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during the midterm elections. experts analyze the implications of the results of the midterms at the brookings institution. now l.a. times jackie calmes on the results of the midterm elections, hosted by the dole institute of politics at the university of kansas on factors influencing voters. this runs about what our. jerry: thank you all. we did it. we had an election. an interesting night and possibly a more interesting morning after. we are not done but really interesting results. we will be chewing on those for a long time but we are going to have a really good first take today.

our expert and friend jackie calmes is with us. she is a columnist for the los angeles times. it has been many years looking at politics and congressional races and analyzing them. jackie: when i worked with you at the wall street journal, readers would often write to me and say, why don't you go to the new york times, where you belong? so i did. [laughter] jerry: we will try to walk through some of this and then open things up towards the end so you can ask questions. in many of the sessions we have had this semester, guests have been partisan figures who spoke

as representatives of one party of the other by design. that way we saw and heard from both parties. views and pitches for the election and analysis. but today we are looking at the results as objective journalists and try to give you objective analysis of what happened yesterday. jackie, we do not know yet which party will control congress. you can look at the slide to see the current numbers. at this point the senate is at a 48-48 tie. republicans have an advantage in the house but we do not know where either of the races will end up. what we do know is that the big red republican wave some expected did not materialize.

republicans might end up with control of the house, and that is not nothing but the way people thought was on its way did not happen. what are the reasons? jackie: i consider myself an objective journalist but for over a year i have been a columnist so i'm a little more free to express my opinions. let me stipulate that how -- however article i am of republicans in the minutes to come, let me just say i do want them to become more healthy again and have a healthy two-party system in the country. so just because i am a left of center columnist, please don't think that is where i am coming from. some of my best friends are republicans.

i wrote a column this morning that might have posted by now. it is astounding that you -- when you think that republicans are likely going to win control of the house and yet i consider them being the big losers of last night, second only to donald trump. it's mainly because of expectations they had done a lot themselves to build up expectations that they were going to have you know not just a red way but maybe a red tsunami and as ben shapiro the provocateur of the right wing said, it was more like walking into a red wedding. i think the reasons are trump. number one. usually a midterm election is a referendum on the president's party, which is why the president's party or on the president, which is why the

president's party has lost in all but three elections since 1906. yet donald trump, in his inimitable style, insisted it also be about him and injected it was just ubiquitous to the point where in recent days he teased that he was going to run for president and would have announced, apparently, but for advisors telling him not to. so the combination of trump so ubiquitous, his followers in congress and in the states echoing his lie. jerry: three quarters of the country said they had an unfavorable impression of donald trump and the -- three quarters

of them voted democrat in their local house rate. so that's the reality. jackie: right. republicans are cursing him privately. some of the other factors were their own extremism. they sort of tamped it down towards the end in the final months, but in an issue that's very big in kansas, abortion the , dobbs decision in june from the supreme court reversing for the first time a constitutional right that has been recognized, was a gift to democrats of a sort. but it did become less of an issue, we thought, but for the fact -- but the fact is for a while in the states republicans rushed to pass extreme laws

which just kept reminding people about what was at stake. so what we saw in august, september, that democrats were having a moment, cooler heads were prevailing and telling people to tamp it down. but what we saw in a couple of ways, the ap does a survey of people who have voted and they are vote cast showed that when voters were asking which issues motivated them the most, the answer was different than what pundits and some of the polls would have led you to believe. the number one issue was inflation. but a close second was the health and future of the democracy, with 44%. days ago people were criticizing

joe biden for having given the speech about the importance of saving democracy when voters only care about inflation. but it turns out they do care about it. most people voted for democrats. and then 25%, in third place, was abortion. it wasn't the highest but still higher than you would've thought based on pre-election talk from pundits that people had forgotten about it. jerry: important to remember that problems for democrats were also revealed. maybe we can start by looking at the senate race. -- senate races. let's look at a couple of these along the way. they still could lose control of the senate because of arizona . mark kelly did not win the race.

they could lose the state in nevada which is a problem because, third -- democrats thought they were turning the state blue. and ron johnson in wisconsin who people thought was the most vulnerable incumbent republican senator looks like he well in -- he won the race. and we have to stop thinking that florida and ohio are swing states because they were redder than red last night. jackie: they are both red. anyone who thinks otherwise is crazy.

