← Bulwark Takes
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- [00:00]
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Ron Brownstein
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- [01:31]
Bill Kristol
Hi, Bill Kristol here, editor at large of the Bulwark. Welcome to Bulwark on Sunday. Very pleased to be joined by Ron Brownstein. Really one of our best, maybe our best political commentator, election analyst, veteran of many cycles and many very intelligent and informative commentaries on our elections. So, Ron, thanks for joining me. I should say you can read Ron at cnn at Bloomberg. Watch him on cnn. Read his latest book, what is that?
- [01:57]
Ron Brownstein
Rock Me on the Water.
- [01:58]
Bill Kristol
Rock Me on the Water on culture.
- [02:01]
Ron Brownstein
Music, movies, politics, la in 74 Louisiana in 1974. Yep, yep.
- [02:06]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, that's very. I've read some of it and the you and I discussed actually once, the discussion of all in the Family and the late Rob Reiner and stuff and how important that was. Do you discuss Springsteen in the book? I can't remember.
- [02:17]
Ron Brownstein
Only, only briefly as kind of the turning of the page in 75 as cultural influence moved back to New York with the punks and Born to Run and a bunch of other developments. But yeah, Patti Smith. But I did just write, you know, I wrote a piece this week actually in Bloomberg looking at kind of the split screen. And this is true, Bill, I think you would agree in almost every sector of society where the leaders of the entertainment industry, the people who own it, are bowing to Trump and you are seeing this tremendous mobilization among the artists, right, the people who create the popular cultures. The same thing, you know, I think you're seeing in law firms, universities elsewhere. The people at the top are looking for ways to profit or get by through these kind of assaults on the constitutional system. And ordinary folks, if you count Bruce as an ordinary folk, are looking for ways to push back on it. As I point out in the story, this was pretty much the model up through the early stages of the Vietnam War where the people who ran the entertainment industry leaned right and the artists particularly after Roosevelt Lee left. And actually I think the period we're in now is a lot like the early Vietnam War. People remember you were on campus. People remember the period after 68 when there was widespread opposition to the war. Up until 1968, there were very few voices anywhere in society who were willing to criticize it. And that gave a lot of importance to the few artists, to the artists who were like Paul Newman because they were some of the Robert Vaughn, the man from UNCLE. They were the only people in society who had a platform who are willing to stand up and, and you know, and say something. And I think we're in a situation like that today where the political impact of artists is magnified because so many other voices in society are silencing themselves. But that is not what we're here to talk about.
- [04:03]
Bill Kristol
No, that's interesting. We have to have that discussion though soon because it's. And I saw Springsteen's. I don't know if it means anything you would know more about this is songs number one selling the Minneapolis song, you know, in the US last week or something like that. But we should discuss that at some point. We actually supposed to be discussing the 2026 elections which are not unimportant and which you've given a lot of thought to Enric written about. We're a little less than nine months away. Big mid year elections which I want to really go to pretty granular way almost state by state on the Senate which I think has been under kind of analyzed and covered compared to the House. But let's begin with the big picture. What do you. How does it look so?
- [04:40]
Ron Brownstein
To me, the single biggest picture is, again, pop culture reference. The fundamental things apply, as Bogart would say in Casablanca, or was said to him in Casablanca. And by that I mean it often seems as if Trump has repealed all the laws of political gravity. But what we have seen over the last year, as we saw really in 2017 and 2018, is that he is not immune and his party is not immune to the laws of political gravity. And the most important of those laws in modern American politics, we have moved into a quasi parliamentary system where voters are making their choices less on how they feel about the two individuals on the ballot and more about which party they want to have their hand on the rudder, which party they want to be running things. And they make that judgment overwhelmingly based on their assessment of the performance of the incumbent president. I think it is unequivocal that the single most important factor in midterm, in fact, every off year election during a presidency, is the approval rating of that president. In 2018, in the national exit poll, 90% of the voters who disapproved of Trump voted Democratic for the House. In 2020, 93% of voters who disapproved of Trump voted Democratic for the House. And what we saw in 2025 is that even though the image of the Democratic Party is really weak, and we'll talk more about that later, that simply doesn't matter as much as views of the party that is out of the White House never matter as much as views of the president who is actually in the White House. And in. You know, the key numbers to me was that in 25, Spanberger in Virginia and Sheryl in New Jersey Both won about 93, 94% of people who disapprove Trump. Even Jay Jones, right, the Attorney general candidate where you live, who had certain amount of baggage, sending tweets about texts about fantasizing about violence against his political. He won 89% of people who dis of Trump. I just want people to file that 89% number away because we're gonna come back to it. But so to me, basically, what we're seeing in 25 points toward a very conventional dynamic. When you have a president who is facing as much public resistance as Trump is now, which is that the vast majority of voters who disapprove of him are going to vote for the other party, no matter what they think about it, even if they don't love it. And second, that the party out of the White House is much more motivated, as we continue to see in these incredible Special election results, including one last night, I believe, in Louisiana, another state legislative race. So, you know, if.
