Why A Plus One Matters in the US Senate

But let me tell you why you got the wrong Georgia. Here, once again, the balance of power in the US capital comes down to a Georgia Senate seat. This time, the race between Democrat Raphael Warnick and a Republican Herschel Walker won't decide who controls the Senate. Democrats have already locked that up, but adding just one more vote to that slimmest of majorities would give Democrats and President Joe Biden a surprising amount of power that they won't have if

Republicans win it. Instead, to explain why that is and paint a picture of what's in store, in Washington. I'm joined by Mario Parker, who leads Bloomberg's US politics coverage, White House correspondent Nancy Cook, and Craig Gordon, Bloomberg's national editor. Thanks for having us West really appreciate it. Yeah, we're excited. Craig, maybe I'll start with you. We know Democrats have hung on to their majority in the Senate by the narrowest of margins, So why did it matter if they're able

to get just one more seat from Georgia. I mean, look, anybody who watched the United States Senate for the past few years and the Democrats were ostensibly in control found out that a fifty fifties Senate with Kamala Harris as a tiebreaker is not that great of a Senate majority when you have people like Joe Manchup in West Virginia himself probably facing a tough race next in a couple

of years Christian Cinema there from Arizona. So anything they can do to sort of pad that margin and make not every single vote sort of uh you know, you know, perilous last minute thing where they have to drive the Vice president of the Capitol is pretty important. I think it's even more important now that we know the Republicans will control the House. Um. You know, Biden had both the Senate and the House for the first two years, uh,

and did get some stuff done over the summer. But now he's gonna he'd be dealing with, you know, the House Republicans. There are probably a lot of investigations of his son, of the border, of every other thing. So having a little bit of a cushion in the Senate to try to get some stuff through there and you know, passive bills, and try to put some pressure on the House Republicans to say, hey, you want to be just obstructionist or do you want to actually get some stuff

done for the country. I think it's really crucial. Um. I think that's kind of a subtle argument to make in the state of Georgia, but we in Washington know that's a that's a pretty big deal. And I think to Craig's point, we've all seen the cutaways during the consequential votes where it's like Vice President Kamala Harris is

heading back to the Capitol again. I think for her politically, this will be a relief because she doesn't have to be asked tethered to Washington, and that has ramifications for that field as well. Right Republicans have this deep bench of people behind former President Donald Trump. Kamala Harris wants to be the air appearance to Biden, but she just hasn't had the same opportunity to get out in campaign.

This frees her up a little bit more to to really boost her profile outside of Washington, d C. That's really good point, and we're gonna come back to the consequences for the four race just in a little bit, Nancy, I wanted to ask you. Craig had mentioned Joe Manson, the Democrat from West Virginia who tied up Biden's agenda with all kinds of demands, greatly shrank it in the amount of money, in the scope of of the thing.

How would more democratic seat if Raphael Warneck the Democrat and Georgia wins, how would that affect Biden's ability to kind of push things through at least the Senate side of the Capitol. Well, and there's a bunch of things that he will want to push through, particularly like judicial nominations. That's a very key thing um over the next two years. But just not having to cater to Joe Mansion would be such a big deal for this White House if

they can hold that Georgia Senate seat. There is a whole apparatus in the White House that's basically like the catering to Joe Mansion department. Remind people what exactly Joe

Mansion do. That's so hamstrung the Biden administration. Well, basically the sweeping legislative package that the Biden team was originally calling Build Back Better, which was worth trillions of dollars and had clean energy stuff but also more money for childcare centers and community college and pre k. Basically, Mansion singularly totally scaled that back because he said he was worried about inflation and didn't like the size of it.

So they did end up passing sort of a a secondary version of it called the Inflation Reduction Act, but it was much much smaller and centered around things like healthcare, clean energy tax credits, um and it's it's just it really shrank the ambitions of the Biden team. So, Craig, you know, if you have that one extra vote, like you were talking about, it's easier to be a single standout, but kind of hard to have two standouts that can withstand the full pressure of the White House and the

Party to get something done that's right. And in the case of Mansion, um, he being from a cold state, took a lot of these sort of green energy proposals very seriously thought I thought they were sort of a threat to his hometown economy. Basically, I don't think christ and Cinema sort of shares his passion on some of those issues. So green, green jobs, green tech, electric vehicle subsidies, things like that that Biden might want to try to do it in the next two years, probably have an

easier road. But you know, she was pretty feisty on on the budget deficit stuff. I mean, she was very sort of fiscally conservative, So I could see places where Mansion and Cinema still lock arms and even with the one extra if Nack pulls it off, still not enough. But I do think it just makes his road better, and it sounds like it puts a lot of people in the in the what do we do about Joe Mansion Department out of work inside the by and the

White House. And just one more thing I would want to point out is that the map for Democrats in the Senate is much tougher, and so I think that they want to have all the winds that they can have now because I think in two years, defending the Senate and holding onto it will be much trickier. And I think that that's something that the White House is aware of. It's also not crazy to imagine a Supreme Court nomination coming up potentially in the next two years.

