Jessica Taylor, she was a senior breakthrough officer for the Almanac of American Politics and David Greup with a cook political report. Why don't you bring her in on what she's publishing about Monday? I want to know where Jessica Taylor is Monday.
Well, Jessica, let's start there. It's great to speak with you. We can get Tom a copy of that Almanac.
We just hope. Yeah, I mean we start work on it next week actually for the next edition. So I'm quickly turning around doing that.
So, yeah, are you going to know by Monday? Who controls the House? Where are we in the counting of votes in those what thirty outstanding districts across this country?
Yeah, it's unclear if we'll know by Monday. I think that we're still waiting on some of those key California districts, you know, But I think there's a very there's a very thinning path rather to get to eighteen for Democrats. That's what's becoming clear.
Annie Carney of the Time's at with a piece this morning about Marie Glusen camp Perez of Washington State. She complaining to Annie just about how she felt she was ignored by the mainstream Democratic Party. She had complaints about where things were going. She felt she was ignored by the candidate herself at a Christmas party. The grievances range
from kind of macro to micro. But want to use that as kind of a pivot to ask you about how much what we've been talking about over these last few days about the Democratic Party broadly trickles down to these races for House seats. Are the complaints universal about the degree to which the Democratic Party has left voters
behind her. If we look at these races one by one, be they in Washington State or California or elsewhere, are there places where the kind of main messaging that the Democrats have had have worked.
Yeah, So just to update you, I am looking at our latest projections here at cook that we are putting out this morning, and right now, Republicans we have been winning so far two hundred and twelve, so they're just shy six seats at the two eighteen and we think probably the ceiling they can get is a five seat game, which would bring them to two twenty six, but that's still up in the air. But to ask about the individual things, I think that Democrats that managed to win.
We're ones that has strong individual brands. Are only Marie Gules camp As. They're in Washington, but Jared Golden and Maine looks like he's held on even as Trump carried that congressional district. But then you know, other Democrats that we didn't think were perhaps as in danger got swamped by sort of the tide. I think they're in Pennsylvania, which I heard you all talking about before, with Matt Cartwright and Susan Wilde in Pennsylvania losing both of those seats.
But then you know, when I'm looking at the Senate map, someone like Tamy Baldwin managed to win very narrowly Alyssa Slotkin. They both I think were able to run stronger in rural areas, not win those, but to do better. And I think that's coming with knowing the areas and that they had a unique brand sort of separate from the Democratic Party enough where they were able to convince voters to trust to vote for them even as they voted for Trump.
In the Washington Post, I believe this morning there's a fabulous article that mister Trump has power. Everyone agrees with that, but maybe less power to drive the House and Senate. Where do you stand on that? I mean, I'm waiting for Charlie Cook to write one of his wonderful essays about this. Is it a landslide, is it a power shift? Or do we overplay that? Right now?
Well, at least when I'm looking at the Senate, they have at least fifty three seats right now, and I think that's probably where it's going to land. The ap is called Pennsylvania, so they flipped West Virginia, Ohio, and Montana. But those three were always the ones we expected were
the most. So again Republicans left seats on the table because for the first time we've had multiple seats that split their tickets in the Trump era with it, you know, we the races in Arizona and Nevada aren't called, but it looks like those are going to vote Democratic at the Senate level, but heavily Republican at the presidential level. So this could have been much worse. That's my piece that I have about this morning in the table, and
that's because Democrats were spending heavily. They managed to sort of ward off some of this. You know, in Arizona they had we hear candidates so it could have been worse. And remember that much like you know, I think this was sort of Democrats worry if they only got to fifty two or something, which they've got one more. At least it looks like that Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski of May could wield overwhelming influences the moderates within the GOP.
How they go about that could could matter. But you know, if Republicans have gained a few seats in the House that you know that we saw what that four seat majority did last time. But you know, the last time Trump had a trifecta was when he was when he came in in twenty seventeen, and they weren't able to get everything passed. And it's just two years, probably because we see typically that a president's party faces backlash in
that regard. So you know, I think they're going to have to push through tax cuts and renewing those tax cuts and anything that they want to do in this two years. But again, they have a little bit bigger majority in the House, but it's not huge. And you know, again, if some of those Republicans in California are reelected wins that they could be sitting in still very heavily democratic areas, so they might not go along with the national Parky.
I get this out on Twitter and LinkedIn Aaron Blake, writing in the Munshton Post, Trump's mandate isn't as quote powerful unquote as he suggests. Here's why, David one more to Jessica.
Jess I just want to ask you about that so called blue wall and where it stands to I was in Wisconsin before the election, spent some time with Senator Baldwin and just kind of noted how she was very confident that she was a known quantity love, how everyone called her Tammy, there was no pretense, and how people addressed her on the campaign trail, but she felt like she was kind of wandering around a terrain that had
changed markedly since the last time she ran. In the time before that, our colleague remained Bostic was in Michigan saying Michigan no longer a blue state, saying that unequivocally, how do you see that stretch of the rust belt? Has it changed permanently?
I mean, I'm not sure that we can call it the blue wall anymore when we look at sort of Trump's victories there. I think that Democrats took the wrong lessons away from twenty twenty two when they ran better candidates and when there was abortion on the ballot. I was talking with a Michigan Democrat yesterday and they said, you know, listen, Gretchen Weimer won that by ten, but she probably got at least a four point boost because of just the abortion referendum and how terrible of a
candidate that Republican Tutor Dixon there was. So you know, again, you do need to run Democrats that have those brands. That's how Tammy Baldwin was able to survive. But I don't think that we can. You know, I think there was a lot of talk going into this like Michigan's not even on the table anymore. Look at Gretchen Wimer's win, look at that, you know, Supreme Court race in Wisconsin.
In different things like these are moments in time, and when you have presidential turnout, it turns out differently than some of the special elections.
Right, Jessica, fifteen seconds. When do I get the new Almanac of American Politics? How long has it taken pre order?
It's the target game.
Okay, Jessica, Thank you so much. Jessica Taylor with us A Cook political report