- [07:21]
Bill Kristol
Would you accept this slight? Also footnote. This is especially true, Shirley, when there's a midterm election, when the president's party has control Congress. So, so this is sort of the only way a voter can check a president and his party if they disapprove of certain things past that, that president and party are going down.
- [07:43]
Ron Brownstein
Absolutely. I mean, there's a deep cycle here. No president, as I've written, no president has gone into a midterm election with unified control of government and held it through that midterm election since Jimmy Carter in 1978. The last five presidents who went into a midterm with unified control. And there's the asterisk because Bush did not have unified control in 01 02. He got it in 02. But the last five presidents who went into unified went to a midterm with unified control. Your scenario where voters could see clearly who was in charge because they controlled everything. So what were the last five presidents who had that situation? Biden in 22, Trump in 18, Obama in 10, Bush in 06, and Clinton in 94. They all lost. Voters revoked unified control for them. That has never happened in American history. I mean, I went back one rainy day and looked at this. There's never been five times in a row where a president has gone into a midterm with unified control and voters took it away. Closest was in the period right before and right after the Civil War, which is like ours, a period of great political disruption. So by both of these long standing patterns, that our midterm elections are parliamentary elections, fundamentally based on assessments of the president, not on the party out of the White House, and the inability of either side to establish a durable advantage over the other, going back to the late 1960s, the longest such period in American history. I believe both of those point toward this being a rough election for Republicans with the big asterisk, of course, if it is a normal or anything approaching a normal election.
- [09:22]
Bill Kristol
Right. Well, that's another thing.
- [09:25]
Ron Brownstein
You always have to keep door number two in mind here. We're going to analyze this on the conventional metrics, but there's a whole other scenario where a much darker scenario, which.
- [09:37]
Bill Kristol
We'Ve discussed in other shows and written about, quite often tried to write about. And that's. That's another thing we can discuss. And the final point, I suppose, just on this big picture, is just to be clear, Trump's approval disapproval is about. Where do you think and how does that compare to, I mean, yeah, previous, previous presidents.
- [09:55]
Ron Brownstein
In 2018, in the exit poll nationally, it was 45 approved, 55 disapprove. It varied a lot by state, which has huge implications for the Senate. As we'll talk about. I suspect it's going to be a few points lower than that on Election Day for approval and a few points higher on disapproval in 26 than it was in 18. I mean, I'm not sure right now. He's probably, you know, you were talking about it, I mean, in these national averages, probably somewhere like 41, 57, 58, something like that. In his national average, maybe, you know, there are polls all the time with him at 39 and 40. Now, I would be surprised if it is that low on Election Day. If it is that low on Election Day, I. Republicans are going to have a catastrophic night. More likely, I think it drifts up a little bit, but doesn't get back to where it was in 2018. I think he's in a weaker position on election day 26 than he was on election day 18. And again, just keep that number in mind. In 2018, 90% of the voters who said they disapproved of Trump voted Democratic for the House. In 2020, 93% of the voters who disapproved of Trump voted Democratic for the House. Sheryl and Spanberger were both in that 93% range in 25. And I would be shocked if that is not the number. So it's virtually point for point, Bill. Right. I mean, like, each point of increase in Trump's disapproval will translate into virtually a point for Democrats in their popular vote margin. And that obviously, and that's going to be critical because in one way, the landscape as we're going to talk about is not as favorable for Democrats as it was in 2018. There are fewer seats they can contest where Trump has a narrow margin or Republicans and Hillary in Democratic one seats. So we'll talk about that. But it's almost point. The important point is it's almost point for point. I mean, his disapproval rating really is the single most important factor in how far this election go, and not only overall, but how it sorts out among the various groups in the electorate, the demographic cohorts in the electorate.
- [12:07]
Bill Kristol
Yeah. So let's get that. Yeah, I noticed, I looked up just before we're talking the Nate Silver average, the New York Times average are pretty, I think, conservative averages in the sense of they weight better polls. They're not. They don't quite. If there's one poll showing Trump at 3760, it tends not to change it that much. They Both are basically 4155 which if you just normalize to 100, which is probably a sensible thing to do, you get to 4357 which would be, which would mean Trump now is slightly weaker by a couple of points as you were saying, than he was.
- [12:34]
Ron Brownstein
And that's what I would expect.
- [12:36]
Bill Kristol
And if you think it sticks around 4357. Yeah. If you're losing 93% of the 57 you're, you're now it could be more, it could be less. There's turnout, there's off year. But we a lot of things to talk about. So let's assume I'm just going to stipulate that he's likely to lose the House unless you, the Republicans are likely to lose the House unless you want to.
