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April 8, 2024 - Doug Collins Podcast
27:50
2024 House and Senate
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You want to listen to a podcast?
By who?
Georgia GOP Congressman Doug Collins.
How is it?
The greatest thing I have ever heard in my whole life.
I could not believe my ears.
In this house, wherever the rules are disregarded, chaos and mob rule.
It has been said today, where is bravery?
I'll tell you where bravery is found and courage is found.
It's found in this minority who has lived through the last year of nothing but rules being broken, people being put down, questions not being answered, and this majority say, be damned with anything else.
We're going to impeach and do whatever we want to do.
Why?
Because we won an election.
I guarantee you, one day you'll be back in the minority and it ain't gonna be that fun.
Hey everybody, welcome to the Doug Collins Podcast.
Glad you are with us today and we got a lot coming up here.
Really in the middle of a primary season, in the middle of the six months mark.
I guess the best way to put this.
The six month mark from The general election, what we're going to face the next six months.
I do this, you know, we know we do this for those regulars here on the podcast.
We do a regular update on the main races to look forward and just sort of see where they're laying out.
We've had some primaries now, so we know, like in Ohio, we know it's going to be Marino against Sherrod Brown.
So we're going to dive into the House and Senate 2024 primaries here just to give you a quick rundown.
Of course, as we get through the rest of the year, we're going to spend more and more time on analyzing these races as we go forward.
But Right after the break, we're going to get right into this today.
Got lots to have for you on the podcast.
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So, right after the break, let's get started.
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Okay, we're back.
And in dealing with these races, let's just do this.
The Senate and the House are very different.
Now, I'm going to lay it out right quick why we need to pay attention to the overall picture.
Now, the House is going to be, from my projections right now, the House is lean Republican.
But watch.
I think that's the best way to put this.
Lean Republican, but watch.
There's just a little bit more.
We talked about this six to eight months ago.
We talked about it's going to be a little bit harder on Republicans.
I think there's a lot that didn't help them.
But the one helper that has been constant in this is Joe Biden.
Joe Biden has been the helper for and the way some of the Democrats have acted as far as running on what they're running on.
Now, they are dependent upon abortion agenda.
They're dependent upon A more radical left agenda than what most of these flip seats are going to have to deal with.
So these flip seats are going to have to deal with the scrutiny of national politics under the wave of a presidential election.
So this is a big deal for these flip seats that Democrats have to have to gain the House.
The Senate's going to be a similar story.
And we'll talk more about that.
I think the Senate has not changed really in any in a real way since we began this process they've got a lot to defend Republicans don't have as many to defend.
The Republican defenses are in very safe, general areas, although the Democrats are making waves about raising money in Texas and raising money in Florida.
Let me just assure you that I think most of the raising money in Texas and raising money in Florida are for general outcome election votes for Biden.
Not nearly as so for what they believe could flip a seat on Rick Scott or Ted Cruz.
And that's sometimes just what you do, okay?
This is basic politics.
And we've seen it in Georgia.
We've seen how Democrats have made gains.
And frankly, you can go back historically and see how Republicans have made gains in statewide races into which they typically don't do well.
This gives them the capability to up the total number, even in districts they can't win, to help statewide candidates in states that are becoming more and more, what I'll say, the flippable kind of states.
And this is what's happened in several states, Georgia and North Carolina.
In particular, Michigan, some of the others as we go forward.
So let's just jump right into the House side of this.
The House side is probably the more straightforward, well not straightforward, the Senate is more straightforward.
The House is more straightforward in the sense that there's a divide that the next six months is gonna clear up.
So look, the math, and again, you've heard me say this before, politics is a math.
And if you understand math, you can understand how to get to 218, and that's what we have to do.
Granted, the House has not helped itself.
Republicans have not helped themselves in the last six months.
They do not seem organized.
They do not seem connected.
You've got members quitting left and right.
You've got chairmen who are quitting and leaving in midterm, which has drawn their majority down to really one of the constitutional majority.
And if there's absences, of course, that number can fluctuate.
But if you had everybody present, they can only lose one in this setup.
The votes.
And this is going to be tough.
And for a member of Congress, remember, it's like, and you need to put this in your head.
Congress is just like any other business or workplace or school, however you want your best relatable point.
People get sick.
Family members get sick.
Family members die.
There's, you know, issues that come up and there just be days that members aren't there.
And this is, you know, before you get all huffy and puffy and say, oh, they ought to be there all the time.
Well, are you at work all the time?
No.
So, as I say on this podcast all the time, we can't divorce politics in reality.
And when you do, you get frustrated, you get mad, you yell at the wind, you go to social media, and you talk about how bad things are.
Well, take a step back here and just realize that right now the Republican majority is not necessarily in danger of flipping to Hakeem Jeffries, who I've seen a lot of...
