A 538 Election Road Trip
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I recently got a piece of metal put in my mouth. Oh. Is that a palate expander? It is a palate expander. So we'll see if I can avoid saying Tim Sheehy, because that's not awkward as hell. Just call him Tim. The Montana Republican nominee. There you go. I sound like Jon Tester, right? He's like, my opponent. My opponent.

Hello and welcome to the FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast. I'm Galen Druk. We talk a lot about the presidential race on this podcast, but of course, that is not the only thing on the ballot in November. All around this big, beautiful country, voters will cast their ballots in races for Senate, House, as well as dozens of ballot initiatives.

So today, for all of the true election heads, we are doing the down-ballot episode. And we're also, for those purposes, going on a road trip. A whirlwind journey across the map in an attempt to cover as many noteworthy down-ballot races as possible.

as possible. And we're going to start right here where I am sitting in the FiveThirtyEight podcast studio in New York State, where House Democrats are hoping for a better outcome than their lackluster 2022 performance. Then we will crisscross the country, making a pit stop wherever there's a down ballot race that could prove pivotal this November and beyond.

By the end, we will have a better sense of the congressional map, the state of several high-profile ballot initiatives, and we will be in Alaska, which we're going to have to figure out how to get home from there. But without further ado, let's get on the road. Here with me is senior elections analyst Jeffrey Skelly. Welcome to the podcast, Jeffrey. Hey, Galen. Hey, Galen.

Also here with us again is New York Times polling editor Ruth Gelnick. Welcome to the podcast, Ruth. Thanks for having me. I brought road trip snacks. Okay, what do you have for us? Bagel chips? Yes, obviously. Okay, awesome, awesome. All right. And also here with us is senior elections analyst Nathaniel Rakich. Nathaniel, what are you bringing? I don't know, but I call shotgun. Okay.

All right. Well, that's taken care of. Jeffrey, Ruth, behave in the backseat. We don't want any fighting. And I'm controlling Spotify, at least for now, at least to start.

Okay, so like I said, we are starting in New York City. On the whole, Democrats did better than historical expectations would suggest in the 2022 midterms. But one exception to that was New York State, where Democrats did poorly enough that it sort of solidified the idea that if there was any red wave, that it happened on a local level. The question now is whether 2022 was a fluke,

or whether New Yorkers are cooling a bit on Democrats. Just to say here, when it comes to the House, Democrats need to flip four seats in order to win control. For the Senate, if Trump wins, Republicans only need to flip one. If Harris wins, Republicans need to flip two. So in New York, we have four competitive House races, all currently held by Republicans. And

and all of them in congressional districts that Biden won in 2020 by 15 points, by 10 points. So this is relatively blue territory, but currently held by Republicans in Congress. Jeffrey, what will it take for Republicans to hold on here? And does it seem likely? I mean, I don't know if anything seems likely one way or the other. The 538 House forecast is

is basically giving Republicans a very slight edge at the moment. So it seems much like the presidential race, which makes sense. The race is really tight. And I think it makes sense that you would find a really tight House race because, oh, hey, most House races don't see much of a split between the presidential and House vote.

In fact, in 2020, only 16 – that's a tough word to say when you have an orthodontic thing in your mouth. So overall, there are 16 out of 435 seats that in 2020 split their vote for the House and their vote for president.

That's a very small percentage. It's basically the smallest share of the 435 House seats that we've seen in modern times. And I think it speaks to the fact that most people are going to vote the same way for president and House. So we have a close presidential race. So somewhat naturally, we have a close House race, especially because the House map is very slightly favorable to the GOP, the median seat. So if you put all of them in a row by presidential vote in 2020, the median seat –

went for Biden by about two percentage points, and he won nationally by about four and a half. So the fact that our forecast is giving a very slight edge to Republicans in the House, but also maybe a very slight edge to Harris, it makes a lot of sense that they're both sort of in a similar position.

So on one hand, you might think, well, if there are very few split ticket voters, then Democrats could just pick up all four in New York because this is all Biden territory. On the other hand, Ruth, y'all have found, at least the college has found that New York is closer than you might normally expect. And

And so these districts may no longer be, say, you know, Biden plus 10 or 15. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. I think things are changing in New York. It's a really fascinating place, particularly sort of New York and New Jersey. I'm especially fascinated by Siena is in upstate New York. So they pull New York a lot. And they have found this kind of shifting that shows that the trends we saw in 2022 are sort of sticking around in those areas.

