On with Kara Swisher - Frank Luntz, Rick Wilson and Sarah Longwell on Donald Trump and the Midterms

Episode Date: October 27, 2022

Election Day is less than two weeks away, and Republicans are poised for some major midterm gains. So today, Kara talks to three Republican strategists about midterm predictions and the effect that Donald Trump is having on these elections. Our guests are veteran pollster Frank Luntz, Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson, and Bulwark publisher Sarah Longwell. All three are long-time Republican operatives who believe that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy and to the party but they disagree on whether and how the party can move beyond MAGA and the Big Lie.  Before the interview, Kara and Nayeema talk about what Rishi Sunak’s rise to prime minister means for the UK and Nick Clegg: the Meta executive who will decide if Donald Trump’s stays banned from Facebook beyond January 2023. Plus, Kara shares her unsolicited advice for more civil, less cruel, political discourse.  Do you want Kara’s (solicited) advice? Send us your questions! Call 1-888-KARA-PLZ and leave a message.  You can find Kara and Nayeema on Twitter @karaswisher and @nayeema. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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growing with Constant Contact today. Ready, set, grow. Go to ConstantContact.ca and start your free trial today. Go to ConstantContact.ca for your free trial. ConstantContact.ca. Support for this show comes from Grammarly. 88% of the work week is spent communicating, ConstantContact.ca resonate with your audience, helps with brainstorming, and lets you instantly create and revise drafts in just one click. Join the 70,000 teams and 30 million people who use Grammarly to move work forward. Go to grammarly.com slash enterprise to learn more. Grammarly, enterprise AI. I'm Naeem Araza. Today may feel like the McLaughlin Group because we have a panel of conservatives for you, Kara. Yeah, it's the old conservatives. It's not the new conservatives that we didn't invite Marjorie Taylor Greene or anyone else. And in fact, they don't even have Buchanan conservatives. They're sort of your basic conservative that have been around forever.

This is the old style, which are now anti-Trumpist. Yeah, our guests are Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark, Rick Wilson of The Lincoln Project, and Frank Luntz of, well, Frank Luntz fame. It got a little testy with them. Yes, it did. That Frank Luntz is always testy. Speaking of testy, you got a little testy this week on Face the Nation about Elon. I was surprised, Cara, because I have been haranguing you for some time about Elon's Ukraine polls, Starlink threats, and back and forth with the former Russian president Medvedev. And you said it didn't matter. But then over the weekend, this happened. I still don't think it's an issue. I think it's irritating. But go ahead. Let's play the tape. Are adversaries using business icons to further their foreign policy? Why, yes, that's happened before. I don't know if you've heard about President Donald Trump. I mean, people have talked about that. So, yeah, I think Elon's doing this on his own. But he's, you know, a lot of people in Silicon Valley are also mouthing the same thing.

There's sort of a certain class of tech bros that are into this idea. But you still think this transition. Well, they have no foreign policy experience, so they have no business doing this. But that doesn't stop them, which is about everything. There are excerpts on everything, because they're the richest people in the world, in case you didn't know. I think it's slightly dangerous. I don't know. Cara, you changed your tune. Slightly. Slightly. I didn't change that much. I think it's not good, but I don't think it matters because they're not making policy. How did you go from it doesn't matter, no impact, to slightly dangerous? So there is a change. Slightly.

Slightly. No, it's not. It's not. No, it's not. I don't care that they're doing it. I find it untoward and irresponsible. But I don't think it actually has an impact. No. No, I don't. Slightly dangerous. Well, I guess. Have you heard from Elon? I know the answer to this. He's not happy with Carrie. He was going to come on the show, but I think not now. He didn't like a tweet of mine, which he misread, but that's okay. Whatever. Well, he's busy with the Twitter deal, but maybe he'll come after it closes. Maybe. Who knows?

Who knows? Friday, right? Yes, indeed. It's happening on Friday. And allegedly, you know, you never know with Elon Musk, but he definitely has to do it or else he's going back to court. I think he doesn't want to do that. And he seems to be making indications he's buying it all with banking information, you know, being released and all kinds of stuff. So he's buying this company. He is indeed.

And the Twitter employees, they are threatening to protest. They don't work there. I don't know what to say. They're not, these are jobs aren't charity. They can work there or not. They have choices, although less and less choices. There's a lot of layoffs around Silicon Valley, Microsoft, Google, everybody's cutting back. All right, well, let's move on to our newsmakers this week, which speaking of foreign policy, have a British bend to them. Yes, that would be new UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. And Facebook, I mean, met us top executives, Nick Clegg. He also was former Deputy Prime Minister of Britain before he took this gig. So he's also very political. Let's start with Prime Minister Sunak. He's the country's third prime minister in two months. Yeah, it seems like, you know, there's all these jokes about the cat at 10 Downing Street outlasting. It's really, the turnover is really quite something and very, I think, disturbing to Britain. Although we talked to John Friedland on a Twitter spaces and he said that the British sort of take it with a stiff upper lip, even though that's sort of a trope about Britain.

And they had a brief flirtation with Boris Johnson coming back. I think that was just Boris Johnson's flirtation. But this guy, very different. Yeah, he's got a very different profile than Boris. He's conservative, sure, but he's actually young. He's 42, and he's the first South Asian to be prime minister, the first Hindu to be prime minister. So it's quite a momentous moment for England. Yeah, but underneath all that, he's a Goldman.

He's the first Goldman Sachs banker. Someone tweeted. It's a great moment. Yeah, that was the diversity thing. Yeah, yeah. You know, he's a Goldman Sachs banker. He's married to someone who's an heir to a huge fortune. I noticed people are dragging Rishi Sunak for being elite.

And there are certainly some gaffes. Like I saw he was, there was one piece about him pumping petrol into a red Kia that didn't belong to him and then struggling to use contactless payment. I'm like, I actually find it frustrating because, honestly, every British prime minister has been elite for the most part. I mean, Winston Churchill was an aristocrat. He was a Herovian. Boris Johnson wasn't struggling. He was a Newtonian. You know, Rishi Sunak, he went to Winchester, was a Wikimist in British public school boy talk. But no one has said this about any of the white prime ministers. I know he's extremely wealthy.

