CSPAN - Washington Journal Charlie Cook
Aired: 2026-03-12
Duration: 20:59


=== Independents Hold the Seat (10:23) ===

[00:00:00]  According to Josh Ireland, Trotsky led two revolutions and a civil war in Russia in the first half of the 20th century.
[00:00:07]  Leon Trotsky died on August the 21st, 1940.
[00:00:11]  The day before, in Trotsky's house near Mexico City, a man named Ramon Mercator sunk an ice axe into Trotsky's skull.
[00:00:19]  He lived for 26 hours.
[00:00:21]  Mercator, who had several names, was a Soviet agent and had befriended Trotsky.
[00:00:26]  This was all the work of Stalin, Trotsky's arch enemy.
[00:00:30]  Josh Ireland's first sentence of chapter one asks this question.
[00:00:34]  When did Joseph Stalin decide to crush or destroy or kill Leon Trotsky?
[00:00:40]  His book tells the complicated story.
[00:00:42]  A new interview with author Josh Ireland about his book, The Death of Trotsky, the true story of the plot to kill Stalin's greatest enemy.
[00:00:50]  Book Notes Plus with our host Brian Lamb is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app.
[00:01:00]  Joining us to talk about the midterm elections is Charlie Cook.
[00:01:04]  He's the founder and a contributor to the Cook Political Report.
[00:01:07]  Charlie, welcome to the program.
[00:01:09]  Thanks for having me on, Mimi.
[00:01:10]  So midterms, just over seven months away, historically, the party that holds the White House loses seats in the House and the Senate.
[00:01:19]  How are things looking in general for this one?
[00:01:23]  In the House, the House and Senate are different animals, but in the House, as you know, 90% of the midterms since the end of World War II, they've had losses.
[00:01:32]  The only exceptions were 1998, Bill Clinton impeachment in 2002, 13 months after 9-11.
[00:01:40]  And what happens in these midterm elections, it's two different things.
[00:01:43]  One, the supporters of a party, members of a party that won the White House, they tend to be satisfied, complacent, disappointed, disillusioned, but they're really pumped up.
[00:01:57]  But the side that lost, they're angry and they want payback.
[00:02:02]  And so they tend to be a lot more motivated.
[00:02:04]  And then the little bitty slice of voters in the middle, we're really talking 5%, 10%, they tend to be fickle.
[00:02:12]  They tend to get buyers' remorse.
[00:02:14]  And they'll vote for one side.
[00:02:15]  And then for whatever reason, they're disappointed and vote the opposite way.
[00:02:20]  So between those two things, the House very reliably switches.
[00:02:25]  But the Senate, keep in mind, the last four elections, the House and Senate have gone different directions, where one party picked up seats in the House and actually lost seats in the Senate.
[00:02:33]  It depends on which seats are up and where.
[00:02:37]  Let's take a look at an Economist YouGov poll.
[00:02:40]  This came out on the 11th of this month, and it was just asking for President Trump's approval rating among independents.
[00:02:47]  So this is just independents.
[00:02:49]  And it came out to be at 62% disapproval, 31% approval.
[00:02:55]  How did those numbers look?
[00:02:57]  Because really it's the independents that decide these elections.
[00:03:00]  No, you're exactly right.
[00:03:02]  And that typically we see the presence approval rating among Republicans in the mid-high 80s, approaching 90, among Democrats, single digits, and generally in the 30s among independents.
[00:03:16]  And, you know, it varies slightly from one poll to another, but that's, yeah.
[00:03:22]  And the thing about it is in red states, red, solidly Republican states and districts, a lot of these, a Republican can win with like no independent votes, certainly no Democratic votes.
[00:03:34]  And the same thing the other way with blue Democratic states, districts, that's right.
[00:03:38]  But the swing states and districts where the big races are, they tend to be disproportionately independent.
[00:03:44]  And that's where that job approval rate among independents becomes so important.
[00:03:50]  Now regarding the polls on the Iran war, so the New York Times is reporting that the polls are showing kind of some fluidity there.
