Are the Democrats ready to win back Congress?

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

0:30Schwab offers. Because Schwab knows that when it comes to your finances, choice matters. No matter your goals, investing style, life stage or experience, Schwab has everything you need, all in one place, so you can invest your way. Visit schwab.com to learn more. Are the Democrats really back as a political force in the United States? They've been knocked sideways by Donald Trump, but they seem to be fighting back and, crucially, winning elections. Can they win in the biggest of the elections, the midterms in November? Welcome to AmeriCast. AmeriCast. AmeriCast from BBC News. You hear that sound?

1:14Oh, I think when I hear that sound, it reminds me of money. We didn't start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing This is a big cover-up and this administration is engaged in it. This guy has Trump arrangement syndrome. I have four words for you. Turn the volume up.

1:36Hello, it's Justin in the worldwide headquarters of AmeriCast in London, England. Hello, it's Sumi joining from my home in Washington, D.C. And we have a special guest, Sumi, who we're going to get to in a bit. And when I say a special guest, I really do mean it this time around. You get political operatives, don't you? Thousands of them in America who claim to be White House advisors. And then you find actually they've only ever been to the White House once. And then whoever the president was at the time wouldn't be able to pick them out in a in a lineup. We have the polar opposite of that today because we've got Jim Messina, who not only was part of Obama when he came to power, and I can well remember him then being quite a big figure in the campaign, but he was then a very big figure in 2012.

2:17In fact, he was in charge of Obama being reelected in 2012. And that was not a sure thing. people who remember back to those days will remember that Mitt Romney the Republican was thought to have a chance and Obama kind of stumbled halfway through he didn't do very well in a debate and it was all up in the air and Jim Messina was the man who powered it all through and he has very very strong views I think it is fair to say and doesn't suffer fools gladly and has seen politics on the very inside and he is going to tell us what he thinks the Democrats' chances are in the midterms, but then interestingly as well, beyond the midterms, and crucially, of course, for the presidential as well.

2:58Let's start with the midterms, though, Sumi, that are coming up. We ought to do a sort of basic thing about what it is that is up for grabs and what the likelihood is at the moment that the Republican wins and Democratic wins. So let's start with Congress, because it's the whole House, isn't it? And then, what, a third of the Senate? Yeah, the midterm elections, and I know our listeners and viewers know this, but this happens halfway through the term, a president's term. And this is when all of the seats in the House of Representatives and about half of the seats in the Senate are up for election.

3:32And for the House of Representatives, they're up every two years in the Senate. They serve, fix your term. But it is such an important test of, first, the president and the party in power's popularity, and second, the opposition party, if you will. There's only one opposition party in the U.S., but how they are faring. And I think it's safe to say that this is as critical of a midterm election as you can get. As of now, Democrats need to get three seats to be able to take control of the House of Representatives. So, you know, right now it's a very narrow Republican majority. They would need four seats to be able to take over the Senate.

4:10That is more of an uphill battle, more of a stretch for them. But it is in play now, whereas let's say six months ago or even a year ago, it would have been very hard to say that the Senate is in play for the Democrats. So there is really a lot up for grabs for Democrats, and Republicans are somewhat nervously, let's say, looking to the midterms. Yeah, and Trump himself is worried and plainly worried for one, overriding reasons. So back in January, he was very open about that reason. You've got to win the midterms, because if we don't win the midterms, it's just going to be. I mean, they'll find a reason to impeach me.

4:49I'll get impeached. We don't impeach them. You know why? Because they're meaner than we are. We should have impeached Joe Biden for 100 different things. They are mean and smart. Is he right about impeachment, Sumi? I don't know. I mean, whether it's a case of being mean or not, that's not the criteria on which you launch impeachment proceedings, of course. But by all accounts, President Trump was deeply impacted by the impeachment proceedings against him in his first term. And this is something he is truly worried about. If the Democrats take back the House of Representatives and the Senate, they would have the ability to fully impeach the president.

