Welcome back to Beyond the Polls.

This week, I'm joined by Sabato Crystal Balls Kyle Conduct, who'll explain who could win the new redistricting wars.

Let's dive in.

Well, it's August of the off years, so normally official Washington and political worlds would be on siesta, but not now, and part of the reason for that is the unprecedented swath and argument about mid decadal redistricting.

And here to break this down and talk about the other new political developments in American always interesting politics is Kyle Conduct, managing editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball and the co author of a new book on the twenty twenty four election campaign of Chaos.

Kyle, Welcome back to Beyond the Polls.

Always good to see you.

Henry.

Well, let's dive right in.

Why is it that it's twenty twenty five and you and I are talking about redistricting.

Didn't we get over all of this at the beginning of this decade, after the census was released.

Isn't this a one in every ten year thing?

Well, it's not.

And I think it's important to note there are no federal prohibitions on mid decade redistricting.

I don't believe that there ever have been, although I think there was.

Part of what happened in the Texas re registricting in two thousand and three is that that was kind of I think that was sort of seen as novel at the time of state, you know, going back and redrawing, and there are a lot of details with that that are similar and different to now.

But you know, there were some Supreme Court cases associated with that, and basically it was said that there aren't any federal prohibitions on the timing of redistricting.

If you go back to the longer sweep of American history, particularly the late eighteen hundreds, you could find examples of some states draw new maps basically every two years.

I mean, Ohio had several different maps in the eighteen eighties.

Then you had a time period in the United States where some states went decades without redrawing, you know, and then there the landmarks Supreme Court decisions in the early nineteen sixties a Baker v.

Car Reynald v.

Sims, Westbury v.

Sanders that sort of set up our regular every ten years process.

Some states have specific prohibitions in their state constitutions against drawing more than once a decade.

Other states do not.

Texas does not have such a restriction.

Texas also does not have a redistricting commission.

So Texas could redraw its congressional map anytime it wanted to, and obviously doing so at the behest of President Trump in the White House to try to squeeze more Republican seats out of that state.

Yeah, and so let's walk us through that that this is the spark that's lighting the fire, the political redistricting version of the assassination of France, Ferdinand and Sarajevo.

And you had Sabato's crystal bal have analyzed the plan, the draft plan that the House Republicans have introduced the scuttle but before was introduced was Trump says, get me five more seats.

Did they do it?

They might have, And I do look at it in terms of you know, one of the terms that sometimes gets thrown out on redistricting is something called a quote unquote dummy mander.

It's a concept that was coined by a couple of political scientists in a in a two thousands academic paper.

Bernard Groffman is one of them.

I apologize, I can't remember the other guy's name, but I wanted to give some some credit there.

But basically the idea is that it's a map that's drawn that not only doesn't work in getting the extra seats, but basically undermines a party and in seats that they may already control.

Republicans have twenty five super safe seats now in Texas, and I think even if things go totally haywire for Republicans in Texas, I still see twenty six basically solid, solid seats for them in that state.

And then it's a question under this new map.

Under the new map, yeah, so I don't see a world in which they do worse than the twenty five they already have.

Now.

The question then is is do they get all five?

And I wouldn't say that it's like a slam dunk that they do.

So, you know, there's two Democratic held seats in South Texas, the Cente Gonzales and Henry Quaar, that get a little bit more Republican under this plan, but not so Republican that they couldn't stick with Democrats in the context of twenty twenty six, particularly if it's like a big wave and you know, the Republican growth among Latinos in South Texas stalls out in twenty twenty six, or maybe reverses.

And then there's a new seat at Houston and a new seat in San Antonio that again like probably would go Republican, but are not guaranteed to go Republican.

And you know, at the top line level, you look at it and say, okay, so this is this map is designed to elect thirty Republicans and eight Democrats.

The current map is twenty five Republicans and thirteen Democrats, and all thirty of the new Republican seats voted for Donald Trump by ten points or more.

The Democrats don't hold any seats of across the country that voted for Donald Trump by double digits.

Jared Golden in Maine is the most Republican House seat held by Democrat.

Trump won at district by nine points.

Okay, so you just say that.

But then if you look at even how Ted Cruz did in those districts in twenty twenty four, you know, he carried them, but you know he ran several points behind Trump, and so maybe that's a better sign of what the competitiveness of these districts are.

And Ted Cruz outright lost some of these districts in twenty eighteen, which was the better Aurora Cruise race.

That Cruse only won by a little over two and a half points, which is kind of the most competitive big race we've had in Texas in really probably at least a couple of couple of decades.

