Latest / The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show / The Truth with Lisa Boothe: Tom Bevan: Are Republicans About to Lose Congress? 2026 Midterm Election Predictions

Transcript

The Truth with Lisa Boothe: Tom Bevan: Are Republicans About to Lose Congress? 2026 Midterm Election Predictions · The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Welcome to The Truth with Lisa Booth, where we get
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: to the heart of the issues that matter to you.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: With the midterm elections less than two weeks away, control
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: of Congress hangs in the balance. Now, will Republicans defy
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: historical trends and hold on to power, or are Democrats
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: poised to make significant gains? And what are the polls
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: telling us about the races that matter the most, and
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: can we even trust them? Joining me today to break
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: it all down is Tom Bevin. He is the co-founder
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: and president of Real Clear Politics, and he has been
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: observing elections for 25 years now.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Stay tuned for Tom Bevin. Well, Tom, it's great to
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: have you back on the show. We were just talking
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: before we got started.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: I was telling you about my predictions for election night.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: I think Republicans keep the House or lose the House
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: rather and keep the Senate.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: How do you sort of see things playing out?
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: I know in the real clear politics, average, according to
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: your maps, I think you have Democrats picking up 22
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: seats in the House and then also picking up three
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: seats in the Senate, which would mean Republicans lose the
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: House and keep the Senate.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: But how do you see things playing out right now?
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I agree with you. I think the
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: House is gone. I mean, if you just look at
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: where Republicans are putting their resources right now, excuse me,
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: they're in places where they're trying to limit the damage,
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: I think, to keep the losses to as much of
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: a minimum as they can. The Senate, it's the same strategy.
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: The difference is, obviously, that they're playing defense in states
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: that are really, really red. And Trump is traveling to
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: all these states trying to activate Republican voters. And if
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: he can do that, Republicans should win in places like
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: Texas and Nebraska and Kansas and Ohio, even potentially. So
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: we'll see whether that whether that strategy works or not.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: I am on the fence about whether Republicans are going
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: to keep the Senate. I think it's going to be really,
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: really close. And it may all come down to Alaska, which,
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: you know, with ranked choice voting, we won't we may
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: not even know on election night. Who controls the Senate?
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: And we'll have to wait for the outcome of that race, potentially.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: So I worked on the general consulting team for Dan
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Sullivan's first Senate race. And unfortunately, it can take a
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: while to get results in Alaska.
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: We might be waiting, especially in the rural areas.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: You know, and then that is interesting because you have
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: two Dan Solbins on the ballot. But then I go
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: back in my mind and remember that Murkowski won a write-in.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I forget.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: I want to say 2000. I forget 10, but I
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: don't know if that's correct. I don't know why I
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: can't have the date. The date's not in my head. Um,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: but she won, she lost the primary and then won
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: a write-in election with the last name Murkowski. So I
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: feel like if Alaskans can figure that out, then, you know,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: they should be able to figure out that there's a
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: different initial for the middle name.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Um, but that does throw in a wrinkle in that
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: race in Alaska.
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: It throws in a wrinkle and, you know, Peltola is a,
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: she's a legit candidate. I mean, she's, um, you know,
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: I think has, has pretty good name ID in the,
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: in the state and, So she's a quality candidate. So
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: for those reasons, I mean, I think Alaska is going
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: to be, you know, Republicans are obviously very concerned about it.
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: I mean, they're spending an awful lot of time and
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: effort defending that, among other states. But it's certainly one
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: of the top ones that I think a lot of
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: Republicans are quite worried about.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: It's a weird election cycle because, as you noted, Republicans are...
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: you know, defending ground in states like, you know, Kansas
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: and Iowa and Texas, which are red states. But that
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: being said, you know, they're also playing a little bit
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: of offense in places like Minnesota, Michigan and New Hampshire.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, you don't have as much outside money going
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: into Minnesota, but at least the race is tighter there.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: But you do have money going in to Michigan and
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: to New Hampshire. So it's sort of like this weird
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: election cycle, right? It is.
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: It's definitely that. And part of this is like, you know,
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: it's candidate quality, right? Michelle Tafoi is a great candidate.
