Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - Krystal and Saagar's Election Takeaways

Episode Date: November 9, 2022

Krystal and Saagar give their election takeaways in the nationwide senate, house, gubernatorial, local, and future races! To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and SpotifyApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Open your free iHeartRadio app, search Rock Solid, and listen now. Hey, guys. Ready or Not 2024 is here, and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that, let's get to the show. Hello, everybody. Surprise live stream. We were just thinking this morning, we were like, you know what?

Given the timeliness and everything, we have to just go live right now. Yeah, I mean, there's so much that is still undecided. Results continuing to come in, so it didn't make sense to hold it. So, here we are. It's a fun time. We're here. Got four hours of sleep. It's okay. We love you guys literally that much. So, what does that mean? What's going on right now? I mean, that is the ultimate question.

But before we start, I just want to say, again, thank you all so much to our premium subscribers, many of whom are watching right now, who enabled our stream last night. It cost a hell of a lot of money in order to put that whole production on, to have people on the ground in Pennsylvania. Ryan and Emily here to have counterpoints two days a week this time, and really just shows you, like, look, clearly we got to gear up for 2024 because it is going to be an amazing election, an amazing election, an amazing show for the next two years. We have a special discount going on right now by special requests. People wanted us to keep it. So we've got a 10% annual discount right now going on right now for 10% off. The link is in the chat and in the description of this video. It really helps us

build for 2024 and so much more. Again, we cannot thank everybody who helps us put this show on enough to pay our crew as well, who was in the control room, many of whom did not sleep very much last night. So we're very thankful. Just at the top before we even get into the election. Yes, indeed. You guys are amazing. People seem to love the stream. It was a blast doing it. You know, it was really fun to have Kyle and Marshall. I thought Ryan and Emily did a wonderful job picking up when we went home to get a few hours of sleep. Not that I could really

sleep because I was still thinking about all of this stuff. I was so buzzed. I know. I didn't even take any caffeine or anything. I just was like, this is so crazy what's happening now. Is there a new batch of oats from Maricopa County or whatever? I know. Anyway, the kind of plan for the show, it's obviously going to be a little more freewheeling,

but we are going to go through what our top takeaways are here at the top. We're going to take a look at where things stand with the Senate, where they stand with the House, which, crazy enough, still in doubt which party is going to have control of the House. Did not see that one coming. We're going to take a look at the key governor's races, some of those still outstanding. We're also going to dig into the ballot initiatives. And then we want to take a look at, you know, what does all of this mean for 2024? Because there are

a lot of big takeaways for Biden. There's a lot of big question marks about Trump. And certainly a wonderful night for Ron DeSantis. Could not have played out better for him personally. So we'll tell you what we think basically happens next. So just to start at the top, here's basically the lay of the land. The red wave, I'll steal from Ben Shapiro. I don't often quote Ben Shapiro, but he said the red wave turned into a red wedding. Game of Thrones reference for the uninitiated. I mean, listen, Republicans still likely to hold the House. But as I said, actually in doubt, as of this morning, in terms of races that are called, they have only netted overall one seat. That is way below where they expected to be at this point. I mean, I never thought we'd be going into this morning

not sure of where the House is ultimately going to land. Absolutely correct. In terms of the Senate, big news overnight, John Fetterman declared victorious in the state of Pennsylvania. That means Democrats are actually up a seat because that was a Republican held seat. He outperformed Biden in effectively every part of the state. There's a lot to say about that. We'll save that for a moment. What's still outstanding? You still have Nevada, where you have a lot of Clark County mail-in ballots. Nobody knows how much. Still outstanding. Right now, the Republican has an edge. Will he ultimately hang out on there? Big question mark. In Arizona, it looks like Mark Kelly is going to hold on there. He's got a pretty sizable margin based on what we know about where the votes are still out. Looks like he's going to be able to pull it off. Georgia,

Warnock has now pulled into a lead, but is below that 50% threshold to avoid a runoff. Now, there is some votes still on Sting. There is a still theoretical possibility he could get beyond that 50% vote. But if that one, let's just say that one heads to a runoff, then you're looking at Nevada and Arizona. Republicans have to hang on in Nevada, which they might in order to gain control of the Senate. So you have some really, you know, wild situations here and much, much better night than Democrats expected. A lot to say about how this was a sort of repudiation of the Trump direction of the Republican Party. A lot to say about how this was really a result of Roe versus Wade being overturned and incredible Democratic

enthusiasm, very unusual for a midterm election. And the last thing I'll say, Sagar, and then I'll get your sort of like big picture takeaways and I'll give you give mine. You did have regional variation in how these results unfolded, which made this election so weird because the first results we got in were Florida and it was like, oh, my God, this this looks like the red wave bloodbath. Then we start getting in New Hampshire and we're like, wait a second, Maggie Hassan is dramatically outperforming Joe Biden in New Hampshire, dramatically outperforming the polls. Then you had New York also was kind of strong for Republicans, not as good as they thought they were going to do there, but they actually picked off a few Democratic seats there. So a lot of regional variation, a lot of like candidate variation, a lot going on that made this a very complex election

night. Absolutely. So a couple of top line things. Number one, obviously the red wave did not materialize in any way. And to be clear, House and Senate still very much could go Republican, given the outstanding results right now in Arizona and in Nevada. But I think regardless of that, given how the toss ups in the House, which we will get to in a little bit, did not go in the Republican direction, given really the fact that the Democratic base showed up big time, this is one of the most extraordinary midterm elections absolutely of my lifetime and in modern history. Joe Biden has just shored up his position at the Democratic base. This changes politics on a macro level in a way that I did not, nobody anticipated. I can say that. And I will say also that given the national

environment that we are in right now, the Republican, quote, soul searching and civil war, which I did not think would materialize. I still think it absolutely will now at this point and will go into, frankly, into overdrive in the next two weeks, especially if Trump also does announce his election. But I have to also say this on abortion, which is that I tweeted this morning just to be a little bit, to shiv some people. I see many Republican commentators, Crystal, who are so willing to Trump and candidate quality and all that. What about abortion? I mean, clearly. They don't want to talk about that. Oh, they don't want to talk about it at all.

It is clear as day to me that abortion was one of the biggest deciding factors for the Democratic base for many people who showed up to vote. Number two, the emerging GOP coalition that people were so excited about did not materialize in nearly the same way. Yes, turnout was very high. We were talking this morning, Myra Flores lost down in South Texas. She also was saying, talking about the red wave, did not materialize. Beto ended up winning many of those South Texas districts. Yeah, I mean, he lost overall. But we've been covering how much the Rio Grande Valley has shifted. Exactly.

They shifted back significantly last night. And Henry Cuellar, who also represents a district down there, won, I think, pretty easily. Like you said, Mayra Flores ends up losing. That ends up being a dumb pickup in that region. And then even Beto at the top of the ticket as governor wins back, outperforms in Rio Grande Valley. So, you know, clearly the takeaway is that GOP and disarray for once. The row, row, row your vote strategy actually did work phenomenally well for the Democratic Party. But let's not take away an extraordinary event.

Florida is now a red state. And not just like kind of red, like red, red. Ron DeSantis won by 20 points. Marco Rubio similarly won by 17 points. Extraordinary showing for Republicans in Florida. Solidly in the GOP column now. And we have a totally shifting map. I also, and I think this is going to be the ultimate war for the quote-unquote narrative. Yeah. Was it candidate quality? Was it abortion? And was it Trump? So unfortunately, we can't say it's just one thing. I think it's multifaceted in many ways. Extraordinary that Pennsylvania gets called almost immediately. I sent an analysis this morning, Crystal, which shows that John Fetterman is on track to win Pennsylvania by a larger percentage point than Joe Biden in 2020, Trump or Toomey in 2016. Why is that extraordinary? One of the data points that you and I were pointing to last night was that early exit polls, of which we were both extraordinarily dubious, showed that abortion was at the very top of the ticket, top of mind,

even more so than inflation in the state of Pennsylvania. I'm also finding a lot of interest in the fact that the Wisconsin governor's race goes Republican. Michigan, by the way, for the first time in 20 years, is set to have Democratic control of government all the way up and down the legislature and for the governor. So it is clear, given also the ballot initiatives we'll talk about with respect to abortion, I don't think we can understate how much of an impact that it had on the election last night. Yeah, I mean, the two big obvious things are number one, abortion. Yes. And number two, Trump and election denial. Right. Really saddling the Republican Party. I mean, when we talk about the governor's races, there is so far one candidate

who might win a governor's mansion, and that would be Carrie Lake, who is an election denier. Every single one of the other ones lost. This was an albatross around the neck, not just of the extremist Republican candidates, but it really was a stench across the entire party. And, you know, some of the candidates that performed the most poorly, like Dr. Oz, were Donald Trump picks. Absolutely. and is there, but, you know, picked Trump, picked a very weak candidate in Herschel Walker, who dramatically underperformed Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensperger, who were running statewide as well. But there are some other factors here that I think are really interesting, too, especially when you look at the regional variation. So Lee Fong tweeted this this morning, which I thought was an interesting point. He said, you know, but Biden, the Democrats really outperformed in the Midwest last night. So if you think about Pennsylvania, if you think about Michigan, even in Ohio, there were

some, obviously, Tim Ryan didn't win, J.D. Vance ends up winning. But there were some surprise flips in congressional districts in Ohio, one of which no one even had on their radar, they thought was a likely R, and a Democrat ends up winning it. You had strong Democratic performance in Wisconsin as well. And Lee Fong points out, listen, Biden did way more to bring back trade from China, invest in post-industrial states with new money for manufacturing, and shore up local governance than Obama did in his first two years. Might be part of the reason Dems fared relatively well in Ohio, Minnesota, Michigan, Pennsylvania, et cetera. So I think the big picture trends, definitely

Trump, repudiation of Trump, repudiation of Stop the Steal, conspiracy, election denying, nonsense and extremism, and also extremism on abortion and other issues as well. But I really do think the election denial thing was a bridge too far for a lot of voters. But I do think you also have to point to some of the policy that Joe Biden enacted in office, in particular in that sparking Democratic enthusiasm. Young people are a big part of the story of what happened last night. They showed up for Democrats. There was a huge generational divide in terms of who people were voting for, young voters, overwhelmingly for Democrats. To look at that and say, weed, student loan debt

cancellation, that was probably really helpful there. That was a group where Biden was dramatically underwater until he took some of those actions. You look at the Midwest, you know, you see the trade policy, you see the CHIPS Act, you see, you know, continued smart trade initiatives with regard to China. And you say, maybe that was part of the story there in the Midwest as well. So, you know, the top layer is Trump. The top layer is abortion. But I do think underneath the surface, some of the regional variation has to do with some of the actual policy things that Biden enacted in office, which is kind of heartening that like real things might actually matter. I'm not so sure. I still think it's abortion. I think abortion was just so key in Wisconsin and Michigan, especially Michigan, where it was both on the ballot and it was at the state level.

