Loading summary
Transcript129 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hey there listeners.
- [00:01]
B
Before we get started, I wanted to give you a heads up that we have a live show coming up at the Comedy Cellar in New York City on May 13th. We're getting the gang together. Nate Silver and Claire Malone will be joining me to talk about the state of politics, the midterms, the Trump administration. As always, we'll play some games and take questions from the audience. I'm going to drop a link in the show notes.
- [00:23]
A
So grab a ticket, grab a beer
- [00:24]
B
and come join us on May 13th.
- [00:27]
A
All right, here's the show. You're very chipper for it being 8:30 in the morning.
- [00:32]
C
I'm trying not the Nathaniel I'm trying
- [00:34]
A
not the Nathaniel I'm used to from 5:38 days who is not up before 9 o'. Clock.
- [00:40]
C
I got you up early. I was like, I am going to be ready. We're going to do this. You know, this is my, this is all natural, baby too. No coffee. I am just, I'm just excited to face the week.
- [00:51]
A
Well, I'm happy that one of us can say it's all natural. Hello and welcome to the GD Politics Podcast. I'm Galen Druc.
- [01:12]
B
On Tuesday, Virginians are heading to the polls to decide whether to gerrymander the state as part of Democrats response to
- [01:18]
A
Republicans push to for mid decade redistricting.
- [01:21]
B
If the measure passes, the state could
- [01:23]
A
go from having six Democratic seats and
- [01:25]
B
five Republican seats to having 10 Democratic seats and just one Republican seat. But it's a big if. Polling shows a closely divided public. Florida legislators, for their part, are planning to kick off a special session next week to determine whether or how to gerrymander the state. Though recent over performances by Democrats makes
- [01:45]
A
the task a bit trickier.
- [01:47]
B
Once those two states determine their paths forward, we should finally, in the middle of primary season, have a sense of what the 2026 congressional maps will look like. That's what we're gonna talk about today. We'll also check in on election law questions more broadly, Republicans attempt to pass the Save America Act, Trump's executive orders and the decisions yet to be made
- [02:08]
A
at the Supreme Court.
- [02:09]
B
And time permitting, we will get into
- [02:11]
A
the midterms of horse race. Here with me to do it all
- [02:14]
B
is Nathaniel Rakic, managing editor of Vote Beat.
- [02:16]
A
Welcome to the podcast, Nathaniel.
- [02:18]
C
Hi Galen. It's so good to be with you here at 8:30 in the morning on Monday.
- [02:22]
A
It's lovely to have you. I'm glad we could do this bright and early and I know it's your
- [02:27]
C
favorite time to record my Favorite time
- [02:29]
A
to record a podcast and it's been a minute, so I am genuinely happy to see you.
- [02:33]
C
You too.
- [02:34]
A
Before we dive into this election nerd extravaganza, can we talk for a moment about Trump's standing and the politics of the Iran war? We kind of skipped over it, our calendar of podcasts last week, although we talked about it a little bit by way of the economy. I'm curious, has anything changed as regards the politics of the Iran war and Trump's standing with the American public?
- [02:59]
C
Well, I feel like we need one of those, you know, those websites. It's like, you know, like, is Barbra Streisand dead.com or whatever. I feel like we need one of those websites that's like, is the straight of hermuze open.com.
- [03:09]
A
i think it isn't that Liza Minnelli. I don't think it's.
- [03:11]
C
You're right.
- [03:12]
A
Liza Minnelli has outlasted. Yeah. Killing Barbra Streisand at 8:30 in the morning on a Monday. God, Nathaniel. Yeah, I think it's like Liza Minnelli has outlasted X, Y, whatever institution. You know, the rule of law in Hungary. Well, I guess the rule of law in Hungary has maybe outlast Liza Minnelli after last week's election results.
- [03:35]
C
Right. But yeah, we, we basically saw, you know, over the weekend, it was just like alert after alert that was like, oh, you know, the strait is back open. And then it's like, oh, wait, Iran has taken back control of the strait. And so it's obviously a very volatile situation as these international affairs tend to be in terms of the politics. It seems like he's kind of Trump, I should say, has kind of like bottomed out or at least at this level of bottom. You know, we don't know how far it could go, especially if, you know, the gas price issue continues to dog him. But according to the Silver Bulletin average, he's at 40% approval and 56% disapproval, which of course is like fairly similar to the numbers that we have been citing for him and frankly since his first term. But that is like near his second term low. But it is largely unchanged since it looks like basically the beginning of April.
- [04:23]
A
Yeah, I was thinking about, I was listening to the Dixie Chicks this weekend and the song Traveling Soldier came on.
- [04:30]
C
You mean the chicks?
- [04:32]
A
Sure.
- [04:33]
B
Because also if somebody told me like,
- [04:34]
A
I was listening to the chicks this weekend, I'd be like, that's a rude way to refer to women.
- [04:41]
C
That's true. You can't. You gotta like, get. Make sure the capital letter comes across in your diction.
- [04:46]
B
Traveling Soldier came on, and I was
- [04:47]
A
like, you know, interestingly, of course, that's the song that they played right after they said that they were ashamed that George W. Bush was from Texas. There were protests. This was in London. There were protests happening in London at the time. There were protests happening domestically as well. This was all surrounding the Iraq war. And it made me think, you know, at that moment in time, the Iraq war was a lot more popular than the war in Iran, yet there were protests not just in the United States, but across the globe against US Military action in Iraq.
- [05:22]
B
And I'm just kind of curious what
- [05:25]
A
the relationship is there. Why we haven't seen more of a physical manifestation of the disapproval. We see it in the polls and we see it in election results, but we don't really see it in the streets.
