Hey, everybody. It's Tim Miller from the bulwark. I am here with the senior editor and elections analyst at Cook Political Report.

Also a super nerd when it comes to redistricting and House districts and math and political math.

And I wanted to bring them on here because there's been a ton of stuff happening in redistricting.

And in a rare case of like Democrats

fighting and winning recently, like the Democrats have clawed back a lot of ground on this

mid-decade redistricting cycle with the recent news out this morning about a court win in Utah

that is going to give Salt Lake City a congressional seat for the first time

in a while, really. So Dave, you cited, well, actually, before we get into the states, why

you just give us kind of a global, like, state of play? Like, you know, where we were last year,

and then Texas, you know, makes the first move and kind of how things, how things stand.

Republicans in the White House would not be pursuing a mid-decade redistricting war if they felt

great about their chances of holding the House to begin with in 2026. And Democrats only need

three seats from their current vantage point. There are 215 seats effectively. And so Republicans want to

sandbag this and add some insurance policy against a blue wave. Now, the historical average in the

post-war era is that the President's Party loses 23 seats in midterms. But I think the old rules

might not apply anymore given the evisceration of

competitive districts, not just from gerrymandering in recent years, but also the self-sorting

of the American electorate into heavily red and blue places, which leaves a lot less purple turf

to draw into competitive seats. So Democrats, you know,

are contending with a small playing field of races to begin with, and Republicans are trying to

keep away. And even with the Texas redraw, Democrats had a chance, now they've strung together a surprising

string of victories. We have self-gerrymandered a lot. I like to bring that up a lot of times at the

...