Election season overtime is finally winding down, so Democratic operative Joe Sudbay joins David Nir on The Downballot as a guest-host this week to recap some of the last results that have just trickled in. At the top of the list is the race for Arizona Attorney General, where Democrat Kris Mayes has a 510-vote lead with all ballots counted (a mandatory recount is unlikely to change the outcome). Also on the agenda is Arizona's successful Proposition 308, which will allow students to receive financial aid regardless of immigration status.

Over in California, Democrats just took control of the Boards of Supervisors in two huge counties, Riverside and Orange—in the case of the latter, for the first time since 1976. Joe and David also discuss which Democratic candidates who fell just short this year they'd like to see try again in 2024, and what the GOP's very skinny House majority means for Kevin McCarthy's prospects as speaker.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

David Nir:

Hello and welcome. I'm David Nir, political director of Daily Kos. The Downballot is a weekly podcast dedicated to the many elections that take place below the presidency, from senate to city council. We wanted to thank you because The Downballot just crossed the 1,000 subscriber mark on Apple podcasts. We are really grateful to all of our listeners for helping us hit this big milestone. My co-host David Beard is off this week, but joining me on the program today as guest host is Democratic operative Joe Sudbay, who you may remember because he subbed in for me on a previous episode. We'll be talking about the Attorney General's race in Arizona, which just got called for the Democrat as well as Proposition 308, which allows students to receive financial aid regardless of immigration status. Then we'll head over to California to discuss two huge counties that both saw their Boards of Supervisors flip to Democratic control this year.

And with the battle for the House winding down, we want to mention a couple of Democrats who fell just short this year, but that we'd love to see try again in 2024. And finally, we will discuss what the GOP's very small margin in the house means for Kevin McCarthy's prospects of becoming Speaker. We have a supremely fun show for you ahead, so please stay with us.

Well, I am so excited for today's show because I get to invite on to guest host with me, Joe Sudbay, democratic operative, a very, very astute political observer, and also a frequent host on Sirius XM. He has had me on various shows on the radio before, so now finally getting to turn the tables. Joe, it is so great to have you back here on The Downballot.

Joe Sudbay:

It is very exciting to be back. And David, I was thinking the last time we spoke was about 4:00 AM Eastern time on November 9th when I was doing the overnight coverage on Sirius XM Progress. And you texted that you were still up and I said, "Let's talk." We had so much fun that that morning it was terrific.

David Nir:

Joe, I was so tired and also so pumped in a way that I just never expected because I think we all pretty much thought election night was kind of going to suck, if not worse, and then it turned out to be awesome.

Joe Sudbay:

It was so awesome and it just kept getting better too. I mean, we thought we wouldn't have a call in the Pennsylvania race for days in the Senate race and there it was at one o'clock Eastern. It was terrific, and the House races, there were so many house races that I was keeping an eye on that the kind of the DC pundits and prognosticators were predicting were going to go Republican. Starting in Rhode Island's 2nd congressional district, they were convinced, the New York Times was convinced, Allan Fung was going to win the Republican. He didn't; Seth Magaziner pulled it out. The races in New Hampshire, those really set the tone for the rest of the evening. Both the Senate and the two House races in New Hampshire, big wins up there and it just really set the tone. It really was a fun night. I feel like we're still riding the wave.

David Nir:

We still are. Overtime is now entering its third week, but we just finally wrapped up the vote counting in a huge, huge race that would be a flip for Democrats if it stands up. So we obviously have to talk about what just happened in Arizona in the Attorney General's race.

Joe Sudbay:

Yes. On Monday the final votes came in the Attorney General's race and Kris Mayes, the Democrat is ahead by 510 votes over Republican Abraham Hamadeh. Now this was ... remember Democrats won the governor's race, they won the Senate race, they won the Secretary of State's race. This one was closer than all of them, but it's a really important win. It's a flip if it holds up. You mentioned there will be a recount, a mandatory recount because it is so close, but there are a lot of experts, including Nathaniel Rakich who was on the show, The Downballot, the last time I was hosting. He noted that the median shift in statewide recounts since 2000 is about 267 votes.

So it does look good, but I just was very excited about this one. Hamadeh is really, he's an extremist. He would've fit right in with the Ken Paxtons and now Kris Kobach, who's the AG up in Kansas. That kind of extremist ran really ugly ads, ran using the invasion rhetoric about immigrants on the border. And defeating him, it's just so sweet and let's just hope it holds. As the recount goes through, we'll know that after December 5th.

David Nir:

What makes this even more amazing as Axios reporter Jeremy Duda pointed out, this is the first time since 1978 that Democrats in Arizona will have won the governorship, the Secretary of State's office, and the Attorney General's post. It is remarkable that the top offices, both Senate seats as well, in this state that was a red state for such a long time, the home of Barry Goldwater and one of the cradles of modern day conservatism, is now blue. And of course, it's only really, really light blue. A lot of these races were really, really close. But now that Democrats hold all these posts, we can be pretty darn sure that Republicans, no matter how hard they try, are not going to be able to steal Arizona for Donald Trump '24.

Joe Sudbay:

That's really important. And the other thing is, I know we always say this, we always say every vote counts, but in a state where two and a half million people voted, over two and a half million people voted, the race for Attorney General is 510 votes. Every vote does matter. Republicans have done so much over the years and around the country to prevent people from participating in the electoral process. They don't want you to vote, but voting really matters. And we will now have a Secretary of State and an Attorney General in Arizona who believe in voting, who believe in the integrity of the electoral process. That is really, really super important.