in ohio, even though he lost by six points, i want to look into that further. but it just showed i guess how red ohio has become. tim ryan was as good a candidate as democrats could put up and even though he lost, i would say that democrats in a lot of places should take a lesson from him. the campaign he ran, he was true to himself and he really emphasized trying to get back democrats linked to the working class voter. it might be too late in some places, but also emphasizing working with republicans when possible. and even though he gets credit

for the economic and pro-working-class argument he was waging, he was also making part of that pro-democracy and needing to protect our democracy as part of his message. he lost. jerry: to clarify the scorecard on the senate, it looks like democrats have lost a seat in nevada. it is still to be decided. jackie: i thought some outstanding votes were blue. jerry: it is still open. federman won pennsylvania so that is a democratic pickup. it could come down to georgia and the runoff between raphael warnock and herschel walker.

who would've thought we would do this again in georgia? jackie: i know. it shows how divided the country is that for a second election in a row we essentially come down to a 50-50 senate. the senate being more illustrative of the country as a whole because each state has the same number of votes. for an election that did not decide control of congress, we learned a lot and it was a reassuring election. i thought it was good for democracy. so far, no major reports of trouble at the polls, let alone violence. i still have a fear that there

are a lot of uncertain races that will not go republicans way, including kari lake in arizona. and we have already seen a great amount of volatility and threat. and i will be watching trump to see what he says about election fraud. he has sort of already started. but to the extent once these races are declared and we will see if the other side accepts the verdict of the voters. jerry: it was not a great night for election deniers who deny that joe biden is president. mastriano, the governor's candidate in pennsylvania lost pretty easily. tudor nixon in michigan, a republican who was an election denier, steve chabot and from

your home state of ohio lost. possibly kerry lake in arizona . so people might be starting to realize that denying that joe biden is president maybe is not a great position to take. jackie: yes. so many races have not been called yet but about 150 republicans who won house seats last night, that includes you know incumbents and new members were election deniers. and et election denier's lost seats. so many -- and 80 election deniers lost seats. so many lost, but many won. jerry: ticket splitters

reappeared. we have a notion that everyone is locked into a party. they vote for whoever is running for their team, no matter what. that was not true yesterday. you had places where in the significant races, people would vote republican for a governor and democrat for a senate or vice versa. in ohio you had mike dewine winning easily and got far more votes than the republican senate candidate, j.d. vance. and raphael warnock got way more votes in his race for the senate then stacey abrams did in her race for governor. jackie: and governor kemp got

more than herschel walker. jerry: so maybe voters are telling us that they are thinking about it. they are not locked into one party and we are independent thinkers and can make our own decisions. and that is a good thing. jackie: it is sort of sobering, i hate, i keep tamping down your positive points, but you had candidates so extreme that voters would refuse to pick them.

given the state of things right now, i will take what we can get . and we did get some ticket splitting, which is good. there were a number of republicans who conceded graciously. jerry: and democrat tim ryan conceded exceptionally gracefully i thought. jackie: it was second only to al gore in 2000. tim ryan, democrat in ohio. he said it was his privilege to have called j.d. vance and conceded the election to him, because that is what we do in a democracy once the people have spoken. it sort of brought tears to my eyes. jerry: it was a good message. something else occurred to me

that came through yesterday, it does not hurt to have an actual governing agenda if you are going to run in a national campaign. [laughter] we talked about this earlier. in a couple of sessions, republicans made almost a conscious decision not to have a governing agenda they were running on. their calculation was that running against a relatively unpopular democratic president and on the fact that inflation was scary to a lot of people , which it is, would be sufficient. i think a lesson here is that it is not enough. jackie: yes. normally i would not agree because both parties do it. and midterm, it is often proven to be enough just to run against the president's party. but because it was so cynical,

mitch mcconnell, the leader of the senate when asked earlier this year, he was angry the house had put out a plan. he said when asked about the plan he said, we have a plan and i will tell you what it is after the election. there is a biography of him called the cynic. not for nothing. then he got angry when senator rick scott of florida put out that it was a bad plan. but when you have people really caring about inflation and crime and you were just talking about the problem and not offering solutions, you leave yourself bear. -- bare. jerry: and i'm wondering if

