The following is a lightly edited transcript of the October 29 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.
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 just got hit by two big pieces of news impacting the battle for the Senate. First, a gold-standard poll found that the South Carolina Senate race is a dead heat. Yes, South Carolina. It’s actually winnable for Democrats. Second, we’re now learning that the vile TV ad that ran in the Ohio gubernatorial race is backfiring badly. Republicans are leaking internal polling showing they are now less likely to win that race as a result, and that this could even impact the Ohio Senate race and ultimately Senate control.
We’re talking about all of it with New Republic senior editor Alex Shephard, who has a good piece on the Ohio fiasco. Great to have you on, Alex.
Alex Shephard: It’s good to be back.
Sargent: So, a quick recap. In Ohio, GOP gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy started running an ad featuring Democrat Amy Acton’s mother claiming she lied about her difficult childhood, but then we learned that her stepfather, i.e., her mother’s husband, allegedly raped her. Nonetheless, Trump defended the ad here:
Donald Trump (voiceover): I heard the mother went very rogue on the daughter, doesn’t have a lot of respect for the daughter. It’s a very unusual situation to have a mother hate a daughter that much.
And here:
Trump (voiceover): A mother is saying, don’t put my daughter there, because she’s a terrible person and she’s a liar. Why shouldn’t somebody use that?
Sargent: Alex, what’s interesting is that once Trump said these things, the command went out to all of MAGA that they had to get behind the ad, and the die was cast, right?
Shephard: Yeah, I mean, it tied every Republican in Ohio, at least, to this ad. Because I mean, it’s part of a larger Trump strategy where you never give in and you never back down. And I suppose you can say that that has worked out for Trump, in that he is currently the president of the United States. But one, I think he’s also a very unpopular president. And two, there’s no evidence that it works for other people.
And I think this was a very deliberate and despicable effort on behalf of the Ramaswamy campaign, as I wrote last week, to try to engender a kind of Trumpiness to their campaign.
And I think the backlash, one, is a sign of just how hard it is for non-Trump candidates to do that. But I think two, it’s also a sign of just what a kind of drag Trump is on the ticket itself, not just because he’s so unpopular, but because he forces candidates to embrace his political approach.
Sargent: Well, Axios reports that internal GOP polling finds that due to the ad, Acton is actually leading by more than before over Ramaswamy. A memo leaked with the poll says that the ad is having a, quote-unquote, significant effect on the race.
Eighty-six percent of respondents in this internal poll have seen or heard about the ad, and by a two-to-one margin, they said it made them more likely to vote for Acton.
This thing really broke through to low-information voters in a way that a lot of things don’t. And the result was that it told Amy Acton’s story sympathetically. Talk about poetic justice, Alex.
Shephard: Acton has made her personal story a centerpiece of her campaign. Vivek Ramaswamy is a billionaire, right? Acton grew up homeless, she dealt with sexual abuse, right? She made something of herself, but the idea of her campaign is that she’s like everyday Ohioans.
And I think with this ad, it seemed clear that this ad was meant to get to low-information voters before Acton could, essentially, because it’s such a powerful story that they wanted to essentially try to poison the well. And instead, what you’re seeing is the exact opposite.
Because immediately, as soon as this ad went out—I mean, I think it’s fair to say that this is the most disgusting ad in American political history—as soon as it went out, people were not just outraged, but I think there was a real sense to educate people about what it was.
And I’ve been talking to people in Ohio, and I’ve been reading about people in Ohio, who essentially described almost like a phone tree or something in communities, where people were just immediately texting and calling each other and telling them the truth about this.
Sargent: Well, I want to pick up on something you said there about how this ad had this viral quality, because this is really an intangible thing and it comes along rarely in politics. But when you get it, you’ve got to use it to your advantage, right? Not to your disadvantage.
And so the fact that this is the sort of thing that people would just text to all their friends and talk about—and I’m sure there have just been thousands and thousands and thousands, if not millions, of conversations in Ohio about this ad, and about, as a result, Amy Acton’s childhood, right?
This is like lightning in a bottle in a way. It’s extremely hard to kind of create this out of nothing. And yet they did. Ramaswamy’s campaign did create this sort of magic thing, only it’s working entirely against them. It’s sort of a remarkable outcome.
Shephard: Well, yeah, and I think it goes beyond that. They weren’t the only people calling and texting, right? That Axios story that you mentioned, that was leaked, right? That was presumably leaked from other Republican politicians or Republican Party members in Ohio.
And why would they do that? Well, one reason why they would do that is because this has been such a disaster for Ramaswamy that it’s trickling down to other candidates in the races.
Sargent: Really essential point, that the leaking itself shows that people are deeply, deeply angry with Donald Trump and JD Vance for doing this. Again, Vance is an Ohio guy, of course.
I want to flag another key thing in the Axios report. National Republicans privately say they fear the backlash to the ad could also hurt them in the Senate race, by dragging down GOP Senator Jon Husted against Democratic challenger Sherrod Brown.
I want to underscore a little more how badly Trump essentially fucked everybody with this. Because if Democrats win Maine and North Carolina, which now looks highly likely—Maine is, you know, a little bit touch and go, but I think Democrats are going to win it—if they win those two, and then if they get Ohio, thanks to this in part, they only have to win one out of Iowa, Alaska, and Texas to get to the majority.
And potentially, if they don’t get it out of those three, which I think they probably will, if they don’t, they could get it from one of these outer-tier races in some sort of surprise. But Ohio really puts Democrats on the cusp of a majority.
Shephard: Yeah. And again, it’s a majority that—or Sherrod Brown winning again—just did not seem probable a year ago. It’s a solidly red state now. Trump won it by more than 10 points. He won it by eight points in 2016. He won it by even more, 11 or 12 points, in 2024.
