rather than is their assessment correct? Because we don't really know.

Right, right, right.

I think, first of all, let's put on a table that there's, as everyone who follows polls or elections probably knows, in the last three presidential elections, there was an undersampling or underweighing or underreaching of voters who don't vote often, who don't typically skip midterms, I would vote less frequently and who are typically white and who not necessarily in the last presidential election and who really and who were and were showing up for President Trump.

So that's what's been some of the polls in favor of Democrats in the presidential races.

Well, one thing first is that sort of that conventional wisdom of what's tripped up polls has been infrequent voters.

And definitionally, they're less likely to show up for a midterm.

And the polls in the midterms have been more accurate the past few cycles.

many Secretary of States are

Um, but w- walk us through some of those races, uh, a- and, and let me know what, what, what the, the situation is.

Okay, let's, le- let's start...

I mean, let, let's start with the big- Biggest race, the one that's gonna probably get the most attention tonight with the result maybe probably the one that people watching already know the most, uh, about, which is the Wisconsin governor's race.

Uh, it's an op- open race.

The Democratic governor cannot...

Uh, is, is not running, is not running for re-election.

It's a state that Democrats are very interested in gaining full control of.

What else? Is there any other races that y- particularly you think, uh, would be of interest to people?

[laughs]

... that's happening today.

Um, there's the...

Yeah, we can go up and down the ballot at your leisure.

Um, but, you know, there's, there's big races today.

There's, there's primaries in, in, um, in six states, including, we can start with the big one, the state of California, which, a lot of stakes at the federal level.

Also a lot of stakes within the Democratic coalition always, 'cause there's a lot of, of fights there between, between left candidates, more centrist candidate, 'cause, 'cause it's California, and a lot of the fights are within the, within the, uh, Democratic Party.

The, what's the big, uh, sort of, uh, uh, difference between these two? Because their, their politics are not dramatically different.

Yeah.

... a real place to focus.

They have a lot of authority to just contract with ICE without any control of the rest of the local government, um, is, uh, B- Bucks County in Pennsylvania comes to mind.

It's actually a large county in the s- suburbs of Philly, uh, v- very tight in federal election.

There's a Republican sheriff there who's sort of going rogue and doing a little more probably than is, uh, than, than the sheriff is even allowed under lo- local government rules.

And there's currently like a fight between the county commission and the sheriff.

But that's a place where clearly there's a contract with ICE that's new.

But, but I would think in a small, um, you know, state, uh, eh-... someone running in a big city, uh, there could be some real implications, uh, in terms of like the, the dynamic of the state in the mid-terms.

I, just talk us through this race and what it looks like.

Well, I, there's so much to say about it.

You know, first of all, New, New Jersey is a state that v- has voted pretty consistently blue at the federal elections, has a history of going Republican at the state level, and Republicans certainly perform better in every state election, even if they lose.

In a way, it's not surprising that we're talking about it as competitive.

One thing that's interesting is that the, the Republican n- nominee has really embraced Trump in a way he hadn't when he first ran for governor, so that's a big deal in terms of how, what Trump will be able to say if he does win.

Immigration is really a huge issue there, actually, that is being, I think, a little underplayed because that's really something that the Republicans have pushed.

They have promised to end immediately the, the protections that the state has at the state level for immigration enforcement.

Yes.

but, uh, there are more races going on across the country.

Certainly.

Um, well, you know, it's supposed to be an off-year, um, but, but at Bolts, we cover local and state elections, local and state politics, so our sort of idea is that an off-year actually gives us more space, even mo- more room to drill down in some of the ho- hot, hot spots where there are interesting tensions, interesting conflicts, interesting elections.

Um, and, you know, so we have 180 elections on this cheat sheet.

They're organized hopefully in ways that, that people can, can browse thematically based on what they're interested in.

But, you know, the idea is that you may have heard about this big issue of school boards in recent years, and, and the efforts on the Right to take over school boards and restrict the rights of trans students, for instance.

Well, that, that is the sort of thing that off-year elections can, can, can be about.

Can you talk about that? Because it feels like every cycle we're on a razor's edge about which way Pennsylvania is gonna go.