Swing vote will likely go against Republicans next election cycle: National Journal's Charlie Cook

Steve Liesman (Senior Economics Reporter) 00:00.070

joining us now charlie cook the famous founder contributor to the cook political report with amy walter and a columnist for the national journal journal charlie so good to have you thanks for joining us this morning

Charlie Cook (Founder and Contributor; Columnist) 00:11.270

thank you for having me on steve

Steve Liesman (Senior Economics Reporter) 00:12.710

OK so there's three things we're thinking about here what is the general overlay of the drift of what's happening in the electorate maybe against the incumbency towards there's also the gerrymandering going on and then there's this critical issue emily just talked about which is

Steve Liesman (Senior Economics Reporter) 00:27.790

what's happening with retirement maybe take those one two three start off with the general overlay the drift of what you expect historically when it comes to a midterm election with republicans in the in the house and in the white house sorry now there

Charlie Cook (Founder and Contributor; Columnist) 00:41.870

voters are in a really sour mood and you know one way to look at it is about forty seven forty eight percent are going to vote democrat no matter what and forty seven forty eight going to vote republican no matter what which leaves only like four five six in the middle and those

Charlie Cook (Founder and Contributor; Columnist) 00:54.910

people they were really disappointed by president biden now they're disappointed with president trump they're they're upset about with congress that that swing vote in the middle i think there's a really really good chance it's going to be swinging against republicans and i

Charlie Cook (Founder and Contributor; Columnist) 01:11.710

think for republicans they see that this mood is not real great and to be honest when i talk to former members of congress that have retired in the last ten twenty years not a one of them regrets leaving i mean not a one and you know there's no line that people run for congress

Charlie Cook (Founder and Contributor; Columnist) 01:27.790

for one of two reasons either to do something or to be somebody and the ability to do something has gone way down and the esteem of congress means that you're not really elevating yourself that much necessarily well let's

Steve Liesman (Senior Economics Reporter) 01:42.670

get to that retirement thing the the the numbers that emily reported forty four in congress nine senators i guess thirty of which are republican twenty three are democrats is that a large number relatively and what kind of impact will it have do you think on the outcome of the

Steve Liesman (Senior Economics Reporter) 01:58.470

midterms

Charlie Cook (Founder and Contributor; Columnist) 01:59.790

yeah that's a it's a it's a large it's for this point it's very very large you know one thing that happens and this kind of inside baseball but republicans in the house have term limits in terms of committee chairmanships and subcommittees and all that so that they tend to have

Charlie Cook (Founder and Contributor; Columnist) 02:15.790

more churn than democrats do and that's one reason why you see a lot of much older democrats in the house than you see republicans because they will have you know turned out but you know this is this is a a big number and when a party thinks that when when a lot of members think

Charlie Cook (Founder and Contributor; Columnist) 02:33.150

that their party is about to lose their majority you know in the house you know in the senate you could be in the minority party and still be somewhat influential in the house if you're in the minority party you're nobody and you know i think some republicans are not anxious to

Charlie Cook (Founder and Contributor; Columnist) 02:49.150

go back into nobody status let

Steve Liesman (Senior Economics Reporter) 02:51.430

me just go back to the the general overlay our latest CNBC all america poll showed a four point advantage for democrats congressional preference it was lower than some other polls but it was the highest we've had since nineteen twenty that are there other polls are there other

Steve Liesman (Senior Economics Reporter) 03:08.510

things that suggest to you that there's a greater preference for democratic control now

Charlie Cook (Founder and Contributor; Columnist) 03:14.150

there he is and one of the things is when you think about you know doing a national survey in yours is usually about a thousand a thousand voters or so a thousand people that only about maybe seventy or eighty of those would be in swing districts and so you know the republicans

Charlie Cook (Founder and Contributor; Columnist) 03:33.270

tend to live in redder districts democrats in bluer districts but in these swing districts in the middle they tend to be disproportionately independent and president trump 's approval rating among independents is down in the thirties low thirties in fact so that it looks worse

Charlie Cook (Founder and Contributor; Columnist) 03:50.590

for republicans in swing districts than it does in sort of the national numbers overall and

Steve Liesman (Senior Economics Reporter) 03:56.350

then there's this gerrymandering issue which there was texas and then california came back and then indiana refused to go what's the status of all this in terms of i i guess just count in terms of who was winning the gerrymandering race which is not something that i think

Steve Liesman (Senior Economics Reporter) 04:12.550

anybody wanted to be a contest they wanted to win but i guess that that that's where we're at right now

Charlie Cook (Founder and Contributor; Columnist) 04:19.150

but yeah republicans thought they were going to be able to like just basically grab five in taxes and didn't really anticipate the democrats would respond in kind in california overall i think it's going to be close to a wash maybe republicans come out a seat or two ahead but if

Charlie Cook (Founder and Contributor; Columnist) 04:35.750

you're headed for election where your party was going to lose fifteen or twenty or twenty five a seat or two or three isn't going to make that much difference so that republicans may gain a tiny bit from that but it's nothing compared with what a party usually does if they've

Charlie Cook (Founder and Contributor; Columnist) 04:56.350

got a president with the kind of numbers that president trump has right now