THIS WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING

We are now just over three months away from the midterm elections. The question is, will Democrats take back the House and the Senate? And will this put a stop to Trump's second term agenda? Prediction markets say yes, Democrats are going to win. And the polling does look generally good for the Democrats. There are many prominent pollsters who would argue that Trump is not doing so well, the Republicans aren't doing so well. And these are guys that once supported Trump were very much in the right populist camp. And that being said, we've got new data coming out suggesting Democrats are actually in trouble this time around. Aside from the fact that their polling is at a historic low, it is favorable, but it is ridiculously low from where it should be in a midterm election as the opposition party. But we're also learning that Republicans have close to a billion dollars fundraised as of right now, and Democrats are fairly broke. Now, of course, the full 750 million or so and rising is not just the RNC or the Republican campaign committee. It's also super PACs. It is the total coffers estimated for political spending in this cycle, which, oh boy, let me just say as a podcaster, I'm really excited for the ad rates to skyrocket because we're in the summer of the off season. And one of the best days for those of us that work in media covering politics is ad season. I'm half kidding, but it's true. They're going to be dumping insane amounts of money into this space. YouTube is going to start propping up videos to sell to offload that inventory. Basically, it works like this. The Republicans say we want to spend 700 million dollars. That means you have to deliver that many views. So YouTube says show these videos to more people to maximize the views. Now, the ads could theoretically appear in any particular space. But if these advertisers are targeting someone who watches politics and they want them to appear on political videos, that is going to guarantee a major boost in political viewership, for better or for worse. Democrats, they're not looking at nearly as much money. The DNC's broke with more liabilities than they have assets. And their polling, again, while good, is historically low. I'm not saying all of this to play some game that's, ha ha, Republicans are secretly winning. We actually don't know what's going to happen. But this fight is far from over. And if spending is any kind of indicator of who will win, then the prediction markets mean very little. On top of the polling, you have the redistricting efforts. You have Donald Trump's executive orders on the post office and the delivery of mail-in votes. And I assure you, the Republicans will be filing lawsuits before the election. Trump will be issuing executive orders before the election, all with the intent of winning these midterms procedurally, no longer. And it's been this way for a while. And it's probably been this way for a long time. It's no longer about convincing people to cast a vote for an ideological position or a policy position. Now it's just about maximizing the mechanisms in your favor. So, my friends, I hope you're ready for this midterm season to get real freaky. Because I have to imagine the lawsuits are going to make very little sense, and they're going to be flying all over the place, and weird things are going to happen. Reportedly, in the Senate, Iowa may be a toss-up at this point, because everybody's scratching their heads. That being said, we saw many liberals claim that Trump would lose Iowa in 2024. And yeah, no, he won it by double digits. So maybe everyone's just lost the plot. Well, that being said, we should get into the news. Before we do, head over to timcast.com and click Join Now. Sign up for our Discord community to hang out with individuals who are like-minded. They've got their own morning shows, afternoon shows. We have a call-in show every day at 6 p.m., and we've got a members-only call-in show where you can talk to us on this show and our guests Monday through Thursday. More importantly, your membership makes this possible. The show will not exist without you. So be the change you want to see in the world. Today is the day. Stand up side-by-side with us here at Timcast. Sign up and join today to help us continue doing this work. Without all of you, this work could not be done. We are the snowflakes that make that avalanche. Join us at timcast.com. Here's the story. From the Independent, CNN's Data Guru warns Democrats about how little support they have heading into the midterms. Oh, boy. Well, we've got the video for you. Let's start by just playing it and showing you exactly what's going on. We've been talking about the fact that Democrats might be waking up this morning a wee little bit nervous. Why is that? Well, there's new polling out this weekend which suggests that while they are leading in the so-called generic ballot test, the race for Congress, it's not by much, and certainly maybe not by enough with us