John Williams: Hello again, everybody, and welcome to another episode of Inside Baseball, a look at healthcare politics and policy in Washington. Part of Hall Render’s Practical Solutions podcast here is I am John Williams, managing partner of Hall Render’s Washington, DC office. As always, I am joined by my colleague in DC cohort Andrew Coats. Andrew, how are you today?

Andrew Coats: Doing great, John, and looking forward to this podcast as we get to talk elections, and wild predictions.

John Williams: This is our second podcast and I think it’s probably the one we look forward to doing most because we get to talk about what you and I geek out on immensely, and that is on elections. I said in our last podcast, and I say this all the time, that President Obama famously said that you can’t separate policy from politics. And it’s one of the truest statements that I’ve ever heard.

Well, this pre-election podcast is going to be one of the more political podcasts that we do because there is nothing more political than a campaign, but the outcome of these campaigns are going to determine the future of healthcare policy on Capitol Hill. So, it’s important I think that we take a close look at how these campaigns might play out. Just as an agenda setter, I’m going to talk about how things might play out for elections in the House of Representatives. Andrew’s going to do the same thing for the Senate. Quick disclaimer, our analysis is not intended to be partisan in any way. It’s merely the results of the reality on the ground as we are now one week from election day. So, Andrew, you ready?

Andrew Coats: I’m ready. Let’s do it.

John Williams: All right. Well, unlike the Senate, members of the House of Representatives are up for reelection every two years. So, technically 435 members of the House of Representatives minus the vacancies, are going to go before the voters this coming Tuesday and, again, I say technically because we’ve got some open seats for folks who’ve either retired or resigned. And we’ve got some situations where you’ve got open seats, where you have people who are up for reelection, two people up for election that have never run for Congress before. Currently, Democrats hold a 222 to 212 majority over Republicans with one still a vacant seat that will be filled on Tuesday. So, Republicans in the house, they need a net gain of five seats to win the majority.

As of today, November 1st, 2022, one week before the election, I cannot find a reputable pollster or pundit that doesn’t have Republicans with a greater than 80% chance of winning in the house, and when I say reputable, I mean those that are not obviously playing for one team or the other. So, independent analysis right now, or if you even look at the betting platforms in Vegas, they’ve got Republicans winning the house by better than 80% chance. So, in fact, I think most folks who follow campaigns closely are at this point in the game trying to determine just how big of a majority Republicans are going to have come January and I think the range right now that I’m hearing most is somewhere between 12 in 25 seats. So, that would be, I think, if it’s 12 Republicans, it’s a bad night. If it’s 25 for Republicans, it’s a really good night-

Andrew Coats: And, John, I feel like it’s inching up even north of 25 depending on what articles you’re reading, even from independent analysis.

John Williams: Absolutely true. I mean, 25 seats, it could be north of 25. What’s interesting is that you in elections passed right in… Take for example, 2012 Obama’s first midterm or ’94 Clinton’s first midterm. In those elections, you had massive swings. I think Obama… That election Democrats lost 60 seats in the house, and I think the Gingrich won in ’94, there was more than 40. There’s just not that many seats that are considered to be in play anymore. So, you really aren’t going to see that kind of a swing but yeah, to your point, I think you’re right. I mean it could be north of 25 seats and I’ve heard a number of people say that. The source that I look to most these days at how these things break down or how they might break down on a race-by-race basis is real clear politics.

They make a forecast for the House and Senate, governor’s race. There’s a whole bunch of different races, but they do it using an average of the most reputable polls available. According to the most recent RCP numbers, out of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives, there are 113 seats in play. Everybody else is considered to be safe. Of that 113 number, 33 are considered to be complete toss-ups that could go either way. However, when you look at the rest of the races that are broken down by what are referred to as leans and likely, so this race leans Republican or that race is likely democratic. If you look at the leans and likelies, there are 50 seats that RCP has as either leans Republican or likely Republican. By contrast, there are 12 liens Democratic, 18 likely democratic. So, Republicans have a 50 to 30 or 20 seat advantage in the liens and likelies, and that is incredibly significant.

I think what’s really fascinating for political nerds like me is to see where parties have been putting their resources in the final two weeks of the election. I mean, there’s an old saying in campaign politics that if you want to figure out which party is more bullish on its prospects, you simply follow the money. In other words, on which races are the parties spending money in the final days? Republicans just bought $23 million worth of television ads in eight Democratic districts that President Biden won by double digits, and that includes a significant race that I’ll talk about in a minute. Look, you only do that if you’re competent, you’re going to win everywhere else that you’re already expected to win.