So that's why I say Republicans want to win five seats on this map, and could win five seats on this map, but it's not just a totally ironclad locke.

And then we have the question of Ohio, which because of intricacies that would probably take five minutes on the podcast to explain.

Let's just say that the normal operation of Ohio law means that they have to redraw the map, and Republicans seem to control of the process.

What is the expectation there?

This is already a map that.

Tilts towards the Republicans, although it is not an extreme Gary manner.

That's right, Yeah, it's a it's a map that was it.

I would say that it's a Republican drawn map with constraints that were imposed by the Ohio Supreme Court in twenty twenty two.

Henry, You're right, and I wouldn't say five minutes.

I think more like fifty minutes.

You would need to discuss the intricacies of the oios.

Well, you're the Ohio native here.

And I struggle to explain it sometimes too.

But you know, the bottom line here is that the Supreme Court had a different composition in twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two that made it likelier to try to uphold, you know, certain restrictions on political balance and a jerrymandering.

And the court is different now.

It's more Republican leaning, and so the hioh Spreme Court does not seem like it's going to be an obstacle to Republican redistricting efforts.

There is still some hoop, are some hoops that Republicans need to jump through, but it seems likely at the very least that so the map is Republican.

Now.

There are already two like really competitive seats.

Marcia Captor holds a Trump plus seven district in Toledo, and then Amelia Sikes holds a akron Can seat that voted for Kamala Harris by like less than a tenth of a point.

So it's a great swing seat.

But Republicans would like to make it a Republican leaning seat, and they probably can do so.

And then you've got a third Democrat, Greg Landsman in Cincinnati and Cincinnati exerbs.

That's like a Harris plus six six or six and a half seat, And so it's possible that Republicans could go after all three of those seats.

Maybe they'll just go after Captor and Sykes.

Maybe the districts are drawn in such a way that it wouldn't be like an ironclad thirteen to two Republican map or twelve to three.

But probably Republicans are going to come out of Ohio with more seats than they hold now, largely based on this new map, which is you know, the process hasn't really started yet, oh I imagine, And you know in Republican redistricting circles, they have some ideas about what they want to do.

I know when I was playing around with what could I do using Dave's redistricting app, I found it extremely easy to create a twelve to three map, you know, a little creativity to deal with the Amelia Sikes district and how you deal with Akron and Canton and only divide each county once in accord with the Ohio Constitution.

But I figured it out.

It was not hard to move her to like a Trump four plus four plus five seat.

Yeah, and you know, you could reconfigure the Cincinnati too.

You just have to basically put the city of Cincinnati in with a bunch of deeply Republican parts of southern Ohio.

But it'd be more disruptive to the overall map.

You know.

One of the other complications in Ohio I think anyway, is that there's a seat that covers city of Dayton, and Dayton in Montgomery County is like a kind of a slightly democratic leaning, you know, swing County.

Mike Turner has as a Republican, has held down that seat for more than twenty years, and he's never really had hard elections.

But like if the seat was open and Turner, you know, maybe could retire he was he lost a committee chairmanship that you know, maybe that would nudge him towards the exits.

And Republicans are not going to want to make that district more competitive, I don't think, because it actually could be could be hard to hold in the context of a twenty twenty six Menter if open.

I mean, Turner is a very strong incumbent in a time where comean sy isn't as meaningful as it used to be.

So those are some of the moving pieces in Ohio.

Well, yeah, to continue at the World War One scenario, if Trump's demand on Texas is the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, then the Triple ENTENTT and the Triple Alliance start making threats at each other.

And I guess the thing to do is say that Gavin Newsom is to this analogy as Russia was to Serbia, which is.

You take you do that down there.

I'm going to do this to you.

Walk us through why Gavin Newsom has become the Democratic oh white Knight, you know, Jedi hero on this and why California and their response is both harder to accomplish but potentially could offset a lot of what the Republicans want to accomplish in Texas and Ohio.

So, California has an independent Redistricting Commission that was created in a series of ballot issues in twenty eight and twenty ten, created the commission and then applied the commission to congressional redistrict And this was the signature achievement of the then governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was a moderate Republican back then.

Actually, I guess you would still describe him that way, and he actually has said he wants to try to save the Commission and fight against Newsom on this.

That's been a recent development.

But the Commission in the twenty tens and the twenty twenties.

You know, again it's not a Democratic gerrymander in California, but the maps have performed well for Democrats out there.

Part of it is that some of the places where Republicans used to be really strong, like Orange County for instance, and you could even say say San Diego, those places have become much less Republican or even Democratic leaning in certain places.

