Life at yale. Watch indepth sunday, live eastern on book tv on cspan2. Us. David Wasserman joins he serves as house editor at the Cook Political Report. Your ears perked up on thursday night when President Trump declared at that debate that he thinks republicans are going to retake the house november 3. Is that possible . Current outlook is a democratic net gain in the house. Nancy pelosi is in line to expand her majority and there are a couple reasons why the picture in the house is pretty much a mirror image of what we thought a year ago when they be republicans pick up a handful of seats. That republicans are really being dragged down by trump in what i would characterize as second order suburb. Are suburbs of traditionally conservative metro areas. A lot of the democrats flipped blue were suburbs of really blue major metro areas like the suburbs of denver orner than virginia. Or northern virginia. Seeing st. Louis, omaha, cincinnati. Places that are more traditionally conservative but where republicans are struggling to rise above that drag. Is money. Factor democrats have outraised republicans all cycle. Their donor base is fired up and passionate and increasingly has a lot of disposable income. We saw democrats outraised republicans compared to republicans out raising democrats in just 15 democratic held house seats. A big factor all cycle has been open seats. We saw a disproportionate number of House Republicans head for the exits. Today there are 32 open seats without a republican incumbent on the ballot. Democrats have stellar opportunities to pick up republican seats in north the lines were redrawn before this cycle. Which has become the epicenter of the house battleground there are three open seats that democrats have the chance to pick up. This is really a story of a battlefield that has increasingly tilted to democrats and could be really important 2022n insurance policy in if democrats do have unified control of the house, senate and in party hasthe lost a couple dozen seats in the house. The more democrats can pad their advantage, the tougher it will be for republicans to dig out of the ditch. Have questions about an individual house race, now would be a very good time to call in and ask your questions. We can talk about the race ratings that the Cook Political Report does. 202 7488001 republicans. 202 7488000 democrats. 202 7488002 independents. So in a year in which the house is not likely to flip, the senate is much more likely to flip and amid a president ial campaign that is sucking up all of the attention, what is your pitch to people of why they should Pay Attention . How do sell house races and battlegrounds this cycle . Are a number of compelling battles out there. Mightst unique situation be virginias fifth district. There is a congressman named lost to a former Liberty University athletics official named bob good who describes himself as an biblical conservative. Now the Democrat Cameron webb has an excellent chance to win it. Hes a 37yearold africanamerican doctor and official at uva medicine. And if there is high africanamerican turnout in southside virginia and high turnout of young voters in the charlottesville area, that could be one of the biggest upsets. There are a lot of compelling storylines in the house battlefield. Going to determine a lot of whats possible legislatively in 21 and 2022. There are going to be a number of democrats from conservative leaning districts who take a pass on the more Progressive Agenda items on the docket if democrats do have full control of government. The larger their margin in the house, the easier it would be to work with a couple of defections on key votes. Host do you think you could reverse engineer the results do you think you have a better sense of whats going to happen in the president ial race because you are so involved in these house races . Thats a great point. One of the reasons i love covering house races is they give you an insight into microtrends at the top of the ticket. We are getting reams of data at the district level. Conducted atolling the president ial race isnt made public. Its conducted by the parties making spending and resource allocation decisions in these congressional races. Between 50 and 60 they areonal races testing the top of the ticket. We have good insight into whats happening. In 2016i was seeing flashing red theing sign for places like Upper Peninsula of michigan and the Southern Tier of new york and northern wisconsin. Had been fiveat points in september were in the double digits or 15 points in october. That was what led me to write a about how trump had a chance of winning the white house without winning the popular vote. Isare noticing that trump under performing his margins from 2016 by eight to 10 points across the board in both republican and democratic . That is the biggest tell that the National Polling is pretty on target. Like one of the things we to do when we have David Wasserman on is play some of the ads that voters are seeing in their district right now. They are playing one of the National Messages in the president ial campaign for democrats especially is a focus on health care. Heres one of the ads focusing on health care in georges sixth congressional district. Here is that ad from the Democratic House majority pac. No one should Lose Health Coverage because they have a preexisting condition like cancer or high blood pressure, especially during this pandemic. Supportedhandel Donald Trumps plan to strip away protection from preexisting conditions. Karen handel, helping donald trump take away our health care. Host David Wasserman on that message. Republicans lost in 2016. Handel said she had one of the