- [05:39]
C
So I think a couple of things about that. One is that we are obviously seeing it in the streets much more broadly, right. You see these semi regular no Kings protests against Trump in general. And I think for Democrats or people who are inclined to oppose Trump, there is a lot to oppose, not just, you know, an international war. I think actually probably a lot of Democrats would argue that there are worse things that Trump is doing in terms of kind of the erosion of democracy and that sort of thing. So I think, you know, there. I. There hasn't been. I believe. I'm not actually don't remember the exact timing of the war versus the last protest, but I'm not sure there has been a no Kings protest since the beginning of the war. But I bet you there'll be a lot of signs about the war the next time a no Kings protest rolls along. So that's the one thing. And then I think I would say that, quite frankly, the title of that chick song is. Is a big clue. Travel and Soldier. Right? We know from political science research that one of the things that really makes Americans care about international affairs is when American soldier or like, on the ground and like dying in a place. There is this famous paper that looked at basically like the number of deaths in. I forget which war it was, but I think maybe it was Vietnam was correlated with the incumbent parties, like losses in a county by county by county in the next election. And so I think that is really a very important part of it. And while obviously the Iran war isn't popular, as you point out, I think a big part of that is the. The gas prices and the economic impact that is having. And obviously we know Americans care about that. We saw that in the 2024 election. But I do think that there is a psychological difference when there are American coffins coming back, which thankfully hasn't happened in large number so far. And obviously there hasn't been a ground invasion yet. So I think that that is a big part of it as well. So, like, in terms of making the war a really distinguishing feature of the Trump administration protest again, as opposed to all the other stuff that's going on.
- [07:40]
A
Yeah, I've read some analysis, you know, almost been moaning the fact coming from the left. I read a piece in the Times, I believe it was last week, basically saying, where are all the protests? And I do wonder from a political perspective, you know, we live in the United States of America. The First Amendment stands. People should get out and speak their piece on whatever issues they want to speak their piece. But simply from like a raw politics perspective, I do wonder if there, there was a mass protest movement around this war, if that would quell some of the dissent or civil warring that we see within the Republican Party, because it seems like when Democrats are out in the streets, it reminds the public what they don't like about Democrats sometimes.
- [08:31]
C
Certainly Republicans.
- [08:32]
A
Yeah, certainly Republicans. And can maybe create a sort of rallying effect, rally around the flag, the president, et cetera. And maybe in this particular instance, it could be a reminder of 2020 or what have you. So I wonder if when liberals bemoan the fact that there aren't mass protests out in the streets, if actually the fact that there isn't is in some ways helping their cause. I don't know. That's a hot take. I mean, we do have social science research suggesting that civil unrest can lead to a backlash and has led to a backlash in elections in the past. So. Yeah, I, that was, that was one thing I was thinking about when I was seeing this, this narrative.
- [09:16]
C
Yeah, I think there's definitely, obviously a lot of empirical backing for the idea that when your side is threatened, you know, the kind of in group, out group thing, then you kind of rush to their defense. And, and I think that is probably true that as long as the kind of the discontent with the war is focused around basically everybody, you know, everybody drives pretty much and ever. So there is a universality to that discontent. But if it turns into the discontent being on, maybe like more moral and it's from right, like you say, kind of like, you know, activists in the streets, that could, I think that is. It makes sense that that could coalesce Republicans more.
- [09:52]
A
Yeah, I mean, Certainly going back to my original reason for thinking about this this weekend, of course, the Dixie Chicks talking about being ashamed that George W. Bush is from Texas led to a massive backlash and people burning their CDs outside of public buildings and bulldozing piles of albums and things like that. You know, you could call it the first cancellation of the 21st century, but obviously there was, it was a cause for circling the wagons in a sense. All right, anyway, now that I have that off my chest, let's continue with our election nerd extravaganza. And we're going to talk about Virginia first, where folks are deciding on Tuesday whether to gerrymander the state first. What exactly does the Virginia amendment do?
- [10:41]
C
You so this Virginia is one of the states that has a. It's not quite independent redistricting commission. It's a redistricting commission. I guess I would call it a bipartisan one. And so, you know, and that's baked into the state constitution. But this is an amendment to the constitution similar to California's that would basically let the legislature override that for now, for this decade to put in place their own map, which as you mentioned, is a very aggressive Democratic gerrymander to fight all of the other mostly Republican led states that have done this.
- [11:11]
A
What do the polls show about how Virginians are reacting to this?
- [11:17]
C
So they show a tighter race. Tighter than in California, I should say, which makes sense. You know, in California we saw a electoral map that was very similar to the kind of normal partisan like presidential map that we see in California. But the redistricting amendment did end up doing about 10 points better than Kamala Harris. You don't see that kind of overperformance so far, at least in the Virginia polls. We'll obviously see what the ultimate results are. But for instance, the most recent poll, poll, which is from State Navigate, which I should note did a very good job with the polling of Virginia in the 2025 elections. They have the amendment ahead 51 to 45%. So six points. But there was a previous the previous poll in early April from Neighborhood Research actually had basically a dead heat, 45 to 46. So there was actually 1 percentage point more people saying they would vote against it. I should obviously put out the caveat that it can be very hard to pull these ballot measures. Right. Do you ask the full text of the question? Do summarize it. If you summarize it, how can you do it in a way that is fair or is it can you do it in a way that at least kind of reflects how the debate is evolving and stuff like that. Because we know, for instance, that Americans generally don't like gerrymandering and like fair districts, but we also know that they partisans in particular, are responsive to arguments that, you know, well, the other side is doing it, so we might as well do it. So it is pretty tricky, you know, just kind of looking at an average of the polls over the last month so. The two previous polls were a plus 5 for the amendment and then a plus 9 for the amendment. So overall, it looks like it's on track to pass maybe by single digits, which I think tracks with kind of what we know about Virginia's partisanship. I believe that Harris won it by six points, but, yeah, but it'll be worth watching for sure. It is not a slam dunk.
- [13:02]
A
Although Abigail Spanberger did win the governorship by 15 points.
- [13:07]
C
Yes, she did.
- [13:08]
A
So I guess I'm curious what the contours of the arguments are. Is sort of the original Texas redistricting far enough in the rearview mirror that this is no longer just a. About reacting to Republican gerrymandering and is more gerrymandering on its own merits or even a referendum on Abigail Spanberger's, you know, first several months in office, Is it becoming nationalized as these things are want to do?
