You know, James and I were recently in Southern Florida where there was a confab of some really

interesting Democrats and strategists and thinkers.

And we had a number of interviews.

I hope you'll catch them because they really, really were interesting.

James, we've got two great guests that we want to talk about American politics. Molly Murphy,

one of the foremost pollsters, Democratic side, and David Wasserman and cyclopedic knowledge of Congress,

particularly the House and outcomes. So thank you both for being here.

Molly, first said, what's the environment like in 2026, say compared to 2018 the last time Trump was?

So the environment has some similarities, but actually some really notable differences. So I would say in

2018, people were shocked that Donald Trump got elected and they were negative towards him

almost immediately. He entered office for his first

term, already underwater. Voters wanted to stop him. Republicans came out saying we're going to put

guardrails around him. And it created almost instant democratic enthusiasm that sustained

throughout the cycle. That has not been the story of Donald Trump's second term. In his second

term, he came in popular. Not as popular as other presidents had come in, but a majority of

Americans approved of the job he was doing. And they were really hopeful that he was going to be

able to turn the economy around. And the other notable difference in 2026, or in 2025, I should say, is that voters were incredibly down on Democrats.

Democratic enthusiasm was low. We were losers. We were a party that couldn't govern. And so it has been sort of a crawling back in going into 2026 to all of Biden residual.

All of Biden residual, exactly, and a sort of sense that Democrats shouldn't have lost to Donald Trump.

And so therefore, how could we ever win an election again?

So it has been a long 2025.

I think when we look at the results of the 2025 special elections, though, and the gubernatorial

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