The gubernatorial candidate has so much impact, right, especially with control of the GOP legislation. You might be right. Listen, I hope you're right. But I'm not I'm not yet convinced. Well, because before Biden started doing some stuff, his approval rating with the Democratic base was really kind of. It was low and they came out to vote. The big reason why this is different from other midterms, Republicans were energized. They showed up. But Democrats were, if anything, even more energized. And then I haven't seen the independent numbers yet, but they must not have swung as hard to the right as pollsters were ultimately predicting. So all of those things, you know, abortion is

certainly the spark. But I also think a Biden agenda, the Democratic base that was genuinely like excited about and, you know, affirmatively like supportive of Inflation Reduction Act, all of that coming. I think that also helped to shore up Democratic enthusiasm here. You know, the other thing that I was thinking about is we've had so many election cycles where it just seemed like the laws of political gravity no longer applied. Basically, since Trump won office, that just turned every like conventional wisdom narrative about how politics functions and how people vote. It just turned it completely on its head. You're like, you can say grab them by the whatever and you can still get elected and have all this fallout from all kinds of elites. You could still get elected and have all this fallout from all kinds of elites. You could still get elected. This was the first election where it felt like some of those rules of political gravity applied once again,

where it was like, you know what? These people, I might not be in love with what the Democrats are doing, but these people have gone way too far and I just can't go there with you. And it also marked the return of regional variation, which, you know, especially in the Trump era, every one of these elections has been a national election, national election, national election. We both have been saying like local politics is dead. It doesn't matter anymore. Last night, it did matter, you know, and that that really marks a dramatic shift from the Trump era as well. As I said, Republicans really, you know, if you just looked at Florida and New York, you'd be like, ah, they had a pretty good night. In New York, I'm going to talk about this later, which amuses me greatly.

It looks like Sean Patrick Maloney, who was the head of the DCCC, it looks like he may well lose his seat. And there's a whole lot to say about that as well. But, you know, to your point about abortion, in New York, there wasn't a sense that abortion rights were really at risk because you still have a Democratic legislature. So even if you're sending Republican members of Congress, even if you consider voting for Lee Zeldin as governor, who ended up, you know, losing and losing pretty handily. But, you know, even if you put some Republicans in, people didn't feel like their abortion rights were at risk. And I do think that's part of the story of why New York was better for Republicans. I think you're right. And no, let's also not

forget this. Ron DeSantis, he may be many things, but on abortion, he was only willing to go to six weeks. He never endorsed the national ban. And I think this is also something that really hurt some of the Senate candidates. So, Herschel Walker, his own personal dalliances aside, I mean, Warnock was hammering him, saying if we have a GOP majority, they are going to pass, you know, some national abortion ban. Obviously, Blake Masters didn't do himself any favor having that literally on his website at the time. And look, let's talk about this. Masters right now is getting clobbered. Like, look, there's only 68% of the vote that is in, but he's running far behind Kerry Lake, who is nearly neck and neck with Katie Hobbs in the same thing.

Clearly, there was a lot of split-ticket voting, and people did not like Blake Masters. That is a very interesting note of which we can really only assume abortion had to be one of the major deciding ones. Combine that with the ballot initiatives in two quasi—or at least one red state and one purplish state. And we can say definitively that this was a massive, massive drag on the party. So I think that, I think those are the, my main takeaway on this also from a meta level, like on the polling and everything is we truly don't know anything. And that's very humbling. And I love it. I love being surprised by Americans. I was exactly like you, frankly, I've just been cynical for the last six years. With Trump, like you said, I'm like, listen, man, people, you know, look,

you can do anything and you can't get elected. You know, many of these stop the steal deniers, even on abortion, you know, people who were willing to go crazy out there. I was like, I just don't think it's going to matter in the context of inflation. But people surprise the hell out of us. And that was my main thing was obviously completely I was wrong on the red wave. I truly assumed that inflation and all that would trump much more inflation, or sorry, that inflation and all that would trump any concern on social or even stop the steal. And I would, frankly, I'd be willing to empathize and understand with that position. But clearly, it was not enough. And that is a really fascinating

takeaway that I have not truly yet grappled with from our election. I mean, there's a few things I'm thinking about here. First of all, Arizona is an interesting example because Carrie Lake's position on abortion is indistinguishable from Blake Masters. Right. She's better at saying it. A much better candidate. And on the other side, the Democratic candidate, Katie Hobbs, very weak candidate. Mark Kelly, very strong candidate. So I think other side, the Democratic candidate, Katie Hobbs, very weak candidate. Mark Kelly, very strong candidate. So I think you just have like, you know, on one hand, the candidate quality is Democrat is very strong and Republican is very weak. And it's the exact opposite at the

gubernatorial level. We still don't know the outcome of those races. It looks like Mark Kelly is going to hold on. If I had to guess, I'd say probably Kerry Lake ends up winning. But that one is going to be really close and it's not anywhere close to being called. And it's probably going to take days because that's just how they ultimately do things. But it is absolutely fascinating to watch all of this unfold. The pollsters got it wrong. But for the first time in several election cycles, it was damn over performance, especially in the states of New Hampshire. Huge miss there. Huge miss. All of the polls leading up to election day were like, maybe Maggie Hassan by one, maybe Don Bolduc by one, maybe by two. And then she blew out. I mean, she outperformed Biden in the state. It's not even close. Pennsylvania is the other one. Huge polling missing in the state of Pennsylvania. Now, some of these other states, the mainstream pollsters actually came pretty close. Like Georgia looks like they came pretty close. Looks like Arizona looks like Nevada. They came pretty close. Looks like Arizona, looks like Nevada, they came pretty close. And then this time it was the partisan right pollsters who were wildly off in some of these states. I mean,

you had Trafalgar with Washington state Senate race, Patty Murray as a toss up. It looks like she's going to win by 14 points. So, I mean, this is just, and they had a few like that where they were predicting toss ups in places where Democrats are now going to win by 12, 13, 14 points. So, you know, for them, they have a lot of egg on their face this morning in the same way that the mainstream pollsters did in 2020. Oh, absolutely. I mean, that it's fascinating, right? Because the pollsters got it completely wrong 2016-ish on 2018. If anything, there was some GOP overperformance. 2020, obviously, dead wrong once again. So obviously, that was my baked-in assumption. So I was listening to some of the takeaways. Nate Silver did a snap reaction last night at 2.30 or whatever in the morning. And he

was like, look, here's the truth, which is that we have recency bias. N of four, as in a sample size of four elections, actually not that big. So to have one be different than the other three, if you take in the context of the hundreds of elections that we have had in American history, that's actually not a very good data set. It's an important thing that we all need to remember. We had recency bias, I don't think unfairly, from 2016 to 2020. I think what we looked at was we were like, we don't really trust the polls. Yes. That was well-founded. Yeah.

And so it's like, all right, well, if you can't rely on the polls, what are you going to rely on? And then you go, OK, well, the other thing you can look to that's not just like my gut feeling or my vibes is the fundamentals. The fundamentals were terrible for Democrats. Right. The, you know, Biden's approval rating, history of if you're the party in power, the economic numbers, inflation, what people are telling people their number one issue ultimately is. And so when you look at that, you go, I mean, can all of that be overridden by candidate quality issues and abortion? Apparently the answer is yes. And I do think, you know, for the Republicans,

if they had run candidates who like were basically plain vanilla Glenn Youngkin types across the country, they would be in a very different situation than they are in right now. You know, on the inflation piece, I floated this last night and it continues to be my best guess over why the economic numbers were not the weight around the Democrats that you would think that they would be. And I think it's because voters are kind of realistic about how much how much to blame, you know, that the president ultimately is for what's going on in the economy. They look at this. They're like corporate profiteering, supply chain issues. We just had covid like The whole world was turned upside down.

So there's a little bit less blame directly of Biden's policies. And we saw that in some of the exit poll results. And then on the other hand, I think there was also a miss from Republicans who thought they could just say inflation, inflation, inflation without being really specific about here's what we would do that would help you directly. And so they ended up not benefiting from that to the extent that they thought that they would ultimately. Let me reiterate a point Ryan Grimm made last night, of which I am now forced to grapple with. I would have told you he was insane 48 hours ago, was that, hey, we live in a crazy economy. Yeah, inflation is high. Savings is really bad,

all of that. But we have very low unemployment. So to have that low unemployment, it's a confounding variable. The Biden administration has been talking that way. I've frankly dismissed it as cope, given the savings rate, going down people the way that people feel about it. But maybe it just doesn't hit the same to have high inflation and to have unemployment at four. Let's say unemployment was at 10, I think it would have been different. It would have been the actual red wave could have materialized. So maybe that's something. And gas prices still high. Yeah, $3.80 right now. A lot lower than they were before, though.

That's right, about $0.70 less than the overall peak during all of this. Man, there's so many meta takeaways. I'm also thinking about if the Democrats do hold the Senate, from a foreign policy perspective, we shouldn't forget the war in Ukraine. This basically just greenlit the blank check to Zletsky now for a long time. That's kind of interesting. There's also on the House side, if the Dems do capture the House, which is, sorry, keep the House, possible, unlikely at this point, let's say what, 25% chance? Something like that, yeah. Maybe something like that. Then, look, I mean, what are they going to do? That's another good question.

I know. By the way, nobody in Washington even knows the answer to that question. Right now, it is still possible Republicans end up with control of the Senate by one seat. Right. It is also possible that if not kind of likely, you know, a little bit more likely than the Republicans ending up with a one seat margin, it's very possible Democrats end up with a one seat margin. Well, the New York Times has a majority of their needle right now says lean down in the Senate. Right. And so, I mean, of course, you know, Democrats have the vice presidency, so they can have a 50-50 and have Kamala Harris as the tie-breaking vote. So they have an advantage there. Also, this could very well be coming down to another Georgia runoff. Could very well be coming down to that. Which I will say I predicted at one of my live shows.

You did. I did predict that. You were right. At least I will be able to take some comfort in feeling like I was right at some point during this process. The key is just to make a lot of different predictions, and then you can just be like, that one. That's what I do.

That's the one I really like. I throw everything at the wall. I go, yeah, I think this, but here's all the caveats. Listen, I love being wrong about this because it's fun. I love seeing the vote totals. I love seeing the way that people vote. People are not reductive. They are multifaceted.