Exasperated breaths going on in the Twitter sphere and others about that happening.
It's not happening at this point.
There would have to be much more change, which again, is it out of the realm of possibility with this type of majority?
No.
But it's happened before.
Republicans have had a one-seat majority early in the 2000s.
So we can do this.
But it's not helped that we have had to pass omnibus bills.
We've not done the things that you have a lot of people saying that should be done.
So let's just put that in perspective.
Republicans haven't helped themselves, but the math and where these seats are coming from have stayed fairly constant.
So let's look at this.
Right now, if you looked at this, and you can take this from many sources, there's 187 seats roughly.
Inside elections is one I'll use right now.
They're saying that there are 187 seats that are solid Republican, 29 that are rated as likely lean or tilt Republicans, which gives the GOP 216 seats.
Basically, two seats short of the majority.
Say that one real quick.
And so, all they got to do is in the top ten races is win two of these races.
Okay?
So, they just have to get these toss-up races and win.
The math on the flip is harder for the Democrats because right now, if you take all of those into account, they come up to 209. They're at 213 right now.
That means the Democrats need to win 9 of 10 races to get to 2018. Now, they've kind of done this before.
They've run this straight as best they can and picked up seats that they didn't think they would pick up in 2018 to get this.
The reason the maps now look a little different as opposed to where they were a little bit ago was in North Carolina.
You had three, if you remember, North Carolina had redistricting.
They flipped basically three Democrat seats to Republican seats.
New York had several seats that basically would switch Republican seats to Democrat seats.
You've had Alabama, Louisiana.
That was the Alabama second and Louisiana sixth that have both...
And Brandon Williams in the 22nd, who won with Biden on the ticket in 2020, was redrawn a little bit as well.
So this is a tough setup for the Democrats and going forward in this race.
So looking at this, you also have to hold toss-up seats in these elections.
So you got Colorado 8th, you got New Mexico 2nd, and you got North Carolina 1st with Don Davis, and Michigan 7th, which Is a possibility of open because of Lee Slotkin running for the Senate.
So if you lose any of those seats, then you just have to add one on to your wins and the other toss-ups.
So if you lost, say, two of four there, that's two more seats that you have to win in Tulsa to have to keep or pick up some other place to replace those that you're having.
Don Davis in North Carolina, he just won a primary out there.
We'll see what happens in North Carolina in that first.
Colorado's eighth.
Again, that one's going to be interesting to see.
The interesting thing in Colorado was Lauren Boebert going to the fourth and getting out of the third, opened up the third to remain Republican.
Most predicting had that seat being lost because Boebert would not win that seat in the third.
So if you do look at us and play electoral math, her leaving the third to go to the fourth in the race actually saved the third for the Republicans.
So that's, you know, I guess positive in the sense that we don't have to worry about the third being in play.
It's no longer in play.
In fact, if you were the Democrat out there who was running against Boebert, you just got to feel absolutely deflated that she left because all the money he had raised and everything that he'd done, almost beating her the last time, It's not going to take place here, and most people have just pulled it off the board as a Democrat pickup because it's a pretty Republican district.
Now, the 4th will be interesting in whether Boebert can continue to serve in Congress by winning the primary, and the 4th is still very much up in the air.
Ken Buck is now an open seat, and this open seat means that there'll be a special election, so there will actually be an incumbent in the November election.
Or in the primary going forward here, it's a split dichotomy.
We can talk about that later.
So you'll see.
But Boebert chose not to go into the fourth special.
And of course, you would have to give up her seat in the third.
So that's how that's playing out at this point.
But just know that Colorado's still in flux a little bit.
Been trending left in everything for a while statewide, mainly because of Denver and And Boulder and those areas like that, the population centers have been going.
But they've had some issues out there.
We'll see how that opens up.
The Michigan seat's interesting.
Michigan 7 is interesting because it's the least slot can seat.
She's running for Senate now.
So there'll be some pull for her in that district because she's still on the ballot and people who are voting for her probably would vote for her replacement candidate in the 7th.
But it is...
A flippable seat because this is basically a Biden-Trump 50-50.
Biden won them by 51% in 2020. And there was a lot of 2020. And there's also a lot of split ticket that went on in those races in these different counties.
So you had some who were voting Democrat at the top or voting Republican down under.
There is a toss up race in a Trump district.
These were all Biden won districts by small margins in 2020. Trump did win Washington's third district.
And this one is issue one by very slow, very slim margin in 2022. This is a Representative Perez from Washington's third.
She beat Joe Kent, if you remember that race.
This was Jamie Herrera Butler's seat that she stepped away from.
So it's a marginal Republican seat.
They're going to go after Perez this time, Glosson County Perez.
And if Trump does better in this district, that district could be very much of a problem.