It's a different level of wealth. He's the richest prime minister in history. He really is. But anyone who thought that the British prime ministers were like people of the people is really kind of out of it. They're not paying attention. But richer than the king is kind of a new high, I have to say. He's rich. He's richy rich. Yeah, richy rich. I don't know. In London, what are they talking about?

Yeah, I lived in London for a long time. And I think it's an interesting moment. Look, you have Sadiq Khan, who's a Muslim as the mayor of London, which was once Boris's old job, right? Now a Hindu, South Asian as prime minister. So I think it's a bit of a Barack Obama moment there. And not just there, but all across the world, people in India, people in Africa have been excited, but also I think conflicted because it's a little bit like Italian premier Giorgia Meloni. It's a woman, so you feel it's progress, but it also is someone who's quite right-wing or quite conservative. So it's perplexing for anyone who wants to call themselves a progressive. So they're kind of torn between this. And yeah, but I do think his background is good for the moment. Look, the Tories have been in power for 12 years. It's so crazy. It's so long. It is. There probably should be an election. I mean, at this point, they're holding on to power

just because of the technicalities. They have a parliamentary majority. They have the right to run. They lose right now. All the polls, they lose badly. It would be a sweep for Labour. And they're just not going to have elections because of that. The numbers are really bad. And they're hoping he can establish some economic stability. You know, we talk about inflation here, but the inflation in Britain is huge.

He's going to have to do a lot to convince people he's not, you know, a Prada-wearing. There's nothing wrong with wearing Prada, Cara. Okay. All right. As long as you care. As long as you care. Okay. All right. As long as you care. As long as you care. Okay. All right.

He should wear Burberry. There you go. Be more on brand. I don't have any idea what you're talking about. Okay. One day we're going to give you a makeover. It's going to be like Rachel Lee Cook and she's all that. We're 100% not.

We're 100% not. All right. Let's move on to our second newsmaker, Nick Clegg, the former British Deputy Prime Minister and the Lib Dem party leader who left British politics for an even more noisy shop, which was Facebook and Meta. He's really moved into the Sheryl Sandberg position. They're putting him out there for everything. So he's not just a PR mouthpiece. And he's also, you know, he's much better than any of them. We've tried to get him on the show, by the way, but he won't show up. He keeps putting us off. But he did show up at the Council on Foreign Relations last week.

And yeah, you were watching virtually. I was in the room and it was heated. People, the room was not very amenable to Nick Clegg or to Meta, really. David Kirkpatrick, who had that very famous interview with Mark saying there was no foreign involvement on the platform, asked a question. He got angry. I didn't really ask a question. He should have. He sort of missed the opportunity there. And then you asked him a question. You're very polite. Yes, I'm always polite, Cara. But a month ago, Nick had said that he would be the one making

the decision as to whether Trump's two-year ban from Facebook, which is set to expire in January 2023, will be continued. He, of course, has said that he'll consult with Mark Zuckerberg and other executives on making that decision. But I was curious, and my question for him was, what are the principles and processes that you're using to make this determination of whether Trump comes back to the platform? Here's just a part of Nick's answer. I totally understand for people who are fervent opponents of Donald Trump, it's very natural to say he should never be able to appear on social media again. At the end of the day, you know, at the end of the day, whether, you know, Donald Trump succeeds in politics or not is a democratic question, which will be determined in the ballot box. And we are

also mindful of our role as a private sector company, not to overstep the mark in what are in the end intensely political questions. This is kind of bullshit. You know, it's an editorial company. And this is what they do. It's not our responsibility. It is their responsibility. It is their platform. And then he also did the people are fervent opponents. What a word of Donald Trump. He broke the rules of the Facebook platform and other people have been knocked off for good. They are very nervous to do this and they should just say it. Like, I don't know. I just feel like putting it off onto voters or whatever is not really their role. So if he lost, they throw him off. I don't know. It would seem the same principles if he lost or won. That's my feeling.

And he also said that, you know, the decision is not permanent. If he does come back on, it's not like he gets a free-for-all. He's got to respect the platforms. But if Trump becomes a political candidate, you think they should still keep Trump off the platform, Kara? and rather significantly. He incited violence, and that's that. I don't know. I don't know. I just feel like whatever, they can rethink it, give forgiveness. Are we going to give Kanye West forgiveness? Probably, maybe someday.

I don't know. I just feel like he broke the rules, and other people have suffered at lots of social media platforms. So you just have to say what you're doing. I didn't agree with it, or we're going to bend the rules for this guy, which they did for years, and they did the same thing for Alex Jones. They like, this guy's good at talking around the topic, which is we're going to give him a pass that other people don't get. But, you know, whatever. Just own it. Own what

you're doing. That's all I say. And I think he hasn't made the decision yet. He did say they were paying attention to the January 6th inquiry and other inquiries and that the decision will be made in January. But he is going to make the decision. Nick Clegg is the man making the decision. Is that, look, Mark punted the initial decision on Trump's ban to the oversight board. The oversight board sent it right back to, which is this group of independent advisors to Facebook. They sent it right back to Facebook.

So why isn't Mark making this decision? Well, that's a good question. That's an excellent question because he's busy doing the metaverse legs. I don't know. It's just ridiculous. He's the CEO. I mean, the whole thing is just, look, and the other part is like, are they going to take into account the

things he's saying on true social? It's sort of like he broke the rules rather significantly. He shouldn't be able to come back on. Sorry. I'm just, they have to suck up to it, but they're not going to. Yeah. Mark should be focused maybe on the midterms instead of the metaverse. They have to do some reports around foreign election interference. Jazz hands. I call it jazz hands. Look over here. They can do whatever they want, but they should do whatever they want because they're a company that can make determinations. And to fob it off on the voter is really ridiculous. I'm sorry. Let's take a break. And when we come back, we're going to chat about elections and voters. Yes.

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Need to hire? You need Indeed. Okay, Kara, it's our first on panel. We did this a fair bit in our old time show and we like them because, well, tell people why we like them. Because it's on the news, and it's interesting. I think to hear different viewpoints and to have a substantive discussion is great. You know, we watch cable, and they have two seconds to say what they want to say, a lot of these experts. And I really want to sort of draw it out in a lot of different things and sort of debate issues with more length.

