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 just going to dive right in. Charlie, it’s really good to have you on.
Sargent: We’re going to dive into all of it. I think we should start with the latest New York Times polls. They find Abdul El-Sayed up by 53 percent to 42 percent in Michigan, James Talarico up 50 to 43 in Texas, Troy Jackson up 51 to 45 in Maine, Sherrod Brown up 49 to 44 in Ohio, Adam Hamilton up 49-44 in Kansas, Mary Peltola up 48-46 in Alaska, and Josh Turek up 48-47 in Iowa.
Cook: Yes, I think they are gold standard. Absolutely. And the thing is, when you read their articles, when they have doubts about their own poll, they’re pretty clear about it. I mean, it’s like, if they are not sure these are right, they basically tell you that. And if they don’t tell you that, that means they feel very comfortable with it. But no, they’re as good as it gets.
Sargent: You raise a really good point, which is that the Times write-up of these numbers didn’t signal that they think that these are outliers. And that’s, I think, probably a pretty critical tell.
But Charlie, that’s how Talarico wins. He gets numbers like that among Latinos and independents and working-class voters. But that’s where the capacity for real error comes in. When you’re counting pro-Trump Latinos, those might be hard to find. Pro-Trump working-class voters, those might be hard to find. Do you think Talarico’s up seven points in Texas right now, as the Times says?
But no, you’re absolutely right. Now, I think a lot of people, though, their frame of reference is 2024, when that was actually kind of a low ebb for a lot of these groups for Democrats. And they were angry about inflation, they were angry about interest, they were lashing out at Biden-Harris. And so it went down in ‘24, and now it’s snapping back. Looks like it’s snapping back towards normal.
But there are very few pollsters that don’t despise being wrong. And being wrong in the same direction in consecutive elections makes them borderline suicidal. So I would not expect to see—they may make new mistakes, but they’re not going to make those again.
Cook: I have gone from a net gain of two or three, maybe, going into the summer, to now I’d be a little surprised if it were only four. I think it may be five, which five is the key number, because you’ve got to have a Fetterman-proof majority. And I think they’re going to get there.
Sargent: Democrats obviously have to net four Senate seats in order to take the majority. That would put them at 51. When you said that you expect Democrats to net five seats, you’re essentially saying that you expect them to end up at 52 seats. That’s what makes them Fetterman-proof. Earlier this summer, you thought they were going to just get into the high 40s, but now you see them getting to 52. And 52 seats and not higher, or what?
But at the same time, the footprint of races this year—you know, it’s not just that 20 out of the 22 Republican seats are in Trump double-digit states. But you’ve got what, six? Six are in states that haven’t voted for a Democrat for president since LBJ in ‘64. Five of them haven’t voted for a Democrat for president since Bill Clinton in ‘96.
So if they’re going to get to 52 seats, they have a real shot at getting to 53 or 54. But on the other hand, if I understand you correctly, because they’re in such tough territory, and so many states that Trump won by double digits, you can kind of see those dominoes falling, but maybe just still not quite getting up to 53, 54 seats, right?
They are really angry, disappointed—now getting into anger at President Trump about attacking Iran and the price of energy and diesel and fertilizer, all that, and tariffs. And it’s like, they disagree with him on some big policy things. These things have hurt me and my family. And he seems to be totally preoccupied with issues that have nothing to do with me.
Sargent: Right. These are major forces that are at work here, and really unique circumstances that have a lot of force and power.
Cook: Yes, yes. I believe that. And I should say, these are my numbers. They’re not the Cook Political Report. You know, I’ve been gone for five years, but I agree with most of the ratings there. But yeah, these are mine. They shouldn’t be held responsible for that, for me. But yeah, I think that’s right. I mean, I think they’ll get to 52 or three. But again, that’s pre-Fetterman.
Cook: At least, yeah. It makes you Fetterman-proof.
If Democrats win just the GOP-held House seats that are leaning their way, not even the toss-ups, without losing many of their own seats, they win the majority somewhat comfortably. And if they take a chunk of both those categories, of the lean-Dem category and the toss-up category, you start to see the majority getting pretty big. Can you talk about that?
