Tangle - Who will win the Senate?

Episode Date: August 23, 2022

It's a toss-up. We'll look at some of the competitions. Plus, a question about the term "pro-life."You can read today's podcast here.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and produced by Trevor Eichhorn. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, the place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we're going to be talking about the U.S. Senate, some of the controversy, I guess you could say, and conversation happening around who is going to take control of the Senate in the 2022 midterms. Obviously, the midterm primary season is just about wrapping up.

So we have a pretty good idea of who is in the races that matter and what the kind of dynamics of those races are. So we figured this would be a good time to give it a look. As always, before we do, we'll start off with some quick hits. First up, Florida, New York, and Oklahoma hold their primary elections today. Number two, former President Trump filed a lawsuit to request a third party review the documents seized by the FBI at his Mar-a-Lago residence. More than 300 classified documents were taken from his home. Number three, Pfizer and BioNTech are asking the FDA to approve a bivalin COVID-19 vaccine for the original strain and the Omicron subvariants.

Number four, Jared Kushner, the son of former President Trump, released his memoir about his time in the White House today. Number five, a federal judge sentenced a Florida businessman to five years in prison for trying to defraud the father of Representative Matt Gaetz, the Republican from Florida. but it is 2022 which means the midterm election is this year here in north carolina all so will democrats defy political gravity and hold on to the senate this november there's 35 senate races that are on the ballot this fall but really there's probably nine or ten that you need to look at roughly divided between democratic control and Republican control. Currently, the U.S. Senate is divided at 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats. Senators Bernie Sanders from Vermont and Angus King from Maine are both independents, but caucus with Democrats. Vice President Kamala Harris serves

as the tie-breaking vote, giving Democrats the slimmest possible majority. Heading into the final stretch before the November general elections, the Senate is now considered a toss-up. There are 10 competitive Senate seats up for grabs in 2022. Here are the states with Cook Political Report's rating for each race. Pennsylvania, lean Democrat. Wisconsin, toss-up. Florida, lean Republican. North Carolina, lean Republican. Ohio, lean Republican. Colorado, lean Democrat. New Hampshire, lean Democrat. Arizona, toss-up. Georgia, toss-up. And Nevada, toss-up. According to FiveThirtyEight, a news organization that averages polling results from dozens of outlets, Democrats are currently slightly favored to win the Senate. In a simulation of 40,000

elections, FiveThirtyEight finds that Democrats win 63 out of 100 of those elections. In late July, that same simulation found Democrats winning just 50 out of 100 times. Cook Political Report recently set the stage like this. If you had asked us before primaries began in earnest in May, we put the odds that Republicans would flip the Senate at more than 60%, with a gain of as many as four seats possible. Right now, we see the range between Democrats picking up one seat and Republicans gaining three. However, the most probable may be a net change of zero or a GOP pickup of only one or two. Cook Political also made three ratings changes. Pennsylvania went from a toss-up to lean Democrat.

Colorado went from likely Democrat to lean Democrat. Utah went from solid Republican to likely Republican. One key storyline of the Senate races is the impact of Trump-endorsed candidates. In Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Nevada, three Trump-endorsed candidates prevailed in their primaries but have been criticized by establishment Republicans as lacking the kind of broad appeal to win-swing state races. On Monday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Republican from Kentucky, gave his own party a 50-50 chance of taking control of the Senate in November. A few days before, McConnell made waves when he downplayed expectations that Republicans would recapture the Senate in November, citing, quote, candidate quality as the primary issue.

I think there's probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate, McConnell said. Senate races are just different. Their statewide candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome. Obviously, control of the Senate is critical for leveraging power in Washington, D.C. As the upper chamber in Congress, the Senate gets a final say on legislation and controls the appointment of federal judges across the country. If Democrats were to lose control of the House or Senate, their remaining legislative agenda would almost certainly be stonewalled. In a moment, you'll hear from the left and the right on where things stand in the left is saying. The left is enthusiastic about the changing political winds.