Andrew Coats: What states are we talking about here? Where is that money going?

John Williams: Mostly New York and Sean Patrick Maloney, and I’ll get to him in a minute, but that’s an area where they’re really getting pretty bullish-

Andrew Coats:  And not just the rural areas in New York, this is more suburban.

John Williams: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, Republicans are feeling bullish that they can play in places that they haven’t considered playing in 10 years or more. By contrast, Democrats are starting to take money away from vulnerable incumbents in Republican leaning districts or districts where Trump won and they’re spending that to shore up other incumbents who are in districts that President Biden actually won handily. And to your point, you’re seeing that, again, in the New York, New Jersey area where you’ve got an incumbent democratic incumbent in New Jersey, in a suburban district, where they’ve totally pulled all the money out of that race and send it elsewhere to show up another incumbent because they think that person has a better chance at winning. I could sit here all day and analyze the 113 races that RCP has that are in play and we don’t have enough time for that. I’m sure it would be incredibly boring.

Andrew Coats: You don’t think people would want to listen to us.

John Williams: Yeah. Other than you and me, and a few others campaign geeks. I don’t think. As much as I’d love to ramble on for the next hour about all 113 races, I just wanted to give folks a couple of regions and a couple of races to watch on election night because it’s really hard to monitor a whole bunch of them and we just talked about it. First, look at the results coming out of upstate New York. There are currently four Democratic incumbent seats in the RCP tossup category. There’s even one in the liens Republican category with RCP and if you want to talk about following the money. One of the races that Democrats have had to put money into that they never expected to is that of incumbent Sean Patrick Maloney, and Maloney is the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which we refer to as the D-trip.

That is the entity that is responsible for getting Democrats reelected in the House of Representatives. Republicans have the NRCC, National Republican Campaign Committee, Democrats have the DCCC. If Sean Patrick Maloney loses, it will be the first time that a chairman of a campaign arm in either party has lost a reelection campaign since 1980 and they are having to reallocate significant monies to try to shore up Sean Patrick Maloney. So, that is a region to watch and a race to watch. Another region, excuse me, to watch I think is Southwest Texas, which is long been a democratic stronghold. Polling nationwide has shown Republicans making inroads with Hispanic voters. They aren’t right to a majority yet, but they’re making very significant inroads much more so than they have in previous elections. Nowhere does that appear to be more evident than in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas.

And I think the race to watch there is in Texas District 28 between the Democratic incumbent Henry Cuellar and the Republican challenger, Cassy Garcia. Cuellar is one of the longest serving members of the House of Representatives. Henry is viewed as the most conservative Democrat, is pro-life, not many of those left in the Democratic party in the house. If he loses that race, it’s going to signal to, at least to me, that Republicans are not just going to have a good night, but that they are also continuing to make in route with Hispanic voters, which is something to look at for future races as well. Also, so the polls in New York don’t close until 9:00 PM Eastern time. The polls in Texas close at 7:00 PM Central time. So, we’re going to know the outcome of those races probably much sooner than what we would know in New York. New York still wants to watch and important to watch, but I think that Rio Grande Valley of Texas, we’re going to know sooner and also ones that I think are going to be bellwethers.

Lastly, a race that I’ve been telling folks to watch for months and months and months now is the first district of Indiana, where first term democratic incumbent, Frank Mrvan is facing off against the Republican challenger, Jennifer-Ruth Green, who is a Black female former Air Force pilot. Republicans have not won the first district of Indiana in almost 100 years. If Republicans win that race, or even if Frank just ekes out a narrow win, that’s a bellwether. Either one of those results means that Republicans are going to have a good night nationwide and if Jennifer-Ruth Green wins that race, then I think it’s going to be an exceptionally good night for Republicans.

Andrew Coats: Yeah, it’s crazy to think that Indiana won is even on in play for years. That was Republican senate candidates wouldn’t even go up to the first district because it was such a strong democratic held. So, for that to be in play for house Republican candidate speaks to sort of the tie up here.

John Williams: Absolutely, I mean we’re talking about Gary, we’re talking about Maryville, we’re talking about Crown Point. We’re talking about areas that have been heavily union for decades and decades and decades, but many of those districts are transitioning. You look at Ohio and what a lot of the former union strongholds and what’s happened there and how they’ve become Republican over the years and I mean, just talk about the first.

