Latest / Decision Desk HQ Podcast / Forecast Update: Democrats favored to win House, Senate remains close

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Forecast Update: Democrats favored to win House, Senate remains close · Decision Desk HQ Podcast

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: We're just talking about internet connections.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know, this is what we talk about.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Chris Cillizza.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: That is Geoffrey Skelley, the chief elections analyst at Decision Desk HQ.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: That is Maddisen Murrell,
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: a data scientist at Decision Desk HQ and the keeper of
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: the DDHQ 2026 election forecast.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Do you get like a wizarding staff or something as the keeper of?
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: You should demand a wizarding staff.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_02: Don't you think, Skelley?
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: You should put
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: a hat.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like a crown or a cigar on.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_02: Like one of those Merlin-like moon star hats.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: I just get a lot of Slack messages.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's not
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: the same thing.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: So we have been doing this weekly now for about a month,
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: which is we kind of check in on the model and what it shows.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: I will quickly, so they don't have to do it, I will quickly tell people.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: The model, the Decision Desk HQ model has three components to it.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: Historical data and results, polling and prediction markets.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: There's a different mix of each of those in depending on how much polling there is,
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: how much prediction market activity there is in terms of money in
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: the prediction market.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: But the point is,
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: it's a combination of these three things that outputs when they run it,
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: outputs probabilities of big things,
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: House going Democratic,
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: Senate going Democratic and A split,
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: you know, as well as down to each house race of probability.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: So governor's races, house races, Senate races.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: What I would say, we're going to go over the big picture stuff with Maddisen and Geoffrey.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: We're not going to spend an hour doing that.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: This is designed primarily for you folks who are watching live.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: If you have a race that you want us to talk about,
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: and again, somebody asked one time we did about the Texas Railroad Commissioner.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, we're not going to be able to project that or give you probabilities on whether both.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, if you're curious about the Texas Railroad Commissioner,
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: we can at least bring it up and give you the polls.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: We've got, you know,
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: That kind of thing.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: So not to rule it out entirely.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: Just know that we won't be able to give you a probability.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: We won't have a probability from the model on it, but we will.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: So Tara Sargent,
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: thank you for being the first person in the water, suggesting New Hampshire Senate.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: We will get to it.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: But look, this is your chance.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: If there is a race you wonder about,
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: you want to see what the DDHQ model shows, you want us to talk about it.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: You steer the conversation.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: Let's start...
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: Maddisen, why don't I start with you big picture.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: So why don't we pull up the model and tell us where we are and where we've been
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: for House and Senate majority.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: And then also,
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: if you can,
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: Maddisen,
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: can you do United Democratic control, you know, split United Republican control?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: So where we are, kind of same as last week.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Both are the Senate is like mildly favored towards the Democrats.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: I would not call it a done deal yet.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: 57 is not,
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: you know, that's not nearly like 80, let alone 100.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's close to a coin flip still.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's like almost effectively a coin flip.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a coin flip with like some slight weighting maybe on one side versus the other.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: The House comparatively looks a lot better for Democrats.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's I think at 79 today.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: And that's up slightly from
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: where it's been.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of trending slightly upward.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: It spent like a week at 77.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then the past couple of days has finally been moving.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: So that one has been,
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: as you can kind of see here,
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: it's looked good for Democrats the entire time we've been running the forecast.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: It looks its best right now.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then in terms of split control,
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: which is fun because I haven't looked at these numbers for today.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: I believe it's going to be around 55 ish.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that was good.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: 55.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: If we could go to the donut, Geoff.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yep, yep, sorry.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: I had to grab the tab open.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: You're good, you're good.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: 55.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: 55% odds that the Democrats win the Senate and the House,
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: so that's just slightly less likely than them winning the Senate as a whole,
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: which makes sense.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: I can get into that if we want.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know,
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: functionally a coin flip, then,
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: the conventional kind of,
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: how we all thought this was going to go,
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: and let's call it like June,
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Republican Senate, Democratic House, that's at about a quarter of a chance.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then Republican Senate,
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Republican House is about 20%, least possible, functionally impossible.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Republican House, Dem Senate is about 20%.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: Very, small, technical, a technical chance, but really impossible.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: I have to sum those numbers to 100.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's essentially, that would be, that's extremely, extremely unlikely.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly, yeah.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Some weird things would have to happen, especially in a Democratic environment, yeah.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: So Maddisen, Skelley, can you go back to the House numbers?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: I get asked this occasionally.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: I don't see anyone asking it in this chat this second,
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: but I always get this question,
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: which is like the Cook Political Report,
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: which I used to work for,
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: a nonpartisan handicapping site,
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: now says basically the House is a done deal, that the range is 12 to 22%.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: Democratic pickups, that there are now 218 seats that are in lean, likely, or solid.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: And people ask me, they say, I don't understand why if the – and I don't know.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: You guys might be able to pull this up.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: But the prediction markets,
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: Cauchy and Polymarket are going to be in the 90s certainly
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: for – Democratic House control.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: They asked me,
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: why is DDHQ only 79% in their model
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: if like all these other places are basically assuming Democratic House control?
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: Either one of you or both of you, feel free to take that.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think our forecast model is just a little bit more conservative in terms
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: of its projections.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: And conservative, I mean,
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_02: by that,
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: in terms of sort of the The universe of outcomes,
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: not to say conservative in the sense of Republican leaning.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's just that we are leaving open the possibility in the way
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_02: the forecast model is constructed in terms of some of the mathematical,
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_02: statistical decisions.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: I think there was leaving a little bit more room for an unexpected outcome.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I think something you could connect that to is redistricting.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: The map
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_02: So before redistricting,
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: there were 231 seats that President Trump had carried by at least a slim margin
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: and 204 that Kamala Harris had carried.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: After redistricting,
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: that number has grown to about 234 Trump-carried seats, 235 Trump-carried seats.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: So the map got actually a tad bit redder in terms of the makeup of the seats
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_02: because Republicans controlled redistricting in more places.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: However, the electoral environment is very blue.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: So it looks like Most likely that that redistricting edge that Republicans were able
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: to gain is not going to really pan out too much in this cycle.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: In fact,
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: they might actually end up losing net seats in the states that redistricted,
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: which is pretty remarkable.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: However, there is a universe.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe there is a polling error and maybe it's substantial where Republicans do
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: a bit better than we expected.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: And suddenly the House is a much closer situation.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think that's what our forecast is getting into.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: Maddisen might be able to say more about some of the statistical considerations,
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_02: but that's how I view it, knowing how we went about this process.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Go ahead, Maddisen.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I would roughly agree.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: It just kind of,
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: the history or like the historical data and the redistricting,
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: all that good stuff kind of like I'm not going to,
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: that doesn't level the playing field.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: We're looking at 80,
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: 20 odds here, but like makes things better than a done deal for Republicans.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: I also think that,
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: like prediction markets kind of,
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: you know, might,
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know,
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: maybe not get ahead of themselves, but kind of like go, go for their front running.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, exactly.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: They're front running a little bit more than like we're doing here.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: Great point.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Which I think is definitely a factor, especially in comparing those two things.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously,
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: market traders have this and every other forecast on the Internet,
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: like at their disposal to use.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you see 80,
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: 85, 90, you're going to be like, well, I'm going to I'm going to put money on 100.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: So that I think that is also definitely a part of it,
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: especially when comparing like this versus markets.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's a really great point.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: Let me get into specific races because we've got a bunch here
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: and I would urge people if you have a race that This is the Senate
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: map, by the way.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: We'll start with Senate.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: If you have a race you want us to talk about, House, Senate, Governor, or down ballot.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: Skelley literally knows every race, so I'll let him handle those.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: Don't say every race.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to do a deep dive into Virginia 5.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: Skelley can talk about Tom Perriello.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: That one
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: you could do.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: No, I mean, look, any congressional or governor's race, I feel ably capable of talking.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: And we might not have a forecast, but we may have an opinion.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: So this is your time.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: So a bunch of you already have done so.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: But look, I'm going to use the rest of this time basically to let people steer the conversation.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: So let's start with Tara Sargent, New Hampshire Senate.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: Let's start there.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah,
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: we got Chris Pappas favored over John Sununu,
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_02: former senator,
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: namesake of his father,
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_02: who was a governor,
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: older brother of Chris Sununu, who just recently left being governor.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: So Sununu is a very well-known name.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_02: You see Republicans pouring a lot of money into the New Hampshire race,
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: but the polling and the environment and the state don't really align with
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: the universe where it's likely that Sununu can flip New Hampshire.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_02: If it were 2022, Or 20, well,
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: definitely if it were like 2014,
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: Republicans picked up nine seats in the Senate and New Hampshire was not up
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_02: that year.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what it was.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_02: And Jeanne Shaheen survived.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: If it had been John Sununu having a rematch against Jeanne Shaheen after losing to her
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_02: in 2008 instead of Scott Brown, maybe he would have returned to the Senate.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: But nonetheless,
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_02: the point being,
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: Chris Pappas,
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_02: who's one of the two members of the U.S.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_02: House, a Democrat member from the U.S. House, he Is favored to win.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, he's a little bit better than a 4-5 shot, kind of like 5-6.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: I don't necessarily have to go into those as much
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: because I think 4-5 is more intuitive to people.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: And at the end of the day, Pappas is likely to win.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: Could Sununu win?
