I’ve talked to a lot of really intelligent, analytical people, left, right and center, and nobody believes Republicans will keep both the House and the Senate. It’s a silly scenario. Dismissed. That leaves two possibilities: “win in name only,” with Democrats gaining 15 House seats and taking control but falling short in the Senate, or “my blue heaven,” with Democrats gaining more than 15 House seats and taking the Senate, too. On a bad map, that would be quite a big deal. A lot of the states now in play voted for Donald Trump by eight, nine, ten, fifteen points and up.

As I think about my prediction, I can’t help but have Chuck Schumer on my mind. He didn’t begin the second Trump term feeling good. His party had lost the Senate, and other Democrats thought he was asleep at the wheel, part of an older generation that wasn’t going to get things done. He was forced into positions he wouldn’t otherwise have taken. He had to shut down the government twice after repeatedly destroying Republicans for doing exactly that. He’d been the adult in the room, and now, he had to righteously shake his fist in anger. That might not seem like a big deal, but senators take pride in their records. Every vote matters. Trust me — they keep track.

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But even while he was embattled, Schumer hung on to probably his most defining foreign policy position: his support for Israel. He also has a long history of supporting corrective action against Iran, specifically in tandem with Israel and particularly over a buildup of missiles. Then the president ordered military strikes on Iran. That’s a tremendously unpopular position within Schumer’s party, so there’s only so much he can say publicly. But I’d have to imagine privately he wasn’t sad about it. And then a funny thing happens.

That war spiraled into a series of blockades, driving up the price of almost everything in America and sending Trump’s approval ratings through the basement. Schumer went from being chased around by his own party to getting his cake and eating it, too: a war with Iran, and he gets to run against it. It’s good to be Chuck. Suddenly Democrats are asking whether they can win Texas, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi or South Carolina. If only a few fall their way, Schumer gets to be Senate majority leader again.

And when it comes to my prediction? I think he will.

I’ve stuck with “win in name only” this entire time. I correctly picked Trump and the Republicans in 2024, and I’ve had to be dragged toward changing my mind now. But here’s the thing: I thought we’d see the polls close as Election Day approached. I expected Republican enthusiasm, in a time as polarized as this, to pick up as voters started thinking about Supreme Court nominations and the possibility of losing Texas. I thought they’d press their voter advantage in these states. But we haven’t seen it. At a certain point, intellectual honesty requires a decision: Do I believe we’re in a polling-error cycle where everybody is wrong, or do I believe this tsunami real?

I don’t quite understand a polling environment that puts Trump below where he was after January 6th, and I don’t fully believe Texas will flip blue. But my final prediction is that Democrats will gain more than 15 House seats and win at least 51 Senate seats. Schumer becomes majority leader again. This is an eleventh-hour change of heart, but I think my blue heaven is going to happen: a Democratic Senate and a Democratic House.

Chapters

00:00:00 - Intro

00:02:05 - Final CNN Polling

00:05:24 - Interview with Reese Gorman

00:40:43 - Economy Growth

00:42:36 - California Ballots

00:44:25 - Vivek-Acton Polling

00:47:04 - Justin’s Final Predictions

00:57:10 - Wrap-up

I drove from Austin to Waco along I-35, one of the most heavily traveled corridors in Texas, and James Talarico is dominating the billboard game. I don’t love the billboards themselves because the text is too small to read safely from a distance, but the themes are smart and clear: Talarico will protect healthcare, and Talarico will lower costs. One is the issue of the day — affordability — and the other is an issue Democrats are generally trusted on.

Ken Paxton was almost nonexistent. The biggest Republican billboard I saw looked like something a random person had purchased: “Democrats now support communism, and Republicans don’t.” That belongs more on your uncle’s Facebook page than a gigantic roadside billboard. I don’t know how much billboards matter, but when these campaigns and their super PACs are spending roughly half a billion dollars, it’s worth noting that one side is buying more of them.

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The obvious Republican voters I met in Waco knew Paxton, had been in rooms with him, and didn’t like him. They were Cornyn voters and wished they could vote for Cornyn again. But they’re still voting for Paxton because they view Talarico as that odious. Outside Austin, people see the city as a problem and Talarico as a product of that problem. I’ve officially concluded that Paxton is running a bad campaign and deserves to lose. Based solely on his campaign, Talarico should become the next senator from Texas. I still don’t think he will.

