Hi Everyone, I’m Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fallout the 2026 Midterms. This is the first episode in the relaunched Federal Fallout podcast and I wanted to restart this because after I did the podcast last year about Virginia, I thought it was super interesting to try to see if we might do something a little bit different and look at the midterms this year. And I didn’t really want to focus on Virginia. That’s not to say I might not talk about Virginia, but you know to be perfectly honest,

00:28.79

Sam Shirazi

there’s going to be two very competitive house races that are very important for the House of Representatives, but it’s not enough to do a weekly podcast about necessarily just two house races.

00:39.72

Sam Shirazi

So I thought what might make sense is I would go out nationally, think about the national midterms environment. And there are a lot of ways of doing that. We can kind of do general discussion about the state of the country, presidential approval, congressional ballot, a generic ballot, like all those things. We could just do that nationally.

00:59.33

Sam Shirazi

I find that it’s kind of an abstract way of talking about the midterms. What I like to do is go race by race. And so what I think I’m going to be doing for this podcast is go state by state and go through the critical races that are going to be happening in the midterms. And obviously I’m going to be focusing on the more important states. Some states, there really won’t be any super important races going on. I’m mainly going to be focusing on the federal races, although I might touch upon...

01:25.42

Sam Shirazi

the governor’s races. It’s not really going to be deep dives into like the state legislative stuff in all the states like I did in Virginia, just because I’m not as much of an expert in all the states like I am in Virginia in terms of going you know deep into you know legislative races. But I feel pretty confident that I can talk about the federal races across the country. And I’m not necessarily going to do like a prediction or you know say who’s going to win, particularly this far out. I think what I’m going to be focusing on is more the important races that are going on in these states, give people kind of a sense of what’s going on, the lay of the land, and then talk about perhaps who’s more favored in in these states or why a certain race is really important.

02:06.44

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, I’d like to just focus on the general election in terms of who’s going to be able to win in November? Obviously, a lot of states have had primaries already. Some states will continue to have primaries. I’m not necessarily going to do a weekly you know primary update. I’m really going to be focusing on the lay of the land in each state, more so looking towards the general election.

02:27.78

Sam Shirazi

And you know, in terms of overall control of Congress, obviously right now the Republicans have majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. In the Senate, the Democrats need to flip four seats in order to get a majority because the Republicans currently have a 53-47 majority in the Senate. And the House of Representatives is much closer. Republicans have a narrow majority. And so the Democrats only have to flip a few seats in order to win back the majority in the House of Representatives, that is going to be a little bit more challenging than it then it should be otherwise because of some of the changes that has happened as result of redistricting. And we can talk about that in some of the states.

03:09.75

Sam Shirazi

But overall, I think most people think the Democrats have a better chance of flipping the House and probably right now they’re favored to flip the House. Whereas in the Senate, you know, it’s going to be closer. Republicans probably are going to lose some seats, but have a decent shot of holding the Senate potentially, although the Democrats, I think, have an outside shot of flipping the Senate as well. And increasingly, people think that they might actually have a shot of flipping the Senate, just given some of the races that have come on the board. So that’s kind of overall the lay of land, you know.

03:40.76

Sam Shirazi

Republicans are in control right now. Democrats are trying to win back both chambers, probably have a better shot in the House than the Senate. And so, you know, there’s going to be all these Senate races and then every single House race, House of Representatives seat is up for election. So it really goes state by state, race by race. That’s how you’re going to determine.

03:58.77

Sam Shirazi

who’s gonna win control of Congress during these midterms. And so, you know I wanted to start with a state that I think I know pretty well. I’m not necessarily an expert in the state like I am in Virginia, but I know it pretty well just because my wife grew up in Maine and we spent some time just going back there, visiting families, seeing the beautiful sites that are in Maine, particularly in the summer, it’s a great place to go and visit. So if you’ve never been to Maine, I definitely recommend going and visiting in the summer. And this time it is a really super interesting state politically because there is going to be a very, very important Senate race, which we’ll talk about in Maine.

