Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
We’re really lucky to be talking about it all with veteran political handicapper Charlie Cook, who has a new piece on his Substack on why the GOP is in such a tough position this cycle. Charlie, thanks so much for coming on.
Sargent: Let’s start with this CNN analysis. Using an average of polls and CNN’s own polls, it finds Trump’s approval right now at 35 percent. By contrast, Biden was at 41 percent before the 2022 midterms, Obama was at 43 percent in 2014 and at 50 percent in 2010, and George W. Bush was at 41 percent in 2006 and 66 percent in 2002, which was just after 9/11. By this metric, Trump’s the lowest of this millennium, Charlie. What do you make of all that?
You look at what Bill Clinton had done prior to ‘94, what George W. Bush had done prior to 2006, what Barack Obama had done prior to 2010—you could take all that combined and not quite get the level of sort of radioactivity that you see with many of the things that President Trump has done. And so it shouldn’t be surprising.
Cook: Yeah. I mean, you take Iran—after promising no more wars and all that—but fuel, fertilizer, no more wars, you take tariffs, and all this goes to the heart of his base, of, you know, small-town, rural, farm, all of that. Redecorating the White House in Washington, self-aggrandizement, alienating allies, depleting military stockpiles. I mean, it’s just, like, all coming together. But it’s manifesting itself in places that you wouldn’t have expected.
You had a good line in your piece: a critical mass of factors. Men and MAGA—a lot of men, men not wanting to pay big bucks for gas for their big vehicles, rural voters hurt by fertilizer costs, and so forth. It all piles on top of each other. Charlie, I think the basic point here is Republicans can’t count on their base this time, which makes it even harder to talk to the middle. Can you explain all this?
But President Trump is basically radioactive with independent voters, with pure independents. And because so few of the congressional districts are in competitive places, and so few of the Senate races were in even states that ought to be competitive at all, that seemed likely to limit the potential damage for Republicans.
Sargent: Right. And just to bear down on your point a little, I think what you were gesturing at is that Trump’s numbers are just absolutely terrible with independents. I don’t think we’ve seen a president do this badly with independents in some time. A
Cook: Yes, I think so. But I mean—and I tend to be a poll snob, and in terms of state-level polling, I sort of disregard most of the garbage that’s out there, or all the garbage that’s out there. But for state-level polling, the stuff that The New York Times is doing is fabulous. The Fox News—you can like Fox, not like Fox, but their polling is very, very good, and with a bipartisan team. As does the AARP, and they’ve released surveys in four of these key states.
And it means, practically—when it translates into candidates, when you look at the matchups, in every case the Democrat’s doing better among Democrats than the Republican is among Republicans. The Democrats are doing far better among independents. Democrats are doing better among women than Republicans are with men.
Sargent: Yes, he’s double digits behind his 2024 totals in a number of these really important states. That’s the undertow that Republicans are dealing with. The Washington Post had some amazing reporting on how Republicans now fear, additionally, on top of all this, that Trump’s super PAC, MAGA Inc., is not going to spend much of its $400 million on the congressional races. In fact, Trump is now running ads about his own accomplishments, and running them nationally.
Cook: Well, I mean, I think it’s not a news flash that Donald Trump cares more about himself and his own feelings than he cares about his party. I mean, that just goes without saying. Now, this is where I break with most of my traditional journalistic brethren. I think money is so overrated as an influence.
But what is much more—for anyone who voted for President Trump, they’ve got to wonder, is this what I voted for? This is not what I had in mind in September and October and November of 2024. And this isn’t the cruise they signed up for. And they’re reacting the way somebody might when they’ve been the victim of bait and switch.
Cook: Well, I think—I’m originally from the South, and the old saying, trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. I think they’re faced with a situation, and now they’re having to rationalize it or explain it. But if he opened the spigot up today, they would be ecstatic about spending the money before sundown, you know? So I think there’s a certain amount of trying to soft-pedal the impact of this.
You said in your piece that the really bad one is the most likely. Why is that?
Sargent: Well, in two out of three of your scenarios, you have Democrats winning the Senate. Can I ask what makes you conclude that, maybe in a little more detail? And also, how seriously do you take Kansas, where a Democrat is making it unexpectedly competitive, and Nebraska, where an independent is making it a real race?
Cook: No, actually, we’re in the same place. To me—close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. And you’re going to see Democrats do better than they have in generations, but in some of these cases it’s going to still be short of a majority, or short of what they need to win. But they’ll be beating the point spread, no question about it.
And actually, there’s one other point here, and that is: think about where it would be if Joe or Jane, generic Republican, were in the White House, or a Democrat was in the White House. Number one, would Thom Tillis be running for reelection in North Carolina? Probably. Which means Roy Cooper probably wouldn’t be running.
And so there’s sort of the electoral impact, and then there’s all the fights he’s picked with sort of more normie Republicans, who say, I don’t need this, I don’t want any part of this—or, in the case of Cornyn, tried to hang on and couldn’t.
Sargent: So yeah, just to sort of wrap up what you’re saying there, you’re essentially saying that if you didn’t have Donald Trump in the White House, all these little pieces wouldn’t be falling into place, but now they are. And then on top of that, if I understand you correctly, all of a sudden you look at James Talarico in Texas, and it’s actually possible. And you look at Mary Peltola in Alaska, and it’s actually possible. And you look at Sherrod Brown in Ohio, which Trump has turned, let’s face it, into a red state—you look at that and you say, Sherrod Brown is possible.
Cook: Yes. But the—using the word “possible,” I think it kind of underrates a bunch of races that are more or less 50-50, which I find unfathomable. You look at some of these, where—Alaska, the last time a Democrat won presidential was Lyndon Johnson in ‘64. The last Democrat to win a Senate seat was 2008, a governorship in 2002. You look at Iowa. Harkin was the last, in 2014, to hold a Senate seat—hadn’t won a governor’s race since 2006.
In the South, we say, yeah, when Mom ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy. Well, these voters aren’t happy at all, and they’re taking it out in ways that we had not seen in a really long time.
But you layer on top of that this Donald Trump factor, which just supercharges everything. He’s actually supercharging the conventional patterns, in the sense—he’s really unpopular, he’s really hated by Democrats, and he’s fucking his own base in every which way. So he’s really making them discouraged. I think that might be the big story.
Sargent: It really is. The Donald Trump factor, folks. Charlie Cook, really, really awesome to talk to you. Thanks so much for coming on with us.
Cook: Thank you, Greg.
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