David Nir:

Well, maybe the most amazing thing that Republicans have done to suppress the vote is to literally kill their own voters by promoting vaccine skepticism, hostility, and refusal. Now, I think it got really overblown by a lot of folks the extent to which the COVID death gap might have played a role in the 2022 midterms. But healthcare writer Charles Gaba has tracked this sort of thing very, very closely and has come up with estimates of the excess number of deaths of Republican voters compared to Democratic voters across the country and state by state that have found support in other studies by other organizations.

And so he specifically took a look at Arizona and according to his conclusions, which seemed quite strong to me, there were probably about 4,000 excess Republican deaths compared to Democrats in Arizona as a result of COVID vaccine refusal, or at least in large part because of that. And like you just said, Joe, 510 votes, well that's smaller than 4,000. What a bitter and sad way to lose. But we warned about this. We told them not to do this. You're killing off your own voters if for no other reason than that you should encourage them to get vaccinated. Well, they didn't and here we are.

Joe Sudbay:

Absolutely right. It's not surprising, but it is surprising and it's still stunning. It brings you back to those days and we're still in a lot of COVID denial, but I... Also, Charles Gaba, shout out to him because he's one of the only other people who really focuses on downballot races, trying to raise money for them and I appreciate that because not enough people do as you and I have discussed many times.

David, I want to stick in Arizona because there was a ballot measure that I just have to say it's near and dear to my heart. Proposition 308. It allows for in-state tuition for non-citizens of Arizona. It was in 2004, Arizona passed a proposition that prevented essential services being provided to undocumented people living in the state. It was one of those vindictive things that a lot of Arizona Republicans did. You mentioned last week when you were talking with David Beard, you were talking about Arizona, SB 1070, that horrific papers-please law, that really set in motion a lot of organizing that really has gotten us to the point where we were able to have the elections we had this cycle.

And Prop 308 passed 51-49, a little over 51-49, a really big win. It was put on the ballot through the legislature, which was a Republican-controlled legislature in both the House and the Senate. Reyna Montoya and Jose Patino, they are founders of a group called Aliento Arizona. They worked it through the legislature; they went through several sessions trying to get it on the ballot. They were rebuffed repeatedly and told it couldn't happen, it wouldn't happen, not to do it. They got it on the ballot, a big win. And what's really remarkable about it is I do a lot of work in the immigration world and Arizona really has been ground zero in many ways. Starting with prop, I mean SB 1070, but the ads this cycle from the likes of Blake Masters and Kari Lake were so vicious and so horrible and so xenophobic that it didn't work. It didn't work. Pile on top of their ads Stephen Miller with his probably a hundred million-dollar super PAC of just pure-

David Nir:

I even got one of Stephen Miller's stupid mailers. I live in New York City.

Joe Sudbay:

They spent so much money ... I was driving up the Interstate 95 from Boston to Portland, and there were billboards all through New Hampshire with horrific messages. Now I knew what they meant because I was like, "Uh-huh. That's going to be a Stephen Miller. It was Citizens for Safety." They spent tons of money in Arizona and lost.

This is the issue. It does set the stage. We know that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, DACA, is on life support. The federal district court judges that were handpicked by Ken Paxton and other GOP AGs are going to get it found unconstitutional. They've got a case moving up to the Supreme Court. We have the next few weeks in Congress to maybe get it done.

I think that Prop 308 give a lot of impetus to showing that voters actually do care about this even when there's a deluge of money spent against it. So big shout out to everyone who worked on it, particularly Reyna and Jose. I love them. They are total badasses. They have made the world a better place for so many young people in their state.

David Nir:

It really is amazing. To pick up on something you said, Joe, Republicans were so sure, so sure, that they were never going to have to pay a price for their extremism. To be honest, I really wondered if they would myself. The traditional media has done such an abysmal job abetting them, because this whole supposed neutral journalism, both sides journalism makes it seem, well ...

“Democrats say that migrants are human. Republicans disagree.” I mean that's essentially where we are on most issues, and they paid a price. No matter what happens in every election for the rest of my life, I will always remember this and be grateful that they were so disgusting and extreme that there were voters in the middle who said, "No, this is just too much." I think Arizona, almost from top to bottom, is almost the perfect example of exactly that rejection of extremism.

Joe Sudbay:

Yeah, just one ... I agree with that wholeheartedly. As much as they attacked immigrants, they also attacked trans kids. I mean among the most vulnerable people in our population. It was so vicious and so cruel, and that didn't work either.

I will say, David, I saw reporters on Capitol Hill saying that Stephen Miller walked into Kevin McCarthy's office last week, obviously to plan more strategy. This week, Kevin McCarthy is down on the border doing more photo ops and stunts.

Stephen Miller still controls the GOP message. And you know what I say? Keep listening to him, Republicans. The really serious problem is that there's a death count attached with their ugly messaging. That is something that the media ... And also, David, the media has responsibility for it and culpability. But every corporate PAC that donates to Republicans who run those ads own it, too.

David Nir:

Yeah. I mean what just happened in Colorado Springs, it's on them. What happened at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, it's on them. We could spend another hour reciting all the things that are on them. So as much as their hateful rhetoric might be harming them at the ballot box, it's also harming real people and, like you said, leading to a death count. For that reason, we can never cheer it on. I think everyone listening also knows that. It's a disgusting phenomenon and we need to fight it and beat it back however we possibly can.

