00:00America is heading for a political showdown and the stakes could hardly be higher.
00:04In just one week, voters will decide who controls Congress in what is widely seen as a referendum on Donald
00:10Trump's presidency.
00:11With Republicans fighting to hold on to power and Democrats hoping for a comeback,
00:16the outcome could reshape Washington and Trump's last two years in the White House.
00:21For more on this, I'm now joined by Keith Branham, Senior Advisor on U.S. Politics at consulting firm Green
00:27Lane,
00:27with more than a decade of experience as a Democratic strategist and campaign manager.
00:32Good morning and thanks for coming on.
00:35Good morning.
00:36So right now, Democrats have a huge polling advantage.
00:40On the generic ballot, likely voters prefer Democratic candidates over Republicans by 11 points in their congressional districts.
00:47But when it comes to Senate races, the Democrats' lead narrows to just five points.
00:53Is there still some nail-biting or do Democrats have it in the bag?
00:59There's definitely some nail-biting, but this is far more nail-biting than Republicans would have wanted.
01:05When we came in to 2026, it was understood that the House, because of history, was probably in play for
01:13Democrats.
01:14Democrats probably had a really good chance of winning it.
01:17And the Senate was out of reach.
01:19The map was just not in their favor.
01:20That is how much the politics has changed between January and now.
01:26And there's a few reasons for that.
01:28One, Democrats have recruited really fantastic candidates across some really difficult states that Republicans are used to winning.
01:35And Donald Trump in 2024 won by high single digits, sometimes double digits.
01:41And, for example, you had a great candidate in Tallarico, in Texas, who won a really competitive primary and is
01:52going up against a Republican candidate who is belated by scandal.
01:56And this is put...
01:57Keith, if I may, I have to ask you this.
02:00Over the past decade, pollsters understated Trump's and Republican's strength.
02:04Are the polls overestimating Democrats yet again?
02:09I would say the polls are not overestimating.
02:12In fact, most polls are within the margin of error.
02:16So it is a coin talk across so many of these districts.
02:20Again, where we started in January, that is just how much this landscape changed.
02:25So just like in 2024, where you had a bunch of states that you could have said one way or
02:31another would have gone for Kamala Harris or for Donald Trump in the presidential election,
02:35now you have the same situation here.
02:37Again, that's just how much the map has shifted against Republicans.
02:41Briefly, Keith, to what extent would a Democratic Congress have the ability to roll back Trump's policies?
02:48That is a really good question because right now this Congress has been, I would say, very subservient to the
02:55president.
02:55And the president has shown little interest in governing with Congress.
02:59Now, with Democratic majorities, Democrats will certainly, and they have been very vocal about holding the president accountable and using
03:06their powers of oversight and investigation to try to do so.
03:10I think we are in uncertain times because the president normally in these next two years would go into what
03:16we call the lame duck status.
03:17And we're probably not get a lot done because, again, we're looking forward to the next presidential administration because we
03:23have another presidential election coming up next year.
