Bill Kristol: A Blue Wave vs. the Toxic Red Tide

The Bulwark Daily

Tim Miller and Bill Kristol revisit pivotal midterm election years—1994 and 2006—to analyze what they reveal about the potential for a Democ

Key takeaways

• Historical midterm waves like 1994 and 2006 were driven by public frustration with the ruling party—whether due to policy failures or perceived gridlock.
• Trump's declining approval ratings and Republican Congress's role as a 'rubber stamp' are seen as key factors that could fuel Democratic gains in 2026.

Main topics

• Historical midterm elections (1994 and 2006)
• Trump's approval ratings and their impact on midterms

Notable quotes

"The Republican Congress now is kind of more like a rubber stamp Congress... They should run against the Republican Congress as enabling Trump and doing nothing to check him."

Conclusion

While current projections underestimate Democratic potential due to gerrymandering and polarization,

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) Hey everybody, just a real quick note. I pre-taped this upcoming pod with Bill and so, you know, assuming it was a blowout LSU victory on Saturday night, that's why I didn't mention that because I don't know what has happened yet. I don't know what's happened in the world. So, you know, if we got the cheeseburger from heaven or whatever, I don't know about it. So it is a great show. We're talking a little bit about the midterms and it's a retrospective. on 94 and 2006. I think that you're going to really enjoy it. Also, a reminder, we've got these events coming up. Tickets are starting to go. So if you want to come join us, Atlanta, Columbia, Charlotte, theborg.com slash events. And one last thing, I'm after the pod's over. Let me know what you think about kind of the retrospective part of this. I have another little brainchild for something that I think you guys might like that is in a similar vein. And so I'm interested in your thoughts. So you can, if you didn't like it. If it was boring or whatever, you can let me know. So, appreciate you guys very much. Have a great Labor Day. Stick around for Bill Kristol. Hello and welcome to the Bullwark Daily. I'm your host, Tim Miller. It is Monday. It's Labor Day. And I have for you, of course, editor-at-large Bill Kristol. We have a very special episode by popular demand. It's the Labor Day kickoff. Getting ready for the midterms. And Bill and I, on several episodes, have been discussing the 2006 wave year that led to the Democrats taking the House and the Senate. as well as some other midterms. And I've suggested kind of cheekily, like maybe we should dedicate a full episode to that. And people are like, yes, please do. We want that. And so we're going to do it right now for Labor Day. It'll be a little holiday bonus. So that sound good, Bill? Speaker 1 (1:47) Sounds good. So we'll do 2006, which is the least modern history. Then we'll go back to 1994, the ancient times before you were born, and I can discuss what happened then. Speaker 2 (1:56) And then you also told me you wanted to do just a little bit on your first campaign, 1948. Thank you. I set you up so well for Speaker 1 (2:02) that. I mentioned 1948 in Morning Shots this week, and that's why Tim is having a good time with that. I was not quite around yet. We Speaker 2 (2:09) also, for the YouTube viewers and the Bullard Plus subscribers, we might have a picture of me from 2006 and video of Bill from 1994. So you can go see what we looked like. We're both handsomer than ever now. Before we do that, I thought it would be good to just kind of set the table with a little bit of... you know, just pure politicking, some prognosticating, looking ahead to this year's midterm. And then kind of we can talk about how like our various experiences in past midterms sort of inform these projections. So I don't know that we need to like go state by state, but kind of wondering what, Bill, like your big picture thoughts are as we sit here on Labor Day for how the November election will go and maybe specific states that are Speaker 1 (2:47) catching your eye. I've thought it would be a big Democratic year for quite a while, based on nothing other than just the obvious facts. The main fact being that Donald Trump's approval rating has gone down steadily since he was inaugurated. And the approval rating of an incumbent president is a good predictor of what happens in a midterm election, especially when his party controls both houses of Congress. So it is a referendum on do you approve of what they've been doing for two years? And more importantly, probably, do you want? especially when the Republican Party in Congress is so attached to Trump, do you want them to continue