Nathan Gonzales

And I hung out this weekend in lovely Silver Spring, Maryland, which is in Maryland's 8th congressional district, represented, as always, by Democrat Jamie Raskin.

And I'm Nathan Gonzales, editor and publisher of Inside Elections.

And I'm currently in Round Rock on the southern end of Texas' 31st congressional district, represented by Republican John Carter.

And I'm Inshara Ali, reporter and analyst at Inside Elections.

Control of Congress is on the line, alongside many other local races, and as you just heard, there are a lot of close ones to keep an eye on.

So why does this year matter so much? And what's getting voters to the polls, or not? We have lots to talk about, so we're joined by Nathan Gonzales, editor and publisher of Inside Elections, which provides nonpartisan analysis of races for Congress, governor, and president.

He's also the co-host of the Inside Elections podcast and an elections analyst for CQ Roll Call.

He spent years analyzing election results for national news outlets as well.

I'm Erica Mandy.

It's now time for today's Special Edition Saturday.

[upbeat music] Nathan Gonzales, thank you so much for joining us here on the Newsworthy.

Absolutely.

But yeah, I mean, these four races were always gonna be competitive this year.

Um, three of the four of them, I believe, are in Nathan's toss-up category, so, you know.

Nathan Gonzales, our friend at Inside Elections.

Our friend, yes.

Yeah.

Reclaim some religious territory after decades in which conservative Christians, specifically white evangelicals, have voted overwhelmingly Republican.

Nathan Gonzales with Inside Elections sees another factor at play.

These candidates can portray themselves as outsiders, right? They're not typical politicians.

They're, uh...

You wrote about it recently.

Uh, you're always loath to make predictions, but you m- uh, spoke with two, uh, very prominent people who are not so loath, uh, Charlie Cook and, uh, Nathan Gonzales.

Uh, what's the, uh...

G- Give us the, the top line now.

You know, there's a lot of comparison to this year with 2006.

I can go back to that.

But in that column you mentioned, Nathan Gonzales talked about 2006 and said afterward he talked to a lot of people, that was a very, very good Democratic year, the year, um, Nancy Pelosi became speaker.

Well, the election made Nancy Pelosi speaker.

in a strong starting position for 2028, and a potential Dem president in 2029.

If the major race rater's current ratings are broadly right, the, uh, Cook Political Report, inside elections with Nathan Gonzales, that used to be Stu Rothenberg's shop, um-

Ah

...

Inside Elections is where Stu Rothenberg used to work.

I guess it's Nathan Gonzales now.

Oh.

Inside Elections tilt the, uh ...