Markets & News: Signal to Noise with Jim WiesemeyerThis week we welcome special guest David Wasserman, Senior Editor, U.S. House of Representatives for The Cook Political Report. David shares his perspective on potential outcomes of national elections that will affect the balance of power in both houses of Congress, governorships and the presidency.
Good morning. It is monday october 25th 2021. And this is D. C. Signal to noise.
Guys since we last checked in corn and soybean harvest have crossed the halfway point the backlog
at the nation's ports, it just continues to build. And months of drought in California have turned into mudslide season
with heavy rains resulting from a bomb cyclone. My gosh, terrible weather out there. The baseball season has been reduced to the braves
and the Astros.
Okay, I don't mind the braves being in there. But the Astros again, some people say that it's their redemption tour. Whatever. Uh my cyclones handed the Oklahoma state cowboys their first loss of the season.
Welcome. I am a great tacos chip Flory that is pro farmer policy analyst Jim Weese Mayer.
And at the bottom of the screen our special guest David Wasserman, editor of the cook Political report covering the House of Representatives. David, welcome to signal to noise.
Thank you Chip. It's better to be the bottom of the screen in the bottom of the barrel.
That's a good point. Good point right there,
Jim. Before we get into the conversation with Dave, let's go ahead and talk a little bit about what to expect this week
because house speaker nancy Pelosi
is certainly indicating that there is going to be
at least two votes come midweek. Yeah, well at an actual vote probably on the traditional bipartisan infrastructure bill. That's the around you know, $1 trillion bill. Either Wednesday or thursday. And then coupled with that they want an agreement not to vote on the on the build back, better plan, that looks to be about $1.75 trillion Jeff. But there appears to be a progress, it just so happens. President biden leaves for europe, you know, two events on thursday and they really, you know, want to get this, you know, at least from the infrastructure bill.
Yeah, if he shows up at a global climate event
without
either one of these bills passed jim,
It's he's gonna have egg on his face, won't? Yes. Yes. And and as we'll get in with David, this also has election overtones with an upcoming election November two in Virginia. So, you know, we'll ask David about that. Okay, very good.
Uh let's go ahead and bring David into the conversation. I want to start with this gym if I could. Uh because you know, my fascination with House speaker nancy
Pelosi,
unbelievable
strategist
uh over the years. She has
she has played her role as speaker of the house
exceptionally well.
Is she losing her edge? Is she starting to lose
that?
That you know, do we do? Are we seeing the speaker
as we've seen her in the past?
Well, look, I don't think she's lost her edge so much as it's pretty clear to the world that this is her final term.
And in fact, the chances are pretty good that she won't serve her full term, but will resign after a package is passed, uh and attempt to perhaps influence the race for her successor in san Francisco. However,
you know, that plays into the mentality of house democrats when they know that she may not be the one making decisions over over key leadership were or committee posts heading forward. So that reduces her influence to strong arm people into supporting certain elements of legislation. And that's made this process more difficult
now. Dave if she does retire early, who who's the favorite candidate, at least from her perspective,
For to succeed her as the Democratic leader. So Kim Jeffries is Democrats apparent speaker in waiting now, of course, you know, we'll get into this, but Democrats are probably not the favorites to hold their majority behind 2022.
However, there's been this long running rivalry between uh, the second democrat in the house Steny Hoyer and Pelosi and
Pelosi even after decades, does not want Hoyer to uh, to to succeed her as speaker. There is some thought that would democrats if she were to retire early before the end of this term. Uh
allow Hoyer the honor of serving a speaker until
this Congress is up.
I'm not sure Pelosi would even go for that. They've been such such long running rivals. So
it'll be interesting to see how this plays out. But I do suspect that
That we will see Jeffrey's ascend to the top of Democrats leadership Ladder one way or the other by 2023.
He is from new york.
Uh, okay, uh, as I want to get to a local election first, actually to November 2nd governor races in Virginia. My in your home state now in New Jersey. You know, what are your predictions on those and why?
Yeah. Look, Jersey is closer than the reputation of the state would suggest governor Murphy has a single digit lead, high, single digit lee according to the average of polls over jack chatter. Really.
