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A
El Sayed is more polished. The man hosts a podcast. Right? He's done. He has spent a lot of time talking in an environment where he has to come across more polished. So I think there is that contrast.
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B
I think we should say here that according to polling from, I don't know which group it was, podcast host is one of the least desirable attributes that a candidate can have. So Americans do not want people like us running for office.
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A
Good.
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B
I don't want to run for officer. Hello and welcome to the GD Politics podcast. I'm Galen Drew.
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Both parties are currently working to replace Graham's on the ballot for Senate this fall. Republicans are conducting a new primary in South Carolina after Lindsey Graham's Senate sudden
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B
death this past weekend.
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C
And Democrats are hosting a party convention
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B
in Maine after Graham Platner's withdrawal.
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C
Today, we're going to get into the
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race to replace both candidates and talk
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C
a little bit about the track record of replacement candidates. We're also going to check in on some key upcoming primaries. In Michigan, things are getting heated in the Democratic Senate primary between Haley Stevens and Abdul El Sayed with some new polling shaking up expectations this week. In Arizona, Representative Andy Biggs looks like he's on a glide path to winning the Republican nomination for governor this coming Tuesday. But before we get to any of
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B
that, we are going to start things
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off with a brand new 2026 midterm forecast from DDHQ and my former 538 colleague Jeffrey Skelly.
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B
A new forecast has entered the villa, as they say on Love island, my favorite trash summer TV show.
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C
Jeff, you are here with us now.
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B
Welcome back to the podcast.
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A
Hey, thank you, Galen. Thanks for having me. And yeah, you know, I've been getting a lot of Love island ads. I haven't really watched it. I've been watching most of the World cup on Telemundo and through Peacock. And they're constantly, I'm getting constantly barraged with Love island ads. And I'm like, this looks, it looks pretty entertaining. So I can understand why it's a draw.
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B
It's really good. I watch UK instead of us, you know, like a little European flavor or whatnot.
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A
Yeah.
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B
But I will say the forecast villa is getting very crowded. We have Vote Hub. I've talked to Zachary Denini of Vote Hub. I've talked to Laksha Jane of the Argument. We are talking. I know that Nate Silver is hard at work on his forecast, which is soon forthcoming. So the market for forecasts is going to be a rich one this fall. And I'M excited to dig into yours at DDHQ. So it currently shows Democrats with a 61% chance of winning the House and Republicans with a 58 chance of winning the Senate. First off, how does that jibe with your expectations for how these midterms might go before you set out to craft this forecast at dbhq?
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A
Yeah, so I think the Senate number, if you asked me where things were going to end up a few months ago, I've been like, eh, that seems reasonable in the sense that you have a somewhat Democratic leaning environment, but Republicans are defending mostly red leaning, if not very red turf. So Democrats don't have a lot of obvious targets and then the ones that are the obvious targets are ones where they're all sort of reach seats. So in that sense like 60, 40 ish. I mean honestly that might be better than Democrats might have expected six months ago or something. The House is maybe a little more surprising. I would have expected something closer to 70, 75 for. But you know what, you know, what really has been going on is that the generic ballot lead for Democrats has diminished a bit and it's actually down to three points in our average, which I know is slimmer than in some others. But even if you look at other averages where it's fallen to, you know, four, five, you know, this is down from seven, even eight in some averages. And so I think it's the decline of that is a contributor to this. And then of course redistricting it looks like from our forecast right now at least Republicans are in line to gain about five seats via redistricting. You know, with that in mind, that that's, that's sort of raised the floor for Republicans which puts them closer to a situation where they might be able to keep the House and has lowered the ceiling for Democrats. So I, you know, those factors contributing to that makes sense.