I think they are their own people. I love America. And it really does put a lot of pause into the narrative of, you know, realignment inevitability. Absolutely. Because we had a sequence of elections where it was like, all right, Latinos move a little more. Latinos move a little more. Now we see Black men moving a little bit this way. And that went in the other direction last night. So it also, you know, I mean, Democrats used to have this very arrogant view of like demographics are destiny, the

coalition of the ascendant, as the Latino population grows, we're just going to automatically benefit from that. And I think Republicans started to engage in a little bit of that same type of thinking of just like, inevitably, these groups are going to continue moving our way. And, you know, we don't really, it's just going to happen. We don't really have to do anything like, you know, economically, we don't really have to deliver for them. We're just like going to fight the culture war and they're going to fall into our hands. And, you know, last night is a real warning sign for the Republicans on that front as well. So the question of what Democrats would do if they end up with the House and they end up with a plus one in the Senate, that's going to be really that would be a really interesting one,

because then you can take Joe Manchin off the table, or you can take Kyrsten Sinema off the table, and you can, you know, potentially do another reconciliation thing, but that's getting way ahead of where we are right now. You want to jump into the Senate results? Let's jump into the Senate, and okay, let's go ahead and take a look at everything there. The shock result, not even that close right now. AP and everybody calling it. John Fetterman for Pennsylvania. He's currently at 50.1%, 47% for Dr. Oz.

Humiliating defeat, no question. Doesn't even come within the 2020 result. Doesn't come within the 2016 stunning result against Hillary for Pat Toomey and for Donald Trump. So clearly, Dr. Oz flopped right on his face. Why does that matter? The abortion one is my major takeaway. Exit polls showing there abortion was the number one issue over inflation by almost a 10-point margin. So we will get some more verified exits in the coming days, of which I'm really going to take a lot of time to scrutinize. Fetterman's overperformance is one of the biggest and most important data points for 2024. So let's hold that in our discussion. So yeah, so let's pause there

for a moment. First of all, I have to chuckle at the fact that after losing to Joe Biden and now losing to John Fetterman, Republicans have now lost consecutive elections to men who basically can't talk. Listen, I have a lot to say on this that I will say for the 2024 segment, but Joe Biden's looking pretty good right now for 2024. I never thought I'd be at this desk saying that. But speak of, I mean, speaking of humiliating, I mean, this is in some ways like a real repudiation of a lot of the Trump era politics because you have John Fetterman, who we all watch the debate, difficult, pain, hard to watch, really, performance after suffering a stroke and still very much being in the midst of recovering from that. Up against Dr. Oz, who was a literal like Oprah made TV star.

That's right. I thought he was going to be a star. I'm on record saying I really did. And I did, too. Yeah. I really did. I mean, it turns out Carrie Lake actually had more of the qualities we expected Dr. Oz to have. And we'll see if she hangs on for governor there, which kind of defies, you know, what happened in the rest of the country if I looked at, even in places like New Hampshire where Democrats did really well, there were a lot of blue arrows showing that, OK, Democrats did outperform in these areas. But there were also red arrows in the rural areas where Republicans outperformed. Pennsylvania is not like that.

John Fetterman outperformed in basically everywhere in the entire state. And so abortion, yes, number one issue in the exit polls. There was a danger that Republicans end up with the governor's mansion and both legislatures. I think voters felt that very acutely, like this was really on the line. So I do think that that is very important. But I also think, you know, Fetterman does have that everyman appeal. And he had roots in steel country. And so he not only hangs on, given the precarity of his health situation, he ends up being one of the best Democratic candidates in the entire country, which is something that we expected early on before the stroke happened. Because he has such a great working man, everyman appeal, in touch with people, really feels like he gets the struggles of the working class and connects in a way that feels authentic.

And, you know, and at the same time was very effectively and I think ultimately decisively painting Oz as this out of touch elite elitist, Hollywood elitist. And that ends up mattering way more than concerns over his health. And I would even go so far as to say, and I was saying this at the time, like the Oz strategy around his health really backfired because it just made Oz look like an asshole. It made Fetterman a more sympathetic character, actually. That's very possible. Yeah, I mean, look, no offense to Pennsylvania,

but data shows it's an old and not particularly healthy state. So it's not like people can't empathize. There's so much to say on Pennsylvania. Let's continue also in Georgia. So where do things stand right now? So we have the 96% of the vote, which is currently in. We have 153,000 remaining outstanding ballots. Raphael Warnock currently holds 49.2% of the vote with 1,941,000

votes. Herschel Walker has got 48.7% of the vote, 1,922,000. So we have a 20,000 vote difference between the two candidates, just to show you how tight it is. And we have 153,000 ballots remaining to be counted. Now, where exactly that count is all coming from, I will not speculate as to how much exactly is in. It clearly is going to come to a game of inches. The exact analysis I've seen so far, Crystal, tell me if you've seen anything else, is that this is almost certain to go to a runoff

because there does not appear to be enough outstanding ballots given the breakage for Warnock to be able to pull over 50 percent. Although that remains within the realm of possibility, things would just have to break so far in his direction that it seems unlikely at this point. Yeah, that's what I've seen as well. I mean, there continues to be a lot of uncertainty about exactly what's out. Is it election day? Is it mail-in? Where is it? So it's hard to say for certain, but what looks most likely to happen with Raphael Warnock right now sitting at 49.4% of the vote, and remember, he has to get to 50 to avoid the runoff. What looks most likely to happen

is Warnock gets the most votes, but does not avoid the runoff. So we end up again in a situation with a Georgia runoff, again, potentially determining control of the Senate. And, you know, I mentioned it before, but I'll say it again, Herschel Walker really dramatically underperforming the top of the ticket. You know, this was a state that Republicans with a different candidate, with a different campaign, I think, you know, could have cleaned this up and won decisively last night. And instead, you have to take the risk of going to a runoff where all eyes are going to be on these two candidates. And we know that Herschel Walker does not hold up particularly well under scrutiny. I'll pick up on that. Brian Kemp decisively won the election last night. Not even close. Fifty three point four percent of the vote. Two point one million

votes to Stacey Abrams. One.8 million. So she got completely clobbered, which is a story in its own right. Something a little bit delicious. Some of the old Democratic stars. She did concede, by the way. Thank you, Stacey. You actually conceded the election this time. Props to you. I guess it was a little bit too incongruous if that weren't the case. Let's keep going down on the Senate map. I just want to say North Carolina, there were some early questions there, but it didn't end up being all that close at all. 50 percent of the vote to Bud and only 47 percent of the vote to Beasley. So 3 percent margin.

That's honestly closer than I expected. It's closer than we expected, certainly. I mean, North Carolina is a weird state, right? I mean, Obama in 2008, that kind of made the dream possible. It was always a question about Biden. Trump ended up winning it decisively. Then you also had, what was that guy, Cal Cunningham really go down in flames in 2020. But Bud, he's in there. The Republicans did hold onto that seat. Ron Johnson

right now, things look pretty good for Ron Johnson. Hasn't been officially been called for him, but he's probably going to win. But the margin is not nearly as close as the last time that he won six years ago, Crystal. He's only got 50.5%. Mandela Barnes at 49.3. So big overperformance for Mandela Barnes there relative to the last time that this happened. 2016, obviously, was a huge upset when Trump won Wisconsin. So there's something to be said there. Do you want to add anything on Wisconsin?

I just wanted to say, again, pay attention because the Midwest was consistent outperformance for Dems. Yes. Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan. I was just looking at Ohio. J.D. Vance wins. But I'm looking again at that New York Times map that shows the shift in the vote. The entire state, Tim Ryan outperformed where Biden was. And so it was, again, a much narrower margin. He improves on it, you know, claws back some of those red gains that have been made in recent years. And again, that, you know, Midwest coming back into the Democratic fold, you know, Ohio's not back in the Democratic fold, but shifting back in that direction and Michigan and Wisconsin very definitively. That also goes against the kind of realignment inevitability narrative. Absolutely. Okay, so let's continue in the map. Ohio, as we already said, J.D. Vance winning there. A pretty decent margin, 53%, 46% for Tim Ryan. Tim Ryan did certainly overperform. Mike DeWine just blew it out in Ohio. He got 62% of the vote, 37%. So a lot of ticket splitters there. But J.D. ended up winning, what, approximately the same percent by around eight points there right now. That's what Trump won it

by in 2000. New York Times says he'll win ultimately by 6.6. Okay, so underperforming Trump a little bit there. He underperformed Trump. And yeah, again, you see Tim Ryan overperforming really across the state, urban, rural, suburban, you know, doing better than what Biden did in the state of Ohio. Absolutely. Okay. So let's continue in the Senate. So Arizona, all eyes right now on Arizona. So they do not have nearly the same amount of the vote in. They have 68%. We have remaining ballots, 832,000 remaining ballots. So that's a lot because I'm about to read you what the current ballots are. Mark Kelly has got 51.9% of the counted vote right now, 918,000 ballots. Blake

Masters has 45.9%, 811,000. So we still have 800,000 votes to count. So many votes there will be mail-in. Some of it will be early vote. Remains to be seen. I have not seen any compelling analysis right now, which shows me that Blake Masters has a great chance at coming back and winning this. But it's not totally out of the question right now. It's leaning Dem heavily in Mark Kelly's favor, I think we can say. Yeah. I mean, this one looks pretty good for Mark Kelly, barring something like pretty surprising, ultimately unfolding, because you still have a good chunk of the vote in Maricopa County out. Right. That is where, you know, the expectation is that the bulk of the votes will come from. And right now, Mark Kelly is winning Maricopa County 53 percent to 45 percent.

So it looks pretty good. It looks pretty solid for the Democrats there. Like they're going to ultimately be able to win. Blake Masters, weak candidate. Mark Kelly, very strong candidate. And, you know, Mark Kelly definitely outperforming Katie Hobbs at the top of the table. We'll get to the governor's races in a bit. That's right. OK, so Nevada also major eyes on Nevada. So 80 percent of the vote that's in, we got 211,000 votes remaining to be counted.

49.9 percent for Adam Laxalt. 47.2 percent for Catherine Cortez Masto. But, and here's the huge but, Crystal, let's go ahead and tell everybody about Clark County, the remaining mail-in ballots that remain to be come in, and those are heavily Democratic. Okay, so John Ralston, who is the guru, you know, really respected by Republicans and Democrats, has, you know, really respected by Republicans and Democrats, has remained quite nonpartisan. His math is at this point that if there are, according to his Twitter feed, if there are 100,000 mail ballots left in Clark County, which is where the bulk of the population is, that's where Las Vegas is, which would make sense, he says, based on turnout there. And if the Dems win that by a two to one margin, which is what they've won it by so far. So if trends continue, then Catherine Cortez Masto could come back to win.

