Is a Democratic blue wave inevitable in the U.S.?

11:12Katie Simpson:I thought we were like, who gets the best glass of milk? You did bring it back to politics. You did. And I have a question for you, Paul. Hit me. Not cheese or milk or cow related. Or cow semen related. Let's talk a little bit because, you know, I know you have an affinity for maps. I do. Can we talk a little bit about, you know, the states that you think could possibly influence this potential? Right. But blue wave is maybe not the right word, but this shift. Did you draw me a map this week?

11:44Willy Lowry:Well, I photocopied a map and I doodled on it. Does that count? Not quite, but it's got little things on it. It kind of counts. I'm going to refer to it as I answer. But we talked about the shift recently, but it's been shifting for a while. I looked at my OG map from a much earlier episode, Willie, and I was pretty bang on. I'm just going to say that I got things pretty right a long time ago, notwithstanding, you know, things can go off the rails in any political predictions these days. But when I look at this now, we talk about the Democrats. This is the Senate side needing to a net gain of four, right, to to get to 51 and control of the Senate.

12:24Willy Lowry:And I say I look at Maine, Ohio, Iowa, North Carolina, Texas, Alaska. And, you know, these are, you know, and then you throw in Kansas. So all the ones I mentioned at the first were leaning toss ups, right? Kansas, which hasn't voted for a Democratic senator since 1932, is now in the merely leaning Republican zone per the polls. So if you like that's kind of crazy when you think about it. And if you'd said a year ago, we use this marker often on this podcast. A year ago, we wouldn't have been talking about the Senate. A year ago, we would have been laughing if you'd said Democrats are within striking distance in Kansas.

13:12Willy Lowry:So this shift that has been happening for some time is continuing. They talk about the paths to the Senate for Democrats. You need to win the four. So that means four of one, two, three, four, five, six, maybe seven. And as we were talking about earlier on the House side, it's not, you know, earlier in a much earlier podcast episode, we're talking. And, yeah, they should. Everybody expects it to go Democrat by a seat or two or three. But now they're talking double digits. It's I mean, I think back to the polls and the map, let's be honest. Democrats are, I think, worried that they're going to get overconfident because you've at to Katie's point, you've still got to go out and win this thing.

13:54Willy Lowry:You can't take your eye off the prize. But things are looking pretty good for Democrats right now. Bottom line. That's my map, Willie. Katie, Wisconsin. Let's dive in on that. Away from the butter and the word I'm not going to say. And the deep breaths, the smell of the farm. The smell of the farm. You know, I was there back in 2017. Side story. I don't know. We were editing a piece for the National one night and we were kind of half watching a speech from Donald Trump. And out of Donald Trump's mouth comes the word Canada and dairy and Wisconsin. and how Canada's beating up on the dairy farmers in Wisconsin.

14:35Willy Lowry:Let's have a listen. This is Donald Trump in 2017.

14:37Katie Simpson:Because in Canada, some very unfair things have happened to our dairy farmers and others. And we're going to start working on that with Ron and with Scott and with Paul and with all of your representatives. What's happened to you is very, very unfair. It's another typical one-sided deal against the United States. and it's not going to be happening for long.

15:01Willy Lowry:So that was kind of the OG Trump comment dumping on Canada. And next thing you know, we are on a plane to Wisconsin, where you are now, and talking to farmers like you are now. And again, this is 2017. And what farmers told us then, and then Katie, I promise I'll shut up, is that Canada's not the problem. And Donald Trump likes to point fingers at Canada when he has other problems to solve, including in the dairy industry. but Canada is not the problems, what they told us. Let's give a listen. This is a farmer that I spoke to in Wisconsin in 2017. Well, he blames everybody else for his problems most of the time.

15:38Paul Hunter:I don't think that Trump has that real interest. He may think it's a good talking point here and there, but if he really was interested in building an economy that supported families and rural communities and farmers, then he would be really helping us. Isn't that crazy?

15:56Willy Lowry:2017. Katie, what are you hearing here in 2026?

