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Tim Miller
In partnership with Level Up Expo. Hey, everybody. Tim Mo from the boat work. I just got off with Katie Tur, Ashley Parker, Carol Lennox, and my faves on msnow. I wanted to kind of extend my remarks because I have a little bit of unusual optimism about the political landscape right now. And so I didn't want to deny you guys that. I talked about it a little bit on the, on the program. Then you'll notice I'm in a different shirt. I went downstairs, started playing with my daughter outside. Beautiful day in Louisiana, put on a short sleeve shirt. I was like, you know what? No, I got one more thing to say. I got one more thing to say. So anyway, we talk at the beginning of the, of the show, you know, about a bunch of the parade of terribles, you know, the corruption in the Trump administration, how there's no white collar crime being investigated. Now, actually, I referenced this chart. We can just put this chart up on the screen right now so you can kind of see just the downward trajectory of investigating white collar crime that's been going on for a while now, but then just falls off a cliff during Trump 2.0. And we discuss, you know, a lot of the other terrible things happening in the Trump administration. Then we come back on to discuss the Florida state legislative race where the Mar? A Lago district goes to a Democrat. You know, I do some political analysis on the show, but I want to put a finer point on it. I want to do a Little bit of sunshine pumping. I don't want you guys to hold me to this. I still cringe. Looking back at the post Ann Seltzer poll video I did in 2024, all excited. So I'm not, you know, take everything with a grain of salt. Politics is contingent. Things can change. But when there's good news, I like to pass it on. And I had a little birdie in my ear who is really, really well sourced in Florida politics, has a lot of experience in Florida politics, sees a lot of internal polling data, has a sense for the political environment on the ground. And that person was telling me that if the election was held today, the Democrats could win the governorship or the Senate seat. Friend of the show, David Jolly running for governor, friend of the show Alexander Vindman running for Senate. So, you know, at some level we would say that, you know, these are the Never Trumpers, these are people. I don't take this lightly. It comes from somebody that is in a position to know, like what the political landscape looks like now. And they think the Democrats go in Florida, that is just a earthquake for our politics. For Florida to come back onto the map. Even if that's wrong, even if that person is off by a couple of points, even if there's something the polling, they're ashamed, maga people that are pissed about Iran and pissed about gas prices, pissed about Epstein and they're not answering pollsters right now. And you know there's something wrong with the methodology of the internal data in Florida. Even if that's all true and the Democrats lose by five in Florida, let's say that's still a huge, huge victory and that's still an 8 point move from 2024 in the Democrats direction. That will have implications that will lead to just a total blue wave in the House and the Senate being right on the edge of being in play, they might need to improve a little bit more than that to get the Senate in play. So to me, you look at Florida and all of a sudden you start to think blue Florida. A lot of discussion of Texas, a lot of discussion of some of these other states. Florida's not been in people's minds. The Democrats have kind of given up on Florida, but it wasn't that long ago they won in Florida. There are people in Florida that remember voting for Democrats that have changed their minds. Some of those people are gonna be upset. Some of them are gonna be Hispanic voters who didn't expect the mass deportations to look like they have. Some of them are gonna be working class Voters who thought that the economy was gonna get better. Some of that is going to be people who are pissed about the war. Some of that is just going to be MAGA voters who like just are going back to being Florida man and fighting alligators and watching nascar, whatever. You know, going out to Ybor City and having a few pops and meeting a young lady like getting a tramp stamp, whatever, whatever it is the Florida people do. Some people are just like you know what, I'm out. May not be Democrats now. They might be checking out. That's, that's something that's happening. It's something to monitor. We saw evidence of that in the state legislative race last night. We've seen evidence of this in other congressional special elections in Florida. Saw evidence of this. Even kind of a dour, negative Nancy Democratic consultant from Florida and he will love that I would say this. Steve, Steve, shout out to my man Steve. He wrote for the Bulwark about potential risks and opportunities that Democrats have looking forward and he shouted out a bail Dalton kind of in running in unlike the Daytona beach area of Florida saying basically that could be a district that comes into play. I mean if Democrats are competing in Daytona, they're in business. So a lot of work left to do. Nobody should get over excited. But I was interested. There are a few data points that were positive and interesting and when I can bring a little bit of sunshine to your life, I'm gonna do it. So there you go. Up next, Ashley Parker, Carol Lennig, Katie Turr, myself talking about this and much much more. Stick around. Subscribe to the feed right here.
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Interviewer/Host
voters are asked what most Americans, the words most Americans think apply to Trump. And the top of the list is arrogant, opportunist, corrupt, dishonest, a lot arrogant, a lot opportunist, a lot corrupt, a lot dishonest. You see those numbers? It's the majority of the American public who says this, Tim, is that, is Donald Trump going to face consequences for this? Will he suffer because of these numbers?
