Midterm elections: Political analyst breaks down key races to watch

We're going to get serious because we've got to talk about the midterms. That's on Tuesday because there's so much going on tonight. There's live events happening, campaign stops. All the surrogates are out trying to get their candidates elected. I'm going to bring in Micah Rasmussen tonight from Rider University. Micah, I said you'd be in costume, but I do believe you look like you are dressed as a political analyst. I think so. I think I can pass. Right. Yep. Yep. All right. I have so much to ask you about on this mischief night, this Halloween Eve, as we get ready. I'd like to talk a little bit about the New York governor's race. We saw Governor Kathy Hochul out on the campaign trail. And we also saw her Republican rival, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, who's hoping to unseat How is that race looking? Because it seems as if. They were a little close early on, but now she seems to be running away with it. I think so. In typical New York fashion, as late-breaking voters are making up their minds, many of them are falling back on their tried and true. And in a state like New York, in a city, a metropolitan area like New York, that is always going to benefit the bigger party unless there's some huge backlash. And you're right. We had heard potentially about You know, disaffected voters in different pockets around the state that Blakeman was trying to make the best of. And you know what? He certainly has tried and he certainly is continuing to run through the tape. But at this point, I would say that the larger party, the Democratic Party. Probably is the way votes are breaking. And that's not necessarily Blakeman's fault. I mean, I think that President Trump is going to get the lion's share of the blame or the credit here for the way that his party gets treated in these midterms for better or for worse. That may not sound like it has a lot to do with state politics, but it's certainly what's on voters' minds. Yeah, that and the affordability as well. I wanted to talk with you about another race as well. This one has more significance in terms of the balance of power in Washington. Let's talk about New York 17, the congressional district where Lawler and Kate Connolly. Congressman Mike Lawler, the Republican incumbent, is hoping to hold on to power. And his Democratic challenger, who's an Army vet, Kate Connolly, is trying to unseat him and flip that district back blue because Lawler was able to flip it red when he won in 22. Talk to me about that race. And it looks like it's tightening up. I think so. I think that this is one that's going to go down to a photo finish. And, you know, one of the reasons for that is because Lawler is trying to separate himself from the president. He is trying to distinguish himself. He's saying, I'm going to stand up to him. And voters are trying to sort out, is he somebody to lump in with the president and the president's party? Or is he somebody who does stick out from the president's party? And so, So many things are true to form, and this is a race that, you know, suburban, more affluent, more educated district. This is an area that's not a great fit for the blue collar. Thank voter that would typically respond to Trump. And so this is an area where he struggled. And you get these moderate Republicans, or at least he's certainly trying to portray himself that way, the same way you do Tom Kane on the other side of the river. You also see, true to form, you. the Democrats have found a woman who is a veteran. And that is very much a mode that they know that voters respond well to. We saw it with Governor Sherrill when she came up in politics, talked a And we see it with the person who is trying to beat Tom Kane, Rebecca Bennett. And it's that she's going for that moderate vote, too. This is not a district that wants a lot of extreme on both sides. They're sort of fighting for the middle ground as best they can. And that's a tight finish. And I do think the independent vote will make a big difference, maybe not so much in these deep blue states, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, but around the country as we talk in a minute about the Senate race. Let's go back to New Jersey. I know that's where you are now, your home and where you work. New Jersey's seventh congressional district with Tom Kane Jr., the incumbent Republican who was off the campaign trail for a while and Rebecca Bennett. As you just mentioned, some military experience, a moderate Democrat trying to unseat him, and a lot of money is flowing into her campaign in these final days. Where does that race stand? Well, she is doing the best she can to catch Tom Kane up with his party, trying to get him lumped in with the president. The president carried this district two years ago, but only by two points. I'm sorry, by five points. So it wasn't a landslide. But then Mikey Sherrill, just a year later in the governor's race, carried the district as well. So this is really a very swing district. This is not a district that either side can ever have in the bag. So, again, sort of like running down the tape here, going to the bitter end, we'll see what happens. A lot of money being spent on both sides. The National Party made a decision that they were going to pull up their stakes on the Republican