[Rush Lindell] You know what nobody wants to say:
[Rush Lindell] the Senate map just quietly shifted under the Republican Party's feet,
[Rush Lindell] and most of Washington hasn't caught up yet.
[Reagan] The Cook Political Report moved four ratings on June eleventh-all four in Democrats'
[Reagan] favor.
[Reagan] That's not noise; that's a trend.
[Rush Lindell] Alaska,
[Rush Lindell] Ohio,
[Rush Lindell] North Carolina,
[Rush Lindell] Iowa-Republicans are defending twenty three of the thirty five seats up this cycle,
[Rush Lindell] and they need Democrats to need f
[Speaker 3] -
[Rush Lindell] Need four seats-that's the math,
[Rush Lindell] and the math is not being corroborative.
[Reagan] Iowa shifted on June second; our plus thirteen State; no incumbent; Cook dropped it from likely to lean Republican; that should not be happening.
[Rush Lindell] Should not,
[Rush Lindell] but here we are.
[Reagan] And then you've got Maine-Susan Collins,
[Rush Lindell] Wow.
[Reagan] a nine point deficit in one poll,
[Reagan] the money pouring in from both sides.
[Rush Lindell] Nine points in Maine—Susan Collins,
[Rush Lindell] who has survived every election since.
[Rush Lindell] I've got everything!
[Rush Lindell] That race may end up being the one that decides who controls the chamber.
[Reagan] It's a competitive map now,
[Reagan] and that matters regardless of where you come down on the candidates.
[Rush Lindell] Reagan's job is to keep me from oversimplifying.
[Rush Lindell] Mine is to keep this from becoming a policy seminar.
[Reagan] We've got a good balance today.
[Rush Lindell] We're going to walk through the toss-up states,
[Rush Lindell] the North Carolina problem the Republicans made themselves,
[Rush Lindell] the Maine money race,
[Rush Lindell] and then zoom out on what the full map means.
[Rush Lindell] But the full map actually means—because the meta story here is the one the Republican Party should be losing sleep over.
[Reagan] The Senate overview is where we start.
[Reagan] Let's get that structural picture right before we pull apart individual races.
[Rush Lindell] Fifty-three to forty-seven.
[Rush Lindell] Four seats.
[Rush Lindell] That's the whole equation.
[Rush Lindell] We're going to make it make sense right now.
[Rush Lindell] Before we get started, 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] Short pause.
[Reagan] Short pause.
[Rush Lindell] Thirty-five seats on the table,
[Rush Lindell] Republicans defending twenty-two of them,
[Rush Lindell] and the map just moved,
[Rush Lindell] fast and quiet.
[Rush Lindell] Cook Political Report dropped two ratings changes on June eleventh; Alaska and Ohio both flipped from Lean Republican to Toss-Up.
[Rush Lindell] Same day,
[Rush Lindell] North Carolina moved the other direction,
[Rush Lindell] Toss-Up to Lean Democrat.
[Reagan] So three states in one day—that's not a ripple, rush,
[Reagan] that's a wave.
[Rush Lindell] And you know what most of conservative media is doing with this?
[Reagan] Hmm.
[Rush Lindell] Sitting on it. Quietly.
[Rush Lindell] Nobody wants to say the map is in trouble when there's five months to go.
[Reagan] The math is worth actually laying out.
[Reagan] Democrats currently hold forty seven seats.
[Reagan] They need a net gain of four to take the majority.
[Reagan] Republicans are defending twenty two of those thirty five seats up.
[Reagan] That's the structural disadvantage.
[Rush Lindell] And the thing is,
[Rush Lindell] NPR ran a piece back in May flagging that the national environment is a difficult one for Republicans.
[Rush Lindell] Trump's approval numbers are down,
[Rush Lindell] the economy's still soft.
[Rush Lindell] often,
[Rush Lindell] and that head wind is nationalized; it hits every Republican on the map.
[Reagan] Now here's where I push back slightly:
[Reagan] a bad environment for the president's party in June doesn't automatically translate to seats flipping.