15:59Paul Hunter:So I've heard a wide range of opinions when it comes to what dairy farmers need from the federal government in the United States in order to help sort of keep family farms or keep the industry going. Um, one farmer I spoke to from Iowa told me that she thinks what would really help in the United States is that if there was a sort of supply management system like Canada has, um, because she says right now there's a milk glut and she has a really hard time, uh, trying to get rid of product. And it's, it's, it's really, really challenging. But what really sort of stood out to me, it wasn't just necessarily conversations about, you know, okay, these are the things that we need in the farming industry.

16:43It was a bigger, broader sense of overall, the cost of living is so

16:49Paul Hunter:out of control. And if you are a farmer that relies on diesel, it's so much harder. I spoke with one woman, her name is Paula Lawler. She is a single mom. She comes from a farming community and she was at the World Dairy Expo with her son and they were learning about the competition, that kind of thing. And she describes herself as a conservative. She doesn't say she's a Republican, but she describes herself as a conservative. And I asked her about the job Donald Trump has done when it comes to living up to his promises, what he promised in the election campaign, and sort of does she connect the trade war and tariffs directly to a higher cost of living?

17:34Paul Hunter:Do you think Donald Trump's lived up to the promises he made the American people winning got elected? The short answer is no. I don't believe that there was promises that not all the promises were kept for sure. I mean, we're definitely looking at higher prices right now. And so that promise is out the window. There is no lowering of grocery prices, no lowering of gas prices. I mean, obviously it's all going higher. So, and it's makes me struggle as a single mom. So I would say it's at least 50 % harder. I hate to say that, but it is, you know, being raised, being a conservative, you know, and I won't say Republican, but someone who's, you know, wants to conserve values and whatnot, you know, you were promised all these things.

18:24Paul Hunter:And I feel like it's not happened. So. So she still, she says she hasn't decided how she's going to vote in the midterm elections. She says she's still doing research at this point, but she does, she will be taking the trade war into consideration, and she doesn't want to support any candidates that are for tariffs and trade war because she directly sees how this agenda has made her life more expensive.

18:56Katie Simpson:Hey there, candidates, me, Gavin Crawford, host of the Because News podcast, a weekly show where I quiz my good-humored friends on the latest headlines. Joining me this week, comedian Miguel Rivas, YouTuber Carly Thorne, and the improv goat, Colin Mockery. I'll be asking, what time will the AI uprising be exactly? And if Trump wants Canada so bad, why don't the American hockey players? Also, what took so long to get Yacht Rock in the Merriam-Webster dictionary? If you want unlicensed therapy for the news, subscribe to the Because News podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you download fine podcasts for free.

19:29So how is this affecting how Republicans and Trump

19:34Willy Lowry:for Republicans are campaigning? Katie?

19:37Paul Hunter:Well, I thought one thing was super interesting about that something that Donald Trump said this week in the Oval Office. And he's sort of talking about Canada and cutting a trade deal with Canada in the same way he's sort of talking about ending the war with Iran. And he seems to be putting it on a timeline that, you know, once the midterms are done, these things are going to go away and these problems are going to be solved. Listen to how he's framing, you know, trying to reach some sort of agreement with Canada.

20:05Katie Simpson:I don't know what Canada is. So, Mr. President, how does this end? How does this end, Mr. President? I think what's going to happen is over the next three or four weeks, they're going to come to us and they're going to say, we're going to get rid of all the tariffs. We're going to win everything. We even have Lake Ontario is now Lake America. And that's been done, by the way. It actually just got done. He told me it was just completed. But they're going to come in and they're going to say, sir, we are sorry. They've treated the United States very, very badly. I think a deal will be made, but it's got to be a fair deal.

20:48Paul Hunter:Can either of you guys imagine the political space for Prime Minister Mark Carney to go into some sort of function with Donald Trump and say, sir, I'm sorry. I don't think that political space exists for the prime minister. I don't think that would go over well with Canadians, but, you know, hey, what do I know? But I just thought it was interesting that he's sort of framing it as a deal. Like Donald Trump routinely puts out timelines that don't stick to anything. It throws it out there. But he's been consistently sort of, you know, trying to, as part of his election messaging, talking about the war, the war with Iran is going to come to an end after the midterms, trying to accuse Iran of trying to hurt the president politically and saying the prices are going to come down right after that.