And so I think they're very helpful to have a lot of people weigh in. And today what we really wanted to unpack was the elections and the Republican momentum, which what did Elise Stefanik call it, the red tsunami? Oh, they got to stop with this. You know, I don't like any of them. I don't like them blue, red or whatever. Look, it's going to be a really interesting election. I don't think it's a tsunami. I think it's good. Probably they'll do well, the Republicans, but not as well as they would have. There's big stakes here that Republicans only need to gain five seats to flip the House.

There are 35 Senate seats up for grabs. Unclear if Democrats can hold on to that majority. And then, of course, there's 36 governor races and the states are particularly important in the 2024 elections. Yeah, states, attorney generals, too. There's a lot of election deniers out there, which is why we wanted to talk to three Republicans, though none of them were MAGA variety who have denied the election. Our guests were Rick Wilson, Republican pollster and co-founder of the Lincoln Project, a group of Republican strategists working to defeat Donald Trump and Trumpism. Sarah Longwell, Republican strategist and publisher of The Bulwark, which is kind of a never-Trumper site, but not always.

And Frank Luntz, the Republican pollster who I've interviewed before, who certainly has a long history with Republican candidates. Yeah, I think he even briefly advised Trump, actually, back in 2019, though no longer. Your last interview with him was a good conversation, though we got some heat from folks who said we didn't push back on Luntz enough. I get it. There's no forgiveness in this world

anymore. There's only cruelty and dunking. And so I think it's really important to hear what he has to say, because I think some of the things he said were absolutely true. So I really wanted to start with the stakes in the election. Yeah. And we wanted to end with the predictions of what would happen in this election. So let's listen. So let's start. I want to first I want to start with a quick round where each of you can tell me succinctly what's at stake in this election. Frank, let's start with you. It's the ability of Republicans to have a voice and a vote in the legislation and in policies over the next two years if they can capture at least one House of Congress. And secondly, it's the setup for 2024 and whether or not the Republican Party will be a credible opposition, loyal opposition to Joe Biden, or whether it will tear itself apart. Rick?

I think what is at stake right now is whether or not you're going to end up between the moment of January 2023 and the election of 2024 with a series of impeachments, Benghazi-style investigations, show trials, general insanity, and watching the majority now of the House caucus, at least, be completely in that space of MAGA insanity. The election deniers, conspiracy theories, QAnoners. And I think they're rising as the dominant force in the party. And if they take back the House, I think you're going to see that on display almost every day to the great detriment of our democracy. Sarah? I mean, the people who are elected in 2022 are going to be the people who are certifying elections in 2024. And so you've got a number of governors and secretary of state races in which the Republican

candidate both denied the outcome of the 2020 election is committed to not potentially certifying the 2024 outcome if they don't like it. And also, I mean, there's a lot at stake for Trump in this election, because if his handpicked candidates, many of whom are quite weak candidates, emerge victorious, that is going to help him a great deal. If many of them go down in flames in an environment in which they should win, that is going to weaken him going into 2024. Although he does seem like mold a little bit, he never leaves. He seems to have a very strong ability to continue. So you think it's a referendum on Trump? I don't think it's a referendum on Trump. I just

think it impacts him, right? Like, I think that there is an open question right now on the extent to which Donald Trump controls the Republican Party and which power in the party emanates from him and people who try to imitate him. And so I think it will matter if he has gone around and dragged through primaries, people like Kerry Lake and Blake Masters and J.D. Vance and, you know, Tim Michaels and a bunch of imitators. And if a bunch of those people lose winnable races, I think that that has an impact on how people talk about him going forward. All right. Each of you has vocally opposed Donald Trump, but doesn't seem to be the way the party's base is leaning. And we're talking about a smaller group of people,

but still a strong base. Frank, what light can you shed on the dynamics of your own party right now? Well, I think the critics, and I'm going to step on toes right now, I think the critics of Donald Trump don't do it effectively. Instead of screaming at him or screaming about him, which automatically turns off people who might possibly consider taking an opposing point of view to the former president. It's better to show him at his honest worst. It's better to allow him to speak and let people come to their own conclusions about why he's wrong, about why he is dangerous. about why he is dangerous. And instead, it seems like it's one rant against another.

It's one temper tantrum against another. And I've not been willing to engage in that because I don't find it helpful. I don't find it actually changes the perspective of the people that we're trying to reach. All right. That's essentially talking about you, Rick, the screamer, at the Lincoln Project, which has done some very interesting ads. But the question is, does it preach to the converted in that way? I think that's a nicer way of putting it. Well, I think it's important to understand what we do at the Lincoln Project. There's a lot of

misapprehensions about it. We have an iceberg. And a lot of the stuff you see and that we talk about that's on Twitter, these viral ads at the peak of the iceberg that are fun and flashy and that troll Trump, they're not what you see out in the states or out in the districts or on our digital targeting portfolio where we go after what we call the Bannon line voters, which Steve Bannon came out and said, you know, if they take 3% of the Republicans away, Trump can't win. And we said, hold my beer. A lot of those things are not the flashy viral things that we do. Those things generate a lot of public impression. But I will say this to my friend Frank. Look, I never bring a knife to a gunfight, and I don't bring a soft pillow to a gunfight. When Donald Trump and the movement around him has become this oppositional defiant disorder to every norm and institution. And when they get to a point where they say, it's okay that we attack the Capitol, I'm not trying to get those people back. People ask me a lot, like, how are you going to win the MAGAs over? I'm like, I'm not, we're never going to. That's going to either collapse or they're going to take over the country. And I think it's important to remember that there is a cultural currency inside that movement

that is about never letting people like us back in the room. It's about breaking everything. So, Sarah, how do you look at that? Because you've been vocal about it. You do a lot of focus groups. Is that something you're seeing in the focus groups? Yeah, look, I think when it comes to voters, Trump voters, I use this expression, the appetite increases while you're eating. Republican voters, Trump voters, they want this

combative style of politics. And I think that it's important to understand. I think sometimes people think that it's the recessive gene is kind of the MAGA gene, but it's not now. It's the dominant gene. There's a reason that Donald Trump, with the exception of Georgia, basically got who he wanted in all of these primaries. It's because he does own the base and the base now is quite large. That doesn't mean that there's not an available audience for persuasion that can be peeled off. And that is there, especially if Democrats, I think, pivot a little bit into a space that creates an opening to attract those voters, which I think is part of the problem is there's not been enough sort of outreach to that group to pull them over. But you got to understand the Republican Party now,

in a lot of ways, is a rejection of Bush-era foreign policy and a rejection of Ryan Romney fiscal policy. Like, those things are rejected. The three-legged stool that defined National Review conservatism, that stuff is more or less gone for the majority of the party. But you're not going to save the Republican Party by killing people. You're not going to That stuff is more or less gone for the majority of the party. But you're not going to save the Republican Party by killing people. You're not going to save the Republican Party. I'll use Rick's analogy. No, bring a gun to a gunfight and everyone dies.