- [12:56]
Ron Brownstein
No, no. And we can talk about that. But I mean again no president has defended unified control through a midterm since Jimmy Carter in 1978. And it's hard to imagine that a president with approval rating that's going to be 42 or 43 on election day is going to be the one to break that 50 year pattern.
- [13:12]
Bill Kristol
So then we get to the Senate, which is really what I want to focus on. So I think you've written about this too, that the Senate's been a little under analyzed and underappreciated. It's a rough map for Democrats. You'll explain that. But so let's say we talk about the Senate right now it's 5347 talk about who controls what and what could happen.
- [13:30]
Ron Brownstein
Yeah. So before we get to the individual races, I think I want to give people a framework to kind of understand what Democrats are dealing with not only this year but in general. You know, I said before that, you know, one of the mega stories of both of our political lifetimes is the conversion, the transformation of our elections into quasi parliamentary elections. And the best measure of that is the increasing correlation between how states vote for president and how they vote for Senate. And to the largest, not as quite big but still governor, certainly Senate, you know, elections that we remember when we were both starting out in politics, administrations that you will remember. Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush won 38 states. H.W. bush, excuse me, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. bush won 38 states in all three elections of the 80s. 80, 84, 88, 38 states three times. But at the end of that in 1989 when you were going to work in the White House, Democrats still had a majority of the Senate seats in those 38 states. Right? 38 states voted three times. Republican President Democrats still had a majority of the Senate seats today. The picture is very different and it is the key to understanding the Senate. There are now 25 states that have voted three times for Trump. That is the most states either party has won over three consecutive elections since Reagan and H.W. bush today. Whereas Democrats held the majority of those seats in the 38 Reagan Bush states. Today, Democrats have 00 of the Senate seats in the 25.
- [15:04]
Bill Kristol
25 states.
- [15:04]
Ron Brownstein
Two senators three times for Trump, 53.
- [15:07]
Bill Kristol
Times for Trump, 50 Republican senators. That's a pretty good base for the Republicans.
- [15:11]
Ron Brownstein
That's a pretty good base. And look, what Trump has been able to do is consolidate the Republican hold on the places that are already lean red after he was elected. There were seven Democrats left in those 25 states after he was elected. The first time it got to eight with the special election with Doug Jones. And systematically since then, they've eliminated all of them. You know, Claire McCaskill and Heidi Heitkamp and Joe Donnelly and Bill Nelson and you know, Joe Manchin. See tester so right. The core, you know, Democrats are nearly as. Basically they are as strong in the states that voted three times against Trump, but there are only 19 of them. Democrats have 37 of the 38 Senate seats in the 19 states that voted three times against Trump. And they have a very good chance to get the last one this year.
- [16:03]
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- [17:03]
Bill Kristol
I'm here.
- [17:04]
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- [17:26]
Ron Brownstein
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- [17:35]
Bill Kristol
Okay, so that means six states that have gone back and forth.
- [17:39]
Ron Brownstein
And the reason Democrats are competitive in the Senate is because they have 10 of the 12 seats in the states that have gone back and forth at any time. In the three races which are Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin in the Rust Belt and Nevada, Georgia and Arizona in the Sunbelt, Democrats have 10 of their 12 Senate seats, which I would argue to you is probably not a sustainable advantage in places that are swinging at the presidential level. It's kind of striking that you could be that high. And what that says to me is that ultimately the near term and the long term is the same question for Democrats. They have to establish some beachheads again in the Trump 25, as I call them, the states that lean Republican at the presidential level. So to me, to get back to a Democratic Senate majority, obviously job one is to beat Susan Collins and to get to 38 out of 38 in the 19 anti Trump states. Job two is to defend their the two seats they have in the swing states that are up this year in Michigan and Georgia. Okay. Now, in an environment where Trump's approval is as low as it is, I think both of those are very doable. Like I think it is very doable for Jon Ossoff to win. I think it is very doable for whoever the Democratic nominee is, assuming it's one of the women and not the more liberal progressive guy. I think it's very doable in Michigan, like Trump's approval. If Trump's approval is 43% nationally, it's not going to be over 50 in Georgia or Michigan, and it's certainly not going to be over 50 in Michigan. Mean. And so I think both of those are doable. The key question for Democrats this year is the same question as it's going to be going forward. Can you break into the states where, where they've basically been eradicated in the Trump era. So that would mean in this case probably in order, Ohio with Sherrod Brown, Alaska, Iowa and Texas.
- [19:46]
Bill Kristol
Like I want to put Kansas on that. That. I'll come back to that in a minute.
