Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Right now as we speak, ninety nine percent of the
Speaker 2: vote count in total is in in Michigan and Alyssa.
Speaker 2: Slotkin is up against Mike Rogers by just three tenths
Speaker 2: of a percentage point. The margin is incredibly tight. Then
Speaker 2: you go to Pennsylvania, Dave McCormick is up forty nine
Speaker 2: point one percent to Bob Casey's forty eight point four
Speaker 2: percent with ninety seven percent of the votes in. And
Speaker 2: in Wisconsin, Tammy Baldwin is holding on to about a
Speaker 2: one point lead forty nine point four percent, Eric Couvdy's
Speaker 2: forty eight and a half percent. Ninety nine percent of
Speaker 2: the votes are in there, but all three Joe still
Speaker 2: too close to call right now.
Speaker 3: Could drop bonus while we're on the air here now,
Speaker 3: which is a great opportunity to bring in cook political reports.
Speaker 3: Senate and Governor's Editor Jessica Taylor, This is Jessica's specialty,
Speaker 3: and Jessica's great to have you back. You've probably been
Speaker 3: up all night as well. Your expectation now that we've
Speaker 3: seen Michigan be called by the Associated Press on the
Speaker 3: presidential level, what happens to the Senate.
Speaker 4: Race, I think that when I look at, like you said,
Speaker 4: almost all of the vote count is in. I was
Speaker 4: talking with my sources, both Democratic and Republican this morning.
Speaker 4: They were waiting on Wayne County to come in there
Speaker 4: and they expected that that would break pretty heavily for Slatkin.
Speaker 1: If i'm again, I'm on one hour of.
Speaker 4: Sleep, so it looks she's a head by about eighteen
Speaker 4: thousand votes right now. I think that's probably hard to
Speaker 4: overcome at this point. As you mentioned, it's very close,
Speaker 4: but I think that she's probably going to hold on there.
Speaker 1: So that's a hole there. In the Senate race in Wisconsin.
Speaker 4: We don't have that race called yet either, but again,
Speaker 4: based on what I'm seeing and talking to my sources,
Speaker 4: they expect that Tammy Baldwin is going to win a
Speaker 4: very very close race there, even as again Trump has
Speaker 4: won the state. The one that's most surprising to me
Speaker 4: is Pennsylvania. You were mentioning another very close race. David
Speaker 4: McCormick is in it is leading Democratic Senator Bob Casey there.
Speaker 4: When I look at where the outstanding vote is, there's
Speaker 4: there were some vote tabulation machine and malfunction in Cambria County,
Speaker 4: which is Johnstown, and that's a very Republican stronghold.
Speaker 1: There are some still outstanding apps.
Speaker 4: And tee ballots in Pittsburgh and in Philadelphia, but once
Speaker 4: we get that Cambria County vote in, I don't think
Speaker 4: it's going to be enough for Casey to make up
Speaker 4: the difference in those bigger population centers. So again, not
Speaker 4: Callege yet. We don't know what the results are going
Speaker 4: to be till they finally come in. But I would
Speaker 4: much rather be McCormick in this instance and in those
Speaker 4: other races. I do think that Democrats are going to
Speaker 4: hold on to Michigan and Wisconsin well.
Speaker 2: And then there's Nevada Jessica. Right now, eighty four percent
Speaker 2: of the votes are in. Sam Brown, the Republican challenger,
Speaker 2: is up a tenth of a percentage point right now
Speaker 2: against the incumbent, Jackie Rosen. We're talking a margin here
Speaker 2: of less than a thousand votes. I don't know if
Speaker 2: you have a strong feeling about what way this goal
Speaker 2: ismate goes ultimately when all theccounts are in. But for
Speaker 2: this reason some of the others we were just talking about,
Speaker 2: what's the likelihood of recounts and potential legal challenges here.
Speaker 4: I think in Nevada there are I think Democrats were
Speaker 4: always sort of preparing for and Republicans were for I
Speaker 4: think some very late counting because they have to sort
Speaker 4: of cure ballots.
Speaker 1: There's absentee ballots.
Speaker 4: That could could certainly face legal challenges and things too. Again,
Speaker 4: when I look at sort of the outstanding vote, Rosen
Speaker 4: is leading there and most of the vote is still
Speaker 4: left in Washo, which is Reno, and in Clark County,
Speaker 4: which is Las Vegas. I would rather be her in
Speaker 4: this instance, but again I think it's going to be
Speaker 4: very very close. This was a race I was hearing
Speaker 4: from Republicans that they felt like was breaking their way
Speaker 4: pretty late, largely because of the presidential race there, even
Speaker 4: though Rosen had a pretty substantial lead for much of
Speaker 4: the race.
Speaker 1: So again, this is another one.
Speaker 4: So I think by my account right now, Republicans have
Speaker 4: at least a fifty two to forty eight majority. That
Speaker 4: means they flipped West Virginia, which we knew, they flipped Ohio,
Speaker 4: and they flipped Montana.
Speaker 1: Those were the ones that we expected.
Speaker 4: More they flip Pennsylvania, like I expect that they will
Speaker 4: that's fifty three, So Nevada, maybe that could be fifty four.
Speaker 3: Wow, well, Jessica, if a rising tide lifts all votes.
Speaker 3: Carrie Lake sprung a leak somewhere, And I'm wondering what
Speaker 3: you thought about this, Reuben Diego, the Democrat, on a
Speaker 3: night like that, taking a lead over such a well
Speaker 3: known Republican candidate, former TV news anchor, closely associated with
Speaker 3: Donald Trump. Where did she go wrong?
Speaker 1: She was well known and that was her problem.
