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reporter and co-host of the weekend here on MSNOW, Eugene Daniels, Punchbowl News co-founder and MSNOW political contributor Jake Sherman, and Cook Political Report senior editor and elections analyst Dave Wasserman. So, Dave, I mentioned KY6. When are you going to have a good idea of where this thing is going? Well, I think we'll get our first real big indicators when the polls close at seven in Florida and Virginia, we have a lot of competitive races to look at there. The 13th and 14th districts in the Tampa area, the 25th and 22nd districts in South Florida, and then Virginia 1 and 2 in DEMOCRATS ARE SWEEPING THESE SEATS, THEY'RE ON THEIR WAY TO BIG GAINS, PERHAPS MORE THAN 20 SEATS.
WE ALREADY HAVE SOME OF OUR FIRST MEANINGFUL TURNOUT DATA NOW THAT IT'S 3 O'CLOCK EASTERN. AND IT'S CLEAR THAT DEMOCRATS HAVE A modest, at least a modest enthusiasm advantage. In Florida right now, Democrats are tracking at 72 percent of their registered voters 2024 total turnout. Republicans are only at 64 and independents are a bit lower at 57. That gap is going to narrow a little bit, but it's in line with the data we're seeing in Texas, which shows that in Travis County, Austin, that's already up to 88 percent of its total 2024 turnout. And then in the most Republican big county in Texas, Montgomery outside Houston, that's only tracking at 73 % of its total 2024 turnout.
What we don't know right now is how these independents are breaking. And that's what, if they break hard towards Democrats, that's what could make this a tsunami. Jake, what are you watching? I'm waiting for Dave to say he's seen enough and then we can all stop. we can all go to bed no i mean listen i agree with dave and let's just put a little bit more meat on the bones here um jared moscowicz um in south florida in a district that runs i believe from Boca, the Boca area to Miami is a big one. This Kentucky six is something that we've been tracking for a very long time because the Trump people put money into it early on.
This is Andy Barr's former seed. Andy Barr's is running for governor. A seat that's, by the way, been competitive in the past. Trump did win it by 15, but I believe, and Dave correct me if I'm wrong, Andy Beshear won it. And Andy Barr in the past, in other big years, has had tough races there against Democratic opponents. So swingy no, but weird and telling maybe yes. I mean, Victoria Sparks is another one that will tell us. And keep in mind that all of these races, Katie, are run on their own. But yes, many of them do follow a trend. And if one is competitive, then maybe they're all competitive.
Victoria Sparks in the northern suburbs of Indianapolis is running against J.D. Ford, as you see on the screen there, a Democrat. This is a seat that should be easy for a Republican to hold. Sparks has been a pain in the neck to Republican leaders for a long time. And she is running a race. She spent a lot of money on TV, and that's another race. We're watching again Virginia, two races that are very important.
We have Elaine Luria versus Jen Kiggins in the Norfolk area, and we have Rob Whitman, who is a very senior lawmaker on the House Armed Services Committee. That's another big race. That would indicate that things I WANT TO TELL ME WHETHER I'M WRONG ON ANY OF THOSE. DAVE, WAS HE WRONG ON ANY OF THOSE? NO, YOU'RE RIGHT. I WOULD ALSO, YOU KNOW, VIRGINIA DEMOCRATS ARE FEELING BETTER ABOUT IN THE 11th HOUR OF THE CAMPAIGN. IF TOM PERRIELLO BEATS JOHN MAGUIRE, THAT WOULD BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE HUGE FOR I KNOW THESE ARE ALL INDIVIDUAL RACES AND THEY'RE RUNNING INDIVIDUALLY. THEY HAVE THEIR OWN RECORD.
A LOT OF THESE ARE INCUMBENTS AND YOU WOULD IMAGINE THEY HAVE SOME RELATIONSHIP WITH THEIR CONSTITUENCIES, BUT IF WE are going to take lessons away from these individual races. Do you think that there are just some issues that are nationally going to be effective regardless of who's on the ballot? Yes. We just, I mean the president is at 30 % approval rating, his approval on the economy is in the 20s. It's very difficult and Katie, God, I'm a broken record with you.
I've said this, a thousand times over the last year. Midterms do not go well for the president when his party controls all three branches of government. You need something massive like 1998 Clinton's impeachment, in 2002, after 9-11, to change the tide. What is that this time around? You know, sometimes the most simple and obvious answer is the right answer.
It is very difficult for a Republican party that has, is running on one legislative achievement, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which includes no tax on tips, a very popular policy. That's their message. Their message is the other side is crazy, and I don't know that works when the president who has made this race about himself is at 30 percent and lower on the economy. It doesn't seem like it makes a ton of sense to me. He thinks he's the thing, you know? I mean, you spoke about the impeachment of Bill Clinton, how that backfired and Democrats kept the house.