5:32So not just in one chamber. But do they want to do that? Is that smart? There is a strain of analysis here in the U.S. that the legal cases, for example, against the president, the impeachment proceedings against him in his first term, perhaps only serve to strengthen his hand and strengthen the argument that the Democrats are simply out to get him. That's something that Democrats here know, analysts know. And yet we've seen so many breaks from precedent and questions of the legality of some of President Trump's actions that some Democrats say, well, we have no choice but to carry on investigations.

6:09Yeah. Let's just look at how well the Democrats are doing at the moment, because they are doing very well, aren't they? Including in Florida, this amazing result in Florida that we did talk a little bit about. But talk us through that, because that's going to hurt Donald Trump, isn't it? Yeah, this was a legislative district in President Trump's own backyard. So where Mar-a-Lago sits, a Democrat upset a Republican who, by the way, had President Trump backing. So Emily Gregory, who was a first time candidate, beat Republican John Maples. This was for the 87th state House seat. And again, it's that part of Palm Beach where Mar-a-Lago is.

6:48And if you look at the numbers before in 2024, a Republican won that district by 19 percentage points. And Emily Gregory here really made this all about affordability. And this is a clip of her speaking to CBS News in Miami after the win about why she said that she ran. I felt that the leadership in the legislature was not listening to us. I felt that they were very distracted on culture war issues and not solving the very real affordability issues that us average Floridians are struggling with, like property insurance and health care and education. And that is the only reason that I'm interested in running is trying to find solutions to these big, big affordability issues.

7:34Do you have a sense, Sumi, that that central thing that she encapsulated there is the thing that runs through all recent democratic successes? In other words, you focus on affordability. I think in Britain we'd call it the cost of living and on nothing else. It certainly looks like it. Listen to that message discipline there from Emily Gregory. She sounds like Zoran Mamdani, who could bring, you know, a question about Halloween candy back to the question of affordability and how to serve voters on affordability. This has become more or less the recipe for success for Democrats. This is why President Trump mainly was elected back to office, wasn't it?

8:17It was the cost of living and making America affordable again for people. Of course, immigration played a big part in his victory as well and in other cultural issues. But I heard James Tallarico, who is, as you know, a candidate for Senate from Texas and has been this real up and coming figure in the Democratic Party, young, popular figure for the Democrats in Texas. He said they keep wanting to talk about trans issues, but let's talk about affordability because that's what they want to distract from. And there's a point to be made there that the cultural issues of trans women playing in sports or whether it's the bathroom debate, all of that is in a way distracting from the larger question of, is your life better off now than it was a year ago?

9:06And that's what Democrats feel like they can really hammer home on. Yeah, it's a really interesting one, that, isn't it? Because they seem to think that they can put those cultural issues to one side because affordability is such a big deal. The counter argument to that is that just sort of saying, oh, we're not interested in that stuff, change the subject, doesn't work. When, for instance, someone says to you, should a biological male be allowed to race against my daughter at school? Just pivoting away. I mean, that's intellectually, Sumi, that works, doesn't it? I'm just not sure it works always on a campaign trail.

9:43Well, and to that point, some of the attack ads that are being taken out against James Tallarico in Texas now are bringing up clips of him having talked about how many gender identities there are and what gender God has. And those are things that Republicans in Texas will use against James Tallarico. But I do think there's a finer point there. It's perhaps not deflecting the question. The California governor, Gavin Newsom, has talked about this, about protecting trans people in America, but just making sure that it is part of a larger and broader argument about why Democrats can better serve people.

10:21And if you look at some of the successes that they've had, I mean, let's just go through some of the victories that Democrats have had in these smaller state legislative bodies. And in Texas, you had a Democrat, Taylor Remmitt, win a special election for the Texas State Senate. That was the first time that this district has been represented by a Democrat in nearly 30 years. And perhaps biggest of all, you saw the two gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, Mikey Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger, who were able to win those races on a basic centrist affordability message. That doesn't mean that they're not willing to embrace more progressive causes.