05:13.32

Sam Shirazi

There is going to be an important House race, an important Governor race, so we’ll talk about all that. But I thought given that I have a little more expertise in Maine than I have in other states, I wanted to start with Maine, and also because it is going to be so critical to the Senate. And potentially whoever wins the Senate seat in Maine could be the party that controls the Senate after the November elections. So I’m just going to talk a little bit about Maine this episode, that’s the state I will be focusing on and each episode I will be focusing on a different state. I probably will also be focusing on Virginia at some point, but not necessarily a Virginia focused podcast this time.

And the other thing I should add is, you know, there’s a lot of things I could talk about nationally. And as I mentioned, should presidential approval and generic ballot and all that stuff. And, and you know, we can talk about all that stuff.

05:24.29

Sam Shirazi

It’s just to me, it’s less interesting than some of the more case state by state and race by race analysis. But I should start off by just saying.

05:34.43

Sam Shirazi

Traditionally, the party out of the White House tends to do well in the midterms, just like we saw in the Virginia elections in 2025, the party out of the White House does well. Traditionally, during the midterms, the party that is out of the White House also does well. That’s just you know part of the nature of politics. People tend to vote for the party that’s out of power to try to get a change. you know we saw that in 2024 when the Republicans got a big win. I think 2022 was a bit of a surprise because I think the Democrats did better than expected and kind of didn’t necessarily lose too many seats because there was perhaps a backlash to the Dobbs decision and the overturning of Roe v. Wade. So it’s not 100% set that the party out of the White House isn’t going to do well in the elections midterm elections. There’s been other examples in history. you know one was in 2002 when right after a year, about a year after 9-11, the Republicans did well in the midterms, even though they were in the White House. So certainly not 100 percent of the time. But traditionally, if you think about some of these years where there’s been big waves, 2006, 2010.

06:38.36

Sam Shirazi

2014, 2018, these have traditionally been when the party that is not in the White House is able to kind of tap into the anger that the opposition has and they’re able to win the midterms. And one of the questions we’ll have to see this year is, does that happen again?

06:54.52

Sam Shirazi

Certainly, I think the Democrats feel like they’re doing well and that momentum’s on their side. However, I think there is the possibility, particularly in the Senate, where the Republicans feel like perhaps they can make this more referendum on the Democrats, particularly some of the more...

07:09.97

Sam Shirazi

left leaning members of the Democratic Party. And we’ll talk about that in Maine, which is going to be an important part of the Senate race. So I think a lot of the dynamics in the midterms are going to come down to is this going to be kind of a traditional midterms where the party out of the White House doesn’t do too well, the party out of the White House does well?

07:24.13

Sam Shirazi

Or can the Republicans successfully make the midterms perhaps a referendum on the Democrats instead of making it a referendum on the Republicans? Because traditionally midterms, if it’s a referendum on the party in the White House, typically the party in the White House doesn’t do too well.

07:39.14

Sam Shirazi

if the Republicans can make this a referendum on the Democrats, then they might be doing well these midterms. If the Democrats can make this a referendum on the Republicans, then they’re probably going to be doing well. That’s kind of traditionally some of the dynamics you see in the midterms, and we’ll just have to see which one plays out in November. And obviously I’ll talk about kind of the state by state dynamics in that regard.

07:57.70

Sam Shirazi

So turning to Maine. So Maine is a very interesting state. In many ways, a mixture of different types of communities. You have you know well-off people, college-educated people, typically by the coast in the Portland area, and then you have you know, very you know white working class voters in the more rural areas. And so you really do see a kind of purple state. I think traditionally Maine has tilted blue, but you do see that it is a it kind of traditionally a competitive state and Republicans certainly have the ability to win in Maine. And and Maine is also a little bit iconoclastic because I think there’s ticket splitting and people may vote one way in one race, but we’ll vote another way in another race. And we’ll talk a little bit about that.