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's just not...
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_02: Very likely at this point.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: Maddisen,
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: I want to ask a question because it feels to me in some ways the reverse is true
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: of this that I asked you about the House,
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: which is you have a lot of independent handicappers,
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: prediction markets, more optimistic about Democrats' House than the model.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: In this,
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: Skelley mentioned the polling,
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: and it is true that Pappas is ahead in the polling,
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: but he's not ahead by – oh, you can see it right here.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: I mean he's ahead by seven now.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I guess seven is a significant amount.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: I thought he was ahead by slightly less,
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: which made me think 84-16 seems bullish on Pappas given- Look,
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: it is possible that the cooks of the world have seen internal polling
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: from potentially both sides of the aisle that shows a closer race.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_02: There's respect for the senior new name.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: There's respect for the money that Republicans are spending there.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's the stuff that goes into qualitative versus quantitative.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_02: But I would say at the end of the day that they are not so dramatically different.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, like it's not like folks have moved it to a toss up.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: But so, you know,
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's it's you know,
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: it's it's we we are a shade more bullish about Democrats chances of holding on.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_02: Remember,
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_02: Jeanne Shaheen is retiring,
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: holding on to this open seat for Democrats than than maybe some of
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: the handicappers are.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: Fair enough.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: Raj, Dylan, Raj, I am going to allow this though.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: Oh boy.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: I've already answered this question in the mailbag from you.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: Idaho Senate.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: Now let me just, we can go to Idaho Senate.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: Let me just note.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: In 2024, Donald Trump won Idaho by 36 and a half points.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: I just like it's third or fourth or fifth.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's not as good as West Virginia.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: And Wyoming.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was his third best state.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's like the Dakotas in Idaho.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: So he won by 36 and a half.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: What that means effectively is for Todd Achilles,
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: who is an independent running against Jim Risch,
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: he would have to overperform Democratic performance in the state by 36.6 points.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this is a big year for Democrats, but I think it is unlikely it is that big a year.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't know what the probability was, but this seems about in line with what I thought.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: Anyone want to add anything about Idaho Senate?
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: You know,
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: this is one of those,
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: there's a quartet of races where there's an independent running
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: who is essentially backed by By Democrats,
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: or at least partly backed by Democrats,
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: three of them,
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: the Independent has essentially gotten a one-on-one shot, more or less.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: There are,
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_02: in some cases,
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_02: a minor party candidate, like a Libertarian or something on the ballot.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: But in Nebraska, it's the most notable, and that's the most competitive one.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: Dan Osborne has the Independent running there
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_02: against Republican Senator Pete Ricketts, has like a one-in-five shot of winning.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_02: So Ricketts is favored,
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: but it is within the realm of possibility,
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: realistically, that Osborne could end up winning there.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: And then from there, the other ones are not nearly as competitive.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: Really, the second most competitive is actually Montana.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_02: And that race,
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: actually,
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: the Democrats may,
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_02: Democrats slash anti-Republicans,
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_02: maybe to be the better way of putting it,
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: may have sort of,
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_02: well, they may have shot themselves in the foot because they have two candidates.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_02: Because Seth Bodnar is running as an independent with like John Tester's support.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: But there is a Democratic nominee, Alani Bankhead, and she refused to drop out of the race.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_02: To give Bodnar,
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: who's much better funded,
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: a one-on-one shot against the Republican nominee, Kurt Alme.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: That's a race that's the Steve Daines seat.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_02: Steve Daines announced his retirement right before the filing deadline, kind of unexpectedly.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: So on paper, Montana is actually the least read of the four states I'm going to talk about here.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: But because of the split,
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_02: Alme is probably in a position to win with a plurality,
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: sort of regardless of how it pans out.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_02: It would take a lot of consolidation.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: For Bodnar to catch him.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: And Bankhead, as the Democrat, is running in third.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: And then you have South Dakota,
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_02: where you have Mike Round, Republican incumbent, running against Brian Bengs,
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_02: an ex-Democrat who's running as an independent.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: And you have this Idaho race,
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_02: where Todd Achilles,
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_02: also an ex-Democrat, is running against Jim Risch, the Republican incumbent.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_02: And both of those are about the same in terms of probability,
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: about 98-2, 97-3 kind of vicinity, South Dakota and Idaho.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: Because those are both redder states than Montana or Nebraska.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's a really tough mountain to climb.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: And there has been some polling that has suggested that maybe they have a shot.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_02: Most of it, though, has been Democratic internal polls, which, you know, they want to fundraise.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: They want to,
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: they might be,
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: they poll a number of times and then they release the one that is
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: the most favorable looking.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: I would agree.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: Let's quickly do – Look,
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_02: I just covered four right there, guys.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: I want to go – Matt Kirsch says, I live in Omaha, although he put a question mark there.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: But I assume that's supposed to be a period because that would be weird
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: if you don't know where you live.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm going to assume you live in Omaha,
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: in the words of Adam Duritz of the Counting Crows,
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: somewhere in the middle of America.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: Does Dan Osborn have a realistic shot?
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think that depends on what you define as realistic.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: One in five, basically, of the simulations that the model runs.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, as Geoffrey said, this is the best chance any of that quartet of moderates have.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: Osborn lost by seven against Deb Fischer two years ago.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_02: The environment's moved 10-ish points to the left since then.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, on paper, at least, you can see a path to Osborn winning.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: I do think Ricketts has taken this challenge more seriously than Fischer did.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_02: And he does lead in our polling average by what?
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_02: What's he at?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: Two and a half, three.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, two to three points.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_02: So, look, Osborn could win.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_02: Ricketts is still favored.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's a Republican-leaning state.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, it does seem like he has taken this more seriously.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: And Republicans in general have taken Osborn more seriously from the get-go.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_02: “Democratic Dan” and those kinds of attacks.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: And it's easy to cast it that way.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it would be a loss for the Republican caucus if Osborn won,
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_02: which would make it harder for John Thune to get elected Senate Majority Leader.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: And so even if Osborn didn't vote for Chuck Schumer and said,
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not technically caucusing with either party,
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: which does raise all kinds of questions about committee assignments
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_02: and other things,
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: even if he managed to do that,
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: It would functionally be minus one in the Republican column and that's a win
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_02: for Democrats.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_02: That's why they are supporting him.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: Let's do one more Senate and then I see a bunch of House ones.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: Let's do Kansas Senate, which I think is kind of the...