And we are destroying the democracy. I want to be clear here. The negativity and the viciousness and the personalization of these campaigns, and I don't hold my colleagues here responsible, but they're participating in it. We are destroying the fabric of democracy. We make it impossible for people to talk to each other. We make it impossible for people to agree to disagree. And you got to tone it down, or you may win the election. By the way, you actually may win the election and you may get rich from it, but you're destroying the democracy in the process. All right. Well, let me push that because a lot of people said, well, Frank,

you kind of perfected that very early on. Has it just gotten out of control? Or is it something you're like, wait a minute, this is not the way I thought it would go? The contract was not this. Neither is the commitment. My claim to fame is a contract with America and that was about being for something, proposing something, being focused on policy, not on personality.

Politics has become so bastardized since then because it's really easy to do. Rick, you do some of the best advertising of any human being. You know how to wreck their reputation. And we can't keep doing that because then it makes the country ungovernable. Kara, you want to focus on election 22. I want to focus on 2023 and where we are after this election is over. My God, we are screwed up and we're just making it worse. Yeah, but Frank, I think-

All right, one of you, response. Rick first and then Sarah. Look, when we come into January of 2023, it's almost certain that the most influential member of the House of Representatives, the most powerful person in that organization, will not be Kevin McCarthy. It will be Marjorie Taylor Greene because she will have the keys to the kingdom of the MAGA caucus. She will set the agenda. We're not talking about the days where you and I, you know, we could have disagreements about, you know, whether the

Scalise plan or the Ryan plan was better. This is now nihilism and danger and a group of people who will drag this country into pure chaos for the next two and a half years until the next election. And look, I'm a center-right conservative to this day. For all the critiques from the MAGAs that, oh, Rick Wilson's a liberal now, I'm not. I'm a center-right conservative. There's no home for me. There's nowhere for me to go right now. All those things we claimed we believed in as Republicans, those are gone now. And I just worry that we're trying to paint the house while it's on fire in some ways. Because I don't think this iteration of the Republican Party, I don't think it can be saved until we're in a post-Trump era. Yeah, but you're trying to burn it down.

Susan Collins is one of the great United States senators. You may disagree with a vote or two, but she worked with Democrats. She worked across the aisle, and your organization tried in the most negative way possible to wreck her. And thank God the people of Maine saw otherwise. So I'm just going to jump in here and say, number one, I am not here to referee this particular fight i'm not defending or getting into this question of like lincoln project or not but i don't understand from frank this is not a podcast about the lincoln project it's a it's a we're talking about the 2022 election and we're talking about what's going on with

the republican party and i guess my question is, like, what do you, like, yes, Susan Collins is good, but is the Republican Party not running out of its ranks? Any Republican who refuses to acknowledge the results of the 2020 election and that Joe Biden is the legitimate president? I am watching every Republican I've ever admired get publicly defenestrated by this MAGA movement. They are all running in 2022 on a lie. Even I am watching people like Glenn Youngkin, people like Ron DeSantis, people that I admired and rooted for in many ways, go and actually campaign for Doug Mastriano, who was at January 6th. They are campaigning with Kerry Lake, who was one of the great election deniers of this cycle, one of the most dangerous people. And where

are they out there speaking up against all these secretary of states who are running, who are saying that elections were stolen, they won't certify them, like that the anti-Semitism, the party is is rotting. And so I do think that that is the that is the thing that we have to grapple with, is what do you do in this moment? If you look with clear eye at what the Republican Party has become, what do you do in this moment? The challenge I have is, for a great degree, you're right, both of you. I just don't believe destroying the Republican Party is the way to go. of you. I just don't believe destroying the Republican Party is the way to go. I'm actually agreeing with your evaluation, both of you, about where things are. I would like to rebuild rather than destroy. I would like to be for something rather than against it. I think the commitment

is a great example of focusing on policy rather than focusing on personality. I'm only disagreeing, but I am vehemently on the process of adding more negativity, more divisiveness, and more ugliness into politics. We can't stand it anymore. We can't take it anymore. You've said, Frank, in the past, and I would love you each to think about this, that the wave of distrust started to creep up in 2020 with people who would not support ballot election results. And you said you regret not speaking up at the time. Talk about what you have to do to ring that alarm if you're talking about what to do to fix it. I'm being on podcasts like this.

I've been doing it on Fox. You have to be willing to speak truth to power, but you have to have an alternative. I'll give you an example. Ranked choice voting. Open primaries, instant runoffs, nonpartisan redistricting. These are all specific reforms that would make a difference, a meaningful, measurable difference in the way that our elections operate. So instead of just doing negative ads, I'm actually trying to promote policies and specific reforms that'll make a difference. Response, Rick? I wish there was a way, and look, in terms of those reforms,

Frank, I think particularly nonpartisan redistricting would reset the electoral chemistry in the country in the most profound possible way. I'm 100% in support of it. I am 100% in support of it. But I think you are still, and I mean this with respect, brother, I think you still think that these folks are the same people we used to know. And Susan Collins is like a unicorn being ridden by a golden leprechaun now. She's a rarity. There aren't people like that. They're just not out there. The people that are coming in, as Sarah pointed out, are going to be the Carrie Lakes and the Mark Finchams and the J.D. Vances and these folks who are so far out on the rim. They say, we're going to own the libs. We're going to close the border. We're going to ship them all home. We're going to tell people how they can live and who they can marry. We're going to go back, you know, we're going to go way back in time. And what you want is meritorious, but the audience for what to persuade is disappearing rapidly if it hasn't disappeared already.