rubber stamping what he's been doing for the next few years, or do you want a party to check him? That was very much my experience in 2018, the last Trump midterm. And so I've always assumed Democrats had a pretty good shot at a pretty good victory. And then as Trump got into the Iran war and decided to monkey around with tariffs some more and inflation didn't go down and he made a generally seem disconnected from people's lives and so forth, the gas prices went up. by quite a lot, I thought a good year could become a very good year. And that's kind of for the Democrats. And that's kind of where I am. Speaker 2 (3:51) Yeah. So let's just do the House first. I agree with you on all that, on the big picture. I'm a little bit of two minds at the House and the Senate. And it's a little bit because of the playing field. I do think that the Democrats are going to see big gains among Latino voters. So, you know, in the parts of the country where there are a lot of Latinos, like Texas, that is maybe relevant for the Senate. But I think that they're going to overperform there. There'll be a lot of Trump backsliding. And I think the prognostications are wrong a lot about what's happening in South Texas, maybe even South Florida, some places like that. And so I expect the Democrats to even overperform in the House for that reason. And if you look at a lot of the projections right now, Nate Silver. The Democrats need to win four seats to get to 218. A lot of these projections have them only netting like eight seats or something and ending like 222. And the reason for that is to one, the cheating that Republicans did, the gerrymandering did work a little bit. That's going to offset some of the gains. That's one. And another reason for that is just this kind of and you discuss this with. Oh, shoot. Was it Doug Schoen? It was on your crystal conversation. Speaker 2 (5:03) And just like the nature of this is very different than 06 and 94 and just how polarized we are. There aren't as many districts in play. And there's been gerrymandering even before the cheating gerrymandering. There's regular old gerrymandering. And so I see that and I recognize it. But, man, I just look at the map and some of these places that Cook, for example, has is leaning towards Republicans. You know, in South Texas, as I mentioned, in eastern North Carolina, in Colorado, a couple of districts in Colorado, Florida. I think there are going to be a bunch of surprises. We'll get into why. So I think that the Democrats could net as many as like 16 seats and end up at 230, which would be less than still those other wave years we're going to talk about, but more than what is being. So that's kind of where I'm at the House. I'm less bullish on the Senate. We'll get to that in Speaker 1 (5:52) a Speaker 2 (5:52) second. But what's your view on that? Speaker 1 (5:55) Yeah, same on the House. I just think people are underestimating. They look at a district that's gone Republican in the last few years. It's a Republican now called Republican plus six, maybe Republican plus eight, because Trump might have been strong in 2024. And they underestimate that if the whole country moves, Trump won by a point and a half, right? Let's say the generic ends up plus eight. That is, the Democrats win the National House vote by eight, which seems reasonable. That's a nine and a half point. That means that a lot of districts that are Trump, you know, plus six, seven, eight are in play, right? And in fact, not only in play, but you might even maybe should be almost favored to go Democratic. So I tend to think also that people are being a little too, what's the word I'm looking for, deterministic from the past in this respect and not understanding that when you get to a wave, you know, districts topple that we're a little beyond the, you know, of course they can win this one because it's only plus two. Republican and or or or Republicans holding a seat that Harris actually won. There are some of those. So, yeah, I'm sort of in the two. I've been saying just to be a little optimistic. just to make the numbers round 235 to 200 in the house. Speaker 2 (6:57) Oh, wow. 235 making me seem cautious with my 230 projection. My Speaker 1 (7:01) job Speaker 2 (7:01) is to make Speaker 1 (7:01) you look sane, prudent, reasonable. I Speaker 2 (7:05) just like some of these districts. I mean, I don't know. Annapolina Luna is in a close race in Florida. That's in the likely R category on Cook. The fifth, Jeff Crank, has been in this Colorado Springs seat forever. There's a lot of sprawl into Colorado Springs from the rest of Colorado. It's like places like this start to fall. The Mills seat I've talked about a lot, Daytona Beach, I