And so the geography I think is challenging for Republicans.

And also the Commission, I think legitimately has created more competitive seats than you otherwise would have seen.

You know, Famously, California had like a Democratic incumbent protection jerry mander in the two thousands in which only one of the fifty three seats changed hands the entire decade.

You know, think about that.

That's like, you know, it's more than more than a tenth of the entire membership of the US House, and they're essentially no competition at all there.

The Commission opened California up, and you could argue that made choices over the years that were more favorable to Democrats and Republicans.

I think Republicans would say that, but it also just introduced more competition and that's generally benefited California or Democrats of California.

But what Newson wants to do is, you know, the is in the state constitution.

He wants to ask the voters to approve a new map and essentially sides that the constitution as sort of a way to get back at Texas.

And I guess you could you sort of know that that California is not a maximal Democratic jerrymander, because we've seen maps that would get the Democrats many more than the forty three out of the fifty two seats they hold.

Now.

The proposal floating around suggests that you could draw a map where Democrats would be in good position to win something like forty eight seats as opposed to forty three.

And so that's what's under discussion now, whether the voters would go for it, whether it be legal snags.

You know, again, this is a harder thing to do than in Texas.

We're in Texas.

It's just hey, governor called a special session, legislature pass that governor signs it.

That's it.

Now there'll be other lawsuits, you know, VRA lawsuits and whatever about Texas, but that's got nothing to do with state law.

And that's federal law that applies everywhere.

So you know, California, there are more hoops to jump through.

But if Newsom can do it, the potential is there for games.

Well again, if he is Russia, there are other states that want to play the role of Germany or Britain or France and amping this up to World War One.

We hear that Kathy Hochel of New York says, well, we're at war, so if this happens, I'm going to lead an effort to overturn change New York's constitutions so that we can get more seats out of New York.

You hear people talking about jd Vance maybe flying to Indiana to try and get Indiana to get an extra seat.

What are some of the other peripheral players who could come into play if this really does melt down into redistricting World War two.

So Missouri stands out as a state where it would be pretty easy.

In Indiana too, would be pretty easy to chop up current Democratic seats.

One of them is Missouri five in Kansas City.

That would you know, they could have done that in twenty twenty two, they decided not to Frank mur in northwest Indiana, which is sort of like greater Chicago.

It's Gary and Hammond, kind of a white, working class democratic area that has become much less democratic in the Trump area.

You know, we know about those realigning trends.

Kama Harris actually only one Indiana one by about a half a percentage point in twenty twenty four, and so you know, if there's if there's the desire among Indiana Republicans to reopen the map, that's a place where they might be able to do it.

There's been talking about Florida maybe trying to aggressively Jerrymander even more in that state.

You know, Rod de Sanzers has talked about trying to do like a mid decade census because Florida supposedly got you know, missed out on a seat last time.

That was novel and I think kind of fantasy man talking, But I mean, who you know, but but Florida probably could draw a more aggressive map than even the one they have now.

And if you're recall, back in twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two, the Florida legislature passed a map that wasn't nearly as aggressive a Republican map as this one is, and DeSantis vetoed it and said, go back and draw a map I want.

And they did that, and the map has performed for Republicans.

But as you go through the you know, New York and New Jersey are mentioned sometimes, but those states have you know, commission systems.

New York Democrats already were able to reopen the process in twenty twenty four.

They didn't end up doing the maximal gerrymander that they they had proposed in twenty twenty one.

In twenty twenty two, that the court's there throughout, that doesn't seem all that plausible to me.

For twenty twenty six.

You know, you go through these states, you just see more opportunities for Republicans than Democrats.

You know, Let's say, if you know, maybe Texas and California cancel each other out to some degree, Republicans may still gain elsewhere because of like Ohio and you know, maybe Missouri and maybe Indiana, maybe Maryland.

Democrats could try to squeeze, you know, create an a eight to zero map, which they tried to do in twenty twenty one to twenty twenty two, but the courts said they couldn't do that.

Maybe Illinois could go even further on their gerrymander than they already have.

But again, I think as you go through these seats, you just see more cards for Republicans to play the Democrats.

So I'm listening to you, and I'm thinking, if all of the dominoes fall down for twenty twenty six, you could very well be talking about Republicans gaining five to ten seats through redistricting alone.

Maybe in twenty twenty eight, New Jersey and New York are able to pass constitutional amendments that allow them to take a little bite at the apple, but even that would not offset the overall Republican gain because they just have too many opportunities to squeeze out the remaining minority Democratic seats in very red states, And there just are not many opportunities because Democrats already hold most of the seats in those places.