Joe Sudbay:

We did beat it back this year, David, at the ballot box. We've got to keep that up because that's how we do it more than any other way.

David Nir:

Absolutely. I mean that's something that you and I have always been devoted to. The most important thing that we can do as activists is beat them at the ballot box and win power from top to bottom. That's perfect segue for us to talk about a couple of totally different races, a little bit further to the west, in California, where Democrats won some amazing successes.

So Orange County, that, of course, is the hugely populous county in Southern California that has been talked about quite a lot in recent years, particularly starting in 2018, when Democrats flipped a large number of House districts in the area. They gave some of them back in 2020.

But the long-term trends in Orange County, don't call it the OC, are heading Democrats' way. We know this because this year, for the first time since 1976, Democrats managed to take control of the board of supervisors in Orange County. They now have a three to two majority.

In fact, prior to 2018, it was a 5-0 Republican board. Just to put that in a little further context, since 1936 when FDR won his massive landslide first reelection, no Democrat for president won Orange County until Hillary Clinton did in 2016. Since 2016, that was only six years ago, Democrats have now flipped the county board of supervisors.

That's not the only big county in the region where they've had success. In fact, in Riverside County, which is not too far away, Democrats also just took a majority of the board of supervisors. Strangely enough, the head of the board was a Libertarian, believe it or not, who might actually have been the highest ranking Libertarian elected official in the country. Anyhow, Democrats managed to beat him. And so, they have a 3-2 majority on that board as well.

What's really remarkable is that Democrats actually lost both counties in every statewide race in California this year, but still showed enough local strength that they flipped both of these boards.

There's also something else that I want to add. There are a lot of election analysts out there who love to obsess over counties. They talk about Republicans winning so many more counties than Democrats. This is certainly something favored on the right as well. There's Donald Trump's ridiculous stupid map that he supposedly printed out and gave to reporters. Donald Trump Jr. saying, "Impeach this," showing all the red counties and the tiny little blue slivers. Of course, anyone with any sense knows that that's BS because land doesn't vote. People do.

But let's talk about people. Riverside and Orange County are enormous. Riverside has 2.4 million people. It's the tenth largest county in the country. Orange County has 3.2 million people. It's the sixth largest county in the country.

So when we talk about Republicans flipping counties, it's almost always these really small counties. There was a lot of obsession about some small border counties in Texas in 2020. But let's talk about the Riversides and the Oranges, because that's where the people are.

Joe Sudbay:

Absolutely. It's really a big event when these things happen at the local level. Tip O'Neill famously said all politics is local. Again, Democrats winning at the local level, it creates a farm team; it creates good policy; it creates a record to show they deliver. Those are the hardest jobs, many of those are the hardest jobs, because you have to deliver for your constituents. I'm really excited about this.

David, I've been around politics for a while. I knew about Orange County because of Ronald Reagan. I knew we were going to be talking about it, so I was Googling around to see one of Reagan's last appearances as President. It was at a campaign rally in Fullerton, Colorado in 1988. The first lines, he said, "You are living proof of something I have said over and over. Orange County is where the good Republicans go before they die."

Well, okay. Okay. Okay, Ronald Reagan. I just love the fact that this county that Ronald Reagan loved so dearly is turning blue. Thank you to everyone who made it happen.

David Nir:

Well, and also let's not forget who else is from Orange County. Richard Nixon-

Joe Sudbay:

Oh my goodness.

David Nir:

... from Yorba Linda.

Joe Sudbay:

Yes.

David Nir:

I mean I love the thought of Nixon spinning in his grave right now.

Joe Sudbay:

It's so great. It's the changing America, and California has been on the forefront of it. When I was doing politics back in the day, California had Republican governors. Deukmejian, Pete Wilson, Republican Senators. They had some of the worst congressmen, Bob Dornan, who was one of the most vile congressmen to come out of any state. Then, of course, you can't-

David Nir:

Oh, B-1 Bob.

Joe Sudbay:

Right? And Dana Rohrabacher who was there until recently. I mean it's really great to see what's happened in that state. I keep hearing Republicans around the country say, "We don't want to be like California." It's a state with one of the best economies in the world. It feeds the world. It's got Silicon Valley. You could be so lucky, Texas, you could be so lucky, Florida, to be California.

David Nir:

I couldn't agree more. I certainly love it out there myself. Joe, since we're talking about Riverside County, there's a House race that's on my mind. At Daily Kos Elections, we asked on Twitter this week, which unsuccessful democratic candidates for House this year should try again in 2024? And we got a lot of really great engagement, a lot of excellent ideas. And one of the names that came up most frequently was Will Rollins, who ran against Ken Calvert in California's 41st district, which is based in Riverside. And I thought he ran a great campaign, and I know you would love to see him try again in two years' time.

Joe Sudbay:

Just a terrific candidate. He's gay, first-time candidate at this level, ran a terrific race. It was an uphill fight. Always is, running against an incumbent. And especially, remember this year was supposed to be a terrible year. He came very close to pulling it off. And I actually think when candidates lose and they run at this level, it's actually a good training ground. And I hope he does run again. He lost by just about 10,000 votes, and we know there will be bigger turnout in 2024. I'm really hoping Will Rollins runs again. I was just impressed with him. I was following that campaign pretty closely. It includes Palm Springs, which is a big LGBTQ hangout, and I think Will is definitely someone I hope runs again.

