Hi, I'm Bill Crystal. Welcome back to Conversations. I'm very pleased to be joined today. What is today? July 12th, by my friend Joe Trippi, one of the, in my opinion, the most successful, but more importantly, perhaps most thoughtful and insightful.

Democratic political strategist, practicing political strategy. Joe, we've had three conversations in March 2019. Joe predicted that Joe Biden would be the Democratic nominee in 2020, which was against the conventional wisdom, certainly the sophisticated conventional wisdom, which was gave Biden a very low chance.

In July of 2020, that was March 2019. In July of 2020, then Joe thought Biden would defeat Trump, but you were a little worried about the Democratic Party as a whole, which I think was vindicated. We didn't get into it in detail by the down ballot results in 2020.

And then we had a conversation a little less than a year ago, the fall of 2021, where you were worried about the Democrats not rallying it away behind the president and not being mature, I think is the word you use or adult governing party.

So I think you're vindicated. I think those three all stand up well. And I want to follow up on them today with really discussing two things. What's going to happen in 2022, where you have a somewhat contrary interview, which I happen to agree with.

So of course, it's must be correct. And also what about the, and then to come back to the Democratic Party more broadly. So Joe, thanks for joining me again. Great to be with you, Bill.

So, and incidentally, the most recent articulation of your concerns for the Democratic Party, which we'll come back maybe two later in the show today is was on that your excellent podcast, that trippy show podcast, which is available on all major podcast platforms. Is that right?

Yes, it is. Thanks. Thanks Bill.

So you should listen to that too. Okay, so let's talk 2022 conventional wisdom, not, you know, not unreasonably, I guess based on history is first year midterms are bad for party. If the president's approval for the party of the White House, especially if it controls Congress also, it's responsible for governing gets blamed for everything that doesn't go as well.

As well as it should. And if the president's approval rating is low, that drags the party down. And therefore you just have seen this for months in the conventional reporting 2022 is likely to be a blowout a tsunami disaster for the Democrats.

And that's I've really struck how many people just taking that as kind of the baseline. So talk about that is that you have, I think, a somewhat contrary interview. So why are you doubtful about that?

Well, I mean, first of all, it's, you know, it's historically been true. Right. And so, you know, there's, you know, there's, in a lot of ways, it doesn't really matter what the first a lot of the pundits and sort of folks that focus on this right right about it.

What the real data at the moment is, you know, they've got all this historic data that says, hey, you're going to get blown out. It always happens in the midterm.

But, but I keep thinking, I mean, that's because it's in most midterms or effect, you know, it's a referendum on the president and the party and the majority.

And if that's the case, yes, it's easy to see why if this is a referendum on Joe Biden with his approval ratings where they are, it would be easy to say, we're going to see this again.

But there's a bunch of data that doesn't hold up.

Federman is ahead of the seven Senate races that matter the most this year. A Republican is not ahead in any of them.

Democrats are, you know, Federman ahead in Pennsylvania, Ryan is even ahead of JD Vance in Ohio by three or four points.

Herschel Walker is losing to Warnock. I mean, by the way, there are several that are dead heat kind of situations, but there's no Republican with the lead.

Well, how is that possible if there's this big red wave tsunami coming with because Joe Biden's numbers are 33, 34, 35%.

They are there right now and Democrats are doing fine. It doesn't mean we'll win all of them, but I think it doesn't point to this red wave tsunami.

I think this could turn out to be like the red Mirage of 2020. This red wave is going to turn into that Mirage.

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