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's the race of the moment.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of the late breaking race.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: You've got Adam Hamilton, the Democrat, against Roger Marshall, the Republican.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: Marshall clearly was surprised that he's in a real race.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: Polling has the race quite close.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to assume,
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: Maddisen,
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to assume that the reason that we see Marshall at a 65% probability
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: of winning is because of the fundamentals of the state of Kansas.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: Is that a fair assumption?
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I would say so.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: This one is, what, 49%?
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, 39% fundamentals.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: Fundamentals are still carrying out polls and markets.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's one poll that looked particularly good for them, but yeah.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: The polling average is tight.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_02: Very close.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: Look, Kansas is even redder than the sort of core targets that Democrats need to win.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: Trump +16, right?
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Trump +16 versus,
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_02: you know, the Iowa, Alaska, Ohio, and Texas Quartet is between 11 and 14.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_02: So Kansas is even a little redder than those states.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_02: And you have a situation where if Democrats win Those contests
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_02: and those other four I just mentioned, it'll be close.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: It'll be a point or two kind of wins.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_02: And so maybe Kansas,
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_02: maybe Hamilton,
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_02: Adam Hamilton is a slightly better Democratic candidate than they could have hoped
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_02: for generically.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_02: And maybe Marshall's a somewhat weaker incumbent because he wasn't expecting this.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: He raised very little money in the third quarter for a guy who's got a serious challenge.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_02: And Republicans are pouring, outside groups are pouring in money.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: But, you know, their rates cost a lot more for advertising than the candidate rates.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_02: So in the sense of like, where does this race stand?
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the fact that this is on the board is indicative of a world that, OK,
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_02: things are are pretty decent for Democrats,
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_02: but that doesn't mean that things are going to swing quite far enough for them
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_02: to flip it.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_02: And that's why at the end of the day, it is still leaning Republican.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: But of the sort of universe where Democrats get a wave that really hits in
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_02: the Senate and they sweep those like That quartet I mentioned, they win Maine.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_02: They definitely win North Carolina in that situation.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_02: That's a gain of six to 53 seats because right now Republicans have a 53-47 advantage.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_02: So maybe it would be reversed.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_02: And maybe that's a universe also where they pick off a seventh seat,
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_02: which is Kansas, and they get to 54.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I would note, look, Donald Trump was in Wichita on Monday.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: Donald Trump doesn't go to a state 15 days before the election
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: if it's not somewhat close, right?
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_02: I mean- I was just going to say, just to mention where he was, was Wichita, Sedgwick County.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_02: Now, if you want a county to watch in Kansas as we're getting vote returns,
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: this is the one I think that is worth watching because every time Laura Kelly,
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_02: the Democratic incumbent governor,
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_02: has managed to win despite Kansas' Republican lean, she has carried Sedgwick County.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: But President Trump carried Sedgwick County in each of his election wins, obviously, in Kansas.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_02: So there are clearly some Republican-leaning voters there.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_02: And Kansas sometimes is described as a three-party state where you have
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_02: a very conservative block of Republicans, a more moderate Republican group.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_02: And those two together are dominant,
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: but sometimes they get into some fisticuffs,
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_02: and some of those moderate Republicans end up voting with the Democrat,
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_02: unless one of the moderate Republicans is actually the nominee.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_02: But recently, Republicans have been nominated more conservative candidates.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_02: And so sometimes those moderate R's end up siding with the Democrat candidate,
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_02: and that's easier to do in a state race like governor.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_02: But it'll be interesting to see if Marshall ends up being just a bit weaker and
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_02: that Hamilton, you know, he's a Methodist pastor.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe he has the right profile to sort of break through with some moderate R's
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_02: who are part of that three-party setup in Kansas of a sort.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_02: And that ends up being enough to win.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_02: And Sedgwick would be an important place to watch.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: And let me,
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: and I should have done this earlier,
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: but this screen that we have pulled up here is from,
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: is Decision Desk's main landing page, votes.decisiondeskhq.com.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: You can see the Elections tab is selected now,
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: but the Forecast tab is where we've been most of the time looking at
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: the Forecast.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: You can see a lot of this for free,
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: but if you want to see all of it,
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: I would urge you, look, there are 11 days left in the election.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: Votes Pro, which you can sign up for.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: And by the way, I saw Guthrie Leaf, “shout out to Skelley and the DDHQ crew.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: joined Votes Pro because of y'all's combos with Chris and love
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: the DDHQ live presentation this week.”
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Guthrie.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it is well worth your time and money.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: If you care about this stuff and you want in-depth information, votes pro.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: So votes.decisiondeskhq.com.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: You can follow along with us on the forecasting right now.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: Let's do a couple house races.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm intrigued by this one that Jeremiah asks about.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: Because when people ask me, Skelley, what's an early...
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: Love a bellwether.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: Love a bellwether.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: I always say Kentucky 6 because Kentucky's polls mostly close statewide at 6.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: Parts of the western state are in the central time zone.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: They close at 7.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: But Kentucky 6 district, Ralph Alvarado versus Zach Dembo.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: This is a district that Donald Trump won by 15 points.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: This is Andy Barr's house district.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: Andy Barr is almost certainly going to be the next senator from Kentucky,
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: Republican replacing Mitch McConnell.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: But this is a race that is mostly, I mean, the big population center and district is Lexington.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: This is a district that Republicans should win in all but a wave election.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: But
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_02: here we are.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_02: Might be in a wave of election.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_02: So- You know, in 2018, Democrats came very close.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_02: Amy McGrath,
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_02: this is where if you know of Amy McGrath,
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: this is where she got her start,
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_02: was running in a predecessor of this of the six districts,
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_02: slightly different lines against Andy Barr.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: And in that race, she lost by a couple of points in 2018.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, this time around, here we are.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: Democrats are trying again to try to break through and For what it's worth,
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_02: sorry, it's saying that my connection might be slowing.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, we got you.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, good.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_02: Just making sure because I'm on the road right now.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: So anyway,
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_02: it leans toward Ralph Alvarado,
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_02: who people may know he actually ran with Matt Bevin as
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_02: a lieutenant governor candidate when Matt Bevin lost, re-election as governor.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_02: So that's a connection that is maybe not helping him,
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_02: even though this is a Republican-leaning seat.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_02: And Zach Dembo is a former prosecutor who seems to have, you know, he's raised a lot of money.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: He's positioned himself where he's got a real shot in this seat.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_02: Look, Republicans are still favored.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's a baseline thing about sort of the nature of this seat, having a Republican lean.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: But we do have some polling here and it is good for Dimbo.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_02: Now, a lot of it is Democratic internals.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, we have to be cautious about that.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_02: But, you know, it's looking, I mean, a two and three shot for the Republicans.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_02: Having a one in three shot basically for the Democrat is notable.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: And if Democrats were to flip this and we knew that in like,
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know,
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_02: 7.30 p.m. or something, that would be – assuming it's close, we're not sure.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_02: That would be – I mean that would be a real sign.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: And Maddisen,
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: can you explain – we've done this in the past and we've mentioned it here,
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: but I want people to understand.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're looking at the bar line there of forecast breakdown,
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: people who see that,
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: can you explain – I mentioned at the top that this is sort of –
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: the fundamentals is sort of money – it's explained there.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: Partisan baseline,
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: incumbency, presidential party cycle effects, net campaign, financial advantage.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: Can you explain why – In a race like this,
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: fundamentals are more than 50% of the projection of the forecast
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: and how high fundamentals can go,
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: how high polls can go,
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: and how high markets can go in terms of the composition of each.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because each race has a slightly different composition, I assume.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: So at least to start from,
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: I guess,
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: composition,
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: fundamentals can be At minimum,
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: assuming the other two get maxed out, at minimum 40%.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: So a race with a lot of polls and a lot of money in the markets is going to be a 40%,
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: 35%, 25% between fundamentals.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: So 40% fundamentals, 35% polls, 25% markets.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: Correct.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so, but that,
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: in the absence of polls or in the absence of markets,
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: so like if you looked at this,
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: in July or whatever,
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: when we launched it,
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: there is,
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: not that much polling,
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: markets for especially the house races was a little bit lower.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: Those two blue bars kind of tend to,
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: those were a little bit shorter and the yellow fundamentals bar was a lot longer.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: So in the absence of like non-static,
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: in the absence of like dynamic information,
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: you have to use the fundamentals because like,
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: There's literally nothing else to go on,
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: especially in small congressional races that like, like,
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: for example,
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: my congressional race back at home, California 10, nobody's polling that.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's not interesting.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: So that one's, I would guess, all if not mostly.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_02: Well, let's find out.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: We can find out.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: California 10 worked us all the year.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_02: There are some markets, apparently.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: Never seen a single poll, or at least they haven't texted one to me.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: that's what probably,
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: that breakdown is probably what 370 House districts look like, right?
