Welcome to Left, Right and Center, everybody, and welcome to 2026. Happy New Year. Not just happy New Year, happy midterm election year, because this is going to give us a whole lot to talk about in the coming weeks and months. And I could not be more excited to be talking about all of this and ringing in the new year here in Washington,

D.C. with two fellow election junkies on our left, right and center panel. On the left,

Moa Lathie is here. He's executive director at Georgetown University's Institute of Politics

and Public Service. He was communications director for the Democratic National Committee and

also advised Hillary

Clinton on the right. Mike Dupke, Mike's a veteran GOP communication strategist and advisor. He was the

White House director of communications under Donald Trump in 2017. Wow, we've gone from 2017 and

we're in 2026. That is wild. So, I mean, in case anyone forgot where our favorite show, American politics, left off in 2025, Democrats had some strong show in elections that happened in 2025 and are certainly looking to ride a wave of successful races to maybe control of the

house and control of more of Congress and more of Washington this year. Republicans, on the

other hand, are looking to maintain their fledgling grasp on a majority in both chambers.

They've also been looking to create new seats to strengthen their majority at the request of President Trump, though that redistricting push could be floundering some. The president, for what it's worth, sounded, I would say less than thrilled at the GOP's prospects for the midterms. In an interview, he did not so long

ago at the Wall Street Journal. You know, he went on about what he claims has been historic

economic progress, but he said he didn't know if his version of success was going to trickle

down to Republican candidates this fall. So instead of the president or the betting

public, and we're going to have more on the betting public a little later in this show,

I want to turn to Mo and Mike to help us understand what we might be looking for and make

some predictions for the rest of 2026. Mike, let me start with you. I mean, there are, in the House and Senate, 535 total congressional seats and 470 are on the ballot in November.

Do they all matter?

No, they don't all matter.

Do any of, do many of them matter when it comes to sort of the larger questions of who controls Washington?

And we should say they all matter because this is who is representing voters in their communities.

I don't want to be tongue-and-cheek.

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