So that is the Democratic incumbent. He then says it's more uphill for Sisolak. That's the Democratic governor, but he's not quite dead yet. Also, we have 16,000 mail-in votes from Washoe County, which is more Republican. So this one, really hard to say what direction it's ultimately going to go in. Laxalt obviously has the lead right now. I'm sure he would love to stop the count. But nobody knows exactly how many mail-in ballots here. Nobody knows if they're going to go for Democrats in the same proportion that they were going for Democrats ultimately. So big, Nevada's the state where they're kind of the biggest question mark. It's going to take a while. I don't think we're going to know Nevada now for a couple of days. Same thing in, I read this last night, which is disgraceful. Maricopa County says we'll have 99% of the ballots counted by Friday.

Come on. You guys had two years to get your act together. Then the voting machines go down in Maricopa. Now you need three days in order to count what's going on. It's like you couldn't cook up a stop-the-steal dream. And I expect Carrie Lake, in her speech last night, she was talking about shenanigans and all that. Unfortunately, we will be grappling with that, I think, in the days to come. However, on the Senate side, which is what we're sticking with right now, let's spend some time on two races which, the red tsunami would have gone in that direction.

Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire. As you said, bad night for Republican pollsters who had her only winning or sorry, only up by one point. Well, mainstream pollsters had her up by one. Republican pollsters had the other dude winning. That's right. They had Bolduc. Well, guess what, guys? She's winning by 10 points with 90 percent of the vote, which is in right now.

Maggie Hassan, 53.9% of the vote. Don Bolduc at 44.2% of the vote with only 59,000 votes that remain outstanding. She absolutely crushed him in New Hampshire. Here's another one. Washington. In the red tsunami scenario, Washington was very much in play. I heard rumors on election morning that Patty Murray was actually pretty worried, not even close. So 56% of the vote that's in because there's a lot

of mail-in ballots that remain to be counted, but she's already been called the winner by the AP. She's crushing Tiffany Smiley 56.9% to 42%, like not even in the realm of possibility. So those are almost as significant to me as the close election wins, just to show you how big the polling misses were in some of these states. Washington, there was not a lot of polling. It was closer than some people thought, but just underscores to us that the Dems so majorly outperformed their polls last night. Well, it does give credence to something else that I was very dismissive of leading up to Election Day, which is this notion of Republicans flooding the zone with partisan, low-quality polls that show outperformance for them and don't match up with reality. Real clear politics, which we use a lot, you know, to just show, OK, neutral, no like Nate Silver fancy analytical model. What are the polls saying right now? They had the Washington Senate race that you just said Patty Murray's like set to win by like 15 points.

They had that as a toss-up. They had the Colorado Senate race where Democrats are winning by like 13 points. They had that as a toss-up. The Maine governor's race where Democrats are set to win by 13 points, they had that as a toss-up. So, you know, this idea that was being spread by a lot of Democratic partisans that these Republican leaning pollsters were skewing the averages and making it so that the

Senate races appeared a lot different and put a lot more states into play than were really in play. It turns out to be accurate in terms of this election and how things ultimately unfolded. The mainstream pollsters were a lot closer to reality in this race, even as, you know, some of the main like the mainstream pollsters in some of these states, they also underestimated the Democrats. This was something that Nate Silver was sort of speculating about beforehand, effectively saying if there is this dynamic of they underestimate the Democrats, which is different from the past election cycles, it'll be because they've kind of internalized like, OK, these polls are overestimating the Democrats. We got to account for that in some of our decision making.

And maybe they go too far in the other direction. I mean, that is one plausible explanation for how they missed in particular in New Hampshire and Pennsylvania were like some of the bigger and I would say the Midwest were some of the bigger messes. Something coming clear to me too in the Senate picture was that, you know, guys, Senate confirms judges. So I think that's also why abortion very likely had a major impact in some of these Senate races. We have to confirm the Supreme Court, right? I mean, that was a major thing. I would say more than that, it's the fact that Republicans were out there floating a national abortion ban. I think you're right. Lindsey Graham did them no favors.

Mike Pence. Mike Pence. I mean, there was a whole slew of them. Blake Masters in his primary. I mean, a lot of mainstream Republicans with power and with potential power out there like, yeah, if we get power, this is what we're doing. And, you know, there was good reason for voters to believe them ultimately, given their track record of continuing to move in that direction. So I do think as we get a couple of days out and do some of the like exit poll analysis and whatever, I do think some

of the regional variation will depend on how much voters really felt like abortion was at risk with their vote this election, which again, I would say in New York, because you have Democratic control of the House and the Senate, there was a sense that you could kind of, like, this wasn't really existential in the state. This wasn't really totally on the ballot. And so they voted for some Republican members of Congress. But in a state like Pennsylvania, where there was a possibility of trifecta Republican control, you know, it was a very, very different scenario ultimately. I think you're right. Yeah. Look, stunning takeaway on the Senate right now, as things stand right now, where you and I are filming this, Democrats have 48 seats,

Republicans have 47. We have several that are still outstanding. However, the probability is, is that Dems could keep the Senate. What would you peg it at percentage wise? I'd give them, what, 60%, something like that? Yeah. I think that's fair. Okay, so you've got three that are still out. Right. Georgia, Nevada, Arizona. Democrats have to win two of those. Yes. So- Which is not a bad bet right now. No, I mean, Arizona looks really pretty likely to go Democrat. So then you're talking about they got to win one out of Nevada and Georgia. If I had to say right now, I'd say they probably win them both. But Nevada is the one, I mean, they're both very uncertain because Georgia goes to runoff. Who knows what the national mood is there? Nevada, we don't know what mail is out. So either one of them could

go either way. But yeah, you would much rather be the Democrats right now in terms of Senate control, in my opinion. Still looks most likely that Republicans are going to get control of the House. But I am shocked that we sit here at 9.08 a.m. the morning after and that that is not totally abundantly clear. Democrats still very much in the hunt on this thing. And based on what's already been called, Democrats have net lost one seat. Republicans have net gained one seat. So they need to gain ultimately three seats in order to take control. It's not a lot, but that's all they need. They need to get to 218. So they you know, a lot is going to depend on what comes out of Nevada. There are, I think, three congressional seats there that are real toss ups. And also what comes out of California, where there are a whole slew of I mean, there's like a million congressional races in California every year.

And so a lot is going to come down to what happens in those two states, which we probably are not going to know for a little while. So remarkable. Just this was one that I felt really common. Of course, Republicans are going to win the House. Of course, it's going to be by pretty handy margin. We both were saying 24 seats they would probably gain, which was kind of the like baseline prediction of what all the odds makers were saying. they are not going to win a net 24 seats. If they win control again, which is in doubt, they are going to do so by a very thin margin, which is absolutely incredible. Pathetic showing for Kevin McCarthy. Kevin McCarthy last night, I had friends who were at his election party. It was all the vibe in there. It was air sucked out of the room. It was the red wedding vibe. He goes on the stage at like 3 a.m. and he's like, it's going to be great. All of this.

He, if he does take the speakership by a margin of three, his life is going to be a living hell. If he even is able to pull it off with that narrow margin. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Thomas Massey, and these Freedom Caucus guys, his life, he will be the most miserable man in Washington. Careful what you wish for. And he, I cannot wait to see it. You already have Thomas Massey being like, hey, I took a real lot of attention about what was happening with Joe Manchin. I think I might do some stuff like that.

Really? I like, you know, Massey, I'm a complicated person. Like very libertarian dude. He's a libertarian guy. But, you know, I like chaos. And that's something he's very willing to do.

Well, he's got a mind of his own and I always appreciate that. You've got Matt Gaetz and Marjorie. They are going to make Kevin's life a living hell. Also, some reports out right now,

it's possible that Kevin McCarthy does not have a mandate and Steve Scalise may knife him in the back and may actually take control. And that was, uh, Fox news was reporting that today, that if Kevin cannot show that he has the ability to take control of the caucus, then Steve Scalise will have to cut a deal with the freedom caucus and he could come in and sweep.

So, and again, that's if the Republicans hold onto that. So correct me if I'm wrong, it's going to take a while for the House because of California. I think so. Because California has a couple seats which are up and down and man, they just take weeks to count votes. We never take notice on the national level because it's California. It's California, it's a done deal. But given that there's so much mail-in vote, they take weeks and weeks to give us the result. We may not know this for quite a long time. It may take a while. And, you know, they had hopes that they would be able to knock out like a Katie Porter. Right.

Those were where Biden won by, you know, more than 10 points. Right. Those were totally off the table. Just to dig into. Well, let me first give you the overall projections from NBC News based on their like forecasting model. They ultimately think that the GOP takes control. Again, remember, you have to get to 218 is control. They project that the GOP is going to get 220.

Democrats, 215. And that projection is plus or minus 10. So really still up in the air. New York Times has it a little bit better for Republicans. They gave Republicans projected a slightly more comfortable margin, but still we're talking about a 10 seed margin, something like that. So house control, the analysis I've seen is Democrats have maybe like a 25% chance of holding onto it, which again, if you told me we'd be sitting here in the morning after and it would be unclear and Democrats would

still be in the hunt, I just would not have believed you that that was going to ultimately be the case. I want to dig into a couple of the more noteworthy results here because there are some that are really interesting. First, I have to say, okay, overall, Democrats, good night. May even hold on to the House, ultimately looking pretty good for the Senate. Sean Patrick Maloney, who is the head of the DCCC. He's the dude who is supposed to be responsible for Democrats keeping the House. He looks likely to lose his seat. And it's like a Biden plus 10 district in New York. Not only that, he pulled all kinds of like nefarious, underhanded shenanigans to jump after the New York redistricting comes out, to jump into this district and Bigfoot Mondaire Jones, who was like a sort of pseudo squad member,

to Bigfoot him and push him out. Mondaire Jones ends up losing in a primary in a different district because Sean Patrick Maloney thought this district would be more comfortable for him to win than the other region on district, which had much more of the turf that he is currently representing. Now, it is still close. They have not called that race. But this morning, Sean Patrick Maloney is down. There is some real karmic justice in the fact that he may lose the seat again in a Biden plus 10 district where, you know, all kinds of Democrats across the country in even some places that Trump won were able to hold onto their seats. Just so utterly pathetic that the sky might go down. And I cannot help but just chuckle about the whole thing. Yeah, he's a little weasel. Yeah. It's

funny. Totally. Did we talk about Boebert yet? Not yet. That's a fun one. That's another one. Listen, guys, there is some karma left in this world. And Lauren Boebert, 49.4. So she's hanging on. It's very tough. Sorry, she's down by one point, but 10% of the vote that is left in there. There is no real projection, even if she does win, to win in a red district of which you were hailed as some next MAGA star and to barely hang on. Look, you give it to Marjorie. She won that seat outright. It wasn't even close.