08:42.00

Sam Shirazi

So I think, I think Maine is just one of the reasons I like it is just a really fascinating state. And this year in 2026, I think it’s going to be one of the most important states during these midterms. And really, it comes down to the Senate race. I mean, we’ll talk a little bit about the House race in Maine and the governor’s race, but really the important dynamic, I think, in Maine is the Senate race. I think everyone’s going to be looking at it, not just because it’s super important for control of the Senate, but because you have such interesting candidates running on both sides. So on the Republican side,

09:11.31

Sam Shirazi

You have incumbent Senator Susan Collins. She’s been in the Senate for a long time and she has survived some very difficult political environments for her, most notably in 2020. I think 2020 Democrats thought this was the year we’re gonna defeat Susan Collins.

09:27.14

Sam Shirazi

She’s going to go down. Joe Biden won Maine pretty comfortably in 2020. However, in a shocking result, Susan Collins was able to get a lot of ticket splitting. People who voted for Joe Biden, she was able to get enough of them to vote for her, where she was able to win comfortably re-election in 2020. And I think the Republicans are pinning a lot of their hopes on the fact that that would happen again. They’re essentially hoping once more, Susan Collins is going to be able to defy political gravity and win in Maine. And I think that’s, you know, the a lot of the hopes for the Republicans maintaining control of the Senate comes down to Susan Collins. And I think part of the reason they feel confident that she might be able to do that is because in their minds, the Democrats nominated someone who is too progressive and has too many, you know, skeletons in his closet for a swing state like Maine. And the person the Democrats nominated was Graham Platner. He is very much a progressive Democrat, very much an anti-establishment Democrat, explicitly running against the establishment of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.

10:29.50

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, I think the interesting dynamic in this race is that Susan Collins really is kind of one of the last few establishment Republicans who, you know, is prominent within the current Republican Party.

10:41.49

Sam Shirazi

And I think she is... by definition, the establishment Republican. And I don’t think she’s necessarily trying to run away from that because she thinks in her mind, she wants to be viewed as a different type of Republican than perhaps a 100 percent mega Republican who supports President Trump. She has in the past notably broken with President Trump on several key votes. However, she has also voted for President Trump’s priorities several times as well. So I think you have this dynamic where Susan Collins, she’s just going to run on her brand. Part of it is being kind of an establishment old school Republican.

11:14.50

Sam Shirazi

But part of her brand is also just old school Maine. People know her. Maine’s not a huge state. a lot of people have probably either indirectly or directly gotten to know Susan Collins. That’s part of the reason she won in 2020. So I think Susan Collins’ brand is just, you know, I’m classic Mainer.

11:30.86

Sam Shirazi

You know who I am. That’s going to be her campaign. I don’t think she’s going to be doing anything too flashy in her campaign. She’s going to run the campaign she basically ran in 2020 and hope that works again. And I think the big question mark is more on the Democratic side, because in 2020, the Democrats ran kind of Generic Democrat with establishment backing. Her name is Sarah Gideon, kind of so safe choice.

11:54.32

Sam Shirazi

Just kind of someone with a D next to her name wasn’t too controversial. And the Democrats thought, well, that’s going to be good enough. Joe Biden is going to win Maine. And then people are not going to split their ticket. And then Sarah Gideon is going to win 2020.

12:05.64

Sam Shirazi

That obviously didn’t happen. And I think part of the reason Graham Platner got in the race is he feels that the Democratic establishment doesn’t know how to win some of these races, doesn’t know how to reach voters who are perhaps skeptical of the both parties, don’t like politics. They are the Democrats aren’t going to be able to win with those you know traditional establishment type candidates. so Graham Platner explicitly running as a different type of Democrat, someone who is trying to perhaps appeal to more white working class voters, Trumpier voters that have gone over to the Republicans. And his pitch is basically, I’m going to be able to win them back.