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B
Right. It essentially changes a situation from one in which Democrats need to win basically three seats in order to flip the House to one in which they need to flip eight seats approximately in order to flip the House. So the baseline moves up a little bit. I do you mentioned that you were a little surprised by the in the House forecast. I should mention that over at the argument which Laksha Jane has been working
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C
on, Democrats have an 80% chance of
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B
winning the House this fall. Over at Vote Hub, they have a 71% chance. Of course with you guys it's a 61% chance. So it's truly like pick your own adventure here. Amongst the different forecasts you can get 80, you can get 70, you can get 60. But in all seriousness, what's the difference? Like, why is your forecast more skeptical of Democrats chances than the other two?
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A
Well, you know, I don't know all the specific inputs and things that they're doing at the other two, but I would assume that generic ballot is part of it. Our generic ballot average, as it currently stands, is a little more bearish for Democrats or more bullish for Republicans, comparatively speaking, than some of the other averages.
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B
And why is that, by the way? Is it just that it weights the different polls differently?
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C
Does it consider some polls?
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A
Well, we consider pretty much every poll. I think it's down to, yeah. Certain methodological differences and the smoothing process in terms of like weighting certain things. I would say our polling average, the way it's set up is more straightforward, does not adjust things in some ways. Like you see it like 50 plus 1 or what have you. So there are just fundamental differences in how the averages work.
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B
As in like, it puts less emphasis on, like on House of X, for example, takes pull.
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A
Exactly. There's not a house of X aspect to our, to our.
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B
And then also does it move more quickly when new polling comes out?
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A
Yes, it definitely moves more quickly. So that, that is definitely an aspect of it. So, you know, I think there are pros and cons to any approach you take with polling averages. So.
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B
And all of you.
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A
Yeah, it's trade offs, you know, it's trade offs. So, you know, all told, you know, what these different forecasts suggest is that Democrats are favored, but I think they speak potentially to different worlds of just how favored. Here's the thing. We have the recent example of 2022 where our forecast might seem a bit more aligned with that, except from the Democratic perspective of oh, hey, they're favored to take back the House, but it's not as overwhelmingly as you might thought. And their average gain is in the low double digits right now. It's an 11 seat gain. And, and remember, Republicans gained nine seats in the 2022 midterms. So, you know, does that speak to a particularly polarized and very divided political environment that we are in? Yeah, I mean, there are other, could be other factors too. You know, the tr. Like what data the forecast models are trained on how far back they go, other considerations about how much those numbers or how much sort of variation there is across different variables that are included, how they're using campaign finance, how they're using a number of different things. And also prediction markets. You know, our forecast does use prediction markets. They can't be weighted more than 25% basically for each race that that's the maximum they can affect things. We essentially have fundamentals, which is, you know, people who are familiar with politics will know it's things like the partisan baseline of a seat. It's the generic ballot. It's, it's considerations about the, the political environment and the political nature, the electoral nature of the district or state in question. You then have the polling which, you know, for bigger races, obviously, like Senate, we've got, we'll have polling to incorporate or we already have polling to incorporate and then prediction market data. And so each one of them is, varies a little bit from, from race to race, depending on how much of that information we have of each of those three components, essentially. And actually if you look on our forecast, which I should mention is@votes.decisiondeskhq.com and or if you just search DDHQ votes, you will find it the forecast there. You can see actually if you click on like the Georgia Senate race right now, it says 57% of the forecast is based on the fundamentals. At the moment, 18% is on the polls and markets, 25%. We don't have as much polling in the Georgia Senate race. So that's probably one of the reasons why polling isn't as big a factor in that one. But as we get more, it'll be weighted more.
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B
We've had this conversation a little bit on the podcast because the argument does not include prediction market data, but Vote Hub does. So Laksha and Zach could debate amongst themselves a little bit. But what is your rationale for using prediction market data?
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A
The thought here is that prediction markets do have a track record of being helpful and useful for understanding what's going on. We are not using just one. We have like a blended version of the polymarket data and Kalshi data. Those are the two that we're using. And I should note that in terms also beyond just like not overweighting it and so keeping it a max effect of 25% or less on each race, I should note that we also adjust basically if a race doesn't have very much volume in those markets, it's, it's not really going to have much of an impact on, on what it's saying.