now. CNN chief data analyst, Harry Etten. So the numbers show what, Harry? They show a big, uh-oh, worry sign, at least compared to history, because I want to take it back through the history machine. I want to note, okay, House, National, July, CNBC, Washington Post poll average midterm years. This is the generic ballot, right? Where were we back in 2006 when, of course, Democrats would go back on to win the House? They were up by 12 in an average of those two polls. How about 2018? They were up by an average of 10 in those two polls. Look at where that average is now. Well less than half of either the level of 2018 and 2006, way down there. Yes, they're ahead, but they're ahead. I have to shrink down on the screen. They're ahead by only four points, which is significantly less than what we saw in 2018 and 2006 when Democrats took back the House. So as I said, this is an uh-oh. This is a warning sign. Well, yes, Democrats are ahead, not by anywhere near the margin they were in prior wave years. Because four isn't 10. No. And it's not 12. No, they taught me that back in pre-K, that four. We get it. The point is this. When they won in 2018, they did. They were up 10 points. They're currently only up four. Donald Trump's approval rating is bad across the board. And I'm not interested in any singular poll. The method that I typically use is to track the movement of all polls in aggregate, and not any aggregate current, and not any singular poll currently. The reason why is every pollster has a different metric by which they're rating the president, or asking people how they feel about the president. So you'll see weird things, like one poll says Trump's minus 20, and one says he's plus two. Well, certainly they both can't be right. The one thing you can track, however, is movement between the polls. So if there's a heavily biased poll that says Trump is minus 20, the next day they say he's minus 15, which is an improvement. You can take a look at the other polls that say he's positive. Is he plus two, and the next day he's plus four? That shows positive movement from different pollsters. The single aggregate isn't particularly valuable. The movement is. Being said, I don't know that Donald Trump will be the defining factor in negative response. That is, I don't believe that there are moderate or independent Democrat voters that are being motivated by Donald Trump in the same way we've seen in the past several years. That is to say, I think a lot of people just don't really care that much anymore, and they're fairly burned out. A good example, Bill Maher said he'd consider voting for J.D. Vance. Trump can't be president anymore. And he said he didn't even get mad when Trump calls him names anymore. I think people are kind of desensitized to Trump after 10 years. But for Republicans, Trump is a motivating figure. So I think Democrats are hurting because the party has embraced weird ideology. Trump is not the strongest motivating factor, the way he used to be still is, but not the way he used to be. The Republicans are still very much motivated by Donald Trump. I will throw into the mix. There are many middle of the road libertarian types that are angry with Trump. But I don't know that that will translate into being opposed to your congressional Republicans. Let's hear more from CNN. Or it's not 10 or 12. And not only that, but four might not be enough with all the redistricting we've seen. That's exactly right, Johnny B. So this isn't just, hey, you know what? We want to lead by eight or 10 or 12 because we want an even larger majority. You might not even get the majority at all if, in fact, the House popular vote ends up by four, because just take a look at this. OK, the Washington Post, CNBC poll lead. It's four on average, right? But what about needed to control with redistricting? You need probably a three to four point victory nationwide in the national House vote in order to get a House majority. You are right on the edge with this four point lead in the average of the CNBC Washington Post polls, right on the edge of even getting that majority. And that's why I said this is a very worrisome sign. This is troublesome for Democrats, because despite all of Donald Trump's unpopularity in the polls, they do not seem to be building an advantage that guarantees them the House or anything close to a guarantee. It's very close, at least if you're listening to CNBC and Washington Post. OK, but given that the president is so unpopular, you just brought that up. Why is it the Democrats might not be doing better? Yeah, that's called I think I know what question is coming next, and I'm going to lead right into it. Why is it? What is going on? Well, just take a look at 2024 Trump voters in 2026, because I think this is really important. OK, Donald Trump's net approval rating with them is plus sixty six points. But how much is the U.S. House margin? Republicans lead amongst these same voters by eighty seven points. In other words, there is a chunk of twenty twenty four Trump voters who