- [13:35]
C
Yes, it's still very much about Texas and, you know, Trump and the Republican, mostly Republican, led effort to redraw congressional maps and the kind of the nationalized fight. You have Barack Obama, you know, urging Virginians, Republicans and Democrats in particular, to, you know, to, to support the amendment, to, to fight back against Trump. You know, that's a lot of the rhetoric is about, you know, kind of like sticking it to Trump. I, I take your point that because it has been a minute actually since any state redrew its maps, Right? It was the, the six that happened in 2025, and it's been several months since then. But if anything, it's gotten more wrapped up into this whole anti Trump movement than kind of reverting to a general state of like, oh, in theory, we everywhere. I will say, though, everybody is trying to claim the mantle of Fair Maps. So the two groups that are like, fundraising and spending money for it are Virginians for Fair Elections. That's the Democratic one. And Virginians for Fair Maps, that's the Republican one. So if you're a voter in Virginia and you hear ads from Virginians for Fair Elections versus Virginians for Fair Maps, like, you could be excused for being like, wait, which one is the. Is the Fair map here. So that is kind of funny, although not funny because, because you want people to be well informed about what they're voting on. But it does look again, based on the polling, like people know what is what's up here and it's probably just going to break down along partisan lines. It's also an April special election essentially in a state that doesn't normally hold those elections. And so I think anybody who is going to turn out in this is somebody who's already pretty, pretty politically engaged and is aware of what's going on.
- [15:14]
A
Yeah. To add to the confusion, both sides are sending out literature with the image of Barack Obama and quotes from him. So I guess it's Virginians for Fair Maps, which is, I guess the Republican side of the equation is quoting Barack Obama talking about how gerrymandering damages democracy and whatnot, which is an actual quote and how Democrats felt. And then Virginians for Fair Elections are sending out the endorsement from Barack Obama of voting yes on the amendment and also with his image. So a bit of confusion there. We'll of course see how it all nets out Tuesday night. Florida was also planning on making decisions this week about redistricting. It postponed its special session to next week, April 28, and also tacked on the issues of AI and vaccines. You know, spitballing here. Maybe you add to the pile because the main issue redistricting has become a bit more complicated and controversial for Republicans in Florida. I don't know. But also, I'm sure AI and vaccines are worthwhile topics to discuss as well. What would have to happen for Florida to redistrict before the midterms? I mean, do you, do you think it's liable to start the process to start in earnest next week?
- [16:36]
C
I mean, it's interesting. The assumption for months has been that Florida would join the kind of redistricting wars. Right. They are the big Republican weapon that has not yet been deployed. And Democrats have fought back in a way that I think like nobody was really expecting. Right. The California map passed and certainly if the Virginia map passes, Democrats are going to be on net the like winners of the redistricting wars so far. Right. Depending what happens in Florida. But you know, they will have gotten gained more seats through this redistricting process than Republicans will have. But I think Florida Republicans are in a tricky spot for a few different reasons. So one is that in other states in particular, I'm thinking of Texas here. Right. It has been to Republicans advantage to say loud and proud, hey, we are doing this to pick up seats in the House of Representatives. We want to gerrymander the partisan gerrymander the hell out of this map. Because the legal challenges to the Texas map in particular were race based. Right? It was like the idea that you are discriminating against voters of color. And as long as they say, no, no, no, this is completely partisan, we're not discriminating against people based on their race according to, like, federal judicial standards, that's completely fine and that's completely legal. And the Texas map was upheld at the Supreme Court for that reason. In Florida, the state constitution specifically prohibits drawing maps based on partisanship. So they can't just go out there and be like, we're doing this for partisan gain. They have to come up with some other reason. And that has been hard for them to find. And I think that the one that they are kind of hoping will pan out is that the Supreme Court will drop its decision in the Calais case, which is the case that is threatening the Voting Rights Act. And if that happens, then any state can basically be like, oh, well, there's new information from the Supreme Court. We got to draw our districts accordingly. But I don't think that decision is going to come down before, like, June. And I think that may have been the reason why they have postponed the special session to, like, maybe hope that it comes out, like, you know, next week or something like that. But it's gonna be really interesting to see what they do if it doesn't. And if they come, if they try to go ahead with gerrymandering and come up with some other reason, if maybe drop it entirely, especially, especially if the Virginia referendum loses, I could actually see them doing that. If the Virginia referendum wins, then obviously I think the pressure is going to be on. And I would imagine that Trump would weigh in as well. The other tricky thing is that there have been a lot of special elections, as you noted, Galen, where Democrats have done really, really well this year, including a couple in Florida where they flipped seats. And I think that a lot of Republicans in particular in Florida are a little freaked out by that. And the Florida map is already pretty gerrymandered for Republicans. I think that, you know, there was an article in Politico a couple days after those state legislative flips that Democrats had a couple weeks ago. And it basically quoted several sitting members of Congress being like, yeah, like, you know, I don't know, like, if you're going to add Republican seats, you're going to make those margins pretty thin. And obviously these are the guys who would stand to potentially be endangered and they don't want to run in a competitive election. So, you know, I think that if they do end up drawing a map, it'll probably also be more muted than it would have been six months ago when we were really talking about the gerrymandering wars.
- [19:54]
A
Yeah, I mean, how many seats could Florida Republicans reasonably add to the roster?
- [19:59]
C
The real question is reasonably, right. You know, I mean, back in the day I was seeing speculation about five more Republican seats, but that is very clearly risky. I think that two or three is more the sweet spot. I, I think frankly two is probably the farthest they could go without really rolling the dice. Like you can, you can take, combine the two blue districts in Orlando, you can get another Trump seat in South Florida. Florida is, is redder now than it was after the 2020 redistricting. So they have a little bit of room to play with. But beyond that, you're starting to cut the existing Republican seats into like, yeah, like single digit margins for Republicans. And in a blue wave year those might flip and it might become an actual dummy mander. So I guess I'd be surprised if they go more. I wouldn't be surprised if they just don't redraw at all.