[00:04:00]  27% approval in a Reuters-Ipsos poll, 50% approval in a Fox News poll.
[00:04:07]  This is what the Times say is, quote, the wide variation suggests that public opinion is still taking shape as more Americans learn details of the attacks and the aftermath.
[00:04:17]  What do you think?
[00:04:18]  You know, I think they still are soft.
[00:04:21]  It's still new.
[00:04:22]  It takes a while.
[00:04:23]  But the other thing is, and I want to say this very carefully because, you know, with an enormous amount of compassion for the families that have servicemen, women that are either in the region or could go to the region, you know, we had a son that was in Afghanistan on combat unit 14 years ago.
[00:04:41]  So I know it.
[00:04:42]  But I don't think it's going to have that big of an impact on the election because basically 47, 48% of the electorate is baked in for Republicans and 47, 48% baked in for Democrats.
[00:04:56]  So we're talking about really a slice, and that's between party members and independents who, people who claim to be independent, but lean one way and vote that way very reliably, so that there's not a lot of, there's not a lot of malleability that presidents now, it's true with Biden, true with Trump, they have high floors, low ceilings, because their party members are not going to abandon them no matter what.
[00:05:23]  And the other parties are not going to support them no matter what.
[00:05:26]  And so we don't have the plunges down into the 20s that presidents used to have.
[00:05:32]  But they can't, first of all, hard to get into the 50s, but certainly not in the 60s or where presidents used to be.
[00:05:38]  So it's not, and if you're in a party, you're sort of with your president right or wrong.
[00:05:48]  And if you're disillusioned, the odds are you're more likely to not show up than to vote for the other party.
[00:05:54]  If you've got a question on the election for Charlie Cook, you can go ahead and start calling in now.
[00:05:58]  The lines are biparty.
[00:06:00]  Democrats are on 202, 748, 8,000.
[00:06:02]  Republicans 202, 748, 8001.
[00:06:05]  And Independents 202748-8002.
[00:06:10]  I want to show you a generic congressional ballot.
[00:06:14]  This is for 2026.
[00:06:16]  And that is showing that Democrats are at 47.7%, Republicans are at 43%.
[00:06:22]  That's from real clear polling.
[00:06:24]  What do you make of those numbers?
[00:06:25]  First of all, I don't look at anything with a decimal point because it implies a level of accuracy that simply does not exist.
[00:06:31]  But we're seeing Democrats ahead on the generic by, say, anywhere from three to ten, three to nine points, that sort of thing.
[00:06:41]  But keep in mind, there are only going to be about 40 districts, 40, 45 districts in the country that are in play.
[00:06:49]  So if you did a thousand sample poll, that means fewer than 100 interviews would be in districts where there's any chance of them doing, you know, of it becoming competitive.
[00:07:02]  So that the generic, okay, it tells us that Democrats have a wind at their backs.
[00:07:07]  Well, hell, I knew that.
[00:07:09]  I didn't need a poll to tell me that.
[00:07:11]  Well, then let's talk about some of the toss-up races.
[00:07:13]  I want to talk specifically about the Senate.
[00:07:14]  We'll put a couple on, these are the toss-up races.
[00:07:17]  So Senator John Ossoff in Georgia, a Democrat.
[00:07:20]  He's running for re-election.
[00:07:22]  There's an open seat in Michigan due to Senator Peters' retirement.
[00:07:26]  Susan Collins in Maine, a Republican.
[00:07:30]  And there's an open seat in North Carolina for the departure of Senator Tom Tillis.
[00:07:35]  Which one of those do you think is most interesting that you want to talk about?
[00:07:38]  Okay, I'll pick one.
[00:07:39]  But the thing about it is, I just want to reiterate, the Senate is a different animal.
[00:07:44]  And as I said, we've had four elections in a row.
[00:07:47]  They've gone in different directions.
[00:07:48]  And so these aren't midterms, but when Richard Nixon's winning 49 states in 1972 over George McGovern, his party lost two seats in the Senate.