And look, I don't think that that race is in danger for democrats of flipping republican,
but the Virginia race is a genuine toss up at this point. And I know jim
you've predicted that Young can will win. I do think in the final week of the race, you could see voters on the Democratic side begin to come alive a bit more. There's been certainly much more energy and activism on the republican side of this race because the party out of the White House
generally has that going for them. And that's true
This time. Uh, I don't quite think young Kim has moved enough to the center, uh, to distinguish himself from Trump in order to get over the top. I think he can very easily get within uh, two or three points of McAuliffe, but actually winning a state that voted for biden by 10?
I think it's going to be very, very hard.
Yeah. And then what signal would that give say if younger did come within 2-3 points? Is that, is that bragging rights for the Republicans or will the Democrats just say we won? We won.
That is a
A result. That would be consistent with Republicans taking back control of Congress in 2020. To keep in mind that we're going to be watching the difference between the margin in these races, both Virginia and New Jersey and the presidential margin in in 2020.
So, you know, you've got in Virginia
uh, state that voted for biden by 10 if young kin comes within two. Well, you know, that's an eight point Republican swing. And so even if democrats are declaring victory, remember even half that swing would easily take control of Congress to the republicans in 2022. Given the other states that are up,
Glen, Duncan is running a campaign that we would easily win in a state like north Carolina
or Georgia, it's just that Virginia has become a pretty blue state.
Well, let's go to your house forecast. I know it's early for 2022. You always have caveats and I don't blame you for that because things can change. But if you had to predict today, what would be the outcome of the 2022 house elections,
I think Republicans would gain probably 25 seats in the house. Now,
of course this is a redistricting year and
a couple months ago, it looked like the leading threat to democrats. Majority. Was the changing maps. But the bidens
uh dip in approval has overtaken that as as the leading threat to democrats. I actually think the net partisan change from new maps is likely to be quite modest. Uh when you add up the state's that republicans get to gerrymander uh and they have control in texas and florida and north Carolina and Georgia.
Um There are far more states and districts under republican control than under democratic control. Democrats
have new york and Illinois and new Mexico and Maryland. The overall difference is 187 seats that republicans redraw to 75 seats for democrats. But because republicans have already gerrymandered so many of their own states, uh I think the max that they can squeeze out of redistricting is probably uh you know,
five seats or so.
What they'll do instead beyond that is is to secure, safeguard their own districts by moving a lot of vulnerable seats to higher ground
David, we have a lot of Illinois viewers and listeners, What are, you know, what are some key republicans who may lose a seat or not even, you know, qualify for a seat?
Well, Illinois democrats over the weekend actually released a new, even more gerrymandered congressional proposal. Uh It looks like a toddler uh threw spaghetti at the wall to draw this map. And actually what democrats did to carve up down state Illinois uh was was quite aggressive.
Uh they put uh darin lahood in the peoria area in the same district as Adam Kinzinger from outside Chicago and look Kinzinger would be the underdog in any Republican primary. But but Lahood would be the favorite in that race.
And then down state, they've they've put
mike bost from extreme southern end of the state in a district with mary Miller who is from coles County
and that district. You know, I'm curious whether we'll see that that Republican primary come to fruition. I suspect that Miller
could run in uh in a district to the north, which is uh Justice Republican, perhaps against Rodney Davis. They, Rodney Davis has a district now that goes all the way from Quincy to indiana and back over to his hometown in Taylorville.
So, you know, that's a case where he'll face a choice between running in a heavily Democratic district
Or perhaps running in a Republican primary against Mary Miller, who is far more pro trump. If they do end up passing this map. Overall Democrats would likely get 14 out of the 17 seats in Illinois under this proposal, which is up from 13 out of 18 today.
Well,
you know, chip, you have any other House questions. Well, I, I want to remind everybody that if you would like to be part of the conversation. Look at the right side of your screen, There's a comment stab, you can click on that and then that should bring up a dialog box for you at the bottom of the page, uh that you can you can enter your question or your comment there.
Um
Yeah the top issues, the key issues that are going to get the Republicans 25
ah
Victories in November of 2022. David. What are those key issues that we're going to have to pay closest attention to?
Well, I think there are three that are driving biden's lower approval ratings and then the number one
is
inflation and the cost of goods. This is something that has not talked about enough in D. C. Because uh most of the the in crowd in D. C. Doesn't feel the pinch to the extent the rest of the country does. And so look, we've seen
double digit declines among independent voters on biden's handling of the economy.
I believe that's being driven by the by rising concerns about the cost of goods and now gas and then issue two would be immigration.
Look this this issue has
has absolutely debilitated democrats uh over the last five years since trump came on the scene. And now that it's it's more prominent than ever. It plays into republican strengths and republicans message.
