‘This was an epic blowout’: GOP strategist on Democrats’ election sweep

With us now,

when all new Jersey panel

Democratic strategist

Julian Roginsky and Republican strategist

Mike Duhaime,

in an off year election like this,

there are dangers of over

interpreting the results

and also under interpreting.

So instead of making you choose,

I think I'm going to give you a chance

to do both. Right.

So Overinterpret

what we saw in new Jersey and Virginia,

because actually,

I think it's pretty much the same day.

Yeah.

I mean, look,

the over interpretation of this

is that this is a permanent

majority that

the Democrats will be able to keep.

And what you saw,

at least in new Jersey,

I have to look at the numbers

in Virginia, is

there are cohorts of voters

who came out very strongly

for making sure

who are not necessarily Democratic voters

anymore, and specifically

the Latino community,

which Democrats, I think for many,

many years, needs to take for granted.

You cannot take that community

for granted anymore.

They performed for her last night.

They did not perform for Kamala

Harris last time.

And Democrats better

make sure that they deliver

for that community

in a really meaningful way

to keep that community in the tent.

That's just one example

of a community interpretation where,

you know, Democrats have Latinos

but don't have Latinos, right?

But that's the concern.

You could read this.

And let me assure people, you, me,

Passaic County,

which is has got the largest population

of Hispanics in the state,

Passaic County,

Mikie Sherrill won 57 to 42.

So a 15 point spread in Passaic

County, you're like, oh,

you know, it's largely Hispanic.

This is new Jersey.

You would think that this

would always be the case.

Donald Trump

won this county by about three points

just last year.

So, Mike, you hate him again.

Overinterpret these results.

I grew up in Passaic County,

so I know that that area very well.

I think the over interpretation

is Democrats looking at this and saying,

oh, we're going to sweep

everything next year.

We're going to get back to U.S.

Senate. We're going to win back

all these governors races.

I think in reality,

what you learned last night

was what we're Donald Trump is strong.

It's unique to him.

He has some downside certainly.

And we saw that last night.

But I think the Overinterpret

should be, hey,

we're going to sail forward.

Whether we have a socialist in New York

or more centrist candidates

in new Jersey, in Virginia,

I think you really have to look state

by state and district by district.

So what's the under

interpretation though?

Because maybe the white House

is waking up and saying,

this isn't our problem.

We just said we candidates in this state.

Yeah. The other interpretation is when you lose

by double digits in both these states,

it certainly says something

when Republicans

have won new Jersey

in the past

and Virginia

2009 presaged a big

a big year

for Republicans in 2010, 1993,

1994 Republicans take back the House.

I mean, you cannot sugarcoat this.

This was a blowout.

And it wasn't just new Jersey

in Virginia, local races in Connecticut,

statewide races in Georgia,

county races in Pennsylvania.

This was this was an epic blowout.

This was a bloodbath for the Republicans,

pretty much 100% across the border.

As my 18 year old boys say,

this was like a hundo p night

for Democrats.

So all the Sheryl people

and people

close to the Sheryl campaign last night,

I kept on asking them,

what's the lesson for Democrats

going forward?

And what they said

is, look at the combination

that we ran on.

We yes, we ran against Donald Trump

and we held him up because he's deeply

unpopular in the state.

But we kept on tying him to the economy

and affordability.

And when you do both,

that puts Democrats in a better position.

Oh look

they're probably going

to take exception to this.

But there's not much difference

between the campaign,

not the quality of the campaign,

but the messaging that Zehra Madani

ran here in New York.

Mikie Sherrill ran in new Jersey,

Abigail Spanberger ran in Virginia.

All of it was tied

to the issue of affordability.

All of that was pointing out

that Donald Trump made

a whole lot of promises

that got him elected

last year, that he's not kept.

And I think what you saw was anger

from the voters and saying, listen, Mr.

President, we gave you a chance.

You said we're going to lower prices.

You said you're going

to make our lives better.

And the reality is,

we're struggling more than ever.

And so that's the kind of message

that I think you see, both

from somebody like Zahra madani

and Abigail

Spanberger and Maggie Cheryl,

who probably don't think

they have much in common with each other.

At least the two governors

don't think they have much in common

with the mayor of New York.

But the reality is very much laser

focused, as my pointed out

on the economy,

on an affordability message.

If I were the Republicans today,

I would take very, very,

very strong heed of that.

And I would say

we need to deliver quickly,

because if we don't deliver,

we control everything.

And that's not going to bode

well for us next year.

I think Democrats

nominated a centrist in new Jersey

who ran on a

on a bio that

stuck her squarely

in the center of the electorate.

She did not fall into the trap of

going too far to the left

on these progressive issues.

And when you basically

can stay in the center or center

left as a Democrat in a blue state,

you're going to win.

If you get caricatured

as a far left Democrat,

you can lose even a blue state.

But I think the Sherrod campaign

did a very good job

of keeping her centered,

not going too far to the left

and letting Donald Trump

essentially motivate both sides.

But in new Jersey,

there's a lot more Democrats

and Republicans 10s

each were a year minus

one day for the midterms.

If you're a Republican this morning,

how nervous are you?

I look at and say, hey,

get prepared to lose the House

unless of crazy redistricting,

we probably keep the Senate

because of the map.

But you should be worried.

Flip it over. How excited should be?

Democrats should be excited.

Democrats now, especially

if you're somebody like, I'm making sure.

Abigail Spanberger

certainly offers a reminder

you need to deliver quickly.

I mean, people put their faith in you

that you're going to make

their quality of life better.