[Reagan] These ratings are snapshots,
[Reagan] June 11th snapshots.
[Speaker 4] Fair,
[Speaker 4] but you don't get three Cook changes in a single day unless
[Reagan] one.
[Speaker 4] something real shifted.
[Speaker 4] That's not a forecaster being cautious,
[Speaker 4] that's a forecaster saying we can no longer call this Lean Republican with a straight face.
[Reagan] Agreed, and the money is confirming it; Maine alone,
[Reagan] ad impact tracked over fifty-three million dollars in primary ad spending; the general election is already tracking toward a record.
[Speaker 4] Fifty-three million in the primary for a state with a million and a half people.
[Speaker 4] Someone is very,
[Speaker 4] very nervous.
[Reagan] Two of them moved the same day,
[Reagan] same forecaster,
[Reagan] same direction.
[Reagan] What do Alaska and Ohio actually have in common that got them here?
[Speaker 4] So Ohio and Alaska,
[Speaker 4] two Republican incumbents,
[Speaker 4] two states Trump carried by double digits,
[Speaker 4] now in toss-up territory.
[Speaker 4] Deadpan:
[Speaker 4] Welcome to the You Voted Wrong Once penalty.
[Reagan] Rush Limbaugh or second,
[Reagan] Husted in Ohio was appointed,
[Reagan] not elected.
[Reagan] He's never run statewide on his own; that's not nothing.
[Speaker 4] That's actually worse!
[Speaker 4] The guy hasn't proven he can win and the
[Speaker 4] And the Democrats brought back Sherrod Brown—you know what I call that?—The Zombie Comeback Tour.
[Reagan] Look—Brown lost by under four points in nineteen twenty-four,
[Reagan] while Trump winning Ohio by eleven.
[Reagan] That margin matters.
[Speaker 4] Exactly right!
[Speaker 4] and Alaska—Trump won by thirteen points Dan Sullivan's in there
[Reagan] Yeah.
[Speaker 4] and Mary Peltola,
[Speaker 4] who lost her House seat in twenty twenty-four,
[Speaker 4] is now polling ahead of him.
[Reagan] Peltola lost around two points in Alaska,
[Reagan] even in a bad year for Democrats nationally,
[Reagan] so she's not a long shot by any measure.
[Speaker 4] Right,
[Speaker 4] right.
[Speaker 4] So we've got two senators defending states that Trump absolutely won big,
[Speaker 4] and they're in a coin flip.
[Speaker 4] Sullivan's just sort of hanging on,
[Speaker 4] hoping nobody shows up.
[Reagan] Hmm,
[Reagan] I'd pump the brakes a little.
[Reagan] Alaska survey research has Peltola up five points in recent polling.
[Reagan] That's real.
[Reagan] But Sullivan hasn't cracked forty four per cent support.
[Reagan] That's the actual alarm bell,
[Reagan] not just the forecaster label.
[Speaker 4] And the Ohio special election wrinkle:
[Speaker 4] JD Vance leaves for the vice presidency,
[Speaker 5] Great.
[Speaker 4] Husted gets appointed,
[Speaker 4] now he's defending a seat he never actually won-two races in one,
[Speaker 4] basically.
[Reagan] That said,
[Reagan] the national environment is doing more damage here than any single vote.
[Reagan] These aren't ideologically weak incumbents.
[Reagan] They're incumbents caught in
[Speaker 3] a tidal wave.
[Reagan] caught in a headwind.
[Speaker 4] Which is what makes North Carolina so different no incumbent,
[Speaker 4] just a wide-open seat,
[Speaker 4] and the candidate quality gap is doing all the damage by itself.
[Reagan] And that's the race where the numbers have gotten genuinely lopsided.
[Speaker 4] Now flip that on its head:
[Speaker 4] Ohio and Alaska competitive because Republicans got caught flat footed,
[Speaker 4] North Carolina's different,
[Speaker 4] this one's a candidate quality problem and the GOP put it there themselves.
[Reagan] NPR had a piece on this.
