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Welcome back.
We're joined now by Jacob Rubashkin, who is the deputy editor of Inside Elections.
Good morning.
Good morning.
In Inside Elections, you wrote back in mid-October that the elections were coming right down to the wire.
How much has changed since you wrote that?
Well, a lot has changed, but that assessment has not.
These elections are still incredibly close, and there are ample opportunities for both Democrats and Republicans to win control of the White House, of the House of Representatives, and we're even seeing some late shifts in the United States Senate.
So there are a lot of moving pieces in this election, but the top-line assessment that either party could come away from Tuesday with a pretty good night remains exactly the same.
What is the blue wall?
And can you talk a bit about the likelihood that Harris is going to gain some victories in those states?
The blue wall is a term coined by the legendary Ron Brownstein to talk about the set of states that voted consistently for Democratic presidential candidates from 1988 onwards to all the way up until 2016.
Now, originally, that meant it included traditionally Democratic states like California, New York, Maryland, as well as some of the swing states that always seemed to break for Democrats.
But in 2016, what we saw was the blue wall begin to crack.
So Donald Trump carried Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and that was enough for him to defeat Hillary Clinton.
Now, when people talk about the blue wall path to victory for Kamala Harris, that's essentially what they're talking about is winning Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania and getting to 270 electoral votes for the Democrat if you factor in those California, New York, Washington, Oregon, the states that we know are going to consistently vote for the Democratic nominee.
So the blue wall is one of the two main pathways, the two main theaters of this presidential election, along with, of course, the Sunbelt states in the South that have become more increasingly competitive.
Now then, how much impact do you expect Vice President Harris and former President Trump and people's decisions whether or not to support them to affect some of the down ballot races, especially with the House and Senate so competitive?
The presidential has a lot of effects on the down ballot races because we're at a historical low in the practice of ticket splitting.
It used to be that how you voted for president only had a minimal bearing on how you voted for a race down ballot.
People were more than happy to vote one party for president, a different party for Senate and House.
In fact, a lot of people did that.
And we saw Democrats continue to do very well in Republican-leaning states up until about 2010.
Democratic senators in Montana, in North Dakota, in Louisiana, places that were not electing Democrats at the top of the ticket.
And the same thing in the House.
We used to see broad swaths of each party's coalition in the House coming from districts that were carried by the other party's presidential nominee.
But over the last two decades, we've seen a steep decline in that practice.
And now, how a district, how a person votes for president is probably the best predictor for how they're going to vote for Senate, for House, and for other races down the ballot.
So if Kamala Harris has a good night on Tuesday, she is probably going to bring a lot of down ballot Democrats with her.
And the same goes for Donald Trump, because if you're voting for Trump, you're just so much less likely to vote for a Democrat in the House or Senate.
If you're voting for Harris, you're really going to not probably want to vote for a Republican for any of those down ballot races either.
Can you talk about some of the key races to watch in the House in particular?
We have eight toss-ups in our final estimation of the House of Representatives.
So we sat down, we crunched all the numbers, we looked at the trends, interviewed the candidates in a whole swath of districts across the country.
And in our final assessment, or at least our assessment from last Thursday, excuse me, we saw Democrats favored in 214 seats, Republicans favored in 213 seats, and eight pure toss-ups, four of them held by Democrats, four of them held by Republicans.
So a very evenly divided chamber.
Some of the races that we're looking at most specifically, there are a couple in California, in California's 27th district, which is in Los Angeles.
Republican Mike Garcia is looking to hold on to his seat despite it leaning somewhat Democratic.
He's a former fighter pilot.
He's won some tough elections before.
He's facing a Democrat named George Whitesides, who is a personally wealthy entrepreneur who is Democrats' first new candidate in this district in three elections.
They nominated the same person three times.
She lost every time, but trying something new.
So we're watching that one.
Next door in California's 45th district, where Republican Michelle Steele is running for reelection.
That's a very interesting race against Democratic attorney Derek Tran.
Both of those are toss-ups.
On the Democratic side, Washington's third congressional district, Marie Glusenkamp-Perez, faces a rematch with her opponent, Joe Kent.