Lastly, the majority of this district is on Central time because of its proximity to Chicago. So, Gary Merrillville, Crown Point, I think those areas are all central time, but I think there are parts of that district which are on Eastern time with the rest of Indiana. So, we may see results start to trickle out of those precincts and those areas of the district before the polls close and the rest at seven o’clock. And you always got to be careful about looking at stuff really early on when there’s 2% reporting, or somebody’s winning by a thousand votes, but it’s only 2% reporting. So, you got to be careful with that, but I do think that the first district of Indiana is a significant bellwether to watch on election night. So, that’s-

Andrew Coats: You’re on your couch next Tuesday. You’re following on Twitter. You have cable news on watching election results. Are there any races you see coming in thinking, “All right, this will be a big night for Republicans,” or “Oh, maybe this isn’t as big a night as we thought.” Are there any races you’re watching?

John Williams: Well, I’ll ask you that question. I mean, as a Virginia resident. You’re familiar with Virginia politics and I know that there’s some democratic incumbents in Virginia-

Andrew Coats: Yeah. Virginia’s another state, Indiana polls close early. The two seats you keep hearing about are the second and the seventh district in Virginia. So, yeah, two seats you want to watch in Virginia are the second and seventh districts. These are seats that Democrats won by 52% and 51% in 2020, a better year for Democrats and the second district. This is the Virginia Beach area, so you have a strong military presence. This is Luria’s seat, she won by 52% in ’20, that’s going to be a really difficult seat for Democrats to hang onto.

And then, the seventh district is Spanberger’s seat. She represents the area, the wealthy suburbs west of Richmond, all the way up about a hundred miles north, almost to the border of Southern Fairfax County. This one, Spanberger won barely by 51% in ’20. Keep an eye on these two seats and keep an eye on the margins. If it’s really close, again, Democrats may do okay, but if Republicans winning by 53%, 54%, 55%. It could be a really difficult night for Democrats nationwide.

John Williams: Yeah. And I think you talk about margins, I think that’s really important. One, you’re absolutely right, you got to look at polls that close early, states that have polls that close early, so you can start getting those numbers, but I think you’re right about margins too. And what a lot of people don’t understand about campaign results is you look at a race and you say, “Okay, that was 52-48 results.” Well, in campaign politics, that’s thousands and thousands and thousands of votes. So, you can look at it and say, “Oh, well, I mean it was 4%, it was a 3% margin. That wasn’t that big.” But in raw vote numbers it was huge, and it’s considered to be a significant victory, especially the way that the electorate is divided these days. So, yeah, no really good ones to watch in Virginia with early returns. You want to lead us off into the Senate, Andrew?

Andrew Coats: I will but before we get to that, do you have any prediction or are you steering clear predictions for the house?

John Williams: No, I mean, I’m making predictions. I think it’s going to be closer to the 25 number. I’m not sure I’m buying that it’s going over 25 in terms of pickups for Republicans. But I do think, again, if you follow the money and that shows you who has the momentum, and if Republicans are not spending any money to shore up their incumbents. Then they’re free to go on offense and it’s clear that Republicans are playing offense here and Republicans are playing defense. And when you see that, to me, it means that you’re going to end up at the higher end of that 12 to 25 range.

Andrew Coats: And then, if it’s north of 25 and it’s just a bloodbath for Democrats. Could you see a change in Democrat leadership coming?

John Williams: Oh, man, I’m not sure we got enough time for that one, that’s a whole separate podcast. Conventional wisdom would say yes, conventional wisdom would say that if you lose a majority by that kind of a margin, that the leadership should be changed. However, Democrats in Washington have had… Let’s just call it what it is. I mean leadership issues. I personally know many younger members of the Democratic caucus in the house in Washington who very much want to move up the leadership ladder and they’ve not been able to do so because the current leadership structure of Nancy Pelosi, and Clyburn, and Steny Hoyer continue to run.

It’s fascinating because one of the things I admire most about Nancy Pelosi is her ability to wield power because power is just about everything in Washington and there’s few people in the history of the speakership that has wheeled power more significantly than she has. She also comes from a school of thought that you just don’t give up power, you make somebody take it from you. And so, it’s going to be fascinating to watch to see, even if it’s a bloodbath, whether or not she still says, “You got to come take it from me.” So, yeah, we’ll have a whole separate podcast on that one after the election.

