The NPR Politics Podcast - What Happened In Tuesday's Elections

Episode Date: April 2, 2025

Money poured into races in Florida and Wisconsin at levels usually reserved for elections during a presidential cycle. Republicans held two House seats in Florida, but by smaller margins than their previous wins there. Meanwhile, a judge aligned with Democrats won to keep a liberal majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court — despite Elon Musk spending more than $20 million to back the Republicans' preferred candidate. This episode: White House correspondent Deepa Shivaram, political correspondent Susan Davis, and senior political editor & correspondent Domenico Montanaro.The podcast is produced by Bria Suggs & Kelli Wessinger and edited by Casey Morell. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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This podcast was recorded at 1 o' 5 p.m. on Wednesday, April 2nd, 2025. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but we'll still be dodging pigeons. And probably wishing we brought warmer jackets. Here's the show. My husband and I are trying to plan a trip to take my daughter to New York

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Hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Deba Shiveram. I cover the White House. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And today on the show, we're looking at the results of the special elections in Florida

and the Wisconsin Supreme Court race. We've talked about all of these races on the pod in the last couple of weeks and how they could be proxies for how people are feeling about Republicans and the early days of President Trump's second term. So let's start in Florida where two house seats were open in heavily Republican districts. Both Republican candidates won their races

but at narrower margins than they've won before. So Domenico, what is your take here? Yeah, these are pretty deeply read, pretty conservative districts. You know, they were to replace Matt Gaetz, who had been picked to be Trump's attorney general before that nomination was pulled because it didn't have the votes. And for Mike Waltz, who is now his national security advisor, these are very Republican districts. They both won those districts by more than 30 points. In this race, though, it was about 14, 15 points.

And that's sliced in half. You had turnout that was only about half of what it was in 2024. That always happens in non-presidential election years. So Democrats really felt they had a lot of the energy on their side in those races. I think they thought they might do a little better than within than just 15 points, especially in one of those districts where the Democratic candidate spent about eight, $9 million, quite a bit for just two months of a congressional race. But, you know, Democrats are taking that plus the result in Wisconsin

as a good night. Look, I am always going to be a voice of caution in over-extrapolating what special elections might mean, because each race often has its own caveats. But two things can be true at the same time. I do think that the results of these elections in both Florida and Wisconsin speak to something that we all believe to be true, and now we have some evidence of it that Democratic voters are pretty fired up and they are currently

much more likely to turn out in a special election. I also think, particularly when I look at the Florida races, is sometimes their caveats. Look, even Florida Governor Ronda Santis was critical of Randy Fine today. He, of course, won in the seat that was held by Mike Walz, who left to be Donald Trump's national security advisor. He doesn't like him very much, does he? Right. And like, look, maybe if they had a much better candidate, maybe that margin would have been much more traditional.

So like, Democrats, it's like, don't get too excited. But also, it certainly does speak to a level of democratic enthusiasm that I think is percolating, even as the leadership of the Democratic Party is still sort of wandering in the woods and trying to figure out the right messages and and how they sort of Recoup from the 2024 losses. I think we have to update our caveat on not over reading the results of special elections to mean don't over Read the results of one special election, right? Because when one party Does really well or overperforms in lots of special elections leading up to the midterms,

that's usually the party that over the last 20 years has done really well in the House actually. So they can be indicators, but taking one out of context of how they do with the rest, certainly not a great idea overall. Yeah, and I do remember, I'm having flashbacks a little bit to 2024, the post Kamala Harris becoming the nominee era of that summer. And Democrats were, like, feeling pretty enthusiastic about Florida for a hot minute there, where they were like, we're

going to invest, we're going to put people on the ground, we're going to, like, not just ignore this state that's been so historically, you know, ruby red. And it kind of like... Yeah, nobody who really knew would say that that was really the case. I think they're... No, first... But I think it spoke... But my point is that I think it spoke to the like, you know, Democrats were like, oh, wow, we have all this momentum. Like, let's put some people on the ground in Florida. But, you know, as you guys have been saying, like, it's worth it to sort of take some of these results with a grain of salt. Vibes aren't votes. Vibes aren't votes.