God only knows what could happen there. We've seen some real big surprises obviously with bager Ginsburg and such. So then even there, just that one vote could could make the difference between someone getting onto the Supreme Court and not getting on the Supreme Court. Yeah. And aside from that court picks obviously a big deal, and just having that extra vote, there's the whole mechanics of the Senate and in Senate committees and how their divided it in

the votes. To Mario, can you just kind of layout why having one extra Democrat really affects the way just the business of the Senate gets done. Yeah, President Biden. I think over this past weekend he was asked about why fifty one matters, and he said, it's just better,

It's right. So you take that's a former Saturday exactly, exactly and exactly, and it's that's the that's the Joe Biden that was in the Senate for what almost four decades, And so you get an extra seed on and cushy committees like the Intelligence Committee, the Armed Services Committee, the

Foreign Relations Committee. I mean that's quite important, particularly given what we've seen from Republicans talking about Ukraine AID as well, and some of the things that are going on in Europe and in the Middle East also, so you get the Democrats get an advantage and some of those key committees. Nancy, Craig and Mario please stick around. We'll continue this conversation after the break. Nancy, we've talked about why this Georgia Senate seat is so important. Bring us up to speed.

What's the latest in the race between Walker and Warnick. Well, um, it's getting really ugly and dirty down there, I would say in Georgia there's a lot of mud slinging from both candidates as to you know, what they stand for, a lot of accusations. M Herschel. Walker is saying that, you know, um, Raphael Warnock his church oversaw housing complex that did not treat tenants. Well, well, I don't want anyone evicted that people behind us right now is being evicted. Yes,

it's true, and he knew about it. You know, there's been a lot of allegations from women, not necessarily the Democratic Party about Walker's own stance on abortion. We do know that my opponent has trouble with the truth, but I am focused squarely on the healthcare needs of my constituents, including reproductive healthcare, and so they've really sort of been going after each other in a in a pretty extreme way,

and that just keeps ramping up um. I think that the concern sort of a few weeks ago was what would the turnout look like? But what we have seen so far is the turnout has been gangbusters on both sides, and we're seeing that Black Georgians are outpacing other demographic groups in terms of the turnout um, which could potentially

favor the Democrats or does historically in elections. And so but it's interesting because I think people were really feeling like whoever had the best turnout would win the election, and we've just seen a huge number of people voting. So when thing you mentioned is how Black Georgians are turning out more obviously in Georgia, like a lot of states, cities tend to be more democratic, the suburbs and in the rural areas tend to be more Republican. Do we

know how the voting is going breaking down? From what we've seen from all these early votes, it looks like it's as as you kind of outlined West, A lot of the metropolitan Atlanta is having a strong turnout by all indications. There's been just rams of pictures on social media with the long lines that were you accustomed to sing and Georgia elections, And at one point, I think

that's important. We just spent a bit of time talking about why fifty one matters were all Washington insiders, right, even though we don't want to be told that we we understand some of the parliamentarian rules, the average voter doesn't, right. So the fact that Democrats were able to withstand a red wave, it kind of removes the Republican argument that, hey, this seat is so consequential, it's a it's a way

to change the control of the chamber. Republicans don't have that advantage as they seek to stoke that some of their voters, So you mean that that may just make it to the Republicans who thought there was a lot of stake with show upen this time. They're like exactly, especially when you have a candidate as you mentioned, like herschel Walker who uh is unorthodox to say the least, and uh and a lot of the base had a

problem with him. And you see some of the ads with Warnock right out, he's attacking that weak spot where he's running ads with Republicans, particularly as Nancy mentioned, Uh, black Georgians are important, but what Warnock is doing is running as with white Republicans saying, hey, you know what this guy, herschel Walker, I'm not sure about him, right, So he's trying to punch that weak spot at herschel Walker head Craig, that's an interesting point, um that you

see a lot of Democrats who are kind of excited about Warnock. They feel like he's good. Kennedy obviously one once. He's got a pretty good record in history to tell. Whereas herschel Walker, you know, he's got a baggage with abortion where he you know, asked UH women to get abortions, which he's denied. He has a problem with the residency where it turns out of lived in Texas until five

minutes ago. In political terms, Um, you see a lot of big Republicans, like the governor of Georgia, like Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and the Senate all coming around Walker. But they don't seem like they're all excited about herschel Walker. They just seem like they're excited about the idea of a Republican winning. And as we said earlier, that's a very subtle argument to try to make, you know, just

we need to get our guy into the Senate. It's not gonna make a difference on the majority, but it's better to have our guy than their guy. I just think I think, you know, a pretty honest political assessment would be there's a certain amount of Republicans that kind of held their nose and voted for herschel Walker. Um, them shows a lot of people that love them. Certainly was a massive football star for the University George down there.