So I'm really interested to see how that goes. And it's interesting. I mean, in particular, some of those big shifts happened in the congressional districts on Long Island. And you go around that area and it really does feel different. Like it feels more Republican. You see more Republican signs. There's just kind of a changing area in a really interesting way. Yeah. And Trump is trying to play into that with his rally in Madison Square Garden.

Just a quick drive from Long Island to Madison Square Garden. Pay 60 bucks for parking and, you know, yeah, yeah. But not congestion pricing anymore. But famously not congestion pricing. Famously, famously. Famously. And speaking of which, since we're not going to have to pay congestion pricing, we get to use that $15 on, what is it? More snacks. So we're picking up some Sour Patch Kids. Yes!

And we're going to take I-95 north all the way up to Portland, Maine. And then we're going to take a left until we hit Lewiston, the most populous city in Maine's sprawling second district. And this is where Democrat Jared Golden is going for what would be an impressive fourth term in a district that Donald Trump won twice. So Trump carried Maine second by six points in 2020 and Golden won reelection there also by six points in 2022.

Does Jared Golden have a secret that makes him particularly good at winning Trump districts? Or is it something to do with Mainers, who famously love to split their tickets and reelected Susan Collins while giving Joe Biden a healthy margin in 2020? The answer is yes. Both. Both.

Jared Golden's secret weapon, no joke, is like his tattoos. He has some gnarly tattoos. But no, he like cuts against the image of national Democrats. He's a tough guy, kind of Trumpy in demeanor, lobsters all over everything, lobsters, lobsters everywhere, which is a big industry in Maine's second district. So yeah, he's a strong candidate. But I think in a year where he has to share the ballot with Democrats,

the presidential candidates, right? We know that obviously these races are increasingly correlated and just gets harder and harder, as we'll talk about with some of these Senate races, to swim against the tide. So I think Golden is in real danger of losing this year. So you're saying that also second daughter Ella Emhoff's tattoos are also helping Harris win at the top of the ticket? All I'm saying is that maybe Democrats, if they lose with Harris, they should consider nominating Ella Emhoff. Yeah.

All right. With that, we're getting back in the car. We're done in Maine. I'm turning this car around right now, says Galen. We're going to head south till we get to I-90. But first, a quick stop in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Nathaniel, because you want to say hello to your mom and also because we want to talk about marijuana. So there are a handful of states with ballot initiatives that would relax marijuana law.

Florida, North Dakota, and South Dakota all have initiatives that would legalize recreational marijuana use. Nebraska's would legalize medical marijuana. According to Open Secrets, the Florida pot referendum is the most expensive ballot initiative this cycle. More than $100 million has been spent on it. I guess a lot of people want to open dispensaries. Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, Question 4 would legalize certain plant-based psychedelic drugs such as mushrooms.

Nathaniel, as our Massachusetts native, what's your take? And if it passes, will you indulge under the law? Well, I no longer live in Massachusetts, Galen, so I can avoid answering that question in good faith. A recent Mass Inc. poll found it pretty evenly divided, which is actually historically not a great sign for ballot measures because things tend to break away from ballot measures.

So basically, if a poll of a ballot measure shows things close or even if the yes side farther ahead, you should maybe assume that undecided voters are going to break against the measure because there's this thing called status quo bias, which is to say when people are undecided and they're not sure about making changes, they'll be like, I'm going to default to no because things are going OK the way they are and I don't want to

mess with that or whatever. So I'm not sure that one is going to pass. But yeah, it's interesting. And, you know, marijuana related ballot measures have had a moment the last several cycles. And that's been a way that a lot of states have legalized marijuana, especially red states. And it looks like that's going to continue maybe this year in places like Florida.

I think it's kind of fascinating. Marijuana in particular is one of the biggest public opinion shifts that we've all seen in our lifetimes. It's really marijuana and same-sex marriage. And so it's really fascinating. I think people don't always think about that one, but it is, if you look at the sort of public opinion lines, they completely cross on marijuana. It's wild. Like, it's a huge shift. Do you know why? Why are Americans so down with smoking a blunt and getting gay married? Yeah.

