How Democrats pulled off massive election night victory, what's next for Republicans

As I mentioned, Bruce Gordon is with us in the newsroom. He's someone that we go to all the time just to talk about the landscape of all of it. First of all, good afternoon. I know it's been a busy 24 hours for you, Bruce. I live for this stuff. Yeah. Real quickly, it's interesting. You're talking about the Josh Shapiro race. Only the margin was ever in doubt. And that is a strong margin for him in reelection. Certainly boosts his chances if he decides to run for president. But what's equally important, not only did Shapiro win last night, but the Democrats. grew their lead, their slim margin in the state House, and they took control of the state Senate. So for the first time now for Josh Shapiro, he has government, quote unquote, on his side, Democrats controlling both the House and the state Senate now. And that actually puts some additional pressure on to get some things accomplished. No longer that split government where he can say, I'm doing my best, but the other side isn't cooperating. Now he's got control of all the levers of power, and now he's got to get some things accomplished in these next two years. Or a year and a half, or a year, depending on when we start hearing the talk of a presidential run, potentially for 28. Yeah, certainly, which is still the buzz at this hour. You know, we had anticipated some sort of shift here for Democrats. Did you anticipate the wave that we saw last night, a massive wave? And who do you attribute that to as far as voters? Short answer is, I think the polls certainly suggest that a wave was on the way, but we've been burned. We who watch these things have been burned by these polls before. And so there was always that skepticism of, are the polls, did the polls get it right this time? Well, it sure looks like they did. Democrats were winning and the polls were suggesting this would happen in places they had, frankly, no business winning races, at least over the past 25, 30 years they haven't. And we're talking about places like Texas and Ohio more recently. Iowa and Kansas. We're talking about now the only two races that haven't yet been called. Again, 54-44 right now for Democrats. Two races that haven't been called. Mississippi. Deep red Mississippi. The Democrat in that race leads by a whopping 43 votes. That's Scott Cullum. Leads by 43 votes over the incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith. And that's out of almost a million votes cast. So razor thin in Mississippi, but the Democrat actually has a real shot at winning that state. And then, of course, in Alaska, where there was all kinds of chicanery on the ballot there, Mary Peltola, the Democrat challenger against Dan Sullivan, the incumbent Republican, she leads that race. Again, plenty more votes to count. She leads that race in a very narrow count. But remember, Alaska does ranked choice voting, which means the... Faux Dan Sullivan, if you will, the additional Dan Sullivan that you see there on the far left of your screen there, his votes as the fourth place finisher would then go to whoever the folks voted as their second choice who voted for him as their first choice, if that makes sense. And even if it doesn't, we're going to keep talking about it. So the way that works is the lowest vote count Goes to, at the moment, and it looks like it's going to stay this way, is Dan Sullivan, the sort of additional Dan Sullivan, if you will. His vote, he then gets taken out of the equation. Anyone who voted for Dan Sullivan, whoever was their second choice, and the way they do it in Alaska, again, ranked choices, here's my best choice, here's my second, third, and so forth. So when Sullivan, the phony Sullivan, if you will, comes off the numbers, anyone who voted then for the second place, that vote now starts to count, right? So now the votes... For Dan Sullivan, we'll likely then almost overwhelmingly go to the real Dan Sullivan. He'll get those votes. There's a second candidate, another Republican there as well, and if he comes off... Then his votes likely would go to Sullivan, the incumbent as well. So while Mary Peltola leads this race by a razor thin margin at the moment, by the time everyone's second choice votes get counted, it looks to me like there's a real chance Dan Sullivan, the Republican incumbent there in the middle of your screen, that he will actually keep his seat. Even if that happens, 54 seats for Democrats. A stunning victory across the country, again, in places that they had no business winning. And the short answer to your question, after a long-winded answer there, is the war in Iran, the tariffs, all of which combined to raise prices at the grocery store, at the gas pump, and voters noticed it. And frankly, The message from President Trump, which was essentially don't believe your pocketbook, the economy is wonderful, didn't fly, simply did not fly. Voters knew what they were experiencing, what they were feeling, and they said, we want to change. Whether the Democrats can do anything about those prices now becomes the big question. Bruce, you just mentioned the governor who is expected to run for president. We believe that J.D. Vance will also make a run at it. And I think I heard you in the newsroom talking to one of the executive producers saying J.D. Vance is already trying to separate himself from the president, not just 24 hours after these polls closed. Yeah. Earlier reporting, there were leaks that when the attacks against Iran took place, J.D. Vance was one of the voices in the room arguing against the move. And those leaks are always done with a strategy in mind. Well, today, this morning, he's come out very publicly and basically saying flat out, we lost last night because of the war in Iran. That's something that certainly President Trump isn't saying out loud, but J.D. Vance is, and he's separating He's celebrating himself as you indicated. From the president in that regard, what that means for his relationship with Mr. Trump is obviously a key question, but he wants to make it known to voters who may be looking at him in 2028. Hey, don't blame me for the war that we're involved in right now. By the way, speaking of Vance, there's been some talk within Democratic circles and for the good of the country, I hope it never comes to this, that there might be an actual third attempt to impeach Donald Trump. It would certainly pass the House, they have the votes to do it in the House, but no chance it gets through the Senate where they'd need two-thirds of the vote to remove him from office. But let's say, for sake of argument, that you were to remove Donald Trump from office through impeachment. Now you've got an incumbent, J.D. Vance. An incumbent president, J.D. Vance, for Democrats to face in 2028. I don't think that's what they want, especially if he makes good on this premise that we need to get out of the war in Iran. If he were to take over and the war would be ended and prices do come down, that's the last thing Democrats want to face in 2028. Yeah, there's certainly a deeper conversation on both sides, Democrats and certainly Republicans, given the results last night. Real quick, what do the next two years look like? Are we facing a lame duck reality? Yeah, and I think two committees to keep an eye on in the House, the Democrats, of course, because they control both chambers, they control the committees within those chambers and the chairmanships of those committees. So in the House, the House Oversight Committee will be key. They will be investigating all kinds of business activities of the Trump family. They will be looking at Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, all kinds of investigations looking into the Trump administration. For the Democrats' sake, they had better show they can walk and chew gum at the same time. The voters have made very clear they don't want two years of investigations. They want real change made that improves their lives. On the Senate side, very quickly, the Senate Judiciary Committee is key. Because that's now controlled by Democrats, they will be able to stop, for example, judicial appointments. Cabinet secretaries that might need to get Senate confirmation, even Supreme Court justices. There's been some talk around, floating around about a possible retirement from, say, a Samuel Alito on the high court. If that were to happen, it's going to have to happen fast, because once Democrats take control of the Senate Judiciary Committee, they could stall and basically not take any action on any kind of an appointment that Donald Trump might want to make to the Supreme And we've seen it happen before. Sure. Stay tuned. Yes, we have seen that. Yeah, we have seen that, haven't we? We've been there before. Bruce Gordon, always appreciate your insight. My pleasure. All right. I know you live for this. It is 12-11. I want to get to a developing story that we've been talking about.