Midterms Will Be A 'Red Shellacking'—Not A Blue Wave: GOP Strategist

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1:32Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis, a breaking news reporter here at Forbes. Joining me once again is Brittany Martinez. She's the executive director of Principles First. Brittany, thanks so much for coming on. Thank you for having me. We have a conversation today about all things midterms because we are less than two weeks away from Election Day. And right now, polling is not looking too good for Republicans who control both chambers of Congress as well as the White House. According to polling averages from RealClearPolitics, Trump's approval rating sits at 38.4 percent. Only 32 percent of Americans think that the country is headed in the right direction.

2:10And on a generic congressional ballot, Democrats have an eight-point edge. So to start off the conversation, what are your thoughts on those numbers this close to midterms?

2:20Brittany Martinez: it's not a great time to be a Republican running for office this midterm cycle. We know, we've talked about it here, Brittany, the midterms are normally a referendum of the party that's in power, but things are looking really bad. I'd say things are looking worse than they typically do. People are arguing there's going to be a blue tsunami, a blue wave. Honestly, I don't think it's because Democrats have put forth such a great plan. I think what we're seeing in this moment is the inverse of what we saw in 2024. Americans are mad at Democrats and Biden and Harris. And therefore, Trump was able to pull out that win.

2:58Brittany Martinez: I don't think it's a red wave. I think it's just going to be excuse me. I don't think it's a blue. It's certainly not a red wave this year. I don't think it's going to be a blue wave. I've been calling it a red shellacking. And why do you think that is? Is it because of the economy? Is it because people's views on President Trump? Is it because of affordability, the war against Iran? What is it? Because I mean, you and I talk time and time again, how many times have we said in our conversations, it's the economy stupid. And I feel like when I'm speaking with Republican lawmakers now, especially those who are running for office, feels like exactly the same conversation I was having two years ago with Democrats running who say the economy is not that bad.

3:43The economy is not that bad. That's not what people on the streets are feeling, though.

3:47Brittany Martinez: Yeah, I think to your question, I think it's all of the above. It's a little bit of everything. The economy is always number one. What people feel in their pocketbooks, if they're able to put foot on the table. What we're seeing this year, though, for the first time, the highest in 20 years, corruption, which is unsurprising, given everything we've seen out of this White House and administration. That is not surprising, but it is just surprising that this has just taken precedence in that we don't normally see this at the top of the list. In 24, immigration was at the top of the list, right next to the economy, and now it's corruption.

4:20Brittany Martinez: So I think people are struggling financially. I think they see a president and an admin that seems to be profiting off of their coffers when people, you know, can't afford their groceries that are higher, more expensive than they were a year ago, or their gas, which is more expensive. Not to mention, and I keep making this point, you know, Republicans, we have always said that we are the party of fiscal responsibility. We are the ones who are good when it comes to the economy. Number one, we have been a blow in money like Democrats. First of all, no offense to the Democrats, but we're supposed to be known for the financial responsibility here.

4:56Brittany Martinez: For the first time in a decade, Democrats actually have the up on us when it comes to the economy. So that should be incredibly alarming to Republicans and how we shape the party moving forward. And Americans, they're frustrated. I'm frustrated, right? Like sitting across from you virtually. We're all frustrated, I think a lot of us, with what we see. And things just keep getting worse and worse. On Biden's last day in office, inflation was at 3%. Right now, according to September reports, inflation is at 3.7%. So all of these indicators actually prove that we're not in a better place than we were two years ago.

5:35Brittany Martinez: Even though we were coming out of really bad Biden economy, it doesn't seem like much improvement has been made. I hope I don't have to cancel again tonight. Chronic migraine means 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more. Botox, on a botulinum toxin A, prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine. It is not approved for those with 14 or fewer headache days a month. Botox, the number one prescribed branded chronic migraine preventive treatment, prevents, on average, eight to nine headache days a month versus six to seven for placebo. Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor.

6:05Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis or Lambert-Eaton syndrome, and medications including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects.

6:36Ask your doctor. Visit BotoxChronicMigraine.com or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more. The secret society of semi-homemade? Listen up. Sam's Club has pre-made dishes for a Thanksgiving feast that's ready in two hours, all while tasting suspiciously homemade. Come join us. Sam's Club. Individual oven times may vary. I had this conversation with someone who's running in a competitive congressional district, and he's a Republican. And we were talking about the economy. And I said for the past couple of months, prices were outpacing wages. And then he interrupted me. He said, hey, but if you look back before in the months before, wages were outpacing prices.