And this is a state that seemed out of reach as soon as Sherrod Brown lost. That loss hit Democrats very hard, because Sherrod Brown seemed like a kind of unicorn candidate who could hold on to a seat that Democrats shouldn’t have been holding on to for a while.
And the fact that they’re on the brink of doing this is extraordinary. And part of that, you know, I think points to the larger political environment, but it also points to candidate selection. Vivek Ramaswamy is not just a bad candidate for governor. He’s a bad candidate for the Ohio Republican Party writ large. And that’s what we’re seeing right now.
Sargent: Well, speaking of really crazy outcomes and races, the New York Times poll of South Carolina finds Democrat Annie Andrews tied with GOP Senator Darline Graham at 48 to 48. Andrews is leading by 57 to 37 among independents in South Carolina.
Alex, this is the story everywhere, these lopsided leads among independents. You see the same thing in Texas, James Talarico racking up something like a solid double-digit lead among independents. You see it in state after state, with Democrats just really outperforming with independents due to Trump’s toxicity with them. It’s an extraordinary story, especially in South Carolina, isn’t it?
Shephard: Yeah. I mean, again, you want to talk about candidate selection, right? You know, it turns out that maybe pushing the unknown amateur sister of a recently deceased Republican senator into a race is not a good idea. Somebody who has had to, in multiple debates, essentially bow out of answering questions about issues like foreign policy, which at least historically is kind of a big part of what the Senate is supposed to do.
And, you know, I think there are some other interesting things there too, where I had kind of been keeping a lot of South Carolina polling at arm’s length, even as it showed a tight race, just because there are a lot of white voters in that state and they tend to vote for Republicans.
But one of the things that I thought was so interesting about the Times/Siena poll is that it pointed to a path for Andrews with white voters. It essentially said, look, she’s doing very well in the kind of Greenville-Spartanburg corridor, a fast-growing area of the state. And there are a lot of independent white voters there. And, you know, if she can win those, then she can win too.
You’re seeing, for instance, Donald Trump was in Mississippi earlier this week or last week. Bill Clinton is going to Mississippi this week. This is an environment right now that I think is turning very quickly. And everywhere you’re looking, what you’re seeing is that there is a lot of enthusiasm for Democrats. And you’re seeing this in Texas as well.
So far, there are a lot of signs that a lot of Republicans are staying home. So in states like South Carolina and Texas, it’s probably better for Democrats if there are low-turnout elections here, because there are more Republicans than Democrats in those states.
And because the candidates are so bad, because the president is so bad, because gas is so expensive, a lot of people just aren’t voting. And we’re starting to see things that I thought I would never see again, like a Democratic senator in Ohio, and things I thought I would never see in my lifetime, like a Democratic senator from South Carolina.
Sargent: Let’s talk about Trump’s unpopularity in South Carolina. In fact, in the New York Times poll, he’s only at 42 percent approval in South Carolina, with 55 percent disapproving. That’s incredible.
And among independents, his approval is only 30 percent, with 68 percent of independents disapproving of Trump in South Carolina. And by the way, I want to stress this too: 56 percent of independents disapprove strongly of Trump in the state.
That’s amazing, because we are seeing this in other states as well. Texas, a majority of independents strongly disapprove of Trump. I suspect that’s the case in many other states.
Shephard: Voters in the first term were willing to take the grinding anxiety and exhaustion of Trump’s political style because the stock market was booming and the economy was good. And, you know, you could always just say, well, he’s just being kind of crazy, but he doesn’t do anything.
And this term, one, he’s acting on the crazy, i.e., Iran. The economy is much worse. And that has also made people way less tolerant of his shenanigans, for lack of a better term. And that, I think, to me is just another part of this that points maybe—to tie it back to the Acton ad too—that I think voters are also just tired of this.
And Republicans, you know, instead of doing what you usually do when you have an unpopular incumbent president, which is you distance yourself from them—Republicans have no choice but to embrace him, right? The president has been all over the country for the last month.
He’s reminding voters of who he is and his responsibility for this. And I think that what we’re seeing is that Trump has claimed that every time he gets on stage, he’s, you know, flipping districts. But the opposite has been true, right? Like, as Trump’s big barnstorming tour has gone on, the outlook for Republicans has gotten steadily worse.
Sargent: We should probably stress that the chances of winning South Carolina are still very, very slim, and the Senate is on a knife’s edge here. I keep saying that. And I’ve been asking everybody who comes on this question: do you think Democrats will get there in the Senate? It’s going to be very tough, but there is a path, but it could go either way at this point. What do you think? Where do you think this is going to fall?
Shephard: I tend to be our resident pessimist in most ways. And today I just—I found a way to 56. I can’t remember how I did it, but because I think that essentially, if they win in, say, South Carolina, it’s a sign that polls were wrong by one standard deviation. And if you move things that way, then it goes real crazy.
I think that they will get to 52. That is my prediction.
Sargent: And if they get to 52, that’ll be essential, because it will Fetterman-proof the majority.
Shephard: Yes. Our most important thing. And I, you know, in a meeting earlier today, I was starting to worry about a 1912 presidential scenario, with Fetterman holding on or running as a third party or something to screw over a Democrat. I don’t think I need to worry about that, but I would like to not have to worry about things like what John Fetterman is doing when he’s not on Fox News, what John Fetterman’s plans are for running for reelection in 2028. I don’t want to think about John Fetterman at all. So I would love for there to be a 52-seat Senate majority.
Sargent: As would I. Alex Shephard, always awesome to talk to you. Thanks so much, man.
Shephard: You too.
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