You're going to make the economy better

for them. You're going to make life affordable.

You need to deliver quickly,

and Democrats

need to think about how that message

communicates next year in House races.

They need to paint Republicans

as the people who are causing the pain,

which they can

because they control everything

you might do.

Hey, I've been in Jersey for two days.

I've heard a lifetime's

worth of Bruce Springsteen.

Thank you. Thanks very much for that.

I'm going to bring in

now Ken Martin, chairman

of the Democratic National Committee.

Good morning. Thank you for being here.

Thank you, Audie, thanks for having me.

It's a great day to be a Democrat.

Well, the pressure is on, though,

for you in particular,

because all of us can talk and interpret,

but you actually have to put money

behind your interpretations.

So when you look at the moderates

who won,

and then you look at this

big win

in New York City

for a democratic socialist,

how do you bridge that gap?

Well, look, I mean,

last night was really interesting,

of course,

and what it proved is

what I've said all along.

I in my time

leading in Minnesota

and now at the DNC,

that we are a big tent coalition.

There's no one way to be a Democrat, right?

We went through addition,

not subtraction.

We bring in,

we win by bringing in new voices

with new ideas. Right?

But as much as people

want to focus on the differences

within the Democratic Party,

of course

we have

conservative Democrats,

centrist progressives, and and leftists.

The reality is, is

there was a lot

that all of these candidates

had in common.

Last night, right.

There was a through line.

And the through line

is that

all three candidates, Zoran

Mamdani, Abigail Spanberger and Mike

shell, were focused on kitchen

table issues, not on gilded ballrooms.

They were focused on affordability.

How do you actually bring down the cost

of goods?

How do you actually bring down

the cost of people's mortgage and rent

and the cost of childcare and on and on,

all the things

that are creating anxiety

within the American people

who are just

want a champion,

want someone to focus

on their economic future.

And that's what Democrats did.

I also think the wrong lesson last night.

I know there is anti-Trump

sentiment in this country,

but it really takes away from the fact

that the other thing

all three of those candidates

had in common is they ran for something.

They ran on a positive

agenda of how they would actually make

a difference in people's lives.

And so

we jump in here

because also you have people

maybe it's David Hogg,

maybe it's Stacey Abrams.

There are going to be people out there

who are going to put their chips

on certain kinds of candidates

and are are you, as AOC said

at the top of this show,

denying the future by not embracing

some of these candidates? Further left,

we've

the idea of the DNC not embracing

candidates in the Democratic

Party is just inaccurate.

You know, I,

as I just mentioned,

the way I lead in Minnesota

is through a big tent approach.

There's no one way

or one stripe of being a Democrat. Right?

We are a coalition party.

And that means you win through addition,

not subtraction.

That means we,

welcome all candidates that run.

It's not up to me

to put my finger on the scale

and decide which candidates

we will support.

That's up to the primary voters,

which is why, by the way,

I endorsed storm,

Danny the night that he won

and was proud to support him.

Unlike other Democratic leaders.

I will tell you this.

We are actually building a big tent.

We understand that in this country,

we need different types of Democrats

to win in different spaces,

and all of them bring different ideas.

But no one should confuse unanimity

with unity in this party.

And what do I mean by that?

Of course, in this big tent coalition,

we're going to have a difference of ideas

and opinions on how to accomplish things.

But what we share in terms of unity

is that we all have the same goals.

Our goals are to lower,

health care costs

and to make sure people

have access to health care.

Our goals are to make sure

I want to jump in here

just because

I want to have time to ask you

about prop 50 in California.

I just want to play for you a little bit.

What governor Newsom had to say

in explaining, that victory

prop 50 is

not about drawing lines on a map.

It is about holding the line

to what makes us who we are.

Donald Trump is nothing

more than weakness

masquerading as strength.

Why else do you need to make a phone call

to Greg Abbott

in the middle

of the midterm redistricting?

Unless you're weak?

This turned out to be quite a boon for,

California Democrats.

They were able to raise

a ton of money off of this issue.

And then you had Newsom coming out.

You know, kind of giving us

20, 28 vibes in his speech.

So I want to know from you,

do you think blue states, so to speak,

need to get in on this,

get into this conversation

about redistricting?

Are we looking at an

escalating redistricting war?

Well, certainly, as we've said,

you know, what happened in California

was the counterpunch

to Texas

and Greg Abbott

bending the knee to Donald Trump.

And so now we've leveled

the playing field,

and now it's up to Republicans.

If they continue with this nonsense

and continue

going down this road

of trying to redistrict,

unconstitutionally redistrict

in Republican controlled states,

we're going to meet them state by state.

They wanted this fight.

They created this fight. Right.

And we're going to meet them

this is not your grandfather's

Democratic Party.

Well, we're going to play with one

hand behind our back.

We are actually fighting back.

I'm proud of Governor

Newsom and Californians

for sending a message.

My hope now

is that the

it creates

a chilling effect for the Republicans,

and they realize

that we're going to meet them

each and every step of the way,

whether it's in Virginia,

whether it's in New York,

whether it's in Illinois,

whether it's in other states

throughout the country,

we will meet them,

with fire and fire, with fire.

And I'm just we're not playing around

any more on this.

And I'm glad that Governor Newsom

stood up and said what he is,

because Donald Trump is a weak man.

And the fact is,

he knows he's going to lose.

Last night is a clear example of that.

And the only way they can win

in 2026 is rigging the maps

and changing the rules midstream,

and we're not going to

allow them to do that.