Many say that extreme Trump-endorsed Senate candidates should cost Republicans. Some argue that there are already realorsed Senate candidates should cost Republicans. Some argue that there are already real-world results that should give Democrats optimism. In New York Magazine, Jonathan Chait said Mitch McConnell has nobody to blame but himself. Having driven out the one member of their party who fought back against Donald Trump's election lies, Republicans find themselves mystified that election liars are taking over. What is fascinating is that the party's mainstream wing sees no connection between these two things at all, Chait wrote. The Republican establishment has dealt with this by refusing to acknowledge it and hoping the problem goes away on its own. Mick Mulvaney famously wrote an op-ed before

the election predicting, if he loses, Trump will concede gracefully. When Trump refused to concede defeat, McConnell went along, saying a few legal inquiries from the president do not exactly spell the end of the republic. After making the decision to stop challenging Trump's election lies, it followed that the rest of the party needed to go along. Cheney stubbornly refused. As a result, Republicans stripped her of her leadership post and then began to abandon her as Trump backed a primary challenge, he said. But of course, one completely foreseeable consequence of the party's decision to cede the argument over 2020 to Trump is that it allowed Trump to retain his influence. Republicans complain over the personal aspect of Trump's influence. He has

interceded primaries to endorse unqualified candidates, but his ideological influence is more profound. If Republican voters believe the 2020 election was stolen, of course they are going to demand their party nominate candidates who will stop it. Why would they even consider moving on from a historical crime so profound? In Bloomberg, Matthew Iglesias said some real-world midterm results where Democrats outperformed 2020 is making him a believer. What accounts for the turnaround? Probably a mix of three factors. One is that gasoline prices started to fall, ultimately delivering 0% total inflation in July. Year-on-year price increases remain at a generational high, but the short-term trend has been good lately, Iglesias said. The other is that Republicans have no convincing argument against Democrats' Inflation Reduction

Act. It delivers exactly what Republicans say they want, an innovation-focused package of measures designed to increase U.S. energy production, but they won't support it because the GOP is still wedded to low taxes on the wealthy more profoundly than to any other principle. Last, but by no means least, the overturning of Roe v. Wade leaves Republicans playing with political dynamite. Midterm losses for the president's party are normally driven by a sense of backlash to policy overreach, but this summer it's the Republican Party, via its control of the Supreme Court, that's been delivering a visceral and alarming policy change, he said. It is important

to continue highlighting Republican extremism on the abortion issue. That ought to include moving a series of mild federal bills to establish a national floor under abortion rights. Will Republicans agree to at least guarantee access in cases of rape, to safe harbor for doctors who believe in good faith that abortion is vital to a pregnant woman's health, to the FDA's sole authority over prescription drugs, to Americans' freedom to cross state lines to seek medical care? In the Washington Post, Eugene Robinson said it is hard to decide which Republican Senate candidate is the worst. The former president's endorsements led enough bad Senate nominees to primary victories, but the GOP's hopes of seizing control of the chamber in what should be a Republican year are fading, Robinson said.

Former football star Herschel Walker, who Trump muscled his party into nominating against Democratic incumbents Senator Raphael Warnock in Georgia, had an early lead in the contest for hands-down worst Republican standard-bearer. His across-the-board incoherence remains unmatched. Mehmet Oz's supposed media savvy hasn't made up for his other problems, chief among them a lack of connection to the state he wants to represent. Oz, a longtime New Jersey resident, only moved to Pennsylvania two years ago. Fetterman's campaign has made gleeful, social-media-friendly hay from that fact, pushing for Oz to be nominated to the New Jersey Hall of Fame

and spotlighting the number of Oz's residences. Then there's Blake Masters. In Arizona, Republicans had high hopes of defeating incumbent Democratic Senator Mark Kelly, who looked vulnerable. But Trump pushed the GOP to nominate Masters, a venture capitalist and political novice who has a disturbing support from far-right extremists and who backs Trump's false claims about the purported illegitimacy of the 2020 presidential election. A mid-August poll by Emerson College showed Republican J.D. Vance ahead of Democratic

Representative Tim Ryan by a mere three points in Ohio, and a string of earlier polls by the nonpartisan Center Street PAC consistently showed Ryan in the lead. Vance might have gotten rich writing his best-selling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, but Ryan has deep roots in the state's post-industrial Youngstown area. Vance was stridently anti-Trump before he became stridently pro-Trump, and like Walker, Oz, and Masters, he is a political novice. All right, that is it for the leftist saying, which brings us to what the right is saying. Many on the right are critical of McConnell, saying he should be embracing fresh candidates with populist ideas. Some call on McConnell to start leading the entire party to usher in a Senate majority. Others argue McConnell is right and now has to clean up the entire party to usher in a Senate majority.