[Reagan] Thom Tillis?
[Rush Lindell] He voted against the One Big Beautiful Bill Act,
[Rush Lindell] and the next day he announced he wasn't running for reelection.
[Rush Lindell] Open seat,
[Rush Lindell] no incumbent advantage- that's a gift Republicans handed Democrats.
[Reagan] And then what does the party do with that gift?
[Reagan] They hand the nomination to Michael Whatley,
[Reagan] deadpan,
[Reagan] the invisible man,
[Reagan] former RNC chair,
[Reagan] never run for office a day in his life.
[Reagan] Trump endorsed him,
[Reagan] he won the primary with sixty four
[Speaker 3] per cent.
[Reagan] Four point six per cent.
[Reagan] Done.
[Rush Lindell] Rush,
[Rush Lindell] Whatley's not a bad candidate because of MAGA loyalty; he's underperforming because Cooper is genuinely exceptional statewide-six wins as governor and attorney general,
[Rush Lindell] five of them in years Trump carried North Carolina.
[Rush Lindell] That's not environment; that's a specific person voters already trust.
[Reagan] No, I take both; Cooper strong,
[Reagan] and the Republican party chose a guy-
[Reagan] Over half of North Carolina has never heard of-the Carolina Journal poll has fifty two per cent of voters never heard of Whatley or no opinion,
[Reagan] fifty two per cent!
[Reagan] Cooper is sitting at eleven points up.
[Rush Lindell] That name recognition gap is the real story:
[Rush Lindell] Cooper's favorability is nearly 50%. Whatley's favorable rating, 25%. And that's with virtually zero general election advertising aired yet.
[Rush Lindell] ...scared yet?
[Reagan] But don't worry; a Republican super PAC committed seventy one million dollars to close that gap,
[Reagan] so there's that.
[Rush Lindell] Dryly,
[Rush Lindell] seventy-one million to introduce a candidate who ran the RNC,
[Rush Lindell] but couldn't introduce himself to his own state-that's the assignment.
[Reagan] Sabato's Crystal Ball moved North Carolina from Toss-Up to Lean Democratic in June.
[Reagan] Cook had already done it back in April.
[Reagan] Both forecasters now call this a Democratic Lean.
[Reagan] And you know what nobody wants to say-on a map where Democrats need four seats,
[Reagan] this one might already be in the bag.
[Rush Lindell] I'd pump the brakes slightly:
[Rush Lindell] Democrats haven't won a Senate race here since two thousand eight-the structural lean in presidential years is real.
[Rush Lindell] But if the environment holds and Cooper stays disciplined,
[Rush Lindell] yeah,
[Rush Lindell] this is their best shot on the entire map.
[Reagan] Which makes what's coming next almost absurd by comparison-Iowa.
[Reagan] Our R-plus-13 territory.
[Reagan] Democrats have no business being competitive there,
[Reagan] and yet-
[Rush Lindell] And yet here we are.
[Reagan] Now, from North Carolina to somewhere nobody on the right saw coming,
[Reagan] Iowa,
[Reagan] R-plus-13,
[Reagan] Trump won it by 13 points in 2024.
[Rush Lindell] And Democrats haven't won in Iowa Senate seats since 2008.
[Reagan] Right. So explain to me how Cook Political just dropped Iowa from Likely Republican to Lean Republican on June 2nd. Somebody's going to have to answer for that.
[Rush Lindell] Look, it's a combination of things.
[Rush Lindell] Joni Ernst is retiring,
[Rush Lindell] no incumbent,
[Rush Lindell] open seat,
[Rush Lindell] the governor's race is open too,
[Rush Lindell] and the national headwinds on tariffs and the Iran conflict are hitting Iowa farmers directly.
[Reagan] Iowa farmers,
[Reagan] the people Republicans literally need most,
[Reagan] Hinson herself was caught on tape in May saying the Iran war would be a,
[Reagan] quote,
[Reagan] political liability if it dragged on.
[Reagan] That's your own candidate.