That was one of the closest races in 2022 and one of the biggest upsets of the night in 2022 when the Democrat won that seat in southwestern Washington.
And finally, the last one I want to mention, of course, is Colorado's eighth congressional district, which is just all tied up in all of the polling that's out there.
Yadira Caraveo, freshman Democratic congresswoman running in a relatively new district against Republican Gabe Evans.
This one will be a really good bellwether for how the cycle is going for either party, depending on who wins.
Can you talk to me a little bit about the race for the House seat in Alaska?
This is one of the most interesting races on the map.
It is the seat held by a Democrat that is the most Republican.
So Mary Peltola, the Democrat, is the incumbent there.
Trump won Alaska by 10 points in 2020.
There's no Democrat who holds a seat that's as Republican as that.
There are really only a couple of Republicans who hold seats that are as Democratic as that would be on the other side.
So this is a pretty rare instance for any House member in this day and age.
And it speaks to Peltola's ability to win votes from across the aisle in a state that is notoriously anti-partisan.
Alaskans really don't like political labels.
She's been able to take advantage of that independent streak, but she faces a really tough reelection campaign.
And that's because in her first two runs, Republicans were very divided in the state.
They were choosing between two different candidates, Sarah Palin, who you may remember as the former governor, and Nick Begich, who is the grandson of a former congressman there.
And with two Republicans on the ballot, it made it difficult because Alaska uses a pretty unique ranked choice voting system no other state uses that actually allows four candidates to be on the ballot from any party in November.
And that means you could have two Republicans versus one Democrat.
And that, of course, splits the vote in a way that made it difficult for them to beat Peltola in the past.
What they did this cycle was they started out with two Republicans versus one Democrat, but they were successful in getting one of those Republicans to drop out.
So they have a clear shot against Peltola for the first time since she got to Congress.
Meanwhile, she's taking a lot of incoming negative ads that she never had to deal with before because the Republicans were fighting amongst themselves.
So this is her most challenging election yet.
We actually see her as a very slight underdog at this point, just because Alaska is so Republican a state.
But it's going to be very close, and we won't know the outcome until November 20th.
So several weeks after Election Day, when they actually run the rank choice voting tabulation, and we can figure out when all the second and third choice votes are allocated, who the next member of Congress is going to be.
Let's actually look at some ads from that race, the Alaska House race, from Representative Mary Peltola and Nick Begich.
And I should say that Patola's ad is called Vote Actually, and it's riffing off of a scene from the movie Love Actually, and doesn't have any spoken words.
So let's go ahead and play those.
What is Nick like?
Goodness.
Nick is a good husband.
He's a conservative family man.
He uses the land responsibly and he's loyal to Alaskans.
Nick will make for a good congressman because he is one of the most caring individuals that I know and he cares about Alaska.
We have one representative in this state and that representative has to have a strong voice and he has a strong voice.
He will do what is right for this state.
I do want to move on to the Senate, but just really quickly following up on the Alaska race.
With that decision coming so late after Election Day, and we are looking at such a tight race for control of the House, that might make things a little bit contentious there.
Oh, absolutely.
It's not out of the realm of possibility that this race determines control of the House of Representatives.
It's not the likeliest outcome because there are so many moving pieces.
But in a universe where the two parties are deadlocked at 217 seats apiece, heading into that ranked choice tabulation, there is going to be a tremendous amount of attention, a massive spotlight on that November 20th ranked choice tabulation.
All the things that can go wrong with ranked choice or make it a little bit more of a complex system are going to get a lot of scrutiny, no matter what, but especially if this race has something to do with who controls the majority of the House next year.
We'll be going to callers in just a moment.
Republicans can reach us at 202-748-8001.
Democrats at 202-748-8000.
And Independents at 202-748-8002.
Now, Jacob, can you walk over to the other side of Capitol Hill?
Talk us through the big races in the Senate that you're watching.
The Senate is much more favorable territory to Republicans this year than either the fight for the White House or the fight for the House.
That's just a function of the seats that are up, because of course, not every Senate race is up every cycle.
