CSPAN - Washington Journal Chuck Rocha
Aired: 2026-04-07
Duration: 02:59


=== Historical Midterm Patterns (02:59) ===

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[00:00:43]  C-SPAN, Democracy Unfiltered.
[00:00:49]  Washington Journal, joined now by Chuck Rocha.
[00:00:52]  He is founder of Solidarity Strategies to talk about Democrats in the midterms.
[00:00:56]  Chuck, welcome to the program.
[00:00:57]  Good to be here.
[00:00:58]  All right, so let's talk about the midterms.
[00:01:01]  Democrats are hoping for a blue wave in November.
[00:01:05]  They've picked up 30 seats since 2024 in state legislatures.
[00:01:11]  It's important to note that's not federal.
[00:01:13]  Republicans have not picked up any.
[00:01:15]  Talk about that.
[00:01:16]  So that shows a momentum of dissatisfaction that we see across the country.
[00:01:22]  But a special election is a different than an off-year election, but it's also good for your listeners to know that an off-year election is much different than a presidential election.
[00:01:32]  What do I mean by that?
[00:01:33]  In a presidential election, which we went through in 2024, there was a giant turnout.
[00:01:36]  Donald Trump, and I give Donald Trump a lot of credit, he got a lot of people to show up who weren't regular voters.
[00:01:42]  In an off-year election, which we're heading into, normally about 35 to 40% of the folks who participate in a presidential election do not come back.
[00:01:49]  So it's the base of both parties and the most active people.
[00:01:52]  And it's more about turnout than it is persuasion.
[00:01:55]  And you kind of know who they are from year to year.
[00:01:57]  And what you've described in the state rep races are special elections that have just happened because somebody retired, they gave up, something happened.
[00:02:04]  And then you have even more of the base of the base show up in a special election.
[00:02:08]  And so what you see there is more of a motivation right now by Democrats, which is a great sign for us headed into the midterm along with history.
[00:02:15]  History that we're fighting right now is normally the party that comes into power.
[00:02:19]  The other party normally picks up seats.
[00:02:21]  And that's went on throughout history.
[00:02:22]  It's only been twice in the history of our great nation where that didn't happen.
[00:02:26]  So Republicans not only are...
[00:02:28]  But one time was during a war, right?
[00:02:30]  Absolutely.
[00:02:30]  Yeah, one time was during a war.
[00:02:33]  You mentioned that people are frustrated with Republicans.
[00:02:37]  I want to show you two numbers.
[00:02:38]  And this is a poll by Pew on American frustration with political parties.
[00:02:44]  Those frustrated by Democrats are at 75%.
[00:02:47]  Frustrated by Republicans, 64%.
[00:02:50]  Still high, but not as high as that top number.
[00:02:52]  Republicans control everything in Washington, D.C.
[00:02:54]  They control the presidency, the House, and the Senate.
[00:02:57]  So it's easy to make them the FOIA because they're in charge of everything.