And be part of the National Conversation through cspans daily washington journal program, or through our social media feed. Cspan, created by americas Cable Television companies as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television hot provider. Jacob of inside elections joins us via zoom for a deep sive on the senate battlefield. F inside elections on friday demor released its updated race rankings of every senate race and the headline take away, democrats poised to take contro. Of the senate. Jacob, explain why. Good morning, john. So like you said last week, we shifted eight of our senate races, all were democrats. And like you said, what this indicates is that democrats are now in very good position to retake control of the senate for the First Time Since they lost it in 2014. Now, there are a lot of different reasons. A race by race basis, why the senate is looking so much bettew for democrats this cycle. But the main reason why were in this position now starts at the very top of the ballot. Thats the really abysmal ht aga position President Donald Trump has found himself in his reelection fight against formeo Vice President joe biden. And the president s struggle at the top of the ballot, where hes down by upwards of eight, nine, ten, even 11 or 12 points, has made it really difficult for not just the most vulnerable republicans in the senate, but also republicans in seats that are in perhaps more balanced cycle they would not have a problem. Explain the math here. How many seats are up this y thy cycle, how many are democrats defending, how many do they need to take over the senate . Up for there are 35 senate seats upe for election. And that includes a couple the special elections as well in arizona and in georgia. Currently, the senate is divided 53 republicans and 47 democrats. What that means is that democrats either need four to take back the majority, or if joe biden wins the presidency, r because the Vice President is re able to cast a tiebreaking vote in the senate, the democrats would only need three seats. A net gain of three seats to get to a 50 50 tie that would then r be broken by bidens Vice President. So if donald trump win wins, democrats need to net four seats. If joe biden wins, which is eedo looking moreur likely, then democrats only need to pick up three seats out of those 35. Knf whats a wave election, and when do we know iff were in on . Well, its hard to tell untia the votes come in on Election Night. A wave election is really where all races that could go one wayy end up going one way. One of the things we see there,r if you look at of our ratings, have a fir number of tossup ratings. In a vacuum, you might say a tossup, and we do say this, a tossup is a 50 50, a coin friendship on which side wins. Es when elections start to look like waves, what you see is all of those tossup races go in one direction. So in this case, if this became a democratic wave, you would see all four of our tossup races o toward democrats as well as some of the races that republicans mightlicans m appear to be moreo in because once these things get going, the fundraising and polling and media narrative ball catch hold about how e these election cycles are moving, it i has a little bit of a snowball effect. But its rare that you can really sayay before an election actually occurs a wave is happen happening. You can look at the signals and see what theyrebl sayingue to but even in 2018, which was known as the blue wave, when democrats took back the majority in the house, they lost two seats in the senate. Of ho so does that mean its a wave, not a wave . Its a question of how you wante to label it. E insideelections. Com is where you can go to check out the race ratings and some of the analysis from the team there. Just for our viewers who are watching at home, heres a list of the ratings, the tossups , right now, all republican seats. Ernst of republicanheld seats right now. Susan collins of maine, steve daines ofof montana, joni ernst of iowa, thom tillis of north carolina. You can get into the tilting ana democratic territory. Two republican seats listed in d thato category. Cory gardner of colorado, Martha Mcsally of arizona. And so on down the line with thn rest of the ratings. Well talk about those kin individual races and take your questions as well in this umbers segment with jacob of inside elections. The phone numbers to call in d this morning to ask about the senate races that you want to talk about. Democrats, 2027488000. Republicans, 2027488001. Independents, 2027488002. D as folks areof t calling in, we shouldnt get ahead of the primaries. Theres still lots to happen ins the primaries including today. Take us through what we should i be watching for with primaries in three states today, all with senate implications. T so, the biggest race that im looking at today is the senate inpublican primary runoff in the state of alabama. So in a normal situation, is a r alabama would not be epcompetite at the senate level. This is a very, very republican state. That said, in 2017, now senator doug jones, a democrat, was able to narrowly defeat former state Supreme CourtJustice Roy Moore in that special election to replace one who had resigned that seat to become the very r president s attorney general. Giving the democrats a blue seat in a very red territory. T a wave now, you asked what does the election look like . Right now,w, doug jones is the most vulnerable democrat on the map. We currently have his race rated as lean republican. As the result of this primary, i he will either face former attorney general and alabama senator Jeff Sessions or former Auburn University football coach talk tommy tuberville. Jones is not favored to win. If we find ourselves in a cataclysmic proportion, you might see this race actually become more