[00:07:58]  Same thing with Reagan in 84.
[00:08:00]  I mean, the Senate seats are their own animals.
[00:08:04]  I think for Democrats, I think they have a real good chance of picking up the Michigan open seat that you mentioned where Senator Gary Peters is retiring.
[00:08:14]  I think they have a pretty good chance in Maine against Susan Collins, although it does matter which candidate they nominate, whether it's Janet Mills or Graham Plattner.
[00:08:24]  But after that, it's just long shots.
[00:08:26]  I mean, real long shots.
[00:08:28]  And on the other hand, you know, Michigan, that open seat is an open Democratic seat.
[00:08:34]  That one may be hard to hold on to.
[00:08:35]  And there's New Hampshire, which is technically a blue state, but I think it's probably the least blue of the blue states.
[00:08:43]  There's an open seat there that Democrats are going to have to kind of work hard to hold on to.
[00:08:49]  Democrats are saying they could take Texas with the win of Tallarico in the primary.
[00:08:56]  I'm going to six foot and have red hair tomorrow.
[00:08:58]  So you're saying no chance.
[00:09:00]  But it's not, is it possible?
[00:09:04]  Yes.
[00:09:04]  Does it require certain things to happen before that could happen?
[00:09:09]  But keep in mind, the last time Democrats won any Senate race in Texas was 1988.
[00:09:16]  Long time ago.
[00:09:17]  Yeah.
[00:09:17]  The last time they won this Senate seat was LBJ in 1960, when he was also John Kennedy's running mate.
[00:09:25]  Texas is a state that they're going to have to get some people that haven't voted Democrat in a long time to suddenly vote Republican.
[00:09:35]  Now, if John Cornyn is the Republican nominee, it's just not going to happen.
[00:09:41]  If it's Ken Paxton, it's plausible, but still requires different behavior than we've seen there in a very long time.
[00:09:49]  But whether it's Alaska or Florida or Iowa or Nebraska, a lot of these red states that Democrats are talking about, we're not seeing Democrats capture red states anymore.
[00:10:01]  We're not seeing Republicans capture blue states anymore.
[00:10:05]  The action, it's all been purging, if you're Republican, purging Democrats out of red states, like you saw with John Tester, Montana, Sherrod Brown, Ohio, and Joe Manchin's open seat, or Democrats purging Republicans out of blue states.

=== Money vs Small Donors (10:35) ===

[00:10:24]  But for the most part, the action is just in the seven states of Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, and then Nevada, Arizona, North Carolina, and Georgia.
[00:10:34]  All right, let's see what callers want to talk about.
[00:10:36]  We'll start with David Auburn, New York, Republican.
[00:10:38]  Hi, David.
[00:10:40]  Good morning.
[00:10:42]  I have a question I've wanted to ask for a long time about the campaign industry.
[00:10:48]  And I think Mr. Cook, he'd be one of the guys that would give an answer or have an explanation.
[00:10:54]  And I just got to give you a little backstory.
[00:10:57]  I've been giving donations to political parties and candidates for about 25 years.
[00:11:02]  I started back in 2000.
[00:11:06]  And at this point right now, I must get some days I'll get 25 or 26 solicitations in my mailbag.
[00:11:16]  I'm not kidding you when I tell you.
[00:11:18]  I get maybe 100 a week right now, and it's heavier and heavier.
[00:11:22]  Every year it's grown.
[00:11:23]  And I don't give big money.
[00:11:25]  I give 100 here, 100 there, maybe 200, 300.
[00:11:28]  I've given as much as 500 in my state race for governor, but nothing beyond that.
[00:11:35]  But again, again, I'm not a big giver, maybe a few thousand dollars a year, but I must get right now I'm getting over 100 solicitations a week.
[00:11:48]  So David, are you worried about the cost of those solicitations?
[00:11:51]  Yeah, I want to know how big of an industry is this campaign industry.
[00:11:55]  How many people are involved in this?