I'm sure he's got a legion of followers, but I have a feeling there's a not insignificant sliver of people who pulled the lever for him that day that maybe didn't love that so much. And now that Senate controls off the table. It's a little bit harder to see them getting excited, you know, to sort of get out and vote on, you know, during during the runoff. All of which is a way of saying, if I were I would much rather be playing Warnox hand right now.

He's doubled his fundraising during the runoff. He's doubled his ad spending. Warnock had ads on during the Macy's Day parade on Thanksgiving. Politics these days is often used to divide us, but Thanksgiving offers us an opportunity to consider all the things we share and come and so it does feel like there's a little tiny bit of momentum building up, building up for Warnock, who haven't seen a stream of Republicans coming into the States to stand with her.

Shol and all of that. And remember he already underperformed Kemp by two hundred thousand votes on election day. So kemping, of course, the governor of Georgia, the Brian Kemp, the governor Georgia who won handily over Stacey Abrams, a Democrat. Um, you know, so there's just a lot of he's facing a lot of headwinds right now. Um. The early voting numbers hundred fifty six thousand people voted this weekend in Georgia, heavily in Black Metro Atlanta, places like Athens, Savannah, Columbus.

I mean, these are these are Democratic voters, heavily of African American voters. These are really good signs for Raphael Warnock. And remember Brian Kemp, the governor. Kemp kept kept Walker at a distance throughout its hell. It's hell, he was saved himself, So I may voters see that. We we can't take for granted the voters intelligence on that issue, so they they can tell the difference between the fact if Kimp was absent for a long period of time

until he was okay himself. Well, listen, I was focused on making sure that I got re elected. And it wasn't just helping me, it was helping our whole ticket. We had a really good night here in Georgia. We want every you know, statewide race. Republicans did Nancy. One interesting thing we're seeing is that evangelical voters are backing herschel Walker even though Raphael Warnock is a minister. And

so there's that unusual split that we've seen. We saw it with Donald Trump versus Joe Biden, Donald Trump versus all Democrats, really where Evangelical closed backed him up in part because he was pushing Supreme Court justices, which was a really big issue, in part on the abortion issue. But for Herschel Walker, abortion is a much more complicated thing. It definitely is because there have been all these I've

sort of lost track. I think at least two or three women who have said at this point that Walker asked them personal to get abortions. As you said, he has denied it. But I think that what has been important with evangelical voters is just what these politicians promised to do with their vote when they have it, not necessarily their personal action. We saw the same thing with Trump.

We saw Trump making comments during the twenty sixteen campaign on the Hollywood Access tape where he talked about women how you can just grab them. Evangelical still voted for him based on his policy stands and what he said he would do with abortion, and I think we're seeing the same dynamic play out with Walker. Um. I just think the one interesting thing to look at is, you know a lot of the Trump backed candidates in the midterms did not win, and Walker is a Trump back candidate.

So I think that this will be a final test ahead of about how much Trump's endorsement and the candidates that he has hand picked how well they actually do well. Of course, Donald Trump is going to walk into any conversation like this, so since he did, let's spend just a minute on that. Uh, Trump is not going down

to Georgia. I guess he's in Florida, going oh to Georgia to campaign in person for herschel walk her Um, And there's some speculation that is because Walker and Republicans don't want Trump near him for exactly the reason you just said, Nancy Craig, Um, what is Trump's uh sort of value or possibly his you know, lack of value to this race. Yeah, He's definitely you know, he's doing some fundraising calls and doing some you know, sort of

email appeals. So his name is is around in Georgia, heavily targeted, highly targeted to the voters that where that would be an appeal. But I think Donald Trump motivates Democrats to get to the polls a lot more than

you motivates Republicans to get to the polls. These days, it would have been criminal malpractice for Donald Trump to show up in Georgia and stand next to Herschel Walker, just because if you're a Republican and you're gonna you know, you're thinking about Walker Trump showing up, It's hard to imagine it sways you all that much one way or the other. You're with Herschel and you're gonna go when

