From Washington: Behind the Scenes of the FOX News Decision Desk
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Saturday, November 9th, 2024. I'm Jared Halpern. President-elect Trump surges back to the White House with a political realignment in America. They're not strong Democrats. They're not strong Republicans. They've got kind of a set of issues, mostly sort of basic issues.

you know, kitchen table type issues. And the party that seems to serve them best is the one that's going to command their allegiance in a given election. And this time around, the Republicans did that and the Democrats didn't. And Congress will have more Republicans next year, but first has a to-do list before ending this year. Leadership elections are very hard to read. They are not partisan politics. They are particle politics decided at the subatomic political level. This is the Fox News Rundown.

From Washington. Did we just witness a seismic shift in American politics? The months-long campaign that often defied convention ended with the results that also defied convention. President-elect Trump's victory came from rising support from long-sought constituencies for Republicans, namely stronger showings with Latino voters, black voters, city dwellers, and voters under 30 years old.

Former President Trump also grew his advantage with white voters. Then there was, well, the vibes. Nearly 60% of voters disapprove of the job President Biden has done. According to the Fox News voter analysis, 70% felt the country was on the wrong track. More than a quarter of voters want a total upheaval of the way the U.S. is run. Another 56% want substantial change.

So that was the environment heading into Election Day, which had me asking, was Tuesday a mandate for President-elect Trump or a repudiation of the current administration? I think mostly the latter. Darren Shaw is co-director of Fox News Polls and a member of the Fox News Decision Desk. There are complex stories.

I think that are completely legitimate and valid explaining the election results. And then there's a very simple story, you know, that presidents with 40 percent approval ratings and 70 percent wrong track numbers don't get reelected. Now, it wasn't Biden. It was obviously his vice president. You know, it was a referendum. I mean, Trump started explicitly using the Reagan line late in the campaign. Are you better off than you were four years ago? Yeah.

That was the frame he preferred. And, you know, the unusual thing, of course, is that, you know, Reagan in 1980 was, even though he's governor of California, well, he was still an unknown entity. I mean, there was a lot of concern on the part of voters about what exactly he would do and how he would perform as president. With Trump, that's just not

You know, the comparison wasn't, you know, are we going to give this challenger an opportunity to take over the reins of government? It's do we want to go back to that guy who ran things for four years? And one of the things I think the Harris campaign never really grappled with is how to frame those four years under Trump. They concentrated on the, you know, the add-on, the three months after the 2020 election and kind of hammered home on that.

But, you know, they never really created a counter narrative for voters who were convinced that, you know, certainly as of January or February 2020, that the economy was good and was better than than it currently is and that Trump was responsible for that. And I think that that was one of their fundamental problems. There's going to be a lot. Excuse me. I think there's going to be a lot of soul searching on the part of Democrats and the finger pointing and the blaming has already happened. But we did see.

President-elect Trump make big gains for the Republican Party with Hispanic voters, with Black voters, with younger voters. Is that sustainable? Is that a realignment of how we look at people's identity politics? Or is this a one-off and unique to President-elect Trump? That's a great question. You know, for political scientists, it's the question.

You were discussing off air earlier about, you know, Trump being an aberration, Trump's candidacy. I mean, there's so many things that Trump did as a candidate that if you told me this was your advice, you know, that this candidate is going to do this. No one else would have survived it politically. Nobody else would have survived it politically. It's unbelievable. And I do think he's a unicorn.

in that regard. Right. I just don't think that that's the new template. I think that's, yeah, that's the template for a guy who was, you know, known by everybody and had been, had a television show and had been on the public scene for, you know, 30 years. Um, so, you know, but there's a question about the underlying dynamics that he tapped into this disaffection amongst less well-educated whites, this sort of lower class, uh,

Antipathy might be too strong a word, but certainly ambivalence towards the Democrats. You know, well, since Roosevelt and since Johnson, they've kind of been the party of the working class and the less well-off. But man, what have they done lately? And, you know, Trump really tapped into their sense of grievance, their problems, their sense that the elites were not interested in them, what they had to say. And, you know,

There's all sorts of ironies about that, about a New York millionaire being able to do that. But he wasn't the only one. Bernie Sanders had a kind of comparable message. So this sentiment was out there. These voters were out there. And we just hadn't really thought much about them. In 2008, 2012, they weren't really part of the new Obama coalition. And Trump tapped into that. I think...