- [19:50]
Ron Brownstein
Yeah, Kansas and so forth. The, the, you know, and so really the. Is there a path for them to get to 51? I think there is, but it requires them to do the same thing they would have to do to establish long term viability in the Senate, which is expand the matter. If you're giving away 50, needless to say, if you are giving away 50 seats before the kickoff, the only way you get a majority is by running the table and everything else and having the White House. So the key question is, can they break back into, loosen the grip of Republicans on the Senate seats in the states that Trump wants?
- [20:33]
Bill Kristol
And just to put an exclamation point on your point, which is you've said this elsewhere and written this at some length. It's not just sort of a mystical thing about. Well, Trump's at 43, I think you're. Have you said, am I right about this? Apart from Susan Collins, Republicans have not lost a seat in the Trump era. Senate seat where Trump was above 50%.
- [20:52]
Ron Brownstein
They have not. They did. Look. They did.
- [20:55]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, I got it backwards. Say it correctly.
- [20:58]
Ron Brownstein
Susan Collins in 2020 is the only Republican Senate incumbent or challenger who won a race where Trump's net approval was negative, according to the exit polls.
- [21:09]
Bill Kristol
In that state. In that state.
- [21:10]
Ron Brownstein
In that state, the only.
- [21:12]
Bill Kristol
So Trump being under 50 is very, very, very good for Democrats. Trump being over 50 in the state.
- [21:19]
Ron Brownstein
Is usually good for Republicans. In 2018, Tester Manchin and Sherrod Brown were able to win in states where Trump was over 50. And obviously in 24, you had Slotkin and Gallego and Jackie Rosen and Tammy Baldwin. I think I had all four of them. Them win. In states where Trump won.
- [21:39]
Bill Kristol
Trump won. Right.
- [21:40]
Ron Brownstein
But more often than not, if he is over 50, it's really hard. People watching this are kind of political junkies. Enough to remember all the excitement in 2020 around Democratic challengers in all sorts of red states, Kentucky, Kansas, South Carolina, Montana, Texas and Democrats. Those Democrats were Amy McGrath and you know, they raised enormous credit Iowa, they raised incredible sums of money. Trump won all of those states and Democrats lost them.
- [22:13]
Bill Kristol
Now, Trump was on the ballot in 2020, which is not in 26, so maybe a little.
- [22:18]
Ron Brownstein
Right. Give. Well, Steve Bullock in 2020 was the only Democrat who won, I think more than 10% of voters who disapproved of Trump, who approved of Trump. Excuse me, but the reverse Is also true. Like the averse is really important. Maybe this year will be different. You know, past performance, no guarantee of future results. But the fact is, is that if you look at every exit poll conducted in 2018 and 2020, again, Susan Collins is the. In 2020, is the only Republican Senate incumbent or challenger who held their Democratic opponent to less than 89% of people who disapproved of Trump. And that was the number that J. Jones got right in Virginia. Like he got 89% of people who disapproved Trump. We saw 90, 90% plus of people who disagree. Trump vote Democrat for the House. I think it is. You know, could Roy Cooper win in North Carolina? Because with Trump at 51, because he's such a strong candidate? Yeah, probably. Could Sherrod Brown possibly win in Ohio with Trump at 50 or 51? Possibly more likely, Democrats are going to need Trump's net approval to be negative to win a Senate race. Peltola, too, she might be able to, she might be able to win a 50, 50 or 51, 49 split because she has such a personal appeal. More likely, the vast majority of Senate races can be predicted by whether Trump's approval is net negative or net positive.
- [23:46]
Bill Kristol
And if Trump's approval is at 43, let's just say 43, 57 nationally, he's probably on the bubble in some of these states, I mean, they're not, they're not going to be 15 points better than the national average.
- [23:58]
Ron Brownstein
No, that's it.
- [23:59]
Bill Kristol
They're not going to just be two points better. Right. They're going to be in the 7ish range. I mean, I guess. Is that right?