- [20:49]
A
You made some reference to the idea that Democrats could be the net beneficiaries of this mid decade redistricting fight. How is it netting out at the moment? And how would Virginia change the math?
- [21:03]
C
In prepping for this? I did a little exercise, you know, and we've, we've talked about how it kind of like roughly nets out even as it is right now, which is, it's hard to kind of make an exact figure because like there are places like Texas and California where there are kind of these so called auto flips, quote unquote, where it's like you've turned a safely Democratic seat into a safely Republican seat in the case of Texas, or vice versa in the case of California. And so you can very easily just add those to the other column. But then there are places like Ohio where like they made Marcy Captor's seat a little bit redder and like if she ends up losing by like one point, you can say that was because of gerrymandering. But like, you can't say that like that's like a full flip because of gerrymandering either. So I did this little exercise where I basically like looked at how our friends at Inside Elections change their ratings in every seat based on redistricting. Basically, if it went from solid R to solid D, I gave Democrats credit for one whole seat. But if it went from like lean Democratic to solid Democratic, I gave them like a quarter seat. And so when you do that exercise, Democrats end up ahead currently as it stands right now, by five eighths of a seat. So I think you can roughly say that that is an even thing. Now, if the Virginia measure passes, that map will add like three, I think, think you could have to call it three Democratic seats because the changes to the second district, like they call it a 101 map, and it very well could elect 10 Democrats and one Republican. But the changes to the second district are so minimal that I don't think you could say that was because of redistricting. That's already a swing district. I should say that is held by a Republican who will maybe probably lose. So if the Virginia map passes, then I think you are looking at a gain of three to four seats for Democrats nationally based on redistrict shifting.
- [22:44]
A
There's been a lot of focus nationally and even on this podcast so far about how this nets out from a partisan perspective. But there's also a question about how this nets out from a competitive elections perspective, which is ultimately how democracy holds people accountable, is that people have to fight for their seats and can't just. Just presume that they will be reelected. How much of a decline has this all caused in competitive seats?
- [23:18]
C
Yeah, so I did the same exact exercise with the inside elections ratings, except I took the partisanship out of it. So basically I was like, if a seat goes from, you know, a toss up to solid, then like, that's one net competitive seat loss. Right. And then, you know, the partial stepwise thing too, and I was a little surprised. So so far we have lost two competitive seats on that, which, you know, is not good, but it's also not as bad as it could be. And I think a lot of that is because in order to flip certain seats outright, you know, Democrats and Republicans have had to slightly weaken some of their existing seats. So you have seen a lot of kind of like solid Republican to likely Republican rating shifts, you know, and it probably won't matter, but like, maybe those candidates do have to run like legitimate campaigns, which obviously is good for democracy and for competition. So it hasn't turned out to be quite as bad along that front as I think think we were worried about. But, you know, again, you'd still rather see, I think, more competitive seats than, than less.
- [24:18]
A
I do want to say, though, that this is all in the context of what people are expecting to be a wave election year. So and you know waves happen, but they don't happen every cycle. And so if you were to take Democrats advantages out of the equation this year, which are part of Cook's analysis inside elections in some, yeah, you might see more of a decline in compet seats because you're saying, well some people have to run a race in earnest, but they're running a race in earnest because more in more earnest I guess because of the threats posed by Democrats advantages in this current environment. And maybe two years from now that won't be the case. And so we will see that on net there was a larger decline in competitive seats than just looking at this cycle.
- [25:08]
C
That is true. I haven't looked at how many seats fall into kind of the D plus 5 to R plus 5 range, which is how we defined competitive seats back at 538. I think it is worth noting though that like for instance the Virginia map, you know, is kind of the opposite in that it creates seats that are probably going to be easy for Democrats to hold slash win in 2026, but might be more competitive in a future cycle. Right. So like the new 6th district is only a D plus 3 seat and like Democrats I think would be able to hold that very easily now. But like that would be a competitive seat in the context of just looking at the raw partisanship. So I don't think it's quite as as simple as that. And you know, I say this as no fan of gerrymandering, to be clear, but you know, it is true that in order to make gains in one seat, you have to make losses in another seat. And so it's not quite as simple as we're just eliminating all the competitive seats.
- [25:59]
B
Today's podcast is brought to you by you, the listeners. GD Politics simply wouldn't exist without paid subscribers. Paid subscribers like Jonathan, who recently sent me this message. Hey Galen, Just got a notification from Substack that my subscription will be renewing
- [26:15]
A
in the next few days.
- [26:16]
B
Normally when I get renewal notices, I roll my eyes and wish that particular thing was free, but I could not be more excited for my subscription to renew and for you to get paid.
- [26:26]
A
Once again.
- [26:26]
B
Your podcasts are highlights of my week and allow me to stay abreast of the news in a way that helps
- [26:31]
A
me understand the forces behind it.
- [26:33]
B
I'm a happy, satisfied and excited subscriber. As long as you continue recording, I'll continue subscribing.
- [26:39]
A
Well, Jonathan, I'm flattered, but more to
- [26:42]
B
the point, people like Jonathan make this podcast possible. Your Support means we can make an independent podcast guided by curiosity, rigor and a sense of humor. Paid subscribers get about twice the number of episodes and can join in the paid subscriber chat. You can also connect your personal feed to your favorite podcast player. So you get every single episode paid, unpaid, all of them, wherever you listen to podcasts. Become a paid subscriber today@gdpolitics.com there's never been a better time to join the community. That's GDPolitics.com hope to see you there.
- [27:17]
A
Let's talk about the Supreme Court because we still have some key decisions yet to be made there. You mentioned Calais. We can expand on what the court is deciding in that case. And also are there any other cases regarding redistricting that we're waiting for?