Only a third of the chamber is up for re-election.
And this is a slate of states that pretty clearly favor Republicans.
So Republicans have an advantage in the overall chamber, and they're on offense in deep red states like Montana and West Virginia, in the presidential battlegrounds, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, even in some blue states like New Mexico or a Maryland.
And Democrats only have a few offensive opportunities to try and offset losses.
So a pretty good map for Republicans.
And of course, they only need one seat plus the White House or two seats overall to take back the majority.
So not a big hill to climb for them.
What we're watching right now is a couple of seats that seem to be right in the middle of the battlefield.
Montana is the seat that Republicans feel the best about taking from an incumbent Democrat.
Senator John Tester is struggling in his race for a fourth term against Republican Tim Sheehey.
The polls have him down.
We see him as a slight underdog.
If Republicans win that race, plus the West Virginia race, which we expect them to win, that's plus two right off the bat.
And what's the main thing?
Let me pause you there, Jacob.
I want to play a couple of those ads from that Montana race and then get you to finish up your comment.
Yeah.
So I'm not going to comment.
All I can say is.
Alexa see ya.
Alexa see ya.
Just to confirm you don't have any comment on this matter.
Ed yeah, I am radical.
I do believe that we need to get radical about what we are doing.
Eddie, I am radical.
Kamala Harris supported eliminating private health insurance and giving taxpayer-funded health care to illegal aliens.
Eddie, I am radical.
John Tester voted to give taxpayer-funded health care to illegal immigrants.
And he supported amnesty for illegals, making them eligible for Medicare.
John Tester votes like a radical Democrat.
I'm Tim Sheehi, and I approve this message.
So those are ads from that Montana race.
And what were some of the other races that you were saying we should keep an eye on?
Ohio is the only pure toss-up on the map at this point.
Senator Sherrod Brown, the Democrat, trying to outperform the partisanship of the state against his Republican opponent, Bernie Marino.
That's a race that Democrats absolutely have to hold on to.
That's crucial if they want to keep control of the chamber.
And that one is coming down to the wire.
Both parties feeling cautiously optimistic in the last couple of days, but absolutely the closest race on the map.
And then Democrats trying to pull off some major upsets in Texas, where Congressman Colin Allred is challenging Senator Ted Cruz.
This is a state that Democrats have been trying to win for decades.
They haven't won a statewide race since 1994.
But Cruz is trying to, excuse me, Allred is trying to be the first Democrat to do so in 30 years.
And Ted Cruz, because of some of his unique vulnerabilities, may actually be in a bit of danger.
And then the quirkiest race on the map for sure is in Nebraska, where Republican Senator Deb Fisher faces a really tough challenge from an independent candidate named Dan Osborne.
There's no Democrat on the ballot.
So Osborne is running with support from Democrats.
He is running a very aggressive populist campaign against Fisher.
And Fisher didn't take this race seriously for most of the year.
And that put her behind the eight ball with just a couple of weeks left to go before Election Day when she woke up and realized that she was probably losing that race in September and early October.
And since then, we've seen Republicans try and rush to her rescue.
She's stepped up her campaigning, but an odd race and one that is going to be a lot closer than it has any business being in a state as Republican as Nebraska.
All right, let's go to your calls.
Rachel is in Maryland on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Rachel.
Hi there.
First of all, I just want to say I commend your memory recall because I just could never.
I wanted to ask what your thoughts are on the third congressional race and on the race between Larry Hogan and Angela Also Brooks.
Very interesting races.
The third congressional race in Maryland was actually just in Annapolis the other day.
This race was essentially decided in the primary.
So Congressman John Sarbanes, the incumbent Democrat in that seat, is retiring after about 20 years in Congress.
There was a really brutal primary to succeed him.
A whole bunch of Democrats ran a lot of local office holders.
In addition to former police officer Harry Dunn, who defended the Capitol at the January 6th insurrection, he raised a lot of money, but he was ultimately defeated by a state legislator named Sarah Elfrith, who got some significant support from outside groups, including UDP, the APAC-affiliated super PAC.
