Mitch McConnell’s Advisor Predicts the Senate Map
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Hi, I'm Tara Palmieri. I'm Puck's senior political correspondent, and this is...

somebody's got to win. On the show, I speak with Josh Holmes. He is one of the closest advisors to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. He was his longtime chief of staff and now helps him on the outside as an advisor. Republicans are poised to take back the chamber in 2024 after missing a prime opportunity in 2022 when the map was squarely in their favor.

He said they've learned a lot of lessons from that cycle. And part of it was that they really needed to repair their relationship with Trump. So Josh was tasked with doing that. And he's feeling pretty confident that this time around, everyone will be on the same page and they'll be able to take back control of the Senate.

Josh and I will go through all the seats that he thinks are in play, and he'll give his predictions at the end. But first, in Trump legal news, he got a lucky break in Florida where a judge ruled to delay his classified documents case indefinitely. That means he may never be tried if he wins in November. Also...

In the Georgia case, they seem to have hit another snag. An appeals court ruled to review a decision that would allow Fannie Willis, the district attorney, to remain on the case as long as she removed her boyfriend prosecutor. While the Trump team petitioned that that wasn't good enough, and it looks like an appeals court is going to look into it, that of course delays the case even further. So really the only trial we may see before the election is the hush money trial, which was

particularly tawdry on Tuesday when Stormy Daniels took the stand. The porn star went into some pretty graphic details about her sexual encounter with Trump, and it was obviously a very uncomfortable day in the courthouse. She claimed that he told her that he didn't sleep with his relatively new wife Melania at the time, and that Stormy reminded him of his daughter Ivanka. I know, gross.

So Josh, you are as insider as it gets in Washington, D.C. You were a chief of staff to Mitch McConnell for a very long time. You're still very close to him. You're one of his advisors. And I'm sure you are thinking very hard about the Senate races because Republicans, again, are poised to take back the chamber after a pretty disappointing run in 2022 for your team.

I'm just wondering, like, what are you seeing right now? How many seats are the GOP going to pick up or what are you worried about too? First of all, thanks for having me. Um, you guys are doing great. Thanks. I've, I've enjoyed keeping up with everything. Uh, but look for Senate races during the entire McConnell tenure, he's always had a really good relationship with the NRSC, with the chairman, with the EDs, with the staff, with the notable exception of 22. Um,

And I think what happened in 24 now with Daines and his staff is that we've sort of reverted back to everyone kind of on the same page. And that starts in off years. Right. And so just to give the listeners a little bit more context into that, can you explain a little bit about this relationship that Mitch McConnell had with Rick Scott, who was running the National Republican Senatorial Committee at the time? He didn't really pick candidates, but he was supposed to be supporting them.

And I think that was part of the issue, right? Supposed to be. He didn't recruit in the primaries the way that you would normally do. Right. And just like a brief background is coming out of the 2012 cycle, Republicans learned a very valuable lesson that they lost five Senate seats that were very winnable in red states over the previous two cycles. And so they changed the model. And what I mean by that is you

you had to aggressively recruit candidates who could make it through a primary that had the capability of winning a general election and didn't run into these like Todd Aiken, like meltdowns at the end of a cycle that would just ruin your chances of ultimately getting the majority. Wait, this was the year when all these tea party candidates kind of wrecked the party. Wasn't Christine O'Donnell in the mix in 2012 as well? Yeah. So it's 2010 and 2012 in back to back years. Um,

you know, had been the model within both Republican and Democratic politics in that you just didn't kind of meddle in primaries and you could recruit candidates, but you just didn't get intimately involved in it. And you just sort of let things play out the way they did. The way it worked in the Senate was that there was a new kind of cottage industry that would work on behalf of candidates and fund candidates that didn't have the capability of winning general elections. And so the

The model had to change. Are you talking about like Club for Growth supporting kind of right-leaning candidates that had no chance in winning in the general? Is that what you're talking about? Amongst a lot of others. Now, I think that that working relationship has changed over the years as success has beget success in getting on the same page with an awful lot of groups.

But in that time period, there was a big rift and one side was being entirely funded with national money. And the side that you would recruit to try to win a general election was basically on their own.

And the model change was that you had to aggressively recruit a candidate from the very beginning that you thought could not only win a primary, but also have a better than even odd shot at winning a general election. And so in 2014, aggressively played the Republican Party, aggressively played in these primaries to ensure that you got candidates in.

like a Cory Gardner, for example, right? Tom Cotton, Tom Tillis, all people who went to the Senate ultimately and won. And that carried over in 16 and 18 and 20.