Um, what a good question. I don't, I mean, you know, I think, you know, I remember, uh, pulling on marijuana related ballot initiatives happening as early as like 2006. You know, I think the people who wanted those put a lot of money behind that. And it's not just that it's also just a cultural shift, but it really has moved public opinion.

Okay, well, let's move on to a contest with slightly higher stakes. The Senate contest in Ohio. Republicans are favored to win back the Senate this cycle, and that's because they only need to flip, well, one or two seats to gain control. As I mentioned, West Virginia, where Joe Manchin is retiring, is

a lock for Republicans. After that, Republicans will only need to win one additional seat if Harris wins. And one place where that might happen is Ohio. So their Democratic incumbent, Sherrod Brown, is in the fight of his political life. Back in 2018, he won re-election by seven points. But of course, in 2018, Donald Trump was not on the ballot and there was a blue wave. When Donald Trump was on the ballot in Ohio in 2020, he won the state by eight points.

points. That said, Brown does have a slim lead in our polling averages. We have him leading Republican Bernie Moreno by about two points. To survive, Brown will need a lot of split ticket voters, something that is harder to come by these days, as we've discussed, although apparently not in Maine. On that point, are you guys surprised that Brown is holding on to a slight lead in our averages, given how red Ohio has gotten?

I am. If you had asked me six months ago between Sherrod Brown and Jon Tester who was going to be in worse shape going into the election, I would have said Sherrod Brown. And the reason for that is that he just doesn't have much of a history of overperforming the top of the ticket. As you mentioned, Galen, he's had the benefit of running in two previous blue wave years. And then in 2012, Obama actually carried Ohio and Sherrod Brown basically went along for the ride.

In Montana, Jon Tester has also had the benefit of running in some blue wave years, but he has consistently run ahead of the base partisanship of the state. Now, of course, Montana is significantly redder than Ohio is, and that looks like it's probably going to be Tester's undoing this year. But so far, Brown has held up better in the polls than Tester has. But I think the note of caution that I would suggest

send for him is that if you look at our polling average, Brown's lead has been shrinking. And that has been because Bernie Marino has been gaining ground and Brown has basically just been treading water. And I think that's because a lot of those undecided voters who are probably Trump voters are coming off the fence in that race. And I don't think Marino is a particularly strong candidate.

But it is definitely the case that this gap is narrowing and it could just kind of similar to Maine's second, Trump could just kind of carry Moreno over the finish line there. So I certainly don't think this is a done deal for Brown, even though he has been leading fairly consistently in the polls so far. Yeah. And I will just add the ticket splitters there. It's really interesting. So there are sort of a higher than average number of ticket splitters there. And it sort of they work against Brown's favor because they are

overwhelmingly Republicans that were Trump supporters in the past, support Trump again, and are choosing to split to a Democrat, which means that he could really lose those people, as opposed to speaking to Harris's weakness. Maybe these are Democrats who don't want to vote for Harris. These are Republicans.

that maybe aren't so sure about Bernie Marino. He's made some comments that have gotten a lot of attention, but they're sort of more likely to come home. So the types of ticket splitters in that race work against Sherrod Brown. Now he might still hang on. He's been doing decently well, even as he's losing ground, but it's not an amazing shot.

Nonetheless, this race gets at a trend that we are going to see as we speed across the upper Midwest Pennsylvania. We kind of already nosy on by, but Michigan and Wisconsin as well. We are seeing Democrats overperforming Harris and Republicans underperforming Trump in the Senate races there.

So in Michigan, Alyssa Slotkin, the Democrat who's running for the open seat there, leads Mike Rogers by about four points. In Wisconsin, Tammy Baldwin, the incumbent Democrat, leads Eric Hovde by four and a half points. And in Pennsylvania, which we've already passed, Bob Casey, the Democratic incumbent, leads David McCormick by five points. You will know from our podcast and pretty much every message about this election that when it comes to the top of the ticket, it

Harris leads Trump by less than a percentage point in all of those states. What is going on there? I mean, I think there's a small group of voters who are genuine split ticket voters and who could be won over by a relatively popular incumbent. If you're thinking about Wisconsin and Tammy Baldwin, you're

You know, just think about the 2022 midterms in Wisconsin. Tony Evers, the Democrat governor, won reelection by like three and a half, four points, while Republican Senator Ron Johnson was holding on by about a point. There is a small group of voters who will split tickets. And just because there are fewer of them, maybe than there once were, it doesn't mean that they're not really important, especially in these extremely close races.