democrats were kicking themselves, if we only had a better answer about the inflation question, maybe we would not have lost control of the house and we would be on our way to controlling the senate. and i think they also failed to come up with an answer for the number one concern people had that actually in the end put them over the finish line. jackie: they sort of had an answer, the so-called inflation reduction act. but it was not explained well. on the other hand, what could they have done? the truth of the matter is that members of congress cannot do much at all about inflation. neither can the president, for that matter. it's the federal reserve. they can make it worse and some of the things republicans said they would do would have made it

worse. cutting spending too much or cutting taxes to deeply. neither of those will happen with a democratic president. so i do not know what more democrats could have said. jerry: inflation is an incumbent killer. it is terrible on the party in power. it always has been. jackie: you can have high unemployment and people are bad but it does not affect everyone. high inflation impacts everyone. it's the worst political problem to have other than a sex scandal. jerry: i was trying to find a way to put those together but let's not think about that. [laughter] before we leave the point that voters show they can think for themselves, we cannot stop

without talking about kansas, where we are. laura kelly, a democrat, was reelected. at the same time, kris kobach, a republican won the election for attorney general. and sharice davids was reelected fairly easily. so i think we can return to the theme that kansas voters can make up their own minds. jackie: yes. i cannot think of another election that offered something for everybody like this when did. you were either up or down. but i am fascinated by what's happened in kansas this year, not just in this election but in

the earlier vote on abortion. every -- the whole nation was talking about it. but i want to hear from you. how do you explain the yen and yang of kansas politics? jerry: a couple of factors came into play. laura kelly ran a really good smart campaign. she portrayed herself as a middle of the road candidate in a state that has shown that it kind of is comfortable with that kind of democrat. i think republican derek schmidt probably didn't have a clear enough program and running against laura kelly was not sufficient. and i also think that there was some residual effect from what happened this summer with the abortion referendum, the constitutional a referendum on a constitutional amendment on abortion or whether to remove the right to choice from the state constitution, you had a

lot of registered voters who were activated. it starts with having a good candidate and laura kelly was a good candidate. it turns that -- it turns out that candidate quality really matters. if republicans had picked somebody other than dr oz in pennsylvania, that was a winnable race. maybe someone who actually lived in pennsylvania, for example. [laughter] jackie: david mccormick in pennsylvania i would have easily won. he was narrowly beaten by oz. do you think oprah's endorsement of fetterman had an impact? jerry: it didn't hurt but i have a hard time believing it was a

decisive factor. it did come late. one other thing that emerged in pennsylvania and elsewhere in the country, like new hampshire where maggie hassan won as a democratic incumbent more easily than we thought and where senator bennett in colorado won as a democratic incumbent more easily than we thought, i think voters this year were more willing to separate their views of the president from their vote in the midterms. normally the deciding factor in most midterm elections is the popularity of the incumbent president. voters seem more willing to separate their views between how they feel about the president and who they will vote for in the midterms. jackie: yes.

i have rarely seen it and never to the extent we have seen in the midterms where results showed voters were not holding the democratic candidates responsible for how much they disliked joe biden. i cannot really explain it, except that candidate quality counts. people have to sell themselves. biden kept a low profile, to say the least, but often presidents do in the midterms. barack obama did not go out much in 2010. bill clinton did not go out much in 1994. george bush did in 2006 and all

in their parties did badly. jerry: i think there were a lot of democratic candidates that did a good job of separating the races in their states from the national picture, which is tough to do and i think some of them did it well. and i also think that to some extent voters saw control of congress as something that is important in its own right and that was on a knife's edge and it made a difference. and what you really saw was democrats who are unhappy with joe biden were willing to bite their tongue and vote for the democrats. i think it's probably a combination of all the things. jackie: abigail spanberger in virginia who is a really a good member of congress and a good