- [27:34]
C
Not regarding redistricting. The, I mean Calais is, is has the potential to be such a big case that, you know, we don't really need any more redistricting cases. That'll, that'll be our, our fill for about a decade perhaps. You know, as probably listeners know by now, this is the case that basically holds the fate of the Voting Rights act in its hands is based on a challenge to the Louisiana congressional map, which it's been had a long and complicated history, but basically Louisiana used to have or it 6 congressional districts in the past. One of those seats was a black opportunity district. Democratic held folks sued because Louisiana can support a second black opportunity district and according to the Voting Rights act, you have to do that if it's possible. That case won and so they drew another black opportunity seat. But it was drawn in so kind of convoluted of a way that it was arguably a racial gerrymander. And you know, just to take a step back, back the kind of the jurisprudence right now on race based redistricting is very complicated and sticky and basically requires you to live in this narrow zone between. You have to take race into account a little bit to avoid discriminating against voters of color. But you can't do it too much because that would violate the 14th Amendment. And so it's very tricky. And I think that a lot of people, you know, in particular the conservatives on the court would like to kind of sort that out out. But basically this is the challenge.
- [29:00]
A
Well, because the argument from conservatives is like Democrats just use this law to get districts drawn where they can and have sort of argued to change the rules as we go. Like at one point it had to be a straight majority of the minority group that you're trying to represent. But no, now it has to just be an opportunity district, which means that the minority group that you're trying to represent makes up the majority in the primary electorate and then can join with other voters who agree with their preferences differences.
- [29:29]
C
They have to have the opportunity to
- [29:31]
A
elect the person of their choice, et cetera, et cetera. And so it, it is quite complicated. And conservatives would argue that Democrats are just using this in a partisan fashion. But then of course, partisanship and race are highly related in American politics. So where do you make the distinction in terms of what is a partisan, what is a racial determination, which you talked about the complications of that earlier in the podcast. And so this is, as you've already said, a complicated matter.
- [30:02]
C
Yeah. So basically, I think the court is expected to issue a fairly sweeping ruling, not just about Louisiana's map, but about the legality of the entire Voting Rights Act. Obviously, given the composition of the court, I think the general expectation is that they are going to either declare the VRA unconstitutional or kind of cripple it in a way that makes sense, makes it like, not usable by Democrats and voting rights groups to, to do exactly what you say, Galen, and try to get more seats for themselves. You know, we, there are tea leaves, essentially.
- [30:34]
A
There would be no such thing as a VR A district anymore. There would be no.
- [30:38]
C
Right.
- [30:38]
A
Black or Hispanic or even in California Asian opportunity districts.
- [30:42]
C
Right. That is the, I mean, to be clear, we don't know. But the, the kind of conventional wisdom I think is that the court is going to, to rule in some ways that, that does that.
- [30:51]
A
And is that based on oral arguments? Like, why do people, why is that the conventional wisdom?
- [30:56]
C
I think it's based, so there, it's based on a few things. So like, yes, you know, we know that there are members on the court who have been skeptical of the Voting Rights act in the past. You know, this is not certainly the first Voting Rights act case that they have decided, but also, you know, in oral arguments, expressed skepticism about race based redistricting. There is the fact that this case was very unusually re argued. So they initially basically brought a more narrow challenge to the Louisiana congressional map and they did a whole argument in front of the Supreme Court. We thought we were gonna get a ruling last year, but then the court was like, no, we want to hear new arguments about this. And, and basically like, we're interested in this broader question about the legality of like race based redistricting. And that was strange because it's like, why would you, it's almost like begging the question, right? Like, why Are you asking lawyers to come make an argument that nobody was making before unless you wanted to find in favor of that argument? An interesting little tid is that there have only been a handful of cases in the history of the Supreme Court that have been re argued in this way. One was Brown v. Board of Education. And so they tend to be bigger cases. So I think they are kind of like gearing back to make a big swing. The other tea leaf is that Justices tend to kind of evenly distribute the cases that they write based on the sitting of the session, Supreme Court session at which the cases were argued and the October session at which the Clay case was argued. The only justice who hasn't written yet a decision is Sam Alito, and he, of course, is one of the most conservative members of the Court and one of the ones who has been the most hostile to the vra. So if he is writing that decision, it's probably going to come out in a way that makes Republicans happy.
- [32:37]
A
Also, just thinking about how the Court views the use of race in public policy, it is a sticky subject that sometimes, sometimes the public will say, I don't really like this, but, you know, I do like sort of the outcome of it, which is that we live in a world where there is more diverse representation in Congress or there are more diverse college campuses or what have you. And so, you know, one of the main arguments in favor of affirmative action and the VRA is, yes, it may be uncomfortable to make racial considerations in the process, but you can't argue with the, the fact that it worked. I mean, before the Voting Rights act, there was very little black representation in Congress. After the Voting Rights act, we had the most black representation that we had seen since Reconstruction. That was also, I mean, that's also been the case on college campuses where colleges were able to make their student bodies much more diverse as a result of affirmative action. The Supreme Court, as folks already know, struck down racial considerations in college admissions. If you're going to apply that same logic to the Voting Rights act, then perhaps that should be the expectation.
- [33:52]
C
Yes, I think that is a fair assessment. Of course, we don't know. I think that this is going to be one of the last, if not the last, decisions that the Court issues this term. You know, you can do some gamesmanship, too, right, if you are a liberal justice, perhaps, who is interested in delaying this case as long as possible so that any findings can't be used to redraw maps before the 2026 elections. Because I think if a decision does come down in June, by that point, like, half of states have held their primaries, and like, even the ones that haven't, like, the campaign is well underway. I think at that point, it'll be very difficult to redraw any congressional maps. Based on that, we'd be looking at like, a 2028 question. But if you're a liberal justice who wants to, you know, frankly, help Democrats in the midterms, you can basically be like, you know, the, you know, when the justices and Sam Leto sends you his majority opinion and be like, oh, great, thanks. Like, you know, I'm out fishing for two weeks, like, you know, get back to you later. And then, you know, three weeks later, you're like, oh, can you send that again? I lost it in my inbox. And things like that. I think this might literally be how it works. So I do think that we'll be waiting a while for that opinion, but you never know. And the Supreme Court has surprised in the past, right? There were a couple years ago when they faced a very similar question about the Voting Rights act, and they ended up upholding it. So coalitions can be strange. You know, sometimes justices will go into a case, you know, expecting one outcome, and then things will change. But, yeah, I think if I were a betting man, I would say that the Voting Rights act is in real trouble.