12:42.19

Sam Shirazi

Now, part of that is he has a lot of you know baggage that he comes with that a perhaps safer choice wouldn’t come with. And certainly the Republicans are going to be using that against him. But frankly, the Democrats tried to use that against him, or at least the establishment Democrats tried to use that against him when the current incumbent governor, Janet Mills, was trying to win the nomination. She really didn’t get any traction.

13:02.80

Sam Shirazi

mean, part of that is just her age. She was an older candidate and you know wasn’t super exciting. And so Graham Platner was able to win the nomination pretty easily for the Democrats in Maine. And, you know, I think he’s just going to be running as kind of an experiment to show Democrats, look, if you nominate people who are, yes, progressive, but really have more of an anti-establishment vibe to them, they are going to be doing well in states like Maine with white working class voters who the Democrats have lost and they haven’t quite figured out.

13:30.87

Sam Shirazi

how to win them back. And Graham Platner’s pitch is like, I’m the type of guy who’s going to win them back. Like, yes, I am not going to make people in DC super comfortable, but that’s the point. Like I am a different type of candidate and you’re not going to win people in, you know, rural Maine if you just run kind of a generic bland Democrat, you need someone different in order to win back those voters. You know, it’s kind of an open question mark if he’s going to be able to do that, but that’s his pitch.

And I think Susan Collins kind of recognizing her, you Brand, I think she’s going to try to win some of those college educated voters in the Portland area that are very turned off currently from the Republican Party. She’s going to say like, look, you may not like President Trump or you may not support him, but you can support me. I’m going to do what’s right for Maine. I’m more independent. And look at this Graham Platner guy. He’s way to the left. I mean, I think that’s essentially going to be Susan Collins’ pitch. And, you know, we’ll see. It’s almost like both of the candidates are trying to win over parts of the other’s base. You know, Platner is very explicitly trying to win white working class Trump voters. And Susan Collins is also very explicitly trying to win college educated Harris voters. And so, you know, which one of them is going to be more successful? And there’s a lot of different ways this could go. I mean, one way it could go down is it’s basically a repeat of 2020 when Susan Collins very clearly was able to win a lot of Biden voters and she defies political gravity again. And that’s certainly the Republican hope. The Republican hope is she’s done it before and she’ll do it again.

15:26.84

Sam Shirazi

I think Graham Platner’s pitch is one I’ll win back the white working class trump voters and you know I think frankly the establishment DC democrats even if they are skeptical that he’s going to be able to do that i think some of them are pinning their hopes on people in Maine are just going to be so upset at the republicans that it doesn’t really matter people are done with Susan Collins they’re done with her brand they’re just going to make this referendum on President Trump, and they’re just not going to vote for Susan Collins this time around, even if they don’t, mean they may not love Graham Platner, he may not be the candidate for them, but, you know, they’re going to vote for him because they they want to send a message.

15:39.48

Sam Shirazi

And so, yeah I mean, we’re just going to have to wait and see which one of those ends up happening. I think one thing to think about is there was a lot of this similar discussion that happened in 2025 in Virginia at the attorney general’s race where, You could see someone like Jason Miyares kind of doing a similar type of pitch as Susan Collins. I mean, certainly he’s probably more you know conservative than Susan Collins, but he was basically trying to pitch himself to the middle of the road voter as the more reasonable choice between him and Jay Jones. And it just didn’t work because I think voters ultimately just wanted to send a message and they wanted to you know vote against the Republicans. And so Jason Miyares wasn’t able to win in 2025. And i think Democrats are hoping a similar thing might happen, even if a lot of people don’t love Graham Platner.

16:23.92

Sam Shirazi

You know, if they’re more moderate Democrats, they’re at the end of the day going to vote for him because they they want to send a message. And, you know, I think there’s certainly a possibility that this just becomes the 2025 Virginia Attorney General race.