So Sarah Elfrith will almost certainly be the next member of Congress from Maryland's third district, just because it is a pretty Democratic seat.
She will replace John Sarbanes.
In the Senate race in Maryland, this is one of the more contentious races on the map for sure.
Former Governor Larry Hogan put this contest on the map when he jumped in the race and became the Republican nominee.
It was not a race that Democrats were paying a lot of attention to in terms of the fight for the majority before he was involved.
But because he was so popular, still is popular after his two terms as governor, it meant the Democrats really had to step up their game in Maryland when Angela Olsal Brooks won the party's nomination over the summer.
She had spent all of her money to beat Congressman David Trone, and she needed a lot of outside assistance from the National Party to regain her footing against this very popular, very well-funded former governor and Larry Hogan.
And she seems to have done just that.
It's taken Democrats about $15 or $20 million to get this race to where it needs to be.
But at this point, her polling lead is approaching double digits.
And given how Democratic Maryland is, you know, we talk a little bit about how Republican Montana is, and that makes it tough for John Tester.
Maryland is so Democratic, it's just not going to vote for a Republican senator.
Maryland is as Democratic a state as Idaho is a Republican a state.
We wouldn't talk about a Democrat winning Idaho.
It's almost certainly going to be the case that a Republican can't win a Senate race in Maryland this year.
Let's hear from Louise now in Fredericksburg, Virginia on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Louise.
Good morning.
I noticed on your channels that you have a lot of, you know, anti-death penalty, pro-whatever it is on AIDS and things like that.
Lots of comments.
You even revived Senate presidential candidate, Governor Luklakis, for God's sake.
So, Louise, did you have a question for Jacob about any of these House and Senate races that are so close this cycle?
I do.
I really believe that America is going to, I hope that they absolutely see what's going on with wars.
I haven't heard any discussion about wars hardly at all.
And here, I know for sure that Vindeman won't win.
He doesn't, there's Trump signs everywhere.
And so I'm really hoping that we don't vote blue no matter who.
So Louise raises an interesting point, Jacob.
I wonder how much you're seeing the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza showing up in some of these House and Senate races.
Well, in Louise's district in Virginia's seventh congressional district, which includes Fredericksburg, she mentioned Vindeman, the Democratic candidate.
If that name sounds familiar, it's because Vindman, Eugene Vindman, and his twin brother, Alexander Vindman, were the two whistleblowers during the Trump-Ukraine saga way back in 2019.
So in that race, particularly, I think there is more attention than usual being placed on the conflict in Ukraine.
Vindman's opponent, Derek Anderson, the Republican, is a retired Green Beret, so he also has a lot of military experience he's leaning on.
And in Northern Virginia, foreign policy issues are probably going to play a larger role than they would in your typical congressional district.
But that's a very hard-fought race down there.
It's a very swing district.
And Vindman has raised a lot of money because of his celebrity status in the wake of those first Trump impeachment hearings.
That's helped him eke out a small lead in the polls over Anderson.
But this is a really great example of a district that who wins the presidential is going to have a big effect on who wins the down ballot contest.
Because if Harris wins that district by as much as Joe Biden did in 2020, about five or six points, it's going to be very tough for Derek Anderson to get over that roadblock in order to win and beat Vinmin.
But speaking more generally, foreign policy is just not typically at the top of most American voters' minds.
They care more about the economy, about abortion, about immigration, about democracy than they do about what's going on on a different continent.
And it's really only in certain pockets of the country and among certain voters that we see foreign policy issues take a much more front and center stage.
So if you're looking at a state like Michigan, which has a significant Muslim American population, a significant Arab American population, that is a real problem spot for the Harris campaign at the presidential level.
Trump went to Dearborn, Michigan just a couple days ago to try and win some votes in the Muslim community there.
That's clearly an avenue that he sees as a potential advantage in a state as evenly divided as Michigan is.
And so the war in Gaza and frustration over America's policy there and America's continued support for Israel is playing a role in the election there in Michigan.
But broadly speaking, when you ask voters what the most important issues are that they're making their minds up about, anything foreign policy is just going to rank toward the bottom of the list.