And then ultimately, the Rick Scott view when he was elected NRSC chairman was to sort of abandon that and go back to a 2010-2012 model. And lo and behold, the same thing happened. Because he wasn't really the pick for the party's pick. So he has a little bit of a chip on his shoulder because of it right now.

Isn't that, wasn't that kind of the feeling? Yeah. I mean, look, I don't know what all the psychology is that goes into it. All I know is the end, the end result. And there were a bunch of lessons learned that were unlearned in a hurry. And I think what happened going into the 24 cycle with chairman Danes is that they uniquely understood coming out of Montana and

and coming out of a seat that has sort of oscillated back and forth from Democrat and Republican, although it's a red state, that you really do need solid candidates. And very quickly, everybody got on the same page in the recruiting process. I mean, the most important part in a presidential election, you could argue midterm as well, but it really over-indexes in a presidential is you gotta just, the off here is more important than the on in some ways. And that you've gotta get candidates who,

You've got to recruit them, and then you've got to make sure that the infrastructure is built around them that have the capability of winning. And they've done that. The other thing is that you've managed to keep Trump out of the recruitment in this primary cycle, as opposed to 2022 when he was involved more heavily by endorsing Mehmet Oz, who obviously was a weaker candidate, and Herschel Walker. A lot of people thought that Dave McCormick had a better chance of beating Fetterman in Pennsylvania, right? And then

You had Trump sort of weighing in, picking the more MAGA candidates, so ultimately lost the general. This time around, Steve Daines seems to have really managed that relationship. You don't hear Trump going after Larry Hogan in Maryland, right? I think you put your finger on it. It's less about keeping Trump out and more about reestablishing a relationship that we'd enjoyed in 2016, 2018, 2020.

where there was no daylight between then President Trump and Senate Republicans in terms of the candidates that recruited and ultimately supported in general elections. That was a departure where it was basically sort of offloaded entirely to a Trump team that, you know, they're focused on their own stuff.

You know, and they've got their job wasn't to elect Senate Republicans. And so what happened, I think Steve Daines has a very good relationship with President Trump, as do many members of the conference. And very early on in the process, they all got on the same page in terms of communicating like we did in 16, 18 and 20. And when you can share real information.

and you're having candid conversations, more often than not, it works out. And I think that happened in spades this cycle. Now, would you also say this is because Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump have a better relationship this time around than they did a few years ago? Do you think there's some sort of reflection in that? Well, look, I mean, the only piece of this that's sort of different from their relationship is...

Leader McConnell asked me to work with Chris LaCivita shortly after the Iowa caucuses to see if we could sort of reestablish a conversation like the ones we had in 16 and 18 and 20 about our equities in going into this election and then understand some of theirs as well and share information and sort of understand each other.

which, you know, we took a better part of six weeks doing. And I think, you know, I don't want to speak for Chris, but I think we felt from our end, like that was a very productive relationship. And what emerged from that was everybody sort of being on the same page when it comes to Senate elections. Yeah. So it sounds like that was effective in terms of

having a relationship, were they willing to engage with you? Was it a tough thing to get in there or were they kind of like open arms or on the same team? What was it like? Well, Chris and I've worked together for about 20 years. Um, and we've been through some amazing stuff, Tara. If you had like a three hour podcast, I could probably, I could probably give you some things you wouldn't believe, but we've, we've been battle tested together and have a close relationship.

personal relationship. And so we knew we could just be candid and it wasn't like a first date, right? Yeah. That's just the difference about his team this time around. Everyone's like, oh, they're the professionals. It's Susie Wiles. It's Chris Alcevita. These are people who have worked in the business in Washington. They understand they have deeper relationships than say his first team in 2016, like Corey Lewandowski or even Jared Kushner or Brad Parscale, right? There's a difference in the operation this time around. Yeah. I

I will say, though, during the Trump presidency, going back to what I was talking about before, whether it was working with Jared or working with Johnny DiStefano or people within the Trump team, we didn't really have a team problem in terms of coordinating on the Senate side.