And I think on average, the fact that Democratic Senate candidates tend to be outperforming Harris is a reflection of – for the most part, those are incumbents. The Slotkin case is a little harder to fit in there because she's not.

But if you think about what we're seeing in Nevada and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, these are all places where the Democratic nominee is an incumbent and is somewhat doing better than Harris. I would also caution that at the end of the day, those races will probably run closer and closer together by the time we get to Election Day because that is what tends to happen. So when you see a Nevada poll with Jackie Rosen up nine percentage points –

Be cautious is what I'm going to say there, because I would be pretty stunned if she won by nine points. But it does nonetheless run counter to what we've seen, at least in 2016 and 2020, which is that non-Trump Republicans in those presidential years ran ahead of Trump, right? We have seen the House popular vote and Senate candidates across different states vote

do better than Trump because, say, they were getting the new voters that Trump brought into the Republican Party while keeping the establishment Republicans who had been in the party for a long time. Does this tell us that something is shifting, that maybe they're no longer getting those historical Republicans, or would that be overreading the situation? Yeah.

Yeah, I was going to say, I think to some extent it's kind of race specific. I think there's a lot of sort of idiosyncratic races here, right? Like some of this is more moderate Senate candidates and some of it is incumbents that are well known. There's kind of a lot of different specific reasons. There's no, I don't know that there's a great overarching theory to that. Okay. Well, now we are going to head south along the Mississippi. Should we take

Is that possible? Let's let's float on a raft just like Huck Finn. But we got to bring the car. We can't. I mean, we got a lot of snacks. We can't fit all the snacks. I think there are a few bridges across the Mississippi. Just just just the riverboats in my hometown of St. Louis. There are gambling boats. There is a McDonald's on a boat. There's a lot of good stuff on Riverboat McDonald's on a boat. There is a McDonald's on a boat in the Mississippi.

Mississippi. It's a lot of fun. Let's go gamble under the arch. That sounds great. Let's do it. Okay. So actually we are stealing the McDonald's boat. We're getting off the car, bringing all of our snacks with us.

and we're getting on the McDonald's boat and heading on down to Louisiana to talk about something quite nerdy, which is redistricting. So there are a number of states that cycle, which have had to redraw their maps because the Supreme Court found that they had racially gerrymandered and had not created Black Opportunity Districts where they could, which

which is, of course, districts where you have a large enough black population that they're able to select their candidate of choice. And that is the case in Louisiana, Georgia, and Alabama. So how much does that change the picture? Is it basically we're adding one Democratic House seat in all of those states, or is it not so straightforward?

It's not quite so straightforward, but I do think you are going to see adding one Democratic House seat in both Louisiana and Alabama. The new seats that were drawn there, you have a seat that is now a black majority seat that has replaced a formerly white majority seat.

slash deeply Republican seat. And the new seats are, you know, pretty reliably Democratic. And so you are going to see, I think Democrats score two basically automatic pickups in the House right then and there. And that is no small deal in a race where Democrats only need to pick up

four seats in order to flip control of the House, of course, that is on net. And so Democrats, you know, for example, could get two of those seats in New York, those Biden seats in New York that we mentioned, plus these two redistricting seats, and then they'd be at a majority in the House if they don't lose any of their own seats like Jared Golden and stuff, which is, I think, unlikely.

But yeah, but in a House race that is expected to be as close as we think it is going to be, I think every seat matters. And so those two new Democratic seats do make a difference. I'll note that in Georgia, we don't have a new Democratic seat because the way that the legislature decided to do it was that they basically took an old Democratic seat and turned it into a new Democratic seat that is just a black opportunity seat and the old Congresswoman

Lucy McBath is moving into this new district to run. And so basically, you're going to get a wash partisanship wise. The flip side of this is that Republicans are basically guaranteed to gain at least three seats in North Carolina because of redistricting there. Republican legislature was able to draw a map according to their terms and replace the

old court-drawn map that had created a 7-7 split in North Carolina. And so Republicans, at the very least, are going to have 10 seats in North Carolina. They might even get an 11th in the first district in the eastern part of the state. It's pretty 50-50. That alone in such a close House race is a huge deal. So the fact that Democrats can make up for that

by likely picking up a seat in Louisiana and one in Alabama, and then maybe even one in New York, it could end up almost being a wash. The thing is, though, how much of a wash it is does matter for house control, given the narrow majority we're talking about.

