What’s Up With the Midterms?
What Next | Daily News and Analysis
Slate Podcasts
4.3 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 27 September 2022
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For decades, the conventional wisdom surrounding the midterm elections has been that the party in the White House will lose the seats in the House, Senate, or both. Earlier this year, skyrocketing gas prices and Biden’s sinking approval rating portended misfortune for Democrats, particularly those in swing districts. But now, the fall of Roe and some snappy social media campaigns have shaken up most politicos’ predictions.
Guest: Amy Walter, publisher and editor-in-chief of the Cook Political Report.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | There's something so romantic about winter and I don't know whether that's just because |
| 0:05.4 | I'm a bit for homebody and I love a 5. |
| 0:08.0 | But I think it's just the holiday period, it's just for me, it's the most romantic period. |
| 0:14.2 | And I think anyone who's listened to my records will know that I'm quite a big fan of romance. |
| 0:18.8 | Join every sip with Red Carp's Now Back at Starbucks. |
| 0:32.0 | One of the first things Amy Walter did when I got her on the phone was heave this big sigh. |
| 0:38.8 | Amy's the publisher and editor-in-chief of the Cook Political Report. |
| 0:42.5 | So, election season is like rolling into finals week, if you're her. |
| 0:46.9 | She's not sleeping much. |
| 0:48.4 | I'm just gonna be going and going and going nonstop. |
| 0:53.8 | So it's like that. |
| 0:55.0 | Yeah, it's good. |
| 0:56.8 | You can hear in Amy's voice, good is not exactly the word she's reaching for here. |
| 1:03.1 | Eventually, she's settled on another descriptor for this midterm moment. |
| 1:07.9 | It feels very weird. |
| 1:14.9 | How so? |
| 1:15.9 | Like how do you see that? |
| 1:18.1 | The best description I've heard of it, I talked to a Democratic strategist a couple weeks ago. |
| 1:25.1 | And this person said, well, the way I see it for Democrats is that we've gone from hopeless |
| 1:34.4 | to remarkably competitive. |
| 1:38.4 | Amy thinks about elections a little like weather, which makes Amy into a kind of meteorologist. |
| 1:45.1 | Earlier in the year, she says Dems were staring down a category five midterm blowout. |
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