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: And Peggy Flanagan is not a very good candidate. I mean,
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: she hasn't really moderated at all. She's running left. And,
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: you know, the local situation there with the fraud and
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: all that, I think, you know, she's not able to
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: really distance herself or separate herself from that issue. And
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: so that, I think, is what's keeping that race close. Michigan,
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: same thing. El-Sayed is a guy who is, you know, problematic.
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: He's trying to win over black voters. I think Democrats
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: are very concerned that he's not going to get the
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: turnout that he needs in Detroit. And obviously, he's got
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: issues with sort of the Jewish population and his positions
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: on Israel. So, you know, it's one of those things.
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: The other thing that makes this really interesting cycle is
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: you look at some of these Senate races and it's like,
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: So in Iowa, for example, Ashley Hinson's winning by a point.
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: But Rob Sand, the Democrat, is winning in the governor's
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: race by like three or four points. In Texas, you've
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: got Paxson trailing by a point or two, but Abbott's
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: ahead by three or four. So you've got, you know,
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: you've got a situation where Republicans are either going to
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: turn out and vote or if the polls are accurate,
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: which they're not going to be. I mean, they're going
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: to be off a little bit in one direction or another.
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: but you may have, you know, Republicans turn out and
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: vote for a candidate at the top of the ticket
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: and not vote for the Senate candidate or vice versa.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: It looks like we're seeing some potential ticket splitting that's happening,
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: or maybe that's the enthusiasm gap that is showing up
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: in some of these races. So it is, I agree
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: with you. Look, we've been doing this 25 years now,
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: 26 years, and this is one of the strangest elections
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: that I can remember with all of the different cross
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: currents that are going on, You know, by all the
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: traditional metrics, right, presidential job approval rating, gas prices, you know,
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: generic congressional ballot, it looks like it's going to be
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: a really, really good night for Democrats across the country. However,
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: the Democratic brand is still in the toilet. You've got
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: Republicans with, you know, more money. You've got some problematic candidates.
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: You know, you've got some of these cultural issues at play.
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: So it is– all of that leads to a very
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: confounding election picture, which– You know, I don't know. Republicans
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: could end up doing much better than expected on the
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: Senate side. Or, you know, if if the bottom falls out,
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: they could they could lose, you know, six, seven seats.
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: I mean, it could there's a pretty wide spectrum of
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: where this thing could go.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: I guess like I just have, you know, I mean, OK,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: so Iowa, you know, they is typically difficult to pull.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: So that's why I just feel pretty confident about Republicans
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: keeping the Senate race there. But to your point about
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: how the gubernatorial races might impact. The Senate races, you know,
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: you look at places like Minnesota, for instance, where Michelle
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: Tafoya is doing, you know, much better than expected in
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: the Senate race. But then Amy Klobuchar is up in
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: some of the gubernatorial polls there by like seven or more,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: which could then make Michelle Tafoya trying to get past
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: the finish line very, very difficult, right? So it's like,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: you see how sort of these dynamics play out. Whereas
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: in Texas, I think Abbott doing better on the top
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: of the ticket in the gubernatorial race. I think he's
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: probably going to be able to pull Paxton, you know,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: past the finish line. So it's like, you know, those
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: sorts of things also play out and potentially make the
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: election difficult. I mean, it seems like To your point,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: this is one of these election cycles where really no
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: one has any idea what is going to happen on
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: election night.
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: Well, I'll even add to your, you know, like in Iowa,
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: I think Republicans are worried that they might lose like
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: three House seats in Iowa. I mean, you know, so
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: the House doesn't look very good. The governor's race doesn't
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: look very good. But Ashley Henson's hanging on. In Texas,
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: you know, we're reading a lot about the Hispanic vote
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: and how far that has slipped and that, you know,
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: redistricting isn't going to help Republicans necessarily. And there's going
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: to be some of those They might get to have
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: some losses in the in the southern some of those
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: southern Texas, south Texas seats. So all of that is
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: kind of playing into, you know, and I hear from
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: people all the time because I'm like, you know, people
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: from Texas. Texas is particularly confounding because, you know, if
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: you lined up all of the Democratic candidates in the
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: last 10 years and you said point to the point
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: to the Democrats. who's going to realize that the Democrats
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: dream of turning Texas blue, I think James Tallaruca would
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: be literally the last person you'd pick. I mean, he
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: just is not he doesn't look like the type of
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: guy that, you know, is like a Texas Democrat. He
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: certainly doesn't know his positions are far outside the mainstream
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: for what you would think, even more so than Beto O'Rourke.