But I will also say this. I think the results of Tuesday also clarify why President Trump said, at least Stefanik, the Republican congresswoman from New York, thanks but no thanks on your nomination to be UN ambassador. You got to stay in the House. The district she won is also a very conservative district, but much less conservative than those two Florida House races. And there was a beginning to be real Republican concern that that race could become competitive and potentially be flipped by Democrats. And as we've said a gazillion times,

Republicans don't have a lot of votes to lose in the House. Right, not a lot of wiggle room. This is definitely a little bit of a win for House Speaker Mike Johnson. But for both of you, before we turn to talking about Wisconsin here, because I know we want to get into that as well, what does this kind of mean for Trump's agenda? Just to touch on that, like how safe, secure,

like how confident should the president be feeling? One thing I will say about this is that I have maybe a different viewpoint than maybe a lot of Democratic voters feel because I feel like a lot of Democratic voters right now, big D Democrats are really angry at everything Donald Trump is doing. But I think more broadly in the country, a lot of people look at things like the Doge efforts to reduce the size of government and are supportive of it. Where I think that the president is actually starting to see signs of trouble is his handling of the economy.

And I think that is where you might see the biggest shifting in terms of swing voters, independent voters who voted for Trump under this idea of like my pocketbook was better back in 2020. And look, Donald Trump is making big, huge risky gambles with the US economy on many fronts. And I think there's an increasing sense of nervousness in the country. And if those bets don't pay off, there could be huge electoral repercussions for not just him but the entire Republican Party. Yeah, there was an AP poll out this week actually that showed Trump's economic approval rating

down to 40%, which is among the lowest of the things that they tested. His immigration approval rating was up at 49%, which is really kind of an inverse from his first term when the economy was seen as a strength of his. But, you know, coming on this sort of trade war day, he's calling Liberation day where he's instituting these reciprocal tariffs against all these other countries, that could have implications for how much people pay for a host of things. And as we know, the economy is like the main issue all the time across all elections. It's sort of the tide that floats or sinks all boats.

But I will say about Doge and about Elon Musk is that I think that a lot of voters look at what he's doing and they say, I support cuts to the federal government and making it more efficient. At the same time, they have to be done in a more targeted, more measured way. And we've seen that shift on Musk with Musk himself, where he was parading around the stage with a chainsaw at CPAC, the Conservative Political

Action Conference, to then going on TV and saying, he's doing this in a very targeted way. And I think what happened in Wisconsin could wind up leading Trump to being able to say, you know, adios at the end of this 130 day special advisory term. Let's turn to Wisconsin. So there was a technically nonpartisan race for an open seat on the state's Supreme Court there. It was a fight between liberal and conservative interests. The candidate running on a more liberal plank was Susan Crawford. She beat Brad Schimel, who was running on a conservative one. Liberal-aligned judges maintained the majority on the court as a result of this election yesterday. Domenico, you kind of got into this a little bit with Elon Musk, but like one thing we

can't leave this pot without talking about is just the sheer amount of money and funds that was spent on this race. Oh my goodness. I mean, more than $100 million may have been spent overall on this race when it comes to everything with staffing, TV ads and all of that. $70 million was spent just on TV ads, according to Ad Impact, which tracks these things. That is the most ever for a judicial race. It's the first race that Democrats certainly could issue their frustration, but it wasn't just all

Democratic money. I mean, it was pretty even, close to even, Democrats slightly ahead. The reason why Republicans even were able to sort of compete is because Elon Musk put in $20 million of his own money. Now, for the richest man in the world, that's like nothing. He nuts. Literally, a very tiny amount for a guy worth multiple billions of dollars. But he went to the state. He put on a cheese hat. He told people that this was the potentially biggest election in all of humanity, you know, humanity could rest on this judicial race. So talk about raising the stakes, he really amped them up and this loss is no doubt about it, you know, a big

loss for him and a big referendum on Moscow. Yeah, I also think, look, there's an inherent risk in elevating somebody to be almost the face of the party who has higher unfavorables than favorables. If Elon Musk was this hugely popular person in American life, if he was Dwayne The Rock Johnson, you could see- You and The Rock, oh my goodness. I wasn't expecting to work in a rock reference,

