filling potholes. I know it sounds crazy, but they do. They're paying attention to that. Terrence?

• 1:02:26Speaker 04

  I mean, a lot of it is not as much Democrat versus Republican as it is do something versus do nothing. And that's what they see in Mam Dany. And in recent focus groups with a bunch of Gen Z voters, many of them did not even know what democratic socialists were, but they love Mam Dany, they love AOC. They will vote for whoever those two endorse. And so a part of this shift is a shift towards a new identity of politics and not a new partisan poll of politics, in my opinion. I don't think that they are bipartisan. That's not what's making Gen Z swing. They are anti-partisan. They hate Democrats and Republicans. They hate Trump and Kamala. They hate them both. And then they're forced to make a choice.

• 1:03:09Speaker 04

  And now they're being presented with an alternative. They now believe that capitalism has failed, but in many ways, democracy has failed as well. They don't have very high approval of either one of those systems. And over 80% of them are saying that they want a new political and economic system. That's not a policy change. That's a system change that they are demanding. And I think they're only getting one party that's actually offering that type of system.

• 1:03:32Kara Swisher?

  Right, right. And exciting candidates, too. Exciting, younger-looking candidates. There's no Charles Grassley. All right, my last question, looking ahead to 2028, obviously. Who do you see then as the strongest presidential contenders in each party? Without asking you to call the midterm results, the current data suggests Democrats will take the House, and Senate is shifting in the Democrats' favor. I'd like you each to perhaps call it if you want to, if you don't have to, if you don't want to. But pick a candidate and very briefly say why for each of them. Dave, you start, then Terrence, then Kristin, you finish up.

• 1:04:04Speaker 00

  It's going to be an extremely crowded field on the Democratic side. And that gives the advantage to whoever can corral a passionate and devoted following among 20 or 25% of the electorate, much as Donald Trump did in 2016. If AOC ran, I think she'd be very difficult to stop, because she can do that. And she's the only person who could inherit Bernie Sanders' movement, which is worth maybe a third of the Democratic Party. Now, I'm not sure she will. But the next most likely candidate who could inspire that passionate following, based on what we're seeing today, is Jon Ossoff from Georgia. But it's going to be a very fluid next year.

• 1:04:45Kara Swisher?

  And then midterm results?

• 1:04:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think the most likely outcome is that Democrats end up somewhere in the 230 to 235, or maybe in that seat range in the House. In other words, 15 to 20 House seats, could go higher. In the Senate, my base case would be a 51-49 Democratic Senate, in which case John Fetterman would be the wild card. And the two races in the Senate I'm most conflicted about are Texas and Maine. Both of those are pure toss-ups.

• 1:05:20Kara Swisher?

  Terrence?

• 1:05:21Speaker 04

  I agree with David. I think what we saw in the Democratic primary in 2026, this rise of the left, not just of the DSA, but of the left more broadly, I think will continue to carry into the 2028 Democratic primary. I think whoever the Democratic nominee is must be quite critical of the party, must be very, very clear-eyed about what the failures of the Democratic Party have been. I think that they will, if there is one candidate on that stage of over 20 candidates, I'm expecting, if only one of them represents the left, they will win 30% of that stage, which has typically been split between candidates like Bernie and Elizabeth Warren, and even Tom Steyer. But if they can consolidate that, and I think with this momentum, they can.

• 1:06:06Speaker 04

  And then finally, I think who the Democratic nominee in 2028 relies largely on who wins in Michigan in 2026. If El-Sayed is able to pull this off, then I think that candidates from the left in a 2028 primary get to have an electability conversation about their ability to appeal in places like Michigan. That is going to be their biggest barrier to winning the Democratic nomination.

• 1:06:30Kara Swisher?

  And the House and Senate?

• 1:06:32Speaker 04

  I think Democrats pick up 20 seats in the House, 20-plus seats in the House. In the Senate, I think that they win Texas, North Carolina, Ohio, Maine. I'm not so sure. I think they could pick up three or four additional seats in the Senate for 52, I think 52-seat majority.

• 1:06:51Kara Swisher?

  Okay, Kristin, you finish up.