right now aren't so hot to try on Donald Trump, but are still very much in the Republican camp. And that to me is the worrisome sign for Democrats, because how do you convince those voters to necessarily go over to you? Because it seems to me that their baseline opinion is I want to vote Republican even if I don't like Donald Trump. And that's a very tough voter to convert, as opposed to independents who, you know, could go either way. These are people who have shown an affinity for Republicans and the fans in the past and voting for Donald Trump in the past. And right now they're showing that exact same affinity to vote Republican in the midterms. And that's why this race is much tighter than I think a lot of Democrats would wish it would be given Trump some. It's interesting that he's a lot of words to say very little. Harry, calm down. You can be more succinct, but maybe they're trying to fill time. So, again, Donald Trump's net approval low, but the GOP House poll margin actually fairly good. And we can factor in something else. Teddy Schleifer says new Republican super PACs and party committees held a $724 million advantage over Democrats in cash on hand as of June 30th. We can take a look at this right now. Republicans literally have a billion dollars. A billion. Democrats have 334 million spread across the board. Interestingly, the DNC is in massive debt. But the DSCC and the DCCC, those are their Senate and congressional campaign committees, do hold about 120 million. Not bad. But when you take a look at what the Republicans have, MAGA, Inc., sitting on $400 million. Guys, you can say what you want about polls and Democrats and predictions, but money talks. When we track historically for price for money spent, it's almost a one-for-one correlation that whoever spends the most money tends to win. Can't say that for Michael Bloomberg. Let's jump to the 2026 Senate election interactive map. Currently, the consensus on 270 to win is that we're looking at 47 Democrat seats safe, 49 Republican seats safe. It is a toss-up leaning Republican sort of. Is Maine going to go Democrat? We don't know for sure. They lost a grand planner. Who do they have? Not like the Republicans up there are Republicans, but you get the point. Michigan, Ohio, Alaska is now considered a toss-up, which is shocking. Now, Alaska is where we start the idea of, let's call it playing dirty. In Alaska, there's a man named Dan Sullivan. He's running for office. There are now multiple Dan Sullivans trying to get on the ballot so that regular old Alaskans won't know who they're voting for and talk about evil. But my friends, it ain't just about polls. It's about procedure. I ran a few sims over with my friends at GPT. Based on the current polling expressed by Harry Enten, what would the number of seats be that Democrats win? It's actually not bad. It's four to eight, it says. If you look at historic midterms and the polling advantage held by party and how many seats they ended up winning, it's not always a complete correlation. But if we're just doing a light estimation, Democrats are tracking, even with this minor advantage, for about a four-seat lead, maybe even eight if they perform well. But hold on there a gosh darn minute. Things change dramatically when you factor in Trump's executive order. It actually says, I would reduce the expected Democrat House gain by roughly three to eight seats. It would end with Democrats holding a one-seat advantage based on Trump's executive order on the post office. Now I'm going to ask it, let's factor in cash on hand and expected spend with the GOP having, as of right now, $1 billion to Democrats, $335 million. When you take a look at elections, it's unfortunate, but basically when you look at cash spent, money talks. You can do whatever you want, you can say whatever you want, you can be whoever you want, but you got the cash and you can spend the money, you tend to win. So what it says is that campaign spending has diminishing returns on both sides. Money follows competitiveness. The three-to-one cash advantage persists if this persists through election day, which it's going to, it's persisted for years. And the Republicans deploy it properly in competitive districts. Democrats will not be able to close the gap, and Republicans will actually end up winning in this capacity. Interestingly, it says that the House will actually have a Republican advantage of around five seats, which is pretty crazy. And in the Senate, 52 to 48. It says under these assumptions, I'd keep confidence moderate rather than high. National conditions, presidential approval, inflation, economic growth, and candidate equality have historically explained more of the variation in House outcomes than campaign spending alone. This is why I say it's important not to throw the baby out with a bath of water right now. Democrats are the favorite. Let's pull up the House congressional map. Cal, she has Democrats winning at 82 percent. People are really putting money. And hey, to wisdom of the crown, are