We have a text from James in Newburgh, New York, who says, what's your assessment on NY17's congressional race?
New York 17, when this cycle began, we thought that this was going to be the biggest battleground and one of Democrats' best flip opportunities.
This is a Westchester Hudson Valley seat that was held by Democrats until 2022.
Sean Patrick Maloney, who was the head of the Democratic Campaign Committee, lost his reelection by a couple thousand votes to Republican Mike Lawler in a bit of an upset.
And Democrats really wanted that seat back.
But it has morphed into a bit of a problem spot for New York Democrats.
Their nominee, Mondair Jones, is a former congressman, and he is one of the party's best fundraisers.
But he does have some weak spots that Lawler has effectively exploited.
So, you know, he is on camera expressing support for defunding the police.
He has a close relationship to AOC, and that's shown up in a lot of campaign ads.
And he also left the district two years ago to try and run for a totally different seat in Brooklyn, where he said that he was going to move to and make his new home before losing that race and moving back up into the Hudson Valley to run for Congress again in the 17th district.
So this is a seat that we see Republicans slightly favored in, even though the district on the whole leans a little bit more Democratic.
And it's an example of how even as a lot of things have gone right for House Democrats over the last couple of months, there are still some trouble spots that can prevent the party, especially when it comes to issues of candidate quality, can prevent the party from getting even greater gains and winning back the House.
Keith is in Waldwick, New Jersey on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Keith.
Hi, I have some questions about a few congressional races.
You mentioned the New York City.
What about New York 19?
New York 4, Pennsylvania won.
So that was New York 19, New York 4, and Pennsylvania won.
I'll take them as they come.
New York 19, my personal favorite district.
It's an upstate seat.
It's kind of a kludge of a whole bunch of different areas of the state.
It's got a little Hudson Valley, a little southern tier, a little Syracuse capital region.
Republican Mark Molinaro is the incumbent there.
We see him as a very slight underdog against Josh Riley, the Democratic challenger.
They faced off in 2022.
Riley lost by a little over 2,000 votes, but he's running a much better funded campaign now.
And Democrats have been pretty effective in picking apart Molinaro's record since he got to Congress.
It's going to be a close race.
It'll be close at the top of the ticket, but we actually see Riley as a slight favorite in that race at this point.
New York 4, out on Long Island, southern Nassau County, the town of Hempstead, if you want to be real specific here.
Republican Anthony DiEsposito is trying to hold on to a district that is the most Democratic seat held by a Republican.
So we talked about Mary Peltola.
That was the most Republican seat held by a Democrat.
This is the inverse.
Biden would have carried Diasposito's district by about 14 points.
And so it's an uphill climb for the freshman Republican.
He's a former NYPD officer.
He's a former local politician.
And he's got some strengths there, but he's also had some embarrassing stories come out about some personal relationships and campaign finance spending.
So he's faced his challenges.
We see him as a slight underdog against Laura Gillen, who also ran against him last time and lost very narrowly, but is running a better funded, more supported campaign this time around.
So that's New York 4.
And then finally, Pennsylvania 1.
This is a seat that has bedeviled Democrats for a decade or more.
It's a Democratic-leaning seat in the Philly suburbs, and yet Republican Brian Fitzpatrick has been able to hold on to it.
And before then, his brother, Mike Fitzpatrick, was able to hold on to it despite it being a Democratic-leaning territory.
So we see Brian Fitzpatrick as the clear favorite in that race.
He faces a Democrat named Ashley Ehas, who, stop me if you've heard this before, also ran in 2022 and is running a better funded, sharper campaign, but still likely to come up a bit short.
Don is in Missouri on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Don.
Hi.
I wish you'd let me finish my statement before you interject with any kind of question.
I'll just finish my statement and let Jacob respond.
I am really concerned about the Democrats adding in votes after midnight.
If your state, if you listen to me, your state does not report out their final tally before midnight, you should storm your state capital.
All right, we're not going to call for violence on here.
Let's hear from Gabriel in Apex, North Carolina on our line for independence.
Good morning, Gabriel.
Oh, thank you so much.