candidate, moderate moderate democrat who was very vulnerable and wouldn't have surprised me in the least. i expected her to get defeated and she didn't. so that is her establishing a separate identity for herself than from biden. jerry: i think democrats were forewarned to do that and they did. and there was plenty of money on the democrat side to help them do it. in most of the races, the democrat candidate was as well or better funded than the republican candidate. jackie: yes. and speaking of biden, think about his days. he is headed overseas to a series of summit on climate change, the typical november summits in asia. jerry: and that might include a

visit with president she -- president xi. jackie: right. so i just imagined him on air force one glumly absorbing the news of the losses for which his -- he is being held responsible and then going to these foreign meetings being seen as a big loser and someone who is arguably a lame duck. and it is not the case. he is still a live option for president, for better or worse. jerry: there are consequences going forward in any election. let's start with the 2020 for applications on both side. -- on both sides. let me ask you whether you think that last night was as good a night as it seems to me for ron

desantis the governor of florida as a potential alternate to donald trump in 2024. jackie: yeah. so much so that as of the weekend when trump was at rallies calling him ron de sanctimonious, so you knew he had gotten into trump's head, and you were hearing all the anonymous people from ron desantis cap saying he is only 44 and has years and he can wait to run for president. here we are days later and he won against a former governor, he is one of the biggest winners of the night and suddenly people

are saying, again, tom cotton took himself out of the race days ago because people were thinking trump is going to run, he will run right over any of us. and now desantis, i had assumed he was in the same basket as tom cotton and now you know that behind the scene, people are urging him, people want him to run in 2024. people at his rally were openly chanting it and he was smiling really big. trump is a real loser now. i think people see a chance for him to actually be taken out. exit polls of florida voters show by big margins that florida

voters don't want trump to run. and they prefer desantis to trump. jerry: one thing ron desantis did in florida was carrie data county, which just doesn't happen and tells you a lot about -- was carry dade county, which tells you a lot about the breadth of his appeal. so regardless of what desantis is thinking today, the pressure on him from important quarters in the republican party to get in the race and run for president is now going to be huge because people who want an alternative to donald trump right now see him as the horse to ride and that's going to be a hard pressure to resist. jackie: trump is a loser. it is a fact. i mean literally of loser. i'm not trying to be disrespectful. i wouldn't do that.

[laughter] he won in 2016 even though he lost the popular vote but every cycle since then, he has lost in -- lost. in 20's party lost both houses of congress. in 2020, he lost. he indeed lost. now in 2022, republicans did not do as well as they thought they would and he is a factor, if not the biggest factor. jerry: so let's assume ron desantis decides he wants to get into this thing. and gets in relatively soon next year. does that open the door for another 10 republicans to get in , as well? jackie: yes. jerry: and then donald trump's

secret weapon. if you take the anti-trump vote in the party, from his point of view, having ron desantis come in and others come in and split the party, he could have enough he needs to win. jackie: it would be interesting if republicans could work behind-the-scenes to get behind ideally one candidate. jerry: we have seen this attempted. it never works jackie:. jackie:right.

nikki haley, mike pompeo, tom cotton, even chris christie, larry hogan is now seeing an opening, the anti-trump republican governor of maryland. so we are looking at a potential bloodbath among republicans. trump will not defer to anyone. he won't leave. when he is cutting down the new star of the republican party, ron desantis, already. and did you see what he said, i know a lot about him, may be more than his wife, and if he gets in, i'm going to have to tell you about it. my god. who does that? [laughter] jerry: right. let's talk about the democratic

side. the question about if joe biden is the best bet. you could argue that democrats did reasonably well in spite of him, not because of him. does the pressure on biden to step aside and not run in 2024 continue, increase, or decrease? jackie: it is not clear that he is feeling much pressure. they are not the people he is hearing from. president's are very insulated. the difference is today, had things gone the way most expected with a tremendous night for republicans, there would be

overt pressure from democrats for him to start thinking about stepping out and taking one for the party jerry:. that will still be there. jackie: yes but not to the extent it would have been. so by all accounts, he would be inclined to run. i'm not totally convinced of it. jerry: and not constant -- context to let me tell you about one of the sleeper races that did not get much attention. in michigan, gretchen whitmer, the incumbent democrat governor who faced a very serious threat from a very trump and republican. i think people will look at that state and her performance and