They have control yeah.

And you know, you also have commission systems set up.

There were new commissions in you know, Virginia and Colorado.

And you know, if in fact, Democrats when when you know, when a governing trifecta in Virginia November, which I think they're favored too, but you know, we'll see what happens to the election.

You know, Democrats already control Colorado.

Those are a few seats where you know, the Colorado's a four to four map.

Colorado's a clearly Democratic leaning state.

Now Virginia's six or five democratic.

Like, if Democrats had the ability to jerrymander in those states, they could probably squeeze you know, an extra couple seats out of both states, probably pretty easily.

But they can't because these commission systems and in states that are you know, our voters gonna gonna if even if they're given the opportunity to throw out these commission systems, are they actually gonna do it.

I mean, California is a great example that it looks like we're gonna be able to see you know, later later this year.

I mean, if Democrats can get it together to get this thing on the ballot.

But what's gonna you know, what's gonna happen with that.

There are a lot of moving pieces here, but again, and and and to your point, this also could be a twenty twenty eight story as well, because let's say Democrats win the House popular vote by five points and they don't don't win the House because of this, because of these extra Republican gerrymanders.

Democrats will be pretty mad about that.

Yeah, And I would say justin you know, I mean, I can understand being mad about that, I mean, for sure, but does that you know, let's say, for you know, Minnesota, as a court drawn map, what if Democrats win state government in Minnesota, do they redraw in that state?

Because they would have control of the of the process.

Then so this may not just be a battle that goes through twenty twenty six, but it may continue on for the you know, for the coming years.

And then there's another thing that's popped up recently, the possibility that the Supreme Court could rule that the section two of the Voting Rights Act that has mandated the creation of majority minority districts not majority minority coalition seats of multiple races, but places where a majority of Hispanics or a majority of blacks could be formed requires the creation of those seats.

There's a possibility that could go away, walk us through that dispute, but also walk us through the political implications of what could happen if the VRA is effectively rendered toothless and redistricting.

Yeah, I mean this was so Louisa.

There's a case arising on a Louisiana may remember that there was a case in twenty twenty three Allen v.

Milligan in which a five to four Supreme Court in which John Roberts and Brick Kavanaugh joined with the liberals on the Court to essentially kind of would I would argue, is sort of maintain the status quo in terms of our understanding of Section two of the VRA, and that effectively led to Democrats getting an extra black majority seat in Louisiana an extra black majority seat in Alabama.

Georgia also had to redraw, but Republicans did so in that state in which they were able to satisfy the VRA but also not give up any extra seats.

But it's possible that the Court could say, hey, you know, we don't want to do race based redistricting at all anymore, and So then could there be ripple effects of that, in which in Alabama or Louisiana instead of having now having two you know, democratic seats black, you know, democratic black majority seats, what if they could what if they're just freed up in Jerrymander going to just you know, draw out these these black democrats.

That could have ripple effects in the blue states too, because there may be some v R districts in democratic states that get unwound in a way that might benefit Democrats and in sort of a partisan way.

So there's like a lot of moving pieces here in which, you know, you have this sort of rush to Jerrymander, and in some ways you could look at via v R as sort of a way to mitigate partisan jerrymandering.

And some red Deep South states that maybe won't exist anymore might might exist in a different way.

So that's another huge domino waiting to waiting to fall here.

So, man, there's just so much going on with redistricting right now.

And you know, I think in a in an ideal world or but again, your version of an ideal world might be different than mine and different than ten other people who study this stuff.

You know, Congress could at some point if the parties could agree to it, which seems impossible to imagine, you know, step in and create some rules here that would maybe be fairer to you know, to minority parties in different states, and you know, might still maintain minority representation and that sort of thing.

But boy, imagining the parties coming in an agreement on that is just really really difficult.

Yeah.

No, I mean I've been against gerry mandering.

I got cut my teeth in college at the Rose Institute at Claremont McKenna College, which was the Republican redistricting center, but also anti Gary mandering, which of course was the case because Democrats controlled the state.

So the party that's on the out is always against Gary mandering.

The parties on the end always say what me, me Gary Mander.

I resemble the allegation and man to see the alligator.

Yeah, and you know, there are I think it is accurate to say that the Democrats benefited from this from jerrymandering.

By the way, we're pronouncing it differently.

And it's interesting.

So the actual governor, Albert Garry, this was named for his last name is Gary, so you could say Gary Mander.

But over time it was changed to Jerrymander.

I guess.

So that's why people saying, why are they pronouncing it wrong?

Well, I guess I have my way of pronouncing it.

