10/27/26: Saudis Beg For Deal With Houthis, Israel Shocked By Bibi Iran Plot, GOP Floods Millions Into Deep Red Districts

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Over breakingpoints.com you can sign up for the newsletter at the top for free today good morning everybody happy tuesday we have an amazing show for everybody today what do we have crystal.

Indeed we do.

Lots unfolding here and around the world. First off, Trita Parsi is going to join us to talk about a flurry of activity in Iran and what this very fraught moment where you're between the Israeli elections and the U.S. elections might mean and what we might see transpire. We also are going to talk to him about those Israeli elections which are unfolding today amidst a chaotic situation in Israel.

Logan Phillips is going to join us to talk about some numbers he's breaking down on the midterms. Which House districts are in play? Where is the money going? We're following the money this morning with Logan about which seats are in play and how big the midterm landslide may be for Democrats. We're also taking a look at the World of AI. Anthropic just filed their S-1. That's the paperwork they need to in order to go public. And they have quite a list of interesting risks that they're tracking as part of these business filings. And finally, we're looking at what might happen after the midterms next week as Trump makes increasing indications that he is not just going to accept the results as they come in if

they are bad for him. So Ken Klippenstein has a report on the, quote, doomsday scenarios that the feds are planning for.

That's right. Thank you to everybody who's been supporting our show and bearing with the sickness, which is rolling through the ball in Jetty, Grimm and Jashinsky households over this week. So seriously, thank you to everybody bearing with with this if you hear any sniffles or anything like that as we continue to broadcast but also i have good news to report we are about eighty percent of the way there whenever it comes to our fish concert contest as a reminder of the thousand people that sign up before election day it means that to one of those people will be able to get to go to fish concert mad square garden with ryan brim and one of our existing premium subscribers will also be able to get to

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Dr.

Parsi, it's good to see you. Thanks for joining us.

Good to be with you guys again.

Let's go ahead and start. There's been a flurry of diplomatic activity. Let's put A1 up here on the screen. There's a lot really to say and to think about here. But Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan made this rare joint visit to Tehran yesterday amid reports that the U.S. and Israel were drawing up plans to renew their attacks on Iran.

So there's a lot of conflicting information there. that came out, we do know that the diplomats summited and that there was at least some discussion of some sort of narrow ceasefire deal. There's been some breaking news this morning of the Ayatollah coming out and saying, we need to have a discussion about terms of ending the war. Obviously, though, that could mean a lot of different things. What's your general reaction to the summit and what it means?

Look, the summit is a huge PR win for the Iranians. And it's, you know, I mean, they go on to great extent, making that point. But it is, the optics of it is quite interesting to see these three countries sending very, very senior officials to Tehran and essentially coming there asking for Tehran's help. And the key thing that was driving this summit is what is happening between Ansarullah, the Houthis, and Saudi Arabia, in which the Saudis are in an absolutely terrible situation. Of course, the Pakistanis and Turks, when they signed the MECA agreement, had not envisioned that it would lead to this type of a scenario so quickly in which their credibility would be put online. But bottom line, when you take a look at what came

out of the summit, it's just like one sentence statement that says that they're going to continue to talk. And I think it reflects that at the end of the day, there wasn't a huge amount of progress made. And perhaps that's unrealistic to expect because this is a complex issue at the end of the day. But perhaps most importantly, The Saudis essentially started a war that they cannot win on the battlefield, and at the same time, they're not willing to give the concessions that are necessary in order to end it at the diplomatic table, which from the Iranian perspective, essentially, they're saying that this makes the Saudis very similar to Trump. He also started a war unnecessarily that he cannot end at the battlefield, and he's not

willing to give the concessions at the negotiating table to end it. And in the case of the Houthis, they are demanding an end there. to the air blockade as a condition to stop the shooting at Saudi Arabia. And the reason why the Iranians, the reason why perhaps there wasn't that much progress, at least to be reported on, is because the Iranians are not going to put pressure on the Houthis to drop that demand, because it is a mirror image of Iran's own demand. As you recall, the Iranians refused to end the war just because Trump wanted a ceasefire. They needed a lifting of the blockade, as a way of them agreeing to a ceasefire. And now the Houthis are essentially making exactly the same ask.

An end to the blockade is the condition for them to end their war. So the Iranians are not putting that pressure on them, despite the fact that there are reports, of course, that the Saudis offered a billion dollars to the Houthis, which obviously would not be a small amount in any way, shape or form. But again, it's very similar to the situation between the U.S. and Iran. There's a misunderstanding of what the actual strategic situation is. The Houthis are in a very strong position, and as a result, they're not going to be bought off with $ 1 billion.

They want strategic concessions from the Saudis, which is the lifting of the air blockade. Similarly with the Iranians, they do not feel that time is on America's side, as Scott Besant is saying. They feel that they are in a strong position, and as a result, they're asking for strategic concessions in order to agree to end their war with the United States.

Trump reiterated something that he seems to outline that he seems to be saying we should either finish it or make a deal.

And he's trying to make up his mind. Let's take a listen to A2.