My sense is that we paid so much attention to race and ethnicity and to some extent gender in American politics, we've missed class. And I'm not saying that race and gender aren't important cleavages.

But, boy, I tell you, I think we've underrated class. I think we have underrated this segment of the electorate isn't declining, isn't aging out. They're there. And Trump speaks to them. And I think what we've seen in this election is the notion that, well, race and ethnicity trump class.

No pun intended. Right. You know, the African-American, Hispanic voters, you know, lower status, less well-educated African-American and Hispanic voters. They're not going to go for Trump because of race and ethnic identity. And what we found is that's not necessarily true. It's far less predictive than I think a lot of us thought that maybe it was. Yeah. And your question is the right one, which is OK. But how strong is this new affiliation? And I

I'm not sure. I think the defining characteristic of particularly Latino politics is that – and I'd say this for young people as well where Trump also made significant gains – is that they're not well incorporated into the existing party system. They're not strong Democrats. They're not strong Republicans.

They've got kind of a set of issues, mostly sort of basic, you know, kitchen table type issues. And the party that seems to serve them best is the one that's going to command their allegiance in a given election. And this time around, the Republicans did that and the Democrats didn't. Could it flip if there's a recession, if there's no kind of onlookers?

entrepreneurial program that Trump promised that that doesn't seem to be delivered. And another issue. Absolutely. I don't think it's set in stone, but I think the Democrats have a real serious problem. And if there's a good economy and, you know, voters attribute that to Trump, these new kind of Trumpy Republican voters, then you could see a realignment, right? That electorate could carry those allegiances forward for a lot of years.

I am also curious as we look at them, and I know a lot of votes are still being counted, especially in California, millions of votes. Have you seen, was this,

as engaged a country politically as it was four years ago? In other words, I mean, did the same people vote? Did the same number of people vote? How did new voters, first-time voters kind of split? And did they have a role in this election in the way that certainly President-elect Trump's campaign had hoped that they would? Right. The turnout seems to be down.

Now, down from 2020, which was an unbelievable... A record high. Yeah, a record high. Because everybody could vote from home. Yeah. Well, and, you know, yeah, it's sort of COVID, mail, you know, relaxation of some of the mail requirements and things like that. And it was a red hot election, you know, where feelings on Trump were just so hot. And I think the feelings towards Trump have cooled a little bit. I know that's difficult to imagine, you know, given the campaign we just came off of and given some of the...

You know, the rhetoric on X and on cable television about this. But but I think I think it had cold. I think the four years had had provided a little bit of distance. I don't think it was as just sort of laser intense as it was in 2020. The numbers suggest there was a slight decline in the people who said they were extremely interested or extremely engaged with the election. So we got a little bit of that early on.

And by down, I mean between, you know, two to five points, depending upon the group. So there was that. The turnout numbers that we've seen, and you're right, there's a mess of votes in California. I think by 2026, they might have counted them. But don't get me started on what they're doing in Arizona and Nevada. But we think we're going to be down, you know, anywhere from like four to six million votes overall. I think that's probably the best estimate right now.

