[Rush Lindell] Welcome in,
[Rush Lindell] welcome in,
[Rush Lindell] it's the Rush Lindell Show and I've got a fresh forecast that's gonna ruin somebody's Tuesday.
[Reagan] Only somebodies?
[Rush Lindell] Fine; half the country's.
[Rush Lindell] DDHQ just dropped their twenty twenty-six mid-term numbers,
[Rush Lindell] and Reagan,
[Rush Lindell] the House is looking blue again.
[Reagan] Favored rush,
[Reagan] not decided; there's a difference,
[Reagan] and we're going to talk about it.
[Rush Lindell] Fair?
[Rush Lindell] But the Senate,
[Rush Lindell] that's the real fight.
[Rush Lindell] Fifty-fifty,
[Rush Lindell] and JD Vance sitting there as the tiebreaker.
[Reagan] That's the number everybody's
[Rush Lindell] fixating on,
[Reagan] on,
[Reagan] and I want to know if it's actually earned.
[Rush Lindell] it's earned-and here's the thing: we're building this whole hour around what I'm calling the Senate Firewall.
[Reagan] You named it already?
[Rush Lindell] I named it in the shower this morning.
[Reagan] Of course you did.
[Rush Lindell] We're also getting into the House math-how redistricting quietly moved some seats around before a single vote's been cast.
[Reagan] And later,
[Reagan] Rush is putting on a little theater with a DNC war room bit.
[Reagan] Bit that I fully intend to ruin.
[Rush Lindell] And we're keeping an eye on Trump's approval trend against the generic ballot cushion,
[Rush Lindell] too.
[Reagan] Which is shrinking,
[Reagan] for the record.
[Rush Lindell] She always does.
[Rush Lindell] But first,
[Rush Lindell] this hour is brought to you by Lear Capital,
[Rush Lindell] America's precious metals leader since nineteen ninety seven.
[Reagan] Good partner to have around when the polling gets shaky.
[Rush Lindell] So grab your coffee,
[Rush Lindell] settle in,
[Rush Lindell] we've got Congress,
[Rush Lindell] we've got the firewall and we've got Reagan trying to keep me honest.
[Reagan] Somebody has to.
[Rush Lindell] Let's start where it all begins-the forecast that's got both parties talking.
[Rush Lindell] Before we dive in, a quick reminder:
[Rush Lindell] we love hearing from you. If you have questions or topics you'd like us to cover,
[Rush Lindell] head to the link in the description and submit your question.
[Rush Lindell] We read every single one.
[Rush Lindell] As of Reagan,
[Rush Lindell] the Senate firewall threat we've been running all cycle just got a plot twist.
[Reagan] Oh no,
[Reagan] what kind of twist?
[Rush Lindell] DDHQ dropped their first full 2026 forecast,
[Rush Lindell] and they're giving Democrats a 61% shot at flipping the Senate,
[Rush Lindell] 51 to 49.
[Reagan] 61?
[Reagan] That's not a coin flip. That's a lean.
[Rush Lindell] Ha ha. And here's my favorite part. The House stays.
[Rush Lindell] It's 50-50.
[Rush Lindell] Republicans favored 57%, which means the tiebreaker's sitting right there in the vice president's chair.
[Reagan] So Vance becomes the human firewall.
[Rush Lindell] I was going to say Fifty-First Vote Vance, but sure,
[Rush Lindell] we'll Workshop it.
[Reagan] Workshop away,
[Reagan] but Rush,
[Reagan] 57% is not a MANDATE.
[Reagan] That's basically a Tuesday coin flip with a slight lean.
[Rush Lindell] It's the number DDHQ published.
[Rush Lindell] I'm not spinning it.
[Reagan] I'm not saying you are:
[Reagan] I'm saying don't treat fifty seven like it's ninety five.
[Reagan] People hear a probability and hear a promise.
[Rush Lindell] Fair; but walk with me.
[Rush Lindell] The generic ballot's the real tell here.
[Reagan] It is.
[Reagan] Democrats were up seven points back in May,
[Rush Lindell] And now?
[Reagan] down to roughly three and a half,
[Reagan] maybe four.
[Rush Lindell] That's the whole margin evaporating in real time.
[Reagan] Which is exactly why I don't love treating either forecast number like-
[Reagan] like gospel,
[Reagan] the environments moving under everybody's feet.
[Rush Lindell] But here's what gets me:
[Rush Lindell] Democrats need almost nothing to flip this House, a handful of seats,
[Rush Lindell] and yet the odds aren't a landslide.
[Reagan] Right,
[Reagan] which tells you something's propping the GOP up that the seat math alone doesn't explain.
[Rush Lindell] So what's the safety net nobody on cable's talking about?
[Rush Lindell] Laying in,
[Rush Lindell] building on that math,
[Rush Lindell] here's a number nobody on cable wants to touch:
[Reagan] Go on.