They called it immediately. She can at least back it up on Boebert. Well, Florida went a different way than the rest of the country. Well, she was in Georgia. Oh, she was in Georgia. I was thinking she was Florida. But anyway, I mean, here's the point. Actually, it makes it even more noteworthy because it's Georgia,

which is effectively blue-ish purple right now. So Marjorie actually won her district. Lauren Boebert is, if she hangs on, it will be by the closest of threads. And will she modify her behavior as a congresswoman? Seriously, it's going to have one of those major look in the mirror times to be like, well, hold on a second here, because this all this like sucking up to Trump and trying to turn into some turning point star and all that turns out the people of Colorado not so happy about that. I mean, this is one where it really is a very clear

referendum on the candidate. Yes, very clear. And the red district election denial, stop the steal, just being like a lunatic on a daily basis. Just like a fake Sarah Palin. Yeah. Give it to Sarah. I think she was actually being herself. Lauren Boebert is just like a carbon copy of her. Sarah Palin was on the ballot last night, too.

That's true. We won't know that one for a while. The last has weird runoff rules. Rank choice. Whatever. But, you know, this is one of those that I looked at and was again like, oh, some of the old laws of political gravity do apply. It's not just all national mood. It's not just all partisan lean.

There is some thinking going on here. And you can cross a line with voters where even people who are typically voting Republican are like, nah. This, you, Lauren Boebert, you are a bridge too far. And I'm going to hold my nose and vote for the Democrat, even though I normally wouldn't. Karma is a beautiful thing, Crystal. There is some of it left in this world. I'll be honest with you. I feel far, not far less, still quite cynical, but you know, I was, I truly believed, I'm like, I think Trump and many of these candidates, I'm like, they could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and they just went. Well, that mantra. That's not true.

That mantra that was synonymous with the Trump era of nothing matters. Right. No longer true. I mean, that's what it felt like last night. It's like, oh, actually, you know, some of the things Biden did matter, the Supreme Court and what they did mattered. Some of the most, like, fringe, craziest, extremist candidates, that mattered. And so, yeah, it was just a very different dynamic than what we've been seeing in the Trump era.

I've got a couple more that I want to go through. So first of all, some of the frontline Democratic candidates were able to get through Alyssa Slotkin. She's Michigan. You know, that was one that Republicans, I mean, really people thought she was like a woman walking. You're right. I thought she was done.

I think that's a district Trump actually won. Yes. That's why she's always like a bellwether woman. She's able to hold on. Again, Dem outperformance in the industrial Midwest, and that shows up there for her. Abigail Spanberger, my district in Virginia, this was one that was also seen as a real bellwether. She's able to beat Yesli Vega. Cuellar down in the Rio Grande Valley, you know, and also Mayra Flores on the Republican side ends up losing.

So we mentioned this earlier, but I think it's worth spending a minute on this. Like the reversion back towards the Democrats in the Rio Grande Valley is another really noteworthy thing about the election results from last night. And it makes the case that Trump was a bit of a singular figure in terms of his appeal there. And, you know, we covered the stories where they were like, dude, man gave me a check and it had his name on it. And that seemed pretty good to me. Correct. These Republicans weren't promising anybody checks. If anything, they were like, we're going to cut your checks that you might be getting through Social Security. It could also be abortion, Kristen.

So, could be. Look, he made abortion a cornerstone of his campaign. It's basically all he ran on along with guns. And I think guns probably hurt him significantly more. But look, there's a lot to be learned about the, not the fickleness of voters, because that sounds like I'm blaming voters. There's a lot to be learned that these people think for themselves. Can't take people for granted. Exactly. You never take people for granted. And that is why I love these election results so much is that voters are telling us we pay attention. I honestly, I was more cynical. I

thought people were more checked out. I thought people were so downtrodden by inflation that they were just going to come and say, screw Joe Biden, screw the Dems. I'm just gonna put my middle finger up to them. Instead, we have one of the most extraordinary results for a sitting president in modern American history. I mean, it is really quite astonishing. When the history books are written, this will be known as one of the biggest turning points in the Biden administration. Yeah, I think that's right. We will reflect very much so on this as a major turning point to something. I don't know what it is. It will impact 2024. It will impact democratic policy. It will impact the GOP for many, many years to come. And it shows us that nothing is ironclad. The realignment is not over. It is not set in stone

whatsoever. It is not a fait accompli. Also the culture war. The culture war is not over. Not even close. Abortion, it's just heating up, folks. When Kentucky, we're about to talk about that. Yeah. With the ballot initiatives and everything. Yeah. I mean, a couple more things to say about the House. I have to point out Summer Lee, who's a progressive, like Bernie-aligned progressive, who won a very fierce primary in a Pittsburgh area district. She was targeted by AIPAC in that primary and basically accused of being, like, anti-Semitic and all of this stuff. That doesn't work. She wins narrowly. Well, Republicans thought they had a chance at her in the general election. And AIPAC went from

in the primary running ads saying she's insufficiently loyal to the Democratic Party. In the general, they team up with the Republican Party and run ads against her again. Part of what happened there is, you know, not just sort of wish casting the gigantic red wave that would even sweep out people like Summer Lee or deter her from victory. But you also had this weird situation where the Republican had the same name as the previous Democratic incumbent in the district. So there was a lot of nervousness that voters were like going to get confused and not know that this was a Republican and think they were voting for the guy that they used to vote for. That did not pan out at all. Summer Lee won comfortably by something like 10 percentage points in her Pittsburgh district. So then again, a little bit of karmic justice for the for the AIPAC folks. Oh, yeah, big time. That's a funny one. Yeah. So look, House takeaway,

we're not going to know for a while. It's way closer than it should be. And that's pretty humiliating for the Republicans. On a macro level, Kevin McCarthy, he's got a massive problem on his hands. I'm going to be, if he does even end up winning the speakership. By the way, with Nancy Pelosi, a lot of questions. She might stay. She gave an interview with Anderson Cooper a couple of days ago where she said that the Paul Pelosi attack could impact her decision to leave early. I don't know if it's true. Do I think that Nancy could really pass up the—

Being speaker again? Being speaker again? No, I think her ego is far too big for that. That would be my inclination as well. Hey, listen. You never know when your loved one goes through a real health trauma situation. Who knows? We'll see.

Let's move on now to the gubernatorial races. Lots to say. And look at this one. The major takeaway, obviously, at the beginning of the night was Ron DeSantis. Total blowout. I mean, 19.4% victory. I also do want to give Florida credit for one thing. They count their votes very quickly.

I don't know what they're doing down there. Can we all replicate that? Possibly Arizona, everybody take notice. Florida has a lot of people. They have a lot of mail-in ballots. They have a lot of old people. They seem to figure it out. So let's figure that out for everybody. Anyway, Ron DeSantis, 59.4% of the vote. Charlie Criss, 40%. Not even close. Humiliating defeat. Charlie Criss has now won three statewide or national lost three elections basically in a row. So one of the worst performing candidates of all time in Florida history. Congratulations for nominating him. I hope we never have to see his likeness again.

Pennsylvania, huge development there. And this honestly might be one of the biggest takeaways of the night. Josh Shapiro, 55.5% of the vote. Wasn't even close. Doug Mastriano, 42.7. 13 point loss for Doug Mastriano there. Honestly, it could have helped Fetterman. Some Shapiro coattails may have bled into Fetterman, although he's a good candidate in his own right. So much to say on Mastriano. Don't be a freak, I think is number one. Don't be a freak. Simple. Simple takeaway. Because it encompasses everything. We can't disaggregate abortion, January 6th, stop the steal, all this other stuff. We should just put it in a box and just be like,

yeah, this guy's a weirdo. And that's, I almost dropped a big F-bomb. And I think that's enough for a lot of people who are like, no, I'm not doing this. And it's noteworthy. Oz almost won. I mean, he came within a point. So clearly there was a ton of split ticket voting, Shapiro-Oz voters. And for that, as a major takeaway for the GOP, you know, this is one where I'm not even going to blame Trump. Although, of course, he is to blame for creating Stop the Steal. The base loved this guy. And this is going to be a big question to me, meta question for the whole night. Marshall said something that's really stuck with me. Republican base doesn't care about electability. They care about loyalty to

Trump. They care about a lot of crazy shit. And there's no evidence that they actually care about winning elections at all. And same, you know, I mean, it's not like the evangelicals have ever cared whether being pro-life is popular or not. They just want to rail it through our legal system. I wonder if this will shift their thinking. I personally don't think so. I think the GOP base loves Trump too much. I think many of them don't actually care that all that much about power,

and they would much rather have the antics, piss off the media, all that stuff. They want to have their fighter. They want to have their fighter, piss off the left and, you know, whatever you could say. Trump, that's his ultimate skill. Do you think this will have any impact on the GOP base going forward after they pick such a massive loser in Pennsylvania? I tend to agree with you. Because I just think that, you know, listen, we're going to talk more about 2024 in a minute, but Trump is going to have his narrative. Right. He's already. Apparently he's fuming, by the way. He's already testing out what direction he's going. I saw him on True Social, like claiming great victory. You know,

I'm sure he'll pick and choose. He'll like, oh, the great J.D. Vance, like always believed in him or whatever, like the places where he wins. Or he may go in the direction of like it was all rigged and, you know, it was wildly unfair and whatever. And whatever he says, like there's a probably majority of the Republican base that will go along with it. Right. So there is a very elite effort right now. Fox News and the Daily Wire folks, you know, Michael Brennan Doherty, like they're going all in on, and they have a very compelling case to make. You got Ron DeSantis down here. He just did it. He won Florida byty, like, they're going all in on, and they have a very compelling case to make. You got Ron DeSantis down here.

He just did it. He won Florida by, what, like, 20 freaking points. And the Trump nominees were gigantic L's across the entire map, like, choose your future for the Republican Party. I just, I don't know if that's right. They're not wrong. Look, MBD is correct. They are correct. Like, Ben Shapiro is correct.

Yeah. There is no evidence that GOP voters care about that. Right. If you're like the future of the Republican Party is the most important thing to me. OK, like they have a very compelling case to make. But, you know, and that also assumes that the facts aren't going to be massaged by Trump and his own media outlets. Very true. In a way that's that's going to be favorable for them. I mean, let me also say, like, about Mastriano, there were a lot of, we had a lot to say about Democrats bolstering candidates like him. Don Bulldog in New Hampshire. Every one of the freaks and weirdos that Democrats backed and who won their primaries on the Republican side.