All right. Well, we're going to ditch our riverboat and get back in the car and head to Texas. But unfortunately, Ruth has to go back to St. Louis. So we're going to leave her here. We're going to leave her on the riverboat. She's going to drive back up, enjoy all the McDonald's on the way. And when we come back from our break, we are going to be in Texas. But thank you, Ruth.

Thank you. I would like some Texas breakfast tacos brought back to me. Okay, we can make that happen. We'll put them on the next riverboat. Thank goodness.

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All right. We are here in the Lone Star State. We are sad to have lost Ruth. She died of dysentery. Very sadly. We are excited, nonetheless, because everything is bigger in Texas, including Democrats down ballot hopes. So we got a lot of the country left to get to. Let me ask you very bluntly, and then we will continue on to Arizona. Is this the year?

Unlikely. Unlikely. That wasn't a no, Jeffrey. Well, look, I don't want to rule out anything. Donald Trump carried Texas by about five and a half points in 2020, which was a lot closer than Texas used to be at the top of the ticket. And so if you're thinking about Ted Cruz running for reelection in Texas, I think –

There's a perfectly decent chance that Colin Allred, the Democratic nominee there, will run ahead of Kamala Harris by a couple points and maybe make it another three-point race, two-point race. I mean, it could be tight. To me, it's like it's very clear that it could get close, but it's getting over the hump if you're a Colin Allred and actually winning. That is the part here that I think is difficult to see. That's going to be really hard.

Okay, well, we got to pack up a lot of snacks this time because we're going to be driving across the desert. We're driving across West Texas, New Mexico, and we're going straight to Arizona where there is a lot going on. So it's a key state in the presidential. There's a Senate race. There are two House races that we're going to be watching and a handful of referendums.

So first and foremost, it looks like Democrat Ruben Gallego is doing significantly better than Harris in the state in his race against Republican Carrie Lake, who you may know because she ran for governor in 2022. He is leading by eight points currently in our average. And that's, of course, an open seat to replace Kyrsten Sinema, who was a Democrat, then an independent, and is now stepping down. So.

sorting through all of that. We're going to get to the ballot initiatives in a second, but why is Ruben Gallego doing so well? And are Democrats as optimistic in some of those House districts as well? Carrie Lake is a bad candidate. Does that sum it up for us pretty well? Look,

candidates don't matter a lot, but they can matter a bit at the margins. And I think Arizona is a perfect encapsulation of that. Lake, you know, has never really accepted that she lost in 2022 in the governor's race. She has not actually fundraised all that well. A lot of Republicans don't even like her that much, which is kind of a curious, a curious thing. She didn't do that great when she won the Republican primary in a race that she seemingly had in the bag.

You know, at the end of the day, Ruben Gallego has outraised her markedly, and it doesn't look like national Republican groups are actually pouring that much money in to help Lake because they see her as an underdog and one where they should probably put their money elsewhere. I, again, skeptical that Gallego win by eight points. Like I just that that's a large margin for Arizona. But nonetheless, I suspect that as we get closer to Election Day, some of those Republicans are going to come home a bit.

And the race will tighten, but the idea that Gallego could run two to three points ahead of Harris and maybe Harris loses Arizona to Trump while Gallego wins by five or something is a completely realistic possibility here.

There are also two Republicans in competitive House districts that are slightly Biden. I mean, they're basically split 50-50 in 2020. And I should say here, you're going to notice a trend, folks, as we travel on this road trip. We started in New York. Now we're in Arizona. We're going to be heading to California soon. All three of those states have either independent or bipartisan redistricting commissions, and they have...

quite a few competitive House districts. So in New York, there are four. In California, there are five. In Arizona, there are two. Not all of those commissions are charged with drawing competitive districts, but it is a more likely outcome when you don't have politicians proactively gerrymandering the state that you get competitive House districts. So as we go on this road trip, we are noticing the effects of

those independent redistricting commissions. So these two very competitive house races in Arizona, how's it looking?

Both of those races are lean Republican, according to our forecast. And I think this is a good example of it'll probably go the way the presidential race goes. And right now, Harris, Arizona is one of the states where she's not doing as well. But of course, everything is within a point. So who knows? There could very easily be a polling error and Democrats could sweep all these races in Arizona. But yeah, right now you have two Republican incumbents in those two seats. So...