they wrong? Right now, the estimate is 205 safe Democrats, 211 safe Republican with 19 toss ups. So it leans in favor of Republicans. I'm going to go and say this. I don't know who wins, but it is far from a guarantee for Democrats. When you factor in redistricting the cash advantage and Trump's procedural efforts, notably the post office executive order saying, hey, you can't deliver ballots to noncitizens, not to mention what we heard with Mark Wayne Mullen. They're going to cut off grants from states that don't purge noncitizens from their voter rolls. These advantages confer a potential Republican victory. I say that's interesting. My friends, we don't exactly know. But what I do know is this. Van Jones, he says the Democratic socialists have gone too far. Will people abandon the Democratic Party because of their wackaloo lefties? Well, listen, I cannot tell you this phone has been blowing up all day. Governors from both parties, senators from both parties, Democrats in the House calling, thanking me for saying what everybody's been saying behind the scenes, which is that this stuff is going too far. I am a progressive Democrat. You want to talk about prison reform? I've done it as well as anybody. Republican Democrats in the South with Trump. I've done prison reform. I never said have no prisons. Where are you going to put the Klan? I've done police reform. I never said no police. This stuff is going too far. And part of the thing that has to happen is we saw what happened in the Republican Party when things started going in a nutty direction and nobody stood up. I am happy that the young people are fighting for affordability, Medicare for all, all the good things. I've been waiting my whole life to see a youth movement do what it's doing. But it's being hijacked by people who are putting in nutty ideas supporting terrorists, nutty ideas saying that we don't need cops in prison. We can't deport anybody even if they rape somebody. Who said this? Chevalier. Where did Chevalier- Chevalier is the Democratic nominee, sorry, DSA nominee for Congress now from the Bronx in New York. Yes. I just want to say that there was a shockwave through this party when Mamdani, who everybody's excited about, stabbed in the back Espiad, who was the chair of the Hispanic Caucus, beloved by everybody, who backed Mamdani. Mamdani said, I will back you. Then he turns around, stabs him in the back- Backs Chevalier. And backs Chevalier who has no credentials except she's known for having celebrated October 7th murders of Israelis on October 8th and never apologized. This sent a shockwave through the party. People said, hold on a second, why of all the people in New York City would Mamdani pick this person to betray someone? And then no one says anything. Are you ice cold? I'm not afraid to talk about it. But that's why it's so important for him to say it. Now that seat though, let's take the example that you gave. That specific seat that we're talking about is a Democratic seat. So you can put someone as far left as you want or in moderate as you want, a Democrat's going to win. So I guess what I'm saying, Gretchen, is does this affect the midterms when you're looking at seats that are not like that? Seats that are purple where your nominee is not somebody who said the things that Van just said. Look at the movement that's been created. It's what the media is talking about. And it's not just in New York. We're talking about Michigan now. We're talking about Colorado. We're talking about a bunch of other states where this movement is going on. And I think it was so important that Van Jones said this because quite honestly, you were thought of as way over on the left. Van Jones was the far left, but they make a really interesting point that I think it's important to point out. Nationally, the victory of the far left will have a weighting effect on moderate Democrats in these purple areas. So if you're a Democrat and you are trying to play the moderate game, you do have a problem of the far left trying to weigh down your campaign where you are. But then from a national campaign point of view, y'all are in trouble. Regular people aren't going to be watching only local news and local advertisements. They're going to get exposed to what's happening with the Democratic Party as a whole. And they're going to relate what they see from people like Mondani and Chevalier to you, these moderate Democrats. If you can even call moderates, maybe they're pretending, whatever you want to say. But I think it's going to have a way, a down weighting effect on these individuals where they're going to lose a couple points because there are going to be moderate saying, I just can't support Democrats anymore. It's likely why their polling is relatively low, despite being positive, just low. Here's one of my favorite bits of data for this midterm. Nate Silver says income and education are usually positively correlated, but sometimes the relationship breaks down. What's the most Democratic voting group in America? People