1 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:04,366 JUDY WOODRUFF: As we have reported, votes are still being tallied from last week's midterm 2 00:00:04,366 --> 00:00:09,366 election, but Democrats have picked up more than 30 seats to regain control of the House. 3 00:00:10,966 --> 00:00:12,600 John Yang has more on the lessons of the 2018 midterms -- John. 4 00:00:12,600 --> 00:00:16,433 JOHN YANG: Judy, was it the blue wave that Democrats had hoped for? 5 00:00:16,433 --> 00:00:21,200 And will the new House majority look like what the voters that helped elect them look 6 00:00:21,200 --> 00:00:23,266 like? 7 00:00:23,266 --> 00:00:26,966 It's time for Politics Monday with Tamara Keith of NPR and Stuart Rothenberg of Inside 8 00:00:26,966 --> 00:00:28,333 Elections. 9 00:00:28,333 --> 00:00:30,366 Welcome to you both. 10 00:00:30,366 --> 00:00:34,100 Tuesday night, the story line quickly developed that this wasn't the night that Democrats 11 00:00:34,100 --> 00:00:38,400 had hoped for, that the blue wave had become - - I heard someone refer to it as a blue ripple. 12 00:00:38,400 --> 00:00:43,366 Tam, a week now out from Election Day, we have seen more races called, we have seen 13 00:00:44,133 --> 00:00:45,966 some margins narrow. 14 00:00:45,966 --> 00:00:48,133 What does it look like? 15 00:00:48,133 --> 00:00:50,900 TAMARA KEITH, National Public Radio: Sometimes, the initial hot takes are not so hot after 16 00:00:50,900 --> 00:00:53,000 a few days. 17 00:00:53,000 --> 00:00:56,966 And what it looks like is -- and President Trump came out and declared victory. 18 00:00:57,733 --> 00:00:59,766 And it was like, hmm. 19 00:00:59,766 --> 00:01:02,800 Well, now it's even clearer that -- that Democrats picked up a lot of seats. 20 00:01:02,800 --> 00:01:07,800 There are still several races that are not called yet still outstanding. 21 00:01:09,900 --> 00:01:14,300 At the moment, AP has it at 32 seats flipped, but there are many more outstanding, especially 22 00:01:16,833 --> 00:01:18,833 in California. 23 00:01:18,833 --> 00:01:23,366 And the important thing to keep in mind is that, yes, election night is a big night, 24 00:01:23,366 --> 00:01:28,366 it's a big night on television, but the vote counting is slow and arduous, and especially 25 00:01:30,433 --> 00:01:33,733 in states like California, where they have a lot of vote by mail. 26 00:01:33,733 --> 00:01:38,466 Even if it says 100 percent of precincts reporting, that's not 100 percent of votes counted. 27 00:01:38,466 --> 00:01:40,633 JOHN YANG: Stu, credit where credit is due. 28 00:01:40,633 --> 00:01:44,800 All right, Tuesday night, I remember fairly early in the night you tweeted out -- you 29 00:01:44,800 --> 00:01:46,266 didn't -- you said, what's with all this hand-wringing? 30 00:01:46,266 --> 00:01:47,800 (LAUGHTER) 31 00:01:47,800 --> 00:01:48,500 STUART ROTHENBERG, Inside Elections: That's right. 32 00:01:48,500 --> 00:01:50,633 That's right. 33 00:01:50,633 --> 00:01:53,000 Yes, I think the narrative didn't change two or three days after the election. 34 00:01:53,000 --> 00:01:57,066 I think it changed two or three hours after the votes started being counted, actually. 35 00:01:57,066 --> 00:02:02,033 I understand why Democrats were fully invested in the Texas Senate race and the Florida governor's 36 00:02:03,266 --> 00:02:06,500 race and the Georgia governor's race. 37 00:02:06,500 --> 00:02:10,800 And Amy McGrath didn't do as well in Kentucky 6, in an early state. 38 00:02:10,800 --> 00:02:14,633 But, look, once we got into the large number of districts that were competitive and that 39 00:02:14,633 --> 00:02:17,766 we were really watching, it was very clear we had a wave. 40 00:02:17,766 --> 00:02:21,133 I mean, between 35 and 40 seats flipping is a wave. 41 00:02:21,133 --> 00:02:23,066 A national election is a wave. 42 00:02:23,066 --> 00:02:26,766 It's not a cherry-picked election, where a district here flipped and a district there 43 00:02:26,766 --> 00:02:28,833 flipped. 