Okay. But despite what you're describing, Republicans are gaining momentum. Back in August, Democrats were cautiously optimistic about their prospects. Now the momentum seems to be gone. What explains the delta? Is it the economy, latency on the abortion issue? Sarah, why don't you start? Because this would be, you know, an opportunity for Democrats to explain what they're for, including, you know, rights for women's bodily autonomy, etc. Yeah, look, I mean, a lot of this, this political gravity has always been hanging over this election. And I think if you told Democrats, actually, like 10 months ago, because when I was doing

focus group 10 months ago, I was just saying to Democrats, like, you guys are about to just get destroyed. Like the enthusiasm gap was unbelievable. Like you would talk to Republicans and you'd be like, OK, how are you thinking about the midterms? And they're like, can't wait to vote. Who do you want to vote for? Any living, breathing Republican.

Like this last election was stolen. I'm ready to get out there. You talk to Democrats. Hey, how you feeling? They'd be like, everything's bad. Joe Biden's too progressive. Joe Biden's too moderate. Nothing's getting done. I hate everything, meh. And so I was like, boy, these guys are in big trouble. And I think part of what happened is, is that in that, after the Dobbs decision, it helped close that enthusiasm gap. But it also created this sense among Democrats like, oh, we can reverse everything about the fundamentals and like overcome it. But if you told them 10 months ago, like, actually, yeah, maybe you're going to like lose a Senate seat or two. And like, maybe you're going to hold it under 20 in the House,

and you'll win a mixed bag of the governorships and stuff. Democrats might have thought that was a pretty good outcome, like compared to what they in terms of what they're facing. And I think that's probably what we're looking at right now. All right, Frank? I think that every time Donald Trump raises his head, Republicans lose 10,000, 15,000 votes among swing voters. Every time the focus is on Donald Trump, Republicans are losing. If the focus is on Joe Biden, Republicans are winning. If the focus is on abortion and Roe v. Wade and all the mess around that, if that's the focus, Democrats are adding votes because the public is on the side of some sort of legalized, limited abortion rights. And if the focus is on the economy and affordability and prices and inflation, then Republicans

are racking it up. Donald Trump messed up what would have been an amazing Republican year. Absolutely. Now the Republicans will do okay, but they're not going to do great. And that flip over the last three weeks is because the shift went away from Trump and went back to Joe Biden. Rick?

I think Frank and Sarah both make excellent points here. If you had mapped this out in the beginning of the year, you could have seen a 1994 or a 2010. You're not going to see that this year. It is going to be tighter than they thought. But Frank's exactly right. If Donald Trump had not intervened in the Senate races and you had David McCormick in Pennsylvania and you had David Perdue in Georgia and you had Jane Timken in Ohio, Mitch McConnell will be looking at a four or five seat majority and he wouldn't have to sweat every day about it. And he wouldn't have to, you know, watch the rear view mirror every day. Um, but right now, as Sarah said, they're going to end up with a mixed bag. They're going to, you're going to

hold a couple of these seats. They didn't think they'd hold. Um, I, there's a lot of static and noise in the polling right now, obviously, and a lot of, of, of uncertainty, uh, given how close things are in a few States. Um, Georgia is one that I've got my eye on because there's an illusion Georgia is a purple state. It is still a red state with a very delicious purple center in that donut of counties around Atlanta. I think if you had not had Trump intervening in all those Republican primaries, both for governor and U.S. Senate, it would have been a very different map and a much harder challenge. And it would have looked a lot more generically Republican, at least on paper. And so he's the gift that keeps on giving. So they could have done better, in other words, you're saying. So the House is currently

220 Democrats versus 212. Three seats are vacant. I want to hear each of you on your prediction of what the split will be in 2023. And I want to hear what you think the most critical House races are, if you had to pick one. Frank, let's start with you. Wow. I don't think it's been determined yet. I can't see the Republicans gaining less than 15 seats. I don't see them's been determined yet. I can't see the Republicans gaining less than 15 seats.

I don't see them gaining more than 25. I think it will be a clear victory. I don't think it'll be a landslide. I know that my predictions are more conservative than other Republican strategists. But I don't think that they've done enough to nationalize the election on the issues that matter and that too many candidates got pulled into this Trump abortion vortex that will hurt them. In terms of the most indicative, New York 17, 18, 19, these are Democratic suburban areas outside New York City. If they go Republican, if even one of those seats goes Republican,

it's indicative of a success. If two of those seats go Republican, I think it's a trend, a significant trend. And the other place I would look for is the Texas, New Mexico, Arizona border districts, because the vote that I'm watching more than any other is the Hispanic, the Latino vote. The vote that I'm watching more than any other is the Hispanic, the Latino vote. Back in 2020, 38% voted Republican. In 2016, only 28% voted Republican. I think that Republicans will get 45%. And that is a historic demographic change that will have huge implications for 2024. All right, Rick?

Yeah, I think Frank's right about the Hispanic vote is something I'm watching incredibly carefully and intensely because there is a degree to which second generation Hispanic Americans are not, the Democrats are still talking to them about race and not about economics and the contemporary needs that American families face. And I think that is a, it is a failing, a structural failing. Look, I think the Republicans will probably gain between

15 and 18. I think Frank's right. I'm watching the fact that the head of the DCCC is right now in deep political water. Max Rose on Staten Island is in some deep water in a seat he formerly held. And look, Republicans have structural advantages in a lot of these, you know, just from pure redistricting. So there are fewer and fewer swing seats for us to pay attention to. There are more in the Democratic side of the equation. I'm watching Katie Porter right now. That seat is getting a little dodgy as well. So there are a lot of places where these very MAGA candidates are beating their chest pretty hard. But there are also a lot of less MAGA candidates in some of those Democratic swing seats who are trying to run under the water a little bit. Katie Porter, that's interesting.