I mean, you can talk about what that meant for the Trump campaign in and of itself in 16 and 20. But in terms of my relationships with all those people, it went pretty well. And so I feel like this is a continuation of that that had a notable departure in 22. I saw an interesting poll this morning from AARP, which I'm sure you saw as well. Trump is...

overperforming, beating Biden by four points in Pennsylvania. But you've got Dave McCormick, who is your recruited candidate, right? Who lost in the last primary to Mehmet Oz. And he's underperforming to Bob Casey, who obviously has a big name in Pennsylvania. He's been a senator for decades. His father, the family, it's like a legacy of Pennsylvania politics. But he's underperforming by three or four points in actually two polls, not just the AARP poll. There's another one. What

What is it? Mullenberg poll. It has Trump up by three and Casey up by four. So, I mean, what do you make of this? So it's sort of not a unique circumstance, particularly for a candidate, although McCormick ran in a primary in Pennsylvania last cycle. This is his first time in a general election ballot. Right. And so there is a whole segment of the electorate that is yet to be introduced yet.

to Dave McCormick, although he is well known amongst Republican primary voters, obviously. And I think that juxtaposed with a Biden-Trump rematch where everybody is ubiquitously known and what you feel about Biden or Trump is baked into the cake, right? I mean, these numbers are solidified. They have been solidified for a long time. It doesn't mean they're not movable, but your opinions of both people are basically fixed.

And that's not the case in the Senate race. And I think McCormick has got a lot of runway here. The thing to watch in that particular race is your Philadelphia suburbs, right? The Bucks County, Chester County, Delaware County, areas where Republicans did pretty well for about 30 years and over the last six have really slid back quite a bit.

It's my view that McCormick has a uniquely capable message to resonate with that particular electorate in kind of a similar fashion of like a Pat Toomey in 2016. More moderate Republican country club Republicans.

Well, you know, I hesitate to say country club because I don't think that that defines McCormick. But I do think somebody who has not only an economic message, but somebody who's been in the field understands uniquely what the population is saying. I mean, this has been an economically driven electorate for 30 years that that has slid back on to cultural and social alignment more with a center left electorate than a center right electorate.

I think he's got the capability of changing that in the same way that Pat Tooby did. It's interesting that you mentioned the economic messaging. It's just not really clear what the Republicans have in terms of an economic messaging right now. I know it's anti-Biden, anti-inflation, anti-Bidomics, but I don't really know what they're selling. And I have heard from some pollster strategists on the ground that really, yes, there was issue with candidate selection in the Senate race. But a big part also of this, I guess,

we didn't have your red wave last time in 2022 is that it was really unclear what the economic messaging was. You knew what the immigration messaging was. You didn't know what the economic messaging and you knew that the Democrats had their abortion messaging. There was just a weakness around economic messaging. Do you think you have something now? Do you guys know what you're talking about? Yeah, I do. And I guess I sort of disagree. If you look at exit polls out of 22, Republicans won

of the top six issues that people went to the polls for, which sounds impossible given the fact that they've lost a whole bunch of these races. But the economy was number one and there was a clear split in terms of the Republican alignment and where Democrats ultimately were trusted on the economy. Much of that had to do with inflation, as you mentioned. Immigration being another, crime being another. Where it separated out was the issue of abortion, which mitigated a lot of those advantages.

And then ultimately that election cycle boiled down to, can you trust these people? And ultimately with the candidates that we had in the cycle that we had, there were a whole bunch of people who were like, look, I'm with the Republican party on the economic issues. I am with them on the fact that Joe Biden with his policies has created an inflation crisis in this country, but I'm just not comfortable with the direction that some of these people might take us.

I think that in and of itself has begun to correct itself in many ways. Some of that's candidate recruitment. The other piece of this is you now have four full years of watching Joe Biden. Whatever you didn't trust about the economy under a Republican administration, you now have a compare and contrast over where you were for four years versus where you are now. I get that, but it's an anti-message. There's no forward message. In the same way that I would say that

The Democrats really haven't laid out what the second term is going to look like. We don't know what we're getting from Biden for the future. But I also don't know what the Republicans are offering either when it comes to economic messaging. I don't think I'm the only person. Yeah, I think it boils down to the old Reagan line. Are you better off now than you were four years ago? I mean, this this is a direct comparison on the top of the ticket. You had four years of both. You had what you perceived as the economic leadership of Donald Trump.

and economic growth versus what you've seen out of Biden. And so you've got to compare and contrast, but I think that the well-defined pieces of this are laid out like in the Biden budget, for example, where it's rife with tax cuts or tax hikes that are all going to be scheduled to expire in 25. You've got continued spending, labor,

You mean tax cuts that are going to expire in 2025, that were Trump's tax cuts? Yeah, which would all be tax increases on your average American. Although it polls a little differently. Some Americans think that it was only for corporates and the rich.