Others argue McConnell is right and now has to clean up the mess. In town hall, Jeff Corrier said who needs enemies when you have Mitch McConnell? On Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Republican from Kentucky, publicly complained about the quality of GOP Senate candidates. He declared that a Republican U.S. Senate majority was not likely, Carrier said. What did he mean by candidate quality? He implied that many of the Republican Senate nominees are too conservative, too affiliated with Donald Trump, and too likely to support make-America-great-again policies. McConnell prefers establishment Republicans, the moderate country club candidates who cherish the deep state, bureaucracy, growing government,

and raising taxes. They just want to do it slightly less than their Democratic colleagues. These Republicans are globalists and open border supporters who are unconcerned that millions of illegal aliens have entered the United States during Biden's term. These McConnell Republicans also do not oppose government COVID-19 mandates or attacks against our children in the classroom with curriculum that is sexualized and infested with anti-American McConnell also strongly supports Biden's position regarding the war in Ukraine and North Atlantic Treaty Organization expansion. He has fervently backed sending billions of dollars in aid to the Ukrainian government. McConnell's interventionist views are directly counter to President Trump's focus on our country and our problems. Trump and the MAGA movement

represent the millions of Americans who are tired of the United States acting as the policemen of the world. In The Federalist, Molly Hemingway asked, what in the world was Mitch McConnell thinking? The country is 18 months into Democrats' total rule, and by nearly every measure, the results of their political control are utterly disastrous. The southern border has essentially been erased. Inflation is reminiscent of the 1970s, as is the energy policy causing high gas prices and reliance on other countries. Consumer confidence has cratered.

War with nuclear powers is dangerously close in at least two parts of the world. The economy should be roaring out of the pandemic, but it's returned to Obama-era sluggishness or worse. Woke mobs are completing their destruction of the country's institutions. Democrats are persecuting political opponents with their deeply unpopular J6 star chamber, she said. And in this milieu, Republican voters who care deeply about their country have chosen a slate of extremely interesting candidates, many of them non-career politicians. Herschel Walker, Mehmet Oz, J.D. Vance, and Blake Masters are successful and impressive people in a variety of careers. Even the more traditional politicians running for re-election, Ron Johnson and Marco Rubio, are among the better senators in office. Adam Laxalt, running against an incumbent Nevada Democrat,

is a highly decorated former naval officer and Iraq War veteran. He was an incredibly successful attorney general in Nevada, she said. If you can't work with this level of quality, you can't work with anyone. More importantly, the Republicans won their nominations by running on the policies that have so invigorated and expanded the party. They have clear messages about helping out middle-class workers and their families, protecting the country from open borders and wasteful wars, and defending American values and freedom against leftist authoritarians. The Wall Street Journal editorial board said struggling candidates are now turning to McConnell for help. The biggest campaign story last week wasn't Mitch McConnell's warning that Republicans

might not retake the Senate in November. That's been clear since the party nominated so many candidates whose main advantage was support from Donald Trump. The big story was that those candidates are now calling on Mr. McConnell to come to their rescue. Exhibit A is Ohio, where the super PAC allied with Mr. McConnell, the Senate Leadership Fund, is committing $28 million to save GOP nominee J.D. Vance. Ohio should be a layup for the GOP this year, the board said, but Democrat Tim Ryan, a member of the House, is portraying himself as a moderate despite liberal voting record and has outraised the Republican, thus Mr. Vance's SOS to Mr. McConnell. Blake Masters,

another Trump-backed nominee, is also counting on Mr. McConnell to save his campaign. I think Mr. McConnell will come in and spend. Arizona's going to be competitive. It's going to be a close race, and I hope he does come in, Mr. Masters told the Associated Press last week. Trailing Mark Kelly in the polls, Mr. Masters needs the minority leader's help. During the GOP primary, Mr. Masters called for Mr. McConnell to be replaced as leader, the board noted. These Better Call Mitch appeals are happening at the same time Mr. Trump's allies are attacking Mr. McConnell for telling the truth last week about GOP Senate prospects this year. Only the willfully blind can look at several of the Trump-endorsed nominees this year