- [24:04]
Ron Brownstein
I mean, you, you got it. I mean, that's, this is the battle for the Senate, like, in one. How much higher than his national approval rating is Trump's approval rating going to be in Ohio and Alaska on Election Day? Because I don't think, like, Sherrod Brown and Mary Peltola are candidates who are not going to drive away a lot of the voters who disapprove of Trump. I mean, they're just, they're not, you know, the Republicans are not going to be able to demonize them to the extent, like, again, even when they do demonize them, you know, it's not like it, you know, again, like, it wasn't like who beat Claire McCaskill, Eric Schmidt, like, it wasn't like he, it wasn't like he won a lot of people who disapproved of Trump. It was just that so many people approved of Trump. You Know, like you, this is a very powerful law of modern politics, really. So many, so much else pivots on the assessment of the incumbent president. Now here's where you have to kind of have one more level of nuance, which is Trump's core constituency has always been whites without a four year college degree, working class white voters. That has been the core Republican constituency since Nixon and Reagan. But Trump has pushed the advantage to historic margins each of his three elections. Not only the exit polls, but everything else agrees. He won about two thirds of white without a college degree, which was the best performance for any candidate in either party since Reagan in 84. That really matters in the Senate because in six of the 10 Senate races that both sides consider the most competitive, non college whites significantly exceed their share of the electorate nationally. And in two more they exceeded slightly. So in eight of the 10 Senate races that we're talking about, non college whites exceed their share of the national electorate. And that obviously, you know, that matters because what is Trump's like? When Trump's disapproval rating nationally in 2018 was 55% in the exit poll, I think it was only 35% among non college whites. So it's possible that Trump could be really weak in white collar suburban districts and Democrats can kind of, you know, run the table on what's left of them. But if he remains strong with working class whites, the Senate map is still really hard, by the way, as is the House map, if we want to talk about that now. That's why it's so significant that we've had four or five polls since January 1st where there's this disapproval among non college whites in the 48 to 51% range nationally. So Pew, Marist, CNN. And there is another one that all have put, and even the ones where even the ones that put it a little lower, like New York Times, Siena and CBS, they put it in the low 40s among non college whites. Low 40s disapproval. Democrats don't have to win non college whites to win in almost anywhere. I mean, maybe in Iowa they do, but in most places they don't. Like Sherrod Brown does not have to win non college whites to win. But when he won Overall in 2018, he won 45% of them. When he lost in 2024, he won 35% of them. So if Trump's disapproval rating among working class whites is somewhere between 7, 8 to 10, 12, 15 points higher than it was in 2018, that to me is the pathway to a Democratic Senate. Like, you know, and so can it Stay that high. Like, you know, they are pretty, they are pretty disappointed in his economic agenda. I mean you get a plurality or majority sometimes of non college whites saying his agenda has done more to hurt than help the economy, it's done more to raise than lower prices. New York Times Sienna has found that, CBS has found, YouGov has found that, you know, there's even a backlash against ICE enforcement, although he has a lot of support on immigration and on cultural issues in general from them. But if you were gonn me like can Democrats win the Senate? I would say tell me what Trump's approval and disapproval is among working class white voters in the fall. Because as you say, you know, I actually don't think, I don't think like his approval among non college whites or in Ohio or Alaska will be much different or will be much different than it is nationally. The place where it is different, this may be more than you want to know, but the place where it is different is the south. Because in the south so many of the non college whites are also evangelical Christians and that moves the overall number up. You know, I can tell you from Pew polling because they have a sample big enough and I've asked them to do this, I haven't put this in print yet. But Trump's disapproval among non college whites who are not evangelicals, which really matters in places like Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio is majority. He has majority disapproval now among basically what we think of working class whites outside of the south. And the evangelical thing pumps it up. So that's, you know, that's an issue for Roy Cooper because so many of the, you know, that's why Democrats get more like 20 to 25% of non college whites in North Carolina, Georgia and Texas and they on a good day can get 38 to 45 in the rust belt states because just fewer of them are evangelical.
- [29:26]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, it's interesting. So the reason I mentioned Kansas earlier, just to give you one state that's not quite been on people's radar. So a young man I know is running in Kansas, just Patrick Schmidt, a one term state senator, ran a good race but lost in 22 for a congressional district. But 34 year old veteran moderate democrat marshalls who's an incumbent one term senator in Kansas is unpopular. It seems to not have been a race effective politician in the state. His reelects like 38 or something in this. So they did a poll or someone did a poll. I think they indirectly encouraged it. It seems like a pretty reasonable poll. It was, you know, they asked who people voted for in 24. And they correctly captured the electorate, which is always a pretty good sign. Right? I mean. Right, right. Wacky poll. Trump's approval in Kansas in This poll was 48. 46. Yeah. And that's Kansas. I mean, he won the state by obviously more than two points in, in 2024. So I mean, I feel like that's probably now that just normalized that to 100. That's 51, 49. That probably isn't enough for, you know, maybe that's enough to drag Marshall across the finish line by two or three or four points. But if that goes down two more points, if Trump's even, you know, and Kansas is older, it's non college. Ish.
- [30:39]
Ron Brownstein
46% in 2024. Just looked it up for 46% of the vote in Kansas in 2024 was non college white. So it's well above the national that.
- [30:48]
Bill Kristol
Maybe not so evangelical as the Southern states.
- [30:50]
Ron Brownstein
Yeah, I'd have to. That I have to look on a different piece anyway. Who knows?
- [30:53]
Bill Kristol
But anyway, I'm just saying that's where these states can come. I mean, it's probably, it's still uphill, obviously, but this is. And they, I do think Kansas, Iowa, this is what Patrick tells me, and I think it's reported a lot there. The farm economy is bad.
- [31:06]
Ron Brownstein
Yeah.