If I had to choose, they would go Republican, but we'll see. Another feature of Arizona's election this year is that they have ballot measures that get right to the heart of some of the most important

Talked about campaigned over issues of the cycle. They have a proposition that would enshrine access to abortion before fetal viability into Arizona state constitution. That's proposition 139 proposition 314 would let state and local police arrest people who cross the border anywhere but a port of any.

entry. So getting to the border security immigration issue as well. And I should also say, since we're getting nerdy here, they are also voting on Proposition 140, which would eliminate partisan primaries and makes it one of several states that are considering changing how they vote. We'll get to that in a second. But are those propositions on immigration and abortion expected to shape who turns out?

No, I wrote a story on this with regard to the abortion ballot measures, several states of which are voting on similar things. And basically, no, there isn't really great evidence for what we call reverse coattails, which is the idea that the bottom of the ticket can influence the top of the ticket. Things go down the ticket, basically. So the presidential race can affect Senate and House races.

Senate race can affect House races, maybe, which is interesting in the context of Arizona, or legislative races, even. But all measures could probably influence legislative races, which I think is interesting. Arizona has a competitive state legislature. The Democrats have been wanting to flip for several cycles now, which this could be their year to do that. But no, I...

there aren't a lot of people who are going to turn out for a ballot measure who weren't already going to turn out for literally electing the leader of the free world. Yeah, you know, it's quite possible, for instance, that the abortion ballot measure could pass with a lot more votes than Kamala Harris wins. Oh, yeah. You know, and I think that's because, yeah, it will in all likelihood based on the polling. And so I think that speaks to the fact that

Abortion is a really important issue in this election and especially I think in a state like Arizona where there are some maybe longtime Republicans who ended up voting Democratic in the 2022 midterms, were persuaded because they're not big fans of the Trump brand and Trump brand of Republican politics.

And so thinking about like independents and some registered Republicans who are no longer maybe clearly Republican voters anymore, the Democrats need to win over. And so like abortion is an important issue for that. But clearly, there are going to be a lot of Trump voters who vote.

for the abortion measure. And for that matter, a good number of Ruben Gallego and Harris voters who vote for the immigration measure. I mean, the last poll that I looked at had 60% support for more hawkish policies on the border. There you see it. The two most hot button issues in the election, other than the economy, are

Clearly, Republicans are on the right side of the immigration question. Democrats are clearly on the right side of the abortion question. When voters have the opportunity to separate out the two, they do. And probably Arizona will have harsher immigration laws, and it will also have more liberal abortion laws. But how that gets sifted out to who leads us in the White House,

You can't split the two. You have to vote for one or the other. They're both issues that divide one party more than the other, and the other is like relatively unified on it. So, you know, you might get a quarter of Democrats voting for, you know, the immigration ballot measure or maybe more. I don't know, like a quarter of Harris voters. And then you might get, you know, 20 percent of Trump voters or something voting for the abortion ballot measure.

There's kind of cross-pressured issues, but ones that do not maybe override their presidential preference.

While we're talking about ballot measures, there are a number of states, Colorado, Idaho, Oregon, in addition to Arizona, that will be voting on whether to change how people vote. So for Colorado, Idaho, and Oregon, they're going to be voting on rank choice voting, whereas I said with Arizona, they will be potentially eliminating partisan primaries. Are these the kinds of propositions that have been doing well recently? Do we expect these to pass?

Well, we only have a couple of examples, but it is interesting. I think this is actually one of the really big undercovered stories of this election, which granted there's a lot of stuff going on in this election, but like a lot of states could be drastically changing how they conduct their elections. This is basically the Alaska model, right? The like top four primary, everybody runs together and then the top four candidates go to rank choice voting in

the general election in a lot of states like you mentioned. Top five in Nevada. Right, yeah. Some slight variations. Some places like Arizona don't explicitly provide for ranked choice voting, but it would have to be implemented by the legislature and stuff like that. But a lot of these places could be voting in very different ways in two years, which of course could drastically change the elections. But we, in terms of, to your question, Galen, we've only, I believe, had

two previous instances of this. So we've had Alaska, which obviously voted to change its system. And then Nevada voted last year, or in 2022 rather, to move to a top five ranked choice voting system. But they have to pass that measure in two consecutive cycles in order for it to take effect. And this is going to be round two of that.

