One of the first things Amy Walter did when I got her on the phone was Heave this big sigh.

Amy's the publisher and editor-in-chief of the Cook Political Report.

So election season is like rolling into finals week, if you're her.

She's not sleeping much.

I'm just going to be going and going and going nonstop.

So it's like that.

Yeah, it's good.

You can hear in Amy's voice, good is not exactly the word she's reaching for here.

Eventually, she's settled on another descriptor for this midterm moment.

It feels very weird.

How so? Like, how do you see that?

The best description I've heard of it, I talked to a Democratic strategist a couple weeks ago,

and this person said, well, the way I see it for Democrats is that we've gone from

hopeless to remarkably competitive.

Amy thinks about elections a little like weather,

which makes Amy into a kind of meteorologist.

Earlier in the year, she says Dems were staring down a Category 5 midterm blowout.

But these days...

Actually, we're downgrading now to category one or category two.

But it's still a hurricane.

But it's still, yes. Or maybe a tropical depression. Is category one still a hurricane,

or is that considered a store? I don't know.

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