competitive, even though it is in alabama, its in a state the president will win by double digits. At one of the interesting things wo have seen over the last couple weeks is as least one outside Republican Group has reserved se millions in dollars for advertising in fall in alabama which shows even republicans are not taking this race for convic granted. You want to talk aboutwill wave. When republicans are not win a absolutely convinced that they s will be able to win a state election in alabama, youre looking at potentially a pretty big night forgu democrats. Take us up to maine. So in maine, we have one of the premier on the map. Republican Susan Collins is a he stalwart in the United States senate. Really crafting an image built as a middle of the road, moderate republican member of the United States senate. Thats been her calling card for as long as she has been in thatt chamber. While she has, she faced some n competitive challenges in the past, she has always won them handily, by double digits. S but this time is different. What we have seen is the democrats coalesce around maine state House Speaker sarah gideon as their candidate. So while she does have to get through the primary, and there are two other challengers in e that contest, she is widely considered to be the heavy frontrunner there. Nation and is already operating with the national party. And gideon is really the most formidable challenger that Susan Collins has faced before. Nd her so its a combination of who sarah gideon is and her position in the state, but also this question of whether Susan Collins has lost that kind of moderate position she was able to use to such great advantage in her previous elections. Ings when we look back over the last couple years, things like confirming Supreme CourtJustice Brett kavanaugh, like voting for the republican tax cut, could come up in conversation with voters and operatives in maine as the main reasons why certainly democrats and even a lot of independents in the state no longer view Susan Collins as a down the line operator in the senate. They view her as being much more aligned with the republican party. In a cycle like 2020 which is rt shaping up to be a bash against thee republicans and President Trump, thats not a good position for collins to be in. We have already seen her lag behind in fundraising, which is rare for a senate incumbent, ee especially one asply deeply entrenched as she is. Shes been trailing in most of the polling thats come out of the state in the last couple dh months. The other state withave up s primaries today, texas. Do democrats have a chance of picking up a seat in texas . Yes. Democrats do have a chance of picking up this seat in texas held by a texas senator, john cornyn. And the reason b why that is ist because of whats happening at e the top of the ticket. So we have seen over the last couple months independent polling as well as private polling that indicates that texas, the republican bastion of texas, is the president ial d level, but joe biden and donaldo trump are runningpe dead even. Because of this, its created an opening for the dems to win the senate seat as well. The better performing your president ial candidate does, the easier it is for you to win thae senate seat as well. So if youre a democrat, if joe biden is winning the state, allt you have to do is get all of jo. Bidens voters to vote for you f as well. Tw so o today, weto have a runoff between the two top finishing democrats from last months first round of the primary. J ha mary hegar, mj hegar, was a bec congressional candidate in 2018 who went viral because of her pretty Stunning Campaign ad. She lost that race, but she decided to run for the senate. Also running against her is royce west, who has been underfunded and somewhat undercovered in this primary, but some people think that for a variety of reasons, he has a little bit of late momentum leading to the runoff today. Either one of these candidates would be viewed as underdogs against senator cornyn, who retains a cash on Hand Advantage of over 10 million, and even though texas is competitive at the president ial level, its puc stillan a kind of republican ste at its core, at least for the moment. While there is anrtainly openis certainly not a slam dunk for democrats. But it is a sign of just how wide the senate map is for the Democratic Party, is that they. Can really be competing legitimately in the state. Jacob, im going to let our u control room work with you for a little bit, just to make sure we have your sound a little bit bt better, but as theyre doing wel that, im going to satake some calls fromfix yo viewers to tal them and get their thoughts about the senate race. Chattin well get back to you when we fix your sound and get that toc better because we want to keepa chatting for you. For our viewers, the numbers to call in. 2027488,000 for democrats. 2027488001 for republicans. 2027488002 for independents. Ca want to hearn or about your thos on the senate race this cycle, whether you think democrats can or will take control of the t y senate, and about the races in o your state and whatut youre watching. Sa well go to samuel first out of wisconsin. An independent. Samuel, good morning. Chance o caller hi. Sena i think that if democrats want , any chance of taking back the pt senate, which they do have a large one, unlike past elections where theyre all trying to have a high turnout democrats and trying to outnumber the republicans, i think they reallw need to focus on trying to switch Republican Voters to ourl side. As weinistrat can see, donald t failed administration is going to go up and down the ballot to really have a referendum on voters. Is this really the party we want in control . Ring because we can see t what trump doing. Im not comparing trump to evera