[Rush Lindell] DDHQ's forecast says mid decade redistricting netted Republicans roughly five extra House seats.
[Rush Lindell] Five,
[Rush Lindell] just from redrawn lines!
[Reagan] So five seats before a single votes cast.
[Rush Lindell] Exactly.
[Rush Lindell] Democrats technically need three seats to flip that two twenty to fifteen edge,
[Rush Lindell] but factor in the new maps and the real target's closer to.
[Rush Lindell] After to eight.
[Reagan] So the flip probabilities quietly pad it by geography,
[Reagan] not persuasion.
[Rush Lindell] I call it the insurance policy.
[Rush Lindell] Nobody sells it,
[Rush Lindell] nobody advertises it,
[Rush Lindell] but it's sittin'
[Rush Lindell] in every Republican's club box.
[Reagan] Cute,
[Reagan] but you're stacking two different variables like they're one.
[Rush Lindell] Which variables?
[Reagan] Redistricting's fixed lines.
[Reagan] Some of this Democratic favorability could just be Trump's approval number shifting.
[Reagan] Not the maps.
[Rush Lindell] Come on.
[Reagan] No,
[Reagan] hold on-if his numbers tick up before November,
[Reagan] does the forecast even hold the same way?
[Rush Lindell] Fair; the maps don't move-the mood might.
[Reagan] Right,
[Reagan] separate them,
[Reagan] Redistricting's the floor,
[Reagan] approvals the wind.
[Rush Lindell] The floor's still eight feet high—that's a real climb,
[Rush Lindell] even with good wind.
[Reagan] Structural doesn't mean impossible,
[Reagan] just harder.
[Rush Lindell] And that's the trick,
[Rush Lindell] three on paper,
[Rush Lindell] eight in practice.
[Speaker 3] Wow.
[Reagan] A very different headline than the one everyone's running with.
[Rush Lindell] Nobody wants to say the game's rigged by geometry,
[Rush Lindell] not just politics.
[Reagan] Geometry doesn't get invited on the Sunday shows.
[Rush Lindell] Speaking of structural fights,
[Rush Lindell] there's a bigger one brewing in the Senate.
[Reagan] Where the map's a whole different animal.
[Rush Lindell] Shifting to the Senate,
[Rush Lindell] this fight's the polar opposite of the House—Republicans hold the ground already.
[Reagan] Fifty-three to Forty-seven.
[Reagan] Democrats need four seats to flip it.
[Reagan] Just four.
[Rush Lindell] Doesn't sound like much,
[Rush Lindell] does it?
[Rush Lindell] But DDHQ says the whole battle comes down to eight specific races:
[Reagan] Name them.
[Rush Lindell] Maine,
[Rush Lindell] North Carolina,
[Rush Lindell] Ohio,
[Rush Lindell] Alaska,
[Rush Lindell] Iowa,
[Rush Lindell] Texas,
[Rush Lindell] Michigan,
[Rush Lindell] Georgia.
[Rush Lindell] Eight states holding up one wall.
[Reagan] And that wall's only as strong as its weakest brick.
[Rush Lindell] Here's what should worry every Republican strategist tonight:
[Rush Lindell] these races aren't running on separate tracks.
[Reagan] Explain that.
[Rush Lindell] DDHQ analyst Geoffrey Skelley put it plainly:
[Rush Lindell] these outcomes are correlated,
[Rush Lindell] not independent.
[Reagan] Translation for the folks driving home:
[Reagan] if the national mood shifts,
[Reagan] it doesn't flip one race,
[Reagan] it moves
[Speaker 4] them all.
[Reagan] Proves three,
[Reagan] four,
[Reagan] five at once.
[Rush Lindell] Right.
[Rush Lindell] Picture one hallway,
[Rush Lindell] Reagan; kick the front door open,
[Rush Lindell] and the rest swing wide behind it!
[Reagan] Skelley's point is that one current runs under every single race at once.
[Rush Lindell] Which is exactly why I'm calling this whole map the Firewall.
[Rush Lindell] Fifty three seat sounds solid; it's one bad news cycle from folding like a cheap lawn chair.
[Reagan] I'll grant the correlation point; that's legitimate.
[Reagan] But one bad news cycle is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
[Rush Lindell] Is it?
[Rush Lindell] Watch what happens if unemployment ticks up in Ohio and Michigan the same month.
[Reagan] Sure; shared economic conditions move correlated states together; that's just math nobody wants to say out loud in Senate leadership meetings.
[Rush Lindell] Which is exactly why I'm saying it:
[Rush Lindell] somebody's got to.
[Reagan] So,
[Reagan] of those eight,
[Reagan] three are doing the heaviest lifting in DDHQ's own numbers.