you're gonna vote Democrats. They get blood in their eyes when they see Donald Trump and there he is right in their state, reminding them of all the reasons why they know voted for Joe Biden twenty of the narrow wind that turned Georgia, then why they would for warnut the first time, why they want to vote for him a second time. So, you know, a rare bit of discretion from the former president who usually doesn't much like

to be told where he can and can't go. Actually a smart move on his part, But boy does that just shout about his devalued status as is a Republican U kingmaker. Obviously, his hand to candidate in Pennsylvania, Mdaz lost his hampy candidate in Arizona for governor loss, Gary Lake. There's an argument to be made the Republicans could control the Senate right now if Donald Trump had a little bit less to do with picking their candidates and some

of these races. Um and so I think as we all watched that pretty flat announcement the past couple of weeks of some pretty rough commentary on the former president, again a rare moment when he actually kind of did the right thing for his party and for his candidate by just staying the heck away. When we come back, we're gonna look ahead to the next couple of years and believe it or not, the next presidential race Murrio

now looking ahead passed this election. Democrats have held on to the Senate, but they did lose the House, which means Republicans there will be trying to block Biden's every move. What do the next two years in Washington look like

when it comes to getting anything done? Yeah, well, it gives it gives a president Biden a bit of a buffer, right, So, I mean, he doesn't have two chambers giving him a headache as as he will have the one in the House, which is as we mentioned earlier, there will be investigations on everything from the Afghanistan withdrawal to his his son

Harnson Biden as well. Uh, so the Senate at least he doesn't have to worry about that, and and he could still try to find earnestly, try to find some ways to compromise, right, Uh, score some political points, as Craig mentioned, by by having some legislation come out of the Senate and force House Republicans to either be obstructionists

or go along with the with with the president. Let me ask you about that, because you know, Biden does have that senator's sensibility where he believes in the better angels and people can really compromise on policy and ideas. And you know, it seems pretty quaint now because it seems like politics and d C is about not just

winning but about punishing the other side. And if you look at the House, do they really want to be seen as compromising with Joe Biden in any kind of way or do they actually think it's better to be seen as obstructing That obstruction used to be a bad we're in Washington now for certain people it seems to be what you want. Yeah. Well, I've mentioned the word headache, right, So if Biden has a headache from the House, you gotta imagine what Kevin McCarthy is gonna have and that's

Kevin McCarthy. Of course, the minority leader wants to be Speaker of the House exactly. So he's got one wink of his party that wants nothing but revenge for everything going back to twenties twenty and then some of the investigations under former President Donald Trump. She got voters, they've got a very thin majority, underwhelming performs in amidstorms, voters are showing that they have little appetite for this vengeance

tour as well. So he's going to have to figure out how to corral his His clock is there, Nancy Um. Joe Biden is looking at running for president, kind of looks like he's gonna run. He hasn't said he's gonna run. There's questions about his age, there's questions about whether somebody else should pick it up or if Biden is the only one. All that's swirling around. You cover the Biden administration, What do you see? So I see a president and a top White House staff that was very, very emboldened

by the mid terms. Um even though they lost the House, it was by a much smaller margin than they thought. They held the Senate, which they were super excited about and they did that amid like the highest inflation in forty years, and amid the presidential approval rating which was pretty low. And so they are feeling great. They're feeling like, you know, Biden just you can tell when you're around them, they're they're like in a good boot, their jovial, all

the presence, in a great mood. Do they think it's cause Biden? Like, do they think that this is proof that Biden's agenda is working? They do, they believe that. In a press conference the day after the midterms, a reporter asked the president, are you going to do anything differently? You know, it seems like you have lost the House. You know, what do you plan to do differently? And he said, I thought this was such an interesting, amazing answer. Nothing,

because they're just finding out what we're doing. The more they know about what we're doing, the more support there is, so they really feel like they were vindicated. And I you know, he hasn't made a decision yet about whether or not he's going to run, but my money would be on him running again. And he's eighty and so he would be at the end of a second term if he got re elected eighty six, and so I think the real question in the Democratic Party is that,

you know, it's an age thing. Is that too old to run? Craig. You know, Joe Biden and his team, like Nancy says, are taking their victory lap on this one because at least they held off you know, the worst outcome. But Biden's numbers are looking pretty bad. Do you think the American people think that Joe Biden won this election? Like, do they think that he's doing a great job? Yeah, I mean, in ratings are not where

they need to be. But in a lot of ways, I would argue that sort of makes the the enormity of the victory a few weeks back, as you know, as enormous as it is. Um he went up against historical trends, one of the best you know, mid terms for any president, you know, and memory almost a low approval rating one of the main things you look at in that historical trend. His isn't great and he still managed to pull it off. So they have they have