So, you know, stop the steal, like election deniers that Democrats bolstered. Every one of them lost. You're right. So the gamble, I mean, they were playing with fire, especially with the, you know, fundamentals as they were. The polling environment, the economic environment, presidential environment. They were playing with fire. The gamble paid off for them in a very significant way. So ultimately, you have to say, like,

it was hypocritical. It was maybe not the smartest thing to do, but your bet, it paid off for you. I think you're correct, which is that I hate to say it because I don't want those type of cynical things to work. But every single one of those people lost on the gubernatorial level. And that is going to be a big takeaway for the Democratic Party. Not just on the gubernatorial level. Every single one of the candidates that Democrats on the Republican side that they bolstered, that they basically picked, like, this is the one we want to run against, every one of them lost. Let that one sink in. Okay, on gubernatorial races, let's move to the Midwest because this, in my mind, is incredibly significant and is not getting the analysis that it is due. Gretchen Whitmer blew out Tudor Dixon

last night. 94% of the votes that are in, 53.5 to Tudor Dixon's 44.8. Nearly a 10-point victory in the state of Michigan in what was considered to be a genuine toss-up race. Obviously, Trump won Michigan in 2016. It was considered a purplish state. This is where I think you can't say. This is abortion abortion abortion abortion i can say it a million times because of their constitutional amendment which was on the books because of the vote that was happening in the abortion referendum also because tudor dixon had come out and said i don't know if she said ban outright but she was counting pretty close yeah to even no exceptions of incest or the life of a mother. And look, losing by nine points in

a state that Trump basically won in 2016, nearly tied in 2020, is humiliating. This is also, by the way, this isn't just the Trump-backed candidate, Crystal. This is the Mike Pence-backed candidate. This is the Betsy DeVos-backed candidate. So this shows you it's not just stop the steal, folks, even though she dabbled a little bit with that. These are people who are straight up normie ass Republicans who on the abortion front got clobbered in the Midwest. Whitmer was a major target for Republicans. They really wanted to take her out. You know, in Wisconsin, neighboring state, Tony Evers was actually the underdog coming into Election Day. He also wins and ends up winning pretty comfortably. It looks like it's going to be by about four points. Minnesota also ends up not being close. And so this is one of the things that has to be unpacked is like Dems reclaimed some of that blue wall territory.

You know, this looks more like some of the numbers from before the Trump era. When you're looking at in Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer potentially winning by 10 full you're looking at in Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer potentially winning by 10 full points. And even in Ohio, which is still obviously red state and the governor's level, not even close, but Tim Ryan able to claw back a little bit, some congressional districts that flip that were not expected. And so it's, you know, in Pennsylvania,

Dem overperformance really across the board. So the story of what happened in the Midwest to me is a very interesting, interesting one. The other one that I literally know nothing about this race, but I this is astonishing. Kansas, too close to call with the Democratic incumbent in the lead. Crazy, Crazy. 49.2% to 47.6%. You know, Kansas, famously, they had that abortion referendum. I was going to say, what just happened there?

Overwhelmingly for the pro-choice side. So, you know, that may have something to do with it here. But again, it really goes to that, like, you have to actually appeal to voters. You can't take for granted just because it's a red state that they're going to vote for you. Democrats may hold on to the governor's mansion in Kansas, which is kind of crazy. I absolutely love that takeaway. It is just fantastic. Let's continue. You know, Wisconsin also was one which was very much up in the air, but Evers, pretty decisive win, 51%. They went ahead and called it for him. He beat Tim Michaels.

That's pretty interesting. So in terms of the other gubernatorial results, of course, all eyes on Arizona. There is just simply, it's too close to call. We still only got 69% of the vote in. But I would rather be Kerry Lake right now. Katie Hobbs at 50.3% of the vote, 49.7% for Kerry Lake. It's within 0.5. You've got 800,000 outstanding ballots. Yes, many of them are in Maricopa, but given the fact that many Kerry Lake voters were told to stay in line, it could be that their

votes could be counted later. It's an older state. We don't necessarily know yet how the EV and all of that breaks. So I don't know. Personally, I would probably bet on Carrie Lake to eke it out there. But it's not the blowout that any of us expected. I thought this was a done deal. Not just done. I mean, 10 point. That would have vindicated her as the star, the true heir to Trump, to easily the path to be his VP and then his successor. That is now very much in question.

I want to look up what some of the polls were in that race heading in because, yeah, I mean, the polls really consistently had Carrie Lake as a massive favorite here. I maybe saw one poll that had Katie Hobbs. In fact, I think we covered it. I think it's the Marist poll maybe that had Katie Hobbs that was up by one. But other than that, it really looked like Carrie Lake had this thing like done and dusted. And that is far from the case. I have no idea what's still outstanding in Arizona. And I'm not sure that anyone really fully knows 100% what is still outstanding. Is it in person? Is it mail? They probably have a better sense of where exactly it's going to come from.

But, you know, this one, I think, is going to come down to the wire and we probably won't know for quite a while. But big picture outside of Kerry Lake, which is a question mark, every single gubernatorial candidate who would not say whether they would certify the election results or not, every one of them lost. Yep. Carrie Lake is the only one that's even a question mark. And, you know, you have some unique circumstances there with her like personal charisma versus Katie Hobbs that is, you know, on the other end of the spectrum, ran a poor campaign, wouldn't debate, whatever. So, whatever. So I think that's a pretty dramatic indictment also. Also shows you, if Katie Hobbs had just done a little bit more,

she easily could have win. She may still. She may still win, but I'm saying it could have been, they could have projected it almost outright, or she could be up there with Mark Kelly in those numbers. So Nevada is the last major race here where, again, no way to know. Joe Lombardo has got 50.6% of the vote. Sisolak is at 45.8%. There's still 20%, though, of the votes that remain outstanding. John Ralston, from what he said, says he doesn't necessarily see a path,

but it is still possible there for the Nevada gubernatorial race. I will confess I have not paid that much attention to it. We still don't really know exactly. And of course, on a national level, what we should really pay attention to is the Senate seat there. So final gubernatorial takeaway, I mentioned it before, Brian Kemp, one of the major stars of the night, 53% of the vote, blew out Stacey Abrams, winning by almost seven, decisive victory that they projected very, very early into the night. That's going to be a major question mark for a lot. The major Republican civil war from here on out is, do you go the Youngkin-Kemp-DeSantis way while somehow trying to manage this Trump insanity, or do you just simply bow to Trump? Personally, I think they

have to bow to Trump because he, I think they have to bow to Trump because he is just so likely to win a primary. But this gives a hell of a lot more credence to the DeSantis side, I've got to say. And Kemp himself, the man is a force. He forced Trump to endorse him the hours before the election. He might be one of the only people to stand up, beat Trump on his own terms, get reelecteded his own state, and really force Trump to capitulate to him, not the other way around. I don't think he would run for president, but hey, listen, I mean, anything is possible. He did a good job. Voters rewarded the Republican candidates who kept some independence from Trump. They did not in a general election. Now, it might be a totally different dynamic in a Republican primary,

although we didn't see that play on Georgia with Brian Kemp. I mean, he had a Republican primary challenge that, you know, a lot of people thought David Perdue was going to—we thought David Perdue was ultimately going to beat Brian Kemp because like Youngkin, like Raffensperger, and like DeSantis, who seem to have some independent mind of their own and keep Trump at an arm's length distance and aren't doing like what that congressional candidate did and like mowed Trump's face into the lawn to try to get his endorsement level of like bowing and scraping to him. There is no doubt about the fact that in a general election, voters would much prefer the arm's length distance to Trump. And, you know, none of the people I just mentioned, especially in the general election, none of them like decried Trump. None of them repudiated Trump. None of them did any of that. But just the fact that it seemed like they had a little bit of independence made a big difference for voters, clearly. Now, the question is, you know, can you maintain that?

Youngkin had a very special situation where he didn't really have to go through a Republican primary. He Trump stayed away from Virginia during that gubernatorial election. That's a very different dynamic than if you're actually in a Republican primary going to go head to head with Trump. Then they don't have that option of maintaining your distance and not having like a hard and fast take on this dude. So it gets a lot more complicated, a lot stickier when you're actually head to head. Absolutely correct. I mean, look, I know let's let's insert Kyle's caveat here. The man literally could get indicted. And then, you know, I mean, actually likely will get indicted as to whether he's convicted. That's anybody's guess. Nobody knows. I have no idea how that will play out, but that injects chaos into the system. It could

handicap him. It could make him stronger than ever. I personally think it makes him stronger than ever with the GOP base, not necessarily with the national electorate. But look, that's my major takeaway on the gubernatorial level. I think abortion just crushed the down ballot or the gubernatorial candidates in the Midwest. It is clear as day that Gretchen Whitmer, think about the GOP critique of her on COVID, about how much of a flashpoint that she became. With Wisconsin, the same thing happened over there. And for the two of them, and Michigan in particular, for them to come not only win the gubernatorial race, but to recapture the state legislature for the first time in 20 years at all levels of government, that's a massive repudiation on the abortion front. I agree. But I don't know that the Midwest is special on abortion versus other places in the country where it was also very much on the back.

Right. So then you have to ask, okay, well, why the Dem outperformance in the Midwest? I mean, really consistently from state to state to state. No way to know. And there is no way to know. But I mean, I don't think that Lee Fong's theory here that the fact that, look, Biden's trade policy has actually been pretty good. He's done a lot better vis-a-vis the Midwest just on a like actual policy front

than Barack Obama did. And, you know, does that help to make the Democrats more acceptable again in that region? I don't discount that. I think that is, you know, highly plausible. So there's a lot that we're going to be digging into and seeing the numbers on and who turned down and where did they turn out and where were the biggest shifts. There's a lot to continue to unpack over the coming days. But, you know, the really clear takeaways are Trump and Stop the Steal and Albatross around the neck of the party. Yes. Big question mark over whether the Republican base is going to see that or care or not. And then the other big takeaways, obviously Roe versus Wade was incredibly significant here in terms of, you know, how voters, what voters decided to go to the ballot box and vote on. We wanted to take a little bit of a look at some of the ballot

measures as well, because there were some really interesting ones. Speaking of abortion, every single state where it was on the ballot from California to Kentucky, the pro-choice position on these ballot initiatives, and I think there were five of them, looks set to win. So a clean sweep for abortion rights in states as different as, you know, Montana and Michigan and California and Kentucky, you had a consistent result here. Now, some of these haven't been called yet, so they're still a little bit in doubt. But right now, it looks like every single abortion referendum is going to end on the pro-choice side. That is so insane. Stunning, right? I mean, yeah. Well, look, Michigan, it wasn't close again. And

actually, shocker, very closely mirrors the gubernatorial results, 55-44, almost exactly the margin that Gretchen Whitmer. I think the major one is Kentucky. I mean, they're at 51.4 to 48.6 on removing the right to an abortion from the Kentucky state constitution. So, I mean, that is, look. Very religious, conservative state having lived there. You tell me. You've lived in Kentucky. It's not like it's not a swing state.