[Rush Lindell] Three races,
[Rush Lindell] one firewall—and Reagan,
[Rush Lindell] that's where this gets uncomfortable for the GOP.
[Reagan] Why?
[Speaker 3] Thank you.
[Rush Lindell] Building on that,
[Rush Lindell] let's stress test the firewall,
[Rush Lindell] North Carolina first.
[Reagan] The open seat Thom Tillis is leaving behind.
[Rush Lindell] Right.
[Rush Lindell] According to DDHQ's forecast,
[Rush Lindell] Republicans have just a twenty eight percent chance of holding it.
[Rush Lindell] Cooper's led Michael Whatley in every single public poll this cycle.
[Reagan] Every poll.
[Reagan] That's a real pattern.
[Rush Lindell] A pattern that's basically writing Whatley's obituary before election day.
[Rush Lindell] I'm calling this one Cooper's coronation.
[Reagan] Cute!
[Reagan] Now let's go to Alaska,
[Reagan] because that one's stranger.
[Rush Lindell] Oh,
[Rush Lindell] Alaska:
[Rush Lindell] Mary Peltola versus Dan Sullivan.
[Rush Lindell] Trump won that state by double digits.
[Reagan] And yet...?
[Rush Lindell] And yet DDHQ has Peltola at a forty four per cent shot at unseating him-forty four,
[Rush Lindell] in a state that red!
[Reagan] That tells you either Sullivan's got a real problem,
[Reagan] or Peltola's just that good at outrunning the top of the ticket.
[Rush Lindell] Both.
[Rush Lindell] She did it in twenty twenty two with ranked choice.
[Rush Lindell] Now she's doing it again.
[Reagan] Third one,
[Reagan] Texas.
[Rush Lindell] Texas is the chaos race.
[Rush Lindell] Ken Paxton knocked off John Cornyn in the primary,
[Rush Lindell] the sitting senator,
[Rush Lindell] gone.
[Reagan] An incumbent senator loses his own primary?
[Rush Lindell] Bloodbath.
[Rush Lindell] And now Paxton's facing James Talarico and DDHQ's got this listed among its top toss ups nationally.
[Reagan] Give me the nickname; I know you've got one.
[Rush Lindell] It's Paxton versus the Preacher.
[Rush Lindell] Talarico's got the seminary background,
[Rush Lindell] Paxton's got the impeachment file.
[Rush Lindell] Pick your Sunday sermon.
[Reagan] Fine,
[Reagan] I will allow it; but I've got a problem with the firewall thesis.
[Rush Lindell] Go ahead!
[Reagan] You've named three races.
[Reagan] Even if Democrats sweep North Carolina,
[Reagan] Alaska,
[Reagan] and Texas—that's three seats.
[Reagan] What's the fourth?
[Rush Lindell] That's—that's the actual math problem,
[Rush Lindell] isn't it?
[Reagan] It is.
[Reagan] Four net flips gets them to fifty-fifty,
[Reagan] and Vance still breaks that tie the other way if they stop at three.
[Rush Lindell] So even a clean sweep of the big three leaves them one short.
[Rush Lindell] Short!
[Reagan] One short:
[Reagan] there's a fourth domino somewhere on that map we haven't named tonight.
[Rush Lindell] Suddenly,
[Rush Lindell] the Firewall's looking a little sturdier than I gave it credit for.
[Reagan] Sturdier,
[Reagan] but that fourth seat still nowhere in sight.
[Rush Lindell] Which is exactly why some folks are already measuring the curtains over at the DNC.
[Rush Lindell] Speaking of spin—picture this:
[Rush Lindell] somewhere in DC there's a War Room.
[Reagan] Oh,
[Reagan] no; you're doing the voice.
[Rush Lindell] Team,
[Rush Lindell] we've got a forty per cent shot at full control,
[Rush Lindell] that's a mandate.
[Reagan] A forty per cent mandate.
[Reagan] Bold!
[Rush Lindell] Tell the donors it's a landslide,
[Rush Lindell] tell the base it's destiny.
[Reagan] To be fair,
[Reagan] Republicans run the same play when they're ahead.
[Rush Lindell] Completely flip the number,
[Rush Lindell] same script.
[Rush Lindell] Fifty seven per cent Senate odds basically sworn in.
[Reagan] Whoever's up treats the number like scripture.
[Reagan] Whoever's down treats it like noise.
[Rush Lindell] That's the whole game.
[Reagan] It's really just cable news treating a percentage like prophecy.
[Reagan] Forty per cent isn't a mandate,
[Reagan] it's a probability with a bad publicist.
[Rush Lindell] A bad publicist,
[Rush Lindell] stealing that.
[Reagan] Keep it; somebody tell the War Room math doesn't care about morale.
[Rush Lindell] And on that note,
[Rush Lindell] let's talk about the number that might actually move it all.
[Reagan] The one nobody in that room wants to look at.
