Hello and welcome to the 538 Politics Podcast.

I'm Gaelin Drouk.

It is hot take season in the political universe with commentators and politicos all trying

to explain why Democrats did so poorly and Republicans did so well in last Tuesday's

elections.

According to a 538 analysis, Tuesday's results suggest a political environment that favors

Republicans by about 6 or 7 points.

And to put that in perspective, if the midterms were held in such an environment, Republicans

would be expected to flip 40 plus seats in the house and 5 seats in the Senate.

That's a big shift and so pundits are offering some big and unproven explanations for why

that is.

Was it school closures that did it, or inflation, or racial backlash, or candidate quality,

or one of many other things out there?

Today, we're going to try to break down what narratives there are and aren't evidence

for where the game of buy, sell, hold.

We'll also take a look at how the bipartisan infrastructure plan made it through Congress

and what it means for the Biden administration.

And here with me to do that is editor-in-chief Nate Silver.

Hey Nate, how's it going?

Good.

How is everybody?

I've missed you all.

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