44 00:02:28,833 --> 00:02:32,066 There were -- there were upsets, significant upsets, in Oklahoma, in South Carolina's 1st 45 00:02:32,066 --> 00:02:33,166 Congressional District. 46 00:02:33,166 --> 00:02:34,833 So, look, we just had a wave. 47 00:02:34,833 --> 00:02:35,833 People tend to jump the gun. 48 00:02:35,833 --> 00:02:36,833 I understand it. 49 00:02:36,833 --> 00:02:37,933 Everybody wants to be first. 50 00:02:37,933 --> 00:02:38,933 People are emotional. 51 00:02:38,933 --> 00:02:40,166 They're invested in the races. 52 00:02:40,166 --> 00:02:42,200 But we had a wave, a good Democratic wave. 53 00:02:42,200 --> 00:02:45,000 JOHN YANG: Stu, a couple of those races you talked about, the Georgia governor's, Florida 54 00:02:45,000 --> 00:02:47,666 governor, still up in the air. 55 00:02:47,666 --> 00:02:52,633 The president saying that votes being discovered in Florida, being turned up. 56 00:02:54,300 --> 00:02:56,633 He really is -- seems to be challenging the legitimacy of this. 57 00:02:56,633 --> 00:02:58,300 What do you -- what do you make of that? 58 00:02:58,300 --> 00:03:00,266 STU ROTHENBERG: I think this is very consistent for the president. 59 00:03:00,266 --> 00:03:02,800 He really doesn't care about process. 60 00:03:02,800 --> 00:03:07,800 He's all into outcomes and how the outcomes affect him and how he plays in the outcome. 61 00:03:09,800 --> 00:03:12,033 I mean, many of us think the process is actually more important than the outcome. 62 00:03:12,033 --> 00:03:15,500 If you don't get the process right, you can't get the outcome right. 63 00:03:15,500 --> 00:03:18,466 So I think it's -- what you see with Donald Trump is what you get. 64 00:03:18,466 --> 00:03:23,466 This is very consistent all along the ways, with the Kavanaugh testimony, rigged elections. 65 00:03:24,933 --> 00:03:27,800 He's always undermining the system when it benefits him. 66 00:03:27,800 --> 00:03:29,733 And I expect him to continue that. 67 00:03:29,733 --> 00:03:31,666 TAMARA KEITH: Yes. 68 00:03:31,666 --> 00:03:35,933 And the thing about the president is, the first election that he was probably really, 69 00:03:37,100 --> 00:03:40,400 truly invested in the result of was 2016. 70 00:03:40,400 --> 00:03:45,400 And that election ended at the end of the night -- or very early the next morning. 71 00:03:46,966 --> 00:03:50,533 And this election is -- did not end. 72 00:03:50,533 --> 00:03:55,533 There are 435 House races and 35 Senate races and all of these governor's races. 73 00:03:57,166 --> 00:04:00,966 And the minutiae of the election process is not pretty all the time. 74 00:04:02,166 --> 00:04:04,466 Close elections get a little bit messy. 75 00:04:04,466 --> 00:04:08,400 The process has a lot of technicalities. 76 00:04:08,400 --> 00:04:13,400 And things that, if you haven't been paying close attention, come off as weird or suspicious, 77 00:04:14,100 --> 00:04:15,366 but aren't. 78 00:04:15,366 --> 00:04:18,000 STU ROTHENBERG: I just want to add one thing. 79 00:04:18,000 --> 00:04:21,800 The more we have mail elections, mail balloting, absentee ballots and the like, the more complicated 80 00:04:21,800 --> 00:04:24,233 this counting process is going to be. 81 00:04:24,233 --> 00:04:27,833 I remember somebody tweeted the other -- the other day, maybe the president needs to understand 82 00:04:27,833 --> 00:04:29,533 how the mail works. 83 00:04:29,533 --> 00:04:30,900 It's a slow process. 84 00:04:30,900 --> 00:04:32,166 Letters come in. 85 00:04:32,166 --> 00:04:33,566 The votes come in, and you got to count them. 86 00:04:33,566 --> 00:04:35,633 That's the way it is. 87 00:04:35,633 --> 00:04:37,633 TAMARA KEITH: And you have to match the signatures on the absentee ballots. 