[Rush Lindell] She won the primary with seventy-four percent of the vote.
[Rush Lindell] Trump's endorsement?
[Rush Lindell] Strong fundraising.
[Rush Lindell] On paper,
[Rush Lindell] she solid.
[Reagan] On paper,
[Reagan] Josh Turek won the Democratic primary with sixty three percent and the Senate Leadership Fund immediately announced twenty nine million dollars in ad reservations.
[Reagan] Twenty nine million in Iowa.
[Rush Lindell] That number tells you everything.
[Rush Lindell] If Republicans were comfortable,
[Rush Lindell] they don't spend twenty nine million dollars.
[Rush Lindell] in a state they're supposed to own.
[Reagan] Someone in a very expensive office panicked.
[Rush Lindell] What makes it structurally interesting-and this is the part forecasters are flagging-is the resource competition.
[Rush Lindell] Governor's race is open,
[Rush Lindell] multiple competitive House seats,
[Rush Lindell] Iowa's Republican ground operation is being pulled in four directions at once.
[Reagan] And you know what nobody wants to say:
[Reagan] the people who spent six months calling Iowa a f***ing
[Speaker 3] state are the ones who are going to be the most disappointed.
[Reagan] A three-win are now dropping twenty nine million dollars not to lose it.
[Rush Lindell] Right.
[Reagan] That's not confidence.
[Rush Lindell] Still leans Republican.
[Rush Lindell] R-plus-13 is real,
[Rush Lindell] but the gap is narrowing in a state the GOP cannot afford to play defense in.
[Reagan] All right.
[Reagan] Iowa is the canary. If it gets tight,
[Reagan] the map gets uncomfortable very fast.
[Reagan] But if you want uncomfortable,
[Reagan] Maine is where this whole story comes to a head.
[Reagan] Susan Collins and a candidate Democrats did not expect to have.
[Speaker 4] From Iowa to Maine,
[Speaker 4] and Maine is the marquee; Galen Platner,
[Speaker 4] forty-one years old,
[Speaker 4] oyster farmer,
[Speaker 4] combat vet,
[Speaker 4] won the Democratic primary June ninth with seventy-two percent of the vote after Governor Mills suspended her campaign in April.
[Rush Lindell] Wow!
[Speaker 4] On paper,
[Speaker 4] this guy is built for this moment.
[Rush Lindell] On paper,
[Rush Lindell] the NRSC put out a memo warning it would be a-and I'm paraphrasing-a fatal mistake to assume Platner is
[Rush Lindell] is too damaged to win"
[Rush Lindell] That's a warning from the Republican side about their own vulnerability.
[Speaker 4] Which tells you everything.
[Speaker 4] You don't write that memo if you feel good.
[Speaker 4] But let me tell you something:
[Speaker 4] I am looking at this guy's file and asking myself how Democrats stare at a tattoo that resembles a Nazi SS symbol,
[Speaker 4] Reddit posts mocking a wounded soldier,
[Speaker 4] explicit texts his own wife flagged to the campaign,
[Speaker 4] and say,
[Speaker 4] Yeah,
[Speaker 4] that's our firewall.
[Rush Lindell] Rush,
[Rush Lindell] the polling doesn't care about your discomfort or mine.
[Rush Lindell] UMass Lowell had Plattner up five points over Collins as of June 4th. The Hill survey had him up nine.
[Rush Lindell] Collins's favorable rating is sitting at negative nine in the most recent data.
[Speaker 4] She's been at negative nine before and won by nine points in 2020.
[Rush Lindell] Absolutely right.
[Rush Lindell] Maine voters split tickets.
[Rush Lindell] They did it for Collins in 2020 when Biden
[Rush Lindell] When Biden carried the state,
[Rush Lindell] the structural environment in 2026 is worse for Republicans than it was then.
[Speaker 4] Wait,
[Speaker 4] wait, wait. How much money are we talking in this race?
[Rush Lindell] Outside groups alone,
[Rush Lindell] according to AdImpact,
[Rush Lindell] Republicans have reserved roughly $99 million in advertising for Collins,
[Rush Lindell] Democrats about $44 million on the other side.