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: And yet and yet, you know, Ken Paxton has his
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: own his own baggage. And I hear from people all
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: the time, well, Ken Paxton has won three times statewide,
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: so he's got this in the bag and he's going
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: to win by five points. It might be true. It
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: might actually be true. But the polls don't show that
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: right now. And he certainly, when you see, when you
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: try and sort of read the tea leaves coming out
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: of Texas with like all the blame game that's going
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: on there, it does not have the look to me
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: of a candidate who's winning.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: I think he wins, but it's going to be tighter
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: than even like the Cruz margins. You know, I think he,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: I can't remember how much Ted Cruz won by, but yeah,
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: it was like something like.
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: 2.8 or something.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was, it was, you know, how challenging, you know,
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: you look at the Trump era, for instance, you said
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: that you guys have been doing this for, I think,
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: 25 years.
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: If I remember correctly.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: Is that right? Yeah.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: How challenging does Trump, Trump's just this unique force and
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: like the polling's been off since he, you know, has
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: been in the picture.
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: When he's been on the ballot, yes.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So it's like, you know, how difficult, like how
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: much has it changed since he came into the picture
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: as someone who has been looking at this for, you know,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: 25 years?
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: I mean, it changed everything. I mean, all of the
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: previous rules changed. That we thought applied to politics, starting
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: with what a candidate can say and get away with
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: and not be hurt by. Right. When Trump, you know,
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: Trump said 10 things in 2015 that would have killed,
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: metaphorically speaking, killed a normal candidate's chances. Right. Said the
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: stuff about John McCain. He said all this stuff, even
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: his announcement speech. it didn't hurt him. In fact, it
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: helped him. And then, you know, after he was president,
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: you look at, I'll just give you one example, presidential
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: job approval. Like for years, it was it for decades.
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: And it'd been, well, it's the 50% mark is sort
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: of the Mendoza line that you look at. If presidents
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: need to be above 50% job approval rating, if they
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: want to have a you know, chance at winning reelection
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: or a chance for their party, you know, holding on
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: in the midterms. That all ceased to be true. Trump
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: was never over 50% for a single day in our
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: real clear politics average during his first term in his
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: job approval rating, because Democrats were, you know, he's so polarizing.
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: Democrats never gave him, I think, even, you know, maybe
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: low single, low double digits, but usually like single digit approval.
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: And so he kind of broke the he broke the
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: mold on, you know, a lot of different things, metrics
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: and norms and all sorts of things in ways that,
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: you know, confounded pollsters, the way that the shifts that
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: he produced in the electorate when pollsters weren't waiting for
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: education and he was winning all of these non-college educated
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: white voters, many of whom had voted for Obama in
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: 08 or 12. They didn't see that coming. That's why,
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: that's one of the reasons the polling was as bad
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: as it was in 16. And And beyond. And so, yeah,
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: he's changed everything. And, you know, we talk about this, like,
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: does how much of this dynamic that is now in place,
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: how much of that goes away when Trump goes away?
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: Does it revert back to sort of somewhat normal or
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: do all of these kind of partisan, you know, dynamics,
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: do they stay in place with J.D. Vance or Marco Rubio?
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: And I think my answer to that is probably yes.
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: I can certainly see Democrats being sort of as virulently
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: opposed to J.D. Vance as they were to Donald Trump.
