And we, you've been bringing up Alaska a lot, a state one Trump won in 2024 by 13.13 points. A lot, huge margin. And we're talking seriously about Mary Peltola winning that Senate race. And I think in large part, I mean yes, Trump has a lot to do with that. But also, did you see this clip from the debate between Mary Peltola and Dan Sullivan? Let's just, for people who missed this, this is legitimately something that happened in the Alaska Senate debate.
Unfortunately, Dan Sullivan has supported a war in Iraq that's raised prices on everything from gas to groceries, and it's put all of us in a crunch.
Yeah, Mr. Moderator, a question. We weren't supposed to get these questions beforehand, were we?
No, sir. Neither one of you got questions beforehand.
Okay, I'm just watching my opponent.
No, that is absolutely not.
The questions seem to be answered.
[clears throat] Thank you.
Nate, I cringe. I cringe at that one. It's painful to me, but it underscores what I think, you know, we're getting to, which is that we always use the term candidate quality, or Mitch McConnell uses the term candidate quality, but that the strength of these candidates, independent of Trump and the GOP, really matters. And you can see right there in that clip, Dan Sullivan is not, he's not operating on the same level as Mary Peltola, especially in that debate.
Well, look, a lot of these Republicans were, um, because you have six-year waves, right? So like, you know, these are Republicans that were often originally elected, and let me make sure I'm getting this right, in 2014, which was a very strong Republican year. And every year, when you have a wave, you kind of test where, to extend the metaphor literally, you kind of test how far that high water mark goes, and like which structures are vulnerable to being inundated by the wave, right? You know, Roger Marshall is another candidate in Kansas where I have family actually in Overland Park, Kansas. And like, you know, Nate, Roger Marshall could be vulnerable. People really don't like this medical billing stuff, and he's not the most charismatic guy. I'm like, well, it's Kansas, sorry, right? Um, but like a candidate who is caught by surprise like that, and look, maybe he'll have time to rest. Clearly Republicans are directing money into these rescue missions in states like Kansas.
Texas is almost in its own category now, I think, right? But it can be hard. I mean, you saw a lot of that in 1994, right? Where you not only had a big anti-Clinton wave, but it was bigger than polls suggested. Um, you sense that a little bit in 2006 and 2008, where some parallels here, right? Bush was in his first, second term, right? Yeah, Bush, people thought, oh, America's just, after 2004, people thought America's just a center-right country now permanently, right? He was boosted by September 11th, and then you have Katrina, you have the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, right? I guess, but in 2006, you didn't quite have the makings of the mortgage crisis yet, but you had some ominous, you know, ominous pre-ripples of it and things like that. And by the way, I mean, you know, you now see, um, you know, AI stocks have been a little battered around for the past couple of days. People are a little bit nervous about that, too. Um, so I again, like if you look at the history, you would expect a second-term lame duck president with a popularity rating in the vicinity and $4.30 gas maybe to increase in the last couple of weeks, right? You would expect that to produce a pretty big wave. And the uncertainty is, well, I mean, you know, people existentially doubt polls, understandably. The uncertainty is how does that manifest itself in these very red states, right? It's just kind of a math problem. Um, but it's a math problem that we won't have a precise answer to until November 3rd.
Can I just ask you, because we talked about the money flowing into Texas? Like, I mean, I know this is maybe an impossible question to ask, but like, do you sense that the exorbitant spending is making a difference at this stage of the game? I was, I think a lot of people, including Republicans, were shocked that Trump's super PAC held onto its mountain of money until after Labor Day. The ad buys were in, the airtime got more expensive even for the same sort of amount of advertising the Democrats had bought. Like, it seemed like Republicans were really, really disadvantaged in a substantive way by this kind of late-breaking ad strategy. Do you think that they're moving the needle at all? Talarico, I think, is still a net positive in the state of Texas after like, I don't know, what, $150 million worth of negative advertising.
Look, that's what Republicans have got to do, right? So before Labor Day, our model had the Senate as a pure toss-up. Um, and then post-Labor Day, you saw this gas price increase and you saw signs and polling of greater Democratic enthusiasm. So what the GOP wants to do is reset the election to the pre-Labor Day baseline, and then it's a toss-up, right? Then you go to overtime, basically. Um, is there evidence they can do that? I don't know. I mean, um, look, they have, if you aggregate all different sources of money, they have more money. Um, however, if you spend from super PAC money, you don't get the same ad rates as if you use individual donations. Um, you also, you know, late spending, I mean, the parties have different views. Democrats tend to believe you want to spend earlier to define the race. The GOP has this like late blitz, and look, they've closed out some recent campaigns strongly, and so that might be one of the better arguments for them. However, they're not actually running more ads. Nationwide, they're spending more money to run the same number of ads, basically.
Because like the longer you wait to buy the ads, the more expensive the airtime gets.
Yeah, and they're doing something else, which is, I think possibly debatable, which is they are redirecting as much as possible of their ad spend into the Senate and not the House. But the Senate, I mean, at this point, Ken Paxton, James Talarico are household names. You have a ton of voters who've heard about them, whereas in the House, um, people may not know who their representatives are, right? Especially because you had, what was it, nine states redistricted since the last election. Um, uh, you know, maybe the GOP thinks the House is too far gone. And of course, in the House, um, you know, you only have a two-year term, and then it resets, right? We'll have more redistricting, by the way. If Democrats have a good year in state houses and governors' races, then they'll maybe be able to redistrict a couple of more states, gerrymander, which is what it is, um, in blue states before 2028. Um, but yeah, I don't know. And by the way, one other thing, too, I know it's obvious, but like, senators last for six years. So whoever is elected in these Senate elections will be senator through the entirety of the next presidential term. Um, whoever's elected in '28, right? And so, like, you know, the numbers matter. It's not just 50 versus 51.