21:35Paul Hunter:And to hear a possible deal with Canada sort of on the same timeline, I thought that that was an interesting thing to hear there.

21:42Katie Simpson:For me, the image that that response elicited, conjured up in my mind was not Canadian officials coming in to say, sir, I'm sorry, but more Jameson Greer coming into the Oval Office and saying, sir, I'm sorry, we tried our hardest. These tariffs aren't working.

22:02Paul Hunter:They would argue different. They would argue it is working.

22:04Katie Simpson:And Jameson Greer is a very smart, very strategic thinker and believes deeply in tariffs. Probably wouldn't happen. But that is the image, nonetheless, that I imagined when Trump said those words. But I think Katie's right. I think, you know, at this point, he is trying to push everything, you know, a little bit farther down the road, trying to show Americans that this is all part of the plan. And everything is kind of as it should be and will eventually settle down. It's just not going to happen before the midterm. So you should vote for us anyways.

22:42Willy Lowry:Willie, if you don't mind, I'm going to throw a curveball at you here.

22:47Katie Simpson:Am I allowed to say that I do?

22:51Willy Lowry:Yeah, but it won't stop me. Bring it on. Come on. Let's go. So with all these numbers and polls pointing toward Democrats, I think a lot of people worry, wonder, is Trump going to push extra hard in other ways to try to salvage a win out of all this after the redistricting, after various other things that have happened? And so a lot of talk centers around whether Trump will claim voter fraud and whether he will take steps to, you know, change the way people vote to the benefit of Republicans. What do you know about that?

23:21Katie Simpson:Yeah, well, I mean, I think he set the scene for that over the summer when he had that prime time address, which basically raised all of these concerns that the administration had over election integrity. Much of them kind of were eventually refuted over the course of the preceding days. But he, I think, is already kind of trying to plant the seeds of doubt, for sure. The Supreme Court has actually recently just is going to allow something that the administration called for, which is to allow states to use a new system of data, essentially, that combines citizenship information with social security number and other sensitive data points to try and essentially hunt out illegal voters, something that the administration advocated for, but the Supreme Court also ruling against the administration, which was trying to use the Postal Service to screen ballots after they were submitted by the state election officials.

24:34Katie Simpson:Essentially, the Supreme Court saying introducing kind of new rules around mail-in ballots at this point would have wreaked havoc, so chaos, so denying the administration's request. But all of this so close to the midterms, certainly trying to kind of, again, sow doubt.

24:54Willy Lowry:Exactly. Or complicate things. I mean, all of that sounds just so complex and this or that or this or that. And maybe that ultimately is the kind of point, you know, is the goal.

25:05Paul Hunter:Donald Trump has a clear cut history of trying to undermine integrity in elections so that if there is a result he doesn't like, that perhaps no one believes the result. Look what happened after January 6th, and he's set himself up to continue that sort of pattern heading into the midterm elections as the polls do not look to be in his favor. You know, with all of these complicated things that the federal government is trying to do to try and insert itself into these elections, which of course, a reminder to Canadians, they are actually run by individual states. The states are in charge of these elections, not the federal government.

25:38Paul Hunter:And, you know, what's the point? Why would, you know, the federal government or why would the Trump administration want these states to have this information, it's to possibly knock people off voter registration so that they can't vote or they have to sign up or maybe they miss their deadline. In one county in Texas, there is an example where people were erroneously knocked off a voter list. Those are the kinds of things. And is this the Trump administration trying to make it harder for people to vote who might not want to vote for the Trump administration? Is it easier for the Republicans to win should fewer people show up or they're disenfranchised to vote?

26:16Paul Hunter:It's all of those kinds of questions. Those are the accusations that critics have leveled. Is the Trump administration going to do something by sending, you know, ICE agents or military officials to polling stations, which they cannot do. They cannot do that. And so those are the kinds of questions that Americans have as Donald Trump has a clear, clear and well-documented history of trying to sow doubt of elections into elections and casting doubt on the results. Again, January 6th. So many things I point back to January 6th.