They're kind of ambivalent on that. It's a partisan thing, right? I mean, if you're a Democrat, you do view everything the Republicans do is sort of a tax cut for somebody else. But I think in reality, where you've seen this massive advantage for Donald Trump on the top of the ticket over Joe Biden is not an aberration, right? I mean, that's something that is held now for two plus years following the Inflation Reduction Act.

which did absolutely nothing to reduce inflation. And so the record is really, really important. The messaging will be more important down the stretch as this thing heats up. Personally, I have the confidence that Senate Republican candidates have the capability in a way that they didn't

in 22 of expressing that. Okay. And perhaps you're right that you've recruited better candidates this time around, but there is one lingering candidate. How do you solve a problem like Carrie Lake? She lost last time when she ran for governor in Arizona. Arizona is a big state. And if you win that, it could be really big, but she's just as nutty as she was.

four years ago her favorables are very low the party didn't want her to run i don't know how why weren't you able to recruit others i'm just kind of curious like what are you thinking right now well i think arizona without getting into the specific candidates yet arizona has got a couple of very interesting components to it one is it's probably from a political environment standpoint a

better off than a whole bunch of different states that we're talking about being in the mix here, in that they're more likely to be a center-right electorate than like a Nevada or like a Pennsylvania or certainly a Maryland or Michigan. That's why having a center-right candidate would be like a slam dunk, right? Yeah, and this is the but part. The but part is what has happened in Arizona is

Look, in 20 years of doing this, Tara, I've never seen a greater chasm between a primary electorate and a general electorate in any state that I've ever been around. And it's a relatively recent development. I mean, the state was represented for decades by John McCain. You had Jeff Flake.

Governor Ducey being another one. Kristen Sinema, independent-ish Democrat. Right. Run out of the Democratic primary. So I think what you're looking at is a very polarized primary electorate that has yet to come into agreement with a general electorate that would be more likely to vote in a center right fashion. Right.

All that being said, I think Ruben Gallego has got his own issues about where he's positioned ideologically vis-a-vis the state. And so, look, I think in the end it'll be a tight race. But that primary you asked why people don't recruit different candidates or do different things. The primary was set the moment that she announced that she was going to run. So the question is whether you run a general election campaign.

then, or whether you just sort of wait to see what happens. The wait to see what happens thing, as I've explained, is not a great thing for Republicans, at least it hasn't been in the past. I mean, you could have recruited a candidate, I'm sure. It just would have cost a lot of money for the party. And they may have not ultimately won. Is that the thinking? I don't think anybody could have beat Kerry Lake in a Republican primary in Arizona. I guess you're never going to get Doug Ducey to run, right? Well, there was an awful lot of attempts to do that in the 22 cycle.

We came up a little short. He's got a very good relationship with McConnell and others and have worked together in the past, but he didn't seem likely then. And he certainly didn't seem likely now to run again. But look, I think all that being said, it's an advantage to Republicans to have an early, early approach in Arizona because the primary there is in mid-August.

It's crazy. It's crazy. I mean, it's why they do that. I have absolutely no idea. It's almost like an incumbent protection program because anybody who's got to go through a primary at all in Arizona has basically 30 days to make up for the two years of headstart that somebody doesn't have to go through a primary process is. And so it's a tricky, there's a bunch of infrastructure pieces to Arizona that make it tough. Can you explain to me a Trump-Gallego voter? No.

Well, to the extent that they exist, they would exist by not knowing Ruben Gallego's record fully. But they would be in that Maricopa County area where 50 percent of your general electorate vote comes from home to Phoenix and Scottsdale and a lot of your more.

affluent, higher educated, higher information flow voters that somehow just have put a ceiling on somebody like Carrie Lake. And I think it's more likely that if that voter were to be a Trump voter, that they would be along with Carrie Lake. The question that I have is a reluctant Trump voter who

versus somebody who's just, they're all for Trump. I mean, a reluctant Trump voter because of what they don't like about Joe Biden is the question. And that's the mystery that the Lake team needs to solve between now and November. And how do you think they can solve that? Well, I would spend a lot more time in Arizona, frankly. That's true. I would be camped out in Maricopa County and any collection of 10 or more people, I would be there shaking every single hand and ensuring they knew

me as a candidate versus me as the cartoon character. The candidate and the cartoon character are one in the same. I'm sorry. They are. That remains to be seen. What I'm saying is I think- I mean, that level of authenticity helps her with the primary voters, frankly. It sure does. That's her. That is authentically her.