- [31:06]
Bill Kristol
And. And this is a little unusual. It's not just generically bad. It's. They think it's bad. It probably is really bad because of Trump's policies. I mean, the soybeans are rotting in these. Whatever they rotted in these, you know, silos because of Trump's trade policies. And China's decided not to buy. You know, it's a very, it's more L. You know what I mean? The causality is clearer. And Roger Marshall has done nothing to stop Trump from this idiotic terrorist policy. I mean, I think it's an easier message than maybe in some of these other states.
- [31:33]
Ron Brownstein
Well, and look, Iowa will be kind of on the same trajectory, a little ahead of, you know, but I, but again, like Iowa is a state where I think it's 56, 57% of the voters are non college whites. I mean, it's a big. And there are a lot of them are evangelicals in Iowa, you know, and even evangelical, you know, I'm trying to remember the exact acronym. Mike Pothorser always was very focused on non evangelical, non college white women. So I think it's N, E, N, C, W, W as critical for Democratic votes. Because generally speaking, you know, the blue Collar white women are a little more open to voting for Democrats than the men. Not vastly. And they were critical. And the biggest reason I think Trump's president again is because Harris could not get enough working class white women to vote for her in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. But again, like this, you are seeing cracks in Trump's grip on these voters that we have not seen before. When his disapproval rating among working class whites is in the 50% range, as multiple polls are now having it, that is the pathway to a Democratic Senate if it sustains and it is the pathway to bigger gains in the House. You know, because the story in the House which I haven't talked about is pretty similar, which is that Democrats don't have as much low hanging fruit as they did in 2018. I mean, they start, first of all, they start with 20 more seats. So it's sort of logical. You know, they were 195 going into 2018, they're 215 now. But if you look, you know, going into 2018, there were two dozen, I think 25, ultimately Republicans in districts that voted for Clinton. Now there's Larry Sabato's team at center, you know, center for Politics at the University of Virginia. They just calculated, even with the redistricting, there are only eight. There are eight Republicans in districts that voted for Harris now As compared to 25 in districts that voted for Clinton. And there are, I from there from their new data, they've tried to update it through all of the redistricting. There are only 17 more House Republicans in districts that voted for Trump by less than 5. I'm sorry, only 5 more. 11 Republicans in districts that voted for Trump by less than five. So you really, you only got about 20, you know, really highly, highly vulnerable seats in that way. And of course with the redistricting, There are now 16 Democrats in districts that Trump won. And Republicans are not going to win all of those, but they are going to win some of them. So, you know, Democrats are kind of in the same situation where they're going to have to go into Trump country. And when you go into Trump country, it triggers the same demographic dynamic I talked about in the Senate. If you Look, Democrats have 37 seats that they are formally targeting. 37 Republican held House seats they are targeting. 26 of them have more non college whites than the national average. Right. Because once you get into Trump country, that's where you're going.
- [34:29]
Bill Kristol
Yeah.
- [34:30]
Ron Brownstein
So it's the same dynamic if you know what is his disapproval among them. And let me, let me, I'm sure people are thinking, okay, well yeah, there may be a lot of blue collar white guys who don't think Trump is giving them all they wanted, but they really hate Democrats. They hate Democrats on him. They think they're open borders, trans crazy woke maniacs. And even if they disapprove of Trump, they're going to vote, they're going to vote Republican anyway. And I would say, of course that could happen. But that is not what has happened. Okay, if you look back at 2018 and 2020, non college whites who disapproved of Trump also voted 90% Democratic. Non college whites who disapprove of Trump are as likely to vote Democratic as pretty much anybody else. College whites or non whites who disapprove of Trump of Trump. So there isn't like this extra layer of defense, this castle keep for Republicans where people who, you know, they break through the first wall of disapproval of Trump but they're still held back from voting for Brown or Peltola because, you know, because they think they're going to open the borders and have sex change operations at school during the day. If they disapprove of Trump, history says most of them, the vast majority of them in fact, are going to vote Democrat.
- [35:58]
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- [37:21]
Ron Brownstein
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- [37:29]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, two final points. I'll let you go the. I guess I've been struck. This maybe is just my age compared to a lot of the people I talk to. I feel like if you're 40, you and which a lot of very good political analysts and operators are and a lot of candidates, they haven't seen a real wave election. They saw. They saw, you know, real movement in 18, obviously. But of course in the Senate the Republicans won a lot of those key races. So it wasn't a huge. They didn't lose both houses. 2014, the Republicans finally picked up the Senate, you might say after all these years. But again, the House was already Republican.
- [38:01]
Ron Brownstein
2010 is the last true mega wave. And even that's a mega wave.
- [38:05]
Bill Kristol
Right. Even then they didn't win the Senate. So.
- [38:07]
Ron Brownstein
No, I mean but they won 63 seats in the house and then. Oh, six.
