Trump’s Second Term Faces the Ballot Box

First election day of Trump's second term. New first this Tuesday. Tomorrow we're recording this or doing live on Monday. The third Tuesday tomorrow is billed as the first major test of voter sentiment since Donald Trump returned to the White House. In New Jersey, Mickey Sherrill frames competence and stability. She's the Democratic nominee. Jack Citarelli is backed by Trump. Runs on tax and change. In Virginia, there's also a governor's race. Abigail Spanberger p. Pragmatic management. Lt. Governor Winsome Earl Sears embraces the president's agenda from the one big beautiful bill to sweeping federal workforce cuts. New York City's mayoral race pits Zoran Mandani's progressive movement against Andrew Cuomo's antisocialist firewall. With Republican Curtis Sliwa courting disaffected voters. California's Proposition 50 escalates a map war by redrawing congressional lines could flip multiple US House seats. In Pennsylvania, voters decide whether to retain three justices, a call that could shape 2028 election disputes. So very significant there, even though it's kind of boring for a lot of the through line is power. Do voters restrain or reinforce Trump's program? One governor's mansion, one city hall, one courtroom at a time. What's the real message here? The election on Tuesday is the first opportunity for voters to really speak out loudly. We love Trump. We ha Trump. Look carefully at the data. It could show where the country is headed. Let's dig a little bit deeper here and look at some of these races. Now we've talked on this program about the mayoral race in New York City. It is an odd thing to see arguably the second most powerful position in the United States government, the mayor of the largest city, the finance capital of the country, if not the world, the media capital, the largest population city in the United States. To see someone with the socialist name, Dem Democratic Socialist as the frontrunner and the likely mayor, given the fact that historically in America people don't like socialism. More about that later on the program with some new polling data. But sometimes elections are about personalities are about fundamental likes and dislikes of candidates. And so far in New York City it just seems like almost everyone who comes in contact with this young 34 year old father, first time mayoral candidate Sauron Mandami, they like him, they like his ability to communicate and they like his message about making New York City more affordable. So I'm not here to make predictions, but I will tell you this. I'll be awfully surprised if Mamdani doesn't win tomorrow. We'll be analyzing that and dissecting that on Wednesday show in greater detail. But that's one big race that a lot of people interested in US Politics are going to be watching closely. Now, New Jersey is a fascinating case because that is traditionally a Democratic state. It's not a state where Trump has done well, although he did better this last time than he did in the 2020 election. So there's been some growth and growth in a number of counties. Interestingly, the Republican nominee, he's run a couple of times before. He's not saying vote for me. I'm a completely independent Republican and I'll just think of everything through the lens of what's good for New Jersey voters. He's running very much on the Trump agenda. So if he wins, even if he gets close to winning what would otherwise be seen as a slam dunk race for Democrats, that's going to send chills up and down the spine of Democratic leaders and party poobahs for the next year. This is going to be very scary for them. If Trump does well in a place like New Jersey, which is a very wealthy, very educated and by many respects very Democratic progressive state, if, if a Trump candidate can win or almost win there, it's going to make a lot of Democrats think could be doomsday in 2026. Now, California's Prop 50, this is a little bit complicated, but you're a smart audience, otherwise you wouldn't be here. This is where the voters of California are going to give permission to, to the governor and the state legislature to rewrite the congressional districts to gerrymander, that is to rewrite the districts to make it easier for a lot more Democrats to get elected to Congress. Why are they doing that? That doesn't seem fair. That doesn't seem Democratic because Texas, Indiana, North Carolina and a number of other Republican led states have done just that at the request of President Trump, who quite rightly is concerned about losing control of the House of representatives in the 2026 election. So this is seen as a sort of a political payback. In California, the political establishment couldn't just make universal or unilateral decisions the way they could in Texas and other places had to get permission of the voters. So it's going to be interesting to see what happens there. And as I mentioned to you, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, the retention fight, normally that's the type of race that nobody pays attention to. And if you get 2% of people voting, that's a lot. It could have a huge, huge factor because these are the judges who could make big, big decisions if there are fights over which votes count, which votes don't count in 2026 or in 2028. Now in other races there are campaigns going on in Minnesota and Virginia as we mentioned. Here's I am going to make one prediction and it's not going to be make me very popular with many of you. I'm going to predict that if one party does a lot better than expected in tomorrow's off, they call these off year elections the odd year election. I'm going to predict it's not particularly significant as to what will happen in 2026 or 2028. Now often there is a disconnect. Someone could do really well in an off year election and then do poorly the next year. So that's not a wildly crazy prediction on my part. But there are some other factors going on in this year's campaign. Specifically, there's been a shift when it comes to core supporters in the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party used to be seen as the working class party that has shifted. The Democratic Party is now much more closely aligned with highly educated, high income voters. These are the people more likely to vote. These are high propensity voters. They're much more likely to vote in off year elections. So it's entirely possible that the Democrats do extremely well. Again, I'm not predicting that, but it's entirely possible for Democrats to do very well and exceed in a year like 2025 and then do very poorly in 2026. Now a little bit of historical context. Typically, almost always when one political party wins the White House, they lose votes in the House the very next election. So by every historical metric or most historical metric the last 80 years, it would be frankly weird or strange for the Democrats not to take back control of the U.S. house of Representatives because currently the Republicans only have literally a handful majority and there's typically a much bigger swing in who controls the party after the next election. So by most historical measures, the Democrats should win enough seats to control the House of Representatives. That means essentially Trump is not going to get any more legislation passed. It's also going to mean investigation after investigation, most likely impeachments. Now he won't be convicted of any impeachments because the Republicans in the Senate are just not going to do that. But it would completely change the President's ability to have unfettered control over what's happening everywhere in Washington. As I mentioned, that's the typical scenario. I don't know that that's going to happen. Because as low as the current poll ratings are for Trump and the Republican brand in this country, it's even lower for Democrats right now. Look, I'm here as a straight shooter. I'm a sane, sensible center, and I'm in this case reporting, even though I'm not a traditional reporter, I'm an analyst and a communications expert. The Democrats have a problem. It's not enough to say, hey, everybody, you hate this other party, therefore you have to love us. No, it's very possible for voters to say we hate both parties and they could simply sit on their hands and then it might come to a turnout and who, who has stronger support among the base. So then you just don't know. So I want to caution Democrats out there, if for some reason there is a big tree tomorrow in New Jersey, in Virginia and other places, doesn't necessarily mean you're going to control the House of Representatives just because of the factors I mentioned. There's the whole additional factor of this administration has been very, very aggressive at installing loyalists into key, not just key, secretary of state positions around the country. And those are typically the ones who control counting votes. But even down to the county level and the precinct level, you have people now who just proclaim that Trump won the election in 2020, even though the facts did not bear that argument. Many of those people are now in power. And so if it's a close election, the tie is going to go to the incumbent. And that, I think, is a factor that a lot of unknowns there, but that certainly seems to be the overwhelming strategy and push emanating from the White House today. So, as I mentioned, the elections will be tomorrow. If you are an American citizen and there's voting in your state or in your precinct, you may want to educate yourself even more and figure out who to vote for. I'm not going to tell you who to vote.