some real justifiable reasons to feel good about this. I guess I sort of look at it as the you know, it was sort of like your country needs you, Joe in and he pulled it off and he beat Donald Trump. I think he would have a pretty good shot to beat Donald Trump again. The danger for Joe Biden if he does run, and I'm I'm with Nancy thinking that he will run. Anyone who watched that day after the

election press conference that that's the guy who's running for president. Um, if it's not Donald Trump, that's a much tougher thing. You know. Obviously a lot of buzz around round to Santis, the Florida governor who had an enormous victory on election night, twenty points carried Miami Dade County, heavily democratic Miami Dade um area. There he is, he is riding very high.

So now you have with Trump, you don't have so much of an age contrast or roughly similar to Santis is very young, much much difference, very much the next generation. Americans always like to pick the next generation for their president and not really look backwards. So you know, tell me who his opponent is going to be, and I'll tell you how he does. I actually do think he could sort of replicate the Biden you know, the Biden coalition, for lack of a better word, in to be Donald Trump.

Isn't enough to beat any of a few other people. That's a much higher hill to climb. But it probably with the Democrats is their bench is not is not great. And there we come to Vice President Kamala Harris. Um again, I think she would be almost the guaranteed successor. She is the vice president, historic figure. I was the first

African American South Indian American. Very hard for the Democratic Party to say, you know what, Kamala, you didn't do such a great job as vice president, We're going to go with a Gavin Newsome or fill in the name

of somebody else. Not a lot there beyond her obviously historic, the historic nature of her own vice presidency to get excited about for Democrats as an electoral force in twenty four Do we hear Craigs bailing out this kind of dilemma that the Democrats have where it would be really difficult for them not to make Kamala Harris if Joe Biden didn't run for one reason or another, but not a whole lot of enthusiasm about her as a candidate.

What do you see from sort of inside the White House about that question of is Kamala Harris the default Democratic pick if Joe Biden isn't running again, well, I think that that is part of the reason. I mean, I think Trump and and also that quandary is exactly why Biden would run again. Like there's not I don't think that the White House views her vice president see is something that has been you know, it's been a

real mixed bag. There's been a lot of stuff turnover, a lot of problems, and so I don't think it's something that people inside the White House would feel totally comfortable having her be the successor um and so, you know, I just think they're really conscious of that, and I think that that will factor into Biden's decision, along with the idea that like he's the one that can stop Trump. You know, he is a centrist Democrat at a time and a lot of progressives are pulling the party very

far left. There's a firm belief inside the White House that that is a very key part of him running, too, because regular Americans, they think, want and more centrist approach than you know what some of the Hill Democrats are proposing. UM. But I do think if she did, if Biden didn't run, and she ran, there would also be a bunch of Democrats who would jump into the race, governors like Pritzker, m Or in Illinois, Gavin Newsom of California. It would

just be like a much more wide open field. Um. But it's just been tricky because Democrats haven't really had as much success building the just as Republicans. And I think there's a much wider Republican field of people who have eyed or expressed interest in writing for the presidency. Mario, you're gonna get the last word here. Um. You heard both Craig and Nancy said they think that Joe Biden looks the guy who's running. Um. You covered Donald Trump

as White House correspondent. Do you think Biden versus Trump to Biden or Trump wins? And if it's not Trump and it's someone like de Santis in Florida under stantists, can Biden beat him? Great question. Well, I think in terms of Biden Trump, the poll show that Biden would steal is former President Donald Trump two point o rematch. I think that as we we talk about this right now at this moment, what's uh you call it symmetry, poetry,

whatever your favorite term is. But Biden has often said this Charlotteville was the impetus for him running, the white supremacists, etcetera. As we're recording this right now, Donald Trump is still dealing with aftermath of sitting with a white supremacist as well, right so that has to inform the beginner that he

had in Florida exactly exactly. So if you're one, if you're Biden, and you're deliberating on too as to whether to run again, this is a nice sign if you want it, right for for you to be emboldened Biden versus the Santis again. Right now, the polls show many of the posts show Biden edging him, but I think that Republicans will welcome that one for sure. Mario Parker, Man c Cook, and Craig Gordon, thanks so much for

coming on the show. Thanks for having us. Thanks. You can read more from Craig Gordon, Mario Parker, and Nancy Cook, and follow all of Bloomberg's politics and election coverage at Bloomberg dot com. Thanks for listening to us here at The Big Take, the Daily podcast from Bloomberg and I Heart Radio. For more shows from my heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app podcast or wherever you listen. Read today's story and subscribe to our daily newsletter at

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