Andrew Coats: Right. Absolutely. So, let’s dig into the Senate here. One of the most well-worn election phrases that gets trotted out every two years. This is the most important election of our lifetime. Now, not to throw cold water on our preview here, but if you live outside the Beltway. This is really as far as the Senate goes, just another midterm election. Assuming that the Republicans flipped the house, and as Sean mentioned, I think they’re going to. Senate leadership’s going to remain the same. You’re going to still have Schumer, and Durbin, and Republican leadership’s going to remain the same in Senate as well. You’re going to have McConnell on there and neither going to be close to getting 60 seats in the Senate. So, again, given the house flips Republicans, you’re not going to see inflation reduction acts, appeal of ACA, massive types of legislative packages getting moved next Congress.

Now, for folks inside the Beltway. Next Tuesday means everything, jobs depend on it and it that’s how Washington operates for the next two years. So, right now the Senate is currently split at 50/50 with Democrats having the tie break and therefore the majority. And Republicans have a brutal map to defend this year. I go to former Senator Fred Thompson, he was senator from Tennessee. He was the district attorney in law and order. I think he was captain on one of the subs in hunt for red October. He had a saying that said, everyone in the Senate has one of two things going for him. He either had a rich daddy or they had great timing and Senate Republicans in this cycle have had great timing.

If you go back six years prior to now, it was 2016, that was a big year for Republicans. The Trump wave that came in, six years prior to that was 2010, that was the tea party wave, and even six years prior to that was 2004, and that was when Bush won reelection. So, because of that, Republicans are defending a lot of seats and conversely, there just aren’t a lot of seats where they have a chance to realistically flip from Democrats. The best three chances states are, I think if you look at the polls, Nevada is probably the best chance for Republicans to flip a state, polling and I go to real clear politics as well is consistently shown Adam Laxalt ahead of the incumbent there, Catherine Cortez Masto and I think a lot of people have considered that it’s going to be a Republican flip.

The second best state would probably be Georgia, just because it’s such a red state and this is presumably going to be a good year for Republicans. You have Herschel Walker, obviously, the Georgia football star who’s popular there amongst Republicans and folks see that probably as a good pickup opportunity.

John Williams: Well, the other thing I think too, just to jump in real quick on Georgia is to watch is the governor’s race between Kemp and Stacey Abrams and just what kind of coattails Kemp has. If you look at those numbers right now, Kemp has stretched it out to a double-digit lead over Abrams. And so, the question become there, and I don’t want to jump ahead too far on Pennsylvania with you, but I think or other states, you got to look at what kind of coattails some of these people at the top of the ticket. Because what people may not understand is that the governor runs at the top of the ticket. So, when you go to vote and you look at it from the top to the bottom of the ballot, the governor’s at the top.

And so, they talk about what kind of coattails do you have for down ballot races? And so, yeah, that’ll be fascinating to watch, to see whether or not Kemp is able to give Walker a little push across the finish line on his own coattails or drag, I guess, across the finish line.

Andrew Coats: Another top of the ticket type of deal is Arizona and for a long time Kelly was presumably ahead in the polls and it been written off as Democrats are going to hold onto that fairly easily but that has really tightened.

John Williams: Well, and it’s really tightened and the other thing that we’re down to the last week where things happen is this morning the Libertarian candidate in that Arizona Senate race dropped out and endorsed Blake Masters, the Republican. And in a race where the margin is so narrow right now, and any swing like that, any development that has such an impact, because the impact only has to be very small. So, that could push Masters across the finish line with that development.

Andrew Coats: So, Nevada, Georgia, Arizona are the three states where Republicans are seen to have a realistic chance of flipping. There’s three other races that are worth watching on next Tuesday, Colorado, New Hampshire, and Washington. Now, they’ve been more reliable blue states the last couple of cycles, and you have fairly strong incumbents there, but I think if you see a wave type of election. One of these states could get swept up in the wave and turn red. I know in Washington, which is about as deep blue as state as you get. You have a very strong candidate there, Tiffany Smiley, who’s done a great job raising money and really forced Democrats to put money into that state and defend it. Colorado, Michael Bennet’s there and you have another strong Republican candidate running and then New Hampshire polls content.

John Williams: Yeah. New Hampshire, that’s a fascinating one to watch because you’ve got a situation where I think Republicans pulled money out of that because their candidate is a little too on the fringes. Let’s just say, but that’s closed in recent days, in New Hampshire.