7:20We were talking about inflation. We were going through the numbers. And I said to him, I was like, do you think we can argue with the semantics because I had all of the notes? But is that what people want to hear? Or do people want to hear, hey, I hear you when it comes to things feel way less affordable than they did in the past. Here's how I'm going to fix it. And he was saying, essentially, the stock market's in a good place. He was saying that the higher gas prices, that's essentially, I'm not saying this verbatim, was a small price to pay for the war against Iran and making sure they didn't have a nuclear weapon.

7:56He was a Republican. Do you think that is effective Republican messaging?

8:01Brittany Martinez: Terrible talking point. Terrible talking points. Terrible. When it comes down to winning elections, what it really is, is a politician who is able to most robustly connect with people and say, I hear you. I understand you. I want to help fix the problem. That is what it comes down to ultimately. And this is how I'm going to fix it. Not, oh, no, no, no. It's like, it's just like suck it up for a little bit longer. Like we're all in this together. No, you guys as politicians and legislators are elected to fix the problems affecting the everyday issues that Americans are reeling. And if you can't saying, oh, this is just a small price to pay to who?

8:44Brittany Martinez: Maybe to you. I don't know who you were speaking with that day, of course. But, you know, a lot of politicians are fairly well off or maybe more well off than the average American. So maybe to them having to pay more in gas prices or groceries isn't a big deal. But what about the family of five who is just trying to put their kids through school has to feed all of these mouths. That is a big deal that groceries are more expensive and that gas prices are more expensive. So putting the onus and the burden on the American people, that's never going to win you votes. Never, never. So shameful, whoever you were talking to, no disrespect to them, but maybe a little depending on who it was.

9:25Brittany Martinez: But no, that's not how you win votes. And that's not how you make the lives of Americans better, which is the ultimate goal here. It's not about winning. It's about making life better. And I live in New York City now, but I grew up in Pennsylvania, a suburban district. It's actually one of the most purple districts in this country. And it's suburban, a little rural. And I was there a few weeks ago, and I was just struck, especially because I'm in New York now, when you're driving, how many gas stations you're passing. And it is a glaring reminder of just how high a gas of the price of a gallon of gas is right.

10:05And people are reminded of that over and over and over again. They're reminded about it every time they need to go fill up their tank. And it's a there's a visual reminder every few feet, it felt like of just how high those prices are. And President Trump, he's campaigning in states that he won handily in 2024, like Kansas, like Iowa, like Florida. He's campaigned in Georgia last week. He won by only two points there, but he's campaigning again this weekend. What do you make of that, that President Trump is returning to those states, not Georgia, but the other three that I mentioned, Kansas, Iowa, and Florida, he won by double digits in 2024.

10:43What do you make of the fact that he's going there And that's where he's spending this lead up to the midterms. States like this, which in theory should be strongholds during a normal cycle, I think less time would be spent by the commander in chief on the campaign stump.

11:03Brittany Martinez: I think they'd probably be more focused on states that are expected to be closer. The reason why is because these are no longer strongholds in the same way. And a lot of Americans in these states are really reeling from the economic struggles that a lot of Americans are facing and are having to – they're frustrated. They're frustrated is what it comes down to, and these races are going to be tight. And what's interesting is a state like Texas, for example, which we've considered a really red Republican stronghold for years, despite every cycle, Democrats are like, no, we're flipping it. Beto right now we see Tallarico who I think is going to become the closest that we've seen in decades we have to think about the changing demographic of the American electorate as well in a state like Texas that is now becoming more Hispanic in the United States in general it is becoming more diverse and so I think that we will see Republicans spending time in general in states that maybe they wouldn't have necessarily in the past because they were expected to be easy wins.

12:12And I think that's sort of an overarching thing that we're going to see across the board over the next few cycles. But ultimately, it's not surprising. I think that Republicans are going to be focused on the states that they're going to be able to just barely pull off, or they think that might be able to. And so it makes sense that the campaigns are putting a lot of money and effort into these states. Some of these races are so close. Like you said, Texas, they haven't elected a Democrat statewide in decades. Now, James Tallarico, he is polling neck and neck with Ken Paxton, another state. Kansas hasn't elected a Democratic senator in over 90 years.

12:59Now the incumbent is essentially tied, according to polls, with the Democratic challenger. Iowa could also see a major political shift this November. They have a lot of competitive races, everything from the governor's race, House races, the Senate race. What does this tell you about this midterm cycle as well as what you're looking out for as a Republican in 2028? To me, it's clear that we need to pivot and we need to start moving away from the Trump rhetoric.