[Speaker 4] Ninety nine million dollars to defend a seat they've held for 30 years?
[Speaker 4] That is not confidence,
[Speaker 4] that is controlled panic.
[Rush Lindell] And Platner outraised Collins directly sixteen point three million to her fifteen point one million,
[Rush Lindell] so he's not short on fuel either.
[Rush Lindell] The Bangor Daily News reported that figure.
[Speaker 4] The controversy candidate is outraising a five term incumbent.
[Speaker 4] You know what nobody wants to say?
[Speaker 4] This race is genuinely
[Speaker 3] up for grabs.
[Rush Lindell] Up for grabs,
[Rush Lindell] and everything we've seen today-Ohio,
[Rush Lindell] Alaska,
[Rush Lindell] North Carolina,
[Rush Lindell] Iowa,
[Rush Lindell] now Maine—it's not isolated.
[Rush Lindell] It's a pattern.
[Reagan] Which raises the bigger question,
[Reagan] is this pattern showing up across all the forecasting models,
[Reagan] or is Maine a one-off?
[Reagan] The prediction markets have something to say about that.
[Rush Lindell] So let's step back. Forget the individual races for a second.
[Rush Lindell] What's the whole board actually saying right now?
[Reagan] The board is saying Republicans are on defense.
[Reagan] Twenty-three seats up, Democrats only defending thirteen.
[Reagan] That asymmetry matters.
[Rush Lindell] We all know what's really happening here.
[Rush Lindell] The prediction markets aren't lying.
[Rush Lindell] Polymarket is sitting around 43% odds of a Democratic sweep as of today.
[Rush Lindell] That number was a punchline 12 months ago.
[Reagan] And Race to the White House's model moved in the same direction.
[Reagan] After April fundraising data dropped,
[Reagan] Democrats improved their odds specifically in Alaska,
[Reagan] Georgia,
[Reagan] and New Hampshire.
[Reagan] Real money,
[Reagan] real signal.
[Rush Lindell] Republicans gained ground in Florida and Montana,
[Rush Lindell] so it's not all bad news.
[Rush Lindell] But you're playing whack-a-mole with a map that keeps expanding.
[Reagan] The structural piece nobody wants to say out loud. The party...
[Reagan] already out of the White House historically gained Senate seats in midterms, that headwind exists regardless of candidate quality,
[Reagan] regardless of state-by-state ratings.
[Speaker 4] And NPR put it plainly, the national environment is a difficult one for Republicans right now.
[Speaker 4] Approval ratings underwater,
[Speaker 4] economic sentiment negative,
[Speaker 4] that environment seeps into every race on this map.
[Reagan] Which is why the forecasters moved three races simultaneously on June 11th.
[Reagan] seventh,
[Reagan] not one,
[Reagan] three; Alaska,
[Reagan] Ohio,
[Reagan] and North Carolina in the same week.
[Speaker 4] Cook calls it Toss-Up,
[Speaker 4] markets call it competitive.
[Speaker 4] I call it a situation where Republicans need everything to go right and Democrats only need a few things to break their way.
[Reagan] And Democrats still need to sweep.
[Reagan] Cook's consensus notes said they'd have to win all the toss ups to get the majority.
[Reagan] Republicans remain the overall favorite,
[Reagan] barely.
[Speaker 4] Barely, that's the word.
[Speaker 4] This was supposed to be a comfortable hold,
[Speaker 4] the map does not look comfortable,
[Speaker 4] and that frankly is the whole story of the last six months on the Republican side.
[Speaker 4] So, with all that in mind, what do Republicans actually have to do between now and November?
[Reagan] candidate performance,
[Reagan] full stop.
[Reagan] The environment is genuinely difficult,
[Reagan] Rush.
[Reagan] NPR reported it.
[Reagan] Trump's approval has been underwater,
[Reagan] Democrats have the enthusiasm edge,
[Reagan] those are facts.