truck august metrics, trump support she was thinking about a district that had been republican for years. This district in the northern atlanta suburbs is absolutely abandoning trumps rent of republicanism at a rapid rate and we are seeing this happen across highly College Educated suburbs all over the country. This race is almost entirely off the board. The National Republicans are no longer spending here to support handle because they have had to move so many of their resources to playing defense. Host we played the democratic add and a place where republicans are spending money is the Third District race in michigan. Focusing on the democrat who is running for that seat. Fringe leftwing activists demanding sanctuary cities, open borders. We need immigration policy that reflects this inherent freedom of movement. Copslped the aclu sue while protecting an actual criminal. You dont get to make the laws if you help people break the law. Host the immigration issue in 2020. 200 33 democrats in the house, 201 republicans, and one libertarian from michigans Third District. This is the race for his open seat in west michigan. Seeing the immigration issue pop up across a few dozen districts. Hillarys colton that the democratic nominee has been an immigration attorney for a number of years. Whats fascinating is republicans have to work extra hard to motivate their voters for the down ballot race because the republican nominee peter of a huge young psion grocery chain, Meyer GroceryStores Across michigan. And has not really embraced trump so much on the campaign trail and has had the luxury of running on his own personal family brand and his family fortune. Up democrat has been playing her work for faithbased organizations, a charity in grand rapids. She is banking on a Strong Performance from joe biden in michigan, particularly in the whichs of grand rapids are increasingly professional and although trump carried this bytrict by 84 years ago ht four years ago host there are plenty of callers and we are happy to talk about house races around the country. What are you interested in . Give us a call on phone lines. This is regina. Republican. Good morning. Caller good morning. How are you . Great. How are you . Caller im great. Im interested in some house races going on in my area. I live in the ohio cincinnati area. Curious about Thomas Massies ,ace, also Warren Davison district eight in ohio as well as steve shaaban. Great questions. Thomas massie was going to supposedly have a competitive primary. It didnt turn out so competitive after revelations of some online comments his opponent had made. Kentuckys Fourth District is an. Bsolutely safe republican seat the race that we are really paying attention to in cincinnati is the Steve Shabbat district which is ohios first district. This is the city of cincinnati and some of its more upscale suburbs like mason. In 2018, democrats nominated a candidate who was a Hamilton County clerk of course. In aded up getting caught scandal that sunk his campaign. It was one of the few races where republicans escaped in the midterms. His former Campaign Treasurer apparently embezzled over 100,000 and that has come up in democratic ads. Kate schroeder picked the right year to run because this is another case where trump carried the district by six points in 2016 but biden is pulling ahead. That could lift schroeder on the congressional ticket. Its funny because in 2008, shabbat lost the seat in the obama wave two years after the year when democrats took back the house so history could repeat itself. Host northeast of macon, georgia. Democrat. Good morning. Caller good morning. For me here in georgia, this Campaign Season has been about the restoration of decency, faith in the constitution and the rule of law. Here in georgia we have brian kemp who craven lee and out trump oned to the covid19 response. We have david perdue who could not run fast enough to his brokers to monetize what he knew about the coronavirus and its effects on our communities. Doug collins and Kelly Loeffler who are racing to the bottom towards crazy and qanon. So i am so excited to be voting for a candidate on the lower ballot. Knock. Rafale more they have a real chance in georgia to turn our state blue so im super excited. Can you speak to those candidates for me . Thank you. Georgia is really a fascinating state in 2020 and of course joe biden is going to be traveling to georgia which is big news because for the most part democrats have focused their energy on what we would consider the core battleground states in the upper midwest and states like florida and arizona. Georgia, theres a chance that both of those senate races on the ballot and up going to a january 5 runoff. The calculus for democrats in the state is that they need to run up the margins in both atlanta and the atlanta suburbs. Democrats have a pickup opportunity in Gwinnett County which is the seventh congressional district. Is democrat Carolyn Bordeaux in my opinion the slight favorite to pick up a seat against republican er doctor rich mccormick. That district has seen an awful lot of spending but anything touching Gwinnett County might he cursed for republicans this year considering how much of a howing pot its become and its professional workforce has migrated out of the republican coalition. The real key in my opinion for who is going to win the state both at the president ial and the senate level is going to be rural africanamerican turnout. We know that both republicans and Metro Atlanta voters are fired up. In 2016, we saw black turnout in rural georgia go down. One of my favorite bellwethers in the state is peach county. Its home to the bluebird bus