Rand Paul won by like 20 points. He was declared the winner the moments after the polls closed. Yeah. To have abortion there, win like this. I mean, look, if I was a GOP strategist, I might ask some questions, but they won't. You're really not going to hear what I'm saying from anyone even tangentially on the right. I'm already taking anyone even tangentially on the right. I'm already taking a sampling of it. They're all in on the candidate quality Trump stuff, which is fine. I

mean, I'm not saying that doesn't matter, but I mean, clearly the unfortunate one, when you're losing in Kentucky and you're losing in Kansas, that's pretty humiliating. Well, remember that New Yorker piece that before election day we dug into that was like the GOP insider case for why they think there's going to be this massive red wave. Yes. And their explanation was basically like, we didn't figure out what to do on the abortion issue. Like, we never came up with an answer. We just rode that out and it diminished in importance. Well, obviously it didn't.

Obviously that theory of the case did not ultimately work out. So they're sort of, even in their rosiest projections, outright admitting, we didn't really figure out how to deal with this issue. And so, you know, when you had people that were out there saying, hey, we're going to do a national abortion ban, you are effectively putting this on the ballot in almost every single state. And I do continue to think that the reason why New York was better for Republicans than other places in the country is because people did not feel that it was at risk. I think you're right. In that state in particular.

I don't really think I could think otherwise, to be honest. That's the only explanation I can really figure out. And Florida, too. Hochul did win. And Republicans thought they had a shot at that governor's mansion in New York. But Lee Zeldin, I mean, he did do a lot better there than Republicans. It's like five points or something like that that he's down. Yeah. So let's go ahead and check that right now for Lee Zeldin, I mean, he did do a lot better there than Republicans have been doing. It's like five points or something like that that he's down. Yeah, so let's go ahead and check that right now for Lee Zeldin.

So New York is one of those where, yeah, 52.8 to Lee Zeldin's 47. So about four. So, I mean, she wins comfortably, but that's not—Chuck Schumer won by 20 points or something like that. I mean, it's like not in doubt at all. All right, a couple more ballot initiatives we have here. Weed was on the ballot in a number of states. Mixed bag here. Arkansas says no to legalizing marijuana.

Maryland says yes. Missouri says yes. And North Dakota and South Dakota say no. So, wins in Maryland and Missouri. Interesting, Missouri. Losses in Arkansas, North Dakota, and South Dakota. So a bit more of a partisan divide there. You had the minimum wage on the ballot in Nevada, that increase in the minimum wage in Nevada. And I think there was another one in Nebraska also. Voters were voting on increasing the minimum wage. Those both won as well. So there

were some, there was one other in Illinois that I found really interesting, which was they were voting to enshrine in the Constitution a ban on passing right to work legislation, which is like anti-union legislation. And so the pro-labor position ultimately passed in Illinois. Now, Illinois is a very democratic state, but that still was one that was interesting to me. I think you're right, Crystal. I mean, it's interesting on the ballot initiative front to look at that. And I think Ryan talked about, what was it, in Colorado, that was also psychedelics. That one came through, and he was saying that that could have had some sort of an impact. On the sports betting one, kind of interesting that California voted against in-person sports betting at casinos and licensed racetracks.

That was one where, if anyone has been following this, sports betting has been on the rise massively across the country in apps, DraftKings, Barstool, all this other stuff. So I don't know why that one stuck out to me. And I was like, huh, that's pretty crazy. Because the other one, which was legalizing online sports betting, also was voted down at like a historic margin. So I don't have a big meta commentary. I'm just saying that's not interesting. Just interesting. I wouldn't have expected that personally. One more ballot initiative for you. Medicaid expansion as part of Obamacare was on the ballot in South Dakota and that passed. And More Perfect Union says that that will extend health care coverage to 42,000 more working class residents of the state of South Dakota.

Obviously, Obamacare used to be totally politically polarized. Now, you know, with time, I guess people have moved on from that particular hard polarization and they saw this as a good thing. And ultimately, you're telling me GOP boomers, even when stripped of the war are like yeah i'll take that i'll take the health care i'll take that health care please go ahead and give it just don't put obama's name on it and i'll take those sweet subsidies all day long you know one one other thing saga i wanted to get your view on is uh leading into this election it the big thing that people were looking at was the economic numbers in terms of the fundamentals and thinking there was going to be a red wave. But another story was crime.

And it doesn't seem like that ended up being a really major determining factor in any of these races. In fact, Daniel Nishanian over at Bolts Magazine, who really tracks a lot of the criminal justice issues, he found that there were a lot of criminal justice reformers, prosecutors and other elected offices who actually won last night. And so the sort of like crime backlash wave doesn't seem to have been a significant factor here as well. You're right. Again, I don't know how to attribute to that one. Again, I would have told you that it probably mattered more than abortion. Clearly, I was completely wrong about that one. So I have, honestly, I think I just don't know. I do not know why it didn't matter, why GOP messaging on it didn't hit in the same way that it did in 2020, whether some of the fights that we have seen that were trending more in the Republican direction on those debates and more didn't materialize. It simply is a

question that I genuinely do not know the answer to. It could be they rid coattails. Maybe it matters in one place and not in another. I thought it would be incredibly impactful in Pennsylvania, given, listen, I know people who live in Philly, and Philly is going down the tubes really quickly. But hey, I mean, he actually won in Christian Marchant. So that's one of those things where how much do they attribute? How much of it is local? That's the other question. Is it going to even matter? Will it matter next year in the district attorney? Maybe. Mayor race? Those are other questions. So he points to one race in particular that's worth noting, I think, just to kind of bolster the point. So in Minneapolis, which of course is the site of George Floyd's murder and lots of riots in the wake of his death. Reformers actually won a big victory there in Minneapolis.

Career public defender who clashed with the outgoing prosecutor for years prevailed in the prosecutor election. She beat a tough on crime opponent by 10 plus points. So even in a place that's been a really hot spot, a lot of conversation about, you know, crime going up in the wake of George Floyd's murder and the police reform conversation, all of that stuff. So even in Minneapolis, actually, reformers were able to score a victory. So this is another thing that is just polar opposite of what really any of us were predicting for Election Day. Nobody knew. Listen, it was a defeat for defund the police in 2020.

Today, I mean, here's the other question. Maybe defund has just kind of been erased from the memory. Maybe things are being talked about more on a certain, again, this is pure speculation. I don't know. I can't tell you why it didn't matter. Again, my major guess is that abortion just mattered a hell of a lot more than a lot of people think. And that just trumped almost everything, even to the point of inflation. Not something I ever would have thought possible, and yet seems eminently exactly what happened last night.

All right, so lastly. Okay, 2024. What does all of this mean for 2024, which is now upon us? We have Donald Trump set to announce next week. We have Ron DeSantis hanging out there in Florida, looking very good after last night. We have Joe Biden on the Democratic side, Next week, we have Ron DeSantis hanging out there in Florida looking very good after last night. We have Joe Biden on the Democratic side looking very, way stronger than he was looking before last night. Why don't we start with Biden?

So as said already, Biden, this most extraordinary performance for a sitting president in modern American history for a midterm, especially facing the political wins that he did at this point, basically, regardless of what happens, given the whole meta narrative. I think easily he now has shored up his position as the presumptive Democratic nominee. If he's alive, it's happening. As people in Pennsylvania just showed us, they don't care if you can speak or not, whether you're going to represent them, they will actually vote for you, even at a larger margin. His approval rating was not a drag on the party, so he can show definitively that. He also, and I think this is very much to his credit, if I'm him, I'm singing about abortion until the cows come home all the way until 2024. The same thing, why we need to, let's say they keep the Senate and not the House. They're like, well, we got to

take back the House. We'll actually do it, guys, if you actually give us a vote. So that's something they can continue. If anything, it's probably to their benefit if they don't keep the House for that purpose. So I think Joe Biden has shored up his position. And if you were to ask me today, him versus Trump, I think it's very clear where things stand right now for the Clippers who are out there. If the election were today, it is clear to me that Joe Biden would probably win reelection, which I would not in the position. 48 hours ago, I would have told you that Trump is going to clean up and he would easily be president in 2024. So a stunning victory for Joe Biden in almost every sense of the word. I really, thinking in the terms of history,

major turning point for him. Major. I completely agree. And I mean, most critically, he has really shored up his position as the next nominee. I mean, it's easy to instantly memory hole this stuff. But you had major party figures who were saying openly, we need to move on from this guy during their primaries. I mean, even leading up to the vote. Tim Ryan in Ohio said, we need a generational change. We need to move on from Joe Biden. You ain't going to hear that anymore. The Pete Buttigiegs, the Gavin Newsoms, all those people in the world, they're going to close up shop until after the Biden era.

Because, yeah, I think the big thing that he always delivered, brought to the table for the Democratic base that they were convinced of is this is the electable guy. And if we want to bulwark against Trump and Trumpism and the Republican Party, listen, we may have issues, we may be getting up there in years, but this guy could actually beat Trump. That was the case that they bought into in 2020. There was a real risk for him that if he took an Obama level shellacking in the midterms, that case no longer holds up. And then it might be off to the races. Very different picture. But since he again delivers the goods electorally, you know, best performance for party in power since, you know, the rally around the flag in 2002. That's shocking. Really just, I mean, it is shocking, especially, especially given the bad economy, the right

track record, all of those things going against him and you turn in this performance. Yeah, he's in great shape with the Democratic base and he's in very strong shape for real election. I'll tell you this, if the Fed stops cutting rates and we see a booming stock market and the job market stays where it is in 2023. And let's say that he can get a negotiated settlement in Ukraine and gas goes down by 50 cents a gallon, he's cruising to re-election. There's no question about it. Especially with abortion. A lot of gifts there. A lot can happen. By the way, put the counter on that. Let's say Ukraine goes to shit and gas goes up to five, the bottom drops out on the unemployment rate and it goes to 10 as Larry, what's his name?

Oh my God, I'm- Larry Summers. Larry Summers wants it to go to, well then, yeah, we're talking about a totally different story. That is a very different deal. I don't know. It could go all the way.

There's a lot of variance in our politics right now. Right now, in that scenario, I could easily see a scenario where he actually does win. So now let's move on to Trump. Horrific night for Donald Trump. His candidates all massively underperformed. But beyond his actual picks, the actual, the true weakness of Stop the Steal was really revealed. Yes. Doug Mastriano, as I said, he was picked by the base people. Trump didn't endorse him until the last minute. And that's the shit that Trump unleashed. Carrie Lake barely coming across. Blake Masters also having to kiss Trump's ass in order to win. J.D. only winning by six points. I mean, look,

the case for J.D. was he was the guy who could win Ohio by 14 points. Trump won Ohio by eight points. And then when you consider Herschel Walker, his candidates, New Hampshire, Bulldog, right? All those people, all of the election deniers losing in every gubernatorial race, all the stop the Steelers losing, the National Democrats backed, that's a massive repudiation of the issue that matters most to Trump, most to the GOP base, but least to the overall national electorate. I think that's very important. For Trump's own personal strength, this is a moment of immense crisis for him. In my opinion, he has to announce as soon as humanly possible, even though it is humiliating to have the losses. And it is because he cannot

allow speculation of the Ron DeSantis's and the Brian Kemp's all over the world. He needs to cut it in his tracks. I'm talking, I don't want this to happen. I'm telling you, this is what he should do in his own self-interest.