Andrew Coats: So, you have those three and those are three potential flip opportunities and then you get into the states where Republicans are defending seats. And a year ago at this time, there was a lot of hand-wringing amongst Republicans over. How much they had to defend, and these seats could all go Democrat, and Democrats could have a big number in the Senate, but it’s really gone down to just a couple states now where it looks like Republicans could potentially lose. The biggest state is going to be Pennsylvania and Steven Law, who heads up the SLF, Senate Leadership Fund. This is the biggest role against Super PAC, who controls all the purse strings and where money goes. He has said if Republicans win Pennsylvania, they’re going to win the majority. And listen, there was the debate last week, there’s the old cliche that you cannot win a Senate seat based on the debate, although you sometimes can lose it and that was [inaudible 00:27:15].

John Williams: And that’s happened to Republicans before. Absolutely.

Andrew Coats: At 2012 in Indiana.

John Williams: Right. Missouri, Indiana, yeah. Republicans have a history of losing because of debates.

Andrew Coats: So, we’ll see what happens there In Pennsylvania. In Wisconsin, you have Ron Johnson, it looks like he’s going to hold on there and if not starting to pull away a little bit. In Ohio, you have J.D. Vance looks like he’s going to be able to hold on there. I know a lot of folks were nervous when Portman announced he’s retiring, but I think Vance should win there. Similar situation in North Carolina where he had Richard Burr announced his retirement, and Budd got the Republican nomination and seems like he’s going to be able to win, although that might be closer than some other states.

And then, in Florida, Missouri, you have Rubio in Florida, which I think is closer than some people realize, but Rubio should be able to win there. And then Missouri, that’s just become such a red state that I don’t think there’s any chance, Republicans don’t take that state. John, before we get into predictions, do you have any takes on those states that we just discussed or backing up into the states where Democrats are holding power?

John Williams: Yeah. I think you mentioned the three states of New Hampshire, Colorado, and Washington. I think we’re going to see a surprise. There’s going to be surprised somewhere in the Senate races on election night and not just the close ones that we’re talking about, like Arizona, or Pennsylvania, Georgia. There’s going to be a surprise somewhere. For whatever reason, Republicans are typically, or they’ve been under poll in the last several election cycles, whether Republicans voters are not answering polls or whatever it happens to be. You talk about Trump in ’16. You talk about Trump in ’20, and how off so many of the polls were. I think that Republicans, for whatever reason it is, get undercounted.

And so, I think that in one of those three races, you’re going to see a surprise. I know from talking to people who do what we do, who are employed by a large corporation that’s based in the state of Washington, that works routinely with Patty Murray, the incumbent senator in Washington state, that she’s in trouble and she knows she’s in trouble and she’s running very, very scared right now. And this person thinks that she’s going to lose and this is somebody who’s very familiar with Patty Murray and very familiar with Washington State politics.

Yeah. I mean, my prediction is I do think that the Republicans were going to take the majority back in the Senate. I didn’t think that 28 days ago. I do think it now, and I do think there’s going to be a surprise somewhere along the way with an incumbent that’s going to get beat that we thought might be possible but ends up being a reality.

Andrew Coats: So, I agree. I think Republicans are going to pick up two to three seats and my guess is Nevada and then either Georgia, Arizona, and then I think you could see a shocker in either Colorado or Washington and that would put Senate control with Republicans at either 53-47 or 52-48. That’s my prediction. We’ll know a lot more, obviously, next Tuesday that we’ll probably bleed into Wednesday Thursday, I’d imagine.

John Williams: Yeah. We’re going to have some recounts. I mean, I guess, and could be in a number of states, so I don’t want to say it, but we may not know the results. We’re going to do the results in the control of the house on election night but we’re not going to know it. There’s a chance we’re not going to know it in the Senate. Let’s hope we do. But it’ll give us something to come back and talk about in the next podcast.

Well, Andrew, thank you for that and thank everybody who has joined us today. If you’d like more information about what Andrew and I do, even though we really didn’t even talk at all about that today, which is how we provide federal advocacy service to our clients. Please visit our website at hallrender.com or feel free to reach out to me at jwilliams@hallrender.com, Andrew at acoats@hallrender.com.

One last disclaimer, please remember that views expressed in this podcast are the participants only and do not constitute legal advice. Surprise considering, we gave no legal advice on this one today. We hope you’ll join us for our next podcast, which we will be out sometime after next Tuesday when we will look at how the results will impact the future of healthcare policy on Capitol Hill. So, so long, everybody.