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's maxed out on fundamentals and maybe some markets,
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: but basically like for the vast majority of these, that's how that breaks out.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: Correct, exactly.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like we have a long list of like safe House races and then it all kind of,
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: Comes down to the non-safe ones that are really going to be indicative of how
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: the night is going.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, right now there's 318 safe seats.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: And then,
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: of course,
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: most of the likely seats are going to go probably toward the party and send
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: the direction.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: And then you're talking about really 400 seats kind of in that zone.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: Now, some of those likely seats definitely have a pole or two.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_02: But it is also true that we don't generally get a lot of independent polling in house races.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's mostly partisan internals,
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_02: either from the campaign or an allied group, saying, hey, my candidate's doing well.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_02: And then they use it in a fundraising thing, saying, give us money, we can win this.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's mainly, in a lot of races, that's the only kind of polling that we have.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_02: You might have an independent poll or two, especially in some big states like in Alaska.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_02: Because it's an at-large district, there's only one House seat in Alaska.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_02: And they've got an important Senate race and governor's race.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so they might get asked about, House race might get asked about with those.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_02: But generally speaking, most are not, don't have many polls, if any.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: I was doing a rant, Skelley, you'll especially appreciate this.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: I was doing a rant this morning with my friend Kate Brower about
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: the world doesn't need another Texas Senate poll that has Talarico up two points
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: or three points.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: Take the money that you are using to do that poll and poll like five Texas house races.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: That would be
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: a much better – it's like how many more freaking Texas polls do we – Texas Senate
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: polls do we need?
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's unbelievable.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: Start polling railroad commissioner.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, exactly.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: We have like four polls from Railroad Commissioner at least because Texas and
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: because Senate and Governor are just so like hot topic.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: There's so many polls
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: right there.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: They might as well just
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_02: toss it
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: in.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, AG, Comptroller has a lot, Lieutenant Governor has a lot.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_02: Two other offices because Texas has a lot of statewide offices.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_02: Incredible though.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: We also need to spend money
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: to go poll Nebraska
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: or Kansas.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: We actually don't have that much polling in Kansas.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_02: I know we're all talking about it.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_02: But we really don't have that much data to go off of.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_02: So it's kind of a black box a little bit.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: This is nerdy,
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: Skelley,
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: but I've noticed that about Kansas and I've wondered if pollsters are resistant
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: to going in there because there's such a paucity of competitive races to comp.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: To set a sample that you could miss by a ton because it's not like you've got like,
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_01: oh, two years ago, this was a competitive race.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's like the last time Democrats won was 1932, which was kind of a different time than now.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, you would have to use the governor's race, probably.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you're right.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_02: But even then, that's... Yeah, it's not a
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: direct comp.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: There's not a lot of... Yeah,
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, Kansas is not a state that is typically competitive in federal politics in
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_02: the United States.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so that does make it a little more challenging.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: All right, let me run through a couple more of these.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: Pennsylvania 10,
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: where Scott Perry,
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: the Republican incumbent, is in deep S. Where are we on that one?
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: Skelley, this is 100% your wheelhouse because I don't know who Janelle Stelson is other
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: than what looks like the next member of Congress from Pennsylvania 10.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so Janelle Stelson,
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_02: the Democratic nominee, she narrowly lost to Perry in 2024 as the Democrat.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_02: So she's back for another shot in a friendlier environment for her party.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_02: And Perry ran a little bit behind Trump in this seat, it's worth noting.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_02: In that race, so the House race was closer than the presidential margin in the 10th district.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: Is this Scranton still, Skelley?
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, this is Harrisburg.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_02: Harrisburg, okay.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: It used to be Scranton, but I know they moved the districts over.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the Scranton seat is also, the 8th is also very much in play.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_02: Paige Cognetti is the Democratic nominee there, running against [Rob] Bresnahan.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes I find myself confusing the 7th and 8th.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_02: But the 10th district here, let's focus on that for the moment.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_02: Stelson narrowly lost.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_02: She's back for another try.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_02: Scott Perry viewed as a very conservative member, pretty hard right, Freedom Caucus.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_02: And this is a district that has trended a bit to the left, more college educated.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_02: It is a little right leaning still,
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_02: but it's sort of makeup and is such that it is the kind of seat that's been trending
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_02: toward Democrats.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_02: And right now, Stelson is narrowly favored in this race.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_02: And this is the kind of seat that If Democrats are going back to the House,
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_02: this is the kind of seat that they're probably flipping as a part of that.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just looking, Skelley, real quick.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_02: Want to talk about those other Pennsylvania ones?
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, let me just look.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: So Trump won Pennsylvania 10.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_02: I've got that right here by about five.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: 52.47.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: So it is – an R plus five district in this kind of environment is one
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: that Democrats
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_02: – So this was the race last time.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_02: We can access this stuff real quickly.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_02: He only won – he won by less than a point and a half,
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_02: even as Trump was carrying the district by five.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_02: So he ran significantly behind Trump.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_02: And he ran behind, I mean,
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_02: McCormick ran, David McCormick in the Senate race ran a little bit behind Trump.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's interesting, you know, Stelson's a former broadcaster in the area.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, interesting.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_02: In that way, yeah.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_02: She like was there for a very long time as a local broadcaster.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_02: So that's some background on her.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: It just makes it, you're better known than the normal random person.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: She's run before, that helps.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: You're a better communicator probably on TV if you've done that stuff.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_02: She's got a lot of experience doing that.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: Can we do,
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to do all the Pennsylvanians right now,
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: but can you do Fitzpatrick,
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: which is one of the seats that a Republican holds that Kamala Harris won?
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: Is that PA won?