Sarah? So back in 2018, there was a class of Democrats that got swept in that were really pretty great. You got Alyssa Slotkin, you got Abigail Spanberger, you got Tom Malinowski. And like a lot of those people are really tough races. Those are all Liz Cheney's new best friends. That's right. That's right. And these are these people should and could be the future of the Democratic Party. And I think take the Democratic Party to a to a better place. But I'm really worried about a number of them, you know, getting knocked out in this cycle. And so the races that I'm really watching are like Abigail Spanberger should be the future of the Democratic Party.

They should make her a star. But she is in a really tough race because of the redistricting. And she doesn't it's only like half of her old district is still there. So a lot of these Democrats have had to reintroduce themselves to a new district, and that's tough for them. So that's what I'm watching. Do you have any numbers? I'd go in the same band as these guys. I mean, somewhere between 15 and 20. Right.

So Frank said 15 to 25 seats. Rick, you said 13 to 18 seats. And Sarah, you said 15 to 20. So you're saying Republicans will win the House? And if you don't like that, you might want to come out and vote. Your business is ready for launch. But what's the most important thing to do before those doors open? Is it getting more social media followers?

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that make it easy to get home projects done. Out. Beige on beige on beige. In. Knowing what to do, when to do it, and who to hire. Start caring for your home with confidence. Download Thumbtack today. Let's move on to the Senate. I want to zoom in on two key races, Democratic John Fetterman versus Republican Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania. A new CNN poll has Fetterman with a six-point lead. I just interviewed John Fetterman and found him cognitively just fine, but I'm not a doctor.

But that has hit those allegations of being incompetent. And let me just disclose, I had a stroke and I have the same issues and I'm just fine now. So let's talk about that. Let's start with you, Frank, with Fetterman and Oz. Well, let me disclose, I, too, went through this two and a half years ago. And you can hear it. If we were recording this podcast after 7 p.m., my words start to slur together. My brain works just fine, but I don't articulate it as well. I believe both Pennsylvania and Georgia, until I'm shown otherwise, are narrowly in the Democratic camp.

And here's my fear. And I know this is not what you're asking, but I'm going to bring it up right now. I'm afraid the Republicans will not accept the election results. And let me emphasize Pennsylvania because I know how they count votes. When the ballots, when the election stops at 8 p.m., they count first the machine votes. And the Republicans are going to take a tremendous lead, just as they did back two years ago. So you're going to have Oz start off with a tremendous lead. And I believe the same thing will happen in Georgia. And then as they count the early vote, you'll see the Democrats catch up.

I don't know in the end. I'm not willing to say that both seats are definitely in the Democratic camp, but they do have the advantage. Cara, if we will do a disservice to democracy if we don't highlight over the next two weeks what is likely to happen in Pennsylvania, because that's going to be ground zero of election deniability, and we need to call it right now. One of the things that's important to know is, and Frank's exactly right, the same sort of red illusion that we saw in 2020. And Republicans showing up on election day and Democrats voting

early has become this inversion. It used to be the other way around in states like Florida, at least. And and I think you're going to see that that is going to it's going to lead to a very tense election night in the in the close races. All right, Sarah, take on Democratic Raphael Warnock versus Republican Herschel Walker. Oh, man, I had this whole I held that I had my whole Oz Fetterman. I had my whole Oz Fetterman thing set up. Can I just, can I just disagree with these guys, actually, though, really quickly on something? I am, I am too, I'm very afraid of the election denialism, but I actually think that we're, in Nevada, where I think it's going to be close,

in Arizona, where you've got Kerry Lake, who's like ground zero for election denialism. One of the things that stood out to me about the Oz and McCormick race is that Trump was trying to tell Oz to say things were stolen. And Oz didn't. He did resist that. I'm not, there's nothing, I got nothing good to say about Oz, but he did resist that. And I think Josh Shapiro, in the governor's race there, is actually going to trounce Doug Mastriano, who's the big election denier, who was at January 6th. And so I'm not as worried about it in that state. And actually, Georgia, they'll move to Georgia now, is one of the best states in terms of pro-democracy Republicans. You got Brad Raffensperger as the Secretary of State there. You got Brian Kemp, both of whom who certified the 2020 election over Donald Trump's

specific objections, including going to Raffensperger and being like, hey, can you find me 11,000 votes? And so I think those are the two states where actually the election denialism is at a lower risk than in a bunch of the other states where it is absolutely like if Carrie Lake loses, she will never concede. Like we are in a crazy thing. But just on. But she will be having a very nice talk show someday if she does. She will. But on Warnock, on Warnock, Walker, I agree with Frank. I think that the Democrats hold both these seats. The problem is, is that in Georgia, it will very

likely go to a runoff. And I think then you have to game out the question of whether or not it helps or hurts Warnock to not have Kemp on the ballot anymore. Right. So Kemp is obviously, I think, going to help drive a lot of turnout. But the problem is if that seat is determinative, if it hangs, if the Senate majority hangs in the balance of Georgia and it is in a runoff, Mitch McConnell will spend all the money that exists in the world to win that seat. Absolutely. And I think that runoffs in Georgia become their low turnout, highly volatile exercises. And I think Kemp off the ballot does make it a real crapshoot in a runoff. Frank, why don't you take this one?

Arizona Democratic Katie Hobbs is in a tight fight against Republican Carrie Lake. She was ahead for a while. The Trump-backed candidate, who we can't seem to look away from, I've tried. Lake is up by one point. Are you surprised the race is tight as it is, Frank? Carrie Lake is a great candidate. She may have serious flaws, but she's incredibly professional. People listen to her. If they hear everything she stands for, I think she would turn a whole lot of people off.

But you know what? That Simon and Garfunkel song is actually true. A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. That is, that's kind of what's going on in Arizona right now. Anybody else with Lake? She is a very good candidate. I say that to people and they get angry at me. Well, because she's a crazy person, but a good politician. And the fact is, like, when I do focus groups in Arizona, one of the things you hear people say is like, oh, yeah, I grew up on Cary Lake. She's been in my living room. Like, she wasn't just on TV. She was a newscaster. She's in a high trust position giving people information for a long time. And she has that code switching ability, right? She talks normie to normies. She talks crazy to crazies. And she does it well. But I think we should say just a word about Hobbs,

which is that Carrie Lake wants this job real bad. And she's showing everybody. She's alpha-ing for this job. You cannot hide from that. Carrie Lake gives you all kinds of material to work with. Go on offense against her. Take her on. But for some reason, the Hobbs strategy has been to like shrink back, right? She skipped their debate. She skipped their debate. You got to debate. I think Hobbs has been, you know, either they were afraid that Carrie Lake was going to outperform her in the debate, arguably true, or that she was going to get dragged down into some crazy matrix and have to talk about QAnon stuff, arguably also true. But it's inexcusable. Hobbes has bought this problem for herself. And look, there's a real open question. Is Carrie Lake faking the craziness or faking the normality? Which one?