[00:11:59]  They just blindly send this stuff out.
[00:12:01]  I can't read it all.
[00:12:03]  Most of it just goes right into the wastebasket.
[00:12:06]  I don't have the time.
[00:12:07]  Not that it's not informative.
[00:12:09]  It's not.
[00:12:09]  I say this.
[00:12:10]  You find stuff out.
[00:12:11]  All right, David.
[00:12:12]  I say this with affection and respect.
[00:12:14]  It's your fault.
[00:12:16]  Because if you never gave anybody any money, you wouldn't be on the list.
[00:12:20]  But they trade and sell lists back and forth so that every time you make a contribution, other people from that party are going to get your name and address and email and all that, and are going to pummel you again.
[00:12:32]  So the more you do it, the more lists you're going to be on, the more you're going to get hammered.
[00:12:37]  But that's also not a good solution because we want small donors like David.
[00:12:41]  We don't want the big PACs and the billionaires to run politics.
[00:12:46]  What do you think?
[00:12:47]  I think there's some truth there, but there's also some tyranny in lots of small donors that are emotion-driven and will go for that get moved for relatively frivolous reasons.
[00:13:04]  I'm not sure it's that.
[00:13:06]  So how do you succeed?
[00:13:07]  Well, to succeed in online fundraising, you have to throw red meat to your constituency.
[00:13:16]  You've got to get them riled up.
[00:13:17]  And that pulls the parties off into different directions.
[00:13:20]  How should campaigns be funded then?
[00:13:24]  The money's going to come from somewhere.
[00:13:25]  I'm not for public financing, but...
[00:13:26]  But what I'm saying is that, first of all, the system is awash in money.
[00:13:32]  And in the competitive general elections, nobody's losing because of money.
[00:13:37]  I mean, like, you know, five years ago, we moved the Washington area to Maine.
[00:13:41]  The Maine Senate race in 2000, we're talking about a state with 1.4 million people in it, okay?
[00:13:47]  $200 million was spent in the 2020 Senate race.
[00:13:53]  This one is going to be between $300 and $400 million.
[00:13:57]  All sides, both sides, super PACs, everything.
[00:14:01]  That's a lot of money per voter.
[00:14:04]  Right.
[00:14:04]  In swing states, there's money.
[00:14:08]  I mean, you can't efficiently spend that much money.
[00:14:12]  In fact, the losing Democratic candidate from 2020 in Maine, she still has money left over.
[00:14:20]  So, you know, the thing is, if you like people contacting you and urging you to give, if you enjoy that, give.
[00:14:31]  But if you don't want to get on the list.
[00:14:34]  Don't give them any money.
[00:14:35]  Yeah, I mean, it just perpetuates itself.
[00:14:38]  Patrick, Nashville, Tennessee, Democrat, you're on with Charlie Cook.
[00:14:43]  Good morning, and thank you for having me.
[00:14:46]  I want to address just numbers.
[00:14:49]  In 2020, basically 178 million people voted.
[00:14:56]  Then when Biden got elected, they say the Republicans and Trump said that Biden allowed 20 million illegals into the country under Biden.
[00:15:10]  Then in 2024, 174 million people voted.
[00:15:17]  And then Trump and Republicans constantly state that these illegals had false identities and they were allowed to vote.
[00:15:26]  So I don't understand the math and statistics and the lies that 178 million people voted in 2020, 20 million people enter the country under Biden, and less people voted in 2024.
[00:15:43]  It's constant, but they never do the math and they constantly lie about it.
[00:15:49]  All right.
[00:15:49]  What do you think, Charlie?
[00:15:50]  Well, I'm not sure which side you say is lying about it, but it's been a violation of federal law to vote for a federal office if you're not a U.S. citizen for a really long time.
[00:16:04]  And the cases in any election, and I don't care whether it's Democrats or in the Justice Department or Republicans, the number of cases they find each election, they're minuscule, absolutely minuscule.
