US midterms: 'The Republicans know it's over'

John, great to have you with me. I was reminded of our overnight program in 2024 when he won because we were struck, weren't we, very early on or earlier on than we expected to be at the scale of his victory then. Yeah. And I think this is what causes me hesitation because, you know, people are saying, look. The Democrats are doing well in the polls, really, really well. So is it going to be a blue ripple, a blue wave or a blue tsunami? Now, I think the pollsters actually believe it's going to be closer to a tsunami of Democrat victories than it is to a kind of tiny little ripple. But they've been so scarred by previous occasions where they've overpolled how well the Democrats are doing and underestimated the support for Donald Trump that they've kind of got it wrong. I think that what seems to be happening in a number of key races is the Democrats look poised to make big victories. And so on all available evidence and actually looking at the demeanour of Donald Trump himself in the final 24 hours, where he has looked slightly crestfallen and exhausted by the whole thing, that I think the Democrats will do well. But I'm just kind of, you know, I've got the scars of previous campaigns where I've been at Hillary Clinton. Clinton's victory rally, only to watch Donald Trump win the 2016 election. So it goes back a long way. And I was listening to one commentator just tail end of last week to talk about polling, saying the truth is that. On the right wing of American politics, talking about voters here, particularly on the further right or far right wing of it, these aren't people who are engaging with pollsters. These aren't people who trust a scintilla of the established sort of infrastructure of US politics. They're not telling you anything. And those are the ones that may well shift this narrative, aren't they? Or at least in part. Yes, absolutely possible. But you've also got the possibility that a large number of young people come out to vote and they seem pretty disillusioned with Donald Trump, that the Latino vote that Donald Trump did very well to pick up, as you say, a couple of years ago in 2024, goes back to being Democrat. What happens to the independent vote? The other thing I would say, Sheila, is... Look, the Republican Party is pretty damn sophisticated. It knows where there are vulnerabilities. It knows what's happening in given states. They've got a lot of research and people on the ground. Look where Donald Trump has been campaigning this past month. You know, South Carolina, which I think he won by something like 18 points in the last presidential election, he's now campaigning hard in. And states that were considered marginal, he has just left well alone because I do think the Republican Party itself feels that actually those people can't be relied upon in the way that they were in 2016 and again in 2024. And, you know, the fact of the matter is that Donald Trump. came into power promising to reduce inflation and the cost of living, and that has gone up largely as a result of his war with Iran, largely as a result of his tariffs. And so, you know, people are reasonably looking at the cost of living and how far their wage check goes and thinking, Donald Trump. You're responsible for this, and we're going to punish you for it at the polls today. And just before we talk about some of the individual Democrat candidates who are, we hear, giving him a run for his money or giving their Republican opponents a run for their money and traditionally Republican seats. This announcement this afternoon here in the UK, John, that although announced this afternoon in the UK that America will no longer support Israel anything like it typically has to the tune of four billion a year. We'll still be an ally, we'll still support it if it needs help, but we'll remove that sort of set funding. Is it your sense that that has anything to do with the vote today or would that have been long in the planning? Both. I think it will have been long in the planning, and it is to do with today. Look, American politics has changed fundamentally since October the 7th, since what's happened in Gaza. And now there is a net unfavourability rating for Israel among American voters. That was just unthinkable when I used to live here. Including Republicans. Yeah, including Republicans. And so you've got, you know, so if we're going to talk about Democratic candidates, you've got, you know, you've got, you know, Al-Sayed. In Michigan, the who would become the first Muslim senator in the Senate, you know, campaigning against Israel. But on the other side, you've got people like Tucker Carlson, who was formerly of Fox News, enormously influential figure in American politics, saying, you know, why are we why are we doing this? Why are we supporting Israel? Marjorie Taylor Greene, a former congresswoman, Republican congresswoman, very close to Trump at the time, but saying, what are we doing? And so, you know, but if Donald Trump. has done it in the hope that this will shift votes. I mean, a bit late in the day for that. I mean, given that most people do not pay attention to daily news and they will just think, what on earth is this all about? Why has it come today? Well, let's talk a little bit more about Abdul El-Sayed. I will get on to some other candidates as well. But as you say, he would be the first Muslim senator. Donald Trump has called him a jihadi, amongst other things. His... A colleague, Democrat colleague, Haley Stevens, who he beat to the to the nomination, she's supporting his opponent, Mike Rogers now, not him. So she's supporting a Republican, even though she's a Democrat. She says on the on what she regards as the moral issue of some of the statements he's made about 9-11, for example, and some of the people he allows in his in his circle that she thinks she believes are either anti-Semitic or un-American. I reckon. How... Controversial a candidate is he? Well, he is a controversial candidate. He represents the very progressive wing of the Democratic Party. If you were thinking of British Labour Party terms, you know, you'd probably call him a Corbynista. Although some of what he's asking for, you know, universal health care. I mean, we have a National Health Service, but in America, the debate is very different on that. And so I think in Abdel Al-Sayed, you have got someone who is very different. But he has tried to fight this campaign on the issues that people in Michigan care about, like the cost of living, like health care, schooling, all those issues. But the Republicans have sought to make it all about the fact that he is a Muslim. And there has been some appalling Islamophobia. From, you know, from Donald Trump, from his opponent, Mike Rogers, in the lead up to this campaign, Donald Trump riffing on he's a jihadist, you know, his name's Abdul, but I call him Mohammed in Ramadan, Ramadan. And you're thinking he is using the kind of the holiest holiday in Islam as the punchline to a joke. Yeah. And I do think that you can't imagine, you know, if he was doing that. To someone who was Jewish or to someone who was Christian, you'd think, what on earth is going on here? And I think that, you know, so it has become a culture wars battle in Michigan. I think if he wins, having been through the ringer and faced so much opposition and having his Democratic rival who had a degree of sour grapes that she didn't win the nomination, turning on him in an act of unbelievable kind of almost treachery. Then I think Abdel Al-Sayed will think of himself as the future of the Democratic Party. And I think that the race in Michigan is really consequential about 2028 and who the presidential candidate is and what he or she looks like and what sort of politics they're pushing. And there are a few names on that list, aren't there, of people who may end up in that grouping as the presidential process begins? Let's talk about Talarico in Texas, or Talarico as Donald Trump rather unflatteringly calls him. Really interesting backstory, single mum, abusive father, abusive husband to her. Very Christian, brings his Christianity into almost every statement he makes, as far as I can tell. Yeah. Seminarian. You know, Texas is a ruby red Republican state. It is 32 years since a Democrat has won an election there. And the kind of previous joke was that Texas was where Democrat hopes went to die. Because every cycle there'd be a... Great hope that this time the Democrats are going to do well in Texas and each time it would all come apart and it would come to naught and they would kind of just be the tears shed that they didn't quite make it. I think this time Talarico represents something very, very different. He is against a very deeply flawed Republican candidate who has been impeached, has faced criminal charges in the shape of Ken Paxton. And he is a real flawed individual, but he got the backing of Donald Trump and he's therefore the candidate. And so if Tallarico pulls it off in Texas, that will be a stunning victory for the Democrats tonight and an absolute rebuff to Donald Trump because it was Donald Trump who wanted this guy Paxton to run and defeated a very well-established... Republican Senator John Cornyn, who was doing the job very well until then. And so, you know, Donald Trump has chosen his candidates. They've not always been the best choices. John, always great to talk to you.