13:30Brittany Martinez: I will say that, Brittany, to the cows, come home. I will never stop preaching that, evangelizing on that because it's important. And I think that we have been able to get here successfully as Republicans because the president was able to tap into something within the American psyche that people were really into. But now it's clear with the lowest approval rating that he's faced, etc., etc., people frustrated with the economy, corruption. We have to keep in mind that there's been a lot that has happened under the Trump years. And I feel like in many ways he has been that nothing has been able to really pierce through MAGA or really get to him as far as it goes.

14:24Brittany Martinez: People are frustrated, but people still support him. Right. But now I feel like we've seen a change in that. And so I think people need to, Republicans, need to capitalize on that change, recognize where to move, and stop riding the Trump coattails because they're falling off right now. Like, we are in the midst of them falling off. It's too late to pivot now as a party as a whole. We've seen plenty of Republicans out on the campaign say, oh, take the president off their website. Take the endorsement off their website. You know, nicely say maybe Trump's endorsement here, support on the campaign stump isn't necessarily super helpful.

15:07But I think that moving forward, we're going to see this lame duck that we're entering that we've been in that I've been saying. I think more Republicans willing to take that permission structure and stray away from the president, because I think that is the only way in 28 we can be, if not win, at least have some success.

15:28Brittany Martinez: similarly in 24 Harris kind of had a hard time removing herself from Biden because she didn't want to offend the president and that was to her detriment and so I just need I if Republicans don't want that to happen to us I think that we can take a page out of that book and and shift accordingly I think that that's a really interesting point because President Trump he's not on this ballot, right? And historically speaking, when there is a party in charge of the White House, the House and the Senate, the midterms aren't too kind to them. And it seems like based on polling that Democrats have a real shot at at least flipping the House here.

16:10Do you think that depending on the results here of the midterms, that will kind of guide Republican strategy for the next two years, especially because, as you said, once the midterms hit, I mean, it's going to be a lame duck presidency. Yeah, I mean, I hope Republicans take this as a learning lesson rather than continuing to double down, which I think is what we have been doing over all of these years. Again, I don't necessarily think that. And again, who knows? Maybe Republicans will pull it out by crazy numbers and all the pollsters will be wrong.

16:45Brittany Martinez: I don't think that's likely what will happen. But if Republicans don't perform to the level that they wish that they would, I hope they take this as a learning lesson about the way that the party needs to shift. And again, what I was getting to is that I don't think this is necessarily pro-democrat potential win. I think it would be an anti-Republican, anti-establishment against. And, you know, this is what happened in 2024, like we already talked about. It would be really great if the parties try harder to define themselves rather than the other way around. Maybe that's politics. Maybe that's being naive.

17:33But let's start doing better work for the American people who are clearly frustrated with both parties. And in this moment, probably more frustrated with Republicans, it would appear. We're Forbes. We love following the money. And when it comes to this cycle, the GOP is pulling back money from competitive races in Senate campaigns in Georgia, North Carolina, and House races in Iowa, Ohio, and Nebraska. And instead, they're pouring more money into defending seats in more traditional Republican districts like the Senate races in Mississippi and Kansas, as well as red House districts in Pennsylvania, Missouri and Kentucky.

18:11Democrats, on the other hand, they're pouring millions into seats that they want to flip and they're going into more traditional red territories. What does this spending tell you? I think Republicans see the writing on the wall, and I think that they've pulled out of some races because they think there's a good chance that even if they put all this money in, you know, the internal polling, right? That indicates to me the internal polling shows that those races are no longer winnable, so they might as well invest that money into some of these tighter races that they wouldn't have generally had to do in the past so that we can have a better return on investment, which is winning that election or, I mean, ultimately winning that election, right?

18:56or at least trying to, at least getting within closer margins to. That's what that money indicates to me. But ultimately, listen, you can have all the money in the world, and Republicans have a great advantage when it comes to the money right now, but that doesn't erase voters' experience of this administration. And it's one of those things where we know that people really start to tune in. Not you and I. But people really start to tune in after Labor Day. And obviously, we've come and blown through that deadline. We've passed through. We're almost at the end of October. And I think that we're going to see more money being pulled out of races and then last minute shoved into races that are expected to be tight, even if they wouldn't have been a few years ago.

19:45Like you said, we are so close to the finish line here. I'm curious, on November 3rd, what races specifically are you keeping your eye out for? Definitely Texas Senate and Florida Senate. I think those are two of the ones that I'm most interested in. I'm also really interested in what's going on in Kansas. I think those are kind of three of the ones that I'm probably keeping the biggest eye on. I'm also, yeah, I would say those are probably my top three that I'm paying attention to. Well, we will be keeping our eye out on all of them. I'm sure we have plenty of conversations between now and then and beyond.

20:23Brittany Martinez, always a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining me. Thanks for having me.

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