Tim Miller
Well, I mean, I guess I can't speak about eternal suffering or whatever. He's already won again, so I don't know if he's going to be, God willing, won't be trying to run again. So I don't think he can suffer personally at the ballot box. The party can, and I think the party is. We're already seeing the degree to which Republicans are suffering in these special elections, which I know we get to. So I do think the Republicans will suffer that corrupt number just to what we all have been talking about here. It feels a little low to me, and only 54%. What is happening, I think you mentioned, the historian said that it's unprecedented in modern history, it's unprecedented in American history. And we've seen this kind of gripped and grift and corruption elsewhere in the world. And, you know, the things we've disparagingly called the Third World or banana republics or whatever. But the Trump family is acting indistinguishable from any of that right now. I mean, we don't exactly know what's happening with these trades. Is it possible that Trump's just so predictable that there's some gamblers out there that are like, I bet he's gonna taco on Monday morning before the market opens. That's possible. But even if that is the case, right, even if this isn't an insider trade, Trump is getting insider deals. The Trump family is Jared Kushner and Trump Jr. And Eric Trump are in business with three of the main players in the Iran war. Right now. Kushner's getting money from mbs. The Trump family is getting money from UAE as part of their crypto deal. And Qatar gave Trump a plane. And there is unimaginable amounts of money awash right now in the Trump family, some based on corrupt deals, some, who knows, potentially based on inside knowledge. Like, we can't be sure because Nobody's investigating this stuff. And I think that's like what this comes down to. There's, we cannot know as long as these guys are in charge because nobody's investigating them. I mean, hopefully the Attorney General, New York and other states can start doing these investigations. But we have an, the other thing that is unprecedented is the small number of white collar criminal investigations that have happened in the last year.
Interviewer/Host
Yeah, that's a good point. A lot of this has to do with national security, both what Carol's been reporting, but also, you know, the market manipulation, the well timed stock trades and sell offs and the prediction market stuff. National security based. National security based. You can add in if you'd like. Hegseth making a signal chat that included a journalist. It seems, it seems like this administration from outward appearances is pretty willy nilly with national security. Where is the Republican Party? Where's Lindsey Graham on this?
Tim Miller
Well, Lindsey's getting what he wants in Iran, so he's not going to quibble. But maybe some of the other ones you might think would, I don't know, I think potentially the craziest story of the whole second term so far. Competitive category is ties in. You know, this classified docs story to what we're seeing with the war on Iran was I believe a week, Carol can correct me if I'm wrong. I think a week before we launched the war with Iran, the FBI, Cash Patel fired FBI agents who specialized in Iranian counterintelligence because they were wrapped up in this classified docs case. Now why were they involved in the classified docs case? Because among the documents that were in his bathroom in Mar A Lago was Iran warplane plans. And so obviously the FBI, just doing their due diligence would bring in Iranian experts to be part of that investigation. It's not like they spearheaded it or they were part of some deep state targeting Trump. They were called in because of their expertise. Because of that expertise they were fired. A week later we go to war with Iran and the threats on the homeland from potentially payback or copy or whatever lone wolf attacks, any of that skyrocket and they didn't care. So they either hadn't communicated to Cash about the war, they don't care about the threats on the homeland. And you see like many examples of this, but to me that one is the most stark.
Interviewer/Host
All right, Mar A Lago has flipped blue. Yes, Mar A Lago is now blue. Democrat Emily Gregory defeated a Trump endorsed Republican for a Florida state House seat in the district that includes the President's estate state but her win wasn't the only shocker of the night. Republican Josie Tomkow conceded to Democrat Brian Nathan, a Navy veteran and union leader, in a razor thin state Senate special election race in Tampa. Ashley Parker, Tim Miller still with us, Tim, in his own backyard.
Tim Miller
Ouch. He voted for it by mail, which is he's also trying to ban in that election. So he did think to vote by mail. I don't know why he didn't trust why he trusted rather that that would go through. But look, I wanna get dorky with you on some math here in this district. So Trump wins the Mar A Lago legislative district by 11 points in 2024. Last night, the Democrat won by 2 points, about a 13 point swing. Florida as a whole state, Trump won by 13. And so, you know, you can only project out so much here. There are plenty of caveats here. It's an off year, special election. Is that gonna have the same midterm? Probably not. But you can start to see the Democrats get their first glimmer of hope in Florida since the Obama era, since Trump took it from them in 2016. And I think there's a lot of reasons for that. Some of that's economic, some of that is the South Florida demographics. They thought they were signing up for something that they didn't on immigration. There's a variety of different issues. But I think that Florida all of a sudden becomes a place that Democrats can get serious about in that governors and Senate race. And that hasn't been the case for a while now.