and claim they were the strongest candidates in the general election. Alright, that is it for the left and the right's take, which brings us to my take. I've said many times before that I don't really like making political predictions. I'm generally mediocre at it, as most people are, because looking into the future is actually very hard. But to scratch my itch, last year I published 19 predictions about the future. This was a subscribers-only post. And to my genuine surprise, so far they're actually going pretty well. Of the five with results in, I've gotten four correct, and I have three more, an estimate on how many Americans would get booster shots, that Trump would run in 2024, and that Biden would not run in 2024 that I feel increasingly

good about. I have one prediction that support for the pro-life position would increase over the next five years. That looks to be the opposite of what's happening, so I got that totally wrong, but I was right that change was coming. All this is to say, I'm hesitant to step back into the arena when I could quit while I'm mostly ahead, but I'm going to anyway. I don't trust the polls. I think the most plausible explanation for Democrats' sudden advantage on generic ballots is not that Roe being overturned is turning the electorate against Republicans, or that gas falling a dollar is endearing voters to Biden, or that a flurry of legislative victories is satiating Americans' thirst for change.

I think genuinely that generic ballot polling on Congress is still underrepresenting tens of millions of pro-Trump, conservative voters who are just way less likely to take a political survey from any pollster who's calling from the New York Times or NBC News. If I were to make a bet right now, today, my bet would be that Republicans get control of the Senate in the midterm elections. The reason for this is simple. Joe Biden. His popularity has nudged up about three percentage points, but he's still in abysmal, underwater territory. Historically speaking, that is a death sentence for the party controlling the White House in midterm elections. And in the last few elections in particular, both presidential and midterm, America has shown itself hungry for basically one thing, change. We always want change. Get the people who are in out and get the people who are out in. So the changes in these polls suggest some

democratic momentum. And yes, the Inflation Reduction Act has some very popular elements. And yes, Biden has been able to score wins on infrastructure, veterans health and gun control. Inflation also does appear to be slowing down and gas prices are falling. I believe these are all good things for Democrats and moderates. But the opposite side of the coin is still there. Interest rates are still generationally high. The war in Ukraine and our funding of it is still dragging on. Crime in big cities is up. And by the way, the southern border is seeing a record number of illegal crossings,

a story that matters a great deal to Republican voters, but is historically undercovered by left-leaning news outlets. Also, across the country, school board meetings are still being swarmed by parents petrified of quote-unquote woke ideology on race and gender, and former President Trump is still pulling in jaw-dropping fundraising numbers, which have only escalated after the Mar-a-Lago search. It's easy to imagine candidates like Dr. Oz, who is one of the worst politicians I've seen in recent memory, floundering. I predicted Oz would win in Pennsylvania, which I now regret for what it's worth, but I suspect that Republicans will win their Senate races in Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada, and I'd be quite surprised if they

lost in Wisconsin. Control of these states is teetering on a razor's edge, and I don't see a world where Democrats win with a historically unpopular president, real wages falling, and such an overwhelming sense of global and national instability. I've made it quite clear where I stand on the integrity of the 2020 election, so I'm pretty nervous about the influx of candidates who say the 2020 election was stolen. I generally have mixed feelings about political novices too. I love outsider voices and fresh blood in Congress, but I also want people who understand how the government works to be running the government. So without saying which candidates I think should win in any individual race, or who I hope wins, I do have serious questions about Herschel Walker and Blake Masters and Dr. Oz. I'll be very curious

to see how all their pitches change in the next couple months as the general election comes into focus. But at this moment, I just don't believe the polls. I do believe Democrats have some momentum, and I do believe the odds that Democrats hold the Senate are better now than they were a month ago. But an advantage in this climate? I don't think so. In politics, 11 weeks is an eternity, so a lot could happen between now and election day. That might change my calculus. For now, though, I think the Republican doomsday commentators are getting pretty far out over their skis. All right, that is it for my take, which brings us to your questions answered.