David Nir:

Yeah, it was 52-48. This district changed a whole lot. Ken Calvert had never had to run in a competitive district before. It still favored Trump slightly. But like you said, I think that the higher turnout in a presidential year should really offer a boost here. And one thing that I've heard, it might be a little bit of a wistful silver lining for a lot of candidates, but the best way to learn how to run a winning campaign, is to run a losing campaign. I mean, there is no experience in the world, in the world, that can prepare you for what it is like to run for office, especially federal office. These hugely expensive campaigns, meeting so many thousands and thousands of potential constituents, being in the spotlight, the glare of the media.

And there is nothing that can prepare you for that other than actually running for office. And of course, every first-time candidate wants to win their first time out. No one's stupid. But Rollins now has a level of experience that really few people have had. And I think his performance also should open eyes, and that he should get a lot more support from DC than he did this time because he really proved that he can run a real race and this is a competitive seat.

Joe Sudbay:

It's really important. And I feel like he learned a lot. He impressed us and hopefully moving forward, like you said, the national Democrats who can control a lot of money spigots, see how close he came and how much of a great candidate he was. David, there's another race that I hope that the Democrat who didn't succeed, runs again. And that's in Arizona's first congressional district. The Democrat is Jevin Hodge. I got to interview Jevin over the summer when I was on Sirius XM Progress. I was so impressed with him.

And I was following his campaign and checking it out and watching his ads. And there just was this sense of energy and a rarity that you'd find in the campaign, but joy. It just looked like they were having a great time and they knew their mission. He was running against David Schweikert, Republican, who's had some serious ethical issues. He lost by just a couple thousand votes. And again, one of these candidates who came so close. And I hope that people can look at this race too and realize this is a great recruit. Let's get him to do it again. I was just super impressed.

David Nir:

Yeah, I think also this is an area in the Phoenix suburbs that is probably trending our way. And Hodge would be the first Black member of Congress in Arizona history. So that would certainly be a nice first to make. And yeah, I really think he would also be an excellent candidate to run again. And on that Twitter thread, like I said, we got a lot of great suggestions. Democrats really had a pretty strong recruiting class this year, especially given that we were headed into a midterm and people thought it was going to be like any other midterm. I think recruiting is going to be incredible for '24 because everyone, including Republicans, believes that Democrats could take back the house in two years.

Joe Sudbay:

Absolutely right. And there were some very, very close races in California, in Arizona as we've mentioned. But across the country there were close races. Obviously your home state of New York. There were some very close races that need to be rectified in 2024.

David Nir:

Yes.

Joe Sudbay:

And it does say a lot about candidate quality. We talked a lot about candidate quality at the Senate level, but I was able to meet a lot of these House candidates, and I was so impressed. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez up in WA-03. Terrific candidate.

David Nir:

Oh, what a win.

Joe Sudbay:

What a great race. Right? And Gabe Vasquez down in NM-02, who in the days before the election, everyone was like, "Well, that's going to be a Republican seat again." No, he won. He won. He was even up in that New York Times Siena poll when they were telling us-

David Nir:

“Don't believe the New York Times Siena poll.” Right?

Joe Sudbay:

Yes. So yeah, those are some terrific wins. And the thing about both of those, WA-03 and NM-02, they were pickups of Republican-held seats and that was really important.

David Nir:

Important. Daily Kos Elections just put out just a little bit of data this week noting that when all is said and done, Republicans are almost certain to have 222 seats in the House. Democrats 213. There's one seat, California's 13th still hasn't been called yet. Republicans are leading there. If Democrats can somehow come from behind, it would be 221-214, even better for Democrats. But here's the interesting thing, and this is the data I'm referring to. Republicans, in the 118th Congress that will be seated on Jan 3, will hold 18 districts that Joe Biden won, blue seats or blue leaning seats. Democrats by contrast, are only going to hold five Trump districts. So that alone will give Democrats a nice head start heading into 2024. Now, Republicans in North Carolina are going to pass a new gerrymander. They're going to screw us in a whole bunch of seats, maybe as many as four seats.

We'll see what happens in Ohio. The New Mexico Supreme Court still is weighing a case. They might rule against the map there. That would be very tough news for Gabe Vasquez, who you just mentioned, Joe. But the fact of the matter is that Kevin McCarthy in the coming Congress is going to have an absurdly small margin for error, if he's even speaker. And there are now five Republicans, as of Tuesday, who have either said they don't think they want to vote for McCarthy or emphatically said “hell no” on McCarthy. And five is the magic number. Because the absolute most number of votes that Kevin McCarthy can afford to lose to another candidate is four. Because more than four, and he falls below 218. That's assuming if they have the 222 seats. You need a majority of members present to win the speakership. It's not simply enough to beat the second-place candidate.

A plurality doesn't cut it. Now look, who knows if these schmucks like Matt Gaetz can actually hold together, if they can increase their numbers by Jan 3. Maybe these are just idle threats; maybe they're just posturing. If there's one thing that we know that Kevin McCarthy is good at, he is good at groveling. And he will almost certainly have to make all kinds of concessions to keep these people on board. And he was already going to be a really weak speaker, even if he was going to be speaker and now his speakership is just going to be unthinkably feeble.