88 00:04:37,633 --> 00:04:40,066 JOHN YANG: Tam, we heard representative-elect Spanberger talk about the new voices coming 89 00:04:40,066 --> 00:04:41,700 into the House. 90 00:04:41,700 --> 00:04:45,533 The leadership, though -- the new voices at the lowest levels. 91 00:04:45,533 --> 00:04:50,533 At the top levels, the leadership team that appears to be headed to remain has been there 92 00:04:50,533 --> 00:04:52,000 for about a decade. 93 00:04:52,000 --> 00:04:55,933 They're, the three top leaders, in their late 70s. 94 00:04:55,933 --> 00:05:00,366 Is this going to be a challenge for the Democrats, this public face of the party as this -- as 95 00:05:00,366 --> 00:05:02,500 we approach 2020? 96 00:05:02,500 --> 00:05:06,666 TAMARA KEITH: Certainly, if the leadership stays exactly the way it is, I can picture 97 00:05:08,666 --> 00:05:13,533 the RNC e-mails that are probably headed to my inbox already talking about the leadership 98 00:05:15,533 --> 00:05:19,200 not reflecting the broader American public, and also the RNC e-mails saying, what about 99 00:05:21,633 --> 00:05:26,433 all those Democrats who said they weren't going to vote for Pelosi, and now they do? 100 00:05:26,433 --> 00:05:31,433 One argument that you been hearing a lot in the last 48 hours or so is, you can't replace 101 00:05:32,200 --> 00:05:34,566 something with nothing. 102 00:05:34,566 --> 00:05:39,566 And until someone steps forward for the Democrats to challenge Pelosi, this sort of nascent 103 00:05:41,600 --> 00:05:44,200 effort that is out there with members trying to put together a movement, it's pretty hard 104 00:05:44,200 --> 00:05:45,966 if the movement doesn't have a leader. 105 00:05:45,966 --> 00:05:47,200 JOHN YANG: Stu? 106 00:05:47,200 --> 00:05:49,233 STU ROTHENBERG: Well, no, I agree. 107 00:05:49,233 --> 00:05:53,333 I think -- I think the younger Democrats and more recently elected Democrats need a voice. 108 00:05:54,466 --> 00:05:55,733 But let's remember, the speaker is a woman. 109 00:05:55,733 --> 00:05:57,366 Clyburn is an African-American. 110 00:05:57,366 --> 00:06:01,866 So, this is a party that has tried to be more diverse and welcoming. 111 00:06:04,433 --> 00:06:08,000 But there's no question that 18-to-29-year-olds, 18-to-35-year-olds, they would be more comfortable 112 00:06:10,666 --> 00:06:13,566 seeing, I think, some younger members. 113 00:06:13,566 --> 00:06:16,333 It doesn't have to even be in the form of leadership, John. 114 00:06:16,333 --> 00:06:21,333 These are people who speak for the party and are involved in TV interviews and things like 115 00:06:22,600 --> 00:06:24,666 that. 116 00:06:24,666 --> 00:06:27,733 I think that would be helpful for Democrats, because the leadership should in many ways 117 00:06:27,733 --> 00:06:29,133 reflect the party. 118 00:06:29,133 --> 00:06:31,933 But, also, they should reflect the country, actually. 119 00:06:31,933 --> 00:06:36,033 TAMARA KEITH: And beyond the top three, Democrats have a lot of leadership positions in the 120 00:06:36,033 --> 00:06:38,100 House. 121 00:06:38,100 --> 00:06:42,166 So, Nancy Pelosi has said that she sees herself as a transitional speaker. 122 00:06:44,033 --> 00:06:47,500 They have had farm team issues, where the people who were in the lower ranks of the 123 00:06:47,500 --> 00:06:52,366 leadership ended up leaving, like Xavier Becerra, who went to become attorney general of California. 124 00:06:52,366 --> 00:06:55,533 So there's something for Democrats to figure out. 125 00:06:55,533 --> 00:06:58,333 JOHN YANG: Tamara Keith, Stu Rothenberg, thank you very much. 126 00:06:58,333 --> 00:06:58,833 STU ROTHENBERG: Thanks, John.