Now for my semiannual warning: Looking at early-voting trends is bad, and only bad people do it. They don’t reliably predict final results, and partisans use them to create engagement or scare people into voting. That said, Democrats ran through the brick wall on opening day. In North Carolina, Democrats cast roughly 327,000 votes to Republicans’ 151,000. Georgia’s opening-day turnout was up 40 percent from 2022. Iowa Republicans held the majority of returned ballots, while Texas saw nearly record first-day voting. These are good signs for Democrats, but we don’t know whether they represent a continuing freight train or enthusiastic voters casting their ballots early and leaving the rest of the electorate to revert to normal patterns.

The dirty ads are also arriving. An anti-Amy Acton video raised her estrangement from her mother, allowing Acton to explain that her mother sided with a man Acton says molested her as a child. That seems like an extraordinary gift to Acton. In Maine, an ad against Troy Jackson includes the lyric, “If he’ll F his own family, he’ll F yours too.” In Texas, an ad attacks Brandon Herrera — the “AK Guy” — for demonstrating weapons connected to high-profile crimes, including the Uvalde shooting in the district he wants to represent. This is playoff-caliber filth.

Then there’s the apparent sequel to the unsolicited Texas text messages promoting transgender healthcare. A new flyer presents itself as trans advocacy, directs minors toward legal organizations and out-of-state care information, and advertises events around Texas. I have no idea whether any of it is authentic. But in 2024, we saw one organization run opposing messages on Israel to shake up a race, and that effort was eventually traced to Elon Musk. This is only an unqualified guess — a feeling-the-Force thing — but I suspect America PAC, or a group funded by it, may be behind these messages.

Chapters

00:00:00 - Intro

00:02:59 - Waco

00:09:22 - Early Election Results

00:13:40 - Crazy Midterm Ads

00:22:57 - Andrew Heaton on Libertarians

00:58:48 - Update

00:59:44 - Ukraine

01:03:09 - Republicans’ Red Wall Defense

01:06:45 - Supreme Court and Distilling

01:07:58 - Laurence Leamer on JFK’s Mistresses

01:32:34 - Wrap-up

Two-thirds of Israeli voters had cast ballots four hours before polls closed Tuesday, the highest turnout at that stage since 1973, according to Axios. Election officials ordered polling stations to accelerate voting after reports of long lines, saying anyone arriving by 10 p.m. local time would be allowed to cast a ballot. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seeks another term, with 61 seats needed for a parliamentary majority. This is Israel’s first election since the October 7th attacks in 2023.

I’m not going to pretend that I’m an expert in the Knesset or Israeli coalitions, which will essentially decide who becomes prime minister. It does seem, at this hour, that Netanyahu will end his extraordinarily consequential reign at the helm of that nation — one that looked like it was over right before October 7th. I don’t know if the guy coming in will make anybody who didn’t like Netanyahu happier. The issues they seem to disagree on are more domestic issues, not what Americans who talk about Israel a lot particularly care about. He’s probably more aligned with Netanyahu on prosecuting the war in Gaza, at the very least. The question would be how far it extends into Iran and what victory against Iran would be defined as.

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Still, if this is indeed the end for Bibi, it’s been a hell of a ride. I don’t know if anybody other than Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir would be more consequential leaders for that nation, but I’d leave that up to the Israeli scholars. We don’t know the outcome yet, but it does, at least right now, look like curtains for Netanyahu.

Meanwhile, President Trump has changed the list of Canadian products subject to an additional 50% tariff, with revisions taking effect Friday, October 30th. A proclamation on the 23rd removes some products from duty and adds others. Republican Susan Collins says nine exempted categories will help Maine’s blueberry, potato, apple and seaweed industries. Those categories include packaging materials, refrigeration equipment and agricultural machinery. The exemptions apply to the additional duty imposed over Canada’s treatment of American vehicles. Separate tariffs remain in place.

There’s also late-breaking reporting that negotiations are underway to try to avert some of the steel tariffs between the two countries. I’ve thought this would be brought to a brink and then eventually resolved. I tend to still think that’s the case, but we’re getting a little late in the innings to assume so.

Finally, Marco Rubio said street protests wouldn’t produce democracy in Venezuela following opposition leader María Corina Machado’s return to Caracas. Machado is demanding elections in 2027, while U.S. officials want changes to the Supreme Court and Electoral Council, along with progress on debt, before a vote. Rubio said the current authorities were meeting agreed deadlines but didn’t publicly specify an election date, warning against derailing the process.

Chapters

00:00:00 - Intro

00:02:18 - Midterm Map Madness, Part One

00:47:52 - Update

00:48:26 - Israel’s Elections

00:51:16 - Canadian Tariffs

00:52:36 - Venezuela

00:55:00 - Midterm Map Madness, Part Two

01:39:37 - Wrap-up