with postgraduate degrees, but lower to middle incomes. Now, this says a lot. You take a look at this on the Silver Bulletin and we can see that those who make between $30,000 and $60,000 per year, who have postgraduate degrees, 70% lean Democrat. And you know what this says? I'm going to say it outright. These are low competence individuals. That's it. Now, what is the perception of the liberal? Having a postgraduate degree makes you an expert. It is for the most part, not smart. Any intelligent person knows that your capabilities don't come from a piece of paper and going through an administrative process doesn't prove you're good or capable of doing anything. Now, across the board, postgrads all lean Democrat. The arguments that we get from Democrats and liberals is that this proves that if you're educated, you vote Democrat. Well, I think it shows many things and we can say that it's an inverse correlation. One could argue that people who are liberal tend to overvalue postgraduate degrees. Not that having a postgraduate degree makes you a liberal or that being quote-unquote educated will make you vote Democrat. In fact, I think that's actually much more probable. That is, if you are a Republican and you make $200,000 plus per year, in the category of $200,000 plus per year high school or less, it is 41% leaning Republican. For postgrads, it's 66% leaning Democrat. What I see here is, if you did not go to school, you are likely working to solve your own problems. And as you can see, some of these people, they make large salaries. Now, this is not a volumetric poll. It's not saying that there's a million people of any one of these factions. Just of these factions, where do they lean? I'll use myself as an example. I'm fairly moderate. I don't like what the I describe as universal basic healthcare would be fantastic. That is, there are certain ailments that are beyond the scope of a public system, but setting bones and treating the flu, we can manage and maintain these things. I think it's entirely possible. People go to the ER already, right? We accommodate these people regardless. Nobody just gives up and die. I mean, some people, but for the most part, they don't. We just need to figure out how to stop people from going into massive medical debt when they get a broken bone, which is serious. It's true. Also, having babies is very, very expensive. We got to figure those things out. But I am somebody who did not finish high school nor college. And I would say that I have tremendous merit and capabilities. Now, if you ask any reasonable person who's intelligent, I mean, legitimately intelligent, multi-ordered thinking, et cetera, they're going to say that whether you go to college or not does not determine whether or not you'll be successful. But for most of these midwits, I'd say particularly at the low end of competency, they're going to make this argument, the reason why they're so reliable Democrats and probably lean very far left, because they will say, it's not fair. I got a degree. Why aren't I making more money? They're going to say, I have a postgraduate degree in folklore and mythology, but I'm working as a barista. By the way, everybody knows that leftists make the best coffee. You go to a coffee shop and it's got American flags and conservatives on the counter, and you know your coffee is going to be, it's okay. But you know, when you see that purple haired pride flag lady, you are going to get the swirls and the whip and all the good stuff. That's the joke they say, right? But these people are angry. They're saying I did everything I was supposed to do, but I can't succeed. The reality is the degrees are largely worthless. It was never your degree that was going to guarantee income. They lied. They say this, I love it. They say, people who have college degrees tend to make more money than people who don't. Now, if you're a first ordered thinker, if you're a midwit, you're going, wow, if I get a degree, I'll make more money. That's not at all what the data means. The data actually breaks down in a bunch of different ways. For one, it says that people who are driven to pursue a passion are more likely to pursue that passion in work. That is whether you go to college or not, if you are willing to work hard to improve yourself, you will make more money. So this factor could be people with postgraduate degrees. Some of them, maybe the 30% decided to improve their knowledge base through college, regardless of going to college, they were driven to be the best. And so they make more money. Then there is another and my favorite and the most glaringly obvious. People with degrees tend to have debt and require salaries that are higher than those without. The question is, is your standard of living improving by having gone to college? And the truth is there is a correlation there. In fact, people with college degrees, even with debt tend to have more disposable income, but it is lower than the at which they are being paid. Interesting. So what I would say is, while it