[Reagan] But the one variable Republicans can control is how their nominees run.
[Speaker 4] And that is exactly the problem in several of these states, isn't it?
[Speaker 4] You've got nominees who are running behind where a generic Republican would land.
[Speaker 4] That's not the environment doing that.
[Speaker 4] That's candidate quality.
[Reagan] Right. And you can't fix a bad nominee in October.
[Speaker 4] Now, Collins,
[Speaker 4] I want to address this directly.
[Speaker 4] Yes,
[Speaker 4] Morning Consult has her net favorability at negative 9.
[Speaker 4] Yes,
[Speaker 4] independents in Maine are not happy with her.
[Speaker 4] But you know what else is true?
[Speaker 4] She outran Trump.
[Speaker 4] Trump by nearly seven points in 2020 when everybody said she was cooked.
[Speaker 4] Every poll had Gideon winning.
[Reagan] That's fair,
[Reagan] and it's worth taking seriously.
[Reagan] She's the only Republican senator running in a state Harris carried.
[Reagan] That's a structural disadvantage,
[Reagan] but she has operated in hostile terrain before.
[Speaker 4] Prediction markets are not ballots.
[Speaker 4] Someone remind the forecasters of that.
[Reagan] I'll send a memo.
[Speaker 4] The four-seat math is real.
[Speaker 4] Democrats need Maine.
[Reagan] Mm-hmm.
[Speaker 4] North Carolina,
[Speaker 4] Ohio or Alaska,
[Speaker 4] and then a miracle somewhere like Iowa.
[Speaker 4] That's a lot of simultaneous wins.
[Reagan] It is, and the NPR Marist poll showed 61% of Democrats are very enthusiastic to vote versus 53% of Republicans.
[Reagan] That enthusiasm gap is real, and Republicans cannot wish it away.
[Speaker 4] Acknowledged. But June ratings don't win elections.
[Speaker 4] November ballots do.
[Speaker 4] Two.
[Speaker 4] Republicans still hold fifty-three seats; the structural majority is intact; what happens between now and the fall—candidate execution,
[Speaker 4] GOTV,
[Speaker 4] the economic environment—that's what matters.
[Reagan] The lesson I take out of all of this:
[Reagan] don't hand a seat away in a primary.
[Reagan] The map is hard enough without nominating candidates who start ten points behind where they should be.
[Speaker 4] You know what nobody wants to say:
[Speaker 4] the map shifted.
[Speaker 4] Did fast.
[Speaker 4] Republicans know it. That's why the money is moving.
[Speaker 4] The question is whether the candidates catch up.
[Speaker 4] Five months is a long time,
[Speaker 4] but it is not infinite.
[Rush Lindell] Look,
[Rush Lindell] we covered a lot of ground today:
[Rush Lindell] the Cook rating shift,
[Rush Lindell] the Zombie Comeback Tour,
[Rush Lindell] Sullivan's polling ceiling in Alaska,
[Rush Lindell] but here's where I land:
[Rush Lindell] Republicans are not watching this map closely enough.
[Reagan] And that's the real takeaway.
[Reagan] June forecasts are snapshots, not verdicts. But snapshots can become trends fast when candidate quality is the underlying problem.
[Rush Lindell] North Carolina is the clearest proof of that.
[Speaker 4] Michael Whatley isn't losing because of the environment,
[Speaker 4] he's losing because Roy Cooper has won statewide six times.
[Reagan] Candidate quality is structural; you can't add by your way out of it,
[Reagan] and that Iowa reservation signal someone knows it.
[Speaker 4] Someone definitely knows it.
[Reagan] Absolutely.
[Speaker 4] If today's breakdown helped you think through what's actually happening on this map,
[Speaker 4] subscribe,
[Speaker 4] leave a five star review,
[Speaker 4] and tell somebody who needs to hear it.
[Rush Lindell] Hear it.
[Rush Lindell] New episodes every weekday.
[Reagan] Thanks for being here.
[Reagan] We'll see you tomorrow.
[Rush Lindell] Stay sharp.