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C
But.
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A
Well, basically what we're, we're doing and I think a way of analogizing this to some of the stuff we did at 5:38. You know, we had like the polls plus version where you would add in the ratings outlets which were taking in like Sabine's Crystal Ball where I used to work or a Cook political report that was obviously an expert rating. This is maybe like a wisdom of the crowds rating, if you would. And so I think you could see that as a little bit of an analogy. Would I trust what Savage crystal ball is saying? Maybe over the wisdom of crowds? Possibly. But I do think that the prediction market data is rich and that there is a lot of it and this is a vein of data that we can tap into that gives us sort of a quicker response time also to some information. You know, for instance, like Graham Platner dropping out on paper actually good for Democrats probably. And the prediction markets actually reflected that. So instead of maybe the, the, the forecast running even hotter for Susan Collins, it, it has stabilized around 50, 50 right now while we wait to have a new nominee in Maine and have polling between who, whoever the Democrats that will then come in once we actually have enough of that.
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B
Yeah, I mean between the more reactive polling average and the more reactive nature of the forecast because it's looking at prediction markets. I do wonder and again I'm not the arbiter of who's building the best forecast here. I'm curious to talk to all of you and talk through the decisions that you've made. Does DDHQ's forecast maybe become the more reactive amongst the bunch of like when something happens it's changing quite a bit. But then over the long term ultimately like does that reflect an American politics that isn't as dynamic as markets or you know, midsummer polling of the generic ballot might suggest?
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A
Yeah, I mean I do think it is possible that ours will be a little bit more reactive or, or you know, if you look at sort of the trend line of probability of a party winning, maybe it moves around a little bit more. But at the same time, you know, I, I don't say it's dramatically different on that front. You know, it's, it's, at the end of the day a lot of the inputs that are going into this are relatively stable. So you know, especially most of the fundamentals data outside the generic ballot is relatively stable. So in that sense I don't think it's, it's necessarily like you're not going to see just like crazy shifts in our, in our data for sure to
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B
talk about even more competitors. And frankly our former boss Nietzsche was in the New York Times this week projecting, I guess it was asking different political analysts to project what they think Democrats House popular vote margin will be in the fall. And Nate, amongst all the different folks that they asked, they asked, you know, longtime contributor to the 538 politics podcast, Carlos Odillo. They asked Perry Bacon Jr. Who used to be on the 538 politics podcast. They asked Lynn Vavreck, who was also on the pod. They basically took the 530 politics podcast roster and asked them all how, who they thought would win and by how much.
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C
And Nate projected Democrats winning the House
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popular vote by 11 points. Carlos Odeo was 10 points. Perry Bacon Jr. Was more like 5 points. You know, I'm curious not to pit you against our former boss, but like, what do you think is going on there?
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A
Well, I mean, this is where I think a big question mark and I'm sure Nate was thinking about this in part. Is, is a generic ballot going to move more as we get closer to the fall in part because more pollsters are releasing likely voter data? Is it a thought that some pollsters are still thinking too much about 2024 and not enough about 2026? Because, you know, if I'm thinking about like where I think that the generic ballot average is going to be, I do think it's probably going to end up being a bit better for Democrats than where it is right now at plus three. I don't know if it's going to be like plus seven or plus eight. But I, you know, it was stuck at five for a while and that feels reasonable to me. Maybe it goes a little bit above that, maybe it's a little below. But I, for me, 11 feels like a lot. And especially because I do think we have the 2022 example. We know midterm turnout is probably going to be pretty high for a midterm. Now I know it's not nearly as high as a presidential, but we've had, we've been in this run of high, high turnout for midterms, midterms. And that I think does reduce some of the big swing because, because basically you're just in a situation where like differential turnout from a lot more Democrats showing up or something maybe isn't as big a thing because more Republicans at a baseline are showing up and vice versa in 2022, for instance. And there's also maybe an argument to be had that in places like Michigan and the Republicans focus on a lot of these more left wing candidates who've been winning on the Democratic side, are they able to make a case, sort of like Democrats made in 2022 about like the Dobbs decision and overturning Roe v. Wade it that like one side is just too extreme or something, and then that actually is maybe lowering the, the ceiling for the party that's out of power. I, I could see a lot of arguments for, for any of that.