So I live in a district that was previously District 13, that now that Republicans who have a super majority in the House, the General Assembly for the state have redrawn and our Supreme Court is upheld, which is very sad because it disenfranchises a lot of us.
And what used to be quite a sling district is now not at all.
And I'm just curious if you can talk a little bit about the specifics of North Carolina.
And then on the larger spectrum of this, it sort of seems, and correct me if I'm wrong, and you're somebody who really knows the cards on this in every district, but it looks like the big blue states that have certain independent boards that look at redistricting that sort of prevent against that are actually the ones that where Republicans are able to pick up seats.
And then in the red states, you know, where you have super majority control, that gerrymandering is getting worse.
Now, I know they do it in like Pennsylvania, but can you just talk about how there's sort of a double standard in that regard and then like just give us the large totality of what you think North Carolina's overall trend will be on Tuesday?
Thank you so much.
North Carolina is one of the most contentiously gerrymandered states and has been for quite some time.
I think over the last six House elections, North Carolina has had five different maps at this point.
They are always redrawing their maps.
So in 2020, it was a new map drawn by the courts that allowed Democrats to pick up a handful of seats in that election.
In 2022, it was also a map drawn by the courts because they tossed out the map drawn by the state legislature.
That allowed Democrats to pick up a few more seats.
So for instance, your Congressman Wiley Nicol in North Carolina's 13th district, that was a seat drawn to be highly competitive.
He won a very close race against Bo Hines in 2022.
But what happened in between 2022 and now is that the state Supreme Court flipped from being a Democratic majority to a Republican majority.
And as soon as that happened, Republicans re-filed a lawsuit against the districts and got the new Republican majority to say, actually, the map that we implemented in 2022, that's the bad map.
Republicans in the state legislature, you get a new chance to draw a fresh map for 2024.
The map that they drew there went from being an evenly divided 7-7 map.
So North Carolina has 14 districts.
There are currently seven Democrats, seven Republicans, to a map that has at least a guaranteed 10 seats for Republicans, three seats for Democrats, and then one toss-up district in that North Carolina's first seat where Democrat Don Davis faces a tough reelection.
So that's the story in North Carolina.
Republicans are going to pick up at least three seats in that state.
And if they hold the majority, that's going to be a big part of why they do it, because they're probably only going to get a pretty narrow majority next year if they do get a majority.
So North Carolina playing a crucial role there.
The new map playing a big part of Republicans' resilience this cycle.
To your other point about the commissions, I think that that is generally true, but it extends beyond blue states.
So probably the most notable versions of that are in a place like California, where there is an independent redistricting commission that draws the map.
And Republicans have had some success in the last two cycles.
But swing states like Michigan have independent redistricting commissions that have created maps where both parties have flipped competitive seats over the last couple of years.
Colorado, a blue-leaning state that has a commission that created a map with some competitive districts, but also a state like Iowa, which is a pretty Republican state.
They have probably one of the best and well-credentialed redistricting commissions, and they do a very good job of making at least three of the four districts in that state into highly competitive seats, despite the fact that overall Republicans tend to do pretty well.
So I think what you're picking up on is absolutely correct, that states with independent redistricting commissions are going to have more competitive districts, more opportunities for one party to win seats.
States that are still being drawn by the state legislatures, like a North Carolina, like a Texas, like a Florida, are not going to have any competitive districts.
They're going to lock in those majorities for their favorite party.
Celeste is in Wisconsin on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Celeste.
Hello.
Yes.
Thank you for taking my call.
And at the beginning of the show, when it was talked about, if you tend to vote Democrat, well, then you'll vote Democrat for the other seats also, or the other elections, Senate, Congress, etc.
And that's what I do.
I voted Democrat.
And I voted Democrat down the line only because I want to see things getting done.
It seems like with Democrats on one side, Republicans on the other side, that we're not working together.
So I want as many Democrats in there just to see things get done.
And then with the races going on in Wisconsin, I had a few questions about, well, what's important and what's not important?
And how come I don't hear about climate change with what's going on in the world and in the United States here?
Flooding, tornadoes, fires.
I can't believe that not more is being said about climate change.