Joe Sudbay:

I just have to say, first of all, I agree with all of that. And Nancy Pelosi had 222 members, sometimes 221. And think of over the past few weeks since it became clear that this may be the outcome, all we've heard from everybody is some variation of this is going to be a show with Kevin McCarthy and the Republicans in control. We never heard that about Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats. And what drives me crazy about it, David, how many times over the years have we seen the DC Press Corps run headlines, “Dems in Disarray?” If Nancy Pelosi sneezes at a press conference, that's the headline.

David Nir:

Democrats in Disarray.

Joe Sudbay:

Democrats in disarray. And we have Republicans in serious disarray. In the Senate for sure, in their presidential race, but in the House it is going to be a mess. And what's really important politically is you mentioned those 18 districts that are held by Republicans that Biden won. Those 18 are all going to be sucked into the craziness and the drama. And the question is, do... I mean, I don't think there's any such thing as a Republican moderate, but if you are one that's sort of moderate-ish and you're watching this play out, what do you do? What do you do? Do you decide that you think it's more important for you to win so you're going to show some independence, or are you just going to go along with it? I think most will go along with it. Most of them did after January 6th. But what the Republicans have been offering, they have offered nothing in terms of an agenda beyond investigations and impeachments and stunts and photo ops.

That's all they have. And it's really going to be fascinating to watch, because I agree with you. McCarthy is a weak, weak leader. Everybody knows it. Everybody knows it, and they're all going to try and take advantage of him. And let's see what happens in early January when the vote comes. It will be interesting to see if those hardcores stay strong. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. And someone's going to have to cave here, or there's just going to be chaos, and I think it's going to be chaos either way, but what a mess. What a mess. And we can actually say, I actually saw a headline last week on Politico, that used the words Republicans and disarray in the same headline. I actually tweeted it out with sirens, saying I think this is the first time I've ever seen it.

David Nir:

Did an editor... Was there an editing mistake? I mean, the contrast with Democrats could not be stronger. Look at this absolutely seamless, out-of-nowhere transition of leadership on the Democratic side. I mean, I thought Pelosi might call it a day. And as sad as I am to see that happen, the fact that she got Hoyer and Clyburn to leave the stage with her all at the same time, there's just no dissent about this. Hakeem Jeffries is going to be the Democratic leader. When Democrats retake the House, he will be the speaker. And it's just such a stark contrast to the GOP. And to your point about those... Congressional scholar Norm Ornstein says, "Don't use the term moderate." And he's absolutely right. Use the term pragmatist. And I think that fits better because you have hardcore conservatives who are nevertheless political pragmatists, whether that means they want to get something done in Congress, and they're not just nihilists, or they at least have a sense of political self-preservation.

The problem for them... I think that right now, you're right. I don't think they have a majority vote in favor of Looney Tunes ideas like impeaching Joe Biden. However, we saw what happened to all the Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump. Out of the 10 of them, only two are going to be coming back in the next Congress. So if you are a Republican member of Congress who decides, you know what? The general election is more important to me. I'm not going to vote for all these crazy investigations of Hunter Biden's laptop and impeaching Alejandro Mayorkas and all this nonsense. You might draw a primary. You probably will draw a primary. You might lose your primary. So they are just... I mean, a rock and a hard place doesn't even begin to describe it.

Joe Sudbay:

And they did it to themselves, David, with-

David Nir:

Oh yeah.

Joe Sudbay:

... their gerrymandering and getting these ultra ruby-red districts so that they can just go more to the extreme. And it's bad for the country. It's bad for our... It probably could be bad for our economy. It's bad for our reputation. Hopefully it will lead to the self-destruction of this party because they have nothing to offer the American people. And of course, this is all going to play out against the backdrop of their one true leader running for president again. So we're going to have to pop a lot of popcorn over the next few weeks and months.

David Nir:

Tell me about it. Let's get Orville Redenbacher in bulk. So Joe, before we go, there is someone I want to give a shout out to. A little while back, we did a mail bag episode where we answered reader's questions, and we got a really great question from reader Ryan Dack, who asked us how voters go about the process of casting ballots, deciding who to vote for in school board races, which are typically nonpartisan and you don't necessarily know a lot about the candidates. And it was a very good question. Lot of food for thought. Definitely dig up that old episode if you want to see how David Beard and I answered it. But the reason why I'm referencing this now is that Ryan was on the ballot for a community college governing board member post in Orange County, and he won.

In fact, he kicked ass. He won 69% to 31% over his opponent. So congratulations, Ryan. You asked us an excellent question. We hope you have many more for us, but far more important than that, it's sounds like you won an amazing race. We wish you luck on the community college board and hopefully this is just the first of many victories to come for you.

Joe Sudbay:

Wow. Congratulations, Ryan. I love that. I just think these races are so important up and down the ballot and everybody has to make sure... I know our listeners do here at The Downballot, and also I say this on SiriusXM Progress all the time, make sure you vote the whole ballot. So many people just go in and vote top of the ticket. Those ballot measures and candidates further down, they're not less important. They have more of a direct impact on your life in many ways. Make sure you vote the whole ticket. The down ballot is the whole game.

David Nir:

Well, that's exactly right. Joe, it has been awesome, awesome having you join me on today's episode of The Downballot. You can find Joe on Twitter @JoeSudbay and I know that we will be having you back on in the very near future.