The democrats are the party of open borders.
Well, that's resonating when we're seeing the imagery that we're seeing on tv.
Um and so Biden's approval rating when it comes to handling of immigration. The average is in the high 30's
and then on overall competence. I think
democrats have taken a real hit after Afghanistan. not, not just because of the specifics of what happened, but because biden came into office with the attitude of,
I've got this, I've got more experience than anyone who's come into the White House before, especially the last guy who had no experience in, in federal policy or foreign policy entering the oval office. And that's been dented.
And so voters overall malaise with regard to the administration.
Uh, it doesn't just fire up republicans, but democrats are having a really hard time motivating their base, especially when they don't have anything to sell them legislatively at the moment.
You know, Dave I want to move to the Senate. What is your prediction overall for, you know, 2022 Senate and specific states? Because we've already got comments before on which specific states do you see as you know, net winners or losers, you know, relative to the political parties.
Jim, I think if the election were held next week, republicans would pretty much sweep the battlefield of competitive senate races, democrats badly want to pick up Wisconsin pennsylvania and north Carolina. Those seats in pennsylvania and north Carolina are open seats,
democrats have some pretty good candidates running there. But given that biden lost north Carolina only very narrowly won Wisconsin and pennsylvania. And we're talking about, you know, at least a five point environmental shift in republicans direction. Uh, that would tip those races. Republican and then
republicans are on offense in Arizona and Georgia
uh, and in Nevada and new Hampshire and Arizona and Georgia to the closest states of the 2020 election. Both Democratic senators uh, were on the ballot in 2020. Mark kelly and Raphael Warnock, they have to run for for full terms. In 2022 republicans
may end up nominating herschel walker in Georgia, which could,
could be a, you know, a real risk to republicans considering his personal baggage. But in Arizona, uh, it's possible republicans are going to nominate. Uh, you know, either the former state Adjutant General, Mick McGuire or blake masters whose uh
venture capitalist or perhaps Mark brnovich, the attorney general
republicans have a pretty clear primary field in Nevada where adam Laxalt is going to be their candidate against Catherine Cortez masto in New Hampshire. It's all coming down to whether governor chris Sununu gets into that race against Maggie Hassan. The indications are that he will,
I think republicans would pick up likely three seats if, if the election were held next week. I'd say all those seats go their way except perhaps Georgia.
So that would be 53 43 47 53 47. Okay, the only one surprise I think that people would hear would be the Arizona because kelly has raised a lot of money hasn't, not that money can totally buy elections, but that would be surprising to, I think some listeners,
oh, keep in mind jim that Mark kelly spent, I believe more than $100 million in the 2020 cycle. And he was up in the polls double digits for most of the fall against Martha McSally, who, who's already badly damaged by her 2018 race. And yet he still only one that 51 to 49. And we're talking about a much
More favorable climate for Republicans this next time around, potentially. So it's hard to see how he wins. I I think we tend to overrate the value of campaign money. There's such a thing as diminishing returns once you've made your case to voters with $20 million,
You know, it's not clear that the next $20 million 2020 like Maine where Democrats badly outspent Susan Collins, but voters started getting suspicious of where that money was coming from because so much of it was coming, from
from, you know, Adam Staters who badly wanted a Democratic Senate?
Yeah, I think Mike Bloomberg learned that as well. Yeah, for president, Right? Yeah, that's that's exactly right, David, what is the condition of the parties, what, how united are the visions of the republicans and the democrats?
Look, it's it's basically mars and venus right now. And you know, trump is
consolidating his grip on his party from essentially a shadow presidency,
I believe he is likely to run in 2024 likelier than Joe Biden to run. Uh and you know Anthony Gonzalez who is one of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump back in January.
He announced his retirement last month by calling trump a cancer on the country. But if this cancer is eating anything it's the remaining resistance uh in the republican party to trump. So
a lot of these republican primaries we're seeing for house and Senate races
aren't just playing out in Ohio or Arizona, they're playing out in Palm Beach and Bedminster where republicans are vying for this all important endorsements.
So what odds do you give of Trump running in 2024?
I put it in the 60% range and I'd probably put biden's odds somewhere south of 40%
wow. And if not trump who were a few likely candidates. And the same for biden who who's left in the Democratic Party. You know, that's a you know presidential timber.