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B
Well, you brought up Dobbs, and I was actually going to ask you about that next. You point to 2022 as an example of why we might expect less significant swings in midterm elections. That seemed pretty outside the norm. And I think a lot of folks just pointed to the Dobbs decision as really juicing Democratic enthusiasm because usually when you are the out party, you feel like the system is working against you and you're pissed off and you need to get out and vote. But the Dom's decision made Democrats feel like the out party in a certain way vis a vis the Supreme Court. And they got really enthusiastic and felt like they needed to turn out and vote. And there were already a bunch of these referenda happening in states where people were literally voting on abortion access in those states. And so I think a lot of analysis has suggested 2022 is unique to Dobbs. The same time Democrats now have a coalition that is, has higher propensity voters as well, which could have helped them in 2022. And if you go back to 2018, which is ultimately not that long ago, we haven't become that much more polarized since 2018. You do see a dramatic swing where the out party is moving strongly against the incumbent. And, and if anything, this cycle, if there's a big news story that perhaps changes people's perceptions of politics, it might be the war with Iran, which, by the way, has restarted. And to the extent that it continues and continues to muck up traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, probably contributes to an increase in prices, at least at the pump, and perhaps trickling down to consumer prices across the board. And so I wonder, given that how much 2022 is actually relevant to 2026. You know, the, the joy of all of this is that we will find out these things will be answerable.
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A
Exactly.
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B
And I do take your point about Republicans really emphasizing the rise of socialism within the Democratic Party. And obviously for the median voter for the majority of voters, that's not popular. But I wonder if that's on the level of war where the Iran and Dobbs decision at the Supreme Court.
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A
It doesn't, I don't want to overstate that by any means. I'm just saying that if you were, if you're sort of thinking about how do you present the party that should be in a position to capitalize on the fact that the out of power party, do they have some, some countervailing wins that. That could play a role in diminishing what they can gain? I think the other thing, and you mentioned 2018 and Democrats gained 40 seats in the House. I think the other thing is that the problem for Democrats is the out party right now is that their target list is actually pretty limited in the House. And part of that is down. People, you know, obviously people can talk about gerrymandering, but part of it's also just like sorting. There are like the number of district. I mean, what. There are three seats. President Trump won the national popular vote by a point and a half, and there are three Republicans in seats that Kamala Harris won. Whereas in 2018 there were, I forget off top of my head, but I think there were 15 or something Republican incumbents and Clinton won seats. So it's like in terms of your just initial sort of target list, obvious places that could swing in a midterm environment against the president's party, you're starting out with a baseline where Democrats have to make more inroads in places that Trump carried. Now, they certainly can. Especially, you know, if, let's say Democrats win by like five points or something, give or take, that's about a six and a half point swing from 2024 is just a back of the envelope kind of calculation. And so, yeah, that would bring plenty of seats that, that President Trump carried by, you know, fewer than five points or something into Democratic leaning turf. And on top of that, what was interesting in 2024 is that in some cases, President Trump actually did a lot better than some of the Republican candidates in some of these key races. You know, you think like Wisconsin's third, like Derek Van Orden, only narrowly won reelection there, even as Trump was carrying that seat by like 8 points. So you do have like an electorate that might be more open to a Democratic candidate and for the House particularly, or, or a Democrat not named or a Democrat when there's not Trump on the ballot. Right. So I, I think for me it's that the playing field is just narrower. And the redistricting wars that we've seen in this cycle have not helped with that. They have only made it narrower at the end of the day. So that I think that's an important contributing factor as well to maybe limiting the ceiling that Democrats can reach. Now, look, if Democrats end up with like, if, if Nate is almost right, if Democrats win the House bottom vote by like 10 or 11 points, some of those seats that seem a little out of reach for Democrats, maybe they do flip, maybe like a South Carolina one, which is a seat that, that President Trump carried by like 10 or 10, 11, I forget off top of my head, but low double digits, maybe that's a seat that does flip in this kind of environment. Right. And if that's the case, then, you know, maybe Democrats do have more upside, but they probably need something like that to achieve something more in line with what they did in 2018.