- [35:19]
A
Yeah. I mean, also, I made the analysis to affirmative action, but of course, affirmative action is not in statutes. Right. I mean, Congress did actually create the Voting Rights act. And so I should backtrack and say, just because they decided one thing when it comes to affirmative action. And it's also complicated because did Congress intend for the Voting Rights act to work the way it ended up working when they actually wrote the law? Law people generally believe that it did not. It is a very convoluted question at this point. While we're on the topic, what other election administration related questions are we waiting for from the court?
- [35:55]
C
One other case called Watson vrnc, that basically deals with the legality of accepting absentee ballots after Election Day as long as they have been like, voted and mailed before election Day or on Election Day. So this is a case that is being brought by Republicans. It, of course, is a priority of Trump's. You know, he, in his first elections related executive order, which he issued last year, which has since been put on hold by the courts, this was part of it. He said basically no ballots should come in after Election Day. He's sick of California and other states continuing to count after Election Day, and the Supreme Court is going to Decide this question. There are currently 14 states, including a fair number of red states, that do still allow ballots to come in after election Day. And so that could change. That could really move up the timeline for people to have to vote by mail in 2026. That's something that I think would be, you know, they could. So importantly, this would only apply to the general election, not to primaries, which is potentially confusing, but also gives the court time to, if they make a decision in June, they can say, all right, for November, this isn't happening anymore.
- [36:58]
A
So we've talked about, we started by talking about the executive, we've talked about the court. Let's talk about the third branch of government, Congress. Republicans in Congress have been pushing the Save America Act. Honestly, we might already be at the point in the news cycle where Republicans have a little bit given up on it. I'm not quite sure you're paying more attention at Vote Beat than I am at GD Politics. Where does this all stand? And also maybe we can do a little summary of what it would try to do.
- [37:31]
C
Yeah. So the Save America act to refresh people's memories is the Republican backed law that would require people to prove their citizenship when they're registering to vote. And it would also impose kind of like a standardized nation nationwide photo voter ID requirement for actually voting. However, this is not going to pass. Right. I think, you know, we've heard a lot less about it and like part of that is obviously the Iran war and stuff like that. And technically it's still on the table. But like these bills just go to the Senate and die because there just isn't the support to either amend the filibuster or to pass the bill outright with 60 votes. It's just, it's not going to happen unless some serious things change in terms of Republican senators, institutionalist senators being willing to get rid of the filibusters. Buster.
- [38:14]
A
In reaction, President Trump has, I guess, tried to do some of these things unilaterally along with others in a somewhat recent executive action. What did he, what is he trying to do?
- [38:26]
C
You know, Trump has issued two executive orders on elections. Now. One was last year and one was about a month ago. The one from last year has largely been held up in court. I would expect this one to also get held up in court.
- [38:38]
A
But basically, you mean, you mean held up as in tied up, not upheld in court as in right.
- [38:45]
C
Well, it's confusing, isn't it? You shouldn't be using uphold and hold up in the opt to mean opposite things. That is Correct. The first executive order, the most. The major provisions of it have been blocked in courts. It is still kind of going through the legal process, but that obviously could take years, frankly. But for now, those provisions are not in effect. The second executive order, which he issued at the end of March, deals specifically with mail voting. And it was kind of of a confusing order. It basically required the creation of three different lists, but it wasn't quite clear how those lists would interact. And two of the lists would just kind of like don't do anything. But the basic upshot of the order is that it asked the Postal Service to create a list of people who are eligible to vote by mail, essentially, and said, you can't deliver ballots from anybody who is not on this list. And again, the mechanism for building this list was unclear. They also asked states to send the Postal Service lists of people who applied to vote by mail. But A, it didn't actually tie those two lists together in any way. B, like, you know, presumably the federal government, like a lot of people were assuming that this is the federal government trying to step in to dictate who can vote by mail. And there is a. The third list is a basically creating a list of adult citizens. And so you could maybe say that like, oh, maybe they are intending to take the list from the states of like male voters from the states and then cross check it against the citizenship list. And then that's the list that are the people the feds allow to vote by mail. But none of this was clear. But anyway, it's a complicated thing and it barely. It inserts the Postal Service into not just like obviously delivering the mail, but like determining who is allowed to do the mailing in a way that is really unprecedented and that I think the Postal Service has no interest in doing. In fact, they said as much in an interview to the New York Times. So that order is also obviously being challenged in court by Democrats and a lot of voting rights groups. I would expect that. That it'll meet the same fate as the first executive order. The Constitution pretty clearly says that states run their own elections subject to laws made by Congress. And this is obviously an executive order. And the President does not have any constitutional power over elections. So that was the argument that was used successfully to get the. The previous executive order blocked. And I think that that will end up happening in this case too. The Postal Service also would have to take a number of administrative steps. And I don't want to get too deep in the weeds, but they would have to take a number of administrative Steps that they have not yet taken in make this happen. So for anybody who basically who's worried about casting their ballot by mail and whether they're going to be eligible, I highly, highly doubt that anything in this executive order is going to be in effect come the midterms.
- [41:22]
A
I want to get to the horse race briefly before we do any other election administration stories that you're keeping an eye on for the midterms while we have the managing editor of the election administration newspaper of record. I don't know, I don't, I don't know how you describe yourself.
- [41:40]
C
We are in fact a website. Check us out at Vote Be. We do not have a print paper, although that would be kind of fun. Yes, there are a lot, There are so many election administration potential issues at play in this election. We actually just did a, basically an expert survey. We reached out to 37 people, like lawyers, academics, like, very, very accurate and
- [42:02]
A
nerdy of you to not call it a poll.
