Jonathan, I think of you as a Politico's Politico, and we are in a midterm election year.

Talk to me about where we're at.

Like, it's midterm May.

I think of this is when people stop being polite and start getting real.

Yeah, and we start to see the outlines of the political environment come into view.

Jonathan Martin is Politics Bureau Chief at Politico.

You get to a point of no return in which the political environment becomes solidified.

And I think right now this increasingly is reminiscent of previous midterms in which the party in power was facing a really difficult election cycle.

I think of 2006, George W. Bush's second midterm,

when there was also unpopular Middle Eastern War. I think of 2018, President Trump's first midterm,

in which the backlash against his conduct and behavior really alienated a lot of suburban

voters. This is a mix of both.

You described Democrats' chances of taking the Senate as being increasingly realistic, bordering unlikely, which is pretty surprising.

I feel like back in January I did a show.

And the conventional wisdom was like, oh, maybe there'll be a blue wave,

but guys, let's not get, let's not get our hopes up here. That's exactly right. If you had

asked me a year ago, I said it was an incredible long shot the Democrats could take back the

Senate. I do think it's now a real possibility just because the environment

has curdled.

The thing is, if Democrats truly want to deliver on all this momentum, they need to win in

places you might not associate with Democrats, places like Alaska, Iowa, North Carolina.

Jay Martin and I recorded this conversation on the eve of another

...