Do you notice this isn't a Jimmy Carter attack or an Obama attack? This is a real attack.

We don't play games.

Yes, sir. And so what happens is I have a decision to make.

Do I finish it off, which would be very easy to do, or do I make a deal? That's a decision. So more big threats there. You know, Trita, what do you make of this period that we're in right now? We're in a very strange moment where you've got the Israeli elections today. We're going to talk to you about that in a minute.

We've got the U.S.

Midterm elections next week. What do you think the Iranian calculation is about when their leverage is maximized given these major political events that are unfolding?

Very interesting. I mean, this is a very tense period, of course, and the speculation had been that the Israelis might start a war before their elections. And clearly, we've seen now the reporting that Netanyahu was pushing for an attack and got some pushback from the head of the chief of staff of the IDF, which I think the story is a little bit more complex than that, because what has also not been reported, and I wrote on my sub stack last night, is that the Iranians actually say that there were Israeli airplanes that breached Iranian airspace over the weekend. which one would have thought would have led to an Iranian retaliation or perhaps the Iranians just starting the war preemptively. But instead, the Iranians chose not

to respond at all. And my understanding is that this is because they had come to the conclusion that the Israelis were trying to goad them into a trap, that Trump truly had not made up his mind yet, that Netanyahu needed this war at this moment and the Iranians were not going to walk into that trap and give Netanyahu what he wanted. both a benefit to him in his elections, and then, of course, making the decision for Trump much easier by essentially making the decision for him.

If the Iranians had struck at Israel, the war would have started, and then it didn't matter if Trump was still weighing his options and potentially just 5%, 10% that he wouldn't have started the war, which is still a bit surprising given the fact that so far the Iranians have tried to assert a an image in which the red lines are completely uncompromising. This is not the strategic patience of a couple of years ago in which they took a lot of hits from the Israelis without responding.

But in this specific case, it seems to have been one in which they weighed exactly the sensitivity of the moment, as you pointed out, Crystal, and realized that this was more likely to be a trap than a genuine effort. And mindful of the fact that we have not seen the Israelis do much more since then, it does appear that it probably was a trap.

So that's what I'm trying to work my head around. Let's put A5, if we can, up on the screen because we have this Israeli provocation. I don't even know if it's fair to say it's an Israeli provocation because Pete Hegseth was apparently in the Joint Operations Command whenever this was happening with Prime Minister Netanyahu kind of waiting for this to happen in Israel. Meanwhile, you know, you have all of these reporting. This is from CNN. There's multiple others saying U.S. has plans for major Iran strikes if Trump chooses ready to strike the country again. In 96 hours after giving the order. So what exactly does Iran see? Because multiple times, I mean, you've reported this multiple times as well. You're like, look, they believe we

are in the same situation as February. They're stringing us along. Trump, even last night at a rally, just said, you know, ceasefires.

Useless.

Obviously, we played his earlier comments that were made yesterday. There's no point. We're just going to go ahead and attack. Why do they not want to seize the strategic initiative? Is it for the global outlook to be seen not as the aggressor? It is a military initiative. situation. It's hard for me to kind of understand their strategic thinking.

Well, there's a huge amount of risks involved if the Iranians were to take preemptive strikes, recognizing that the U.S. is about to attack them. I mean, the reporting at this point is just so extensive that they clearly would be able to make a case that this was a case of anticipatory self-defense in international law. But I think it's important to remember at the same time that the third round of this war, as it is envisioned by both sides, given what the Israelis are saying, that they will go after all of Iran's infrastructure, given the fact that Trump is talking about finishing them off, it suggests that there would be massive destruction on all sides. And at the end of the day, even though the Iranians

believe that they have a strategic edge in that type of a scenario, It does not mean that it is not an absolutely terrible scenario for Iran as well. So it's a decision that you go down the path of only when you are fully, fully convinced that there is no other way, that there is no way avoiding it, because it is not a positive scenario at the end of the day for either side. And I think the test of it was really this weekend in which the Israelis had been already making a lot of exercises in Syria and in Iraqi airspace. They had gotten closer and closer to Iranian airspace and eventually did breach it. And the Iranians chose not to respond, not because I don't think they can, but because at the end of the day,

they were concluding that the Israelis were trying to force them to respond to make it easier for Netanyahu, because clearly he couldn't make the decision entirely on its own. And I think it's important to note when it comes to this story about the chief of staff of the IDF, Zamir, pushing back. I don't think it is about whether he agrees that there should be a war with Iran or not, or if he has a completely different view as to whether Iran is a threat to Israel or not. I think they're on completely the same page. It's just a question of the timing and whether he would have his fingerprint on a decision two days or three days before the Israeli elections, which would very likely tip the elections

in some direction. And that's the responsibility he doesn't want to have. But if it is true that the Israelis were breaching Iranian airspace, they wouldn't have done that without IDF's approval, which means that he's okay with it as long as he doesn't have his fingerprints on it.

Let's put A7 up on the screen.

We keep getting all these indications that something may be imminent in the Middle East.

This is the latest one from the Wall Street Journal.