Well first on the republican side I put the field into three buckets more or less, you've got your governors, senators and your former trump administration officials and
you know in the governor's
bucket, Rhonda Santis is the leader for now. I think he could be the flavor of the moment more than anything else because
of
the high profile he's had in defying a lot of
of
C. D. C. And covid guidance. And he's certainly polling well but a lot of of polling leaders this far out have not been able to sustain their advantage
uh in the
uh Senate bucket. I actually think one of the stronger possibilities would be tim scott from south Carolina. I know tom cotton and josh holly have talked about it, but I do think there is something appealing to the Republican primary electorate about a black conservative candidate. We've seen that in recent years with people like Herman cain right?
Uh and and yet tim scott is by far the strongest uh in that uh in that genre to uh to be, you know, considered for uh for higher office. And then in the former administration bucket clearly mike Pompeo and mike pence want to keep themselves relevant. But
Nikki Haley is
very ambitious, clearly wants to run. I do think that she is,
she's got her finger in the wind quite a lot on, you know, how close she wants to be to trump. And I think people are having a hard time understanding exactly where she falls into the party on the Democratic side.
Look, I think democrats have a real dilemma on their hands because Kamala Harris does not have the skill set to run a successful national campaign. She,
You know, I couldn't light up a room with a blowtorch when she tried to run her own campaign for the Democratic nomination in 2020. She was supposed to be one of the frontrunners, right? And you know, she has absolutely bombed this portfolio of handling the border
in the biden administration thus far,
it's by far the administrations weakest issue. So
look, if joe biden does not run,
then Camilla,
you know, would would be a very weak front runner.
But imagine if joe biden didn't endorse his own vice president, I mean, I think he'd be under heavy pressure to endorse her. Otherwise it would seem like he's admitting that his administration was a failure.
So that didn't endorse biden until late in the game, you know, correct?
Well, Biden also didn't run in 2016. Right? So it's not
the same exact dynamic, right? But
oh, si will be eligible to run for president by a few weeks and she could take up the Bernie Sanders mantle, which in my opinion leaves an opening for someone who's a bit more moderate in the Democratic Party
and I'm not sure who that is. Is it a governor like a Gretchen Whitmer from michigan. But I do think there is an opening,
mm,
you know, in the time we have left just a couple other questions, but I do want to get there's a lot of listeners and potential speaking engagements for you, David, how can they contact you and the Cook political report? You know, what do they have to do?
Well, go to Cook political dot com. And another way would be to go on twitter. I'm at redistrict. I'm covering the redistricting process closely, but feel free to send me a message or there's a form on the cook political dot com site and get in touch with me and uh
and look forward to visiting
Good and a couple other issues surveys. Can we really trust them?
So it depends what we're trying to trust them for. Right? You know, if we have a very large assortment of presidential approval polls that we can aggregate into samples of
tens of thousands of people, I think they do provide a good time. Series of Okay, is the president up or down versus last month? Right. Because we just have a large quantity of data if we're looking for
what is voters approval rating on specific issues or how does that change over time? Okay, that's fair.
But what I think polling is having a harder time
telling us and I think we're asking too much of its abilities is to say who's ahead or behind in a very close horse race. Whether that's the Virginia governor's race, whether it's the 2020 presidential race. The problem is that pollsters
Give out a margin of error, right? I say, Okay, well, we have a 95% confidence threshold. That this is within three points of how voters actually feel. Well, what they don't publish is the response rate to their poll. The truth is that only two or 3% of people are picking up the phone
and we're relying on those
Very small subsets of voters to predict what the other 97 or 98% of people who are smart enough to screen their calls are thinking. And after a while that just doesn't work. Especially when you consider that the voters who are answering tend to have higher levels of societal and institutional trust which correlates
to support or at least correlates with support for Democratic candidates are inversely with support for trump. So
that has confounded us. And, you know, people ask me, what do we do if we don't have poles to rely on? And my advice is to watch the hard data, hard election data from uh from a lot of the off year races and legislative special elections that don't get any attention,
but they do indicate which way the winds are blowing.
And what I'll be curious about beyond just the governor's races is the Virginia House of Delegates, which is also up for election on November. two.
If we do see republicans picking up
four or 5 seats getting closer to a tie in the house of delegates,
that would tell me all right, republicans are are on track to take back the U. S. House of Representatives.
Okay, okay. There is a question that came in on the comments. Anything to note of the 2022 governor races and specifically Wittmer in michigan.