say, there is someone who is a relatively moderate democrat who can beat someone who looks like trump. jackie: yes. i get a lot of arguments about this but i argue that democrats have a deeper bench than they get credit for. it is just that in the years from obama to biden and the clintons sucked the oxygen out of the air for so long, you do not know these people and they are relatively recent. having say that -- having said that, you would think i would have names on the top of my head. michael bennet from colorado, we already know he wanted to be president and had a good race last night. gavin newsom, governor of california. it is astounding to me that a

population become a 39 million -- jerry: let's talk about how this affects governing in washington, which will be the subject of our conversation next week. democrats will probably still lose control of the house, barely. is this nancy pelosi's signal to say goodbye and move back to california? jackie: yeah. if you saw her anderson -- if you saw her interview on anderson cooper this week about that man bludgeoning her husband, he asked her if the

attack on her husband's would -- he asked her would going into the election results affect her thinking and she said right away that what happens to her family will affect her thinking. that is an argument for leaving. kevin mccarthy of bakersfield, california has nominal control. he will be essentially controlled by the maga wing of the party, like people like marjorie taylor greene.

house republicans, what they were asked what the first thing they would do, they were all saying hunter biden. so voters were repelled and then the next election it works in democrat benefit. there was more than one democrat who was hoping for the house to vote. jerry: final thought. if power is divided in washington, as it probably will be, people will say that is a disaster for the president, he can't get anything done. i'm not sure that i buy that. i think divided government might be where joe biden can work best. find common ground with a few

republicans and tell the progressive wing of the democratic party, sorry i can't do everything you want, i got to deal with these guys over here i -- over here. jackie: i agree. the importance of keeping the senate for the democrats is he continues to get his judicial candidates confirmed. in the last two years of the obama administration, where mitch mcconnell keeps the virtual blockade on judicial nominees. the good news for democrats is they achieved so much of their agenda in the past two years, now they should just spend the time implementing those things and making sure they work. there is not a lot more they need to do. voting rights, eca.

jerry: election control act? jackie: we need that before 2024. jerry: in that environment i think joe biden on one hand and mitch mcconnell on the other are a -- able to keep aid flowing to ukraine. because in a closely divided house there is not enough maga america first sentiment to really mount an effort to cut off aid to ukraine. let me open up the floor to questions. raise your hand and i will call on you. we have two microphones. speak up so we can hear you better. a reminder, a question is a

question with a question mark at the end of the sentence. have at it. wait a second. i do not think that is on. we will do a redo. there you go. >> one of the more interesting things that we saw last night was ron desantis and i think i remember some parallels with what we saw looking back also to glenn younkin, who was also somebody the whole topic of trump and sort of run as somebody who was moderate. and with those being two of the bigger success stories for the republican party recently, do you think that sets a path forward back to a very respectable moderate republican party in the future? jackie: i would say they sort of

represent glenn youngkin and ron desantis two different paths for a posttrial party. glenn youngkin is more like trump than he cares to admit. the santos -- ron desantis, there is very little on which he and trump disagree in terms of policy and style. desantis goes beyond trump in some ways when you look at things like grabbing some undocumented immigrants in texas and putting them on a plane to martha's vineyard. trump had never thought of that. and then two months before the election going out with your election fraud unit, clearly

embarrassed to be arresting these voters, former felons who had been encouraged to register to vote and now they are being taken to jail. so as -- so glenn youngkin tries to be or look more moderate but desantis is in your face. jerry: i am glad you raised it glenn youngkin because in the republicans who will now be under pressure from the party to run in 2024, even though he has only been governor for a year, he strikes me as the kind of guy who is susceptible to that kind of pressure, to be honest. there is a search underway and parts of the republican party to find the mainstream bob dole type traditional conservative

who is not weighed down with trump baggage. glenn youngkin qualifies. a good name to throw out there. >> hello. in 2020 there was discussion about voting, the idea that if the election was stolen, we cannot trust the elections and people might not want to get out and vote. do you think that rhetoric applied in this cycle? jerry: i saw no sign that anyone stayed away because they were told their vote would not count. i think probably the opposite. it probably incentivized some people to vote. but it is hard to prove a negative. you cannot prove that someone did not show up for a reason. jackie: i agree. i think among democratic leaning