And Democrats, of course, look to that and say, well, we just didn't get our voters out. And you're going to see rhetoric on the left. You've probably already seen it that, you know, that Harris's mistake was not mobilizing her base, not being progressive enough and trying to lean into this persuasion strategy. I'm not sure that's necessarily right. You

I don't know if tacking left was really going to solve her problems, but it is fair for people on the left to say that we just didn't get our coalition to the polls the way we had last time. Now, by the way, because of our previous points we were talking about, the margin amongst African-American Latino voters is

There's a little bit of a problem to that, which is if you'd gotten the same number of voters, but you didn't get the same percentage of the vote that you got in 2020, you probably lose anyway. So their problem is they need to bring actually not just the same, but more voters to the table because their margins have diminished in some of these key groups.

What are you looking for now as we get – I hate to say it, but as we get ready for the midterms? Because you try and extrapolate data and compare and contrast it, right? So are you going to look at 2026 and say, all right, maybe we have a better handle of the electorate? Or do you have to wait until the next presidential because midterm and off-year elections are so different? Well, I think –

I think in terms of kind of what social scientists or, you know, anything interesting we can say to you, and sometimes we don't try very hard to say interesting things to you. But ours kind of pet theory with respect to midterms is something called surge and decline, that we think voters surge into the electorate for the presidential election.

And then a lot of them don't show up for the midterm. And we think that explains a lot of why the president's party doesn't do well, right? That, you know, those voters who surge into the presidential electorate disproportionately favor the winner by definition, right? That's why he or she won. When they melt away, when, you know, they're less interested, less involved, if, you know, in this case, Trump isn't at the head of the ticket, they might not show up for a state election. We think that helps the out party.

So the assumption is – now, the funny thing is do you think of this as sort of the first midterm after a president is elected or is it really the six-year –

Mark of the Trump. Yeah. I mean, listen, we've not seen this since at least since what? Since our boy Grover Cleveland. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's lost his kind of unique status in American history. I'm somewhat sorry about that. But at any rate. So I had said to somebody like, well, you know, I think how we think about establishment. But like, it's hard. I mean, Trump is an establishment. Right.

Republican now, right? He's been the leader of the party for a decade. Yeah. Everybody, it's the non-MAGA Republicans who are out of the establishment. No, that's right. I think the question is, you know, we know where Liz Cheney goes, but the Mitt Romneys and formerly John McCain's and the George, especially George H.W. Bush Republicans, like, where are they right now? Well, that's what I was going to ask, because

And obviously a big part of the Harris strategy, especially in the closing days, was to lean in on Liz Cheney, on, you know, Kinzinger, on the sort of never Trump type Republicans and see if that was enough to to get her over the finish line. I had question one, if there were a lot of them that still sort of.

believe that they were Republicans and to kind of what that population was. Did they break? Did those kind of Trump skeptical or never Trump Republicans ultimately at the end of the day break to Harris? No, you know, we we were tracking this with my colleague on the decision team. Arnon Mishkin was really kind of focused on this non-MAGA Republicans, especially non-MAGA Republican women. Yeah, we were looking, you know, the broader group, non-MAGA Republicans there, you know, about

You know between 33 30 and 20 percent of the Republican electorate not the entire but of the Republicans about you know what let's say one in four were non-magic Republicans and their defection rates were between 20 percent and 25 percent and in if if

If there was a relatively large chunk of them in a given state and they defected at high rates, that ended up really hurting Trump. But that was only true in a handful of cases. So they're diminishing as a proportion of the Republican Party. And to your point, their defection rates, about one in five left, right? So if it's like one third of the Republican Party, which makes it like one sixth of the electorate, and

And then, you know, you're winning 75 percent of those voters. It's pretty marginal. Now in a close election, everything matters. But I don't know. I found I just don't think many people, Republicans included, know who Liz Cheney is. I mean, you and I know and a lot of the listeners know. But that's not, you know, that's... President-elect Trump knows. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. And won't forget, I'm sure. But you think about what that meant. I think it's emblematic of a larger issue, which is...