Interviewer/Host
Well, you know Florida pretty well with Jeb. Have the Democrats really been making putting a lot of money into Florida? Because last I understood it, in the places that Democrats, you know, lost and places that had turned red, it seemed like they were walking away to focus on emerging purple states like potentially Georgia, Arizona, etc. So have they been making real investment in Florida?
Tim Miller
Certainly not the last couple cycles. I did notice Ashley smirked when he said that I knew Florida because the Jeb Ashley is covering that job gave us the business a lot of times.
Interviewer/Host
Jeb, exclamation point.
Tim Miller
I just wanna bring voice to that smirk. But no, I do think the Democrats have abandoned it the last couple cycles. I think they did put effort in right after Trump, like in 2018. I believe that's right when Desantis beat Andrew Gillum. Very close race, like he wins very narrowly. And then the tide starts to turn kind of during the end of Trump one and then through the Biden era. And I think that a lot of Democrats have thrown up their hands. And people now look at Florida and say, this is ridiculous. Not even a swing state anymore. It's a red state. Republicans say that DeSantis and his team brags about that, but wasn't that long ago, you know, that they almost beat Desantis in 18, you know, that's only eight years ago now. And so I do think that you're starting to see signs that maybe it's, you know, I wouldn't call it a swing state again, but it's starting to get back onto the map.
Interviewer/Host
Cabrera reports this morning. Emily Gregory, who won the Mar a Lago district. How much did people talk to you about the president?
Field Reporter (Ashley Parker or Carol Lennig)
I would say roughly zero.
Interviewer/Host
I mean, it really was not a factor for any of my voters, any
Tim Miller
of my now constituents.
Interviewer/Host
They're focused on their lives. They're focused on the absolute crushing cost of goods, the squeeze they are feeling, why their property insurance has skyrocketed, why they're losing their health care, why are our public schools being gutted?
Field Reporter (Ashley Parker or Carol Lennig)
That's what I heard every single day at the door.
Interviewer/Host
Not the most famous constituent down the road. That's interesting, Tim. Does that, does that tell the Democrats to not talk about Donald Trump so much?
Tim Miller
I don't, I don't know. I don't think so. I mean, that's, that's a good sentiment. I think that Donald Trump is in everybody's faces, in everybody's lives, and there's no way to not talk about it. I do think that focusing on other issues besides just complaining about the latest Trump outrage du jour is smart. And to me, one of my takeaways from that is I don't know that, you know, Emily Gregory does not seem to me like the kind of candidate that was, like, recruited in school to the Democratic establishment that they went out and got and they targeted that district. And, you know, to me, at the midterms, there is an element for the Democrats of just running people from communities that represent their communities in places where Republicans have won before. And they might end up finding themselves with a lot of accidental congresspeople and state legislators and growing their bench that way, because people who knew their communities ran, and they ran in places that hadn't been competitive before. There are this time, because a lot of voters are upset about costs and Iran and the other issues laid out Florida, exclamation point.
Interviewer/Host
All right, Tim. Ashley, I appreciate it. Thanks for sticking around for the show for us. We really enjoy having you.
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The Bleacher Report app is your destination for sports right now. The NBA is heating up, March Madness is here and MLB is almost back. Every day there's a new headline, a new highlight, a new moment you've got to see for yourself. That's why I stay locked up in with the Bleacher Report app. For me, it's about staying connected to my sports. I can follow the teams I care about, get real time, scores, breaking news and highlights all in one place. Download the Bleacher Report app today so you never miss a moment.
Field Reporter (Ashley Parker or Carol Lennig)
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Date: March 26, 2026
Host: The Bulwark Team (Mainly Tim Miller, with participation from Ashley Parker, Carol Lennig, and others)
This episode centers on unexpected political upsets in Florida, signaling a potential seismic shift in the state's electoral landscape. Tim Miller shares optimism about Democrats’ recent victories in special elections, including the Mar-a-Lago district, and examines what these results might mean nationally. The discussion also touches on the corruption and national security scandals swirling around the Trump administration and explores whether Florida's newfound competitiveness could presage broader changes in American politics.
The episode emphasized the surprise outcome in Florida’s local elections, notably the flip of the Mar-a-Lago district and other traditionally GOP-held seats. Tim Miller delivered a nuanced but hopeful take that, even if the Democrats do not win statewide, these swings spell trouble for Republican prospects and signal wider dissatisfaction—especially as corruption, governance lapses, and economic concerns dominate voters’ minds. The panel underscored that voters’ priorities are local and immediate, not fixated on national personalities, and these new “accidental” Democratic successes come from relatable community figures—suggesting a template for the party as it looks ahead to November.
For listeners or readers catching up:
This episode provides a clear snapshot of a critical inflection point in American politics, tracking unique data points, analysis from insiders like Tim Miller, and on-the-ground voter sentiment that may reshape assumptions about the 2026 cycle—especially about “solid red” states like Florida.