There's also a measure in Alaska this year to repeal the system that is in place. So we'll have to watch how that goes. I think it's evidence, A, that there are some very rich people who are interested in changing the way that we vote elections and funding ballot measures to do that. But I also think it's interesting because I think a lot of people feel like government isn't working and want to do things that change up the traditional kind of primary general election system.

Well put, Nathaniel. Let's get back in the car. We've had a good time in Arizona. We've had an opportunity to talk about lots of different states while we're here. Let's head to California.

♪ California, California, here you come ♪ - I was actually going for more like, I was going more, ♪ California love ♪ - So many good songs. - You know, yeah, yeah, anyway. - All right, well, you guessed it. Next we are heading to California, thanks to the choir in the backseat that's been providing the tunes. We have been on the run, we've been driving in the sun,

we've been looking out for number one and now California, here we come Nathaniel. Uh, I,

I mentioned that there's a good number of competitive House races here in California. There's one I want to shout out, which is David Valadao, who is one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump after January 6th. And I believe is the last one hanging on. There's one other. There's one other. Dan Newhouse still hanging on, still hanging on. He's going to lose, but he's still hanging on. So he's going to lose. What's going to happen to David Valadao?

We'll see what happens to Dan Newhouse. But David Valadao is facing a rematch against Rudy Salas, who's a former state legislator who Valadao narrowly beat in 2022. And it's looking like a toss-up again. And this is a district, though, where Joe Biden carried it by, what, about 10 points in 2020? So it's one that Democrats – like if they're going to win a majority, it's really the kind of seat that they absolutely need to pick up.

in this election. And it looks like another really, really tight one in the Central Valley there. Yeah. And there are about a half dozen other competitive seats in California. And obviously, we don't have time to go through all of them. But I think what's really important here is that because there are so many competitive House seats in California and California takes so long to count its votes because of its vote by mail system, we are probably going to be waiting on California for

one or two weeks after Election Day in order to know who won control of the House, because it's going to be really hard to call the House without knowing the results of those six, seven, eight seats.

So you're saying we may know who won the presidency before we know who won the House? I think that's very likely. I think, you know, the presidency will have to wait a couple of days, but it won't be too bad, hopefully. But I think the House people should be prepared. And unless, you know, we could have a systematic polling year, obviously, where one party wins decisively in the House. But if it's as close as it was in 2022, I think we're looking at at least a week of waiting.

All right, well, let's get on I-5 to the Pacific Coast Highway, and we're going to swing through the Pacific Northwest long enough to talk about Washington's third congressional district on our way to Montana because we couldn't skip it. So in Washington's third district, Democratic incumbent Marie Glusenkamp-Perez is trying to hang on in a district that went for Trump by four points in 2020.

She was out there early questioning Biden's fitness and suggesting that he, one way or another, whatever she wanted, would not win reelection in 2024. So she got some national attention earlier in the year. How is she doing in her race now? Has she managed to create that distance between herself and the party?

Well, the race certainly looks really close for Glussenkamp-Perez. It's a toss-up, which I think is sort of the best you could hope for considering the seat has a slight Republican lean.

She's facing a rematch too against Joe Kent, who is definitely viewed as a very Trumpy candidate and who she narrowly beat in the 2022 midterms. And what was something of a surprise, it was a race where I think our forecast gave it like a 1 in 20 shot of her winning. It's close. I think it's probably the best you can say. And if she does hold on, it will be – it could be one that takes a few days to get the final count and know how it played out.

All right, get back in the car. We got to head to Montana because alongside Ohio, the other marquee Senate matchup this fall is, of course, in Montana. Democratic incumbent Jon Tester is increasingly looking like the underdog in a state that went for Trump by 16 points in 2020. Republican Tim Sheehy has widened his lead since we last talked about the race a month ago. She had a roughly two point advantage in our average today. It's five and a half

points. So what is the outlook for Jon Tester? It's not good. He is just going to have to swim against the tide of partisanship. And he has done that in past elections, notably 2012, when he shared the ballot with Barack Obama, who, of course, lost Montana. But these are different times. Things are just more polarized. And even somebody with their own distinct brands, like Jon Tester does with the whole Montana farmer thing and the three fingers and all that jazz, you

I think it is just his luck has run out because polarization is just so strong. And Trump is obviously going to win Montana by a very healthy margin. And of course, as we mentioned before, if Montana goes to Republicans along with West Virginia, which, as we already discussed, is basically an automatic Republican pickup because of Joe Manchin's retirement, that right there is the Senate. I think Tester being down on the polls is basically the reason why Democrats are fairly substantial underdogs in the Senate.

