The biggest mistake is the most obvious one, right? Which is Iran. That changed the direction of this election. It's the war and the rising gas prices and diesel and fertilizer. That is what has completely undermined the Republican case.
Hello and welcome to G-Zero World. I'm Ian Bremmer, and that shadow you're seeing, the one stretching out from now to election day, may just be from a gathering blue wave.
By most estimates, Democrats are now favored to win back the US House in upcoming midterm elections. They also now look more likely than not to take back the Senate.
But the thing about waves, they don't always break. And the thing about Democrats, they have a knack for snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory. President Trump's poll numbers have hit all-time lows. Republican candidates have been forced to defend his costly Iran war and a struggling economy. In any traditional midterm election year, an unpopular president would be nowhere to be seen. But President Trump has no interest in hiding, and given how much the GOP revolves around him, it's not entirely clear to me how he would keep a low profile even if he wanted to. So today, I'll get into some of the midterm horse race, because let's be honest, not even the Democrats can believe how well things are trending for them. But also how a reshaped Congress could affect President Trump's final two years in office. And yes, I said final. Joining me, Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report, Liam Donovan, a seasoned Republican strategist. But first, a word from the folks who help us keep the lights on.
Funding for G-Zero World is provided by our lead sponsor, Prologis. And by Cox, a family of businesses. Additional funding provided by the Andrew Carnegie Foundation, Khoo and Patricia Ewen, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities, and
Amy Walter, Liam Donovan, thanks so much for joining us today.
So, first I'm going to turn to you, Amy, because I mean, I'm seeing not just in the polls, but also in the prediction markets, that the Democrats are way ahead. It looks like they're going to win the House and the Senate. Do you feel as confident as the headlines have been saying? Or can the Democrats still screw this up?
Well, I think there are a couple of things to think about when we think about the House and the Senate, because they are really very different. In the House, Democrats need to net just three seats, and there are plenty of vulnerable Republican districts, enough of those districts, that netting three seats is definitely the most likely scenario. So, it is easier to see the path for Democrats taking the House. The Senate still has to go through some very Republican places. And the reason I think you're seeing, I guess, the prediction markets giving Democrats the advantage in the Senate, but not as high of a percentage as, say, the House, is that in order for the Senate to flip, Democrats are going to need to take states that Trump carried by double digits, whether that's Ohio or Alaska, Texas, and Iowa. One thing we know at this moment is that there's a significant enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans. Those who are excited to come out and vote, those who don't know if they're going to actually show up and vote.
But if the elections were today, is it your view, as of right now, you would expect that both the House and the Senate are going to flip?
I would say there's still enough unpredictability about the Senate that I would not feel as confident as saying that's definitely going. Do I feel like Democrats have the advantage today? Absolutely. Is it a foregone conclusion? No.
I think Amy lays it out very fair and very objectively in terms of the terrain that this is playing out on, and that's the best thing that Republicans have going for them. It's that the structure of the map is such that it's easy for Democrats to count to one seat, maybe two, but there's a chasm between a state like North Carolina and the next most gettable seat, like in an Ohio or greater, which is states that went for Donald Trump by 11 plus, 12, 13, in some cases 14, 15 points. That is a difficult thing to do, particularly when you're faced off against incumbents who don't have any scandals to speak of. So, I think if you're looking at pure polling, you feel pretty good if you're Democrats. If you think about the terrain this is playing out on, I think the intangibles make it more likely than I think the markets are giving credit for that Republicans kind of bend and don't break, because that's what we're really talking about here is not whether Republicans will have a good night, but whether they'll be able to hold on by the skin of their teeth in enough places to hold that 50-seat majority.
So, in Senate races where it could go either way, what's your general recommendation, Liam, for should these candidates be aligned with Trump or should they be trying to differentiate themselves substantially?
