Crazy Can Break a Wave

Come hang out with me tonight as The Next Level takes over TNB.

Livestream starts at 8:00 p.m. eastern. I’ll be joined by Sarah Longwell and Amanda Carpenter and we’re going to talk about this week’s January 6 Committee hearing.

You can find the show here. I hope you’ll join me and throw questions to me in the chat.

See you tonight.

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A Yavapai County ballot drop box stands in the parking lot of the Prescott Valley Civic Center in Prescott Valley, Ariz., on the first day of early voting for the primary election on Wednesday, July 6, 2022. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

1. Crazy Town

This week Joe Trippi sat down with Bill Kristol to talk about the midterms and the Democratic party’s prospects and Trippi was . . . pretty upbeat?

Let me start by saying that Trippi is one of the two or three smartest guys around on politics. He shoots straight. He’s totally clear-eyed. He never engages in wishcasting and he’s never playing an angle.

Joe Trippi has the rare ability to see around corners. So when he talks, I listen, hard.

So here are the big points Trippi makes about the midterms:

(1) Democrats stand to increase their margin in the Senate because Republicans have nominated such bad candidates.

Trippi ticks through the seven Senate races that matter the most and the Republican is not leading in any of them and in four of them—Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, Arizona—Democrats are leading.

Now, maybe the environment will deteriorate further for Democrats in the next 12 weeks. But these cakes are usually mostly baked by Labor Day.

Further, Trippi argues that in wave elections, having bad candidates at the top of the ticket often acts like a jetty, breaking up the wave as it reaches shore. And guys like Dr. Oz, Herschel Walker, and Blake Masters are walking, talking jetties.

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(2) The election is moving