26:50Willy Lowry:But it creates a chilling effect, right? That's exactly it. Exactly. Yes. I want to ask one more question and to wrap this up. And that is, you know, we haven't talked about Democrats much. We've talked a lot about Trump. And so, So, I mean, I'd like to frame the question this way. I mean, is Trump losing or are Democrats winning? Or can both be true, right? Like, what are Democrats doing to win this thing?

27:16Paul Hunter:This is a moment for the Democrats to try and determine which route they're going to go in 2028. And so they've got a slate of really progressive candidates. They've got a slate of more moderate candidates. And depending on the outcome and who can get elected, I think it's really going to sort of be the litmus test for which route they go for candidates to be the presidential candidate in 2028. This is not specific to the Democrats, but it kind of really applies to the Democrats, given sort of the track record of the party over the past decade or so. Don't underestimate the ability of a party with a lead to screw up a lead like that.

27:51Paul Hunter:That's that is that is we still got weeks to go. We have so much time. So don't like the polls may suggest that, yes, the Democrats are going to do very well and there's going to be a change of control in Washington for Congress, at least at the House, if not the Senate as well. But there is so much time and we don't know whether the Trump administration is going to have any sort of ability to sort of, you know, disenfranchise voters and or whatever it's going to if there is something along those lines. So I just I don't know yet. I don't know yet.

28:25Katie Simpson:Willie, where are you at? No, I mean, I think Katie kind of hit the nail on the head there. But I also, I think in a weird way, I think at this point, the Democrats kind of best strategy is a little bit get out the way and let this all unfold, you know, let the price of gas keep kind of rising. Um, but I also, it's not necessarily, and this is going to sound strange and almost kind of paradoxical, but I don't view it as a vote against Trump because I think he still holds a really captivating sway over the Republican party. And yet it is a vote against his agenda and his policy decisions. I think in particular, again, the US-Iran war, not only was it a betrayal of a campaign pledge to avoid wars, but more importantly, it is having that direct impact on Americans' wallets.

29:32Katie Simpson:And I think that's what this is about.

29:34Willy Lowry:I agree with you, Willie. And I would say that all of this, I mean, so many midterms come down to voter turnout, typically significantly less than in presidential election years. and all of the above, all these things that we've been talking about on all the Trump policies, as you point out, Willie, are motivating Democrats to get out and unmotivating, if that's a word, many Republicans who might still sort of want to, you know, can't envision themselves marking an X next to a Democrat name, but can very easily stay home, which by proxy is a vote for Democrats and a vote against the current slate of Trump policies from Iran to the tariffs to ICE and everything in between.

30:23Willy Lowry:Well, as Katie notes, it's a long way away, but in many ways it's tomorrow, the midterms in the political scheme of things. So lots will happen. Who knows? October surprise, as Katie was hinting at earlier. I'm guessing we'll talk about this again before too long. I have a feeling. Let's leave it at that for this episode. Indeed, we'll talk about this more in the coming weeks. If you have questions about how midterms work or specific races, we haven't had a question on the program in a long time. So keep the questions coming. We do see them, and sometimes we try to work the content of the questions into our conversations.

31:02Willy Lowry:But keep the questions coming. We love to hear from you.

31:04Paul Hunter:You can send an email to WashingtonPod, all one word, at cbc.ca. That's WashingtonPod at cbc.ca. You can also leave us a comment on Spotify.

31:14Katie Simpson:And if you like what you're hearing, spread the word, tell a friend about this podcast and follow Two Blocks from the White House on your favorite podcasting app. Paul is going to tell us his favorite at a date yet to be determined.

31:28Willy Lowry:All right, everyone. Great chatting. We'll see you both here next week, I hope, where I sit right now, Two Blocks from the White House. We'll talk again. Can't wait.

31:39Paul Hunter:Can't wait.

31:52Katie Simpson:For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.