Bill Kristol: A Blue Wave vs. the Toxic Red Tide

Tim Miller (0:00)

Hey, everybody, just a real quick note. I pre-taped this upcoming pod with Bill. And so, assuming it was a blowout LSU victory on Saturday night, that's why I didn't mention that because I don't know what has happened yet. I don't know what's happened in the world. So, if we got the cheeseburger from heaven or whatever, I don't know about it. So it is a great show. We're talking a little bit about the midterms and it's a retrospective on 94 and 2006 I think that you're going to really enjoy it. Also a reminder, we got these events coming up. Tickets are starting to go. So if you want to come join us, Atlanta, Columbia, Charlotte, the bulwark.com/events.

One last thing, after the pod's over, let me know what you think about the retrospective part of this. I have another little brainchild for something that I think you guys might like, that is in a similar vein. So I'm interested in your thoughts. So if you didn't like it or it was boring or whatever, you can let me know. So appreciate you guys very much. Have a great Labor Day. Stick around for Bill Kristol.

Hello and welcome to The Bulwark Daily. I'm your host, Tim Miller. It is Monday. It's Labor Day. And I have for you, of course, editor-at-large Bill Kristol. We have a very special episode by popular demand. It's the Labor Day kickoff, getting ready for the midterms. And Bill and I on several episodes have been discussing the 2006 wave year that led to the Democrats taking the House and the Senate, as well as some other midterms. And I've suggested kind of cheekily, like maybe we should dedicate a full episode to that. And people are like, yes, please do. We want that. And so we're going to do it right now for Labor Day. It'll be a little holiday bonus. So that's good, Bill?

William Kristol (1:47)

Sounds good. So we'll do 2006, which is the least modern history. Then we'll go back to 1994, the ancient times before you were born, and I can discuss what happened then.

Tim Miller (1:56)

And then you also told me you wanted to do just a little bit on your first campaign, 1948

William Kristol (2:00)

Thank you. I set you up. I set you up so well for that. I mentioned 1948 in Morning Shots this week, and that's why Tim is having a good time with that. I was not quite around yet.

Tim Miller (2:08)

We also, for the YouTube viewers and the Bulwark Plus subscribers, we might have a picture of me from 2006 in video of Bill from 1994 So you can go see what we looked like.

We're both handsomer than ever now. Before we do that, I thought it would be good just to set the table with a little bit of just pure politicking, prognosticating, looking ahead to this year's midterm. Then we can talk about how our various experiences in past midterms inform these projections. So I don't know if we need to go state by state, but I'm wondering what, Bill, your big picture thoughts are as we sit here on Labor Day for how the November election will go, and maybe specific states that are catching your eye.

William Kristol (2:48)

I thought it would be a big Democratic year for quite a while, based on nothing other than just the obvious facts. The main fact being that Donald Trump's approval rating has gone down steadily since he was inaugurated, and the approval rating of an incumbent president is a good predictor of what happens in a midterm election, especially when his party controls both houses of Congress. So it is a referendum on, do you approve of what they've been doing for two years? And more importantly, probably, do you want the Republican, especially when the Republican Party in Congress is so attached to Trump, do you want them to continue rubber stamping what he's been doing for the next few years, or do you want a party to check him? That was very much my experience in 2018, the last Trump midterm. And so I've always assumed Democrats had a pretty good shot, had a pretty good victory.

And then as Trump got into the Iran War and decided to monkey around with tariffs some more and inflation didn't go down, and he made it generally seem disconnected from people's lives and so forth. The gas prices went up by quite a lot. I thought a good year could become a very good year, and that's for the Democrats, and that's kind of where I am.

Yeah.

Tim Miller (3:51)

So let's just do the House first.