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah,
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_02: so that's the Northern Philly suburbs and exurbs,
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_02: Bucks County mostly, north of Philadelphia.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_02: And Fitzpatrick,
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_02: so this is a very interesting race because I think this is the kind of race that is
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_02: a real test of whether something is kind of a wave.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_02: If Democrats win the House,
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_02: and especially if they also win the Senate,
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_02: that term is going to get thrown around a lot.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_02: There's not really an objective definition of what a wave is.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_02: And comparing it to 2018 is a little complicated
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_02: because Democrats had 20 fewer seats heading into the election in 2018.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_02: So they won 40, and that was a big swing.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_02: But this time around,
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_02: they don't need nearly as many seats to take control because
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_02: the Republicans only have a 220 to 215 advantage in the House right now.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_02: So when you look at this race,
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_02: this is,
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_02: as you mentioned,
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_02: before redistricting,
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_02: this is one of the only three seats that a Republican won in 2024 in the House
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_02: that was actually in a seat that Kamala Harris carried and narrowly,
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_02: but she did carry this seat.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_02: And so Fitzpatrick has this very long history of outrunning Republicans.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, look,
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_02: just 2024,
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_02: he won by 13, even as Harris was carrying the seat by three-tenths of a point.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_02: So he has run well ahead of the Republican baseline.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_02: And you see this throughout his entire career in the first district.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_02: And so he has this reputation as a moderate.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_02: He was the only Republican,
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_02: I think, who ended up voting against the big beautiful- Skelley, did we lose you?
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, you're back.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_02: Ah.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_02: I'm here.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_02: I'm here.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_02: I'm here.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_02: Fitzpatrick was the only Republican who voted against the big, beautiful bill, for instance.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, he's,
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_02: he's got a, he's,
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_02: he's positioned himself as, as,
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_02: you know, a centrist and the most moderate member, basically the Republican caucus.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_02: But in this kind of environment,
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: he
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_02: got an R by his name.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe he,
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_02: but maybe he does lose,
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_02: even though he is slightly favored in our forecast because he is,
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_02: you know, has such an impressive track record.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: To Maddisen’s point here, there's no polling really in this race.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, very little.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so as you see, fundamentals are 75% of it.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_01: Maddisen, can I ask a question here?
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: It just occurred to me.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: So fundamentals include all the things we've talked about, right?
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: How do you...
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: I want to dig into the language there that says partisan baseline adjusted
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: for national environment.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: And what I want to ask you there is Skelley and I talk all the time about a wave or
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: an undertow or a riptide, whatever.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: How can you quantitatively?
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: Brian Fitzpatrick,
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: to Geoffrey's point, always overperforms Republican performance in the district.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's like Susan Collins in Maine.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: She has a long history of doing it.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: David Valadao in California.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: But typically in wave elections,
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: ’94, ’06, 2010, what you see is that the person starts to matter less.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: People just vote.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, oh, you're a Republican or you're a Democrat.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_01: We're voting against you.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: How can you put a quantitative measure on that?
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: Because past performance might not be indicative of future result in that case.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: Geoffrey, you know what I mean?
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean, Maddisen?
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: Am I explaining myself?
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: yeah,
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think – I mean the other hard part with that is like I don't know if you can.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think I was talking – I've become the person that has to explain things
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: to my family members now, which is fun.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: But my dad was texting me.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, what if the polls are all leaning blue?
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'll get back.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: It'll circle back in a second.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, you can't.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, sure, maybe they are.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: But I can't say that they are.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know for a fact that they are.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that would be bad.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: I always call it irresponsible math.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: I would say irresponsible math.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: To make that assumption, right?
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so to make that assumption would not be responsible or objective from
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: a mathematical, statistical, scientific standpoint.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then the other thing to that point is that probably, at scale, averages out.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: Nationwide, it probably averages out.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: Explain that.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: Explain that.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because what?
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: It was just like, I'm not voting for you because you're a Democrat, but...
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: Just like,
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: nationwide,
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: there are probably going to be people that are like,
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: I would never, like,
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: never vote Republican,
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: and it's going to be similarly canceled out by people
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: that would never vote Democrat.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's,
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: you know, we kind of, and we talk about this with, like, you know, the polling, too.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like, at scale,
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: it all kind of,
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: reaches some kind of harmony, but, like,
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: there's no real good,
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: or maybe there is a way to do it,
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: but not, like, what I would think is a responsible way to do it.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_01: To measure, kind of, wave.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_02: I think what you could, like in this case, Fitzpatrick is favored.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_02: He's a little bit more than a three and five favorite to win.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_02: So it's narrowly in the lean R category of our forecast.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_02: But if you drop below 60, it would move into a toss up.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_02: And those are just to help people with interpreting what the probabilities are.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_02: They're not hard and fast necessarily.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_02: Or they're hard and fast by how we've set them up.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_02: But there's not really a difference between 59 and 61.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_02: But that's my new difference.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_02: So what I was going to say is if we had a lot of polling in this race
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_02: and it showed Fitzpatrick down and the polls would be a more useful part of it,
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_02: That would be a way of knowing.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_02: But the thing is with the house race,
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_02: it's a lot harder to do that because we still have some polling data.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_02: In the case of Kansas or Iowa or some of these red states, we have a lot of polling.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_02: Well, actually, we don't have a lot of polling in Kansas.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_02: But the polling we do have shows a tight race.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_01: Right, or Texas.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's clear that the race is close.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so that is a huge part of the forecast.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_02: And therefore, it's not overriding the fundamentals.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_02: If anything, the fundamentals are keeping Paxton closer in Texas.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_02: But it's balancing that out for the reality of the shift in the national environment.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_02: And also,
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_02: it's worth noting that including the partisan baseline adjustment for
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_02: the national environment,
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_02: we're taking the generic ballot numbers and sort of using that as a gauge for what
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_02: the national environment is.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_02: And then you have the 2024 presidential results as sort of a partisan baseline.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_02: And you're adjusting for that reality from the 2024 baseline,
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_02: but what we're seeing nationally right now.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_02: But it's going to obviously vary.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_02: And the other thing is polling error is going to vary from place to place.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_02: It may be closer in some states.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_02: It may be farther off in others.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_02: And that's a concern.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_02: And you can try to model for it to some extent.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_02: The uncertainty in the forecast model is supposed to account for some of those realities.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the fact that you could have varying polling error.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_02: But at the same time, it's like we can't predict how large it's going to be.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_02: We know some past cases can tell us.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_02: And so we're watching for it because of those past cases.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_02: But that doesn't mean that this time around there's going to be like
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_02: a six point error overstating Democrats in Iowa.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's one point and maybe Josh Turek wins.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I mean, that's that's the thing.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_02: Because pollsters are constantly adjusting as well.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_02: That's like the other thing.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_02: Stuff is moving here.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's not like it's all stasis from election to election
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_02: and how pollsters are doing what they do.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_01: I've got a couple more house that I want to do.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_01: One that I'm intrigued by,
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_01: my friend PDG Everett,
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_01: who's a Seattle guy,
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_01: asked about Marie Gluesenkamp Perez,
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: who Is a very interesting,
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_01: probably not a very well-known national candidate,
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_01: but represents a district that Donald Trump won in both 2020 and 2024.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: She would be – she has not sat all that well with her Democratic conference mates.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_01: She, along with Jared Golden,
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_01: who literally is in the exact opposite part of the country,
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_01: away in Maine – These are the two who often kind of break with the party.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: But as you can see here, MGP, as they call her, very likely to win.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_01: That seems to me a function of it's a good democratic year.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: In a neutral environment,
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_01: in a 2028 environment,
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: she has been and she will continue to be a major target, would be my guess.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_01: Anything to add?