Joe Sudbay:

What a complete pleasure to spend time with you, David Nir. I love the opportunity to talk to you. As I always say, whenever I have you on SiriusXM Progress, we're going to geek out and do a deep dive and I love being able to do it on your show as well.

David Nir:

We love geeking out and doing a deep dive here as well. Thanks a lot, Joe.

Joe Sudbay:

Thank you.

David Nir:

That's all from us this week. Thank you to Joe Sudbay for joining us. The Downballot comes out every Thursday everywhere you listen to podcasts. You can reach out to us by emailing thedownballot@dailykos.com. If you haven't already, please subscribe to The Downballot on Apple Podcasts and leave us a five star rating and review. Thanks to our producer, Cara Zelaya, and editor, Trever Jones. We'll be back next week with a new episode.

This week on The Downballot, hosts David Nir and David Beard unpack the amazing election night we had on Tuesday — especially in Michigan — and talk more about why Democrats need to keep abortion front and center in their platform. They also take a look at how Biden’s approval ratings affected downballot races, why the GOP keeps on choosing “terrible” candidates, and the enduring importance of election fairness and protecting our nation’s democracy.

You can listen below or subscribe to The Downballot wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also find a transcript for this week right here. New episodes come out every Thursday!

Tuesday was, no doubt, a historic election night that defied the odds, with Democrats poised to maintain their majority in the Senate.

“I just feel like the entire life of this podcast has been us warning people. "Oh, it's a midterm, Democratic president, probably going to be a bad year, historically, yada, yada." And now here we are. And it was actually pretty good,” Beard said, relieved.

“I think just about every other Democrat went into Tuesday night with extremely low expectations. I had tried to steel myself for the worst, and it was just one upside surprise after another,” Nir replied. “And I have been following elections for 20 years. I can't recall feeling that way on election night before.”

Beard pointed out that Democrats just had to hold on past Florida, where there was a small Republican wave — “Florida will always break your heart,” he quipped — and then, the rest of the country was just victory after victory.

Democrats have gotten so used to disappointment, Nir said, that we almost forget what winning looks like. The hosts went on to unpack those wins and why we won.

Nir also urged Democrats to continue focusing on the issue of abortion rights. As he put it, “Despite the pundits in the fall who tried to tell us that this was not the right issue for Democrats to be pursuing, that Democrats were making a huge mistake in not focusing on the economy or other issues. Abortion was a massive factor in this incredible upset of a night.”

Beard agreed:

I think all those people, who said that Dobbs would just sort of fade away, and that after three months it was going to no longer be at the front of people's minds, were just crazy. Look at the history of the fight for abortion rights that has been going on for decades or longer, in some places across the world.

And the idea that this massive, massive change was going to cause sort of a temporary spike for a couple of months in Democrats' polling and then just fade away is, in retrospect, just a crazy, crazy idea. That is not how real regular people view politics. They don't view it as this narrative that so many people in DC, in the sort of punditocracy, want to view it as like, "Oh, Dobbs happened."

Then there was a whole story about it, August special elections narrative, and then other things happened. So we have to move on in the narrative to other issues. But for millions and millions of people, this is a huge core issue that they're not going to forget about and they're going to vote on.

Democracy protection also emerged as a main theme of Tuesday night. “It turned out is that a lot of people do care about democracy. A lot of people do care about fairness and election results, and those being treated as important as they really are. And they voted on that,” Beard said. “We [saw] election deniers losing race after race. We saw Democrats, who were going to protect elections rights, winning governor's races, winning secretary of state's races. And I really believe that issue did matter and did break through.”

Nir added that it seemed as though Republicans believed there was no price to be paid for being an extremist, when it comes to authoritarianism, and rejecting democracy, and rejecting the rule of law. He also called out reporters for going along with this narrative and buying into a “both sidesism” that simply ended up painting a false picture of the reality:

The traditional way that the media works, of presenting both sides, and refusing to take a side, or calling out lies on one side and admitting that the other side is actually true and correct and right, that I think gave Republicans a lot of permission to think that there would be no price to pay. Because reporters didn't care. But reporters are not voters, and the voters really, really did care. And there are a lot of ways we can look at this. You mentioned all of the races where the big name GOP election deniers lost.

In a number of secretary of state races in several states, the Democrats won by bigger margins in those races than in a lot of the other statewide races. This is also telling of how much Americans care about protecting election fairness and defending our nation’s democracy, Nir insisted:

[It] blows my mind because I am a massive election nerd. I really care about this stuff. I have been talking about the importance of these kinds of races, especially secretary of state races, for a really, really long time. And most people, they're not going to pay that much attention to what's going on in specific downballot statewide races. But we have some pretty clear evidence this time that they really did, that more people were voting for Democrats running for secretary of state than for other offices. And there's only one possible explanation for that. And the answer is that, wow, they actually really, really care about democracy and fairness and elections, and the rule of law.

In terms of voters taking elections seriously, this past election reinforced the idea that candidate quality still matters. Republicans nominated an array of terrible candidates, some of whom were “genuinely terrible human beings,” Nir argued, which had an impact. Ultimately, GOP paid a price.