Now, I think she's faking the normal side, but we'll see. She is incredibly ambitious. I spoke to a guy who was a former, used to be close to the guy, Republican fundraiser the day. And he said, you know, I had my eye on DeSantis, but man, Carrie Lake is just really impressing the crap out of me. I'm like, how are you a billionaire? Yeah, you know who hopes that Carrie Lake loses? Ron DeSantis hopes that Carrie Lake loses. Oh, yeah. Yeah. She's definitely more appealing. Mm-hmm. All right, Frank, you earlier talked about Trump's impact on these elections, speaking of which. You seem to say it's not helpful. Do his legal woes, which seem to mount by the week, help or hurt the Republicans?

They hurt the Republicans because it allows Trump to play the victim. Yeah. Trump to play the victim. It allows him to get attention and focus, and it diverts attention from the economic woes of the country. Right now, it's not just Trump voters that are struggling. The fact is, if you can't afford your groceries, and 46% can't, you can't afford your gas, you can't afford your electricity, which is small now, but it's going to be huge 30 days from now. You can't afford your insurance. You can't afford your house. You can't afford your car. You can't afford all these things.

And instead, we're debating about whether Donald Trump's house should have been raided in Mar-a-Lago. go. His legal woes are great for him in a Republican primary because they turn him into a massive victim and they turn Joe Biden into a massive perpetrator. But in a general election, it is a disaster. And the Republicans, and I'll name it, I believe that Republicans will drop two Senate seats because of Donald Trump's mishegas. Yeah. And I don't know if I need to explain that to you. Antics. Okay.

Toxic antics. And on the House side, it's worth six or eight House seats. That's how much Donald Trump is damaging the Republican Party. So, Rick, Mitch McConnell has kind of asserted himself weakly as a force against Trump and Trump the election denial candidates. Ish. One, should he be doing ish? Right, ish. Should he be doing more? Mitch McConnell has kind of asserted himself weakly as a force against Trump and Trump election denial candidates. Ish. One, should he be doing ish, right, ish. Should he be doing more?

And secondly, the super PAC aligned with him, the Senate Leadership Fund. It has been very active, but it's pulled its ads out of, say, New Hampshire, put lots of money into Pennsylvania, a lot of money into Ohio. Talk about McConnell's influence here. Well, look, Mitch McConnell set out to lay out a Senate map this year that would have led him to probably a four or five seat majority. And he got shut out everywhere. He got skunked everywhere, which is why they've made a few late plays into places like Colorado and even Washington State, which I think are long ball plays. But he's really trying to shake the board again at the close. But the candidates that Trump essentially stuck him with have been a boat anchor on him the entire time. I don't think, look, in some ways McConnell is a creature of

the politics of the 2000s. And it's like, oh, the Senate Leadership Fund is going to go in and spend 5,000 gross rating points of TV and a cloud of dust and hope it works. That stuff is increasingly less effective in moving significant numbers of people. And to go way inside the NRSC, Senator Rick Scott really hurt McConnell this year by blowing basically $125 million of the NRSC's money on God knows what. You'd think that it's unusual being the largest Medicare fraud guy in history, but Rick Scott has never been a fiscal superstar. So they've had a lot of problems this year, and McConnell has had this overhang of Trump the entire time. All right. Final question, prediction and pivot. You've already said the House will go to the Republicans, but will the

Senate swing Republicans, speaking of which? And what can change the outcomes here? It's basically the get out the vote question, basically. But Frank, you go first. I always have to go first. I feel all that pressure. I'm changing my prediction. I thought the Democrats would end with a 51-49 Senate. I now actually think it's going to be 50-50. I think the Republicans are going to gain in Nevada. I still believe that Wisconsin stays Republican. I believe that Pennsylvania switches.

I don't think New Hampshire in the end is in play. And I've been looking at this race by race. But I think there'll be one surprise on the Democratic side. So I'm guessing a 50-50 Senate and what changes the outcome. I think it's all in the cards now. The only thing that could change the outcome is if Donald Trump were to do what he was considering doing, which is announcing the Friday before the election. I don't know if this has been reported.

I do know this was the case. Trump was actively reaching out to people, asking them and telling them that he was going to announce for president on the Friday before the election. I believe he's been talked out of that by a whole lot of people. Yeah, good idea. But that would have changed the outcome in favor of the Democrats. Yeah, no, no, not him. He's back kind of thing.

All right, Sarah's second, and Rick, you get the last word. So I completely, I totally agree with Frank. That's exactly what I got on my board. I think it holds. Maybe I'd go pick up one, but I think Cortez Masto is the one that flips. Frank didn't talk about Arizona. I think that Kelly holds onto that one and that that creates zero-zero. If Dems were going to pick up one, it's because I'm betting on Ohio and that being the big upset. Here's the one thing that I would say. I was somebody who was never certain that the abortion

issue was the game changer that people said it was. And the reason was is that in all the focus groups I've done, it has never stopped. When you ask people what issues they care about, they say inflation. They say crime. They say the economy. They've never stopped. However, when it comes to vote choice, there are a lot of people in the focus groups who will have never mentioned abortion. But the second you say, OK, who you want to do, Kelly or Masters?

