ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Jared and Nick go live with Muckrake's election night coverage Tuesday, November 3 at 10pm Eastern. Join them for results, reaction, and analysis you won't get on cable news by becoming a patron at http://patreon.com/muckrakepodcast, which also gets you the full Weekender episode each Friday and access to our community discord.
Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman open the midterm preview on Haley Stevens, who lost the Michigan primary to Abdul El-Sayed and then endorsed Republican Mike Rogers from a church parking lot two days before the election. Jared reads it as the Democratic leadership's power struggle with its own left wing rather than one woman's breakdown, and wonders what plum job turns up for her in a few months. Nick figures AIPAC simply called in its marker, and notes El-Sayed has raised a fortune off the stunt.
Then they work through the Senate races that will decide the night: Michigan, Maine, Texas, Ohio, Kansas, Alaska, Iowa, and South Carolina. Jared is nervous about El-Sayed and a coin flip on James Talarico, but confident about Sherrod Brown and surprisingly bullish on a Democrat in Kansas, thanks in part to Roger Marshall's closing ad about his own patients' debt collections. They close on why the polls can't be trusted, what Todd Blanche and ICE might do on election day, and the scenario that hurts Nick's soul: Democrats reach 51 and John Fetterman announces he's an independent... or worse.