side and not spend more money here. But part of that was because he was well-financed himself. He had already had a lot of ads placed, and the feeling was he was going to get the traction he was going to get out of the ad. Honestly, he's going to struggle here, not only because of the Trump factor, but also because of the personal factor. You mentioned his disappearance for 117 days. We didn't know where he was. He was seeking mental health treatment. We are very glad that he did. New Jerseyans are very glad that he did. But he didn't let anybody know what was going on. And that, unfortunately, Unfortunately, is a part of What we now know about him, what is understood about him, it may be the only thing that many voters know about him. So it's sort of this double whammy of the personal and the national politics combining and really putting him behind the eight ball. Yep, definitely. So I want to ask you now, we're going to move into the national races. Early voter turnout has really been surging. The Associated Press doing a A study that said it's really up significantly from the midterms in 2022 in lots of states across the country. So will that make a difference? And if so, who does it benefit? I always think about New Jersey first, and our in-person early voting is relatively new. I think we're a couple of years newer to it than New York even. So it took a while for voters to adapt to it and latch onto it. And now they really have, and they really like it. And so that's why you're seeing not just that traditional mail vote that's a couple of the mail-in voting that's a couple of years older, but also the in-person early voting. And what does that add up to? About 50 to 60 million votes either now or, you know, during the weekend, that's going to be about half of the national turnout. So what I think about is half of the election is now in this very favored Democratic pre-election electorate, 15 percent more Democrats showing up at the polls than Republicans, more Democrats, less Republicans. We're seeing both of those dynamics work. Republicans are under their score. Democrats are over their score in terms of where they've been in the past at this same point in time. So that's one side of the ledger. But you're going to have this other half of the election, the election day election, and that's where Republicans are going to hope to offset all that first half advantages that we see. They're going to hope to have a mirror image where they're favored because they waited to come out and they've got to get a big Republican vote out. It is certainly possible that they will do that. My question is, are Democrats going to keep up their momentum or have they sort of, you know, really? voted in big numbers already, and now they're going to sort of fall back. We'll see what happens. If this is momentum that continues, then Republicans may not be able to catch them. But if Republicans are now going to hit their surge in the second half, then this is going to be anybody's bet. So I want to ask you about the United States Senate, because by all political pundits keep putting the House in Democrats' hands, but the Senate still appears to be Up for grabs, if you believe any of the polling that's out there. A lot of states are looking at Maine and Texas and Kansas and Iowa and Alaska. But I bring this up because there is a lot of early voting that's already taken place. So, you know, for example, in Alaska, where they got an October surprise with two of the same names ballot stacking on the on the ballot there. So what do you think about the Senate? Chances. Does it go to the Republicans or stay in Republican control or go to the Democrats? You know, it's funny. You you really summarized exactly where we are at this moment. The Democrats have to have to flip four seats in the Senate to be able to take the majority. They also have to flip four seats in the House. But when you have four hundred and thirty five seats up, that's a lot more manageable task when there's only thirty three or thirty four seats up as there are this year in the Senate. And so they've got it. They've got to flip. Like, you know, over 10 percent of the seats that are up from away from Republicans and to the Democrats. And you outlined exactly the states that we are watching. And the problem with trying to get out the crystal ball here is all those states are showing polling. Within a point or two of each other, the Democrat and the Republican are really neck and neck. And so it does come down to turnout. We always say that it comes down to turnout. But if you have a close race where both parties are in it to win it, now it comes down to which side is motivated to show up. And again, we can go by what we've seen so far, a little bit unfair to the Republicans, but we can go by what we've seen so far and say the Democrats are fired up. They're enthusiastic. They want to bring checks and balances. Republicans have not been. But we're going to see now if they do wake up and if they do get enthused or if this is now the position that they're going to be where the first half they weren't as prominent. They were sort of not enthused to come out and support an unpopular president. If that's the position they continue, then they're really going to struggle on Tuesday night. Well, Micah Rasmussen, thank you so much for your insight.