• 1:06:53Speaker 05

  I think the Democrats are well-positioned in this midterm. I think they're going to take the House. I think it's more likely than not they get a narrow margin in the Senate. But I'm not confident in which path they take to get there. There's just a lot of pieces on the board that could move one way or the other. In 2028, I'll just weigh in very briefly on the Republican side. So all of the polls we've done have shown J.D. Vance in the lead in the far-too-early polling we've been doing on the Republican primary. But he usually gets about 40 to 45%, which you could argue is a little lackluster for a sitting vice president. And there has been a rise in our polling. Marco Rubio has gone from low, single digits,

• 1:07:37Speaker 05

  to starting to creep up there into around 10%, 15% or so. So I would keep an eye on him. The one other name that keeps coming up that I'm a little surprised to keep hearing is Ron DeSantis did a focus group of Trump voters who are not pure conservatives. So we screened for folks who they are Republican and they're conservative on many issues, but maybe they're pro-choice or they're pro-universal healthcare, or some other things that make them a little bit more big-tent, if you will. And when we asked, who are they interested in for 2028, an awful lot of them named Ron DeSantis, that they liked the idea of having someone who they thought could really turn the page from some of the stuff that they find a bit distasteful about the current administration.

• 1:08:20Speaker 05

  So I still think Vance is the odds-on favorite, but I'm hearing more and more qualitative research of Republican voters keeping a more open mind than I might have thought a year ago.

• 1:08:32Kara Swisher?

  Wow, even with those boots, amazing. We don't have to forget the boots. It seems like a charisma vacuum on one side, though, compared to the ones on the Democratic.

• 1:08:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, to be clear, I'm not going out to a prediction market tomorrow and putting money down on Ron DeSantis. But I just do think it's notable that that name has come up in a couple of different focus groups.

• 1:08:51Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, it's so funny.

• 1:08:53Speaker 05

  There's something to follow.

• 1:08:54Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, Hotlanta versus him? I don't know. I don't know. It's hard to imagine. And you may use that in your polling groups. Is he Hotlanta? Anyway, thank you so much. This is so substantive, and I really appreciate it. And we'll see what happens going forward. We only have a few weeks. You guys feeling good? Are you feeling ready to be able to cover all this? This is your Super Bowl.

• 1:09:16Speaker 05

  I remember, I think it was Amy Walter, Dave's colleague, who described it as, like, right now, you're waiting for Christmas, and all of the presents are the different races. And what you're trying to do with polling and the forecasting that you're doing is you're essentially picking up the present and you're shaking it to hear what's inside. Like, what's inside Iowa Senate? Is it a lump of coal, or is it Ashley Hinson? And so that's where we're at right now, is just the anticipation of this moment, when we will finally, finally know things about where the American electorate is at in a way that, right now, we're just trying to guess at, make educated guesses.

• 1:09:53Speaker 00

  Yeah. And my one wish, as a political analyst, election geek, is if we could stretch out election night a bit. I know we already have slow vote counts in a couple of states, but I actually think we are going to know the results rather quickly, with the exception of maybe Alaska, which is going to take a couple of days to sort out ranked choice and votes by mail. But I really do think this is going to be rather clear by midnight.

• 1:10:22Kara Swisher?

  By midnight. Terrence, last word? You getting ready?

• 1:10:25Speaker 04

  You know, as much as I'm looking forward to it being over, I'm afraid that we are in a new season, a new environment, where elections just don't quite end on Election Day. And that as much as these are contested in election boxes, they'll be contested in courtrooms and other places. I have a dear friend named Elizabeth Booker, who says if they shenanigans, they'll shenanigan again. We've seen the shenanigans. So I'm also bracing, not just for who wins this thing, but for who gets to defend it after the election.

• 1:10:50Kara Swisher?

  And it could be the end of Donald Trump, finally. We'll see. We'll see. It never, it never is. Anyway, thank you, guys, so much. We really appreciate it.

• 1:10:59Speaker 00

  Thanks so much, Kara.

• 1:11:00Speaker 04

  Thank you so much for having us.

• 1:11:01Kara Swisher?

  Thanks, Kara.

• 1:11:07Kara Swisher?

  Today's show was produced by Vicky Vergolina, Michelle Aloy, Catherine Millsop, Megan Burney, and Madeline LaPlante-Duby. Mishat Kerwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Special thanks to Bradley Sylvester, Jim Mackel, and Manola Moreno. Our engineers are Fernando Aruda and Rick Kwan. And our theme music is by Trakademics. If you're already following the show, our latest polling suggests you have a clear path to victory. If not, your odds are lower than President Trump's approval rating, which is going down, down, down. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Kara Swisher and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from Podium Media, New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Monday with more.

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