OK, so Liz Cheney is going to vote for Harris. She was clearly going to vote for Harris because she dislikes and distrusts Trump. But what where do you agree with Harris on the issues? I think that was that was always the problem for non-MAGA Republicans, which is all right. I'm not comfortable with Trump, they would purportedly say. But am I interested in a high tax system?

culturally liberal, you know, ambiguous foreign policy president. You know, the Cheney Republicans are low tax, socially conservative and hawkish on foreign policy. You know, with the exception of maybe more hawkish on foreign policy, where do they align with Harris? I think one of the things that was fair to criticize the Harris campaign for was

Where were the issues that played into their larger themes, right? What are you going to do on day one that would reassure reluctant Republicans or even, you know, independents or some of these lower status voters we've been talking about that you're really with them, that you understand? I thought the almost complete inattention except to really micro-targeted issue positions probably hurt her. And, you know, granted, she only had 100 days. I think all those...

sort of excuses or rationales for Harris are legitimate. But, you know, you knew that on day one. And, you know, the lack of a set of issues that fed into broader themes, I thought was really disappointing. Election Day did not come by a surprise. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, you didn't discover in September that Biden wasn't very popular, right? That should not have been a revelation.

Let me finish with this, because I just love going behind the curtain because I'm not allowed in in the decision desk area once it's Election Day. You keep us. Your name's on the list. Keep him out. Yeah, no, I'm on the do not enter list. So take me into that room. I mean, when does your day start on Election Day and how do you guys go about making race calls? Because, listen, Fox was among, I think, the first to project that that.

President-elect Trump would become president-elect. It took some of the other networks longer. Are you aware kind of like what other networks are doing? Kind of take me behind the scenes. Sure. Well, we've got two separate things going on. The first is this massive pre-election poll. As you probably know, that Fox and Associated Press left the exit poll consortium after 2016.

And we collaborated with AP after 2016. So since 2018, we've been working with the Associated Press. They provide us with the vote count. And they, along with the Fox team, work with NORC, North Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. So it's this massive pre-election poll. So we don't do an exit poll anymore. We do interviewing on election day. The data start coming in about a week before. So from the Tuesday a week out,

All the way through Tuesday morning, interview data are coming in. And it's what we call mixed mode. There's some phone interviews. There's some text-to-web interviews. There's all sorts of it. It's a large probability sample. And then we also add some non-probability data in. And it's calibrated. And this is all technical. But we end up with something like 120,000 interviews. And in the key states, you know, between 4,000 and 5,000.

So that's kind of the data we're looking at. And we begin looking at it really in a serious way over the weekend. That is to say, do the weights look right? What are the response rates between people we think are Republicans and Democrats? Are there any states that look unusual? So we have these afternoon meetings on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and into Monday, which is one of the reasons why there's sort of a media blackout for members of the decision team.

Because, you know, when you've seen the data, even if the data are modeled and could obviously change, it's probably not best for me to go on, you know, doing a lot of media hits at that point because I have a big mouth. So we're kind of restricted. On the Tuesday, election day itself, we had our first data dump.

of the kind of final data around noon. And so, you know, Arne in Michigan, Dana Blanton, a lot of, you know, several other people, we're going to be writing the memo, which is presented to the larger Fox team at around 5.30 on election day. So we're in a quasi-quarantine room, right? We're not communicating with people on the outside anymore.

And we're trying to identify themes, surprise states, you know, try to kind of help the talent and the producers shape the narrative for the night that's to come. After we give this sort of 530 briefing, we go to our stations. And that's when all of the survey data comes in and is modeled for every state. So when your viewers see Fox call Massachusetts or Fox call, you know, Wyoming, they're

That's based on one percent of the vote. Right. With one percent of the vote. And I totally the viewers are like, wait, what the heck are they doing? And the reality is, if the survey data come in, you know, we've got a couple thousand interviews. And if it conforms with our prior expectations, it's like a 30 point lead or something. We feel comfortable calling the state, not until the polls close, but at that point.