It sure does. And we'll see. I mean, look, I'm saying that I think she's got an opportunity if you were to do that kind of thing, because she does need to change people's minds. There are there are fixed opinions about her coming out of her governor's race that obviously need to change for her to get to 51 on a ballot in November. And that's the work she's got ahead of her. Yeah, I'm actually reported in my newsletter, the best and the brightest last week on that. The Trump team tried to offer her the job of campaign spokesperson so that she wouldn't run for Senate, but she turned it down.

Alas, that spotlight wasn't big enough for her. I personally think that if I was a local TV reporter in Arizona, having the opportunity to be the spokesperson for the Trump campaign would be a big deal. Because then at least you go on to Fox after that, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It would be a good job. No question about it. No doubt. At least for someone...

like her. All right. I feel like we're talking a lot about split ticket voters. I mean, think about, you know, Larry Hogan in Maryland, big recruit for you guys. Huge. What does a Biden Larry Hogan voter look like? Cause Biden won Maryland by how many votes? Like 23 points or 33 points. Exactly. 33 points. So how, how do you square that right now? I know there's a primary coming up. I cannot turn the radio on in DC without hearing about it, but yeah, I don't, I don't know how you do that. How do you square that?

Well, I mean, Larry Hogan's done it twice, right? Which is one. Right, as governor, yes. After Biden won by 30 plus points, he won by 20 plus points. So that exists. I think what's really interesting thing for your listeners to...

sort of digest about Maryland that's very different than a lot of different places around here is that Larry Hogan has had a 60 plus percent approval rating amongst black women in Maryland. This is a guy who people know because he's out in communities across that state and they're not, it's not like a caricature Republican. It's somebody that they've dealt with over the course of eight years. And then the other side of this that makes it fascinating is this Democratic primary.

which is a knockdown drag out battle between David Trone, who's I think going to spend 70, $80 million of his own money trying to get a democratic nomination. He already spent 40 apparently. Yeah. It's a big number, right? Right. Yeah. But he's a billionaire, so it's fine.

Right. I'm sure. I'm sure. Like that. I'm certain the Republican Party would like to reacquaint him with his humble roots. But the other side of that is Angela also Brooks is a very attractive young African-American woman who's on the rise in political circles there. But if you look at it, it's sort of a damned if you do damned if you don't deal for the Democrats, because if it's David Trone.

You don't have to worry about funding what it would be like an $80 million general election, but there are some vulnerabilities there. And also he will have beaten at that point, a young upcoming up and coming African-American leader within their state, which if you overlap with a 60% approval rate rating from Larry Hogan amongst that community, it starts to get really interesting. So your question was, what does a Biden vote,

uh, Hogan voter look like that's what they look like. Angry at David Trone for beating a black woman. Well, I mean, it's also the manner in which he did, right. Which is playing out right now. I mean, the other side of that is if also Brooks slips through that primary, they're going to have to find $80 million that is not going to go to John Tester and Sherrod Brown or Jackie Rosen or other incumbents that are precariously perched. Yeah.

I mean, if we want to keep, I feel like we're just playing the split ticket game. Okay. From what I've heard about you, though, you like Angela. You feel like she's an easier person to beat. You're hyping her up because she's a progressive. I get it. No, I'll be totally honest with you. And I mean, look, I rarely say this out loud. I think David Trone is an easier candidate to beat. And I think the finances only get you so far.

I think the vulnerabilities that he has incurred in that primary are ripe for someone like Larry Hogan. He's an everyman, Larry Hogan versus David Trone, who's a billionaire. Yeah, for one. But for two, he's got a relationship with communities that Republicans, frankly, don't have. And his ability, Hogan's ability to take advantage of that is,

is just sort of a logical capability of meshing together what is a D plus 30 state. And look, I like Larry Hogan's chances no matter what. I think he is as good a recruit in any cycle I've been a part of. But if you're working around the edges here,

I think he takes drone to task. I'm going to keep going with the split ticket stuff really quick, because this is obviously the pathway to the Senate for you guys. Sherrod Brown and Trump voter. What does that look like? It's gotten more and more difficult as time has gone on. I mean, Sherrod Brown has lived a little bit of a charmed life and that his first election of the Senate was a wave democratic election where even very, very good Republican candidates were getting beat in Republican States in 06. Uh,

That was as high water a mark as you could get for what Democratic enthusiasm was going to look like. And then in 12 and in 18, he drew Josh Mandel and then Renace, who just couldn't compete on a name ID or funding level. 18 being another Democratic wave year and 12 being Barack Obama on the ballot for an all-time Democratic candidate.