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_02: 100%.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_02: You know,
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_02: what's interesting about this district It actually did move to the left
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_01: from 2020
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_01: to 2024.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_02: And there were only about 20 to 25 districts in the country that did that
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_02: because most of the country swung right.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you went
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_02: from Joe Biden by four and a half in the national popular vote
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_02: to Donald Trump by one and a half.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_02: So there was a six point swing, but it was not uniform.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_02: It was felt larger in certain places.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_02: And there were even a handful of places where you had some shift to the left.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_02: Not ever a very large shift to the left,
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_02: but nonetheless,
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_02: it was notable that much of Washington and the Washington 3rd in particular,
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_02: there was a little swing to the left there,
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_02: even though the rest of the country was mostly moving right.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_02: So maybe that's made that district a little bit better for Gluesenkamp Perez
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_02: than it might have been when she initially won it.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_02: She was helped out initially in the seat in 2022 by running against
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_02: a very poor Republican candidate,
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_02: a very right-wing Republican candidate who maybe didn't fit the district as well.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_02: Was that Joe Kent?
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Joe Kent.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_02: Essentially, the two of them together, remember Washington and California is a top two primary.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_02: And so you had Kent running and you had the incumbent,
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_02: Jamie Herrera Beutler,
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_02: looks like Beutler,
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_02: but pronounced Butler,
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_02: was the Republican incumbent, but she was viewed as a moderate.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_02: She was one of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after January 6th.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, this got her quite targeted.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_02: Am I remembering that correctly?
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_02: I guess Dan Newhouse did.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_02: Well, no,
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_01: it was Dan
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_01: Newhouse because,
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_01: Skelley, she wound up as Labor Secretary and then bombed out of that.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, no, no.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_02: That's Chavez.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I'm thinking of Chavez-DeRemer.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking of the other hyphenated Pacific Northwest.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_02: I'm pretty sure she voted to impeach him.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I think you're right.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_02: She's one of the ones who
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_01: went down.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_01: There were two of them.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, she was one of the ones who went down.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_02: Newhouse survived in part because of the top two primary, but Beutler did not survive.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_01: Lori Chavez-DeRemer, I'm getting my dash, dash name.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_01: Pacific Northwest dash name people confused.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so Beutler finished third.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_02: So she finished outside the top two and Gluesenkamp Perez and Kent advanced.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_02: And Gluesenkamp Perez ended up winning the seat.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_02: And then she won reelection in 2024 as well.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_02: And now she's favored to win a third term.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_01: Let's stay in the Pacific Northwest and let's do a race that is very strange.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_01: We're talking about good to very good to great national democratic environment.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oregon is a decidedly democratic state,
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_01: and yet the governor of Oregon,
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_01: Tina Kotek, is in a very real race against Christine Drazan.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: Can you go to that one?
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_01: So this is interesting.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_01: This is a place that Republicans talk up pretty regularly.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_01: I believe this is a rematch of four years ago.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_01: Kotek has struggled in that.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_01: She basically made two big promises on the campaign trail in 2022.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_01: One was that she was going to curb the homelessness problem in the state, largely in Portland.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_01: And two, that she was going to fix public education.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_01: She has been judged by the public to have done neither.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's why there's some vulnerability here.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_01: But as you see, you know, she won with 47%.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_01: Why is the model,
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_01: Skelley,
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_01: as optimistic for her given at least some chatter and the polling that has it close?
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_02: I think the fundamentals at the end of the day is we don't actually have that much polling.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_02: Now, the polling we do have shows a close race.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_02: Right now, Kotek is up by less than a point.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's basically tied in our polling average.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_02: So this is a place where the fundamentals and the polls maybe disagree a little bit
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_02: because Oregon is a Democratic-winning state.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_02: Republicans have not won a governor's race in Oregon since 1982.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_02: And so this is where you get into – I'm pretty sure actually that our forecast,
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_02: though,
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_02: in terms of Kotek,
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_02: because she's kind of underperformed previously,
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_02: that the sort of partisan baseline of the state,
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_02: does not get a huge incumbent bonus.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_02: But nonetheless – It's a really democratic year, so she might survive despite having issues.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_02: She has a pretty high disapproval rating in the limited polling we do have.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_02: There's a bit of a clash here between, I would say, the horse race polls and the fundamentals.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_02: This is one where if Christine Drazan does win the Republican nominee,
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_02: it is very much about a local reality that was harder to put into a forecast model.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_02: There are limitations.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_02: The prediction markets, I believe, are a bit more Actually, interesting.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_02: The prediction markets,
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_02: I actually didn't quite realize this,
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_02: but the prediction markets are maybe more bullish on Kotek
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_02: than I would have thought.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_01: I would have thought that that would be closer, yeah.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_02: Now, it dropped into the 70s recently in Polymarket, but, you know, that's fascinating.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_02: And see, yeah, it dropped down to like 70s.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_01: Something must have happened.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_01: There must have been a poll or something out that showed it closer.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and so,
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_02: it's interesting just to see prediction markets respond in that way because,
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_02: you know, We do not...
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, by just...
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_02: Because of what I do and also by the rules of our company,
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_02: do not participate in prediction markets.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_01: Me neither.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_01: You cannot, if you're a Decision Desk HQ employee, you cannot participate in prediction markets.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_02: If I were to participate or if I were somebody who was looking at this,
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_02: I might buy Drazan under the circumstances.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_02: Just given what we know about the race,
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_02: just because there might be an opportunity and maybe her chances rise a little bit
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_02: at some point and you can sell and make You know, arbitrage or whatever.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_02: But but nonetheless,
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_02: you know, this is a place where there is maybe a little bit of a disagreement.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_02: And you might say that with like Kansas remaining Republican leaning in the Senate race.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_02: The fundamentals favor the Republicans in Kansas.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_02: They favor the Democrats in Oregon.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_02: But local factors,
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_02: the candidate factors that are harder to harness with
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_02: a forecast model might underestimate the chances of a flip.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to end on Virginia.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to go to Skelley's wheelhouse.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_01: But before we do that, Maddisen, I do.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_01: I want to ask Geoffrey talked about this just now, but I'd love to have you expand on it.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_01: What?
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_01: What are the limits and known blind spots of a forecasting model?
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because I tend to think I prefer a forecasting model to anything else,
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_01: whether that's political handicappers who are talking to campaigns or on
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_01: the other end of the spectrum, prediction markets or polling.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's a really nice combo of the two.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_01: What are the kind of known either weaknesses or blind spots
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_01: that I'm sure you guys try to account for,
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_01: but you know they exist in a forecast model of any sort?
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think I talked about this a bit ago when it was a little bit more recent,
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_00: but I think like my favorite example that's come out
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_00: of this cycle is like Graham Platner.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_00: Where, like, it, like,
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_00: kind of as Geoffrey said,
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_00: like, it doesn't, it has a hard time gauging, like, candidate viability, right?
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like, even with Tina Kotek, like, she's
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_01: not- Do you mean candidate quality?
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_01: Got it.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_00: But- She's not a fantastic or beloved candidate by any means.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_00: Graham Platner certainly had his challenges,
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_00: but there's no other than historical performance,
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_00: underperformance,
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_00: overperformance, which we have for Kotek, did not have for Platner.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to, you know, there's no real good way to like quantify that.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_00: Except polls and markets, which we do.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_02: But it's a dynamic situation with polls where there might be a delay,
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_02: you know, at the end of the day, there might be a week or two delay.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_00: And even,
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_00: even with like,
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_00: um, with Platner in Maine and stuff like that, it's like, he was out for two weeks.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_00: I had to manually nuke polls from that race for two weeks.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_01: You don't want the model ingesting polls that include a candidate who are no,
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_01: who's no longer running.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_00: But then for,
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_00: for like,
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_00: you know, two,
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_00: three weeks,
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_00: however long it took to like formally install Troy Jackson,
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_00: we had no Democratic candidate information that race out all whatsoever.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_02: It was frozen.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_00: It was functionally frozen.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, like if there was something- It
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_02: was Maine in February.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_00: So it was, you know, it was not great.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I think candidate quality and stuff like that is another kind of known blind spot.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously with the markets, this is kind of the first year that anybody's using them.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_00: So that's going to be,
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_00: and that's not really something that you can account for,
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_00: at least not in a responsible way, I guess.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_00: So- We will definitely be kind of keeping an eye on
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_00: in future cycles how that's going to play in later.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's a great point too because I think – I love – did you say irresponsible math?
