New York Times reporter talks Bennett, Kean race

Right now we are bringing in Tracy Tully. She is a New York Times reporter and she has been with the New York Times for about eight years now. Tracy, thank you so much for joining me today. I appreciate it. It's nice to be with you, Linda. Thank you. So now this is a really interesting race because it's one of those races that could end up being pivotal in flipping control of the House in Congress and turning over the power from the Republicans to the Democrats. And this is a very close race, correct? It's really hard to tell. Early voting would suggest that it's favoring the Democrats, but it's hard to tell, you know, with it's just the early vote. There was only one public poll taken that I'm aware of. And that showed actually that. The Democratic challenger, Rebecca Bennett, was ahead slightly. But yes, it's a close race. It always is. It's a swing district, and it's pivoted back and forth between the two parties, I think, three times since 2018. Does Kaine's campaign, do they seem to be nervous about this? Because I would imagine initially going into this earlier this year, they kind of thought it was a slam dunk. Now that is not the case. It's hard to gauge the the congressman's campaign. He's he's run in a similar way for several terms. He doesn't he doesn't release his schedule. He's not comfortable with having media trail him. So trying to get a sense of whether he is or is not nervous is is hard to really say because there's not a lot of sort of real time engagement with him. Which usually is not the case. There are some candidates that make it very difficult for the media to be able to engage with them and ask questions. I mean, we've experienced that here in New York as well. That's a complaint that a lot of people have about AOC, that she's not accessible to most people. And so you're seeing the same situation with Tom Kaine Jr., that he's just not comfortable with it. And of course, his father was a governor of a very popular governor of New Jersey. For multiple terms. That's right. And he has the exact same name, which has always been an advantage for the son. And yeah, the dad was and is still he's still alive, which is awesome. He's 91. He. It was very popular. And he was reelected by in a landslide on his first second term. And he was extremely he was known for being bipartisan. That was sort of the brand of the Kane family. That's right, that they could work both sides of the aisle. That was always something that really jumped out. That's right. So now what are you seeing overall with this election in covering it, like your experience? Well, you you you began talking about it, the fact that for close to four months he was not present and he did. Later explained that it was because he was hospitalized for a long time to be treated for depression. But during those four months, in fact, he won the nomination for the Republican Party. We didn't have much of an understanding of where he might be. And so that defined the summertime months and leading into the fall when the race really does heat up. And since returning, he's lagged behind his challenger in fundraising, although he did have a significant advantage going in, and he's had a lot of support from outside groups as well. So it's not that he's underfunded. I don't want to suggest that. So that kind of hiatus, I do think, took a toll, but it was four months ago. And his campaign will say, people. People forget, you know, I'm back. I'm engaged. I've explained what happened. And and that's their perspective. Yeah. OK, we're going to have to wait and see what the voters think about that, because also, Tracy, he missed more than 140 roll call votes while he was out. And again, he really got criticized strongly. And so did his staff for not keeping the public aware of where he was for about it was four months. He just kind of fell off the radar. Yeah. I mean, his his aides would say that he was being he was dealing with a medical issue, but didn't disclose what it was. Even the House speaker, Mike Johnson, was pretty candid and said, hey, a lot of people, you know, deal with depression. I wish he'd been a bit more transparent earlier. It's nothing to hide, you know, that kind of thing. Thank And he, when he spoke on the House floor, you know, he basically said, you know, I was making decisions sort of in real time, you and I didn't know how long I was going to be out. very Right. Okay. All right. Well, a very interesting race to keep our eye on, because as I said at the top, this could be one of those pivotal races, much. one of many across the country, that could end up flipping the power in Congress. So, Tracy, I appreciate you joining me this afternoon. Thank you so much. Tracy Tully with The New York Times.