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: Marco Rubio, probably a little bit less, but still. And
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: vice versa for whoever the Democrats nominate in 2028. So,
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: I think Trump broke the mold and I think the
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: mold is going to stay broken.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: How much of a dude thinks bias? Because, you know,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: I used to work in polling like a decade ago.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: So it's been a long time. And I know that
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: the response rate is just totally different now that it
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: used to be.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: And polls are a lot harder to do. So you've
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: got pollsters.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: That are having to make more assumptions about the electorate
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: than you might have had to in the past. And
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: then I think if those assumptions, if you have an
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: innate bias already, then those assumptions are probably going to
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: look different. For instance, you can look at the Des
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: Moines Register poll in 2024, where Ann Selzer, who has been.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: You know, known as one of the.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: Great pollsters, had a 16 percentage error rate, she was
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: 16 points off of the actual margin. And so it's like,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: it's almost impossible to think you can get there unless
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: it's just human bias, you know?
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, yeah. Setting her aside, because that was
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: sort of a unique, sort of, I don't know, particular situation.
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: I agree with you, though. I mean, look, part of
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: this is, right, polling has gotten harder. And you do.
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: I mean, this is one of the things that's in
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: play this this year is like, oh, the polls are
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: underrepresenting Republicans because Republicans won't talk to pollsters. Right. They
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: won't answer questions. And and the Democrats are all excited
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: to pick up the phone and tell pollsters how badly
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: they want to vote for their Democratic candidates. So it's
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: giving you've got a response bias. It's giving a distorted
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: picture of of enthusiasm and what the electorate is actually
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: going to look like. That is unknowable. It is unknowable
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: until all the votes are counted, whether that's true or not.
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: What you can say, though, looking back is that in 2016,
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: 2020 and 2024, there was a certain group of pollsters
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: that leaned Republican. I mean, let's be honest. It's Trafalgar,
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: Insider Advantage, Rasmussen, who who were much more accurate at
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: modeling the electorate that turned out for whatever reason, whatever
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: technique they were using. And we can talk about some
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: of that as well. But they just had a much
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: better sense of, you know, what Trump was doing and
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: how the electorate was changing and all of the sort
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: of legacy media, you know, the Quinnipiacs and the New
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: York Times and the, you know, Suffolk Universities and those
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: kinds of institutions blew it. They were bad. Now, fast
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: forward to 2018, 2022, and you had the opposite thing.
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: You had Republican pollsters that were projecting a much more
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: Republican electorate And the sort of traditional pollsters, legacy pollsters
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: were predicting, projecting a much more Democratic electorate. And they
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: turned out to be right, by and large. And it
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: was the sort of Republican-leaning firms that had kind of
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: a bad go in 2018 and 22. So here we
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: are again in the midterms. And so every time Trump's
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: been on the ballot, the sort of right-leaning pollsters have
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: been right. And when he's not on the ballot, it's
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: been more of a the traditional sort of left-leaning pollsters
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: have been right. This is why I continue to be
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: an evangelist for our average, because when you put all
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: that stuff together, you're going to get the best picture by,
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: you know, whatever biases and implicit biases that Republican pollsters have,
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: you know, are kind of canceled out by the biases
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: of the Democratic pollsters usually. And so you're going to
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: get the best picture as opposed to just relying on,
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: you know, I only look at, you know, Republican polls
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: or I only look at Democratic polls. And so it's
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: the best metric that we have. Is it flawed? Sure.
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: Skepticism of the polls. I get it. I understand why
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: why Republicans in particular are skeptical of the polls. But,
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: you know, when we look at where we are now,
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: you go look at our generic congressional ballot where you've
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: got really agreement between the Republican polls and the Democratic
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: polls that the Democrats are up anywhere from five to
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: 12 points. I think our average is now like eight
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: and a half. And we just had two polls come
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: out this morning that had double digits. So it might
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: even be a little higher than that as we speak.
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: But there's kind of uniform agreement that Democrats are, you know,
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: heading toward a good night. Is that maybe overstated a
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: little bit?