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_01: Is that the phrase you used?
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_01: I think that that's like – candidate quality is really hard to quantify
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_01: because it's not like in baseball.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's like if you're a pitcher – You're in high school and you throw in the 90s.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone's like, oh, OK. Like there's no like objective measure.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like I always say that.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'll give an example.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_01: I always thought the late Lindsey Graham was quite a talented candidate.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_01: Now, there are a lot of people on the left who hate Lindsey Graham,
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_01: especially because of the Donald Trump Turn it out.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, yeah, that's not what I'm talking about.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm saying like the things that candidates need to do to be good,
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_01: raise money, be good in debates, be good on your feet, be good in press interviews.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_01: He's good at those things.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_01: But it's not like there's an objective measure.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's the whole irresponsible math thing.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_01: One man's Lindsey Graham, one man's trash is another man's treasure kind of thing.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_01: And that's It makes it very hard to mathematically, objectively assess candidate quality.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_00: And to belabor your baseball metaphor a bit too, the matchups here are really important, right?
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_00: For the baseball purposes, I'm a San Francisco Giants fan.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_00: San Francisco Giants are an objectively not fantastic team.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_00: We win games.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_00: We win games a lot.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm having a bad day if the Giants have not beat the Colorado Rockies.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's a bad day for me, right?
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_00: But we're losing to, like, the Yankees.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_00: The Dodgers.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_00: Don't say that.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_00: I know you don't say the Dodgers.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_00: I know, I know.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_00: I can't say that.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_01: Maddisen is a Northern California girl.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_00: Padres?
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, Padres are fine.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_00: But no, no.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_00: Up until,
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_00: the last series of the season,
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_00: the Giants were historically tied with the Dodgers since, like, 1800s.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_01: In total wins.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_01: In total wins and losses, yeah.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_02: I do have quite the long rivalry.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_02: Coast to coast.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_01: By the way,
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_01: 0% surprise that Maddisen,
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_01: who's a math person and really into the data, also likes baseball.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_02: It was my first love.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_02: It was my first sports love.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, it's all of our first sports love.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_01: Baseball stats.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's our nerd.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's your nerd brain.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_02: I got lost in all the stats.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_02: How do you calculate ERA and slugging percentage?
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_01: Skelley and I have to regale you with our old baseball card collections
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_01: when people collected baseball cards.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm cool with that.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's good, yeah.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah,
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_00: so I think another part about candidate quality to the point
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_00: of matchups is take Ken Paxton and James Talarico.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_00: From a fundamental standpoint,
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_00: that one should go Republican,
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_00: but Talarico is an incredible candidate going against a less
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_00: than incredible candidate.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so he really could pull it off.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but obviously like there's no way to quantify that so much without like polls
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_00: and markets,
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_00: but like, it's hard to kind of like really put an, like stick a number to it.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_02: And, and unlike with neither of them have,
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_02: the thing that we have with an incumbent running like Susan Collins is
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_02: that we know she's got this history of overperforming, right?
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_02: And so there is a mathematical measure of a sort
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_02: where you can compare her performance to the baseline of the state.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_02: But you don't have that for candidates who haven't run for that office before, right?
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_02: So in that way,
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_02: like with Talarico and Paxton,
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_02: you can't quantify Paxton's negative wins above replacement or something.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_02: I know.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_00: Even like Rob Sand.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_00: Rob Sand is an exceptional candidate,
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_00: but he's never been the governor, so you can't really stick a number to his.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's very hard.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_00: He overperforms for the state, but you can't really stick a number to it.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's a great point.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_02: And just because he's overperformed as a candidate for a down ballot office.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_02: Right, state auditor.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_02: Given that he's going to be super overperformed.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_02: We've seen candidates who did really well down ballot,
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_02: but once they got under the hot lights for the top of the ticket,
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_02: it didn't go as well.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_01: One of my favorites in that regard is Inez Tannenbaum,
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_01: who for a long time was the only Democrat elected statewide South Carolina.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_01: She was the superintendent of public instruction, which is a statewide gig in South Carolina.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_01: And Democrats were so excited about her running for the U.S.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_01: Senate and she got her ass handed to her because it's just a different calculation.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_02: That was 04.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_02: That was 04.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it was also 04.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_01: So Skelley, let's end on this, which is our friend Chuck Todd uses Virginia.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to go in your wheelhouse.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uses Virginia as a kind of- It's the
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_02: best Commonwealth.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_02: The best of the Commonwealth.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_02: Take that, Massachusetts.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_02: And Pennsylvania and Kentucky.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_01: He uses Virginia House districts as a medium, large, extra large, good Democratic night.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's a good way of looking at it.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_01: With the first, the second, and the fifth.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_01: Can you walk – because Lynn Gardner asked about the first and the fifth.
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'll add the second to that.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_01: So let's start on a good night is Elaine Luria winning in the second.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_01: A very good night is the first and the second.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_01: A great night is the first, second, and fifth.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_01: Why don't you walk through – Those three.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then we'll we'll call it because I don't want too many.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_01: You guys are busy.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_01: I want to take more than an hour of your time.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_02: Well, happy to talk about Virginia.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_02: The second district, you have Republican incumbent Jen Kiggans there.
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_02: This is a very 50-50 seat in terms of its its presidential leanings.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_02: It was very slightly Republican in 2024.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_02: But Kiggans is facing Elaine Luria, who she beat in twenty twenty two.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_02: To actually flip this seat for Republicans.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_01: And this is Virginia Beach.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so Virginia Beach is down here and you have the Eastern Shore part of Virginia.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_02: It stretches over into sort of parts of Tidewater, South Side edge.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_02: And it's a very 50-50 seat at its baseline.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_02: But this is a seat that basically we view Luria now as likely to win.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_02: And in that sense, like better than an 8 in 10 shot of winning.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_02: And so this is a seat that like,
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_02: if Democrats aren't winning this,
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_02: something might be very wrong for them on election night.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_02: This is a seat that we expect most likely flips for them in a universe
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_02: where they're winning the House.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_02: In fact,
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_02: if they're not winning it,
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_02: then you're getting into the universe of Republicans holding the House.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_02: So this is expected to flip.
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_02: So this is sort of like baseline Democratic House cash.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of a must have for a Democratic majority.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, because it's a very 50-50 seat.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you move to the first district next door.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_02: And this seat stretches,
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_02: you have this little appendage here that's actually taking in the western suburbs
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_02: of Richmond,
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_02: the city of Richmond,
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_02: which has become more Democratic-leaning,
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_02: parts of Henrico and Chesterfield County,
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_02: and then stretches up into what's known as the Northern Neck and down into parts of
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_02: the Tidewater area.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_02: And so you have some red shifting into blue suburbs and then a lot of red rural,
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_02: but also a significant African American population in some parts of this area.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_02: But it's a red-leaning district.
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_02: But this is another seat that actually shifted left in the presidential vote from 2020 to 2024.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like Gluesenkamp Perez, right.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_02: Like the Gluesenkamp Perez district to Washington 3rd.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_02: So it's interesting in that way.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's been one that I've been eyeing for a while because of that national swing.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_02: Rob Wittman is the Republican incumbent.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_02: He has a history of vastly outperforming the Republican baseline.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_02: He won by far more than Trump did in this district in 2024.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_02: But in a wave environment or a good year for Democrats,
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_02: maybe Whitman is a casualty, right, of things swinging against his party.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_02: So right now,
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_02: Shannon Taylor,
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_02: the Democratic challenger there,
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_02: has about a one in three shot of ousting Wittman in our forecast.