but when I can, I will. If it was someone universally popular, it might make more sense to send them in. Elon Musk just isn't that popular right now. And look, I think that there is a potential where I'm starting to see echoes of this, especially in candidates on the Democratic side saying that they want to run for office. There's almost like this grossness to the amount of money that is in politics right now. And I think even Elon Musk going there with the million dollar check thing where it's like for your vote. Yeah, you're talking about the separate like he gave out two one million dollar checks

to voters and that's something that he's done before. Exactly. I actually think that that sticks in the crawl of a lot of Americans, Republican and amendment and Democrat, this idea that your's for sale, that money can just come in without any sort of caveats on it or stopper or oversight. And starting to see like candidates on the Democratic side running on this idea of I'm not going to take any corporate money. I just I wonder if having this be such an open and obvious display of money in politics is almost unintentionally reviving some of these campaign finance forms that sort of dominated campaign politics back in the 2000s. But I'll put that aside. But yeah, look, I think there's a very good case to make that Musk was a liability in the end

for Republicans in Wisconsin. And also maybe a reminder that when you have that kind of money, sometimes it's best used behind the scenes, that you fund the ads, you fund get out the vote, but if you become the face of the money, it might have some blowback. Yeah, and there's no doubt it seems like Musk was a bit of an anchor despite his own boastfulness. Even at a candidate forum, the Republican in this race, Brad Schiml, said that if Musk thinks that he's going to be buying a judge so that he can have access for Tesla to be able to sell in the state, well, then he's mistaken. You don't normally see that or hear that from a candidate who likes the amount of money that someone's spending on their behalf and thinks that they're helping them in that race.

Yeah, there definitely seems to be like an end to this potential end to this way of Elon Musk sort of like touting it around, especially when he's the face of Doge that is cutting thousands of people's jobs at the same time to be parading around millions of dollars with a cheese hat alongside it. And look, there is a long history of politics of people being brilliant in business and terrible in politics.

They required completely different skill sets and to do excellence in both is almost impossible. And you never wear something on your head that you don't normally wear. The other rule in politics. Even Trump knew this. He went to a site where he was almost going to wear a helmet and a tank and that called back to Michael Dukakis in 88. Trump even called that out and said, no, I don't think so.

We're going to need a whole separate pod for hats and political candidates. Don't do it. All right. More on the implications of these wins. We're going to take a quick break. This message comes from Wyse, the app for doing things and other currencies, sending or spending money abroad. Hidden fees may be taking a cut. With WISE, you can convert between up to 40 currencies at the mid-market exchange rate. Visit WISE.com. TNCs apply. This message comes from Mint Mobile.

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This message comes from the Kresge Foundation. Established 100 years ago, the Kresge Foundation works to expand equity and opportunity in cities across America. A century of impact, a future of opportunity. More at kresge.org. And we're back. And talking about Wisconsin, Florida, Domenico, I want to ask, I mean, for Democrats here, obviously not the party in power, you know, when it comes to their control in Washington, but are there lessons that they can learn from the way, you know, things were messaged in Wisconsin and Florida? What are the takeaways? Well, they've really struggled, obviously, to combat what Trump has to say. These two

months have been really down times for Democrats in trying to figure out how to combat the Trump agenda. And I think that a lot of what we hear often is this sort of maybe somewhat lazy framing about progressive versus moderates or center versus left, as opposed to realizing that these off-year elections are about in a lot of ways firing up your voters. Right now, Democratic voters want people, they think, are going to fight for their morals and for their values to stand up. It's really more about fighting versus acquiescence or standing up versus complacency. Wisconsin Democrats will tell you that they feel like their candidates did that, whether it was Susan Crawford, the judicial

candidate standing up for abortion rights, or that their state schools superintendent who won her election fought against the closure of the Department of Education. That's especially important in midterms, like I said, when turnout is lower than presidential and the energy and who has it on their side is most important. S1 C 1 I think that's a really good point, Domenico. And I would also point to this idea that I think some of the people that might have been seen as more ideological in the party, people like New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is sort of coalescing around this idea too, that you don't have to find all these fine points that you all

have to agree on. It's about who's going to fight. What are the big ideas you're fighting for? And you can see that consensus sort of taking hold in the Democratic Party, especially as you've seen so much voter frustration at the appearance of not fighting. The most recent example, of course, being the Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's decision not to shut down the government. And there was a big sort of intra-party backlash towards that.