This one is from Akshay in the Bay Area in California. Akshay said, while a smaller majority of people recognize that abortions are necessary in some cases. After that, it's all up to how far along in the pregnancy the abortion is allowed to be performed. Though I am pro-choice, I don't know where I fully stand on that spectrum. I do know that I'm definitely not pro-abortion, but people who consider themselves pro-life are without a doubt anti-abortion. So, making language choices like disentangle is incredibly difficult. I think it honestly might be the hardest part of my job, which is to show a wide range of opinions on current events

and not to arbitrate what language is proper. That said, I'll tell you how I write about the term and then give you my personal opinion about it. So generally speaking, when I'm not writing my take, I try to use the most neutral language possible. If I'm writing about abortion and call a group pro-life, I inevitably hear from liberals who criticize me for using their propagandist language and insist that they aren't merely pro-life but want to control women's bodies. If I write about the pro-choice side, I will also hear from

conservatives who tell me that what they really are is pro-abortion, insistent on allowing people to kill babies. It is really, really hard to navigate these responses when you're trying to present something with neutrality. What I usually do is to try a mix of language and descriptors and not define either side in the terms their opposition wants me to, but in ways I think both sides will accept or can understand. In my experience, most pro-life people are fine being called anti-abortion. That is what they are. They don't find that to be a pejorative line, so they don't mind if I use that language.

Many, many pro-choice people object to being called pro-abortion, since most say they are fundamentally arguing for more freedom to choose, not for more abortions. Given that, I try not to use that expression in Tangle. To me, pro-life most accurately denotes a political class of people who are both anti-abortion and against the death penalty. We actually published an essay from Sophie Triss last year, who's a pro-lifer in that mold. I think her essay encapsulates the full breadth of the position nicely. There's a link to it in today's newsletter. But I also recognize that pro-life is the most common way to reference any American who is only opposed to abortion. And since my goal

is to help people understand what Americans are thinking and arguing, I try to use familiar language we can all grasp, so I often call those people pro-life. Again, these aren't easy editorial choices to make, but that's generally my thinking on terms surrounding this issue. All right, next up is a story that matters. This one is about President Biden and his plan to announce a decision on student loan forgiveness by the end of the month. That's according to several news reports. White House officials have been weighing whether to cancel student debt, how much of it to cancel, and who to cancel it for. Some economists have warned that such a move would increase inflation, but Biden appears determined to follow through on a promise

from his campaign trail. Apparently, the administration is currently leaning towards cancellation of up to $10,000 in student loan debt per borrower for anyone earning less than $125,000 per year. The announcement could come as early as Wednesday. CNN has the scoop, and there's a link to it in today's newsletter. Next up is our numbers section. The amount of money gifted to Leonard Leo's conservative nonprofit, the Marble Freedom Trust, is $1.6 billion. It's the largest ever political donation. The number of new downloads of Trump's Truth Social app in the week after the Mar-a-Lago

raid was 88,000. Nevada Democratic Senate candidate Catherine Cortez Mastro's lead over Republican Adam Laxalt, according to a New Suffolk poll, is 45 to 38. Ohio Republican Senate candidate J.D. Vance's lead over Democrat Tim Ryan is 50 to 45. Pennsylvania Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman's lead over Dr. Mehmet Oz is 49 to 38, according to a 538 average of polls. All right, that is it for our numbers section, which brings us to our have a nice day section, last but never least. A Brooklyn Uber driver is being hailed as a hero after stopping a ride to sprint inside a burning building and rescue a fellow New Yorker. Fritz Sam was on his way to the airport when he noticed flames coming out of the second floor

window of a brownstone apartment. Sam asked his passenger if he could stop to help since she was on her way to catch a flight, and she said yes. The two darted toward the commotion and Sam ran inside the building. He ended up ushering several people out of the building who were not aware of the fire or didn't understand how serious it was. Minutes later, police and firefighters arrived and nobody was hurt. The Washington Post has the story and there's a link to it in today's newsletter.

All right, everybody, that is it for today's podcast. As always, if you wanna support our work, please go to readtangle.com slash membership or just tell your friends about Tangle. Send this podcast to them. Text it to them. Tell them to give it a listen. Spread the word.

We always need that too. We'll be right back here. Same time tomorrow. Have a good one. Peace. Our newsletter is written by Isaac Saul, edited by edited by bailey saul sean brady ari weitzman and produced in conjunction with tangle's social media manager magdalena bakova who also helped create our logo the podcast is edited by trevor eichhorn and music for the podcast was produced

by diet 75 for more from tangle subscribe to our newsletter or check out our content archives at www.readtangle.com.