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_02: But this is definitely,
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_02: in terms of the partisan baseline of the district's,
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_02: A seat that would sort of be the next domino to fall and would be a sign of
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_02: a pretty good night for Democrats.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_02: And then,
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_02: even though it's not too different in terms of our probability,
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_02: I do think just qualitatively,
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_02: having lived in this seat, the 5th District, Charlottesville.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_01: This is Charlottesville, right.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_02: But the rest of the district is very red outside of the Charlottesville area,
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_02: except there is a sizable Black population that is pretty Democratic-leaning
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_02: in Southside, Virginia, and Danville is down here.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_02: But still, nonetheless, this seat is more like Trump plus 10, 12 territory.
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_02: So it is redder than like Trump plus five, the first.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_02: But Tom Perriello has a record of doing better.
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_02: And the limited polling we have and the prediction markets here are
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_02: a little bit more bullish about Perriello compared to John McGuire,
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_02: the Republican incumbent here, who's a first term Republican incumbent.
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_02: And so this is a district that I think in a universe where Democrats are getting
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_02: to like 240, 245 or something, this is where that seat could flip.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_02: So that's, I do think Chuck has a good, that's a good rough measure.
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, small, medium, large
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_01: sort of, yeah.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I would just note,
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_01: Perriello was a member of Congress from a district that included Charlottesville,
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_01: but not this exact line.
• 1:01:03
  SPEAKER_02: It looked a little different.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it looked a little different.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_02: It included some areas over here like Martinsville and it ran up I mean,
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_02: it was a little less red,
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_02: but it was still a McCain district in 08,
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_02: even as Obama was winning nationally by about seven when Perriello won and he won
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_02: by like 700 votes.
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_02: I was an undergrad at the University of Virginia at the time Perriello sprung that upset.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_02: That was the most interesting race of the night.
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_02: Personally, I knew it was like Obama is clearly going to win.
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_02: So I was watching some of these house races.
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_02: I remember because that was a very interesting local contest.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_01: I just mostly like to do that so that we can see Skelley sketch out on a blank map
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_01: the various parts of Virginia districts.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_01: It just makes me happy that there are people that are that smart that exist in the world.
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_01: All right, well,
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_01: Maddisen, I learned something new, which is that you are a long-suffering Giants fan.
• 1:01:59
  SPEAKER_01: I have a friend in my life named Kirk Victor who is significantly your senior but
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_01: a longtime Senate reporter I worked with at National Journal who – follows,
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_01: watches every Giants game and expresses his consternation about
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_01: the new college manager.
• 1:02:16
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe I will put the two of you in contact so that you can commiserate.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_00: When our prospects come up, it's going to be over for everybody.
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's what the Orioles said.
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_01: That's what the Nationals said.
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's our year for the last 10 years.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, exactly.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_00: No, I know I'm delusional.
• 1:02:35
  SPEAKER_01: So we're going to try to do this one more time next week,
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_01: sort of a last,
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_01: you know, because Maddisen, they're running this model every day now, right?
• 1:02:45
  SPEAKER_01: Including weekends.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a million runs of this model every single day now.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's not going to change drastically, folks.
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's not all of a sudden going to show, you know, Republicans are going to win.
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_00: Unless they've been like hiding some polls, but yeah.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:02:59
  SPEAKER_01: I do think it is worth – we're going to do this one more time sometime next week,
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_01: so stay tuned for that.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_01: Look, in the meantime, votes.decisiondeskhq.com.
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_01: That will get you this screen that we have been looking at the entire time.
• 1:03:13
  SPEAKER_01: It will get you a fair number of things,
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_01: including the forecast, but I would urge you to become a Votes Pro member.
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_01: It is on sale right now through the election, which is 11 days from now.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_01: Trust me.
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_01: Skelley,
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_01: why don't you explain to people – What you get in
• 1:03:27
  SPEAKER_01: a Votes Pro membership very quickly, and then we'll say goodbye.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, sure.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_02: So look, the Votes Pro membership gets you access to a lot of things.
• 1:03:37
  SPEAKER_02: Look, with the free,
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_02: and it's free to sign up,
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_02: you can access some of the things on here, including the forecast.
• 1:03:44
  SPEAKER_02: However,
• 1:03:44
  SPEAKER_02: you can look back at all kinds of historical data if you're a Votes Pro member,
• 1:03:47
  SPEAKER_02: like going way back.
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_02: We have basically everything back to 2000 across the country.
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_02: And you can find races like your local city council race,
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_02: you know, and we're talking about the full gamut here.
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_02: And on election night, there are a lot of cool tools.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_02: I think the coolest one is decision view,
• 1:04:04
  SPEAKER_02: which just to spell out just an example of this,
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_02: like in August, on August 4th, which was a crazy primary night, very busy.
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_02: This was my decision view.
• 1:04:15
  SPEAKER_02: And you can customize this any way you want.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_02: You can move things around, pull in a result.
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_02: A map from a race you're interested in.
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_02: So you can set up like a 7 p.m.
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_02: decision view,
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_02: an 8 p.m.
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_02: decision view,
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_02: a 9 p.m.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_02: decision view based on sort of full closing times and bounce around
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_02: to your heart's content and have the races that you're most interested in All
• 1:04:36
  SPEAKER_02: in one place.
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_02: So you can kind of customize your election night.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_02: So that's only available to both pro users.
• 1:04:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's an amazing resource.
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's basically a build your own dashboard of what you want to follow in the election.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_02: You can look at the national precinct map from 2024 and 2022.
• 1:04:51
  SPEAKER_02: You can play around with all kinds of stuff.
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, there's all kinds of information there.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_02: We have a deal through the rest of this election year.
• 1:04:59
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's $10 right now, $9.99.
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_02: Let me be more of a salesperson.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_01: $9.99.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_01: Under $10.
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, under $10.
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so, yeah.
• 1:05:11
  SPEAKER_02: And you can use this to your heart's content and look at all kinds of stuff.
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_01: I get it.
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's great.
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_01: votes.decisiondeskhq.com.
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_01: Trust me,
• 1:05:22
  SPEAKER_01: if you care about elections,
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_01: you will want to be a pro member and take advantage of the sale.
• 1:05:27
  SPEAKER_01: I am thrilled that you guys made this much time for us.
• 1:05:31
  SPEAKER_01: Maddisen Murrell,
• 1:05:31
  SPEAKER_01: data scientist,
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_01: and the keeper of the model still does not have a wizarding staff,
• 1:05:39
  SPEAKER_01: but we're working on that.
• 1:05:40
  SPEAKER_01: We've still got 11 days before the election.
• 1:05:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's in the mail.
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_01: Geoffrey Skelley, pink.
• 1:05:45
  SPEAKER_01: They always say it's in the mail.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_01: Geoffrey Skelley, Chief Elections Analyst at DDHQ.
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm thrilled.
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you guys for taking the time.
• 1:05:51
  SPEAKER_01: Go to votes.decisiondeskhq.com.
• 1:05:54
  SPEAKER_01: Kick around on it.
• 1:05:55
  SPEAKER_01: Trust me, you're going to like what you see.
• 1:05:56
  SPEAKER_01: You'll want to become a Votes Pro member.
• 1:05:57
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you all.
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_01: We'll see you sometime next week.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_01: We'll do this one more time before we actually know what the American public thinks
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_01: in all these races.
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_01: All right, everybody.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_01: Take care.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_01: Be well.
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, guys.
• 1:06:08
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks, Chris.