You have your way of produce.

And I'm flipping back and forth because I learned the Black Arts at the at the foot of Alan Heslop, the man who created and he was English, and he would always tell us an English accent.

It's gedy mandering, Gary Hodgy.

Yeah, And you know, you go back through.

I mean, one of the.

Details that I think is lost in the Texas fight from twenty years ago is that.

And this is why I think that what was done in two thousand and three is arguably more justified, I think than now, although again they're doesn't need to be in a justification for it from a legal standpoint.

But so.

In the nineteen nineties there was this pretty aggressive Democratic Jerrymander of Texas because Democrats still controlled state politics there, even though the state had become very Republican at the federal level, and so they, you know, Jerry managed to protect their own members and in the early two thousands, after the census, Democrats still held I think it was the state House Republicans had the Senate, and they had the governorship, which was then Rick Perry, who had taken over for George W.

Bush after he'd been elected president, and so they couldn't come to an agreement on the map, and so a court essentially did a least change map, which is what courts typically do, and so it was essentially kind of a reanimated zombie version of the Democratic jerrymander from the nineties.

Republicans win state government in two thousand and two, I think kind of understandably they think, well, why should we operate under this court drawn democratic jerrymander anymore.

Let's go back and jerrymander ourselves, and so that's what they ended up doing.

Now, I think it's quite possible that over the longer sweep they would have won a lot of the seats on the old map anyway, because there were, you know, white Democrats in Bush won districts.

But certainly they accelerated the process.

So now what we're having in twenty twenty five is Republicans going back and drawing a previous Republican jerrymander.

There was no change in party control in Texas, but back in twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two.

When this map was drawn.

We're coming off the twenty twenty presidential election, in which Texas was somewhat competitive, I mean fromp only won it by five and a half points.

A lot of the Republican margins in the Republican seats had eroded over the course of the decade that had actually lost a couple of seats, So Republicans drew a fairly cautious jerrymander in twenty twenty two.

Two twenty twenty four happens the state gets rhetoric again.

Plus you've got a Republican president in Donald Trump who wants to squeeze as many seats out as he can, so that provides an imputus to doing it, so that there are some differences here, although again whatever the justification is, like the justification doesn't really matter.

Like you know, the Justice Department wrote some letter about Texas saying, well, these districts are racially gerrymannered.

I mean, it was all just there's just a pretext for what they wanted to do anyway, and that that hasn't even been part of the conversation really in the actual mechanism of drawing the lines.

Yeah, no, I mean sometimes just having watched casablanc is always an instructive thing that it really is.

Like Captain Renault when Ilsa and her husband Paul Heinriy come in and they're looking for Senior Orgatti and Senior Argatti is dead.

What happened, Well, we haven't decided if he died trying to escape or if he committed suicide, but everyone knows why.

Yeah, I mean, I mean it's in some ways.

I mean, what Trump has done here, I do think is, you know, is pretty a pretty craven effort and pretty obvious effort.

But when he says, hey, I want to get five more seats, at least there's no there there's no bs about that.

It's just this is what he wants and he's trying to get the Texas Republicans to do it.

And again, you could say that it's distasteful, and I think it probably is and aggressive to do this mid decade redistrict thing, but at least it's not some sort of you know, it's not some like made up reason for doing what he wants to do.

It's just he's saying, this is what I want to do.

The legislative redistrictings.

They will probably be able to be worked out in time so that the primary filing deadlines don't have to be moved much.

The vra A Court opinion, you know, it is before the Supreme Court.

Who knows when they'll hear it, who knows when they'll issue it.

They may or may not get in time that it would affect twenty twenty six.

But let's assume a worst case scenario for Democrats.

Minus let's be generous and say that they are able to get four or five seats out of California, you know, but everything else falls against them.

What would a shift of five to fifteen seats in notional Republican power through redistricting due to the chances of Democrats retaking the House.

Obviously it would reduce it.

It would matter what the specific seats were, and you know, and how many seats were changed, and you know, it's possible, you know, if Republicans were able to hold the House, we could point to this gerrymandering war as sort of a reason for it.

That said, you know, the Democrats did win two hundred and thirty five seats in twenty eighteen, and so if there's a if there's a big wave, it may be that maybe some of these gerrymanders don't work properly, or some seats that we don't think are vulnerable now actually actually are vulnerable.

So you know, I mean my if no maps change or just Ohio changes, which we would sort of priced in at the start of the cycle, I thought Democrats were like pretty strongly favored based on historical factors to win the House, not gearing.

It because they only need to gain five seats, you know.

