How the blue wave stunned Republicans: Analyzing midterm blowout & Trump backlash

In our election coverage, it was a high-stakes election day, and voters took to the polls, sending a message all across this country. Democrats have taken control of both chambers of Congress. Joining us right now with what this all means is David Burtzo, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Kean College. Nice to have you back. Great to be here. So, what's the message here? I think it's pretty loud and clear. I think it's very loud and clear. The president has been saying he wasn't on the ballot, and there would have been a massive landslide victory. It was kind of shocking, even Texas. Right. And Florida, Texas, Iowa, Kansas. There's a chance that there will be a Democratic senator from Mississippi. That's one of the uncalled races at this point coming within a hair's breadth in Florida. This is this. These are remarkable numbers and nothing that anybody would have confidently predicted even a week ago. And let's talk about what happened here in New York. Governor Kathy Hochul sort of had these polls that showed double digits, 11 points, 14 points. And here she has a 20 point victory. What went wrong for Bruce Blakeman? Lots went wrong with... For Bruce Blakeman, one of the things being tethering himself so closely to the president. Donald Trump is not popular in New York, not even among most Republicans. So making that your principal calling card, MAGA positions in a state that is rejecting MAGA up and down the block, is not a sound strategy at this stage. And we saw that, as you point out, Dan, by amazing margins, and not just in New York, but all across the country where we had these races that we expected a Democrat perhaps to win by, Four, five, six points, winning by 20, 24, 25 points. Really remarkable. And when we talk about this, I mean, these are huge victories. There is a message that's being sent. But how do you turn that message? Don't waste it. I mean, you know, you have this opportunity. What do Democrats now have to do that they have this wonderful situation here? They have to do what Democrats are worst at doing, and that is coming together and carving a strategy. A lot of people are going to want to spend all of their time investigating the Trump administration. Because the strategy cannot be anti-Trump again. I mean, people seem to have sent the message about affordability and things along those lines. There have to be really clear signature efforts on those things that the voters care about. I think it's possible to do some investigations, but they have to be targeted and they have to be explained. You think we're going to have an impeachment hearing again? I mean, I think, right. There are several Democrats who have said they're already planning on filing the impeachment articles. And meanwhile, it does nothing except waste time and not. The agenda. That's exactly right, because the Democrats, as impressive as the Senate victories have been, will not have the majority that they need, the supermajority that they need to sustain a conviction. So it's all going to be smoke and mirrors. It's not necessarily a problem to put in legislation that is largely signaling, saying where I want to go in 20, where we want to go in 2028. But it's a problem if that interrupts the business of the people. And clearly, the people have spoken about affordability. If I'm a Republican this morning, This morning, maybe last night, I was hopeful that things would not be as bad as they ended up being. But if I'm a Republican waking up this morning, what am I thinking? You've got to be thinking about what the post-Trump era looks like. This was very clearly repudiation of the president and his policies, and we saw that up and down the block. We saw that in the exit polling. We saw it in all the polling leading up to the election. So the question is, How do you, with Donald Trump in office for the next two years, pivot to an agenda that addresses the concerns that the American people have? And that's going to be very, very difficult in the context of a president who has totally co-opted the machinery of his party. So that's the challenge for Republicans, and it's a pretty steep one. Obviously, Iran is a problem, and Israel is a problem. And I think the president has talked about changing some of his financial situation, A situation where the United States Financial ...relationship with Israel. Is that enough? It's probably not going to be enough. One of the difficulties here is that Israel has been... pushing American foreign policy, rather than American foreign policy pushing Israel. And that has been true for a while. But under Benjamin Netanyahu, that has become the signature of the Israeli approach. And right now, Netanyahu believes that he is best served if they're in a constant state of war. So I wouldn't be surprised to see, actually, additional belligerent action in Iran. He believes that Benjamin Netanyahu will keep him in office. Remember at an election that neither he nor his opponents assembled a majority for last week. You know, New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani was not on the ballot, but certainly his policies and things that he has run on were things that other Democrats have embraced, including Governor Kathy Hochul. What does it say about his brand of politics at the moment? Well, I think we're going to have a lot of people claiming victory for their flavor of Democratic politics. And if you look at Abdul El-Saeed in Michigan, he won handily. I mean, there's a narrower margin than in some other places. But a lot of Democrats are going to pick up on that and say, this proves that we actually have a stronger left wing than a centrist wing. The centrists are going to have a very different story. And Kathy Hochul is going to be chief among them. But there are lots nationally as well. That's going to be one of the contests over the course of these next two years. Where is the center of the Democratic Party? And will the left play with the center? Will the center play with the left? It's going to be interesting because, you know, you've got Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer who are going to both be in power. And they're both moderates. Yes. But they're all worried about re-election. They're all worried about re-election. They're worried about challenges in 2028. That absolutely could happen. Thank you very much. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez could very easily challenge Chuck Schumer and has not ruled that out. So it's going to be bumpy. The Democrats do not have a clear path to governing, even though they got a very clear path to electoral victory yesterday. All right. Thank you so much for the insight, David Bertzel. We appreciate it. Thank you.