11:01But as of now, Democrats see that as being a winning message. So where are we looking? Where should people be looking this time around for 2026? Well, there are so many fascinating races in the Senate. I mean, Justin, you know, the Senate's going to be one of the best things for political junkies like us to watch on election night. And I'm really interested in watching John Ossoff. So about a year ago, John Ossoff looked like his seat might be, he's a Democrat from Georgia, a senator from Georgia, it might be the most vulnerable Democrat seat or one of the most vulnerable Democrat Senate seats to defend.

11:39Fast forward to now, he's launched this campaign that has been pretty effective. And the central message of it has been we have to fight back against corruption and the elitist class. So, I mean, here he is speaking at a campaign rally for his reelection last year. And see, this is why nothing works for ordinary people. It's not because of woke college kids or trans students or because there are interracial couples in serial commercials. It's because the people's elected representatives don't represent the people. They represent the donors. So Trump promised to attack a broken system. I get it.

12:18Ripe target. But here's the thing. He's a crook. And a con man. And he wants to be a king. Yes, the system really is rigged. But Trump's not unrigging it. He's re-rigging it for himself. So, Justin, I haven't heard a more, let's say, explicit anti-corruption, anti-elite message from Democrats than that that could have really broad appeal. And there's a reason that clip went viral. John Ossoff is incredibly eloquent. He's young. As his opponent, let's say, in Georgia's pointed out, he's handsome. He speaks well. All of these things really bode well for his chances in the Senate there. But beyond that, he's someone who's already being talked about as a possible future candidate for president because he's able to put his finger on this feeling that people have in this country, which is that the system is rigged.

13:15And he's saying, yes, it is rigged, but Donald Trump is not the person to unrig it. And this is how we do it. Are we going to have as well a kind of new generation of people arriving in the House, Democrats arriving in the House? So say they win, I don't know, 20 or 30 seats. So the people who are going to be there who represent the future of the party, because that's the point, isn't it? So much of Congress is so I was speaking as an elderly man myself, but it is so elderly. So I can say it. I mean, it's just ludicrously elderly. There are people even older than me who haven't even thought about running for office yet and are probably going to in a decade or two's time.

13:56Are we seeing that being swept away? Is there any chance of it this time around? In a way, yeah. I think Democrats also see this as if they want to win over younger voters. Remember, President Trump was pretty successful among young men in particular. Democrats realize that part of making that argument to young voters is to also have people who look like them, who sound like them, who understand their concerns. And I think also, interestingly, some of the races to look at for the House really speak to the debate within the party about which direction they should go. Is it the more left-wing progressive side of the party?

14:33Is it the more centrist moderate side of the party? And I think one candidate to look out for is Ana Lilia Mejia. She won the Democratic primary for the seat that Mikey Sherrill, who became governor, that she vacated. And she's a former staffer of Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders campaigned for her. And although New Jersey and this part of New Jersey is more moderate, Mejia was able to win the primary. And that shocked some people. And it could send a message about where the party could be headed. And so here's a bit of her victory speech in New Jersey in February. People will say that this district is not the kind of district in which a progressive or a lefty could win.

15:16But it's not about left-right. It's about right and wrong. And so when I speak to my neighbors about the fact that we can increasingly feel the pinch, when I talk to my neighbors about how a zip code doesn't protect us from rising, violent authoritarianism, My neighbours respond, just like I do, because we live here and we know that we chose to live in New Jersey's 11th because we were desirous of a community in which we could raise our families with justice, with equity and diversity. Right. That's very much the message, isn't it? And she obviously encapsulates it well. What could possibly go wrong?

16:01A lot. There was a great, I think, Time magazine headline that I just saw this week that said Trump's in free fall and yet the Democrats could still mess it up. And I think that pretty much encapsulates where things stand for the Democrats, because no matter how unpopular this president is right now, that doesn't seem to make the Democrats more popular. And in part, remember we were talking after the election about the possibility that the Democrats are just a toxic brand, that the Democrats nationally just don't have any sway with the American public right now. They may not trust President Trump on immigration to the economy, but they also don't trust Democrats.