Yeah. Look, I think a lot of democrats are going to be vulnerable in these governors races. Not only Whitmer in michigan who has has struggled to pass her the agenda that she ran on, but also Tony evers in Wisconsin. Um, and the republican lieutenant governor there, Rebecca Kleefisch is running.
Uh and so
look, uh, democrats have, have open seats as well uh in pennsylvania. Uh, democrats are gonna be trying to uh, to pick up republican seats in Arizona uh in uh florida and Georgia.
I think in the case of Georgia,
governor kemp being bashed by trump, perhaps
enables him to, to to run stronger in the general election. And Stacey Abrams, by the way, is having, I think, second thoughts about running another campaign for governor now that she sees how bad the environment is for democrats.
It's similar to the dynamic in the house where you're seeing now up to 13 Democrats have announced that they're not running for reelection air because they don't think they're going to be in the majority.
And one kind of sidebar, I'm watching on these governors races is republican primaries to incumbent governors, particularly in Idaho in Ohio, potentially in Alabama, where you have republican primary basis,
who are
upset in some quarters at uh, at what the governors did with restrictions in covid.
And I'll be curious if one or two of those governors go down in a primary.
Mhm.
You know, Dave in the brief time we have left. I do want to flash back to 2020 elections. I know, in your speeches, you say they were a lot closer than than most people realize. You know, can you expand on that?
Yeah. You know, people tend to look at the overall popular vote in 2020 and Joe Biden won seven million more votes or the Electoral College, which Joe Biden won by 74 electoral votes through a 6-2-32. But
when you add up the cumulative margins in the states that put him over the top in the Electoral College, Arizona Georgia and Wisconsin joe biden actually won by a margin of 42,915 votes out of 159 million votes cast. That's a pretty
darn small margin, especially considering that the polls had him up
By eight or nine points nationally, especially when President Trump's approval rating was in the low 40s. And he was getting very low marks on his handling of COVID that just goes to show you how closely divided the country is and how how hardened and stubborn that divide is.
I suspect that,
You know, in 2024,
uh,
the biden administration is going to still be defending a lot of trying to defend a lot of things that have gone wrong. It's a complicated world that we live in and with that burden on democrats,
republicans
and very possibly donald trump could start out the slight favorites to retake the White
House and those house votes were very close as well, right, What was the bottom line for the House?
Yeah, in in the House Democrats only managed to hang on to the house by five seats. And uh and their margin was
2 22 - 13.
It was just 31758
votes across five races that decided house control,
wow.
Alright. As you can see, David is a wizard. Uh He can talk uh whatever chamber that you want, I I can personally attest. He's been tested on what lawmakers are in which districts, not just in your own state, but all states. Okay. So, he is definitely a wizard. And David. We have to thank you for your
time because I I know you're very busy, but I think I'll see you tonight in D. C. At an event for texas A and M. Students, I think you're gonna be there. So, you know, you know, we can down one, you know, this evening as a thank you that I don't even have to pay for.
That's Jim's favorite kind of. Thank you, by the way, David. Yeah. All right, thank you so much, David. Uh that is House Editor for the Cook Political Report. David. Wasserman, thank you so much. David, appreciate that big
fan of the show.
Excellent. Love that. Love that. Jim.
So, let's say that David is right, and when we get to
um
Well, after following the 2022 elections, what does all that mean for the farm bill?
That means that you'll probably have an extension to begin with? I think because, uh, the committees are not bipartisan any longer on some issues. They are, but not on the farm bill. So I think the knee jerk reaction should be a short term extension until
They clear the decks because even in the Senate in 20
24 elections, that doesn't look good for, you know, Democrats either chip because of the numbers game. So I think that's the first part and you would see a flip flop on the focus of the ag-sector issues. If,
as David predicts now subject to caveats because we're a good year
a wave. Uh, you're more than, uh, you're away,
but you would see a focus completely different than what you're seeing right now on Capitol hill relative to the Ag sector.
Excellent. Excellent. All right, Good job setting that one up. Jim is a great conversation with Dave. Really appreciated. Hey, this morning on Agri Talk, we've got machinery pete and we're going to talk to the economy with rich Bodson and a heads up for later this week. On thursday, both hours of Agra talks are going to focus on ethanol
and the RFs. We've got a great lineup of the stakeholders that are ready to share their visions for the industry. You have a great week. Everybody keep watching for those signals
