Dem
51
Ties
3
GOP
46
Charlie Cook doesn't lead the Cook Political Report anymore (though he is still a contributor). He does continue to do political analysis at his personal Substack, which is titled "Charlie Cook Politics." He must have labored for weeks to come up with that name.
Yesterday, Cook published a piece of the sort that you don't often see from a cautious psephologist like him. The headline is "When a nightmare scenario becomes the most likely scenario," while the considerably more useful subhead is "Things are now officially bad for Republicans. It's just a matter of degree." Here are the first two paragraphs, which pretty much give the gist of the thing:
With 64 days before Election Day (although the first mail-in ballots will go out in a matter of days), Republicans should brace themselves: The three most plausible outcomes are that it will be bad, really bad, or truly horrible. Conversely, a Democrat should at least briefly consider that the good fortune they may have in November will come compliments of the president, not as a result of much that they have done.
This is a very different situation than what existed at the beginning of this election cycle, even different from the beginning of this year. The worst-case scenario for the GOP and best for Democrats today would have sounded ludicrous eight months ago; the most plausible today resembles Republicans' nightmare scenario at the beginning of the year.
In all three scenarios ("bad," "really bad," or "truly horrible"), Cook sees a net gain for the Democrats of at least four seats in the Senate and at least 15 in the House. In other words, he thinks it's a done deal that control of both chambers will flip. In the more extreme scenarios, he thinks the number of House seats that could flip rises to the mid-30s, while the number of Senate seats rises to five or six.
Cook's basis for his conclusions is largely polling. However, he takes care to point out that he has little interest in anything other than very-high-quality polls. He lists the three pollsters that make the cut for him—The New York Times/Siena College, Fox and AARP—and says that if you just look at those gold-standard polls, and ignore the rest of the polls (which Cook dismisses as "noise"), then you have to conclude the picture for the GOP is grim.
According to Cook, the Republicans' problem, in a word, is T-R-U-M-P. The tariffs and the Iran War, in particular, were self-inflicted wounds that hit Americans hard in the wallet. Needless to say, the leopard isn't going to change his spots at this point, even if 64 days were enough to do so, which it isn't. So, the GOP is going to learn exactly how low DJT will take them.
There isn't much in Cook's analysis here that we disagree with, and we don't have much to add. Though we will point out that desperate times call for desperate measures, and even Trump knows he's looking at a shellacking. He likely doesn't care that much about being investigated six ways to Sunday while he's still president, but he probably also knows that those investigations could allow the next AG, or the next group of U.S. Attorneys, to hit the ground running in January 2029, something that was not true in January 2021.
The point is that Trump is cornered, and that is when he is most likely to do illegal and desperate things. So, if ever there's a time to fear some sort of extreme measure, like trying to declare martial law on Election Day, this would be it. One of us, namely (Z), does not think that this administration has the brains or the balls to pull that off. The other of us, namely (V), is not so sure. At this point, though, all that anyone can do is be vigilant, and to make sure to vote, and to vote in the way that is least subject to interference. For example, if you are able to vote early in person, that is the best bet. If you don't want to chance crowds and ICEmen on Election Day, get an absentee ballot and put it in a drop box or personally bring it to an authorized drop-off location. These avoid any attempts by the USPS to disenfranchise voters. And tell everyone you know to do likewise. (Z)