Hello listeners welcome to another edition of Politico's nerd cast I'm Scott Bland your host.

This week on the nerd cast, Democrats continue to pad their majority in the House as races continue to be called.

So why is the progressive left tempering expectations?

We're going to get into that with a few of our campaign reporters and one of our congressional

correspondence about how the new Democratic House majority is going to behave in a divided Washington. Plus turmoil

returns to the White House after a little bit of a quiet period before the

midterm elections. We're going to talk about what's got everyone so riled up,

who's leaving the administration,

and who might have left the administration by the time you listen to this episode.

Remember to stay tuned at the end of the show for a contribution from one of the nerd cast's biggest fans.

All right, let's dive right into our first data point.

12.

Democrats will have at least a 12 seat edge in the House of Representatives in the New Congress. Now, there are a few different ways you can count this. See netted 35 so far. So their big night on election night keeps getting bigger as some

late races in California and elsewhere on the country are counted. And again I

said at least a 12 seat majority because there are still some uncalled races that could go Democrats way especially two that are still outstanding in Southern California.

Now, despite all that, there are still tempered expectations about what

Democrats New House majority can do. We'll tackle that with our panel here. We've got

our campaign reporters in the studio, Elena Schneider. Hello Elena,

Hey Scott. And James Arkin, hi Schneider. Hello Elena, Hey Scott.

And James Arkin, hi James.

Good morning.

And on the line from the Capitol,

...