Elon Musk’s political spending and key Senate races could shape the midterms

Meantime, let's talk a little bit about elections. The New York Times reporting right now that the voting turnout for Israel's prime minister was actually the highest it's been in 25 years. Benjamin Netanyahu being challenged by a man named Gadi Eisenkot. And last check, votes were mostly even with about 40% of ballots tallied. Stephen Caliendo joining us now, our guy, go-to guy to discuss the geopolitical impact of this stuff. Now, to clarify, folks weren't voting for individual candidates. No, that's right. So in the proportional representation system, there's about a dozen parties on the ballot. When folks go in to vote, they pick which party more closely aligns with their values. And then the seats, the 120 seats in the Knesset, which is a legislature, are divided up roughly proportionally to the percentage of the vote each party gets. Which means that nobody's going to get 50 percent, right? And so you can't pass any laws unless you get 50 percent. But what happens then is that the governments have to form around a coalition. So those parties have to get together, have some conversations. So we know the coalition government's gonna have to be formed. One thing we do know, though, is Likud did lose seats, and this is Netanyahu's party, and the ruling coalition did lose seats. And so it's gonna be a smaller amount than there was before, but it's gonna take at least a month until the coalition shake out. Wow, okay. Okay, that was my next question is how long- So trickle. Yeah, because they'll be going back and forth about who's gonna be minister of this and who's gonna do that. Some of the parties made promises on the campaign trail that they may have to back away from in terms of when they're- What promises? Promises like who they're willing to form a coalition with, for instance. So the Arab parties, for instance, right? Some of those Arab parties would say, I'm not gonna form a coalition with this group. And if they don't, there's not gonna be a government. And if there's not a government, there's transitional government now, Netanyahu will still be in charge. And if they're not able to form a government, then they're gonna have to have elections again in a few months. That's a helpful explanation. Yeah, in the meantime, we are now just six days away from our midterms. Some of the races that are really getting national attention, I cannot believe the amount of ads I have seen personally for either Ken Paxton or James Tallarico, and then the Michigan race between Abdul El-Sayed and his, Mike Rogers, right, so let's get updated. What are you hearing about these races? The Texas race is so fascinating because Elon Musk has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to try to influence this race. So I think I heard yesterday that he is, in American history, the single greatest, the single largest donor to American politics, right? And so much of it is being spent in Texas. That's strange. We're also talking about races in Mississippi, for instance, and in Kansas, like really odd stuff. You normally wouldn't talk about. Normally you wouldn't talk about. But again, the president has record low approval ratings, gas prices are high. It's always that the president's party loses seats at a midterm election. So all of those things together are really putting the Republicans in a place where they have to defend seats that they typically would not have to defend. Can I ask you, because you mentioned it, the Elon Musk thing and putting more money than we've ever seen for one person. That's right. Should people be worried about that a little bit, that one person can possibly have so much influence over an election? Yeah, and I think this is what we talked about when we got the news earlier in the year that he's gonna be a trillionaire or whatever. And some folks were like, well, that seems like more money than anybody really needs. And others were like, look, it's capitalism, he invested, whatever it was, he took risks. But when you think about how the Supreme Court has ruled that money is speech, right, and political spending is speech, then you start to think about where there's such disproportionate, we know we have it anyway. We have inequality in terms of the way money is spent in elections. But the way the system is now to have one person have so much influence, and you gotta wonder what does he want in return if Ken Paxton wins? That's the question everyone will always have. I mean, I guess that's my question is, is that influence working at this point? Like what do we know about the race between those two? The last poll I saw, again, we talk about polls, we're not so sure, but Tallarico was ahead just outside the margin of error. So for the last two weeks, it's been within the margin of error, Tallarico a little bit ahead. But when it's in the margin of error, right, you don't make any calls. This was just outside the margin of error. Voter turnout's going to matter. In favor of Tallarico. In favor of Tallarico. But again, it's early. Next week, we're going to be sitting here and we should have a better idea about where things are. Okay, six days out, and I know you don't have a crystal ball, but what's your feeling? Is there still a possibility that Democrats take not only the House, because that seems like people are talking about that as more of a sure bet, although who knows? That's right. How about the Senate? Yeah, I'd be very surprised if the Republicans are able to hold the House. The question is, how big will the swing be? In some off-year elections, I think in 2010, this is a Tea Party year, I think the Democrats lost like 60 seats or something. I don't expect it's going to be like that. I mean, we're very polarized in different ways. the Senate, it's going to come down to those key races that you mentioned, Anthony. And I think we need to figure out where those margins are and are they going to be within 1% of the vote so we don't have to have recounts because we might get into recount territory next week as well. That would be brutal. Yeah, I mean, it could happen. It could happen. Next week will be a very interesting conversation. Mail-in ballots, those things have to be counted later in a lot of states, so yeah. All right.