U.S. evacuates Mideast outposts after suspected Iranian plot to target Americans. We previously had news that diplomats And even some troops were being removed from the region. We've also had a lot more military assets rushed to the region. Is this week a particularly dangerous moment after the Israeli elections, but before the U.S. elections, where there could be an Iranian calculation of, all right, we think that a strike before the Israeli elections would help Netanyahu.

We don't want to do that.

But a restarting of the war before the U.S. elections would hurt Trump. We do want that outcome and a sense that, okay, there's some restarting of the war is probably inevitable anyways. Is this a particularly fraught moment that we're in? It is.

It is a very fraught moment. But I would, and I've written about this earlier on, that this is one of the different options the Iranians were looking at. And they were looking at doing it just a couple of days before the midterms in order to give a shock to the markets and give Trump as little time as possible to be able to clean it up. But I am not as convinced any longer that this is necessarily the direction they will go. They might. But the Iranians do not give the slightest impression that they are in a desperate situation. On the contrary, they come across as being very confident and very comfortable with the current situation.

I'm not saying that they're doing great in any way, shape or form. Their economy clearly is suffering. But they do not seem to be particularly pressed. And under those circumstances, perhaps they will choose not to go down this path. Again, I think it very much depends on whether they see a very strong, almost inevitable likelihood of an attack by the United States after the war. And I think one of the things that makes such a decision very difficult, in addition to the other factors that I mentioned, is that we're dealing with Trump. Trump has numerous times, I think the count is now at seven, made very, very clear, very convincing threats only to back off at the last moment.

And if he were to back off at the last moment, that clearly would be a preferential situation for the Iranians rather than going down this path of an absolutely disastrous war that would leave the entire region in a terrible shape, including Iran itself.

Let's switch now to Israel, obviously, and their ongoing elections. We'll start again with that piece that you wrote. Let's put it up here on the screen. Obviously, we'll add it in post-production. You say Israel breached Iranian airspace this weekend. But Iran chose not to respond. How can you contextualize this, Dr. Parsi, in the context of these Israeli elections? So obviously it was a ploy by Netanyahu to tip the balance, but it does beg the question, what will some future Israeli government do? Will Donald Trump make a deal with Eisenkant's government if he does form some sort of a coalition.

How do you see, like you were saying earlier, the actual mind of the IDF behind what they decided to go along with Netanyahu in this case?

Well, I think the first thing to keep in mind is it's a very unlikely scenario that we will have a quick resolution to the Israeli elections. We've seen in the past that these formations of governments can take weeks, if not months, they can fail. I think Israel ended up having like three or so elections within a year as a result of a failure to form government. So during that period, Netanyahu will continue to be prime minister, and he may continue to push and eventually may succeed in getting an attack because he calculates that it will be helping him in his formation and his ability to form a government. Now, in this scenario, which again, I don't know what the likelihood of it is. It's difficult

to predict what the Israeli outcome will be in this election. But let's say that we have a scenario in which Eisencott wins and he wins rather clearly. And as a result, there's a quick formation of government and this period ends up becoming very short. Even though I don't believe that the new Israeli government will have a particularly different outlook on matters. I don't think, you know, we talked about last time how the Israeli security doctrine has shifted. I don't think you're going to see significant changes on that.

You may see some changes in the West Bank, but at the end of the day, the broader direction of Israel towards the region, towards Iran, towards the Palestinians. I don't think it's going to change that dramatically. But one factor that could have an impact on all of this, not as an insurmountable obstacle, but as a complicating factor for Trump, is the relationship that he has with Netanyahu.

Even though it's very fraught, they don't trust each other. Nevertheless, they have dealt with each other for more than 12 years. I don't think he has any relationship with Isakot. And as a result, if they're going to go to war together, I think that's going to complicate matters. It may add more time to the clock because there's going to be a lot of issues to sort out. And Isakot may also have a calculation. It has nothing to do with whether he believes Iran is a threat or not, but with the fact that if Trump fears very badly in the midterm elections, and he's now dealing with a Democratic Congress, Democratic House, and a Senate, and a likely Democratic president in 2028, Eisenkamp may not want to go down the

path of having his name on a ward that will be utterly unpopular amongst the American public, as it already is, but also with the next administration of the United States. So I think there's a slight possibility that that outcome may actually cause the type of tight-knit coalition between Israel and the United States to become a little bit more complicated.

And the driving force of this, which so far has been Netanyahu, will be taken out of the equation.

Let's put B1 up on the screen. This is a concept that's been floated. I don't know how realistic this is, but Netanyahu, with Trump's backing, could lose the election and still lead a divided Israel. The concept here is that him and Eisenhower would form a unity government. This is something that Eisenhower has ruled out. up to this point, but I guess you never know how this could come to fruition. I was also thinking, Trita, about how Netanyahu got the endorsement of Trump, but apparently he wanted Trump to do more than he ultimately did and to be more vocal. He put out multiple true social posts, but I guess Netanyahu was hoping for more from Trump. Trump was constantly bragging about how popular he is personally in Israel,

saying he's got 99% support in the state of Israel, which I don't know if that is the bragging point that he thinks it is. But in any case, do you think that something like this is a possibility? And what does it display about Trump's sentiment towards Netanyahu?