voters, particularly in the black community, there was almost a resolve to vote because they wanted to show that the laws that were passed were not going to inhibit him -- inhibit them that were restrictive of voting. but i think the greater threat of people not coming out to vote was on the republican side. i do not see that it had an impact this time. i think they heard us so much that it was going to be a good year for republicans, they wanted to be part of it. jerry: one thing that happened beneath the surface is there were signs that republicans continue to chip away at democratic dominance with latino

voters and black men. it was not enough to tip the balance in some cases but i think democrats need to continue watching that. jackie: yes. it is almost too late for democrats to stop the erosion of support in the latino community. but in the three races in the texas rio grande valley, in the days before the eight elections republicans were confident about taking all three congressional races that were battlegrounds. and democrats kept two of the three. so the democrats are happy about that today but offsetting that was that a loss of miami-dade county, which used to be a democratic stronghold. but this all points up, as does the fact that latinos have a

problem -- democrats have a problem with latinos to begin with. i covered politics in texas at the start of my career. latinos run from people who are seventh generation people who were texans before it was texas. they've been there the whole life and a lot of them were receptive about trump building a wall. so it runs the gamut. and i'm not even talking about venezuelans and cubans and individual interests. >> my question is we seem to be entering a new era where more and more voting happens before election day. i can't remember where, but i heard that many people had voted for fetterman in october before

the debate had happened. how do you think that changes political strategy and how do you think that should change political coverage of these races? jackie: the most immediate way that affects my coverages i rarely write election day anymore. the term. i refers to the season. because it is a multi-day process. when i saw the date for the pennsylvania senate debate, i thought about how many people had already voted by then. pundits get into an echo chamber. the reporting focused on

fetterman and clear signs that this was a man who had had a stroke. and i thought he would get credit for being resilient and being willing to debate. what was lost in the attention to fetterman is what awes set about abortions and how local political officials should be in on the decision. i think coverage has to be cognizant of not getting into the factors that come into play at the end, not thinking those are necessarily as pivotal as we would have in the past because

so many would have already voted. i'm a big fan of early voting and the idea that trump is telling people to vote only on the one day is crazy. nevada had a huge snow storms that blow in. certainly people stayed home. jerry: i think there will be an effort to reduce the window for early voting. that is my gut feeling. jackie: and there have been in republican states. jerry: right. >> the previous gentlemen talked about early voting. i wanted to ask you your opinion on counting that happens later.

you both have worked extensively in news media. in past elections we found out that night. but now it is several days or week long process. how does that change the approach of people who report on election night and how can we combat the narrative of people claiming voter interference when voting just takes longer than it used to? jackie: cable news and print media did a really good job alerting people ahead of time to not expect results on election night. it's not like it used to be

where most or all people only voted on election day. you have a situation where there is so many different kinds of voting and the military vote which is always late. but there is a cynical game going on. republicans have talked about, donald trump chief lee, about how you should not count votes after election day. take pennsylvania. it is controlled by republicans in the past the law that bans the election administrators from counting early votes, mail-in votes until election day. so then the votes coming in on election day show up first and they favor republicans and then the mail in votes favor democrats and then trump claims

it's fraud. jerry: it's a problem that is going to have to be addressed. unresolved. it confuses people and it made me insane to have a state law say you cannot open an envelope for a male in valid -- mail-in ballot that you got two weeks ago and you cannot open it until election day. they are going to have to clean up the process. it is not healthy for anybody. it is confusing for voters and gives rise to conspiracy theories that should not be perpetuated. jackie: i agree with you. but our system of voting is decentralized. it is under state control and it goes down to the county level where they have their own rules.