Now, there is some of these seats that you need to take a look at in California.
Garcia and Duarte and you got Esposito and Lawler in New York and also Dreamer in Oregon.
And these seats are gonna be seats that Trump lost.
So again, now Garcia has been through this before in his races.
That's a very flippable kind of seat in California.
It will be on this list almost every time we talk about these races because of just the locations that.
So these are the seats that you have to look at.
Now, The media markets, other things, so you're seeing these fringe New York, Los Angeles kind of media market districts.
It's Orange County, just in that area in Los Angeles, right around the suburbs in New York.
So we'll see how these actually play out.
It means that the DCCC and the Republican National Campaign Committee, Congressional Committee, are going to have to...
We put a lot of money and a lot of effort into these seats, so you'll see that play out over time.
The other interesting one, I'll throw this up there, is that you have a Democrat incumbent in Alaska and Maine, two seats that are very Trump seats, in the Maine second.
It's not Maine the whole, but the second district has been a back-and-forth district for many cycles here.
Jared Golden currently serves there, and we'll see if he can hold this in a Trump election cycle.
Going forward because the Republican turnout will be much heavier probably in the second than it has been in some of these other races.
We'll see if he can hold it.
Mary Patola out of Alaska again won a state ride race there mainly because of a split Republican issue there.
And this was the seat to Don Young seat.
And so we'll just have to see if that stays as she can hold on to the seat in Alaska.
So right now, here it is.
The easier path.
Republicans, but it's not a set path.
There's a lot of ifs and questions in some of these races.
They're in a better position.
But again, a lot of this is going to determine, you know, the turnouts and especially some of those districts that with Trump or Biden won, how they go back and forth.
And we'll see how that plays out.
As we go, though, let's just jump into some Other seats here that are going to play in the Senate.
So we're going to flip over to the Senate here a little bit.
And I think the biggest difference here is we've talked about the seats in play.
I'm adding Michigan to this this time.
I've not really added Michigan in before, but Michigan now I believe is in play because the Biden campaign is having such issues with the Muslim Americans in Michigan, which are a significant voting bloc and have been for Democratic Party for a while.
This is also the state that he had 100,000 vote uncommitted in the presidential preference primary.
What was moving along as a very Thoughtful discussion as far as Democrats keeping Michigan has now become more of a we're not sure because they just don't know how to play the vote because the union vote, especially with the mandates from EV technologies that are coming out of the Biden administration, is not helping The union workers and the big three automakers that have a huge presence in Michigan.
And many of those will vote for, although their leadership, and this is always the great divide, especially in these union leadership, the union leadership is Democratic, where the union laborers are voting Republican.
And so Michigan with Slotkin now has become an interesting race.
Interestingly enough, the Republican race has gotten a little more interesting in Michigan, and let's just take Michigan as a whole here for a second, because you also have the addition of Justin Amash has jumped into this race as well.
Justin was a former GOP colleague of mine, and he is...
Very conservative, very much on the libertarian side of the Republican sphere.
He will pull some votes, especially in a Republican party that is basically broken right now in Michigan.
In essence, they have a two-chairman situation right now.
Now you have the former chairman who was voted out, doesn't believe she's been deposed.
And you have the new chairman who the RNC deals with going back and forth.
So this is, again, what could be a pickup in an open seat primary, open seat in Michigan has now become a real dogfight.
And it's going to be interesting.
Now, Donald Trump has weighed in on the Senate side.
He's endorsed Mike Rogers, another former colleague of mine, in this race over Peter Meyer and the others.
Amash and Trump do not get along at all and have not in many ways.
For a long time, there's a crowded primary.
It looks like Rogers has the inside advantage here.
The latest polls after the Trump endorsement actually shot Rogers up.
Rogers had a problem with some of the more conservative base in Michigan, given the fact that he was the Intelligence Committee chairman, seemed to be more Tied to the FISA, the deep state, more issues of surveillance.
But he's out working hard.
He has the name ID. He's won in that state before.
So we'll see how that works out.
Mike Rogers coming in that race.
So I'm putting Michigan up toward the top of my list.
Not necessarily to say flip or non-flip, but it's one that we're going to have to watch in the next few months to see how this Republican primary shapes out and then who is going against Michigan.
The...
You know, the Democrat Lee Slotkin in this race.
Again, the last time this seat was actually up in 2018, the Democrats won the seat by six and a half points over John James in a very closely contested race.
But this was the red wave election in which we lost some seats that, frankly, we shouldn't have lost.
But it was the first reelect under Donald Trump.
This is always the kind of things that happen.
So again, just keep that in mind.
As we go forward, you've got Arizona.
Since we last talked about Arizona, the race has now basically come down to a traditional race.
Up until about three or four weeks ago, which was since the last time we talked about races, Sinema has dropped out.