other republican, but when a republican supports donald trump, theyre kind of just saying, well, thats what we support. So i thinklectio democrats reald to make a change this election, and instead of trying to get nse enthusiasm within their own ed party to try to outnumber the republicans, we need to focus on republicans trying to switch voters. Samuel, whats the best pitch, whats the best message to do that, do you think . Caller to really just focus onth Donald Trumps administration. You focus on the lies they have told, on the promises they made that didnt work. We focus on the president ial administration and say this is what the rest of the country isf going to look like if we put ane republicans back in control of the senate, and we give them a chance to get them back in youf controloc of the house. Trump this is what the country is , it going to turn into, so when you focus on trumps failed hows thi administration, it works down the ballot that it just shows this is what the republican m ua party is tryingnd to do. This is whats going to happen if we elect them up and down the ballot one more time. Samuel in wisconsin. This is mike out of laend this morning, as were back with jacob of inside elections. Mike is a republican, good morning. Caller good morning. Whats your question or comment . Caller my comment is that i. Really think that our country needs to keep republicans in the Senate Majority, and also bring, it to the house. The previous caller, i dont n r agree with the previous caller. What im seeing happen in our country is marxism and a huge push by the media and democrat leaders are trying to push us into socialism. Jaco thats not what america is about. Mike in florida. We a jacob, the last two callers bringing up the house. I know were focusing on the senate this morning, but is the house in play . You ran through the math for the senate, for a democratic takeover. Whats the math in the house for potential republican takeover . The house is really, at the end of the day, not in play in the Current National environment. Republicans would need 18, i believe, seats to flip the chamber, give or take a few vacancies. And in the current environment, it just does not appear that cot there are enough competitive republican candidates and enouge competitive districts held by t democrats to make that a reality. Now, there are certainly plentye of folks on c the republican si who believe they will be able to get to that point later in the s cycle. However, where the president ialn race currently standards, where the fundraising situation currently stands for so Many Republican candidates, and where the underlying candidate quality questions remain, makes it verye very difficult to see any way d back to a republican majority. Iy in fact, if the election for the house were held today, we would just as likely see democrats actually expand their majority s and pick up another handful of seats as we would see them lose any seats. A question from jimbo, in bakersfield, california. Saying if the president s poll numbers continueder mi on their downwort trajectory, could Mitch Mcconnell lose his bid for reelection in november . So, the thing about Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell is he comes from kentucky, which is one of the most republican states in the entire country. So on a base level, its very difficult for a democrat to win statewide, regardless of who hr theyre running against. Who wo the last person to do it was Current Governor andy beshear, t who woned election in 2019, bute only won that election with 49 h and he won it against the incumbent governor, who was perhaps the most unpopularunpopl governor in the entire country for some time and he still wasnt able to get a majority, even though he did eke out a win. So kentucky is a very difficult state for democrats to compete in. Thatcrats ha said, the candidat democrats have in the state of kentucky retired Fighter Pilot amy mcgrath is one of the best fundraisers theyve had in the history of the party. She is shown an unparalleled ki ability tond raise enormous sum of money and whenever youre raising the kinds of figures that she is, shes already raised over 40 million and many in the party think she could raise another 40 million befori the election is done, youll always have to Pay Attention te it. S and the republicans certainly are payingg attention to it. Reser that is why weve seen several outside groups place 14 million in advertise reservations for the fall in the state of kentucky to heto help soern mit mcconnell. If you need to spend 14 millioo to keep a race in your column, o then perhaps it isnt asf soli as we have begun the cycle thinking it was. One of thehe things that we like to do during the segments when we take a deep dive into the races is show viewers what voters in the individual states are seeing on the television, the campaign ads. Es, th so want to focus on one of the those most highprefile races, the arizona race, Martha Mcsally againstin the tilt Democrat Column in thehere inside electi against mark kelly, the astronaut, the democratic candidate. Here is two ads backtoback and well come back and talk about them. Ive spent my lifeli standinf up for the vulnerable and put my life on the line to protect american families. Mark kellys attacks on me are false and shameful. I will always protectreexi thoh preexisting and im taking on china and the bigg pharmaceuticl companies to make sure prescription drugs are safe affordable and made in america. Im Martha Mcsally and i approve this message because everybody american deserves qualitye takn Affordable Health care. A singlegllions f prescripti cost thoughts but washington politicians look the other way after taking millions from drug companies. Drug companiess protect their profits and those politi