I think that if you, in the last three weeks of the campaign, are waking up and going, 'Uh-oh, what should I do?' the answer is you just need to ride this one out, because if you are not independently known or branded as someone who breaks from the president in the mode of Susan Collins, Susan Collins is understood by the voters of Maine to be distinct from not only Donald Trump, but from the national Republican brand. That's the reason why she keeps being reelected. She is in a different position than someone who is otherwise seen as just a normal Republican who would not only not get much out of differentiating from the president on major issues, but might even lose some votes. Now, I think there are places where differentiating on key issues might matter. I mean, I think Mike Rogers is a good example. In a state like Michigan that is, you know, across the river from Canada, is dependent on trade with Canada, I think breaking from him on a specific issue that is of parochial importance, that might make sense. But just generally kind of trying to pick a fight with the president is not a high-percentage move, particularly not at this point in the race.
So, Amy, so far, I mean, Trump has been doing a lot of his own damage in terms of being seriously underwater on the economy, which matters so much to voters. And his popularity level is at the lowest we've seen it in either term. As we get closer to the midterms, if you are making recommendations to Democrats who are in competitive seats, is it, you know, just don't need to make any significant waves, Trump is making the story for you, or are there things that you think the Democrats must do in the last few weeks to improve their ability to have the outcome they want?
Yeah, I think there are different kinds of voters here in these different states. In a state like Michigan or Maine, where Democrats should be doing really well, right? If you look at just the president's overall approval rating in that state, it's lower than the national number. You have voters in those states saying they want to see a Democratic Congress, but they haven't been sold yet on the Democratic candidate. Some of that is because of who the Democratic candidate is. I think especially in a place like Michigan, there's some reservations about how far to the left he is. And in Maine, the question is, who is this guy Troy Jackson? We don't really know very much about him. We know a lot about Susan Collins. So, it's convincing Democrats in those bluish or purple states who do want to vote against Donald Trump and who do want to vote for a Democratic Congress to come out and vote for the Democrat. In the red states, the whole key now is whether or not these Republican-leaning voters, people many of whom voted for Donald Trump in 2024, but who are disappointed in the economy or upset about the war, don't like paying $5 a gallon for gas. Right now, many of them are saying, 'I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't really like Democrats, but I'm not really sold on what the president's done. Maybe I just stay home.' Those voters, if they do stay home, that becomes problematic for Republicans. If they show up and vote Democrat, now that is where you start to see all of those red states move toward Democrats. In other words, that's converting former Trump voters into Democratic voters. But I think overall, if you're a Democratic candidate right now running in this environment, the number one rule of thumb is do no harm. You see them running almost exclusively on the cost of living, against the war, and against corruption. This idea that the people who are currently in office are using their office to make themselves wealthier and to help, whether it is big business or insurance companies or pharma, even wealthier. And so what you have in this environment, and I think it's a really dangerous rip current here for Republicans, because it's not just about the frustration with President Trump and the economy. There's also an anti-incumbent, anti-establishment, these guys are all sort of taking advantage of us and the system. These people who are part of the system are using the system to make themselves wealthier and we're the ones that are getting hurt. And so, I think really for Democrats, it is just keeping on that message and not stepping on it by trying to make it more complicated than anything else.
So, you said we're not going to see suddenly transgender bathrooms and sports are not going to appear in the next few weeks for the Democrats.
Well, they're on ads. Listen, if you're a Republican, this is what you're trying to do. You've got to figure out, how do we get these folks right now who we know don't like Democrats, but are upset about the economy, aren't crazy about what Trump's doing. How do we get them off the couch and to just basically suck it up and put their red jersey back on and come vote for us? How can we get them enraged, angry, fired up? And they're hoping that those cultural issues may be the one thing that does it. It's either socialism, right? This person's going to go to Washington and go vote with those crazy leftists in Washington. You think that this person's a centrist? Do you think this person's going to vote in the best interest of our state? No, they're not. They're going to go to Washington and get pulled around by a whole bunch of folks on the left, and then we know what happens next, right? We get socialism, we get transgender bathrooms, we get all the other craziness that you get when you put Democrats in charge. Right now, that message isn't really breaking through, because the only thing that's breaking through to most voters right now is how much it costs them to fill up their car. And that is really what makes this year so different from the last few elections. Even in 2022, when Democrats were running into the headwind of inflation, what was motivating their voters was this real frustration about the abortion decision that the Supreme Court had handed down, as well as a number of Republican candidates running that year who really were outside of the mainstream. There's nothing really blunting that headwind for Republicans now.