16:39And part of the issue that they're going to have is to figure out which direction they're going to take. Is it more progressive left? Is it more centrist and moderate? Is it all of the above? and do they have a message that is beyond anti-Trump? Because voters also want to be able to sink their teeth into something. What are you going to do to make my life more affordable? If they don't have a vision for what that is, if it's just I'm not Donald Trump, that could also be a problem for them in picking up a broader swath of the electorate. Yeah, we're going to talk, as we said right at the beginning, to Jim Messina, who knows how to win elections for the Democrats in a second, and I suspect he's absolutely 100 % going to echo that.

17:18We ought to mention the governorships as well, maybe one in particular. So when it comes to California, there is a suggestion, isn't there, that the Democrats might be in a bit of a problem there, which you wouldn't expect because this is a highly democratic state in the modern era. We've got an interesting question from a listener, from Marianne, who asks this. Can I just ask a little question about California? There are eight Democrats and two Republicans vying for that governorship that Mr. Newsom will be vacating very soon. What are your views? Thank you. Bye. Well, the issue being, Sumi, that it looks at least on paper as if the Republicans might be in fighting it off between the two of them rather than between them and a Democrat.

18:08Why is that? Yeah, well, you know, it is a question of the candidates who are actually in the running here. So the Democrats have had a hard time in fielding so far a candidate that has been convincing to Democrat voters. You have, for example, the current Congressman Eric Swalwell, who is in the running. Some of the other candidates are simply haven't been able to build up some traction with voters in California, at least according to polling. And we should also say, yes, California is a blue state, but it does have a tradition of having some Republican governors. Think of Arnold Schwarzenegger, think of Ronald Reagan, right?

18:46So it is not unheard of to have a Republican governor. And if the Democrats can't field a candidate who has enough appeal to a broad swath of the California population, that's going to become a challenge for them. Ah, that's interesting, because I thought it was all about the primary, because they have this weird jungle primary, don't they, where they all just jump in together. And I think people have been worried that the top two will both be Republicans. But you're saying even if that isn't the case, and actually I don't think it will be the case because I think the Democrats will sort themselves out and they'll get rid, won't they, of enough of the field to make sure that they are finally represented.

19:28But what's really interesting is you're suggesting even if they are represented eventually and it is a Republican against a Democrat, it's not a surefire thing. Yeah, and I'll just clarify, jungle primaries, when you have this primary election where all the candidates for the same elected office run against each other. So that is part of the issue. I guess what I was referring to is I think it's unlikely that you wouldn't have a Democrat in that top two. And it's very, you know, yes, you do have two Republican candidates running, Chad Bianco and Steve Hilton, who could come in at the top one and two.

20:03That is a possibility. But I think it's unlikely that you wouldn't have a Democrat landing in that top two. Like imagine if you just it's like taking all the candidates, putting them in a bottle and shaking them up and seeing where they land. And it's worth saying to British listeners. Yes, it is that Steve Hilton, that same Steve Hilton who worked in number 10 for a certain British prime minister not that long ago. So it is an extraordinary fact that Steve Hilton shortly after he'd worked for David Cameron, gave up on British politics, went to live in America and do other things. And he had a Fox show, didn't he, Sumi?

20:43Is he really now a big figure in Republican conservative politics? I think he thinks he's a big figure in Republican conservative politics. And that's no shade against Steve Hilton. But, you know, on the national stage, he's less known. I think in California, he's made some inroads because he is known from TV. You've seen him on TV. But that's more a California politics question than a national one. OK, and I'm taking us off our main subject, which I shouldn't do. And I know you've got to go and do other things. So, Sumi, brilliant to talk to you. Thanks again to you and goodbye to you for the time being.