First of all, Netanyahu is probably also one of the very few people in this world right now that are actually seeking Trump's endorsement. I don't think he has that value anywhere else. Look, Israeli coalition building procedures and politics is very, very complicated and it may very well end up in a scenario in which an Isaac Netanyahu government could end up leading the country. The question at that point will be, will Isaac agree to it or is it better for him to actually move towards new elections?

And the factors that go into that decision are too vast, and I have not enough knowledge to be able to make an assessment of that. But there's a part of me that finds it's very unlikely that he would really want to govern together with Netanyahu at this point, because I think there's a desire to really see Netanyahu's political career come to an end. And as a result, if he's seen as the one who's actually prolonging it, it would probably be quite negative for him in his own constituency.

So again, I think the bottom line is that when it comes to the coalition building in Israel, it's going to be very, very complicated. And a lot of it's going to be depending upon how well or badly Netanyahu does. Because if Eisenkot can form a coalition with a bunch of other parties and exclude Netanyahu from it, that clearly is going to be his first option.

So sticking with here with the Israeli elections, we recently had this interesting interview with Eisenkot on Israeli TV. Let's put B2 up here and I'll read a little bit of what he said. He was asked specifically about the supposed Iran nuclear threat. And he says that Netanyahu, quote, is a delusional person. He knows they didn't have any reason to lie. He's talking specifically about Netanyahu's most recent claim that Iran is once again somehow days away from a nuclear weapon. This does fit a little bit with what you're saying. You know, Eisenhower is a different character.

His English is not very good. You know, Netanyahu, obviously, he's like bored in the United States. Right. Or raised in the United States. I mean, he's extremely articulate in English and has a deep relationship with Trump. He seems to be somebody different. I'm not saying that he's better necessarily for U.S. interests, but it does highlight the problem that you are saying for some future Israeli leadership. But nonetheless, you don't see a fundamental change in Israeli security doctrine, that some attack on Iran in some form will likely take shape no matter who is prime minister. Is that right?

I believe that the trajectory of Israel will not change in a meaningful way with just one election. It will take much more than that. And at the end of the day, I find it absolutely fascinating what Eisenkot said here, in which he even pushed back on what Netanyahu was saying about Iranians getting nuclear weapons. Because at the end of the day, that has been one thing that the entire Israeli political establishment has not challenged. They've all played that Iran card at various points in their political life.

And if there's one thing that has been like a consensus issue on, it's been Iran inside of the Israeli electorate and political establishment. So to see that challenge against Netanyahu by a leading Israeli politician could be indicate a very important change that may come. But that doesn't mean that the Israelis are going to believe that Iran is not a threat or that Iran is not a challenge to them. We're still far, far away from that. But the use of this never-ending excuse of saying the Iranians are two weeks away from a nuclear weapon as a as an excuse, as a pretext to be able to push for more war, may actually start to become discounted in Israel, given what we just heard here, and particularly

if the result of the elections means that Netanyahu's massive exaggerations about this just in the last couple of days ended up not working with the Israeli electorate.

And what's your sense of what.

We can make an assumption that the desires, the orientation of the Israeli leaders may not be particularly different, or whatever difference they are, it's not meaningful. But what is meaningful is exactly what you pointed out, Sagar, which is Netanyahu's ability to influence the American political system, his knowledge of it, manipulated if you so wish, is really heads and shoulders above any other Israeli political figure, and certainly above capacity of the eisenkot so that in at the end of the day is going to be an important factor regardless of the trajectory of the israelis.

And last question for you treated related to that you know um the democratic base has really turned on israel just completely across the board but what a lot of liberal zionist elected officials hang on to is they're now happy to criticize the netanyahu government but they want to put all of the problems with Israel and violations of human rights and committing genocide, they want to put it just on the shoulders of Netanyahu. So if you did have Netanyahu out of power, what do you think it would mean here in terms of the ability to sort of maintain that posture from liberal Zionists in the U.S.?

There will.

Be a massive push to say that everything was Netanyahu's fault and that now we need to We set our relationship with the good guys in Israel, and there will be massive accusations against anyone or any entities that are pushing for a broader change vis-a-vis Israel to say, well, this is now evidence of some form of anti-Israeli sentiment, perhaps even anti-Semitism, because you're going after the country, whereas in reality, the one person who bears responsibility for this is Netanyahu and is no longer in government. So I think it's going to lead to a major fight in Washington about this. But it's a fight that is absolutely necessary.

It's a fight that actually, in some ways, would bring forward a real debate. Is this just a Netanyahu phenomenon or is it an Israel phenomenon? It's a conversation that has not yet been had. And it would be started at the worst possible circumstances for the standpoint of the liberal Zionists that would be pushing this. Because as you pointed out, Israel's standing has just completely plummeted. And if you take a look at the polls, it's not Netanyahu's standing.

It's Israel's standing that has plummeted.

Right.