[Rush Lindell] Forget the War Room bit for a second.
[Rush Lindell] Here's a number that actually moves things.
[Reagan] Go on.
[Rush Lindell] DDHQ's own polling average has Trump's approval up to 42.5%, highest since March.
[Reagan] Small bump,
[Reagan] but small bumps matter in a midterm year.
[Rush Lindell] Exactly why it matters,
[Rush Lindell] Reagan.
[Rush Lindell] Every point he climbs,
[Rush Lindell] the Democratic tailwind shrinks a little more.
[Reagan] And the DDHQ forecast flags exactly that risk.
[Reagan] if the generic ballot lead falls to around D plus two point five,
[Reagan] the House stops being Favored Democrat and turns into a flat coin flip.
[Rush Lindell] Razor's edge!
[Reagan] It is.
[Reagan] So which moves faster,
[Reagan] approval numbers or actual economic anxiety in people's wallets?
[Rush Lindell] Anxiety wins.
[Rush Lindell] Grocery prices don't wait on a polling average to catch up.
[Reagan] Sure,
[Reagan] but polling doesn't always catch anxiety in real time either.
[Reagan] The lag runs both
[Speaker 4] ways.
[Reagan] both directions.
[Rush Lindell] So we're both flying a little blind.
[Reagan] A hundred plus days out,
[Reagan] we're flying very blind.
[Reagan] That's not a hedge,
[Reagan] that's just the calendar.
[Rush Lindell] Fair enough; Uncertainty cuts both ways,
[Rush Lindell] for us,
[Rush Lindell] for investors,
[Rush Lindell] for anybody with skin in this race.
[Speaker 5] Right.
[Reagan] Speaking of skin in the game.
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[Rush Lindell] That's the number,
[Rush Lindell] write it down.
[Reagan] A hundred days changes minds; numbers won't sit still.
[Rush Lindell] Neither will we.
[Rush Lindell] Let's put one on the board.
[Speaker 6] t
[Rush Lindell] Building on that Firewall talk,
[Rush Lindell] time to put a number on the board.
[Reagan] Go on,
[Reagan] then.
[Rush Lindell] Two,
[Rush Lindell] I say Democrats flip two of the eight seats DDHQ flagged, and,
[Rush Lindell] enough to make the map close,
[Rush Lindell] not enough to break the wall.
[Reagan] Which two?
[Rush Lindell] North Carolina and one darker I'm not naming yet-save it for next week.
[Reagan] Building Suspense-Classic
[Rush Lindell] That's the job.
[Reagan] Okay,
[Reagan] my caveat,
[Reagan] and it's a real one:
[Reagan] one hundred plus days is a FULL news cycle,
[Reagan] a jobs report,
[Reagan] maybe two.
[Reagan] Fundraising numbers alone could-
[Rush Lindell] Flip three of these races before Labor Day.
[Reagan] Sure,
[Reagan] but conviction beats waiting around.
[Rush Lindell] Conviction's fine,
[Rush Lindell] just don't confuse it with certainty.
[Reagan] Noted,
[Reagan] Professor.
[Rush Lindell] So here's the deal:
[Rush Lindell] we keep the Senate Firewall thread alive.
[Rush Lindell] Every polling update,
[Rush Lindell] every fundraising filing,
[Rush Lindell] we come back to these eight races.
[Reagan] Same scorecard every week until somebody's wall actually cracks.
[Rush Lindell] Agreed.
[Reagan] Right.
[Rush Lindell] Mark it down:
[Rush Lindell] Rush says two flips,
[Rush Lindell] I say the range stays wide open.
[Reagan] And in a hundred days, one of us gets to say I told you so.
[Rush Lindell] We'll see whose firewall's still standing.
[Reagan] So today we dug into DDHQ's new forecast—Democrats favored for the House,
[Reagan] Senate frozen at fifty-fifty with Vance holding the gavel.
[Rush Lindell] And the number that stuck with me—Skelley's firewall idea—those eight Senate races moving as one block,
[Rush Lindell] not eight separate stories.
[Reagan] Right—my take? Two of those eight flip blue by November.
[Reagan] Mark it down!
[Rush Lindell] A hundred days of polling left,
[Rush Lindell] Rush—I'm not signing that check yet.
[Reagan] Workshop it with me next week.
[Rush Lindell] Deal.
[Rush Lindell] The takeaway,
[Rush Lindell] probabilities aren't promises.
[Rush Lindell] Watch the trend and skip the headline.
[Reagan] Exactly right.
[Reagan] If you like this one, hit subscribe.
[Reagan] Leave us five stars.
[Reagan] Tell a friend.
[Rush Lindell] New episodes every weekday.
[Reagan] We'll keep tracking the Firewall race by race.
[Rush Lindell] Thanks for spending the hour with us.
[Reagan] See you next time.