Beard thinks it indicates an incentive problem, and that is why it's so hard for the Republicans to fix:

As long as it's Donald Trump's party, the type of people who Donald Trump are going to like and endorse, and probably win primaries. And the type of people who are going to want to run in Donald Trump's Republican Party, are charlatans, are people with bad histories, people who are extremists, who are election deniers. All of that stuff attracts people to Donald Trump's GOP. And as long as it's Donald Trump's GOP, those are the candidates you're going to get.

You can look at the five Republican candidates in the key Senate races this year, which is Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania, Donald Bolduc in New Hampshire, Herschel Walker in Georgia, Adam Laxalt in Nevada, and Blake Masters in Arizona. And that is not a murderer's row. It is some of the worst Senate candidates, probably, that any major party has nominated in recent history, particularly Blake Masters, Herschel Walker, Mehmet Oz. Like just terrible candidates with terrible favorables, lots of scandals.

And as a result, Oz lost. Walker is probably going to a runoff, and is slightly behind heading into the runoff. Masters is, I think, probably going to lose in Arizona. And you can chalk that up, in at least large part, to the fact that they're terrible candidates with terrible favorables.

Strategic Democratic primary meddling also worked out, which Nir expanded on.

Yeah, it 100% worked out, in fact … there was so much hand ringing during the primary season about races where Democrats looked at the GOP primary field and said, you know what? We're going to have a better chance at winning in the general election if this total schmuck beats out the somewhat less bad guy. Democrats very wisely said, we're going to get involved here, and we are simply going to help the ultra-MAGA brigades do what they're already wanting to do, and that is nominate the worst of the worst, and if we do that then we're going to have a better chance at winning. And that's really important because we need the party that believes in democracy, i.e. the Democrats, to win elections. This isn't just about raw power or screwing with the GOP for the sake of it, this is about preserving democracy.

And so in all of these races where Democrats succeeded in helping Republicans to nominate their least acceptable candidate, on Tuesday night the Republican lost in every single one of these races across the country. People make it sound like this was some massive widespread phenomenon. Democrats did this probably in about 20 or so races, maybe in about half of them the worst GOP candidate actually won the nomination, so we're talking about maybe eight to 10. In all of those the terrible Republican lost. And there were so many hand ringers who were worried that Democrats were playing with fire and almost suggesting that it was the Democrat's obligation to help Republicans nominate non-awful candidates, and that's BS, that's their problem not ours.

The hosts also highlighted one district in particular — Michigan's third congressional district, adn a race we've talked about before on this show. This is a district that was redrawn by the state's new independent redistricting commission, around the Grand Rapids area. With the new map lines, it became significantly bluer, and Republican congressman Peter Meijer, who had voted for Donald Trump's impeachment, ended up with a huge target painted on his back. Democrats nominated a strong candidate there, Hillary Scholten, who ended up winning.

At this point, Beard touched on Biden’s approval ratings and how that had played out, as many wondered what might happen with Biden disapprovers who were undecided. Beard’s assessment was as follows:

The fear would be that they would run to Republicans in the end and cause a Republican year to turn out. And while obviously exit polls have a lot of problems, so you want to take them with a big grain of salt, you can look at and get a general sense of how this turned out. And from the exit poll you can see there are about 44% of people who either strongly or somewhat approved of Biden, and they went obviously overwhelmingly for Democrats. And then there were about 45% of the voters who strongly disapproved of Biden, and they overwhelmingly went for the Republicans, both as you would expect.

And then there were 10% of voters who somewhat disapproved of Biden, you can call it soft Biden disapprovers, and they went slightly for Democrats, 49% to 45%. Now that's not going to be an exact figure, because this is an exit poll, so I wouldn't take that four point margin as gospel, but I do think what it shows you is that there was about 5% of the electorate, give or take, who were Biden disapprovers who voted for Democrats anyway, either because they were actually disapproving of Biden from the left, or they were worried about Republican extremism, or they were worried about abortion rights, whatever the reason was, those voters took the fact that they weren't happy with Biden and they still went and voted for Democrats, and they were key to this result being as good as it turned out to be.

There are also four Senate races that haven't been decided yet, which the hosts walked listeners through.

Alaska is between two Republicans, so they set it aside because that doesn't change the math of the Senate.

Georgia has been called as a runoff between Senator Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker, so that will be taking place on December 6th.

In Arizona, around 66% of the vote had been counted as of Wednesday evening. Senator Mark Kelly, the Democrat, has an advantage of about five percentage points over his Republican opponent, Blake Masters. There are a lot of votes left to count, obviously most of those votes are votes that were either mailed in and received in the last day or two, so Monday or Tuesday, or mail votes that were dropped off on election day. The difference obviously is that the mail votes have to go through a different verification process than the actual election day votes, those obviously you get checked in and then you just cast your vote, but even if you drop off your mail vote on election day, that still has to go through the regular mail verification process.

So those votes don't really lean significantly one way or the other, looking at past history, compared to the early, early vote, which was strongly democratic, as we expected, or the election day vote, which was strongly Republican. So those have been counted, and so mostly we have a big chunk of votes where we're not entirely sure which way those are going to lean, or if they're going to lean one way or another strongly. But I think the broad expectation is Kelly will probably be okay, but obviously with these many votes out, it's just not possible to make a call for anybody at this point.

Then in Nevada, about 77% of the vote is in. There, Adam Laxalt, the Republican candidate, is narrowly leading incumbent Democratic Senator Catherine Cortez Masto by a couple of points. The good news here is that the ballots remaining are almost entirely mail ballots that were either received Monday, Tuesday in the mail, or that were dropped off in person on election day.