I think a lot of people will wake up after the very first security incident in the West Bank, and we see not very much change whatsoever. Dr. Parsi, thank you, as always, for your time. We appreciate it. And we'll see what happens in Israel at the elections. I think 4 p.m. Eastern time is when we'll know the answer.

Thank you, sir. Yeah.

Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Joining us now is our great friend Logan Phillips of RaceToTheWhiteHouse.com, which everybody should go It's good to see you, Logan, for our weekly check-in.

Hey, great to be on as always, guys. All right.

Let's go ahead and put this up here on the screen. We have asked Logan to compile all of this data, which thank you seriously for doing this. We're currently looking at House district polls. On the left-hand side, we see the districts themselves. We see the polling lead. And then we also see where they voted in the 2024 presidential election.

You also, Logan, have done us this service. showing us the shift toward Democrats in those districts. Why don't you tell a story about this election through these 14 different polls over the last couple of days and what it tells us about the national environment?

Yeah, that's a great question. Well, the problem we've had this cycle is almost all the polling that has Coming from nonpartisan sources has been focused on the Senate and governor races. And so we've just had an enormous amount of partisan polls that we don't know if we can trust or not. But this is where we finally have some indication about where the voters actually might be from some high quality sources. And it is a lot worse than I think folks were thinking going in. Democrats are just doing so well in race after race here.

And Logan, how do we explain the difference between the fact that in the North Carolina's 11th district, you have a 23 point nearly shift towards Democrats, but then all the way down in PA one, we're only looking at a two point shift towards Democrats. In fact, the outside of Pennsylvania eight, it looks like the shift in Pennsylvania is less than in some of the other places. How are you thinking about the wide range of possibilities that are reflected in these high quality polls?

Yeah, I think what we're seeing in North Carolina combined with the early vote is that this state might be Democrats in Michigan from 2022. All signs are kind of going North Carolina. The turnout has been overwhelmingly Democrat compared to four years ago and two years ago. And, you know, Roy Cooper is doing a great job. And also, like, I think there's a reaction to the Republican state legislator here, which has moved really far to the right compared to North Carolina. They've kind of acted like they're in a deep red state. I think that's been turning off some voters.

And so, you know, between that and the gerrymander, Democratic voters, candidates seem to be doing really well across the board. And in NC 11, this was a race where the incumbent had to drop out Chuck Edwards due to ethical issues. And voters seem to be frustrated and looking for a new direction. So I actually buy the polls correct, because I think we've seen something like a 10 to 20% more Democratic electorate in that early vote.

Well, let's take a look at some of these other races. Can you give me a character check in, for example, on like Texas 35 or Arizona two, these are places where In your polling average shift, you see they voted between R10 and 15 in 2024. You have a D plus 17 swing in both of those. Any connective tissue?

Is there like a rural urban matchup or something that you see that when you were looking into these things that you thought maybe you could extrapolate to the national level? Yeah, well, my AC2 is a little bit different, right? That is a race where you have the Navajo president running.

Officers is a very significant native american race uh population in that race uh so it might end up being a little bit different than other races now this isn't a race that it was always kind of like the ultimate reach race um but now that the polling's showing it's competitive i think we have to take it seriously and then texas 35 is part of like this larger picture republicans are just seriously underperforming with latino voters in texas and so we will see if that ends up being as bad as the polls have suggested but across the board they're doing you know double digits, sometimes 20% plus drop-offs with those groups of voters. And that moves all of these districts that people thought were going to

be very Republican, even in a wave year, into being hyper-competitive.

Yeah.

But even if you look at all of these polls, even in the best case scenario, you still see a pretty significant Democratic shift. Let's go and put the next graphic that you've prepared up on the screen here. This is house spending in redistricted states. So of course, you had this big mid-decade redistricting push, Republicans thinking this was going to net them a bunch of seats in states that they control, Florida, Texas being chief among them. They redrew the maps, hoping that this was going to give them a big buffer and maybe they would be able to keep the House. And so what you're focused on here is the spending in these redistricted states. So what are you getting from these numbers.

Here, Logan?

Yeah, I think that this might have been I don't think they expected one of the biggest wave years in the last 20 plus years. And maybe they this wasn't the right year to make such an aggressive move, because in addition to the fact that it puts more of these types of seats in play, the other danger is now the incumbents don't know their voters. So they don't have like this entrenched support of people who say, I might not like what's happening nationally, but I trust my guy or I trust my gal and I know they're going to have my back. Now they're like, who is this person? It makes them more aware of the fact that they did gerrymandering, which I don't think decides a race, but it definitely is not something helpful because it comes

across as pretty corrupt for understandable reasons. And it's kind of interesting that you're seeing this. It's not just in Texas and it's not just in Florida. You're seeing this all across the board in all these states that redistricted. Now, the one that really surprised me on this list is Louisiana first. Now, it's very rare at this point in election that I start hearing about a district with outside spending or a rating change that I've literally never heard of or paid even a second of attention to. That's because it's Steve Scalise's district. It's an R plus 38 district.