wave in terms of who they're turning out. So when he first got into politics, if you look at the southeastern part of Ohio, that was blue dog Democrat territory. That was a place where Sher Brown mined for votes. He had a very populist message that resonated pretty deeply there. And it reminded you a lot of your sort of union Democrat,

voting bloc. Now, as we've seen over the last couple of cycles, that is no longer a Democratic voting bloc. That is a base Trump voter in many, many ways. And that populist message has translated into a pretty run-of-the-mill Republican message at this point. So it's harder for him to mine those votes than it was earlier on in his career. I think when you're looking at a presidential election that's likely to be seven, eight points, it's

In Ohio, it gets a lot tougher for Sherrod Brown to go out and get anybody other than sort of your base constituencies in the major cities of Cleveland, Columbus, you know, to a certain extent, Cincinnati, although that is a center right city by comparison.

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Let's just go over it really quickly. So which states do you think the Republicans will pick up and which ones do you think will be surprises or maybe a state we didn't think about? I've heard people talk about Michigan a little bit. Yeah. The framework that we use to go into a cycle like this is like 51 is the coin of the realm. You got to do everything you can do to get to 51. And when the cycle began, it was West Virginia, Ohio, Montana, three places you knew that

that Donald Trump was going to carry. And that if you recruited and had a Senate candidate capable of keeping pace with a Democrat, you've got a very good shot. Since then, the Joe Manchin retirement, West Virginia is basically off the board, right? So we're at 50. Jim Justice and his baby dog are coming through. Yeah, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. So now you window that down, you look at Ohio, which again, is just, we just went over, we feel pretty good about. And then Montana, which I

I think is one of the better recruits that we've had for a first time candidate in recent memory. And Tim Sheehy is a very different proposition for Jon Tester, who again, is that lived that same sort of charmed life we talked about with Sherry Brown in terms of what election cycles he's been up against. And this guy is going to be a lot tougher out.

than some of the competition that he has faced in the past. He's different, Tester. I feel like he survived. I know Trump said he looked like he's pregnant, but he's like a real farmer. I mean, these people like him. They know him. He's been around for decades. I think that's tough. He's like the Hogan of their side, essentially, I think.

Yeah, I think the only difference is that Hogan is actually an independent, whereas Tester votes like a progressive Democrat. He just doesn't look like one and he doesn't talk like one. And he's gotten away with that for a very, very long time. You know that's the game. I do. I do. Unfortunately, in a lot of cases, that's cut against us. But I think in this time...

he's going to have a lot tougher matchup than the ones that he's been used to facing in a presidential election cycle. I really like our chances in Montana. I really, really do. So,

But you expand the map, there's opportunities in places that we'll see what happens as it comes this fall. You mentioned Michigan. I think Rogers is a really good candidate for the state of Michigan. I think he has the capability of being in that fight all the way to the end in what will be a presidential election separated by a point or two. I think he'll be right there. If you look at Wisconsin, this is a really interesting one to me, Tara, because

I think Tammy Baldwin has uniquely never really taken a hit.

She is obviously run, been politically strong. She's got relatively strong numbers, but she's never really gone through the ringer in terms of all of the things that should be litigated about her career and her ideology and everything else. I think Hovde, a self-funder in part there, is somebody who is certainly not going to be a...

Should we say he's not going to have a lack of aggressiveness on that front? So I think that's an interesting thing. And then when you consider that Trump carried the state in 2016 and it's very, very close in 2020, I think you got to keep that one on your radar. Interesting. Nevada? The most fascinating part about Nevada is when Republicans changed the base constituency, they changed from a suburban demographic to

that was their base to a rural ex-urban demographic. In the suburban demographic, you have a 76% turnout in midterm elections. In that rural and ex-urban, you have 57%. So on paper, it's person for person.

But as it plays out in a midterm election, it's really not because there's a huge discrepancy in the turnout. Well, what happens in a presidential is you're 57 become 76. So you're looking more at a parity person for person. It's one of the reasons why you're looking at all those polls right now that show Trump with a four point lead, where

Whereas, you know, that has not been a state that has been particularly friendly to Republicans as of late. I think Sam Brown's got a good shot there. I think Jackie Rosen is not as nearly as strong as Catherine Cortez Masto was last cycle, who won by an eyelash.

So, this is, again, another state. A lot of this is Sam Brown's ability over the summer and into the fall to get into a competitive financial position where he's not getting blown out of the water five to one on air. And...