16:36.27

Sam Shirazi

However, I think Maine people do have a tendency to be willing to split their tickets a lot more. And I think that’s where it’s going to be more of a wild card. Does Maine’s kind of traditional bucking of expectations, you know, they don’t always do what the pundits expect them to do. Is that going to continue in the Senate race or is it really going to be kind of a different type of race this time. And either Platner wins back the Trump white working class voters, or even if he doesn’t do that, he just does well enough with the Harris voters that he’s able to win in Maine. And so I think it’s going to be a super fascinating race, really hard to predict what’s going to happen. I think the fundamentals, you’d have to say, favor Platner because, you know, it’s a state that voted for Harris.

17:19.88

Sam Shirazi

You know, there’s there’s more people who support Democrats generally than Republicans in Maine. A lot of independents, but a lot of those independents lean towards the Democrats, at least at the federal level. And so, you know, theoretically, all things being equal, Graham Platner should win. I think that was also true in 2020 with Sarah Gideon. Everyone thought Sarah Gideon was going to win just based off the fundamentals, and she didn’t.

17:43.43

Sam Shirazi

And so that’s when some of these... you know, intangibles in Maine come into play. Like, you know, do they split their ticket or do they just like Susan Collins? And Maine’s a very interesting place. If you’ve ever been there, you know, you go into to Portland area and that’s very much, you know, liberal place, you know, feels like you’re kind of in a very left-leaning type environment. And then you could drive you know, 20, 25 miles out and you feel like you’re in a very rural MAGA supporting area very quickly. And, you know, that’s, it’s just a very diverse state politically.

On the coast tends to be more liberal inland tends to be more republican, you know not 100 true, but generally that’s what what it’s like in Maine these days.

18:31.19

Sam Shirazi

You know, it’s going to be a super, super fascinating race. I would say, you know, it’s probably the most interesting or one of the most interesting races this year in the country, just given the the types of candidates that you have. And I guess the last thing I’ll say about the Senate race is it’s kind of funny because the candidates are almost the opposite of what the parties have become in some ways, you know.

If you think about someone like Susan Collins like she is very much the non-maga republican left in the republican party. And that’s really one of her selling points that she often pouts to moderate voters is she tells them that you know she’s not um gonna do it whatever the White House wants her to do or the MAGA wing of the party wants her to do.

And then you have someone like Graham Platner who is kind of saying the same thing, but the opposite way saying, you know I’m not going to do what the establishment wants me to do. I’m not going to do what Chuck Schumer wants me to do. I am going to do what I think makes sense, but kind of in an anti-establishment way. So Susan Collins is almost approaching things from an establishment point of view.

Graham Platner is approaching things from an anti-establishment point of view, but they’re both kind of arguing they’re bucking their parties. I think the race could be decided by those factors or it could just become a generic d versus r and it’s just kind of another race and you know it’s going to come out how it’s going to come out. Really no way of telling uh just flagging kind of the dynamics in this race if you haven’t been following it too close I did want to talk about a few other things in Maine because i just don’t want to focus just on the senate race.

20:00.91

Sam Shirazi

There is also going to be a governor’s race, and that is going to be between Democrat Hannah Pingree versus Republican Bobby Charles. This is an open seat because the incumbent Democratic governor, Janet Mills, cannot run for re-election. And the interesting thing about this race is Hannah Pingree is the daughter of the current representative from the 1st District, Shelley Pingree. So she is more, I would say, establishment-type Democrat, certainly not, you know,

20:30.17

Sam Shirazi

conservative or or moderate necessarily, but, you know, obviously has been around democratic politics a long time in Maine. And so she’s kind of an interesting run ticket made to Graham Platner, who’s very much not that. And so you have this kind of interesting dynamic on the ticket between the Democrats on that side of things.

20:49.26

Sam Shirazi

I think most people think just given the environment, It seems like it’s kind of a generic Dem versus R race because it’s an open seat. I think most people think the Democrats probably have the advantage in the governor’s race, given that Maine tends to tilt a little bit blue.