But the more interesting states are the ones, you know, the Wisconsin's and the Nevada's of the world where the survey data confirm what we thought that is OK, it's going to be really close. And at that point, the actual data starts populating the system and very quickly it replaces the survey data and makes the models run. And when I say models, you know, it's it's based on geographic data.

areas within states and then we have a partisan breakdown within those geographic areas. So, you know, we talk about geo strata and party strata because we like to bore people. But pretty soon there's enough data and the differences begin to rise hopefully to a level of statistical significance. The differences are such that we can say, okay, that's not noise. That's not because we have a fluky... That's actually a meaningful distinction. And when it rises to a certain level of statistical significance,

We begin thinking about a race call. Then we run the traps. Is there a recount provision in the state? Are there provisional ballots that are outstanding? We'll communicate with AP and their stringers about what are you hearing from Milwaukee about, you know, a problematic precinct or they're going to have to rerun data. So all of those things go through. And then when there's unanimity amongst the decision team, okay, anybody has a veto. Anybody's not comfortable, that person can vote.

make us wait. Um, and then we take it to the producer and the producer looks it over and asks us questions. Are you sure? Are you, you know, and at that point the call will go into the Fox system. Um, usually there's a heads up email, um, that goes to the talent, the producers. Uh, but you know, sometimes those calls come really, really fast. And that, you know, that email hits right about the same time the check Mark goes in. Um, you know, so, uh, you did ask, sorry, just to

Well, it's fascinating because I think that gets so this is you are not looking at or pressured by what other right decision desk or whatever networks are doing. Yeah. You know, it was funny this year we were even less aware than usual about what the other networks are doing. And there are, you know, there are monitors in the room, but but we're kind of really focused on these these races. There are also some competing entities out there that don't have a major cable audience.

or a broadcast network audience that is really keyed in there. So for instance, Decision Desk HQ, which has been very aggressive in kind of building their statistical and analytical infrastructure. And we have a lot of respect for all those sorts of organizations out there. But, you know, we knew there was more competition, but we didn't really hear what the competition was doing until I believe the Pennsylvania call

And at some point somebody said like, well, nobody's called that.

It was after we'd made the decision to call it. We were like, oh, okay, so we're on the island again. And then almost immediately after, I think Decision Desk HQ called, I think Associated Press did. And Associated Press is looking at the exact same data we are. So it's nice. And that, by the way, was the case with Arizona in 2020 that not many people seem to want to report, which was AP looking at the same data, came to the same conclusion we did about 20 minutes later, you know, which...

Which made us feel better, although for three or four days, you know, no one seemed to care about how we felt. I remember the night. You remember the night. It's fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Listen, that's fascinating, right? Because I do think that there are always questions about, well, how are these projections made and how come...

You know, you can do it sometimes with this many votes and like people are curious about, well, there's only X number of votes in this state, but so many more in this state. And they made a call here and a call there. You're right, because the data is different. It is. And the way that recounts work is different. Right, exactly. And yeah, so, you know, that's really helpful. Yeah, we've we've.

We've actually kind of got, I believe, an informal sort of editorial rule, which is in the case where there's a potential recount, we're very reticent to project a winner, understanding that, you know, in the aftermath of 2000, of course, there were all sorts of allegations that presuming Bush had won had, you know,

basically spoiled Gore's case or something like that. And so, so we tend to, you know, we'll put out also editorial advice that says like, you know, Hey, there's, you know, this person's down 15,000 votes. There's 20,000 votes that are going to be involved in the recount. And the likelihood is awfully small, but, but for that reason, we're not making a call, but yeah, you're right. I think people will look at one state and say, well, wait, the margins, this is,

In this state, you've already called it, but the margin's here and you haven't called it. Why is that? Well, more often than not, it's because the kind of ballots they're reviewing are different. You know, in one state... Where they're coming from is different. Where they're coming from is different. And, you know, occasionally we'll have information from our partners at AP that, okay, you know, in this county, it's not only is it coming from, let's just say, Philadelphia or from Clark...