certainly plays a role that people make more money because they have college degrees and need to pay off their debt, they actually do generally make more money based on the skillset that they attained through going through a training program. I'm not trying to just act like there's no value whatsoever. So the hypothetical is if you go to college, you're going to have a couple hundred bucks a So you're going to tell your boss, I got to make more money. You can't pay me 40. It's got to be 45. Otherwise, I can't make my my student loan payments. So now you're making more money. And that factors in. That being said, the jobs that you end up getting with a degree do tend to correlate slightly higher with higher skilled jobs, even if it's not that much of a higher skill. And so the data does actually show you'll have a couple more grand per year for disposable spending than your non-college educated counterpart, likely due to the fact that you're going to be working jobs that tend to pay more. They just do. They're harder to find, things of that nature. Now, ultimately, my point here is this. Why are we seeing a rise of these socialists? Why is AOC going to be president? Well, running for president, we'll see if she actually makes it. It's because midwits did not know what to do with their lives. They were told to go to college, so they did. They learned some things. They're not the smartest people in the world, and they're of moderate to low competency. So they go to socialists and they say, I should make more money. I'm smart. And the socialists say, yeah, but clearly you're not. I'm not trying to be mean. I'm gonna tell you this. Let me let me let me let me put it this way. I have had this thought to myself long time ago. If I really am so smart, why aren't I a billionaire? Why aren't I rich? I've played video games where I've, you know, there's a game called trade wins, where you buy and sell and make a lot of money. I've played those games. I've beaten these games. I've figured out these systems. I've found the exploits I've made in these games, points and money. If I'm so smart, well, the reality is I'm not so smart. That's just it. I get it. If I was really smart, I'd be a billionaire. I think I'm smart. But what does that really mean? A little bit more than average, probably, but I'm willing to work really, really hard. I've known this for a long time, my friends. There are many people who probably are stupider than me in many ways, but better than me at this. They work three times a week and they make 10 times the money. Some people do one podcast per week and they're getting paid 10 times the money I make. So you know what I realized? What I cannot accomplish with talent and intelligence, I must make up with hard work. And while I do consider myself to be reasonably intelligent, I think if you watch my show, you probably assume that to be true, that I'm somewhat smarter than average. I actually don't believe that I'm the smartest person in the room or the smartest person in the world or the best podcaster there is because I'd be running a better business, making a lot more money. I've reached my capacity. I work double shifts every day because that is my path towards making more money. Where I cannot accomplish it with talent and intelligence, I have to fill in the gap with extra work. That lesson would go very far for these socialists. That's the reality. You want to be rich? Maybe you can never be. Not everybody can. I'm rich. What did I do? I decided to work twice as hard so that I can exponentially increase my returns and build a business. I could have stayed where I was. And I've talked about this. Maybe I could have just stayed in that house in Jersey, never launched TimCast IRL, only worked the mornings. I'd make about $300,000 to $400,000 per year. Actually, to be fair, I was doing about a million before TimCast IRL. IRL really blasted us off. But I was making a lot of money and I said, I can do more. And this seems to be where I end up. There are many people who make millions of dollars per year. They're never going to be billionaires. And there's only one Elon Musk. But for these people, they don't want to work. They just want to have the money. They feel they're owed it. But that's never how the world worked. And so they're going to vote for communists and socialists. And in the end, I think the people that do work hard are going to reject this. AOC is not ruling out a run for president. Okay. I don't think she's going to be able to win for a variety of reasons. I think most people do understand the value of hard work. In this world, it just doesn't. But I'll leave it there, my friends. You tell me what you think's happening in the comments below. Will Democrats take it? We are three months out. We got the prediction markets are raging. They're saying Democrats, so the value bets for the Republicans. You can follow me on X and Instagram at TimCast. Stay tuned. We got more coming up for you throughout the day with TimCast IRL at 8 p.m. And we will see you all then.