You know, we'll see how that all plays out. What's your like doomsday scenario? Oh man. Why would you ask me about that? Why not? We can get in on something light, but first let's go to their doomsday. Good Lord. Yeah. I mean, look, doomsday is a bunch of different environmental factors that cut against Republicans that make States like Ohio, uh,

a lot tighter than they should be. Like the economy turns back around. Right. Joe Biden finds his 65-year-old self, right? I think that the remote likelihood of massive changes to the electorate is just that. It's remote. But you can envision scenarios where you come up an eyelash short in a bunch of places that you really think you can win. I honestly think we're going to get to 51%

There's opportunity to do 52 or 53 from the Republican side. It's basically Trump drags down your candidates. That's that's the doomsday scenario. He becomes so unpopular towards the end. I mean, sure, the top of the ticket has an awful lot to do, as you mentioned at the top with how things work. But but I think, you know, look, if you're talking about Trump and you're talking about all the information over the last now eight years.

I'm not sure what comes up that fundamentally alters where we're currently at. Right. I mean, it seems to me like anything you can say or have said about Donald Trump is already kind of baked into the cake. So I think in respect to the presidential election, a lot is going to be determined on whether or not Biden can reunite that democratic progressive base to get back to sort of parody in these national polls.

Less of it is, well, now people just for the first time start hating Donald Trump. I just don't think that that's even possible. You don't think he becomes covered more deeply. He feels as chaotic. They're getting flashbacks to drinking disinfectant in 2019. Like, you don't think there's going to be... The Trump amnesia will go away. The fog is lifted. People are paying attention. They don't like him anymore. I can't believe that. I just don't think that there's anything that you...

the impressions of Donald Trump, even before he ran for president are like fixated in the culture of America. Whatever you can say about, I mean, look at this trial this week. Uh, whatever you can say about him is part of where you see and how you feel about Donald Trump. And so, uh,

I can't even imagine what it would be that is somehow changes where his floor and where his ceiling is as a candidate. Where do you, how do you see him performing? Can he break 47 this time? Um,

I think one of the things we talked about an awful lot during the primary was that ceiling that Donald Trump has. And it's less about for me about whether he can break that like 48% nationally. I'm kind of not interested. I don't think he can, but I'm not, I'm sort of disinterested in that national number. I'm more interested in Georgia and recent polls will suggest. And I look, I talked to governor camp about this a couple of weeks ago and

That has changed a bit. The sort of fixed ceiling in Georgia doesn't seem to be there right now because of the impressions largely of Joe Biden.

And the message that he pitched voters in 2020 of basically being a caretaker, an adult in the room, trying to bring some sanity to the chaos and all that, that's not their impression of the way the last four years have gone under Joe Biden. And so you see a lot of voters who probably wanted to give him a shot in a state like Georgia today.

reluctant to do that and are now back on board with a potential Trump candidates. Those are the things that I think make a bigger difference. And then you look at those Midwestern states, right? Where we talked about Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, he's got going to have to win some combination of two of them, right? Doesn't need to sweep it like he did in 16, but he's got to win some combination of two of them, right?

And right now, like if the election were today, Tara, he's the next president of the United States. I think there's an awful lot of runway left to go in terms of whether Biden can do his own homework. And you watch him struggling with this, with the Israel situation, right? Where it's like on one hand, he wants to be pro-Israel. He knows it's kind of the right thing to do from not only a moral, but a policy standpoint versus a progressive base that's in the streets everywhere. And those are his voters.

They're not voting for Donald Trump, but he's got to make sure that they come out for him. And right now they're not. They're not showing up in those polls. If you look at the crosstabs of every single national poll that comes out, the one glaring example of a problem that he's got is young people and your more progressive base are not home yet. They'll probably come back. You know, they might come back in six months. They're the game changers that could come back around in six months if the war seems to be dying down.

Yeah. So can we play that out for a second? Because I think you're right. I think ultimately we saw with like the Fetterman election in Pennsylvania, despite deep reservations, those folks came on board. Democrats vote Democrat. And I expect with Trump on a ticket, that's going to happen where this thing is ultimately decided. That gets you back to basically parity in the states that matter. So it's like 48, 48, 47, 47. Where do you go from here?