I'm not thinking Democrats are going to win this. I have it a soft R, but maybe Steve Scalise is just feeling nervous and he's like, just in case Republican allies, why don't you send an extra 5 million my way?

Okay.

So this spending dollar figure, including with your lean figure, how indicative it is in the past, for example, like When they spend money, it's based on something real. Or in the Scalise case, as you just said, it's based on his feelings and he wants to run up. You know, he doesn't want to be embarrassed if he wants to be some sort of a potential speaker in the future.

He wants to make sure he shows that he's strong. But in the rest of the cases, is this a sign that they're really in trouble, Logan? Like these people kind of know what they're doing, at least in your experience?

Yeah, I think it is. I think it's a sign that I mean, they could be wrong. People are wrong all the time about these things. But the Republicans... I seem to think it's a worse way than the Democrats do. They're they're panicked. They shouldn't be spending in some of these races.

That's wild.

I mean, just looking at these numbers, put it back up on the screen, guys. This is spending in districts that are like, OK, R plus 38. Maybe we put that outside because you got the Steve Scalise situation. But outside of that, R plus 10, R plus 12. R plus 21, R plus 17, R plus 15. These are seats that in any, not even like a normal cycle, even in a cycle where you do have a backlash, you wouldn't have to think about an R plus 17 district.

And yet clearly in Florida nine, both parties think that there's a race here. Democrats dropping 3 million and Republicans also dropping 1.6 million. So it's, It does just underscore, look, the polls could be wrong, but both sides, certainly their polling is showing them that districts are in play that no one would ever have imagined could be in jeopardy.

Yeah, and I think one way to look at it, right, is when you have like a D plus 10 wave, I'd say, which maybe this would be. All of a sudden you have races that are anywhere from like D plus 2. or R plus two, sorry, to like R plus, you know, 16, 17, 18, that could be in play because individual candidates will dramatically over underperform and their unique coalition shifts within that dynamic, like with Latino voters. And so if you have a candidate that is not, let's say they're not doing the best job, they're not the best campaigner. They've never run a competitive race in their life since they won their first primary. They might not know how to run. They might be turning off voters more than extra. And they might this might be a

rescue operation for someone who really wasn't meant to build a play on this high level level.

Another thing, Logan, maybe you could dig into is the demographics of these gerrymandered districts. I, for example, flagged this early on in Texas. I was like, hey, you know, you're playing with fire here. You're trying to go fifty to forty eight, just betting fifty to forty eight in terms of the Trump twenty twenty four vote. And now you've got look like with the Latino population.

Voters.

I love it because they're like, oh, there are voters now, even though they voted R plus 50 for Hillary Clinton like, what, 10 years ago. And so all of a sudden they just said, oh, they're a total lock. I mean, from what we're seeing right here, it might be one of the biggest backfires strategically because something that we both were talking about in our last segment was not only are they now about to potentially lose a gerrymandered district, they have opened up the, you know, basically the ground to mid mid-season redistricting in state legislators. And we haven't even tracked, we haven't even prepared what could be happening at the state legislator level across many of these competitive states, which

could significantly flip it away from them in the future. Is that right, Logan?

Yeah.

Let's play 3D chess for a second, right? Let's take a few years ahead. Democrats probably going to have a big year this year, probably going to win a lot of races and maybe a little less because of some of these moves, but not that much less. And they've mostly been in congressional races versus state legislator races that they'll be able to control this type of thing. Republicans on paper, like this is most likely outcome for me, at least. I think Democrats will be favored in 2028, which means Republicans will be favored in 2040. And they could potentially have control over all these state legislators just in time to do another massive gerrymander like they did to Democrats in the 2010s. But if they open up

the can of worms here, Democrats could potentially be able to limit how much they are able to take if they start gerrymandering aggressively in all of these places they potentially win this year. And in 28, really diluting the GOP's ability to take as big of an advantage. So this dynamic, I mean, look, it's bad for democracy. It's bad for everyone. But it might actually end up hurting specifically the GOP more. because now there's kind of a clean pathway for Dems to, you know, you never know, maybe they'll be in the same position. We'll say how dumb they were if they do aggressive moves in 28 leading up to 2030, right? But on paper, there's a pathway to make this a lot less bad for Dems.

All right, let's put the next graphic up on the screen. These are districts that Democrats are moving money into. They see these as new targets as they expand the playing field here, so to speak. We've got Arkansas' second congressional district represented by French Hill, Colorado's third, Florida 27, New York 21, Nevada 2, and Tennessee 9. That's Justin Pearson is the challenger there. Tennessee being another state where they redistricted and, you know, tried to make it so that there wouldn't be a single Democratic representative.

My understanding is there's now two districts.

In play that Democrats could theoretically have a chance to win.

So let's keep this up on the screen. Logan, what are you seeing?

In these districts that are now being contested by Democrats?

Yeah, this is an impressive list. I mean, a lot of these races were not ones that most people had on their radar at all. You have Elise Stefanik's district in here, which, and you have, you know, Florida 27, you have two Cuban journalists that have ironically both interviewed Castro in the past who are running against each other.