21:05.24

Sam Shirazi

Also, the national environment, the party of the White House, tends to to be doing well. So I think governor’s race, I don’t think, is on most people’s radar as a super interesting race because I think most people think Democrats have the advantage in the governor’s race in Maine. Not to say that Republicans can’t win in Maine. They certainly have as recently as you know the 2010s, there was Republican victories in the governor’s races in Maine. And we’ll talk about the the last Republican governor of Maine, Paul LePage, in in a second when we talk about the House races. So you know you’ve had eight years of Democratic rule in the governor’s mansion in Maine. So potentially, you know if the Republicans are able to kind of use that against the Democrats, they might be able to to pull up pull out the upset in the governor’s race. However, you know like I said, I think most people expect that the Democrats should be able to win the governor’s race in Maine.

22:35.49

Sam Shirazi

I’ll kind of finish things off by talking about the house of representative races in Maine. So Maine has two congressional districts not a huge state the first congressional district is basically based in southern Maine on the coast mainly around the Portland area and south of that very democratic seat. This is where most of the democrats in Maine are a very blue seat so you know we mentioned that the current representative Shelly Pingree her daughter is running for governor and Shelly Pingree almost certainly is going to be elected as uh in the seat in the first district like she has been for quite a while so not super interesting in the first district.

However, the second district is going to be very, very interesting. I think most people expect the Republicans to have an advantage in this district. So the current Democratic incumbent, Jared Golden, is going to retire. He is certainly coming from a different wing of the Democratic Party. He is somewhat anti-establishment, I would say, but he’s on his policy positions or tries to portray himself as a very moderate Democrat, even though on certain issues he tries to Buck his party. And so he’s more of a, I would say, moderate Democrat, although I think he he may not, he may have some progressive views on different policy issues. But long story short, he’s retiring, partly because he’s just tired of Congress, I think. He’s the type of person who, you know, if you’re more in the middle, I think Congress is going to be very frustrating for you. And so he decided to retire. And so you have this open seat that voted for Trump in 2024. So I think the Republicans feel very good about flipping the seat.

23:32.14

Sam Shirazi

The Republicans nominated the former Republican governor of Maine, Paul LePage. He is an interesting character, definitely a colorful character. He tried to come back in 2022 and but win back the governor’s mansion. That didn’t work.

23:47.02

Sam Shirazi

He is running for Congress now. And most people think that he has the advantage just given... You know, he’s been governor of the state. He would, you know, I would say has perhaps appeal to the second district, more of a Trumpy type appeal to a district that is very white working class. So I think in that sense, Republicans think he’s a pretty good candidate, although he is he’s kind of older, which is interesting. You know, he’s been around for a while. So even though he tends to have kind of an anti-establishment vibe, he’s certainly been around main politics for a while.

24:20.01

Sam Shirazi

And the Democratic nominee is Matthew Dunlap. He has been the main state auditor, and he is known to be a little bit more of a progressive Democrat. I think, you know frankly, both both sides view him as perhaps not the strongest candidates for the Democrats, certainly not as strong as a candidate as Jared Golden. So taking that all into account, you know you have a pretty strong Republican candidate.

24:44.58

Sam Shirazi

running in in terms of having an electoral history in Maine. You have a district that voted for Trump. It’s a pretty white working class district. I think most people think, you know, all things being equal, probably the Republicans have an advantage. I don’t think it’s impossible for the Democrats to win this seat. And it really just depends on, you know, who’s turning out in this type of an election in Maine.