And the question is, Donald Trump's coalition in 2016 included a bunch of legacy Republicans who are just conservative by nature, but then over time developed a real allergy to Donald Trump. Those are the same sort of economically faced voters who are desperate.

deeply disappointed in Joe Biden. And so there's this Venn diagram of people who don't like Trump and people who don't like Biden. Do they get to a point where the issue that they care about most matters most and who they select? And that never happened in 2020. They were done with Trump. Too much chaos. Yep. But if, but if you're looking at, if you're an economically interested voter, you're looking at the way that Trump,

put his economic policy in place versus Joe Biden, that might tip the balance, but you're going to need those voters to get to 270 in the electoral college. At The Ringer, we like to do predictions. So, and I will hold you to this on November 6th or 7th, if we actually have any of the results by then, lay out the seats. Who's going to win in the Senate? What do you say? Which seats are you actually going to pick up Republicans?

I think Justice. So West Virginia. And Tim Sheehy are definitely going to be senators. Montana. I think McCormick has got a really good shot, as does Bernie Moreno. So PA and Ohio. Look, I don't want to commit to like a number on this because I think there's a lot. There's a lot that can happen. But I mean, of course, you're asking me like, oh, you know, short sell one of your guys. It's fine. I'm really not going to hold you to it. But let's just hear it.

I think Pennsylvania is a difficult state to win. If we can win it, it's with a candidate like Dave McCormick in a presidential election cycle. Right. I think Ohio, we've got an eight point buffer, seven, eight point buffer on that.

If Bernie can do his own homework there, I think he gets home too. Okay, so that's four seats so far. Yeah, I think it's different. Michigan has always been fool's gold to me. Like we've got a lot of great candidates and we've come very, very close. We've always come up just a touch short. We haven't actually won a Senate race there since like 1994.

eight or something like spence abraham was like the last elissa slock and it's pretty strong right now i think that look if it's not michigan i think i would be a lot more bullish but i've had the detriment of being around for a while and i've seen how that's played out uh wisconsin a lot of homework needs to be done as i mentioned with with muddying up tammy tammy baldwin so you know i think that's that's a tougher one to get to

Nevada, we'll see this the first time Sam Brown's been on a general election ballot. I think Trump's going to win Nevada. I really do. And so can he keep pace with that? I don't have the answer to that yet. I think, I mean, my most optimistic view of it is that he is close to Donald Trump's ballot share, which may be enough against Jackie Rosen. But I don't know that I would put that in the win column yet.

And I think, I think Maryland, I think, I think Hogan is, is going to get it done, which is, you know, you're playing with house money if you're, if you're dealing with, with that. So you've definitely surpassed 51 is what you're saying. You're taking the chamber back. I would take 51 all day. And I wouldn't say a hundred percent because a lot of bad things can go, go wrong as we've proven. We can always figure out a way to screw things up, but I like, I really like our chances to get to 51. Yeah. All right, Josh, this was great.

See, I told you we'd end on a positive note with your own prediction. I appreciate it. Well, anytime, Tara. I'm happy to do it. I'll check back in with you, I'm sure. We'll see what's going on as the temperature has changed. Or maybe it won't. A lot of people just think the election will be the exact same as it is. Like the sentiment will be the same in November as it is today. I don't know. Hard to have more hardened opinions about two candidates on the top of the ticket than the ones we currently have.

Although the Biden camp is spending a lot of money in ads. And I wonder if that's why he's starting to tighten up in the battleground states. Because Trump's not spending anything, but they're spending millions of dollars. And if they were smart, they'd be focused on that suburban population that I talked about where they were with him in 2020, but he's uniquely vulnerable to right now. I mean, do you think their ads are actually working? I think it's too... Honestly, I think it's too early. I really do. I think ultimately there are people who are going to be...

pretty disappointed with the Biden deal in totality. And as you get into the fall, maybe they do the lesser of two evils routine. But I think that's when these minds are made up. I don't think for people who are ultimately swing voters here, they're not going to happen in May. I also think there's a certain point when money doesn't even really matter anymore. We've almost gotten to that point. Yeah. There's just so much of it, so much...

advertising. I mean, basically getting bodies out and for Republicans, they need to get that mail-in ballot voting happening again, right? Or at least trust in it. Some encouraging words out of him lately on that, which has been difficult over the years. Yeah, but it might be a little too late. We shall see. We shall see. Thank you, Tara. Okay. Thanks, Josh. This is great.

That was another episode of Somebody's Gotta Win. I'm your host, Tara Palmieri. I want to thank my producers, Christopher Sutton and Connor Nevins. If you like this show, please subscribe, rate it and share it with your friends. If you like my reporting, please go to puck.news slash Tara Palmieri and sign up for my newsletter, the best and the brightest. You can use the discount code Tara20. I'll be back on Tuesday.