Announce tomorrow. Blame it on Mitch McConnell. Make up some fake reason. He can always blame Stop the Steal on Arizona and all of that. Shore up the GOP base. Force Ron DeSantis to try and challenge him.

DeSantis would have to make a negative case against Trump. And again, that negative case, in my opinion, is just simply not one which is going to land with the GOP base. I don't see any evidence they care about electability. I think they love the fun. They love the ride. They love the tweets. They love pissing off the media. DeSantis simply does not have that in his repertoire. He's good at it, but he's not as good at it as Trump. So to me, the DeSantis dream, while it exists for GOP elites

who really care about power, about getting stuff done, will never be able to reconcile with Trump. And this is the other thing about Trump. He wouldn't even concede the 2020 election. If he, you know, in some world where, let's say DeSantis beats him in a narrow primary, which I don't even think is possible. You think he's just not going to run or he's not going to tell his people not to come home? Like, this is the gamble with Trump. That's true. If he's not at the top, it's chaos. He'll try and screw you over.

He will light the whole thing on fire. Of course. He was celebrating the Republican loss in Colorado last night. He doesn't care. He does not give a fuck. He only cares about himself. So the Donald albatross is around their neck. Honestly, it's like the Chinese finger trap thing or whatever. There's no way out. You're in. It is nearly impossible to untangle yourself

from that situation. And finally, let me talk about DeSantis. DeSantis has a great case to make amongst the GOP elites on electability. Again, I don't see that case being translated to the base. And I don't want to take away from this. Being one of the most popular governors in the United States while being one national polarizing figure and winning a formerly a state that you barely won by 0.5% of the vote in 24 years, later winning it by 20 points. That is astounding. In a non-Trump environment, you are the presumptive Republican nominee, and I think he would give Joe Biden a run for his money. But I don't see a path to him for that possibility

outside of Trump literally dying or Trump bowing out, neither of which, I mean, Trump looks healthier to me. I don't know about you. He looks like he lost weight, to be honest. Yeah, actually, he does. Being out of the White House Trump looks healthier to me. I don't know about you. He looks like he lost weight, to be honest. Yeah, actually, he does. Being out of the White House, probably healthier for him. I mean, I co-sign everything you just said there. I will say I feel a little less confident in that case

than I did before these election results. That DeSantis doesn't have a shot in a primary against Trump. Because, I mean, it is very compelling. Like, you look at the story of last night, you're like, there was one state where Republicans basically did well. It's Florida. Every one of the Trump candidates was basically a total dog. The direction of the party under him was, you know, it wasn't just the individual candidates. That's why you have these, you know, losses at the House level, a possibility of Democratic pickup, is it wasn't just the individual candidates. It really has put a stench on the entire party. That's as clear as it could possibly be, right? So, I mean, DeSantis

comes out of this with the strongest hand he possibly could have come out of last night's election results. Now, ultimately, I agree with you that I think, you know, those aren't the things ultimately that the base is really concerned about. Those aren't the determining factors of, okay, I'm going to, you know, analyze this is better for the future of the Republican Party and you're more electable against Joe Biden or whatever. So I agree with you that I still think it's an uphill climb for DeSantis, even though he really did have the best possible night that he could have had. Now, OK, Trump's going to announce very soon. I think there is a rallying around him. He'll have his narrative. I think blaming Mitch McConnell is probably a very savvy thing. Exactly. Savvy way for him to ultimately go. He already hates

him. He's already trashing him publicly. So he can do that. Blame all the losses on McConnell. Cherry pick like, ah, J.D. Vance or Carrie Lake or whoever the few. Put J.D. up there on the stage and be like, look, this guy wouldn't be here without me and the two of us. All of this. It was a great night for Donald Trump. I mean, listen, I've seen the guy in action before. Again, I interviewed him right after 2018 when he got his ass kicked in the House. Reality is no barrier for him. Exactly.

I mean, he creates his own universe and he creates his own reality. And for the people that are existing in that universe, like I see no sign that they're ready to break out of the Trump created reality. He's going to get indicted very likely. I think it's more likely than not. You agree with that? I think that's only going to be good for him ultimately with the Republican base again. Now, the general election, totally different deal. I think he is incredibly unpopular. I saw the exit polls from last night had his unfavorable rating at like 63 percent, you know, way worse than where Joe Biden is. I mean, this man is not someone that

the American people by and large want. That doesn't mean that it's not what the Republican base wants next time around. Now, I admit, Kyle and I have been having this fight. If he does end up actually in prison, it does get a little bit more complicated. But even in that scenario, I don't totally put it out of the realm of possibility that he wins for the Republican nomination and sit in a freaking prison cell. I totally agree. I think they're all in with Trump. I think they love Trump. His favorability is an all-time high with all of them. It's about his general election appeal and all of that. But, you know, at this point, I've prognosticated on Trump every which way. I'm going to be—I don't know. Right.

Do not know. People can surprise you. What I do know is that this complicates the picture, especially at an elite level. That being said, I watched many people ditch him during Access Hollywood. The ones who stuck with him, you know, ultimately they were proven correct. I think he's going to see this as a major test of loyalty. I think, actually, you know what's interesting to me is a lot of GOP commentators are in some real trouble here. So if you have, and I'm just talking at a media level, if you've cultivated a full Stop the Ste steal audience and you have election results like this, that's a tough one to square about the Donald being the greatest figure in American politics and then being historically

repudiated on a national level. I'm sure the cope will come at some point, but yeah, that's going to be a fun one, I think, to watch that happen. Yeah, very, very true. I mean, if you are, like, clearly Republican elites want to be done with this guy. They see very clearly this is a disaster for them and for their ambitions of power. Like there's just no doubt about it at this point.

What could you do to dislodge him from the party at this point? There's nothing. I mean, look, they didn't impeach him. Honestly, there's nothing. I don't think it's possible. You're in.

And that's just how it's going to go. I don't think it's possible. You're in. And that's just how it's going to go. I continue to think they maybe had a moment right after January 6th. Right. If Mitch McConnell had gone in hard and you really had a circling of the wagons and you really had a concerted, coordinated effort, like, we got to cut this guy out like a cancer right now. Maybe then you could have done it because that was such a shock to the body politic. But I continue to think when they missed that little moment and that little opening, they're in very difficult position now to be able to pull back from where they've allowed the party to go. Right, yeah. No, I think it's a big takeaway. It'll be fun to watch it all play out.

Yes. Final just thing from us, Crystal. I, again, just want to say thank you all so much to the premium subs who enabled all of this to be possible. We're talking this morning about upgrades to the studio, about different ways that we can gear up for 2024. If you believe in our mission, if you like what we're all about, the easiest thing that you can do to help us out,

we've got the 10% off right now annual subscription for going, let's say 48 hours. Let's cap it at 48 hours. The link is in the description of this video. It's in the chat. Lifetime members as well. You guys were the ones who backed us in the beginning. And for the ones who have been coming in in the last several hours and others, you guys are the ones who are enabling that we can truly build something impressive for the 2024 election.

Because what I'm watching here is that clearly the whole country is up for grabs. It's going to take a lot for all of us together to try and figure it all out. So I'm very thankful to be here with you, to have CounterPoints, to have Marshall and Kyle on deck, to have this amazing studio, to have our crew. You enable everything for us. So I can't thank you enough from the bottom of our hearts. And if you can't help us out, link is down in the description.

It's right there. I mean, guys, we've been gearing up for the midterms. I feel really good about what we were able to do last night. And the response seemed to be really positive in terms of what you guys thought of the stream. And now we got to gear up for 2024 because it is on. And I sort of feel like we were starting to wrap our heads around some new rules of the game in the Trump era. And now just flip the board over, totally got to go back to the drawing board of what's going on in our politics,

what it's going to look like, what matters, what doesn't, how voters vote, who they're voting for, what are the coalition, I mean, everything really is kind of up for grabs at this point. And it creates a level of uncertainty that is extraordinary. Last night was an extraordinarily strange election with patchwork results, regional results, race by race, state by state, ticket splitters. I mean, ticket splitters aren't supposed to be

a thing anymore in this hard partisan environment. They're here. They're alive. You know, yeah, right. You got like massive ticket splitting in Georgia, massive ticket splitting in Pennsylvania, in Ohio, state by state by state, huge significance of people who are voting Dem on this one and voting Republican on that one. So it truly is going to be an extraordinary period. And I couldn't be more excited to have the privilege of doing it here with Sagar, with you guys. You guys have enabled it all and made it possible. We are endlessly grateful for that. So thank you. We love you guys. Oh, Ryan and Emily will be here tomorrow? And on Friday. And on Friday. BP and CP every single day of this week. Again, thanks to all of you. It is very expensive

in order to do this. And thank you all so much again. All right, I think it's time for us to take off. We will have clips of everything that we just did here on the channel for the rest of the day. For those of you who are watching, just, you know, I guess technically in our own interest, you should rewatch them. But you don't have to if you stuck with us here through.

If you missed at the top, we will be posting all of that. Everything will be available on the podcast feed. We'll go ahead and post our election audio from last night. It was five hours and 40 minutes, guys. Wow. Which. Totally insane. We'll post that as a podcast in its own right. And then this audio, we'll go ahead and publish it right after we're done here in the studio. We love you all and we'll see you next time. We got a lot of things to get into. We're going to gush about the random stuff we can't stop thinking about. I am high key going to lose my mind over all things Cowboy Carter.

I know. Girl, the way she about to yank my bank account. Correct. And one thing I really love about this is that she's celebrating her daughter. Oh, I know. Listen to High Key on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The voices and the perspectives that matter 24-7. Because our stories deserve to be heard. Listen to the BIN News This Hour podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What up, y'all?

This your main man Memphis Bleak right here, host of Rock Solid Podcast. June is Black Music Month, so what better way to celebrate than listening to my exclusive conversation with my bro, Ja Rule. The one thing that can't stop you or take away from you is knowledge. So whatever I went through while I was down in prison for two years, through that process, learn. Learn from me. Check out this exclusive episode with Ja Rule on Rock Solid. Open your free iHeartRadio app, search Rock Solid, and listen now. This is an iHeart Podcast.