- [38:10]
Bill Kristol
So that goes back 15 years. 16 now, I guess. So that's already means. Unless you were paying close attention when you were 19, you know, if you're 35, you didn't really. I'm just. The feeling of a wave is different. It tends to accelerate during the year. We saw that in 06 in a big way. You pick up some states come into play that weren't supposed to be in play. Individual candidates make a mistake or two which would normally be survivable. George Allen of Virginia in 06, for example, which I was watching pretty closely. I was here and I was for George Allen and, and. And then he makes one mistake and it's sort of snowballs and suddenly Jim Webb is the senator from Virginia. Not considered a very, you know, like likely candidate to be.
- [38:47]
Ron Brownstein
Right.
- [38:48]
Bill Kristol
So I think could. Now the counter argument is there's so much polarization these days. You just can't get that kind of wave you got in 94 or 06. I don't know where are you on this sort of. Could this be. It feels to me these off year things have a real wave feel to it. I come back to Virginia, where I live, they picked up 14, I think house of Delegates, I mean seats. They picked up seats all over the place. These were not. It wasn't because people looked at the individual candidates with all due respect to them.
- [39:10]
Ron Brownstein
Absolutely.
- [39:10]
Bill Kristol
You know, it's parliamentary outside of Richmond or something. Is that this guy's really great. I'm really disappointed in my Republican member of the House of Delegates. No, they just wanted to vote against Trump. But I think you see that obviously in the Texas special and so forth. So is it. Could it be a real wave? I guess is my first, my first question and then second question is to put them both out here is we're nine months out. I mean, what.
- [39:30]
Ron Brownstein
What would.
- [39:31]
Bill Kristol
What could change? I mean, are we, are we. Are we looking kind of, do you think, likely at the playing the kind of environment more or less that we're going to have? Or what would be the big wild cards? That's always hard to say by definition, since they're wild cards. But so anyway, those two questions. Wave, wave. And what could change?
- [39:46]
Ron Brownstein
Yeah, well, first of all, I mean, you know, Trump's overall standing is as weak as it was at any point, really, in his first term. The lowest point was in his first term was in August of 2017. Right. It was between Charlottesville and the attempt to repeal the aca. This is what, six months later? We're six months closer to election Day. There's less time for him to recover. And as I said, I think he is going to be in a weaker position on Election Day than he was now. When you get a wave, you do get people losing who no one expects. Now, in 2018, Democrats won, I think five beat five House Republicans in districts that Trump won by 10 or more. Okay, so that, and some of that is probably going to happen this year. In fact, in 2010, I think 2010, I'm just looking at the number. Republicans beat 15 House Democrats in seats where Obama got at least 55% of the vote. So, like, a real wave can overspill the boundaries and get into places that you don't. That you don't expect. I think, you know, the special election signals are even better for Democrats than they were in 2018, 2017. The generic ballot is not yet as promising for Democrats, but I believe the generic ballot in the end will bend toward the presidential approval, not the other way around. I think the presidential approval is a better signal of where we are. I would not be surprised if Democrats get back somewhere to where they were after 2018, somewhere in the neighborhood of 230 to 235 house seats. As you get past that, you start having to get into places that are really pretty heavily white, working class, and that would be a real realignment. I think the Latino districts are gonna be a problem for the Republicans. I think that that clearly has eroded for Trump. I think the few Republicans hanging on in heavily white collar districts like Tom King Jr. In Jersey or the Don Bacon seat. There aren't that many left because Democrats really swept them in 2018. But I think they're gonna gain in those. And the regulator of how far this goes in both chambers is how far you get into those white working class districts that tend to be more Trumpy. Anything could change it. But the history is that, you know, I think we're looking at a Trump disapproval that is at least as high as it was in 2018.
- [42:06]
Bill Kristol
It's interesting I looked at Bush and the final thing I know 2006 was, I remember that that election year pretty well. Bush's disapproval was low, lower than Trump's now. But it didn't change that much in the actual 06 year kill data collapsed in late oh 5.
- [42:22]
Ron Brownstein
And what was his disapproval then? Roughly?
- [42:25]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, like 30. He was at like 38 approval, I think. You know.
- [42:29]
Ron Brownstein
Yeah, it's even lower.
- [42:30]
Bill Kristol
It was, it was in the high 30s, but so it's lower but. And actually after that election, Bush, The Republicans had one in oh four. They controlled everything like Trump after 20, 24, 20 years later. And I think after that election Dems ended up 51, 49 in the Senate and 233, maybe House seats. 231. I wonder if that could be. You know, that would be sort of a happy story for the Democrats, but not at a. Perhaps an impossible. Does probably require. I always come back to this, knocking Trump's numbers down a couple more points. You know, but as you said, it's so important the point you make. 90% if you're getting 90% of something. Let's just do some elementary math here in our head.
- [43:05]
Ron Brownstein
It's point for point.