Yeah, and you add Ohios, let's say two, that means they have to gain seven seats on that.

You know, I think in the last ninety years there's only been three or four midterms where the out party didn't gain at least that many seats.

Yeah, you know, usually the change and vote share for the for the for the non presidential party, you know, usually they gained about half half dozen points in terms not vote shareing in terms of of a better margin compared to the previous midterm.

And so you know, and there are there are seats that are kind of Republican on paper, but are you know, are real legitimate toss ups for twenty twenty six, you know, Scott Perry and Pennsylvania, Derek van Norden in Wisconsin, Marianne Miller Meeks and Zach Nunn in Iowa.

You know, those are all seats that are more Republican than the median House seat.

The median House seat by presidential performance is plus three seat.

The one that is David Schweikert in Arizona, Don Davis and North Carolina Democrat is also in a very similar kind of seat.

So you know, you start moving the median House seat to the right, obviously it gets a little bit harder for Democrats, but it also I don't think it would necessarily guarantee continued Republican control of the House.

But you know, I mean, like Florida is a big wildcard here, Like what if Florida goes back and actually gets a few extra seats.

That's how you get from maybe you know, our net Republican's netting and the high single digits from redistricting, the more like in double digit range.

And you know, well, Republicans in some of these states don't really need some sort of reason to do the redistrict They can just do it.

You know, if California succeeds that, you know, to go back to the World War One analogy.

That's that's a Republicans will will say that that's a provocation.

Even if California could say, hey, well Texas started it.

Well, you know, in a certain point, it doesn't necessarily matter, but maybe that gives them an additional incentive for like, for like a Florida to go back, or Ohio be more aggressive or what have you.

Well, it just reminds me of the late Tom Lair, who passed away in the last week.

One of his songs about nuclear proliferation ends with the tune you know, when Alabama gets the bomb, who's next?

Who's next?

Who knows it might be you know the Alabama two that's you know, eliminating Alabama to the Figuire seat that was created just with the VRA two.

Maybe this is the one that sets off the explosion.

Yeah, And I mean, you know, I think the sort of last thing I want to convey about redistricting is that, like it's hard to get your head around how big and important this could be, particularly when you bring the VRA into it, because like you can imagine all of these mid decade redistrictings happening, and then also a fundamental change to the way that we understand how districts have to be drawn, also changing which the more re redistricting.

So you know, there's just so many moving pieces, and I think more moving pieces than maybe the day to day reporting would suggest.

Well, let's move away from redistricting.

Not that any of us who have played with Dave's redistricting ever really move away from redistricting.

And it's it's the puzzle that keeps on giving.

But let's move to the Senate because some things have been going on there that may shake up the idea that the Republicans have a really good chance of either picking up seats or definitely a near lock on control.

Let's talk about Ohio again.

There's been discussions that Shared Brown, the incumbent Democrat who lost in twenty twenty four, is looking to come back against appointed successor to JD Vance, John Housted or Husted.

How do you instead Housted walk us through that.

You know, how serious is that rumor?

And if Brown gets into it, how serious is he as a challenger to Houston.

Yeah, there was an Axios report recently that suggested that Brown was talking to interviewing campaign managers, and so that's sort of a precursor to him to him running.

You know, Chuck Schumer has been spotted in Columbus and in Ohio at least a couple of times in the last several months.

Well, he's just trying to score tickets to the buck guys.

Yeah, I you know, I think he was there on business, but but there was you know, there's been talk that that Brown might not run for anything, that he might try to run for governor, which in some ways would be I want, I don't want to say an easier race, but maybe you know, you could probably detach yourself from the National Party more as a gubernatorial candidate.

But vik Ramaswami has set himself up to be the Republican gubernatorial nominee.

He's done a good job of boxing out other more establishment Republicans, including Housted, who took the Senate appointment to replace Shandy Vance when it was widely expected he was going to run for governor himself off to succeed Mike DeWine.

And you know, Houston was the lieutenant governor under under Mike DeWine.

Houstad tried to run for governor in twenty eighteen, but then he joined up with the Wine to create a ticket.

But you know, Ramaswami is certainly unproven as a candidate.

You know, I think he was a pretty polarizing figure even among Republicans during the twenty twenty four presidential process.

But you know, again, you know, maybe an open seat governor's race would have been more of like fifty to fifty contests.

But Brown is doing more of a service to the National Democratic Party if he runs for Senate, because the Senate seat is just inherently more valuable than the governorship is.

Obviously in Washington, you know, Houstad is in the mold.