think that's potentially winnable. Democrats have a strong candidate there, Bail Dalton. So I just think that there are a lot of potentially gettable Dem seats in this kind of likely Dem category. There's the toss-up category, the lean category, then the likely. I think there's a lot of potential Dem seats to pick up there. So we're in the same page, even if not the same number in the House. So here's my nervousness about the Senate. We talk about this in a lot. So people who listen to the show should be pretty familiar with the playing field. But I'll just I'll just lay it out. Democrats need to pick up four to get to 51. And really, they need to pick up five because John Fetterman's been acting pretty squirrely. And I don't know if it's kind of one of those damned if you do damned if you don't. If you're Chuck Schumer, if you have 51, it's like either you got to get past everything by John Fetterman or John Fetterman switches parties and puts it back at 50 50. So you really want to try to get to 52, which means you got to win five. Yeah, net five. Yeah, net five. Okay. So that means you have to protect Georgia. That seems safe at this point. And you have to protect Michigan, which seems other people think is less safe than me. I think that's pretty safe at this point. Okay. Then you go into the pickups. You've got North Carolina is the one that it seems like you're going to get. That's one. You've got Maine. Susan Collins is tough. I think that Maine is going to be a flip this year, but that's not a guarantee. Then you've got to get two more to get to three more of Ohio, Iowa, Texas, Alaska. Three of those four are the best four. Then after that, you get into Kansas, which you and I have talked about. Nebraska is an independent running. Montana is an independent running. Florida, maybe. The map is tight. And a lot of those places, you mentioned 8-9 earlier, most of those places are 11-12 Trump states. They won by 11 or 12. I'm a little nervous that they end up running up into running a bunch of really close races and a bunch of losing by three points. A lot of 51-48 losses in those Senate races. If I sat here today and you forced me to choose to prognosticate, I do think that they get Ohio with Sherrod Brown. And I kind of look at Texas and Alaska. I don't think they're going to get Iowa. That would be if you're just asking me today. You look at Texas and Alaska, I think those are pure coin flips. And just to be cheery, I'd say they go with the Democrats. But I think both of them right now are like, really? Speaker 3 (9:51) neck and neck. Speaker 2 (9:52) So that's kind of the state of play. You'd win both of those. If you did win, hold the same seats. Win North Carolina, Maine, Ohio, Alaska, and Texas. That does get you to 52 and a real majority that you can work with. Who is the next biggest troublemaking senator after Fetterman? There really aren't any. I guess that would be Paltola, probably. You have a pretty cohesive Senate conference where you're just kind of working with Paltola. And who knows? In that case, maybe Murkowski dips. Honestly. So I think that would be kind of the state of play. What about you on this one? I Speaker 1 (10:24) mean, I basically agree. And, you know, obviously predicting races that are basically 50-50 is a fool's errand. So, I mean, there's some historical precedent, I guess you'd say, for when you get a wave, things tend to tip over to 51-49 in your direction. You know, I mean, Speaker 4 (10:38) that Speaker 1 (10:38) seems like that can't mathematically or scientifically be. determined that way. It just happens, feels that way, you know, whatever the weird, you know, dynamics of these races. They do tend to tip one way or the other for some reason. And so I kind of think that you could split those, the big four, two to two, which is sort of what you were suggesting might be the single most likely outcome, but they could also go four to zero either way, honestly. But if the wave continues, this is where it's so important what happens late. And, you know, September and October aren't that important in the sense that I feel like we know. 90%, 95 % of what's going to happen already. And I'm exaggerating a little bit. We know a lot of what's going to happen in 2026. But that last delta, that last bit is awfully important if you're looking at four, but I would even say five, maybe six very close. I mean, Kansas was closer than Iowa, I think, in 2024 in the presidential. They have a Democratic governor. It's not like no one in Kansas is ever like, well, voting for a Democrat, that would be crazy. So I kind of think that I'd put that almost in the same category as those other four, make it five. And also there'll be some