Cook Political Report's Jessica Taylor Talks US Midterms

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Tom Keene (0:07)

This is a joy. And for those of you younger, I'm going to explain the impact of Charlie Cook on trying to look at elections in a structured and rational way. It is the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter, Charlie still writing piercing essays about the certitude of the media and covering this. The Cook Political Report tries to pull that away.

And one of the people helping is Jessica Taylor. She's aged over the last six weeks as well. And she's doing something a little bit off the radar, which is much more state by state. And governors, the breaking news from Cook is Alaska moves to lean Democrat. I didn't know there were 12 Democrats in Alaska. Jessica Taylor joins us right now. Jessica, I love what Dave Wasserman at your shop says that there's this huge middle ground that can't stand the Republicans and can't stand the Democrats. What's the latest research of that Wasserman group as you look at the governor races?

Jessica Taylor (1:05)

Increasingly, they're moving toward Democrats. This week, in addition to Alaska, as you mentioned, that we've shifted from toss up to lean Democrat. I mean, Alaska has a unique four person race right now with one Democrat and three Republicans using ranked choice voting. So we see Democrat Jonathan Crease-Thomkins is the slight favorite there. But we also shifted the Oklahoma and Nebraska governor's race in Democrats' direction, just slightly from solid Republican to likely Republican. I mean, we think the Republicans will still win there, but it's going to be a tighter margin.

In Vermont, Phil Scott has managed to win reelection in a very Democratic state, but we moved that race from solid to likely Republican. He'll probably win this cycle, but with his lowest percentage ever, he should be winning with 70% of the vote. So it's Democrats that are more motivated to vote right now, independents disapprove of President Trump by higher numbers than overall, and so they are more inclined to vote for Democrats. However, Democrats should not take this as an endorsement of their brain for their party, because they are very unpopular as well.

Tom Keene (2:08)

I'm going to go to the Democrat Ronald Reagan of his childhood in FDR, and as he moved to 1980 and his failures along the way, Ronald Reagan codified running conservative and moving to the center. Are the Democrats, with 13 business days to go, are the Democrats moving their messaging to the center?

Jessica Taylor (2:28)

You have certain candidates that are, for instance, the Senate race that I moved last week into the toss-up column is Kansas, which has the longest drought of not electing a Democrat in almost a century, since 1932 But you have a Methodist pastor there, Adam Hamilton, who is running explicitly as a centrist, as a moderate, says, I'll work with both parties. I will be in the middle. And then you have Sherrod Brown in Ohio, who has gotten crossover votes before, and Mary Peltola in the Alaska Senate race running as a moderate. Roy Cooper in North Carolina that's going to flip that seat. We have that race rated actually likely Democrat, an open Republican seat. That's probably the first seat that's going to flip on election night. So some of the recruits that Democrats have are running as moderates. There are some that are not, though. The Michigan Senate seat is held by a Democrat because you have the more progressive candidate that won the primary there, Abdul Al-Sayed.

There's concern that he's not reaching as much to the middle or as out to black voters that were sort of left in the primary, very unhappy with the ultimate choice. So I think broadly if Democrats win the Senate, it will be because they've had strong nominees that have run to the middle, but that's not the case everywhere.

Ira Jersey (3:37)

So Jessica, going back to those local elections and the governor races, is there one theme that's really driving things other than the anti-incumbent party kind of rhetoric? Is there one local issue that's really dominating things?

Jessica Taylor (3:53)

Data centers.

I see this popping up. Yes, and AI and concerns about AI. You have, for instance, in Texas, a very competitive race with Greg Abbott seeking a fourth term running against Democrat Gina Hinejosa. She's really pressed Abbott on data centers, on flock cameras. And he's actually taken out, he's actually backed away from a more aggressive position and said that there should be more local control. I see this popping up in Senate races as well. It's been big in the Ohio Senate race. You have it in the South Carolina Senate race playing an issue. It's happening in the Wisconsin governor's race, in the Ohio governor's race, which actually Democrats have a decent shot at flipping that Ohio governor's race as well. But I see this is really a cross-partisan issue that both parties are very concerned about the proliferation of data centers on the effect, the local effect that it's having.