[00:16:18]  So that this is, you know, this country is facing a lot of problems, and there's a lot of things that government doesn't do very well.
[00:16:27]  But administering elections, actually, they do do reasonably well.
[00:16:31]  And people say, well, we need to restore integrity to our election process.
[00:16:36]  Well, the reason why their questions is because some people are raising wild accusations and don't stick around for any answers or explanations, and they never back it up.
[00:16:50]  And it's really kind of frustrating.
[00:16:56]  But the cases of illegal people voting in, you know, at least let's talk about federal elections.
[00:17:04]  We're talking about, you know, way, less than like 1% of all votes.
[00:17:10]  Chucky and Columbia, Maryland, Independent Line.
[00:17:12]  Go ahead.
[00:17:14]  Good morning.
[00:17:16]  Yes, I am from Maryland, a state which I think shortly will have nothing but one party as representatives in Congress because of gerrymandering.
[00:17:30]  So people here say, well, you know, what's the sense in even voting, even bothering to vote, because it's already set up that the majority is the one particular party that has locked in everything.
[00:17:46]  And what gets me is that I have not heard recently the term about our heroes who are buried in the ground, as once known as the silent majority.
[00:17:58]  They used to throw that term around, the silent majority will do this and do that.
[00:18:03]  How can the silent majorities do anything?
[00:18:05]  They're underground.
[00:18:07]  Whoops.
[00:18:09]  We have had gerrymandering as long as there's been a country.
[00:18:13]  I mean, the term goes back to the 1700s.
[00:18:17]  But it's only been the last, say, 30 years that it has gotten to this point.
[00:18:25]  And the thing is, when Democrats gerrymander, it's horrible.
[00:18:30]  When Republicans gerrymander, it's horrible.
[00:18:33]  And guess what?
[00:18:34]  They're both doing it.
[00:18:35]  Now, you live in Maryland, Democratic state.
[00:18:37]  It's Democrats that are trying to purge the last Republican out of the congressional delegation.
[00:18:42]  But look what's gone on in some of these other states.
[00:18:44]  And the thing is, this mid-decade redistricting, where did it start?
[00:18:49]  Texas.
[00:18:50]  And then California responded.
[00:18:52]  And the thing is, it's horrible when either side does it, but when one side starts, the other side's going to return higher.
[00:19:00]  And we talked about the Senate.
[00:19:02]  Let's talk about the House.
[00:19:04]  There is the 4th District of Kentucky.
[00:19:06]  Tom Massey is facing a challenger for the primary who has been endorsed by President Trump.
[00:19:15]  The Jewish Coalition Victory Fund released this ad, and I want to show it to you and then get your comments.
[00:19:23]  America is at war with a fanatical regime that seeks nuclear weapons.
[00:19:28]  American hero Ed Galrain stands with President Trump, our country, and our military.
[00:19:35]  Thomas Massey, he stands with Iran and radical leftists in Congress opposing Trump, just like he did on the border and taxes.
[00:19:44]  Now, Kentuckians have a choice, Gal Ryan and Trump or Thomas Massey.
[00:19:49]  The RJC Victory Fund is responsible for the content of this advertising.
[00:19:54]  What do you think of that?
[00:19:55]  Well, it's somewhat unusual to have a president attacking a member of their own party in a primary, but lots of unusual things happen.
[00:20:08]  You know, I don't know what's going to happen in the Kentucky primary.
[00:20:12]  I know that it doesn't matter.
[00:20:15]  Either one of them would win a general election in a heavily Republican district.
[00:20:19]  But it's just one of the many unusual things that happen in the New World Order is presidents traveling on Air Force One to go and campaign against members of their own party because they haven't been sufficiently loyal or because they've been disloyal.
[00:20:40]  That's sort of where we are today.
[00:20:44]  Let's go to New Hampshire in line for Democrats in Raymond, New Hampshire.
[00:20:48]  Ted, you're on with Charlie Cook.
[00:20:51]  Yes, Mr. Cook, I have a question about this control at the voting booths.