Election Results Analysis

I want to give a little extra time to our election coverage right now. The votes have been counted. Democrats won control of the House following yesterday's midterms and the Senate post-election breakdown time. Now, Democratic strategist Christina Antello, Republican strategist Mark Williams, kind enough to come back and see us once again today, although I note one thing. Christina, you've moved a little bit closer to me today. I have, I have. We switched places today. And Mark has been pushed a little bit more to the outside. I'm just going to go off set at this point. I'm going to sit at the other table. Mark, I'll start with you first of all. What surprised you the most? I definitely think the Texas gubernatorial race surprised me the most. You know, you saw some of the numbers. I wasn't a firm believer in the polls. There's good reasons to not believe in them. But it looks like polling... kind of got a lot of this right. I will say it actually underestimated Democrats. Now that you look at some of those numbers, like the Democratic numbers were way higher than the polling was giving them credit for. Yeah, obviously, Christina, Democrats doing a victory lap this morning. What you expected, more than what you expected, where did that fall? This is way, way more than I expected, to be very honest with you. Yesterday, I was also trying to be super conservative and maybe wish-casting that maybe there would be a kind of a divided government so that we wouldn't kind of get out ahead of our skis. But like taking the Senate. Senate by at least four seats. I mean, you know, that's crazy right now at 54 seats. So we'll still, you know, we're still counting in a couple of states and trying to figure that out. But yeah, I didn't see this kind of majority for Hakeem Jeffries. That gives him a lot of extra room to maybe lose some votes if the DSA members are kind of unwieldy or what have you. He's definitely got some room to govern. Yeah, we'll talk about that in a minute. You know, Mark mentioned the Texas governor's race. What stood out to you? I have my my Texas blue here on. I'm from from Texas. I didn't see it coming. But yes, it's the Latino vote we were talking about earlier down in South Texas. I think that, you know, a lot of the Latino vote that. Trump had pulled together in the last election was kind of a let's try. Let's see. We're unhappy with Biden. Let's give him a chance. Like we care about security. But this really went kind of an overreach way in the other direction. And I think a lot of these Latino voters that were were were rented in the last election are back in the Democratic column this election. But I think more than anything, it tells you that these voters are up for grabs. If you talk to them and give them policies that they can be for, they're up for grabs. Well, and that's one of the keys, too, because obviously, you know that. As we mentioned yesterday, today is day one for 2028, right, Mark? So where do you go now? Where do Republicans turn? Well, who knows at this point? I think they've got to do a huge introspective. You know, one thing I think I can guarantee is that Democrats will overreach, and that will give whoever is running in 2028 a little bit of a leg up. But if you're J.D. Vance, are you looking at the playing field today and you're like... How do I stay tethered to this president who just lost by a massive amount? So how much of this is tied into what the entire country is feeling right now, right? The economics, the high gas prices, the things that we see on a daily basis. All of it. I mean, at the end of the day, that's what the midterms are about, are rebuking the previous two years of the administration. So it's the tariffs, it's inflation, and it's the war in Iran. I think those are the three drivers. You know, we talk about the folks in South Texas, and we talk about the Latino vote a lot. They care about the same things that everyone else cares about. They care about the high gas prices, right? They care about the high diesel prices. They care about the higher cost of everything at the grocery store. And until Republicans can really get their heads wrapped around that, we'll continue to lose elections. So, Christine, what do Democrats do? Obviously, you want to just kind of ride the momentum and you want to push forward and you probably want to do as much as you possibly can. But then there are some that say maybe we don't do too much too quickly. You know, I hope that they stay focused on the legislative priorities in the agenda because that would be a winner and help us going into 2028. My fear is that some of Some of this is also wrapped up in the base they care about, the Qatari jet. And the Russian wedding and the crypto, you know, currency kind of two billion fallout for the president. And they're going to want to, you know, do all the oversight on top of that. I think there's room for some of that. And certainly there should be, you know, some some oversight held on the administration. But I certainly hope that we don't overreach. And I think that that's where Mark is talking about, like where we are probably guaranteed to overreach. And that will be the things that that the American public won't care for after. You know, a certain number of months. Is it a lame duck presidency at this point? You would have to think so. Yeah. With these numbers, I don't think he's going to be in a dealing mood. I think with all the oversight that's going to happen, pull the kids and all the secretaries before Congress, I just think there's going to be a lot of vitriol, at least for the first six months, between kind of... between Democrats in the House and Senate in the White House. But there's not really time for that. I mean, we've got to fund the government. We've got a continuing resolution that's coming up on December 11th. There's probably going to be a CR that kicks that into January so that then Democrats start all over again. We're going to have an NDAA, which is the defense kind of priorities for the country. And then we're going to have a debt ceiling coming up next year. And so the president's going to have to figure out how to deal with Democrats because there's a lot of stuff on the to-do list. Well, and both of your respective parties have to pick a presidential candidate for 2028 as well. So start today. What do you see as a timeline for that? I mean, is it better to choose early or to let that play out a little bit later as far as who the party will just ultimately back? I think on our side, it's going to take a little bit, given the results of last night. You know, if you had asked me a week ago, I would have said J.D. Vance is absolutely going to be the guy. But now I think everyone takes a step back. You have to kind of survey the landscape and see who can win primaries, but also who can compete in a general election. Yeah, because I don't know if the MAGA philosophy withholds after all of this, right? And, like, that was the J.D. Vance kind of, like, ticket, I think, after that. And so, like, that's the part that I'm questioning over here on the D side. On the Democratic side, we already had 15, 20 candidates before today, and now I'm wondering if we would only have even more, right? If some of these Democrats that have won in resounding places, like Ossoff or other governors that we've already seen, like Klobuchar in the past has wanted to run, and, like, now that she's going to have executive experience, will she want to add her name to the list, too? So there will be an even-growing list. All right. That is a story to be told at another day. There's the information if you'd like to reach out to either of these incredible guests that are kind enough to come in and join us on days of victory and defeat. Thank you guys for both being here today. Fortunately, you guys are able to enjoy each other's company as well. So thanks for coming in. A little bit less today. Mark, I understand that. We're going to turn things over to.