I think of the sort of non controversial, kind of generic Republicans seems like kind of a nasty thing to say, but I do think that he's certainly more of that than Ramaswami is, and guys like John Houstead have been getting elected statewide as Republicans in Ohio for a really long time.

He didn't need Donald Trump to be able to do that.

So I think Houston would still be favored over Brown.

But you know, we wrote in our Crystal bal newsletter most recently that we you know, we have it, as we do our ratings.

We have it as likely Republican.

I think with Brown running it's more like a lean's Republican race.

You know that it's a Brown is a credible challenger, but the Houston is probably favored.

And you know the Democrats are hunting for Senate targets.

You know, they got North Carolina as a target right Cooper's running there.

That's a that's a classic toss up race.

And then Maine where Susan Collins is vulnerable on paper, but the Democrats don't have a top candidate yet and may not get a top candidate, but then they're looking for other states to put in play.

In Ohio, I think we would slot into sort of the third opportunity if Brown runs.

And Brown did run four points ahead of Harris, and so that allowed him to shape eight points off of Trump's eleven point margin or seven points, and that was in a high turnout pro Republican year.

It's if that represented a baseline Brown over performance, it wouldn't take much in the shifting of the national mood or shifting in turnout patterns to bring that to a fifty to fifty race.

I think you're right about that.

Yeah, And you know, maybe some Republicans who are really kind of maga types.

Maybe they shrugged their shoulders at him a little bit, although you will have Ramaswami as sort of a more kind of you know, Maga specific sort of sort of candidate.

But you know, it's a it's a midterm with Trump in the White House.

You know, shared Brown did win pretty easily in twenty eighteen, the last time this was a situation.

Now he was the incumbent.

Then his challenger, Jim or Nacy, I think was pretty weak.

Republicans kind of started ignore that race.

You know, Republicans are going to be all in on the Senate race.

They you know, they could afford to lose North Carolina in Maine, they I don't think they could afford to lose Ohio in the context of both a fight for this Senate majority and also for future Senate majorities.

You know, Republicans want to lock in a long running Senate majority, holding seats like Ohio as part of that.

So this this will be a top race, you know, for Republicans in a way that the twenty eighteen was not a top race for them.

But yeah, I mean, I think it's I think it's a it's an interesting potential development.

Here, Republicans consensus best target is John Ossoff.

In Georgia, it's a state that Trump carried narrowly.

Of course, Brian Camp has carried it, not massive margin, but comfortable margin.

It still leans Republican, even though Joe Biden won it by eleven thousand votes and change.

But we've got a very interesting development in the Republican primary.

Walk my listeners through the I guess right now three way race between the declared Republican candidates and where this might actually trip up Republicans.

Yeah, it looks like kind of a messy primary because Brian Camp and his operation have seemed to bless Derek Dooley, the son of the legendary Georgia football coach Vince Dooley, and Derek Dooley's mother also is very involved in Republican circles in Georgia.

She unsuccessfully ran for Congress herself.

I think is two thousand and two, so it's a long time ago.

But there, you know, that's a that's a royal Republican name, you know in Georgia and also obviously a royal name in football, and you know, it's it's it's impossible not to compare it to herschel Walker running in twenty twenty two.

Although he was a legendary player at Georgia, Derek Dooley did not you know, he wasn't the head football coach at Georgia.

He was the head football coach at Tennessee like fifteen years ago and was not particularly successful there.

And that's one of the great football rivalries in the South is Tennessee and Georgia have been playing forever.

So Dooley has sort of tenuous connections, I would say, to the sort of Georgia as it is today.

And also the Trump people seem to want a different candidate.

So you've got a couple members of Congress running, most recently My Collins, who's kind of, you know, more of a kind of like a maga kind of Republican running.

And I think this is all to the benefit of us off because I don't I look at this Georgia Republican field that I don't see like, oh, well, that person is an awesome challenge er.

Now look, Georgia fifty to fifty kind of state.

This primary may produce a candidate who could be John Ossoff.

But I think this race has developed in a way that's positive for asof because he could have been running against Brian Kemp, and Kemp would be leading polls in all likelihood.

Now that race probably would still be a toss up, and we have it as a toss up in our ratings, but you know, it's closer to being Lean's dem than Lean's Republican at this point.

I think one of the things that surprised me when I was reading about Dooley's entrance in the race is a report that he did not vote for president in twenty sixteen or twenty twenty, and in fact had been registered out of the state.

Why do you think that's going to do to him, particularly in the primary, where you can say, this is a guy when Donald Trump was fighting for us, couldn't even be bothered to vote by mail.