21:16Bye. Thank you. Have a good day. And let us turn now to our guest, to Jim Messina, who, as I was saying, is a proper strategist. He really has been in the room and in the room a lot. So he was there with Barack Obama when he was elected back in 2008. 2008. But really crucially, he ran that 2012 election, that 2012 election, which was not a slam dunk. He had to get Obama over the line and he managed to do it. Jim, very good to talk to you again. Good to see you. And it's presumably a particular pleasure at the moment to talk about the Democrats, Jim, and it hasn't always been when you've come on the podcast.

21:51But I mean, just writ large at the moment, we'll get to some of the downsides in a second. But writ large, when you look at recent election results, it's going well. Going better than you could have expected, given our overall messaging challenges. Since Trump took office, Democrats have won over 100 local races around the country. They've overperformed Kamala Harris's numbers by about 10.4%, which in American terms is just a landslide. And we're starting to win seats that we haven't won in a generation. I don't think all of it's due to our greatness. I think it's mostly due to Donald Trump's poor approval ratings, but we can talk a little bit about that going forward.

22:33Yeah, we'll definitely get to that. The greatness or no greatness thing in a second. But just to underline, we were mentioning on the podcast recently that local election victory or state election victory down in Florida in a little place called Mar-a-Lago, or at least the district where Mar-a-Lago is. which, I mean, just to underline, you are winning, as you've just said, in places where you really wouldn't expect to. Yeah, that's Donald Trump's home district. That's where he and his wife and son vote. He won that district by 14 % in the last election. The Republicans won it in their last local election by 19%.

23:11The Democrat, no one knew who they were, but campaigned all on affordability and won a race. And now Donald Trump's home district is represented by a Democrat for the first time in living memory. I can promise you Mar-a-Lago is not the traditional democratic territory, but the anger at affordability in the United States provides many bountiful fruits. Yeah. So looking ahead to November, what is a realistic expectation? Definitely to win the House back. I mean, Democrats have got to win the House back. It is the reason for the party right now that we have to put some check on Donald Trump. And I think that's what the voters want too.

23:55So that is job one. We're starting to have some shot in the Senate, which is unbelievable given the current map. We could talk about that. But we have got to win Congress back. Yeah. So when it comes to the Senate, we've been mentioning a few times on the pod recently, that it is not any longer laughably unlikely. And it was, frankly, wasn't it? Because, as you say, of the map, because too many of the seats are too difficult for the Democrats to get to. At least that's what we thought until now. I think that's exactly right. I mean, when you look at the map, it is full of Senate races where Donald Trump won states handily, like Texas, like Iowa, like Alaska, like Montana.

24:44And now we're competitive in most of those states. And it has very little to do with the Democrats. It's just because Trump's numbers have just tanked, especially on the economy. His superpower in three presidential elections was the economy. He beat Kamala Harris in a very close election by 12 points on the economy and he now is underwater by 29 percent. That number you and I talked about earlier, that Democrats are overperforming by about 12 points. That is super important because if we were to do that in the Senate races, then you could win an Iowa, you could win a Texas, you could win an Ohio.

25:24And so that just puts the Senate into play. I still wouldn't bet your college, your kid's college endowment on it, I still think it's really hard. Here's a number for the stats nerds on the podcast. You know, in the past six years in Senate races, only one party has won a state where they didn't win the presidential. And that was the Republicans in Wisconsin. So, you know, Democrats are just trying to do something that is really has not happened in about 10 years. That said, you know, as you know, we've talked about this, I hate polling. I think most pollsters are idiots. But the prediction markets, which are full of way smarter people than you and me, now have the Senate at about 50-50 toss-up, which I think is interesting.

26:10Yeah. And if it were to happen, what difference would it make? Huge, huge, huge, huge. Because the Senate is where Trump goes to get his appointments through. He doesn't get to appoint some of these crazy people he's put in into these positions. There's no way a Pete Hegseth in Department of War gets confirmed. There was no way a Kristi Noem at DHS would have gotten confirmed. And so the second thing is, if you have the House and the Senate, Trump's agenda is basically over. He can't do anything. He can't spend money. They can stop him from doing lots of things. And so it effectively would neuter his presidency.