Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed recovering journalist and all-star panelist Clint Brewer in-studio to comment on the “momentum” of a red wave for House Republicans come midterms in November.
Leahy: On our microphones right now, Clint Brewer, all-star panelist. Good morning, Clint.
Brewer: Good morning.
Leahy: Recovering journalist.
Brewer: Nadir and censorious, all in one hour.
Leahy: You like that? Nadir. N-A-D-I-R. The low point. I’ve been tracking this since I was born, right? I got a little chart up there. How is the American constitutional republic doing? It was doing great under Reagan. It kind of slipped down under Clinton, and it really slipped down under George W. A lot of things …
Brewer: A lot of things starting to slip.
Leahy: It started slipping down even more under Barack Hussein Obama, and then it shot up under Donald Trump. And now it is diving down, down, down, to the Nadir. The nadir. N-A-D-I-R.
And then we’re going to start a slow, steady climb back up, I believe, on November 8, 2022. By the way, Clint, let me invite you right now to be in our special election night coverage, which we’ll hold here on November 8 in the evening, from 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.
You’re welcome to come in and be part of it since you are officially an all-star panelist. We’ll have Crom in here. And now, you were here with us on election night 2020, weren’t you?
Brewer: Yes.
Leahy: Yes, you were. And you may recall on election night 2020, we were here until midnight.
Brewer: I don’t think I was here until midnight.
Leahy: You were here pretty close. You left at about 11.
Brewer: I think so.
Leahy: But we were here until midnight. And just before I left, I did a survey with our five all-star panelists, and I said, what’s the probability that Donald Trump has won re-election? And the consensus from those who were here at that moment was 85 percent to 90 percent.
Then I come back in 5 hours later and I’m on the air at 5:00 a.m. And just before I go on the air, I said, well, what’s the latest? And I look and I go, what in the you-know-what has happened?
Because a couple of hundred thousand votes showed up in Wisconsin, in Pennsylvania, and that was the beginning … the dive to our current nadir happened then, and the rest, as they say, is history. But now, since you are the political expert and a recovering journalist and, as we say, often an all-around good guy.
Brewer: Thanks.
Leahy: All-star panelist.
Brewer: I’ll start paying. I’m still stuck on the word nadir. (Leahy chuckles) I think somebody had named their dog Nadir. I think that would be good. Darth Nadir.
Leahy: That is quite clever. Darth Nadir. I like that. Okay, so let’s start with the House. Four weeks and five days from now. I’m looking at RealClearPolitics, which is relatively cautious right now in the battle for the House. Remember, 435 members of the House of Representatives, you need 218 for a majority.
Right now they are showing 219 GOP seats, 182 Democrat seats, and 34 toss-ups. The generic ballot has been moving up slightly for Republicans. The RealClearPolitics average is a seven-tenths-of-a-percent lead for Republicans in the generic ballot.
You can look at the trends, and over the past two weeks, it’s gone from maybe Democrat now to slight Republican in the generic ballot. What’s your take? Is the momentum moving towards Republicans in the House of Representatives?
Brewer: If it’s moving there, it’s moving incrementally in recent days. There was a point in the cycle where Republicans had all of the momenta.
Leahy: That would be in March.
Brewer: It’s a midterm election. That party out of power is supposed to have all the momentum. And the fact that seven-tenths of a percentage point? But it could be better. It could be a lot better.
Leahy: When we come back (laughs), when you say it could be better for Republicans …
Brewer: This takes the House out of the sort of auspices of it being a red wave or a movement nationally, and instead we’re going to reduce it down to hand-to-hand combat about get-out-the-vote efforts.
Leahy: In 34 districts or maybe more.
Brewer: And that’s not a movement.
Leahy: It’s not a wave. It’s a trickle. Is it a red trickle?
Brewer: It puts the future of the House in the hands of a lot of people on the ground in a lot of places.
Leahy: With four weeks.
Brewer: And you might say it’s always like that, but without the movement, it makes sense.
Leahy: Let’s see. I’m going to press you on that when we get back.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