Speaker 4: She came in with very high negatives from that twenty
Speaker 4: twenty two gubernatorial race. Mitch McConnell gave a press conference
Speaker 4: on Capitol Hillary earlier today. They asked him what his
Speaker 4: takeaway was from the Senate races. He said, candidate quality matters.
Speaker 4: That's why they feel like they got strong candidates there
Speaker 4: in Pennsylvania with David McCormick, and races there in Montana
Speaker 4: as well. Carrie Lake was not a strong candidate. We
Speaker 4: knew this going in that she was a very polarizing figure.
Speaker 4: She came in high negatives, was never really able to
Speaker 4: overcome them, never really, you know, in that race for
Speaker 4: a governor.
Speaker 1: She insulted sort of McCain voters and those swing voters.
Speaker 4: There in Maricopa County that makes up over sixty percent
Speaker 4: of the vote.
Speaker 1: Geygo ran a.
Speaker 4: Very smart race. He was able to spend early on.
Speaker 4: He had the spending advantage. He was able to introduce
Speaker 4: himsel Off there. Even in a state where he was
Speaker 4: more progressive than the state's other senator, Mary Kelly, that
Speaker 4: ran us more of a centrist, So he was able
Speaker 4: to tell his story being raised in poverty by a
Speaker 4: single mother going on to be in the Marines. So
Speaker 4: I think that also we saw him Joe better with
Speaker 4: the types of voters that Donald Trump was doing better.
Speaker 1: With, both the Latino men and black men. So those
Speaker 1: were the split ticket voters.
Speaker 4: But also those independents broke against Kerry Lake, and I
Speaker 4: think it's because she was I think she was sort
Speaker 4: of the wrong candidate for the moment in Arizona.
Speaker 2: Well, as we consider the idea of split ticketing, you
Speaker 2: look at a state considering you follow gubernatorial races as well,
Speaker 2: like North Carolina, which of course Donald Trump won by
Speaker 2: a margin of about four points, are a little under that.
Speaker 2: Josh Stein, the Democratic candidate for governor, won by fourteen
Speaker 2: points in North Carolina, what's the takeaway there, Jessica.
Speaker 4: Again, the candidates matter, and you had the lieutenant governor
Speaker 4: there that Republicans, many of them knew early on, was
Speaker 4: a very controversial candidate. And then you had a scandal
Speaker 4: that came out about allegedly posting on a porn site
Speaker 4: and talking about being a black Nazi. Republicans largely abandoned him.
Speaker 4: He didn't have much of a campaign infrastructure to begin with.
Speaker 4: He was off air on advertising for the last two
Speaker 4: months of the campaign basically. But I think also voters
Speaker 4: do look at a vote for governor and a vote
Speaker 4: for Senate very differently. Actually, in the last hundred years
Speaker 4: there in North Carolina, they've only elected a Republican governor
Speaker 4: three times, so they are.
Speaker 1: Used to splitting their tickets.
Speaker 4: And in fact, even as Trump carried the state in
Speaker 4: twenty sixteen and in twenty twenty and Roy Cooper won
Speaker 4: both times.
Speaker 1: But actually, you.
Speaker 4: Know, apart from the top of the ticket at the
Speaker 4: presidential level, some nor North Carolina Democrats were.
Speaker 1: Having a pretty good night, and I think that was
Speaker 1: sort of Stein helping them.
Speaker 4: They've broken the supermajority in the state legislature, they won
Speaker 4: the attorney General's raised. Democrats have kept that seat, and
Speaker 4: then they also won a Secretary of Public Instruction basically
Speaker 4: the secretary of education there that was also with a
Speaker 4: very controversial Republican candidate.
Speaker 3: All Right, Jessica, I want to talk leadership with you
Speaker 3: here now that we're looking at a red Senate here,
Speaker 3: and I guess to your point, we could still add
Speaker 3: a couple more to the list. There is a thought
Speaker 3: with Donald Trump on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue
Speaker 3: that this is not the race we thought it was
Speaker 3: to replace Mitch McConnell, that Steve Danes could even be
Speaker 3: drafted late in the game. Here, we're only a couple
Speaker 3: of weeks out from this what's about to happen.
Speaker 4: Danes did give an interview with Semaphore where he did
Speaker 4: say again he would not be drafted. He was not
Speaker 4: interested in doing this. I wouldn't be surprised to see
Speaker 4: him in leadership in some position, especially after having a
Speaker 4: very strong showing for Senate Republicans.
Speaker 1: He was my dark horse, but he is hick. I said.
Speaker 4: He gave that interview to Burgess ever there Somemophore last
Speaker 4: week and said that he would not be there.
Speaker 1: So we have the.
Speaker 4: Two of the Johns, John Thune of South Dakota and
Speaker 4: John Cornet of Texas. Now some they have had a
Speaker 4: rockier relationship with Trump.
Speaker 1: You know. Rick Scott of Florida has also thrown his
Speaker 1: name in there. Now.
Speaker 4: He had a bigger than expected victory after having sort
Speaker 4: of very narrow winds for governor and for Senate.
Speaker 1: But he also had a very contrab Marshall tenure.
Speaker 4: At the top of the National Republican Senatorial Committee in
Speaker 4: twenty twenty two when they actually lost a seat. So
Speaker 4: I think it's going to be a lot of jockeying
Speaker 4: behind the scenes. I think probably still fun or corn
Speaker 4: and have the inside slot.
Speaker 1: Ben the gek. You said, is there another candidate that emerges?
Speaker 1: Perhaps two? All right?
Speaker 2: Jessica Taylor, the Cook Political Reports, Senate and Governor's Editor,
Speaker 2: thank you so much for joining us.