Tamara Keith and Amy Walter on the midterm outlook and possible redistricting backfire

[0:00] to help us understand where the races for house and senate stand we turn now to our politics [0:04] monday duo that is amy walter of the cook political report with amy walter and tamara keith of npr [0:10] great to see you both here one week to go here we go let's start with the temperature check on the [0:14] house as both of you have been reporting democrats chances of winning control amy look to be very [0:19] good the big question is how big of a majority you probably saw house speaker mike johnson a [0:24] republican obviously say in a recent interview the idea that democrats could win a 230 seat majority [0:29] is ridiculous all right hilarious and nonsense were his words what are you seeing at the cook [0:34] political report yeah i mean there was a point probably a year ago when that did seem absolutely [0:39] ridiculous the thought that democrats could gain up to 230 seats today our prediction of the cook [0:45] political report is that the range of pickups for democrats is somewhere between 227 and 237. [0:51] the reason things have changed so dramatically in a year and again a year that didn't just feature [0:58] uh republican seats that are in more republican seats in danger but democratic seats that were redrawn [1:05] by republicans to be more vulnerable for democrats have also not necessarily panned out so you put those [1:13] two things together and really the big drag of course in all of this is the president the war in iran [1:19] rising gas prices has put seats in play that wouldn't traditionally be put in play [1:25] um seats that the president carried by in some cases 10 points or more tam you look more deeply we [1:33] thought the republicans rather thought that mid-decade redistricting would help to protect some of those [1:37] losses will it yeah the mid-decade redistricting was supposed to be a firewall there were 15 districts [1:43] that were made more republican tilted to favor republicans in looking at those races now you you actually have [1:51] about two-thirds of them that are not at all a sure thing for republicans these were supposed to be sure [1:57] things and it hasn't worked out that way in part because the lines were drawn based on a high water [2:02] mark of support for president trump in the 2024 election latino voters young voters a bunch of [2:08] voter groups have moved away from soured on the president and his party and then you also had a lot of [2:14] incumbents who were drawn out of their districts or they were trying to draw them out of their districts [2:20] they stuck around to fight and they have all the advantages of incumbency those democratic incumbents [2:26] so it really just hasn't worked out one democrat said this could be a dummy mander instead of a [2:32] gerrymander quite confidently said that a republican uh who declined to go on the record but who is is [2:39] working on these house races said that uh oh no the the the redistricting was not meant to to you know make [2:48] outcomes it was just meant to make more battlefields which is definitely not the level of confidence [2:53] they were expressing even just a few months ago let's take a quick look at the senate before we [2:57] move on amy as you know in the senate your recent polling shows that democratic candidates are leading [3:01] in some states where the president won by double digits in 2024 it includes ohio and texas and iowa [3:08] a week out a week out again this wasn't supposed to be where things ended up [3:14] the fact that we have those three states and states like kansas actually in play a state the president [3:20] also won by double digits it is the same story in both the house and the senate the the infrastructure [3:28] that republican the advantage that they had was supposed to protect them from a difficult environment [3:34] because in most midterm elections the most vulnerable seats even in big wave years the most vulnerable [3:40] seats are the seats that the president narrowly carried the election before or lost there just [3:45] weren't that many of those in the senate or the house but you combine the president's low approval [3:51] ratings low enthusiasm from republicans clearly the money is going into these races so republicans are [3:58] seeing the same things that democrats are that institutional sort of structural advantages have eroded and [4:05] the environment has become a much bigger predictor uh in where these races are going i mean the fact [4:12] the president is in mississippi tonight what does that say to you sam well and not just that the [4:18] president is going there but also that republicans are spending money there republicans are are essentially [4:23] spending money in places where the incumbents didn't expect to have a competitive race at all maybe [4:30] didn't even have much of a campaign put together and now they're facing these real competitive races i [4:36] mean mississippi is what one would call a stretch for democrats certainly but uh it it is something where [4:43] you've seen top surrogates going in there to campaign and and it's getting a lot of attention all of a [4:49] sudden here at the very end well the president took his closing message on the road over the weekend he [4:52] stopped in florida and georgia and michigan and has now become as typical he sort of veered off script not [4:59] really focused on the number one issue of affordability and some of these remarks are [5:02] about to play he disparaged people from other nations he commented on the rapper nikki minaj's [5:07] body as she was campaigning with him and he also commented on the winner of this year's nobel peace [5:12] prize take a listen and there is some tough language in libya yemen haiti somalia remember i [5:21] remember what i call them shithouse countries remember the heat i took by the way i looked at one hell of a [5:30] beautiful ass before nikki minaj that that's hard to miss and it was announced and it was gotten by [5:42] a woman that nobody ever heard of they said what about me do they do two of them think of it i settled [5:50] so i'm not in love with norway frankly norway sucks the president also posted this 1300 word rant [6:00] on truth social about late night tv host bill maher calling him a loser tam what kind of closing message [6:06] is this and who is this for oh his eye is very much on the ball um no uh there has been uh you know [6:14] polling over months and months and months and we continue to see it where voters say they feel like [6:19] the president isn't focused on the things that matter to them the most and when he is talking about [6:24] ballrooms and talking about butts he is not talking about the things that matter to people the most however [6:30] he is putting on a show and you kind of have to remember these rallies in that context this is a [6:36] two-hour weave-filled show that is you know like part comedy routine part body humor part campaign [6:47] message and so there are campaign messages in there there are uh you know messages about um things that [6:55] he's going to do for each and every state he visits economic proposals and then there's talk about [7:00] the senator from ohio's butt and he doesn't just talk about it in ohio he's talking about it in every [7:05] state because it is a show i talked to voters at these rallies who were like you know i just don't [7:09] know if i'm going to get to see him in person again um just like you would about a comedian or a [7:15] you know a rock band that's nearing the end of its shelf date yeah this is not designed to win over [7:21] swing voters these rallies they are for the people who are in the audience and designed to get the [7:27] response that they got in many cases he gets a laugh in one of them then he takes it on the road [7:33] for a laugh at the next one so again traditionally a president with a 38 approval rating would not be [7:40] out stumping um and going on the road most republicans would say you know what that's great [7:46] why don't you just stay over there in the white house we'll talk about our own race here at home [7:52] and try to distance ourselves from that that's not what this president likes to do before we go tam [7:56] i just want to get your take on the president's continued efforts to preemptively legally challenge [8:01] and also exert more federal control over some of these state administered elections i want to share [8:06] the news that just late today there was a court in the appeals court in california that ruled against [8:10] him and his effort to try to block some 20 000 ballots that the president says were sent to non-citizens [8:15] there are other legal challenges at play as well how concerned are experts that this could actually [8:20] the sowing of doubt have an impact on elections yeah i mean this will not be the end of these legal [8:27] cases the we we can fully expect that the justice department and republicans will continue to try [8:34] through the courts to exert power over elections elections are state-run state administered the law the [8:40] constitution is pretty clear on that that doesn't mean that this won't continue that this might [8:45] not be a pretext for something more we won't know until we get there but yes election law experts [8:52] consider most of these cases to not these lawsuits to not be particularly serious legally but that [8:58] doesn't mean that you know it doesn't so doubt about the election among voters or create concern about [9:04] what they might find at the polling place tamara keith amy walter great to see you though thank you you're [9:09] you're welcome