surprise. Like the Democrats will lose a state they were supposed to win, maybe Michigan in this case, but maybe Maine, and then still get the majority because Kansas and somewhere else will come through. You know what I mean? That's sort of what happens in these years. If it's a dynamic wave-like year, if it reverts a little bit, I think you said this on the last podcast on Monday, does the wave continue a little bit in those last two months or does it revert to the... So what's the expression we're looking for? Refer to the mean, you know, refer to in the last two months. And that makes all the difference. Does it go plus eight to kind of drift down to plus six? Or does it go up to plus nine? You know, that just makes a big, big difference in these close Senate races. Speaker 2 (12:12) And that's a good transition into 2006, because I do think that the scale of that wave for the Democrats changed based on what happened in October. And it went from what was going to be a really, really good year for the Democrats, no doubt, kind of like this year, to... to a bunch of seats falling. And producer Ansley just kind of pulled this for me. If you kind of look at, going back to that Cook political report, which I referenced, and we love Amy Walter and everything that they're doing, there's really great, even though in 06, it was Charlie Cook. You know, at the end, they looked at their own projections and saw like how many they got right and they got wrong. And in 06, there were a bunch in that kind of likely Republican category that were surprising, dropped at the end, gets attributed to this October. you know, kind of momentum for the Democrats. So we'll get to what happened in October in a second. I just want to start on both years of the basic facts. So the Democrats in 06 gained 30 seats in the House, which is more than we're both projecting for this time. But for the reasons we laid out a lot, a lot because of gerrymandering, they gained six seats in the Senate. Right. Now there is no gerrymandering in the Senate. So that's more of an apples to apples situation, right? Like if you match the 06 number, you should get. about six, which is kind of what we're talking about. That would get you to 53. Then that's really what you're saying is the sweep maybe of Iowa, Ohio, Alaska, and Texas, or maybe you win three of those and Kansas, and you get to six. So that was the 2006 year. Compared to this year, in both cases, the president's approval rating is above this current president's. W on election day of 06 is at 38 in Gallup, which is above where Trump is right now. It's Speaker 3 (13:48) 3856. Speaker 2 (13:50) That's the state of play. I'll give you guys some names and then we'll do big picture to get your mind in the right time space. In the Senate, Claire McCaskill, my MSNOW buddy, beat Jim Talent. Jon Tester wins that year. Sherrod Brown defeats Mike DeWine. So time's a flat circle in Ohio. Like the current governor, Sherrod's back running. Sarah Shrendrick Santorum goes down to Bob Casey. This was a devastating one for me personally. Sheldon Whitehouse defeated Lincoln Chafee. The running joke on that campaign that year, because I was always like the House moderate and it was like, we need to moderate more. We need to moderate more and more. And they called me a Lincoln Chafee Republican in that campaign that year. And then Jim Webb defeated George Makaka Allen in 2006. And I was set that year. I was working in Iowa. We will put this picture up for Jeff Lamberti. He was running in Iowa three, which is the Des Moines district, challenging a vulnerable incumbent, Leonard Boswell. Oh, there it is. Whoa. Look how much handsomer I'm looking. Man, thanks to our friends at OneSkin. My plan there, there was a political consultant that I knew. And it was just like, you should go to Iowa. You should meet the reporters. This was the first campaign where I got to do PR. Before that, I was just kind of a little low-level assistant, funky field person. And I wanted to be a comms person. So I go to Iowa, meet the reporters. And he's like, then whatever presidential campaign I end up running, he was in line to be a presidential campaign manager. I'll hire you to be the Iowa person. I was like, great. This is a great deal. And so he looked like that was going to be George Allen. And then George Allen did a racial slur on the campaign trail, kind of a weird one. It's not like a common racial slur. And that was enough to crush him different, simpler times in 2006 to think that that would be... Nowadays, George Allen would go up with Republican voters after doing that. But he goes down and then that consultant ends up working for McCain and Dress History ended up working