It is now time for our final stop, and we have a decision to make. Our options are a 43-hour drive through the Canadian wilderness. Yes. Option number one. Or option number two, a 38-hour ride on the ferry from Bellingham to Ketchikan. Or is it Ketchikan? From Bellingham.

From Dalian to Ketchikan. Ketchikan. Yeah. So are we taking the ferry or are we driving through the Canadian wilderness?

There is an election on, like, I want to say, like, October, like, 23rd in British Columbia. So I think we have to drive through British Columbia and talk about the new Democratic Party, Galen. Sorry. Block your calendars. Have you got an hour? And, like, the right-leaning Liberal Party there, even though nationally it's, like, the center party. Oh, no, that's right. They dropped out. Oh, my God. And they endorsed the conservatives. It's wild. Wild times in British Columbia. Wild times in BC. Truly wild. Oh, my God. Very wild. Galen hates us now.

We've now heard it out about British Columbia. That's right. That's right. I forgot about that. And to avoid having to listen to this the whole time, we're going to take the ferry. So thank you for making the choice for me. Let's drive to Bellingham, get on that 38-hour ferry because we are heading to Alaska where Democratic incumbent Mary Peltola is attempting to hang on to her seat in a state that went for Trump by 10 points in 2020.

Her very Alaska slogan is fish, family, freedom. And her opponent, Republican Nick Begbie,

Nick Begich has the benefit of name recognition. His grandfather won the seat in 1970 and his uncle Mark served in the Senate. So Alaska, the most male state in the country, like literally as in the most men per women in an election where we are talking about a significant gender divide. Will they vote for Mary Peltola for the house?

I mean, I don't think that's particularly relevant. It's not like women only vote for women and men only vote for men, but it is an interesting race. Although it does seem like a lot more women are voting for women and a lot more men are voting for men in this election. That's true. I guess if it's a very close election, that could matter.

I think it's just like a very interesting race because Alaska is such a weird place. Partisanship can be confounded more easily there in small states in general. You see personality matter. Obviously, Peltola getting elected in the first place in 2022 was a lot of kind of her personality and her closeness to former Representative Don Young, who passed away that year. And people not liking Sarah Palin, who is a Republican candidate. Nick Begich himself doesn't have a great reputation among Republicans in general.

So I think it is pretty interesting. That said, it's another case of partisanship. It's still fairly strong and it will still, I think, be hard for Peltola to swim against the tide in a

place where Trump is going to win as well. But I see this as kind of an analogy to Maine's second district, frankly. You know, they're, you know, very kind of outdoorsy, wildernessy place where there is a fair amount of split ticket voting. So Peltola could absolutely hang on, but she's going to probably have the hardest race of her career. Yeah, I'd also say that another kind of interesting wrinkle here is that Peltola, who is Alaskan native in terms of her identity, is

If you look at sort of the most rural parts of Alaska, many of which have very large Alaska native populations, these are places that say Biden carried in 2020, but he might've carried it with like a state Senate district in Northwest Alaska with like 60% of the vote, but Peltola won like 80% there in her 2022 win. And so it's another thing of also her just kind of outperforming

You know, the Democratic ticket across the board in part because she has, you know, a very interesting background. You know, she's a member of an Alaska native tribe and is has this very strong association that I think is important to her, you know, her political standing.

All right. We have made it truly across the country. It is a choose your own adventure for how you get back to wherever you came from. Trans-Canada Highway, right? With that, thank you, Jeffrey and Nathaniel, for joining me today. Thanks, Galen. Thanks, Galen.

My name is Galen Druk. Our producers are Shane McKeon and Cameron Trotavian, and our intern is Jayla Everett. You can get in touch by emailing us at podcasts at 538.com. You can also, of course, tweet us with any questions or comments. If you're a fan of the show, leave us a rating or review in the Apple Podcast Store or tell someone about us. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you soon. ♪