This is a race no one thought would be in play. I believe she won by.

20 last time.

And she's been warning about how competitive her district is. She famously broke with Donald Trump and immigration like soft broke, but managed to make it a national story.

You also came after her for that, right?

Yeah, he did. He did. And honestly, I think he helped her. Normally that doesn't help Republicans, but I think she baited him and he took it and she did just enough to probably create a lot more separation than any of the words he actually said. I mean, she just said she was concerned basically, and don't take Latinos for a Granted, but didn't I think she I think she blamed the staff. It wasn't really like one of those real condemnations, you know.

And so, Logan, you know, these are a lot harder racist forecasts, like you said. I mean, race by race polling is notoriously unreliable. Maybe we can gauge a little bit statewide and demographics. What are some of the ingredients where you would see all of these targets end up going blue? Like what's the common theme? Is it just dissatisfaction with Trump? the economy, demographic thing. Take us through it.

Yeah, I think there's a few things, right? I think dissatisfaction of Trump is by far the biggest factor here. You have some real candidate quality gaps on this map in some races. But above all else, it is because voters are unhappy with the way the president's governing. They're upset about prices. And you're seeing it happen in like this is a super focus in some of the areas that have been most affected. Rural areas have been really hurt economically by the price of diesel, by all of these tariffs. And you're seeing districts have a lot of Latino voters who are disproportionately. I mean, look, they're A lot of these are first, second, third generation immigrants. They're going to feel the economic impacts more than most, which

is why they vote more on the economy than other people do. Combined with ISIS actions, you know, there's a lot of room for them to lose there, too. So this is sort of like a super focused map or super focused list of races that is like the place where Democrats have that extra room to grow a touch more due to some of the most dissatisfied constituents.

Let's put the last graphic we prepared here up on the screen. This is races that have been left behind by the Republicans. So at the same time that Democrats are going on the offense in more districts, you have Republicans who are saying, sorry, this one is just not going to happen.

One of them there, New York three.

This is Tom Suozzi's district Democratic incumbent. This was originally seen as a top target because this was a district that's represented by a Democrat. But Donald Trump won by over four points. Another one there really noteworthy. Henry Quay are viewers of this show will be pretty familiar with him.

As the district, Trump won by over 10 points. Cuellar was pardoned by Trump, actually. A very interesting sort of corrupt horseshoe going on there. But they have decided, no, this one is not going to happen this time. And it's rated as likely D by your outlet.

So what are you seeing in some of these races?

Because I'll tell you, when I look at this, when I look at the previous graphic about the Democratic- and see that they're going on the offense. When I look at the places that both parties are targeting with funds, it's really all over the place. And I feel like any one of these locations you could tell a specific story about. You could look at Texas and you could say, okay, you've got this huge Latino vote and there's this backlash over the economy, but also over ice. Florida, you also have an immigration backlash. The heartland, you have massive backlash over the tariffs and over the fertilizer prices and the Iran war. But you're hard pressed to find any part of the country that you can't tell some story about

why in particular this place has been negatively affected and is upset over what Trump has done the second time around.

Yeah. And I also think there's some districts here that like Republicans were very excited to get like Kevin Lincoln to run in California 13th, mayor of Stockton, California. You see Zach Nunn, who's a veteran that they viewed as one of their best candidates. The fact that they're leaving some of these guys behind is extremely notable. Um, and honestly, I think the GOP might've been a little too ambitious early.

I don't think there was any chance they were going to beat Swazi from the beginning. I'll be honest. Like this guy's a really strong performer. He's won in tougher conditions. The only chance you have of being Swazi is in a red wave. Uh, so I would say this is a combination of them being a little too aggressive for most of the race and maybe not having a full awareness of, uh, where the American people were at. and that it's a midterm. And the second part of this too, there's so much more money in politics than there used to be. So this list is probably a reflection of that.

I mean, some of these races, like NC11, we've seen like, I think 20 million spent there. That's like more than most Senate races normally get. For one congressional district of 330,000 people, it's kind of insane.

That is so nuts because, you know, the Thomas Massey primary was like 35 million. And he, at the time was like, oh, this is the most expensive house primary race literally ever now you're spending tens of millions of dollars to the money point let's put c4 up here on the screen honestly mind-boggling figure elon has now spent more than 442 million dollars in the midterms pouring another 77 million into his pack over the last month america pack which was launched in 2024 has now spent you know 336 million on top of that 76 million And additionally, a $ 276 million campaign donation to other various Republican groups just in the three-month stretch between July and September alone. Logan, what do we know about where Elon's spending his money?

Is it money well spent? Like, what are they using it for and why?