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: Could be. But at the end of the day, I
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: think there's there would have to be a massive polling
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: miss by Republican leaning firms and Democratic leaning firms for,
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: you know, for Republicans to vote. you know, win the generic,
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: you know, the national house vote, for example. I mean,
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: that would be really remarkable.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: I think too, and I love the real clear politics averages.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: I'm always looking at your site. So I'm like all
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: for it. I think it's extremely helpful. Yeah, I'm always
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: talking about it on TV. I find it very, very helpful.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: But I also think that one thing that people are
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: missing about this election cycle is it's a midterm, you know,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: and like the midterm when the president's party's in charge,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: you almost always, You look at since World War II,
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: the party in charge, with the exception of, I think,
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: like two midterms, loses House seats.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: You know, like you typically lose, I think.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: An average of 26, I want to say, essentially three.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: To four in the Senate.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: So losses for Republicans on election night, that's just like
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: the historical norm.
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: Yes, you're absolutely right about that. And by the way,
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: those two examples, those two times in 1998, Bill Clinton
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: and 2002 George W. Bush, both of those guys, Clinton
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: was fighting the impeachment thing and had a 63 percent
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: job approval rating. And George W. Bush was after 9-11
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: and his job approval rating was had gotten up to
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: 80 or 90% and was on its way down, but
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: was still in the 60s. So that's a little different
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: than Donald Trump having a 38% approval in our average
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: now and kind of heading in the wrong direction. So yes,
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: I mean, history, it's like, can Trump outrun history? Well,
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: go back to 2018 though. You know, Democrats had a
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: pretty substantial lead in the generic ballot. It netted them
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: 41 House seats, but they lost seats in the Senate.
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: And then you look at 2022 and it's like, You know,
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: everybody thought that was going to be a big year
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: for Republicans. And Democrats managed to hold down losses to what?
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: Nine seats, I think, in the House. It was a
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: it was a much, much better year for Democrats than
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: anyone thought. And so, yes, there is history sort of
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: writ large over that looms over this. And it makes sense.
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: I mean, if you are upset by whatever, if you're
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: upset by anything in our current environment, whether it's gas
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: prices or inflation or whatever, there's really only one expression
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: for you. Like if you want to try and hold
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: someone accountable, Republicans hold all the levers of power in Washington.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: And so they should, you know, theoretically pay the price.
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: But again, you know, that's in the sort of partisan
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: nature of our current environment. You know, maybe Republicans are
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: going to be able to to limit those losses in
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: the House and overperform in the Senate and keep control.
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: But I think it I think it is going to
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: be really, really close.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: You know, before we go, what are you looking for?
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: on election night? as the results come in and this
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: plays out.
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, typically, you know, you're going to be,
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: you'll look at North Carolina is one of the early closers,
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: I think. And so I'll look at that Senate race
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: and I'll just be like, okay, you know, how did,
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: how did, how did Roy Cooper do? Did he overperform
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: his polls? Was it closer than we thought? Did Whatley
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: do better than the poll suggested? And that's just, it's
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: a single race, but you can also look at some
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: of the house seats that are in play in Virginia,
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: for example, and some of these other East coast, you know, that, that,
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: Once the polls close and they start counting votes, typically
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: the way these things go, if you go back and
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: look over time, you know, I think we have eight.
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: I think we have eight Senate seats that are considered
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: quote unquote toss ups. It is rare. very rare that
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: those seats are going to split 4-4. Somebody's going to
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: have a good night. And if Democrats have a good night,
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: they're going to win six or eight of those probably.
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: They could even win eight of eight. And if Republicans
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: have a good night, they're going to win six or
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: eight of those. They're going to hold on in all
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: these red states. So you'll get an early indication of
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: who's having... you know, who's having the good night? Is
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: it the blue wave? Is it the blue tsunami? Or
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: do the results from some of these early closing House
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: races suggest that, oh, you know what, Republicans are turning
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: out and they might, you know, that would translate to
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: what we're going to see the rest of the night.
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: So keep an eye on some of those early House
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: and early Senate races.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it'll be interesting, to say the least. Tom Bevin,
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: really appreciate you making the time to come on the show.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: Thanks, Lisa.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: That was Tom Bevin, co-founder and president of Real Clear Politics.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: Appreciate him for coming on the show. Appreciate you guys
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: at home for listening. Every Tuesday and Thursday, but you
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: can listen throughout the week. I also want to thank
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: John Cascio, my producer, for putting the show together. Until
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: next time.