But we know it's coming from the very blue or the very red areas within those jurisdictions. So, you know, in Nevada's case, for instance, Nye County, which was a rural county, had some glitches in their system. So we knew that Nye was going to kick in additional Republican votes while Clark had presumably some Democratic-leaning ballots. So we're kind of – we tend to be shy there. And I think after Harris conceded, we basically turned –

um, our call system over to AP. So now at this point, our position is the Senate's been called, the presidency has been called. And when you get to a level where it's sub-county,

AP has more stringers available who can kind of flesh out the story. So AP is now, I think, I'm not even sure. I believe we've called McCormick in Pennsylvania Senate, but we haven't called the Nevada Arizona races. Yeah. And, you know, a few people have, but, you know, our sense is those stuff's going to be trickling over. We know what control is going to be. We're just talking about the margin right now. So I'm not gonna say our work is done, but I am taking a flight home tomorrow. Yeah.

Well, we're happy to hear that. Darren Shaw, it has been a long, I was going to say a long week for you, but it's been long months. You do tremendous work for our polling unit, tremendous work on our decision desk. And I really enjoy having our conversations regularly. Hopefully they continue after you get some rest. Safe travels back to the great state of Texas and the wonderful city of Austin. All right. Hey, always a pleasure. Thank you very much.

Thank you. That was great, Darren. Great. I appreciate it. It was a lot of fun. See you soon, man. Take care. This episode is brought to you by Etsy. Oh. Hear that? Okay. Thank you. Etsy knows these aren't the sounds of holiday gifting. Well, not the ones you're hoping for. You want squeals of delight, happy tears. How did you? And spontaneously written songs of joy. I am so happy.

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The 119th Congress is taking shape. And while some races are still being tallied, what we know is this. Republicans will have control and by a larger majority in the Senate than Democrats currently enjoy. That will make things far easier for President-elect Trump, especially as he names cabinet secretaries and other high-level administration officials who will need the sign-off of the Senate.

But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, there are still weeks left for the 118th Congress. And this lame duck session will be busy as both parties wrap up a year-end to-do list and prepare for what's ahead. Fox News Senior Congressional Correspondent Chad Pergram looks at the politics and the policies. When they come back in the session next week, what is awaiting them?

Well, at some point they have to fund the government by the 20th of December. And, you know, in a weird way, this might have been made a little bit easier because you're going to have, we believe, unified government in the new Congress. The White House, the House of Representatives, which is still not called to this moment.

and control of the Senate. And so probably whatever President-elect Trump wants is what they will be able to pass to keep the government open, probably punt into sometime early next year, and then they'll have another funding fight. So this will be an interim spending bill of some sort, and that will probably be blessed by President-elect Trump with whatever he wants. Now,

The question is, can they get a defense policy bill done? Can they get the farm bill done? Maybe something on trade. There's a little bit of a question there. But most of the big things right now are going to be punted to next year. They have to raise the debt ceiling sometime in the first quarter of next year. And the other thing that they're going to have to tackle in the near term, this is not legislation.

We thought we might have a fight over the leadership race in the House of Representatives. I wouldn't rule anything out, but we don't think that's going to happen. But on Wednesday...

They have to elect a new Senate majority leader. Now, Mitch McConnell, who is the longest serving party leader in Senate history, he's not leaving the Senate, but he is stepping down from the leadership post. He will remain in the Senate. And there's a leadership race between John Thune, who is his current deputy, John Cornyn of Texas, who used to be the majority whip.