The war in Iraq and IN AFGHANISTAN, 9-11, THAT KEPT REPUBLICANS IN THE HOUSE DURING GEORGE W. BUSH. DONALD TRUMP BELIEVES THAT HE IS THE X FACTOR THAT WILL HELP HIM DEFY ODDS. DONALD TRUMP FOREVER HAS I THINK HE HAS HAD THIS KIND OF VENEER OF INVINCIBILITY, LIKE UNTOUCHABILITY. HE, YOU KNOW, TEFLON DON FROM 2016 AND FOR A LARGE PART HE'S RIGHT HIS POLITICAL COMEBACK HAS BEEN REALLY SURPRISING Yeah. But I think that also has led him to believe that there's no kind of impact on his behavior, his behavior to voters. So like we were talking about yesterday, these parties that he's had Halloween party where he says all the rich people are at my party while people can't afford gas
and groceries. There's an impact when he spends an hour yesterday during your show talking about, you know, the way he wants to beautify Washington, D.C., as his closing message to voters, which is what it was billed as, because voters are going to look at that and say, well, that's not what I asked for. Do we have that queued up that the mash of Donald Trump yesterday with his closing message control room? We're going to get it queued up and we're going to play it in just a moment. I think one of the things, and we talk about Donald Trump's exceptionalism.
Yes, he's defied odds, he's defied polls, he's defied expectations. He won at times when nobody thought he would win 2016 and 2020. But he also was lost. He lost the 2018 midterms, Dave. He lost the 2020 race. One of the things we forget about Donald Trump is how exhausting he can be when he's in office. He is everywhere. He's on every TV screaming. He's inserting himself into every issue, every conversation. He's inserting himself into entertainment, into tragedy. This time around he's started wars.
He's got a tariff war. He's got a hot war in THAT WE HAVE BEEN IN IRAN. IN ALL OF THIS, DAVE, HE BECOMES SO UBIQUITOUS TO AN AUDIENCE THAT THE TRUMP FATIGUE STARTS TO IT'S A COMPETITIVE MIDTERM, BUT IT'S AS COMPETITIVE AS IT IS IN THE SENATE WHICH WAS A HUGE LIFT FOR POOR DEMOCRATS OR DEMOCRATS? WELL, LET'S BE HONEST. DONALD TRUMP HAS FIGURED OUT HOW TO DEFY THE ODDS IN HIS OWN ELECTIONS BUT HIS DOWN ballot instincts are quite poor. And his he has a poor track record of picking good Republican candidates for Senate and Ken Paxton might be exhibit A, particularly if James Tallarico pulls this off. But Republicans did not prepare Roger Marshall for battle in Kansas, and those two races are sticking out
like sore thumbs for them right now. And the more he inserts himself in these bubble contests, whether it's Ohio or Iowa. Keep in mind that Democrats have a nine-point lead on the generic congressional ballot right now, but Trump's net disapproval is negative 24. So the more he makes it about himself, it takes Democrats' advantage from nine closer to 24. And if independents break for Democrats by, you know, let's say 24 points or even 30 points, then we're starting to talk about people like Governor Gina Hinojosa or Governor David Jolly.
Yeah, I wonder if the cruelty has finally gotten to be too much. I wonder if the Vivek Ramaswami ad in particular where he continued to run this ad with the mother of Amy DEMOCRATS THAT WE ACT IN AND WE ALL KNOW ABOUT THE ALLEGATIONS AND THE INDICTMENT OF HER STEPFATHER FOR RAPE, HOW SHE WAS TAKEN FROM THAT HOME. DOUBLING DOWN ON IT. RAMASWAMI CONTINUING TO AIR DEMOCRATS. HE SAYS THE ONLY THING THAT MAKES HIM ANGRY ARE THE REPUBLICANS WHO ARE COMPLAINING ABOUT IT. DONALD TRUMP SAYING OF COURSE HE WOULD RUN THAT IT'S IMPORTANT TO HEAR THE MOM BECAUSE HER DAUGHTER WHO GOT RAPED AS A LIAR, ALLEGEDLY RAPED AS A LIAR.
IS THE CRUELTY TOO MUCH, DAVE? IS THAT SHOWING UP IN ANY I THINK WHAT'S SHOWING UP IS THAT SOMETIMES THE SUBTLE BREAK BY SENIOR REPUBLICANS LIKE MIKE DEWINE OR JOHN CORNYN CAN BE MORE EFFECTIVE THAN THE hard break by, you know, Haley Stevens flipping over to Mike Rogers. Because these over-the-top ads, they have induced some more mainstream traditional Republicans who are kind of the quarterbacks of the non-MAGA wings of their state parties to subtly create a permission structure for soft Republican voters and Republican-leaning independence to not vote for these MAGA candidates. And I think that's what you're seeing happen in key states, whether it is Ohio or Texas or Kansas.