- [42:04]
C
Exactly. It is not a scientific poll, I should be very clear. But we basically asked these people like, what are you worried about? What do you think is going to happen? There's been a lot of, you know, people are worried about everything on the spectrum from like, you know, elections, you know, getting like postponed or cancelled to you know, something like changing in the due date for election trapsty ballots or whatever. Like which of these scenarios do you think is plausible? Which are more far, far fetched. And the results are really interesting. Again you can check it out@votebe.org but basically the upshot was they do not think there are going to be a lot of changes to election law. They certainly don't think there's going to be anything on the federal level. So the Executive orders and the Save America act, they do not expect to take effect. They think that courts might end up stepping in and changing some rules, like with the Supreme Court as we talked about, but also state, state courts. There's always kind of like a last minute challenge to whether mail ballots need to be signed or something like that. They also think that some states could change their rules, which you're already seeing. So for instance, I believe four states have passed proof of citizenship laws similar to the Save America act on the state level. So places like Utah, South Dakota, Florida, although Florida's wouldn't take effect until 2027. So that is happening. The main takeaway I think from the survey was is that they don't expect the election to be postponed or anything like that. They don't expect the election to be Successfully overturned. They do expect legal challenges and they do expect some kind of federal intervention like at the polls, whether that is troops at polling places, whether that is attempts to seize ballots. Obviously we saw the raid in Fulton County, Georgia a couple of months ago. Those were ballots from 2020. But, you know, know it perhaps, you know, is a signal of what they're maybe trying to do in terms of like, if they don't like the results
- [43:46]
A
somewhere, requests over the weekend for ballots.
- [43:49]
C
Yes, there was Michigan, Wayne County. Exactly. Yep. DOJ just this past weekend sent a letter to Wayne County, Michigan being like, give us your 20, 24 ballots. And so the administration is clearly showing an interest in examining voting materials. And I think it is a very different beast to request basically like, quote, unquote, live ballots of like an election that is still being counted and isn't cert yet versus something that, you know, an election that has already been resolved. And I would expect that courts would, would not be having any of that if those requests go through and you know, say like November 20th of 2026. But it is a danger, right? And you know, similar with like the idea of troops at polling places or, you know, ICE agents at polling places, they are not allowed to be there. Like that is very clear in federal law. And like, I think courts and local law enforcement will step in to prevent that. But it just takes a little bit of disruption to maybe get some voters to not turn out to the polls. Maybe, you know, if a box gets seized, like maybe those ballots can't be counted. Like it could be a rocky road even as these experts do expect that ultimately, you know, we will elect a new Congress and, you know, democracy will move on. At the end of the day.
- [44:58]
A
You know me, Nathaniel, ever something of a contrarian, I am not liable to just take experts at their word. What's the value of this? I mean, there's been lots of conversation over the past six plus years about, about experts sort of expressing their own partisanship by way of political analysis, sort of not staying in their lane, quote, unquote, and in many cases just getting shit wrong when it comes to this. I know that we all experienced 2020, and so we know that in the executive branch there's somebody who's not particularly interested in the sanctity of elections, maybe you could put it. But troops at polling places, seizing ballots, this kind of stuff. On one hand you could just be scaring people. On the other hand, maybe you've come to learn that you expect the worst when it comes to this stuff. Like why should we. What do these experts know that I don't, or that people listening don't?
- [45:57]
C
Yeah, it's a great question. I think they both don't have any special insight, but also are a lot more aware of how elections work, I would say. Right. Like at the end, day of the, the day, nobody knows what is going to happen except maybe Donald Trump. But I don't think he's probably made up his mind yet. Right. Like that is the fundamental issue is that we have an unpredictable president and he might decide to, to do something that would be highly norm breaking with regard to the election and he might not. And you know, these are all just kind of possibilities that have been floated, but nobody really knows on one hand. On the other hand, I do think there is value in talking to these experts because I think you also hear, especially on the left, a lot of fears that are not founded about, like, the idea that Trump could cancel the election, which he does not have the ability to do because elections are run on the local level. And so I do think, and, and you know, you hear a lot of confusion about these executive orders and like the people that we surveyed, like, they do know election law and they're keeping up with these cases. Right. And so I think there is value in knowing which threats are relatively more likely, like the fact that, you know, like ICE agents at the polls, like you don't need that many people. Like that can happen fairly directly. Right. With a few phone calls. Right. Whereas canceling the election is just such a logistical feat and like overturning an election would require so many people to buy in and like the safeguards to fail at so many different steps. I do think that the experts, by knowing the mechanics of elections, do provide some kind of like, level of a gut check about what is more possible and what is less possible. Even if we, you know, can't know what will happen definitively if that, if that sounds familiar. You gotta embrace the uncertainty, guys.
- [47:42]
A
Yeah. Yeah. Amen. Okay, now's the time we get to talk about the rat race. Horse race.
- [47:50]
C
Talk about the rat race too.
- [47:52]
A
Yeah. What's a. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm thinking about what rat race means versus what horse race means. And it somehow suggests that politics is more dignified than like corporate city life life.
- [48:03]
C
That's true.
- [48:04]
A
Perhaps not. I don't know. Anyway, we got first quarter fundraising numbers last week. Pretty eye popping. What should we make of them?
- [48:12]
C
Democrats did really well, particularly in the Senate. James Talarico raised $27 million, which is huge. Jon Ossoff raised $14 million. In general, National Journal's hotline did a kind of an aggregation, and Democratic candidates outraised Republicans by an average of 4 to 1 in swing Senate races. In the House, the disparity was a little more even. Like Repub. In incumbents were doing better than Democratic challengers. But, you know, I think that in general, like, Democratic challengers were doing better than Republican challengers. So kind of when you compare apples to apples, you know, I think this is. I'm not super high on fundraising numbers. You know, obviously you'd rather have more money than less money, but I don't think it really tells us anything that you don't already know from polling special election numbers, which is the Democratic enthusiasm is higher than Republican enthusiasm right now. Um, I think at the end of the day, anybody in a competitive race is going to have a lot of money at their disposal because also, like, obviously there are like super PACs exist. Right? Um, these campaigns are not the only ones that are going to be spending money. But, you know, I do think, yeah, like some of these totals are, are notable and it, it makes somebody like John Ossoff, I think, a pretty daunting incumbent to beat.