But there's a real base demand to just look like you're standing up and fighting, even if it's not ultimately changing the outcome of policies in Washington right now. It is really interesting. And to your point about Ocasio-Cortez, I mean, even just like on ex-Congresswoman AOC and former Congressman Conor Lamb, who, you know, was in Pennsylvania, definitely seen as a moderate end of the Democratic Party, sort of, you know, coming together and saying,

you know, we agree on some things and let's move forward. And like this sort of pivot to being like, we can't sort out the details right now, but we need to throw a punch somewhere. Yeah. Well, they agree on most things, right? And that's the thing. It's really at the margins a little bit on how far to go on a lot of this, what the approach should be.

And I think it's really interesting, Sue, if we see a 2028 open presidential primary on the Democratic side, that's more about heart and less about head and all of the policy prescriptions we wind up seeing in what are often snooze fest open Democratic primaries because of it. Republicans are usually the ones who are doing these gut checks in presidential elections. It's going to be interesting to see if Democrats pivot away from talking about depth of policy and more about, you know, kind of the who's standing up more for democratic values. Well, speaking of standing up, there is a New Jersey senator who stood up for 25 hours on the Senate floor very recently.

Cory Booker of New Jersey held the Senate floor for more than 25 hours, giving the longest speech in congressional history. And he used that time to criticize, as you can imagine, the Trump administration. But I thought it was interesting because he also did acknowledge some of the problems within his own party. And so I confess that I have been imperfect. I confess that I've been inadequate to the moment. I confess that the Democratic Party has made terrible mistakes that have

given lane to this demagogue. I confess we all must look in the mirror and say we will do better. We've been talking about Democrats needing to throw a punch. Is this the best way to do it, Sue? You know, I think that this is exactly what Cory Booker was trying to do. I think he sees and hears that there is a demand for people in Congress, especially senators who can seem quite civilized and lazy at times, to look like they are standing up and fighting for principles and ideas. Look, I've got to give him credit. It is actually physically and mentally hard to do

to hold the Senate floor for that long. And I do think especially as it became clear throughout the course of the day that he was likely to surpass the record. You had more senators sort of joining him on the floor. There was more spectators in the gallery. It was sort of this moment that you weren't witnessing history. And there was a neat little bow you could tie on this in that Cory Booker now holds the record for longest congressional speech. It was not technically a filibuster, but the length in which he spoke beat out the longtime

record of Strom Thurmond, who was a Southern senator who used the filibuster to filibuster the Civil Rights Act and to have it broken by a black man who was elected thanks in part to civil rights advances. So I think it was a heavy weighted symbolism day. I think Democrats sort of needed that. Does it ultimately change the power dynamics in the Senate? No. But I think that we're going to see, I think that it is likely more and more senators are going to start doing these kinds of things. I'd also point to people like Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, who's really been trying to use social media and town halls and trying to get back to a little bit more

grassroots campaigning. Like people want to see these Democrats like in the streets, you know, out there. I think they feel like they've lost that sort of digital game, the media game, the TikTok game. And so I think that there's an acceleration in the party to try to step it up in all those places. Yeah, I was gonna say, you know, he sees the news cycle, you know, he got himself attention, got himself on TV, used to say that, you know, you want to get yourself on the front pages. Now it might be that, you know, he's in the TikTok and Instagram algorithms, and he certainly did that. And I think that that's what a lot of Democrats wanted to see. Yeah, and as you said, Domenico, before,

there's an attention economy out there, and Donald Trump dominates it, and anything you can do to break into the attention economy, I think, from the opposite side, we'll see it as a win. Yeah. All right, we're gonna leave it there for now. I'm Deepa Sivaram. I cover the White House. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics

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