And they'll say, oh, I'm absolutely not voting for Blake Masters. He's insane on abortion. And so I, even though I've been skeptical the whole time, I do still wonder if there's not lurking in there a correction in turnout from women and men who are on the younger side who are upset about this decision, that it maybe didn't peak too early. People are just sitting on it. And so I think that if the turnout is different than people expect, it could be a better night for Democrats than they're banking on right now. Yeah. My mother in Pennsylvania, that's the thing. She mentioned it out of the blue. It was interesting. Anyway, Rick, your last one. First off, I want to mention something that Sarah just said. I think there is some unmapped impact on the Dobbs stuff that we don't quite

have a handle on yet. Some of it's in this registration change up and registration increase with women. Some of it, and the data is right now very noisy still. We are seeing a higher percentage of women for early turnout, early voting in some places. We'll see if that bears out. I think we need to be watching for a big October surprise. And since I'm a cheerful ray of sunshine, I'm worried that Vladimir Putin's going to do something incredibly stupid in Ukraine or some other foreign policy challenge or China. I don't know if we're ready for that as a country. I don't know what it's going to do to the election, but I think that's,

I'm looking for a big externality that's going to shift the chemistry. That would be a big externality that changes the chemistry. What would that do if he did something? Because he seems to do something stupid pretty much every day of the week. You know what, Cara?

I'm not smart enough to figure that out yet because war does strange things to polling and to voting. It does, but I'm sure Elon Musk to figure that out yet because war does strange things to polling and to voting. It does. But I'm sure Elon Musk can solve it for us. I'm sure he's got it well in hand. Yeah, I've got it well in hand. All right.

Thank you so much for all of you. This was really interesting and full of really great insights. Frank, I think you're right. We have to stop screaming. I think everyone in the middle is exhausted. And I think more people are in the middle. And the constant dunk is exhausting from a political point of view. But we can't keep bitching about it. We actually have to vote for it. And we have to advocate because the current system is broken, just as is Washington. And it won't change with our conversations. It'll change

with the elected officials doing something about it. And it'll change depending on who wins. I mean, look, I think that one of the solutions for the Republicans, I'm not trying to destroy the Republican Party, but I do think that sustained electoral defeats for this version of the Republican Party is the only way that it reforms itself. Letting, or making arguments that like let Carrie Lake and a bunch of these election deniers win and where there's no referendum on the coup plotters, I think is actually quite bad for democracy and for the Republican Party long term. Pain is the only teacher. Pain is the only teacher. Oh my God.

Okay. All right. Well, I hope you a lot of pain then. lot of pain then. Wow, do me for the global economy on Monday and do me for Democrats today, Kara. Yeah, I mean, we'll see what happens in the election. I think we don't quite know where voters are. Obviously, the economy, as they noted, is the number one thing. Abortion seems to be lower down, but you never know. You don't, there might be, as Sarah said, a very secret group of people who are sort of just pissed off about the Dobbs decision. We'll see. It was clear that Frank and Rick were very divided in what the right approach should be to save democracy. And when you said to Frank that you agreed we have to stop screaming, was that an indictment of the Lincoln Project, Cara? No, I know.

He just has, you know, all these Republican people have beefs with each other just the way the Democrats do. No, I just think some of it's very clever and some of it's very funny, and I've certainly enjoyed a lot of it. But ultimately, you have to persuade people. You have to get them on your side, not via dunking. I think it's, politics has gotten so cruel and opportunistic that you really do have to persuade people via policy and ideas. I just, I firmly believe in that, although it's a very noisy environment. And you have people like Marjorie Taylor Greene who scream more, getting a lot of attention. And I think that's... Who are successful, Donald Trump. Yes, same thing.

And I think Frank is right. I think at some point, people have to put their arms down at some point. I don't know if they will. Or everybody has to do something different because it's an orchestra. So everybody plays a different instrument. And the instrument that Rick and the Lincoln Project are playing is noisy. And the instrument that Frank is pushing forward is more maybe quieter. I mean, no one's ever called Frank Lund's quiet, but maybe it's more of a process and platform. And everybody's doing a different thing, which probably will serve everybody in the long term for their shared objective. Sarah Longwell's point about Dr. Oz was interesting,

that he stopped short of election denying. And then Tuesday night in the debate with John Fetterman, Oz took a second to endorse Donald Trump's candidacy. First, he said he'd endorse any Republican. Then he said, of course, I'm going to endorse Donald Trump for president. Do you think that Oz is more reasonable, as Sarah pointed out? No, I don't. I think he's opportunistic and cruel. So he'll say whatever it takes to get in office, I think. Maybe it's just a low bar. Yeah. Have you voted yet, Cara? I have not. I will on the day. I like going to the voting booth. I like early voting. I'm an early voter. Well, my advice to you is to vote, Cara. Do you have any advice for anybody today? It's our Ask Cara segment. No, I think I will spin off of Frank. And I know he was one of the first people who did

a lot of really serious aggression in the Republican Party, but he is correct. It was different. But I think one of the things we have to think about is how cruel do we want to get in our political discussion? It's exhausting. It's meant to be exhausting. Discord is the point. Chaos is the point, just like some recent articles about people flooding election bureaus to make them do work that they never care about. Chaos is the point, and anger is the point. And of course, you know, I have to address the Fetterman thing last night. He didn't do well. He did not. He was under pressure. He was stressed. That said, I still stick to it. He was fine with us. He's very cognitively cogent. And I literally got like inundated by right wing people because

they are opportunistic and cruel. So I really would wonder, you know, this is a guy recovering from a stroke. He's not going to have good days. And what's really hard is, you know, even people I happen to like really were like, well, that was awkward. Of course it's awkward. I hope they never have a stroke. I hope, I'm glad they weren't around when I had one because I was exactly the same way. And so it's really depressing to watch that.

And people that saw me really depressing to watch that. And I, people that saw me then are still saying that. And so I think we've become really cruel to people. He had a bad night. He definitely did. But I've had many bad nights and I don't wish a stroke on anyone, but sometimes you might want to walk a mile in someone else's shoes. Do you think it's fair for voters to ask the question? Absolutely. A hundred percent. A hundred percent%. I absolutely do. But there are two senators who have recently had strokes. There are several senators who are clearly cognitively challenged on both sides of the aisle. There are people who are overweight and possibly a heart attack victim. When do we stop?

I just, the whole thing is just so disappointing on so many levels. Today's show was produced by Naeem Araza, Blake Nishik, Christian Castro-Rossell, and Rafaela Seaworth. Special thanks to Andrea Lopez Cruzado. Rick Kwan engineered this episode. Our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, you get an A. If not, it's really not hard to get that A too. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Kara Swisher and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Monday with more.