You know, I mean, it’s like, wow, the brand’s there, it’s important, I don’t want to damage the brand. And so you don’t make a lot of willy-nilly changes.
I want to ask you about your piece the other day, which was very good. You identified disaffected Republicans as a key demographic to watch. These are generally reliable Republican voters who disapprove of Trump.
Cook: That says it. Well, I mean, we normally see—what’s the swing group perennially? It’s suburban voters, right? And particularly, like, college-educated white men, where the college-educated pulls Democrat, the male pulls Republican. Or non-college white women, where it’s exactly the opposite. That’s where we know.
And when you look at where these Senate races are that are behaving so curiously—Kansas, South Carolina, Mississippi, I mean, these are, even Nebraska to a certain extent—they’re not the places where you expect incredibly competitive races, and they’re not the people within those states that you usually see. So that’s why I call this a unicorn election.
Democrats have got to figure out—I mean, given the Electoral College and the U.S. Senate, they’ve got to connect again with people that live in, people call it flyover country. Rural, small town, folks that go to church regularly. These are groups that Democrats used to do pretty well with.
Cook: Yeah, yeah.
Cook: I think if you want to be conservative, you’d say 230, which Democrats are at 215 now, so 230 is 15. I frankly would take the—I’d take the over on that. I think it’s going to be over 230. But I get squeamish saying 240, 250.
Cook: I mean, it’s just—we’re going big, and the question is, you know, it’s like, Republican turnout is going to be low. It’s going to be really low. But how low? And Democratic turnout is going to be high, real high. African American turnout, particularly the South, I think is going to be, like, off the charts. And the extent that these things happen is where you get to really, really, really big numbers. But we’re talking about stuff that we haven’t seen in a long time. So I get nervous. I get nervous even saying it.
Cook: I would be very surprised if they don’t hit that. I’d be very, very surprised.
Cook: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s asking a lot. But I mean, I was doing my column and I scratched out the word “biblical.” I mean that in terms of describing, like, the kind of losses that Republicans may be—but I did stay with, it would be the worst political environment for Republicans in at least a generation, and maybe since Watergate.
But I want to ask you about this. If you look at the polling, right, the Democratic candidates are outperforming their party, and I want to ask you about that. There are these lopsided numbers among independents we talked about, which means these Democratic candidates for Senate especially are getting independents to support them.
You take that plus the lopsided performance among independents, there is something happening with these—and these are some remarkable candidates as well. It seems like, Charlie, there is something happening where Democrats are winning a lot of voters to them, right?
But it’s not—I mean, when I say it’s not a blue wave, blue wave implies Democrats, we love you and we are for everything you are, and all is forgiven for 2021, ‘22, ‘23, ‘24. That ain’t happening. This is really more about pissed off at President Trump and at Republicans who enabled him.
Sargent: Maybe the way to reconcile our positions is to say that people like Talarico and Peltola and Ossoff and Sherrod Brown, and maybe in some ways Abdul El-Sayed, and maybe a little less so Troy Jackson, but possibly Josh Turek—they’re creating an opening to fix the brand problem. Maybe that’s the way.
Cook: I’m with you on each of those, except not El-Sayed, not Jackson. I’m not there. I mean, I think they’re underperformers. And not that you’ll catch me saying any good things about Haley Stevens, but had she won the primary, we wouldn’t be talking so much about Michigan right now, to be honest. And had Democrats nominated Governor Mills, we wouldn’t be talking about Maine. She would have a comfortable lead, I think, over Susan Collins.
Sargent: So let’s just close this out. You didn’t want to use the word “biblical” to describe what you expect is going to happen to Republicans. So let’s suggest some words and maybe you can tell us what you think.
Cook: What? What did Obama say, it was a thumping, and what was George W. in ‘06? How about an ass-whooping? Is that a good one? I mean, it’s more than a beating. It’s a hell of a beating.
Cook: Yeah. Yes. Yeah. There’s no putting a smiley face on this thing.
Cook: Thanks, Greg. Anytime. Take care. Have a good one.
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