They are dumping so much money in Texas and in Ohio to the point that I think it's beyond solvency. Like, You know, like when water can't take any more salt. I don't really know if this is going to make a difference when you spend that much. I will say, obviously, you don't want that money spent on you. And it's definitely been a little negative. And Texas has gotten more competitive of late. But Elon's now giving them an opportunity because voters for very justified reasons don't like the richest man in the world or any of the richest men or women in the world. Telling them how their political system should work and spending everything in their power to do to make that a reality. And so Tallarico has

been running ads where he has like 20 different types of ads that Elon Musk has specifically paid for. They're all going in the background behind him and saying all this is coming from Elon Musk. and saying like, what do you think he's getting in return for this money? We're now seeing Gina Hinojosa is now the governor candidate for Dems in Texas. For the state legislator has gotten access to emails between Greg Abbott and Elon Musk that'll be released to her. That's a potential attack point. So you'd much rather not have it, but since it's there, they got to use it to their advantage. And there's certainly some room to play. We saw that in Wisconsin, the Supreme Court race where What did Democrats win by,

like 2015, something like that?

Yeah, like an insane margin. Yes.

It was a blowout, yeah.

And they made the race about Elon, so it might be a little late to really do that. They have so much more to run on. But he's going to keep doing this cycle after cycle. And, you know, it kind of feels like George Soros on steroids. There's some room to run with this.

Right.

Yeah, well, so, I mean, Republicans are just walloping Democrats on the big money fundraising. And, you know, race after race, Democrats are getting outspent. But one area where Democrats... are really outpacing Republicans, is on the grassroots fundraising.

And G.

Eliot Morris compiled these graphics. Let's put this up on the screen. We can see in some of the key Senate races the differences. This is C2, or what is it, C3, that we have these maps.

Yeah, here we go.

You can see in Texas, so the deeper blue, obviously, the more funds are coming from that county. And he's looking specifically at, like, in-state funds. grassroots donations because he finds that's a good correlation to who is likely to prevail in that contest.

You can see Kansas there. My goodness.

Hamilton is just crushing Marshall on the fundraising front from people who live in Kansas. Let's put the next graphic up on the screen. We can see Michigan.

Same thing.

Abdul doing better than Rogers in terms of the grassroots fundraising.

And I sorry, Ohio.

Same thing with Sherrod Brown really outpacing his competitor in Ohio, John Husted, of the famously great ass, according to Donald Trump. So apparently that isn't bringing in the money for him in the small dollar donations that he may like to see. So do you also find this to be a significant factor? How should we think about these maps we're seeing?

Yeah.

Yeah, that's way more predictive than super PACs. I mean, we've never seen this. I am almost certain that we've never seen a party both completely crush it in money from actual donors that aren't from PACs, that aren't from mega billionaires donating through super PACs or even mega millionaires too. And while at the same time, the other party is crushing it in terms of total numbers because they're getting so much outside donations from those same super PACs, right?

So normally, the actual donors are much more predictive. And a part of that, a little bit of it is because you can do a lot more with the money there. Candidates get cheaper rates. But the second part of that is it's a real signal of how strong of a campaign you're running. It doesn't, you know, a lot of these people that are getting lots of money spent on their behalf doesn't mean they were doing anything right. It often means they were doing something wrong, like Ken Paxton in Texas, and it signaled they're in trouble. So my model is looking at the fundraising, ironically, as a positive for Democrats because it's such a signal of candidate quality and key race after key race. This will be the

ultimate test of it, though, when maybe the super PAC stuff is more important. We're going to find out soon. But if Democrats have a great race anyway, and they overperform in these places, then I think it goes to show us that obviously you'd rather have that money, but it doesn't mean as much as we think.

Last question for you, Logan. What are you seeing in the early vote? Seeing anything interesting? Any trends you want to highlight here on the show?

Yeah, this time I was ready for it. So I've been doing my early vote research and it has been very strong for Democrats, but it's been relatively on par with the other signals that we're seeing. They have many states where the turnout seems really strong. North Carolina, Georgia, strong black voter turnout. Iowa looks fantastic for them, which fits in line with what we're seeing. Michigan looks like it's the same or a little bit worse from 2022, which they did great year then. But Michigan seems to be the state where they're underperforming and those races are closer than they'd expect. Though I still think it'll be a big enough year that they'll be able to win that most likely anyway. And then, you know, it's a

little harder to see what's happening in some states. Texas, we know turnout is amazing. It's a lot harder to figure out if that's good for Dems or not. I think it's partly based off persuasion. But, you know, there's more money being spent than anywhere there. So it makes sense that voters are engaged. They know it's a really important race. And I guess that's probably lightly bad for Democrats because if everyone's voting, even though I think they're going to do great on persuasion, the turnout dynamic being in their favor would be a better signal. I also think, you know, in general, if you just had total number, turnout as a whole being lower is almost good for Dems if you don't know what the coalition is, because

we know Democratic voters are going to vote based off what we've seen in primaries based off what we've seen in special elections. The real question is, are the Republican faithful going to vote? Maybe they're not faithful, but the ones who like Trump, who go out in presidential elections, who sometimes vote in midterms, but might be like, I don't really see anything they're doing for me. So why am I going to come out here and vote?

Right. Makes sense. All right. Thank you very much, Logan. We appreciate your time, man.

Great job. Good to see you.

10/27/26: Saudis Beg For Deal With Houthis, Israel Shocked By Bibi Iran Plot, GOP Floods Millions Into Deep Red Districts

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