- [49:25]
A
For instance, we also had a special election in New Jersey last week where Democrat Analia Mejia beat out a Republican in Mikey Sheryl. Of course, Mikey Sheryl is now the governor of New Jersey. Her vacant seat, it was a 12 point over performance from where Kamala Harris was in 2024 in that district, which was once upon a time more of a moderate or even competitive district in northern New Jersey. Analilia Mejia does not fit that mold. She's more of an outspoken, outspoken progressive. Would you agree with that, Nathaniel?
- [50:02]
C
Yes, she was Bernie Sanders, I believe, like national political director in his 2020 presidential campaign. She had his endorsement. She was definitely the most kind of like anti Israel of the candidates, which was kind of interesting in the primary, I should say, which is kind of an interesting dynamic because AIPAC spent a lot of money to prevent Tom Malinowski, who is a more kind of like establishment. He's a former representative himself. He's a more establishment figure. And AIPAC was really concerned, concerned with not letting him win, but by basically like knocking him down so much, they opened the door to an even more progressive candidate winning who's even more anti Israel and has, you know, said that, you know, basically that Israel is committing genocide. And so that was perhaps a tactical error on their part. But yeah, she is, she's quite progressive. And for a kind of a prospective squad member to be elected to this district, a district that back in 2018 was held by a Republican until Mikey Sheryl flipped it is pretty extraordinary.
- [50:57]
A
Yeah. Which brings me to the question of how are progressives faring this primary season
- [51:03]
C
so far at 5:38, we did a thing that we called the primary project, which was basically tracking like major groups, endorsements and how. Including like President Trump for instance, and how those candidates were faring. And generally speaking, you saw, you know, progressives flexed a lot of muscle in like 2018 and 2020. And obviously that was when people like AOC and Jamal Bowman and folks were elect. Um, but since then they've had a little bit, they've had to do a little bit of retrenchment and they've been focusing more on kind of like protecting their incumbents, which they haven't even done successfully in the case of Bowman and Cori Bush. And they haven't been as successful going on offense. And I would say that that looks like it's continuing. So some folks from 538, including Cooper Burton, Tia Yang, Meredith Conroy are continuing this project independently, which is great. So we do have data on this. So so far, candidates endorsed by progressive groups are. Have two wins and five losses. So the wins are Frederick Haynes in Texas, 30th district and Daniel Biss in Illinois's ninth district. Little bit of an asterisk on that one because Daniel Biss was famously running against Kat Abu Ghazala, who was the more. The kind of young. Like she was more identified with progressives, I think, in that race. And she obviously lost. And she is one of the five losses, I should say. Progressive groups did split between the two in that case. So it's. I don't think it's quite as clear cut of a distinction there. But yeah, generally speaking, progressive groups, you know, they've had more losses than they've had wins so far this year.
- [52:34]
A
Some good perspective there. And of course, there are many, many more primaries to come. I think we mentioned at the beginning of the month that April would be a bit of a down period, a bit of a pause for the primary calendar. But we'll be back covering primaries in May when they start, happen, happening again. We started by talking about overall numbers for Trump and the war in Iran and political standing. I was looking at the generic ballot numbers. I think we're not getting nearly as
- [53:03]
B
many polls on the generic ballot as
- [53:05]
A
we are for the Iran war and Trump's standing and cost of living questions. And things like that. But we are still where we were a couple weeks ago, several weeks ago, which is at a six point advantage for Democrats roughly in the generic ballot polling. How are you thinking about, about how or whether that number is liable to change between now and election Day?
- [53:27]
C
I think that so far the trajectory has been basically as I expected. I mean, we know that obviously the President's party does poorly in midterms historically, with the exception of the 2018 cycle. We also know that the generic ballot tends to get worse for them as the cycle goes along. In 2018 we had kind of this unique thing where like basically Dems jumping out to like a six or seven point lead like right away after Trump was inaugurated. And you know, I think there was a real shock factor from his win and the kind of resistance spun up immediately. You saw like the, the protests like basically of his first week in office. And this resembled, this cycle 2026 resembled, I think more like a traditional midterm where the President started off kind of popular and you know that his party was like doing fine in the generic ballot, but just kind of generally speaking, making his popularity eroded and the opposition party improved their standing. And so in general, I would say that, you know, like D6 is pretty, like you might start to bump up against like the limits of our partisan, what our partisan environment can, can sustain. Like, I don't think there's going to be a D 15 year because I just think the country is too closely divided. But you know, we were, I think at finished a D +9 in 2018 and like, it seems like we might very well be on track for that. I would be surprised if Republicans ended up doing better again just because, better than D plus six think I, I should say just because it is rare for the President's party to improve on the generic ballot over time. So I would expect Democrats maybe to gain a couple of points and then we end up with a very similar environment to 2018.
- [54:59]
A
All right, we're going to leave things there for today. Nathaniel, very informative. Thank you so much for joining me today.
- [55:04]
C
Thanks, Galen.
- [55:06]
A
My name is Galen Drook.
- [55:07]
B
Remember to become a subscriber to this podcast@gdpolitics.com and wherever you get your podcast.
- [55:12]
A
Paid subscribers get about twice the number of episodes.
- [55:14]
B
You can also join in our paid subscriber chat and pass along questions for
- [55:18]
A
us to discuss on the show.
- [55:19]
B
And you ensure that we can keep
- [55:21]
A
making a podcast that prioritizes curiosity, rigor and a sense of humor.
- [55:25]
B
Also, be a friend of the POD and go give us a five star rating wherever you listen to podcasts, maybe even tell a friend about us.
- [55:31]
A
Thanks for listening and we will see you soon.