So Celeste?
I heard.
Yes.
I just want to let Jacob respond to some of those points that you raised, including, you know, we talked about how important foreign policy is on the campaign trail for the House and Senate.
What about issues like climate change?
It is rare that you see candidates make a point of centering climate change on the issues that they talk about most.
And typically when we do see that, it's younger candidates because we know that young voters care a lot more about climate change than older voters do.
And so on average, of course, obviously it's not a hard and fast rule.
But I do think that there is a big age disparity there.
And some of the most vocal voices in the Democratic Party about climate change are coming from the youngest members of the conference.
And the Republicans, too.
I think to the extent that there are Republicans who are concerned about climate change, it typically is coming from some of the younger folks as well.
But certainly in Wisconsin, it is not an issue that seems to have risen to the top of that campaign.
We've got a lot of interesting races in the Badger state.
The presidential race at the top of the ticket, incredibly, incredibly close.
10 electoral votes that are very much up for grabs.
Both parties making a clear play for that.
And Wisconsin was one of the closest states in the 2020 election, but it only won it by a fraction of a percent.
So a lot of investment going in there.
That Senate race between Tammy Baldwin and Eric Hovety, the Republican, is also a top-tier contest.
Baldwin has held on before, but Hovedi is very personally wealthy and has spent a lot of his own money, gotten a lot of outside support to try and paint Baldwin as somebody who's gone Washington, who doesn't look out for Wisconsinites anymore.
Democrats have been trying to make Hovety's residence in Southern California and his ownership of a big bank a real issue for him.
And then even at the House level, there are some interesting races on either side of the state.
You've got the first congressional district, which is in southeastern Wisconsin.
Brian Stile, the Republican, faces a challenge from former Congressman Peter Barca in a seat that will probably go Republican, but has been a little interesting.
And then on the western side of the state, Derek Van Orden, the freshman Republican, is facing a pretty stiff challenge from Democrat Rebecca Cook.
Again, a seat that probably will go Republican, but two races that we're watching pretty closely.
I got to say, though, I watch a lot of campaign advertisements.
I've seen probably dozens of campaign ads from Tammy Baldwin, Eric Hove D, Cook Style, Van Orden, and Barca.
I struggle to recall any of them that touched on climate change.
So it's not an issue that is breaking into the commercials at least.
And I think that's a reflection of where the campaigns feel that they can win votes.
And unfortunately, it's just not an issue that they're willing to put time and attention on.
Mike is in Nassau, New York on our line for independence.
Good morning, Mike.
How are you?
I'm from Nassau, New York, and upstate New York.
We're part of that Molinaro-Riley race, the 19th district.
I don't think people realize how strange it is.
My backyard is five minutes from Massachusetts, and the 19th goes all the way down to the Pennsylvania border.
It's a very, very strange district.
Where I am by the Massachusetts-Albany border, we're more with Paul Tomco.
What the Albany area brings to us is more economically viable for us.
And it's funny.
You see all the ads from down in the southern tier.
That's three and a half, four hours away.
The district is so strange.
I was wondering if you could speak about that.
I was calling on the independent line because I watched the Democrats move this district around for years and years.
I was wondering if you could speak to that.
Thank you.
Yeah, this district kind of fits into the space left by the other districts is the way that I think about it is that you have your Buffalo district, you have your Syracuse district, your, you know, the Southern Tier district out represented by Nick Langworthy, your Great North District, your capital region, and then you've got your, you know, Hudson Valley.
And there's a space in the middle that kind of takes pieces from all of that.
And that's New York's 19th district.
So obviously, you right by the Massachusetts border.
District goes all the way west to Ithaca, Tompkins County.
It goes south, you know, Sullivan County.
It really does touch a whole bunch of different parts to the state.
It has five different media markets in it, which is a lot.
I mean, we really don't see that outside of some of those big states out west that cover a lot of ground, but not a lot of people.
And so it is an interesting district to campaign in.
You're able to tailor messages depending on which TV stations you're running ads on.
But it does take a lot of effort and resources to speak to the entire district.
And Riley, Josh Riley, the Democrat, is one of his party's best fundraisers.