In Nevada, we would expect these to largely favor the Democrat. The question, of course, is exactly how many of those are left. In that state, mail ballots can be received until Saturday as long as they were postmarked on Election Day. And so the question is how many of those ballots are still left to be counted and what exactly that margin will be because the mail ballot margin has jumped around a bit. They've almost always favored Democrats. But the question is, is it a small margin or is it a large margin? So that one is very much still up in the air and we just kind of have to wait for those male ballots to be counted over the next few days.

Nir pointed out one major difference though between this runoff and the one that took place last year, the 2020/2021 runoff that of course Warnock and John Ossoff won. Last year, Republicans in Georgia passed a huge package of voting restrictions to try to suppress the vote — and that bill included a provision that shrunk the runoff period from nine weeks to just four weeks. The runoff last year was in January. This time, it will be on December 6th. “Republicans seem to think that this offers them some sort of advantage. I'm not really clear why especially since Warnock is such a vastly better fundraiser than Herschel Walker is,” Nir quipped.

Beard and Nir also discussed how Donald Trump supposedly has some sort of announcement plan for November 15th, that's a week after election day, and everyone seems convinced that he's planning to announce a third bid for the presidency that day. Regardless of what he says, Nir thinks that a Trump presidential announcement next week would not be good news for Herschel Walker.

Beard moved on to talk about the fact that there is a good chance we'll know who controls the House of Representatives by the time the runoff takes place, and how that could shift the race further in Warnock’s favor:

If Arizona and Nevada are both won by Democrats, that would also cement Democratic control of the Senate regardless of the result of the Georgia runoff. And then the race can become a lot less about which party controls Congress, will there be a check on the Biden administration if there's a Republican House in that case, and focus a lot more on the candidates. Because if there's not, that sort of national issue at the same level as there was when people were voting this past time, I think there's a chance that they're going to be Republicans who really, really don't like Herschel Walker who will either stay home and not bother with the runoff or even vote for Warnock if control of the Senate isn't at stake or if there's already a check on Biden in the House. So I think that could go to Warnock's benefit as well.

Assessing the House races, Nir noted that remains a real moving target. With so many races in play, how should we think about this?

Beard thinks there is a very narrow road for Democrats as they seek to maintain their majority, but that things are still very much shaking out. Either way, he explained, it will be a difficult situation to handle for the GOP given how slim their majority will be:

So I think the Republicans are still pretty clearly favored to eke out at least 218 seats and have a majority. Whether that's a functional majority or not, we'll see, and we can talk about that later. But the Republicans, as I see it, currently either have called are pretty strongly favored in 215 seats and the Democrats either have called are pretty strongly favored in 207 seats, which leave about 13 seats, where it's really not 100% clear who is the favored party at this point, again, as of Wednesday evening. And this will continue to change in the days ahead.

So Democrats would need to win 11 of those 13 seats to actually get a majority of 218 seats. I have them currently, if I absolutely had to push them one way or another, I have them favored in eight, but it's so up in the air a lot of these seats that it's really, I think, not even useful to think about it in that way. I think it's best to think of there being 13 races where it's not clear which party is favored. And so if Democrats can somehow win 11 of those seats, they can win a majority. But I think that's a tough road. I think you most likely end up with Republicans somewhere in the nature of 220 seats, 221, something like that, and just an absolutely crazy majority that have to wrangle for Kevin McCarthy if he does end up becoming speaker.

The hosts closed out with a thorough discussion of the importance of putting abortion on the ballot, and front and center in Democrats’ platform.

Kentucky had a measure on the ballot that was very similar to the one that was defeated in Kansas this summer that would've amended the state constitution to say it does not include a right to an abortion — and voters turned that back. It was a much smaller margin than in Kansas, but Kentucky is much redder even than Kansas; it was a state where Donald Trump won by about 26 points. “So the fact that there was a pro-choice majority in deep red Kentucky is really, really amazing,” Nir said.

Similarly, in Montana, also another very red state, voters rejected a measure that wasn't directly related to abortion, but that emerged from the same anti-abortion rights movement. The measure would have required doctors to provide life-saving care to infants who are born but have absolutely no chance of living. “It was incredibly cruel … It was absolutely, absolutely evil stuff, and Montana voters rejected it. So again, a huge clean sweep for Progressives on abortion rights,” Nir observed. “We’ve got to put abortion rights on the ballot everywhere every year, don't you think, Beard?”

Beard agreed, noting that it would be hard to fathom a state in the country that would pass an abortion ban if they voted on it through a popular vote after Kentucky defeated theirs — as there aren't many states out there that are more socially conservative than Kentucky. “I say that from love because I was born in Kentucky, but it's a deep, deep red state at this point,” he added.

He also flagged what happened in Michigan, as Michigan was one of the ground zero states for this abortion fight — and a bellwether for what might be to come:

It was one of the ground zero states for the democracy fight, and it had one of the best performances for Democrats in the whole country. They basically want everything at almost every level. And I think that shows that those issues, the more that they mattered and the more that they pushed through, the better Democrats did.

The Downballot comes out every Thursday everywhere you listen to podcasts! As a reminder, you can reach our hosts by email at thedownballot@dailykos.com. Please send in any questions you may have for next week's mailbag. You can also reach out via Twitter at @DKElections.