corporation. It happens to be the best bellwether because in 2012 when black turnout was 73 in the county, barack obama managed to carry it. When it fell to 54 , donald trump carried it. Can kamalan is tickets addition to the raise turnout in rural georgia to the point where democrats can win statewide. Host if one or both of these senate races go to a january runoff, what does lower turnout who benefits from lower turnout . Most likely republicans. That has been the pattern in georgia for a number of years. Democrats probably have the better opportunity to win outright in the produce seat because we know the other seat is essentially a jungle primary on the november 3 ballot thats guaranteed to go to a runoff. Once you get to a runoff scenario, it could actually be Kelly Loeffler the other republican who is in more danger of losing just because of her more polarizing personality. She has run a series of fairly bizarre ads calling herself more conservative than attila the hun. Outpace the other republican in that Senate Special election could harm her in a runoff against rafael warnock. When david perdue mangled kamala name while introducing the president at a rally last week, it was reminiscent of a 2006 moment when Virginia Republican senator george allen called his opponent tracker macaca. Today virginia is a safe democrat state. Are afraid of diversifying georgia in the same direction. Host jack, independent, good morning. Caller im curious these days of how pulling is done. If i get a call on my cell phone, i dont answer if i dont recognize the number. Im curious how pulling is done. The most frequent question i probably get is can we still trust the polls after what happened in 2016 and the caller brings up an important point which is that Response Rates to polls are in the low Single Digits so we are relying on 2 or 3 of people willing to respond to these phone surveys to model what the other 97 are thinking and we are bound to have some error in polls. In 2016 the final pulling average showed Hillary Clinton up between three and four points and she ended up winning the popular vote by three point one. Historically that was not a very large pulling error. It might have not even really been a pulling error when you brokeate deciders disproportionately in favor of donald trump. We are seeing a consistent picture between the National Polls and the district level pulls that joe biden outperforming clinton by nine or 10 points versus where the margin was his in 2016. I would caution viewers is we have noticed a pattern or pulling has tended to underestimate republican support in the upper midwest and perhaps republican overestimate democrats in the southwest. Thats one reason i might be more bullish on joe biden and democrat chances in the state like arizona as opposed to wisconsin or even pennsylvania. We will see on november 3. Will head to detroit, michigan. Caller i was interested in the campaign for Lauren Underwood in naperville, illinois. This is the district that accredits won in 2018. They flipped to blue. This time around republicans had high hopes of winning at back. This is the outer chicago suburbs and Lauren Underwood is a young former Public Health nurse in her early 30s and an africanamerican who is able to win a district that is less than 10 black. Is perhaps a missed opportunity for republicans. They were trying to nominate a fresh face for the seat. Instead they and stop having a very ended up having a very divisive primary and the winner with only a quarter of the vote hasa dairy businessman who run for statewide office in illinois Something Like eight or nine time and has never won. He has gotten a lot of negatives from those bruising races he has run and most voters are familiar with him as a perennial candidate and dont particularly have a fond opinion of him. Pretty muchthat has moved off the table where republicans are no longer putting up much of a fight. Report is political where you can go to find ratings we are talking about. We are taking calls asking what races are you interested in around the country. 202 7488001 republicans. 202 7488000 democrats. 202 7488002 independents. A couple more ads on the topic houseing to tie these candidates to more wellknown republicans and democrats. With the start antitax group the club for oath. Heres that ad. Spanberger truly cared about virginia, why would she vote against virginia . Nearly as much with socialist aoc. Why would she support higher income taxes on virginians and why would she take so much money from defund the police extremists . If she truly cared about virginia. Because the truth is she doesnt. Host that ad running in virginias seventh district. There is this ad by the House Majority pac it is spending quite a bit of money this cycle tying republican candidate with van dyne to donald trump in district. Th beth van dyne and donald trump joined at the hip on health care. They supported a plan to take away health care from millions and protections for preexisting conditions and then ignore the science, recklessly siding with politicians on reopening. Their health care record is sickening. Host that ad running in that open 24 district race. On tying the candidates to others in the party to try to turn vote or amplify your side. Problem for republicans is that voters see them as the incumbent party functionally with donald trump in the white house. Typically reelection campaigns for president s become referenda on the incumbent white house and in this case thats not helpful to republicans. Republicans message against nancy pelosi and aoc may be more effective in a midterm year when democrats are advancing their own policy initiatives through t