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B
Yeah. And just to add a piece of data to your argument, I think people have probably seen headlines about really big shifts, swings back towards the left amongst young voters and Latino voters and the like. And it's important to keep in mind those are amongst the lowest propensity voters, particularly in a midterm. And so the wins might be shifting against President Trump en masse. But how many of those people are high propensity voters who show up to vote in a midterm? We're going to find out. I mean, you've already suggested that this midterm could be a high turnout midterm. We're in a period of high turnout elections overall. So we, we will see. I mean, if, for example, in general, 18 to 29 year olds don't frequently vote in midterms. They just don't. But if they were to, to for some reason turn out en masse in this midterm, you could get something closer to what Nate is talking about because that is a part of the electorate that has shifted quite dramatically since 2024.
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A
Yeah. And what's interesting there is like, you know, that's where I'm, I'm watching to see if pollsters are picking something up like that. Right. As they do likely voter shift. If they shift more fully into likely voter mode. Are they. Now that obviously comes with its own risks because how do you identify a likely voter? Right. Different pollsters have different methods, but some of the best ones are able to pick up that someone might be a likely voter who doesn't meet maybe the criteria of having voted in the last three elections or something. Right. Like, or, you know, those kinds of, those kinds of metrics. So in, in those cases, it will be interesting to see if you do have some, you know, some, some notable pollsters coming out with like, oh, Democrats by nine or something, because maybe that would be indicative of something like that happening. And obviously we have the recent example with like, you know, it was New York City, so I don't want to say it's like the rest of the country, but you know, you can find candidates and causes that do generate higher turnout among younger voters than you'd expect in an off year election. So I'm certainly not ruling any of that out.
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B
Yeah, we talked a little bit about the impact of mid cycle redistricting on the odds of both parties sort of winning control of the House. Looking at your forecast, how much do Democrats need to win the House popular vote by in order to win the chamber? Because I think we were looking at an environment where it was pretty unbiased, like in the 2000 teens. We got used to a House bias in favor of Republicans because of some of the gerrymanders standarding that happened after the 2010 midterms where Republicans did really well, won control of a bunch of state legislatures and had the opportunity to redraw maps after 2020 that was less the case and there was less bias in House maps. What are we looking at now?
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A
Yeah, so you are, you are 100% right that essentially before the redistricting battle was going on, the median seat was Arizona's first Congressional District, which is.
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C
That's the end of today's preview. Head over to GDPolitics.com to become a paid subscriber and catch the full episode. Jeff and I spoke for a little over an hour. We talked about the Republican bias in this year's House map. We also spent some time discussing the topsy turvy Michigan Senate primary, what to make of wildly diverging polls there, arguments about each candidate's electability in the general election, and both Haley Stevens's and Abdul said style of campaigning.
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B
There have been some viral videos making the rounds. I know.
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C
We also checked in on how the replacement process is going for the Senate races in Maine and South Carolina. It was a really good episode, if
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B
I do say so myself today.
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C
Like I said, head over to GDPolitics.com to catch the whole thing. For eight bucks a month or 80 bucks a year, you'll get twice the number of episodes and we'll help ensure we can keep making an independent podcast again. That's GDPolitics. Com.
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B
Hope to see you there.