after the 2000 recount there was a bipartisan push to try to sort of sort out some of these problems that were inherent in federalism and decentralization and you had in 2003-2004 the uh -- you have the major federal first election law that encouraged uniformity that had not existed before. they were different times. we thought it was partisan then. jerry: if there was a set of best practices that was at least suggested to get around the problem? >> i think that should absolutely be done. yeah. jerry: there was another question here. >> i was wondering if there are

any implications that we can take away from the race on like the moderate and progressive split in the democratic party and kind of what that dynamics going to look like going forward . jackie: that's a really good question. what we saw in the first two years of the biden administration is that he was under a great deal of pressure from the progressive wing and >> as they hit some defeats, and things like the original attempt at what became the inflation reduction act. a 3.5 billion dollars trillion -- package. bernie sanders would've had it 6 trillion. it came down to 1.9 trillion and republicans were successfully depicting it as an inflation stoker. what happened by the end of these past two years, the

progressive from alexandria across io cortez were pragmatic about the fact that it was clear that a lot of their wish list could not get through because in a senate, you can't do it. i think there was a pragmatism and in accommodation with that. i think that will still be there , certainly know that republicans are gonna run the house. that said, as their vision turns to the 2024 presidential nomination race and whether anyone will challenge joe biden or wet joe biden's program should be, i think the progressives are going to start becoming more assertive. >> i agree with that.

i think the problem is if joe biden decides to do a bill clinton does after he lost control of the house in 1994, he is going to get a lot of grief on his left. that is what i think is the most likely outcome. stay tuned on that. >> what would you like to happen? do have an opinion on that? >> i'm not sure. i don't know. i wanted to hear your take on it. [laughter] >> you're in good company. >> i think we have an online question. >> saying the first gen z when sc, how do you think the younger vote influence the elections last night and are they influencing elections differently from the older generation? >> that's a good question. >> too soon to tell.

i have seen generational changes in congress. it definitely has an impact. i remember at the wall street journal, after an 1990 election, the first non-baby boomer election. it was the first person -- first child of the 60's -- of the 1960's who could not remember what he or she was doing on the day that kennedy was assassinated. it sounds like ancient history now. it brought a more conservative vote to the republican and democratic side. brought a more conservative point of view then there had been. up until that point, it was a combination postwar, new deal democrat and more moderate republicans. >> this is a fascinating question.

i have a theory that there is a stereotype view of gen z voters. that they are always liberal. i think it's different. i find the research indicates they are more independent minded. they may be ideological but they are not partisan and that they see more pragmatic than they are given credit for. that is what i think you will get. ok. that makes you feel better. thank you. if there's one last question we can do one. just one more. in the front row, here. then we have to wrap up. >> so, you are talking about the decentralization of the election and how elections are counted and states. do you see any concern with the topic of election fraud still being prevalent and a lot of people's minds?

are there any concern and actual election processes with people being put into these positions where they can challenge ballots, based on whether they think this is fragile and are not question mark to see any concern? >> you go first. i will close off. i think it is a good question. >> i am very concerned. we did not see much controversy yet. but as these races get settled, and then they have to be certified, it will be interested to see. there have been court cases since the past year, for instance in new mexico. i think the man was a proud boy or an o's keeper. he was a member of their county commission.

the courts forced him to. they are president now. i think it's a real question because the republicans have done an incredible job, over the past 18 months, 20 months of getting people in at the local level. they call it the priests and strategy -- the precinct strategy. i think the biggest concern is for the next presidential election. >> i will close out with a more optimistic view because i am the optimist in the room right now. >> i have some optimism. >> yeah. i'm not predicting this but i'm saying it's possible that the selection might have marked the high water mark of the election denial, it's all been rate movement. you saw a lot of candidates who could have cried foul, not do

that, and the last 12 to 14 hours. maybe a lot more voters are saying with the way that they voted that enough of this. i can't point to prove that. my cat tells me that could be the case. jackie is also right. the testing ground for that is 2024. i think we have to stop there. we could get on -- we could go on. thank you jackie, for joining us today. [applause] >> thank you. >> thank you all, for coming out. we'll do this one last time, next week, when our friend john would be here, along with lindsay weiss who covered politics and is now part of the wall street journal reporting to. a lot of debts have settled and we will have a look at how the results change the way washington works. hope you can join us.

i look forward to seeing you. thank you for being here. ♪ >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. >> broadband is the source for impairment. that is why charter has invested billions. upgrading technology, empowering opportunity, in communities big and small. charter is connecting us. charter communication support c-span is public service. along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. ♪ >> on friday, first lady jill biden joins kamala harris to mark veterans day. live coverage from arlington national cemetery begins at 11 a.m., eastern. you can watch on our app or online, at c-span.org.

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