I mean, I think it's it's a potentially potent thing to say, particularly from you know, someone who's a candidate who maybe would get Trump's endorsement at some point.

I mean, one of the stories after Kemp got out out was that it seemed like there was this effort by the White House and Kemp's political operation and sort of work together to find a consensus candidate and that has not happened, and in fact, it seems like there's a there's a real fissure right now between Camp's operation and Trump's operation.

Uh.

And so you're probably gonna have a nasty primary, which again is not necessary.

It doesn't a nasty primary doesn't have to be a bad thing.

And in fact, the primary maybe it can be a good thing for candidate to try to build name id and and and work the kinks out of being a candidate.

I mean, like maybe dere Dooley is like gonna be an awesome candidate or something, but we haven't seen him in this role before, so we just don't know, but prove you know, uh, winning the primary would help improve that.

And and so you know that's that's a that's something to consider here too.

I kind of wonder too it maybe we'll see somebody else get in, because it doesn't seem like there's some sort of obvious front runner here.

You know, if someone floated to me the possibility that maybe you know, there are plenty of like wealthy Republican business types in Georgia, you know, one of those kinds of people.

Now I'm not talking about him specifically, but you know, remember David Perdue was was, you know, his cousin I think had been had been governor.

He himself had not been a candidate.

He ended up winning in twenty fourteen, you know, winning a competitive primary against some some you know, some Republican members of Congress.

Like maybe you know, this field may not be finished yet, because again it's not.

It's not a field with an obvious front runner right now.

You know, if if you want to just real briefly, you know, Michigan has an open seat and the Democrats have their own kind of I would say, kind of complicated and potentially messy primary there that may produce a candidate who, you know, who may or may not be a strong general election candidate.

I'd say the same thing about Georgia.

Yeah.

Now, one thing about Georgia versus Michigan.

Michigan is a first past the post primary, so somebody can get through with like twenty seven percent of the vote, right whereas Georgie is a runoff, you know, is that you've got a three way primary and somebody doesn't clean out fifty percent of the vote, which is likely in a three way and probably with a couple of Also, Ryam's get a few percentage of the vote.

Uh, they get to face off one on one.

And you know, we know, Brian Camp became governor because after finishing second in his gubernatorial primary, the front runner imploded by being caught on tape by somebody who had also rutten.

Uh, and the guy foolishly and cocklely basically said, yeah, I just vote.

However, people tell you know what what are you what are you talking about these principles?

You know, don't you know how to make a deal.

And suddenly Brian Camp, who had had a great commercial, one of the great introductory commercials where he's holding a shotgun on the front porch with the boyfriend.

Yeah, with the boyfriend for the suitor.

Yeah, exactly.

I remember not being able to date my daughter.

Now.

Yeah, it's funnily became.

Brian Camp because Kasey Cagle imploded.

Kemp was sort of seen too is sort of the kind of the MAGA person in that and then and now he's you know, he was he I think, to his to his credit, defended the accurate vote count in Georgia in twenty twenty, and you know, now he's you know, he's kind of you know, Trump tried to defeat him with David Perdue in twenty twenty two, and Kemp just destroyed Purdue in that primary.

So you know, Kemp does have his own power base here and and again he seems like he settled on Derek Dooley.

And we'll see how Dooley does as a candidate.

I mean, I you know, I think there are a lot of questions, but but you know, again, we don't necessarily know he's going to perform.

Yeah, well, there we go, Derek Dooley as stalking horse for Kelly Leffler News at eleven.

So, Kyle, where can my listeners follow your work?

Sabado's crystal Ball We come out.

We usually twice once or twice a week.

We're doing really a lot on redistricting.

It's been It's a topic that we know well.

We try to explain it in an even handed way, although you know, again, this is one of those things where ten different people can have ten different opinions about it.

We've done a lot of coverage of it.

We're gonna continue to do coverage of it whenever the you know, the draft California map comes out.

If it comes out, we'll try to analyze as quickly as we can, so sign up Center for Politics dot org, backslash crystal Ball and again we've got new book out on the twenty twenty four election called Campaign of Chaos.

I also have written a history of House elections since the Key reportchment decisions in the sixties called The Long Red Thread.

It's I would say, it's kind of a niche topic and title, but it's pretty pretty topical for now.

So there you go.

Well a lot and the Sabato's Crystal Ball is free.

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Well, Kyle, it's always a delight chatting with you and I look forward to having you back on Beyond the Polls.

Thanks Henry.

That's it for this week.

Join me next week when I'll be joined by a Mistry Gas.

Until then, let's reach for the stars together as we journey beyond the Poles.