And then you have Rick Scott of Florida, who ran last time two years ago against McConnell and only got about 10 votes. Well, let me ask about that race, because I think that is shaping up to be very interesting, given that President-elect Trump is returning to the White House. His chief of staff, incoming chief of staff, Susie Wiles, was Rick Scott's campaign manager when he ran for governor of Florida back in 2010. Does that

increase the likelihood that perhaps President-elect Trump weighs in on this Senate Republican election? The question is whether or not he in fact does. We just don't know yet. That is a very interesting phenomenon. And Rick Scott has always been the most aligned with President-elect Trump compared to John Thune and John Cornyn. Oh, they've straightened up in recent years here. But Thune especially had been very critical of

Trump kind of in the interim period of governance here. Yeah. Well, you know, after the second impeachment trial in early 2021, he voted to acquit, but he said that he thought that what the president had done was inexcusable, that he tried to steal the election and that there was, you know, he disrupted his term here, the, you know, peaceful transfer of power. That was one thing he spoke out about.

He also said back in 2016, after the release of the Access Hollywood tape with former President Trump, that he thought that the nominee, then the Republican nominee, Mr. Trump, should step down and that Vice President Pence, future Vice President Pence, should be the standard bearer in just a few weeks with the election. That didn't happen. John Cornyn, he basically said in 2023, this is not that long ago, that the time for former President Trump had passed and it was time to move on to somebody else.

Well, guess what? Well, here we are. So that being said, being Senate majority leader is really about keeping the trains running. It is about making sure that the legislative priorities of the president get through. Thune and Cornyn both have a lot of experience doing that in a way that Rick Scott does not. Correct. Correct.

Yeah, I mean, probably the one thing that Rick Scott might bring to the table is the fact that he has gubernatorial experience. He's been the governor, so he understands the executive a little bit, even though this is different than in the federal government. OK, so that's one thing there. But both Thune and Cornyn, you know, being the whip, they understand the conference very well.

You know, when Rick Scott was in charge of the NRSC, the Republican body to elect Republicans to the Senate, they did not fare too well a couple of years ago. But some people in the Senate, they think it's time for just a break from this old leadership team. They think that's a problem. The idea that these guys have been there associated with McConnell. Mitch McConnell has a fair number of enemies in his conference now. You know, he said when he decided to step aside.

Some time ago, he said that one of his best traits was his political acumen and being able to read the political room. And I think some people didn't think that maybe Mitch McConnell would be able to give it another go. Plus, there were health issues with Mitch McConnell. So that's kind of what they're looking at there. So, you know, and you've heard me say this before, Jared, leadership elections are very hard to read.

They are not partisan politics. They are particle politics decided at the subatomic political level. And little movements of these political neurons and protons and everything in our political super collider here at the Capitol make a big difference. And this is why people thought that Kevin McCarthy in the House just about two years ago after several days of voting was dead and couldn't attain the speakership. And guess what he did?

And then he was done. And then so everybody thought it was going to be Steve Scalise. And nobody had it on their bingo card. Speaker Mike Johnson. And look who's speaker. So that's why it's very hard to divine these things in these leadership races.

I am curious as well, as we look at this new makeup in the Senate, it will be a majority for Republicans. It will not be a super majority for Republicans. They won't have 60 seats. So legislation is still going to have to kind of go through that bipartisan process, at least most legislation.

without getting sort of into the weeds of how budget reconciliation works but uh confirmations do not nominations do not so this is going to give president trump an awful lot of deference with cabinet selections

Yeah, I would not be surprised if there is a Republican senator or two who leaves to join the administration in some capacity. We don't know what form just yet, but yeah, that's probably on the table. And probably in states, Republican states, where they can appoint someone pretty quickly. That said, the president-elect has said that he likes people who are acting.

We don't think that he will necessarily yet short circuit the confirmation process, the idea that you can put somebody in for a certain period of time as the acting secretary of whatever or director of whatever agency or something like that without Senate confirmation. It does not need 60 votes anymore. But I would keep a close eye.

on people like Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Because right now we think that they're going to be at 53 votes. There are two uncalled Senate races in Arizona and Nevada which are trending toward the Democrats. Right. So let's say, you know, and they were not exactly, you know, Murkowski and Collins, always reliable votes for former President Trump the last time. I might add to that list, I'm curious to get your take, Senator-elect John Curtis.