He's raised almost $10 million this year, which puts him at the very top tier of fundraisers in either party in the House.
And that has allowed him to really get his message out against Molinaro and potentially get himself in position to go to Congress.
So it's absolutely a fascinating district.
It pulls from all different regions of the state, and it requires a pretty comprehensive message by each candidate, but one we're watching very closely on election night.
Philip is in Evansville, Indiana on our line for independence.
Good morning, Philip.
Yes, I would like a rundown of Indiana.
I know it's a bright red state.
We got Mike Braun running for governor.
And in Evansville, we elected a black lady for mayor for the first time.
And she's done a pretty good job.
And I just wondered if you could give us a rundown of Indiana in the southern district also and the governor.
Yeah, so Indiana has a couple of interesting races.
A lot of open seats that were up for grabs on the Republican side across the board in House races due to some retirements or Jim Banks up in Northeast Indiana leaving his seat to run for Senate, the seat being vacated by Mike Braun.
Like you said, a couple Southern seats that also were back up for grabs, had some very contentious primaries.
But the most competitive race at this point probably looks like the governor's race, in fact, which is not something any of us really expected to be talking about this late in the game.
But for a couple of reasons, Mike Braun is not an absolute lock for the Indiana governor's mansion this Tuesday.
He faces a challenge from Jennifer McCormick.
She is the former state superintendent of instruction.
She ran the schools, and she is a former Republican herself.
She was elected statewide as a Republican before switching parties to become a Democrat.
And there's a third party candidate in that race, a libertarian named Donald Rainwater, who is making life difficult for Mike Braun.
In 2020, Rainwater ran for governor.
He won 12% of the vote.
That's a lot of vote for a Libertarian.
And a lot of that could come from the Republican side of the aisle.
So it drops his support, drops Braun's support, and might allow Jennifer McCormick to win with less than 50% of the vote because it's just very tough for a Democrat to get anywhere near 50 in Indiana.
The other thing that's going on, of course, is that Mike Braun's running mate, Micah Beckwith, his lieutenant governor candidate, is a pretty controversial guy.
He said some controversial things.
He was not Braun's pick to be his running mate.
He got nominated by the Republican convention in the state, and he has made some missteps that have cost Braun some support.
So that governor's race, still Republicans favored, but one to keep an eye on.
And then the only congressional race in the state that's even mildly competitive is up in Gary, the first congressional district.
Frank Mervan, the Democrat, is running in a seat that leans Democratic, but is trending toward Republicans.
Randy Niemeyer is the Republican opponent there.
He doesn't look like he's going to win this time, but that's a district that through the rest of the decade is going to be quite competitive for both parties if those trends hold.
All right.
Last caller for now.
We'll go to Walter in Cleveland, Ohio, on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Walter.
Good morning.
Leading up to the 2020 election, I heard a lot that the more votes that were going to be cast, the better it would be for Democrats.
I haven't heard that so much leading up to this election.
Does the same hold true?
Maybe not.
And that's one of the most interesting things about this election cycle: Trump is showing a surprising degree of strength among the lowest propensity voters.
So the voters who are least likely to show up, voters who didn't vote in either 2020 or 2022, but might vote in 2024, those people are actually the most favorable to Trump.
And it's the voters who consistently vote, who voted in 2020 with 2022 in the primaries.
Those voters are most favorable to Kamala Harris.
So that's what the data shows us.
And that's why we aren't hearing nearly as much about how a high turnout scenario might help Democrats.
But ultimately, it all comes down to who's turning out because there's a lot of flex in the electorate.
And just because we're talking about high turnout, there's not one high turnout universe.
It really does matter who is actually showing up, which of the lower propensity voters are coming to cast their ballots.
So you're absolutely hitting on something that a lot of folks in the political world are talking about.
But until we know who exactly is going to show up to the polls, it's hard to say whether high turnout or low turnout really does hurt the Democrats in a way that it hasn't before.
Well, thank you so much for sharing your expertise.
Jacob Rubashkin is the deputy editor of Inside Elections.
Thank you so much.
Thanks.
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