- [43:06]
Bill Kristol
You got to change the denominator. I mean you can try to go from 91 to 93 I guess, but slight easier just to knock down the denominator.
- [43:14]
Ron Brownstein
No, no. And I'm not even sure they have to knock. I mean I just think that like if he. It's not only it, I guess it affects the overall but it's like it's the composition of it as well. Right. Like clearly, you know, Trump's disapproval. Trump's approval Among Latinos is 15 points below his vote, you know, consistently so. And again what we saw in that, in that Texas Tribune had a great story yesterday looking at the precincts in that Texas state Senate district that flipped and it was heavy Latino movement, you.
- [43:42]
Bill Kristol
Know, is that right national district, the Senate district, which is the size of congressional district in Texas, it was Latino precincts that had the biggest movement, just.
- [43:53]
Ron Brownstein
Like Passaic and Patterson and Perth Amboy. I mean, you know, like the fundamental things apply even to Trump. His approval among Latinos is down and the Republican performance among Latinos is suffering. Whether it's people switching or people who voted for him feeling too disillusioned to come out. You know, hard to disentangle that. But it's both. The college white men is down and as a result, you know, the last few Republicans in these heavily white collar districts are going to struggle and Jon Ossoff is probably going to win a higher share of college educated white voters than he did in 2020. Like, you know, and, and that'll be the case in Michigan and in Maine. Like in Maine, Susan Collins has ability to, has had an ability in the past to kind of pull over a lot of college educated older white women who dislike Trump. I don't think it's going to be anything like that. Again, particularly if it's, if it's the governor. But again, it comes back to okay, in Ohio and in Alaska and in Iowa. Are there enough working class whites who have soured on Trump to say, you know what, we need to check on him? He's going too far in all of these ways and he's not giving me the thing I wanted most, which was improvement in my cost of living. And that to me is the, you know, if we had to like divine out of all of this conversation, one thing that will decide how far Trump Democrats go in 2026. Like, I would say that when divine one thing that decides how far Democrats go in 2026, it'll be Trump's approval disapproval among non college whites and how much weaker it is than 2018.
- [45:38]
Bill Kristol
It's very helpful. This is a very helpful conversation and very interesting. And we have to do it again in two or three months when we'll know. I mean, we'll have a State of the Union, we'll have other, of course, the economy. A bunch of things will happen, I suppose. When do you think? A final, final question. Yes, I'll let you go. Is there a moment when things start to really fall into place and you can sort of stay with more confidence? What's going to happen? Is that a summer thing or is that a fall thing or is it just goes through the year and you can't really know ahead of time when the inflection points might be, if any.
- [46:07]
Ron Brownstein
The election quants, you know, study this all the time. But generally speaking, a president doesn't strengthen in the midterm year like that does not usually happen. Especially Trump is in his second term. It doesn't feel that way because of the break. But other than Clinton in 98, second term midterms have been especially miserable. Eisenhower in 58, Johnson in 66, Bush in 06, Ford, Nixon in 74, Reagan losing the Senate in 86. You know, I mean, generally speaking, 1938 for Roosevelt, which was the biggest loss of House seats. 1918 Losing the Senate for Wilson. Right. Which obviously led to his world historic events. So, you know, historically it doesn't get better and usually doesn't get better in the second term. So I would be, you know, I would be surprised. I mean, I think, like I said, I think it'll be a little better than it is now, but not vastly better. And I think on balance it's going to be weaker than 2018. And that puts Democrats certainly highly favored to win the House and puts them on the brink. I mean, I think Alaska and Ohio should be quite close.
- [47:26]
Bill Kristol
Well, interesting. Okay, we'll get back together in two, three months and let's do it earlier if there's some big events to really go over. This has been very, very helpful and thanks for taking the time, Ron. Really appreciate it.
- [47:35]
Ron Brownstein
If it's Sunday, it must be the bull work.
- [47:37]
Bill Kristol
That was good. I didn't even tell Rod to say that.
- [47:39]
Ron Brownstein
That's amazing. But you know, I remember, I remember during the, the Clinton and W. Bush and Obama years when I did meet the press and face the Nation more, you know, regularly, they did have shrimp at the end. I'm just pointing that out. Okay.
- [47:53]
Bill Kristol
I'm just the green room. Well, in our, in our fictional green, in our, what is it? Virtual green room.
- [47:59]
Ron Brownstein
In our virtual green room. There are virtual.
- [48:01]
Bill Kristol
Feel free to have some shrimp there in Los Angeles.
- [48:02]
Ron Brownstein
Thank you.
- [48:03]
Bill Kristol
All right.
- [48:04]
Ron Brownstein
All right. Bill, Good seeing you, Bill.
- [48:05]
Bill Kristol
Ron, good to see you. Thanks again and thank you all for joining us on Bull Work on Sunday.
- [48:10]
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Ron Brownstein
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