Yeah. You see, that's another thing. And, you know, it was very interesting to look at conservative states where you have Republicans and former President Trump. They did very well in Ohio and obviously Pennsylvania. You know where they did not do as hot? Utah. Yeah. And I just I just read something today about, you know, the Latter-day Saints vote in Utah that they still just have a problem with the way the president elect comports himself. John Curtis, as you say, has been a congressman for several years now from Utah. Yeah.

And, you know, that he's a bit of a wild card. So that is something to watch and flying below the radar right now. Sticking that Mitt Romney seat, which I guess will still be very much like a Mitt Romney seat. We'll see how he handles the United States Senate. Let me flip over to the House again. It looks like Republicans are on track for. I looked at one trend line. It could be the exact same as it is right now.

in the new Congress, Chad. Isn't it amazing that they have spent hundreds of thousands, nay, billions of dollars? Billions of dollars for status quo. And you wind up with the same thing? I mean, granted, some races went different directions and things, you know, but it's basically the same thing. And what does that mean? Well, you'll be surprised to know that it's about the math.

And so therefore, Republicans probably are going to have this narrow majority. It depends when certain people are out. It depends, you know, what certain people feel a certain way. It probably helps tremendously if you have former President Trump with this kind of electoral mandate behind him to advance things. But they say, OK, we want to do tax reform. OK, great. Well, that's probably the last time. That's right. And that probably bites into the deficit.

And so suddenly the conservative deficit hawks, the Thomas Massey's of the world from Kentucky arise. Do you have the vote? I mean, I could see a scenario where maybe you,

might get a Democratic vote or two, depending on what the issue is, frankly, because they see the writing on the wall, the outcome of the election. Someone like Marie Glusenkamp-Perez, the moderate Democrat from Washington state who appears to have held her seat, maybe voting for something like that, depending on what it is. But again, so maybe make up the difference there is what I'm saying. What about the New York Republicans when it comes to SALT?

That's right. In the tax bill. State and local taxes. SALT, as they call it. Mike Lawler, Republican from just outside New York City. He won.

Nicola Loda, Eastern Long Island. They're very upset that salt didn't get worked out the last time, and that might cost them some votes if they don't include that in this tax bill. Could be a narrower majority than Republicans enjoyed the first two years of the first Trump administration as well in the House. So those margins become a lot tougher. I do think, and I'm curious your take, this probably does make it a lot easier for Mike Johnson. There's not going to be like immediate calls for his ouster or anything like that.

We don't think so. We don't think so. That's something to watch. Again, it just depends how revved up certain members are. You know, what we've seen here before is that, you know, President Trump, President-elect Trump seems to have this mandate.

And so that probably quashes some of that for now. But if things start to go sideways and they have to start doing interim spending bills again, and there are some Republicans, I mean, I'll say this as we approach the deadline for the spending bill on December 20th, that there are certain Republicans who say, I just don't vote for interim spending bills.

and you're still dealing with the old Congress, keep that in mind, and the Democrats who've carried more water than Gunga Den for the Republicans during this Congress to keep the government open and raise the debt ceiling and all that, they'll be like, hey, you guys figured out your own stuff, push back from the table. So maybe that doesn't go as swimmingly as we think, frankly. Yeah.

But I'll just put that on the radar out there. As you know, I'm known as Dr. Doom when it comes to these things. Yeah. Or a realist. We'll see. Chad Pergram, our senior congressional correspondent. And realist. Congress is back next week. Chad, appreciate it.

Thank you.

Tomorrow on the Fox News Rundown from Washington, the transition is underway. We'll talk with White House correspondent Jackie Heinrich about how the Biden administration plans to end its time in office and Fox News politics reporter Brooke Singman about how President-elect Trump is staffing up his incoming administration. Until then, thanks for listening. I'm Jared Halpern from Washington.

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