25:07.03

Sam Shirazi

You know, it’s a rural white working class district, but it does have certain parts of it that are more, you know, well off. college-educated. So perhaps if there’s really a surge in the college-educated voters and perhaps some of these white working-class voters don’t show up, it’s not impossible for the Democrats to win this seat because it’s not overwhelmingly a red district. I also think there’s going interesting dynamics where Graham Platner certainly hopes that he’s going to be able to outrun both the governor’s candidate for the Democrats and the House candidate for the Democrats. So his pitch is like, I’m going to be doing the best out of the Democrats in the second district. I’m the type of candidate that can win the second district. And if that’s true, and if he’s doing really well in the second district, better than people are expecting, perhaps his coattails might be able to carry the Democrat and the House race over the line if, you know for whatever reason,

25:55.55

Sam Shirazi

people in the second district like what Graham Platner is selling them. He’s going to be the top of the ticket. He may be able to just you know bring the rest of the ticket with him. However, i could also see a scenario where there’s a lot of ticket splitting. Someone might vote for Graham Platner at the top of the ticket, but then vote for Paul LePage because you know the personalities are very interesting. I’d say in terms of just their like pure personality, Graham Plattner’s kind of similar to Paula LePage. They’re both very combative. They both you know don’t really like the establishment, don’t like the establishment media. So it’s kind of interesting you have these candidates running who you know have similar personalities in some ways. And it just goes to show you Maine’s a very, very interesting place. I think you have a a lot of different groups of voters out there. It’s hard to build a coalition.

26:40.58

Sam Shirazi

Susan Collins has been very good at building that coalition where she’s been able to win the the white working class voters, but then she’s been able to win enough of the college-educated voters around Portland that she’s been able to win. Is this the year where her coalition collapses because the white working class voters go to Graham Platner and then the college-educated voters go to the Democrats because they’re upset at what’s going on in D.C.? Is that kind of the environment or do we just get the typical eight day you know election in Maine that is hard to predict? Yeah.

27:10.54

Sam Shirazi

you know I’m not going to say necessarily who’s going win. going to have to see how the race is going to go. Certainly, certainly a very unpredictable race in Maine in the Senate. I think that’s the real race to watch. you know Governor’s race, second district race is going to be also interesting. you know Stakes are not as quite as high because...

27:28.48

Sam Shirazi

Certainly for the second district, I think the Democrats are just assuming they may not win that and they don’t, you know, they feel like they have enough other seats on the board where they can lose the second district. Governor’s race, obviously Democrats don’t want to lose that. I think they feel pretty confident given the dynamics in Maine that they’ll be able to win the governor’s race. So it really does come down to the Senate race. I think it’s going to be very, very difficult for the Democrats to take back the Senate. Not impossible, but pretty difficult.

27:54.88

Sam Shirazi

if they don’t win the second district excuse me if they don’t win the Senate race, if they win the Senate race doesn’t necessarily mean 100% Democrats are going to take back the the Senate, but it’s going to make their lives that much easier. And it’s really, I would say a must win in that they have to win it. It doesn’t guarantee they’re going to win the Senate, but if they do win it, it gives them a good shot at winning the Senate. So so that’s Maine, really one of my favorite states. I’m sure I’ll talk about it another time. If you get the chance to ever go up to Maine, really beautiful place. I would really recommend it, you know, especially in the summer. Summer is a beautiful, beautiful spot.

28:28.86

Sam Shirazi

And, you we’ll see We’ll see how the race shapes out. So anyways, that is the first episode on Maine. As I said, other episodes will focus on other states. I hope people find this educational. i’m really trying to give people background on these races, why each state matters, why each race matters. Obviously, I’m not going to go over 50 states. A lot of them don’t have super interesting races. I’m going to be focusing on the states with the super interesting races.

28:51.46

Sam Shirazi

you know I’ll be planning on releasing these typically Saturday morning. We’ll plan to do one a week with... the state races I probably won’t be doing interviews or anything like that, just because it’s hard for me to to do that with my schedule. But I do want to cover at least one state a week to keep people updated. And then obviously as the midterms come closer, we’ll we’ll go over that. And yeah, so this has been Federal Fallout, the 2026 midterms. I’m excited to you know cover the midterms with everyone and I’ll join you next time.

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