Trump Plans to Shove What Where?

Jon Favreau (0:20)

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.

Jon Lovett (0:22)

I'm Jon Lovett.

Tommy Vietor (0:23)

Tommy Vietor.

Jon Favreau (0:23)

On today's show, we'll talk about the slew of new polls showing Democrats making big gains in red states in both the Senate and governor's races, and why Democrats are expanding the House map with just four weeks to go. We'll check in on some of the individual races, how Trump is dealing with it all, not well, and that unbelievable New York Times story about Kristi Noem buying luxury jets from a political donor at huge markups with your money. Then speaking to those governor's races, you'll hear Tommy's conversation with Texas's Gina Hinojosa who's opened up a lead on Greg Abbott in the latest Time Sienna poll. She stopped by the office, so check that out.

All right, guys, there are less than 30 days until the midterms, and the October surprise is already here. Just when Democrats started letting themselves feel hope again, Republicans went ahead and unleashed their secret weapon.

Dan Pfeiffer (1:12)

So you know all these fake polls, they don't account for one thing. They don't account for the fact that Trump is out campaigning.

They never thought this was going to happen. And it's their fault because they unleashed us.

SPEAKER_5 (1:28)

We're going to win and we're going to win big.

Dan Pfeiffer (1:30)

And we're going to shove it up their ass, okay?

Jon Favreau (1:33)

Sounds painful. Geez. Don't want that. One challenge for Republicans is that their secret weapon also seems to be the Democrat secret weapon.

The latest badge of New York Times, CNN polls show Trump's approval rating at 40% and his disapproval at 56% in five red states that he won by 11 to 16 points in 2024 Texas, Alaska, Ohio, Iowa, and Kansas. One in five Trump voters in those states now disapprove of the president's job performance, which is the main reason Democrats are now leading or effectively tied in every Senate race. We've got James Tallarico up 51.45 over Ken Paxton, Mary Peltola up 50.43 over Dan Sullivan, Sherrod Brown over John Husted, 49.46, and Kansas Adam Hamilton is tied with Roger Marshall, 45.45, and in Iowa Josh Turek is just one point behind Ashley Hinson, well within the polls margin of error, as are most of these margins.

I'll stop there and let you guys talk about your overall reaction to the Senate polls and what specifically jumped out at you in the crosstabs.

Tommy Vietor (2:44)

What's he shoving up our ass? Just himself?

Jon Favreau (2:47)

I guess the victory, the great victory.

Tommy Vietor (2:48)

His Alabama rally that was half empty?

Jon Favreau (2:51)

Yeah, the Ohio one. Remember, he got really mad about any news report showing that the upper rafters of the Ohio rally were not completely full. And it wasn't the only one.

Jon Lovett (2:59)

And it would be worse, right? Because we shoved up our asses and we wouldn't be ready for it. It wouldn't have been like, you know, because we'd be surprised.

Dan Pfeiffer (3:06)

You need to prepare for that.

Jon Lovett (3:07)

Right.

That's what you're saying. But back to the polls, speaking of polling.

Dan Pfeiffer (3:10)

Speaking of polling.

SPEAKER_6 (3:11)

Just a couple of things that jumped out.

Jon Lovett (3:13)

Independence favored Dems by 24 points and by 30 on which party does better for ordinary people. I thought that was big. One thing that just wasn't in this poll but was in the last time's poll, I believe, we have Alaska prefers Peltola but still prefers a Republican Senate. We saw the opposite where Maynard's preferred Susan Collins, but by big margins wanted a Democratic Senate.

How does that shake out? Does that resolve in both places? In one place but not the other, I think is interesting. Then the other was just that you have this preference for a Republican Senate in these. These are very Trump-heavy states, as you said, they lean towards preferring having Republicans in control, but also a big desire for a check on Trump by huge margins. They want a Senate, they want a candidate that will check Trump, but they also want a Republican Senate. I do think underneath this, this is Republicans paying for the required loyalty test of being part of Trump's party. They can't break with him. They can't say they're going to hold him accountable. They can't say any of those things that you would see in a normal race like this.

Tommy Vietor (4:15)

Yeah, my reaction to those polls is that I wanted to roll up my newspaper and smoke it.

Jon Favreau (4:19)

Did you? It's just a...