She is not running for re-election.
She is going on to bigger and better things in the world of Washington.
But that puts Gallego and Lake in a head-to-head race.
For this seat.
So it's going to be close.
It's Arizona.
Trump, this will be one in which the presidential election there actually, I think, will track very closely with what happens in this Senate seat.
Right now, Donald Trump is doing well in Arizona.
It's always been a traditionally Republican area.
It has been a little bit of turmoil for the last few years, really since Flake and McCain both either died or left the offices.
So it's been back and forth, and we'll see how this one goes.
Again, I think this is going to be one that you have to watch in terms of the presidential side of this.
I mentioned in the pre-show the Ohio race is now set between Marino and Brown, now game on.
This will be just a dogfight till the end, just a JD Vance kind of race that went last time with JD Vance.
One, Ohio is swinging very much more toward the Republicans in the last few election cycles.
Most feel like Marino has the advantage here, but never count out a veteran like Brown who has the resources, the knowledge, the name ID, and You know, years of being in that space to solidify what an incumbent role can have.
So, one to look at.
Very much similar to John Tester in Montana.
This is, again, a conservative leaning state for a long time, but has elected Democrats, and Tester's one of them.
As you look at this race, Tester comes in with homegrown, He's a rancher.
He's known.
I mean, in almost 20 years, I mean, he's touched probably every part of the smaller state.
He is being challenged by former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy, who has gotten in the race last June.
He's got Trump's endorsement.
He also has NRSC, the Senatorial Committee's endorsement, and also Steve Daines, who is the Opposite of Tester in the Senate, he's the gentleman I served with in the House.
He went on to serve in the Senate in Montana.
And he is the head of the NRSC and is putting a lot of time, money, and effort into that race to get Sheehy across the line.
And as soon as that If Sheehy becomes the nominee, that will be a dogfight with Tester and Sheehy going forward.
And it'll be an interesting race.
This is highlighting the classic, I've been here a long time.
Sheehy is relatively new back to the state.
He's a young, exciting kind of candidate, business background, military background.
It'll be interesting to see.
Again, maybe how the presidential may deal with that, but nobody is putting Joe Biden winning Montana at all.
So I think it's just going to be a fight there.
Since the last time we talked about this race also, Matt Rosenville was looking at challenging in this race, but he has since dropped out and actually dropped out of his own seat.
So we'll see how that plays out.
Another one that is going to be interesting is Nevada.
The Jackie Rosen is in for her second term, first reelect.
And the race is now looking like Sam Brown is an Army veteran businessman.
It's a crowded primary, but it does look like Brown has the inside advantage to this one.
So again, a little bit early on that one.
We're going to have to shake that one out to see who the primary winner is on the Republican side and then look at the race.
Now, I know that Nevada is on a concern for the Democrats, especially Biden, because of their They've been hemorrhaging support in the Latin community, the Hispanic community.
So as you look forward to that one, keep that one in mind.
Another flippable seat is the Pennsylvania seat.
This is Casey, Bob Casey running.
For his fourth term, you've got McCormick, who is challenging him again.
McCormick lost the primary in 2022 to Dr. Oz, and he jumped into this race last September.
That one will be one that'll be balanced out.
Remember, though, and we're going to sort of end this segment of talking about this, the Senate right now, though, is inherently, if you just took the Senate Because we didn't talk about West Virginia, and this is where this conversation comes in.
West Virginia Senate seat is going to be Republican.
That, in essence, puts the Senate in a tie if you kept everybody the same.
If that was the only election going into November, the Senate is, in essence, tied.
But it will be under Democrat control because Kamala Harris is the Vice President.
All of the rest of the seats that I just mentioned, which are easily picked up, could be easily picked up by scenarios by the Republicans, will just add to Republican lead.
So you can see an almost flip completely.
Now, it's not going to be easy.
They've got to flip at least one to two more of these seats to confirm that.
And for Democrats to avoid that, they've got to hold all these seats and then pick up one.
I mentioned before, they keep looking at Texas and Florida as their pickup states.
Just not going to happen.
Tennessee's up with Marshall Blackburn.
That's not going to happen.
So as you look at some of these seats going forward, remember the Democrats are very much at a disadvantage in the Senate side in this cycle because of the loss of West Virginia already, and then the fact that there's no real pickup seats available to them.
And we've not even talked about Wisconsin, which could become an in-place seat as well moving forward.
All of this is where we're at.
We're about six months out.
Wanted to give you a good just primer.
We're going to dive deeply into these races, have some of these candidates probably on the podcast to talk about their situations, talk about where they're going in their races, how it looks.
We'll talk to party operatives from a Republican perspective on those races as we go forward.
But just wanted to catch you up, give you a six months out date as we go.
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