# The Races That Will Shape the Midterms

An episode of [Big Take](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1578096201), 8 Jun 2026, 19 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/tracking.swap.fm/track/UVBrz8bN8aM2Xe47PEPu/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/825d4e29-b616-46f4-afd7-ae2b0013005c/d117d8b6-4486-4998-8a3b-b463015a6d7f/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=8b1dd624-a026-43e9-8b57-ae2b00130066

The field for 2026 US midterm elections is coming into focus, with key primaries this week in Maine and South Carolina, as well as bellwether state elections in California. On today’s Big Take podcast, hosts Sarah Holder and David Gura check in with political correspondent Nancy Cook and California reporter Eliyahu Kamisher about what this week’s results — and the next five months — mean for midterm elections with the potential to profoundly shape US politics. We have a special Bloomberg subscription offer for podcast listeners at Bloomberg.com/podcastoffer. Hosted by Sarah Holder and David Gura; Produced by Julia Press; Reported by Nancy Cook and Eliyahu Kamisher; Edited by Jeffrey Grocott. Fact-checking by Laura Newcombe; Engineering by Alex Sugiura. Senior Producer: Naomi Shavin; Deputy Executive Producer: Julia Weaver. Executive Producer: Nicole Beemsterboer. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
[0:08] Speaker 2: Primary season in the US is underway, with five months
[0:12] Speaker 2: of intense campaigning to go till the midterms.
[0:15] Speaker 3: Maine is pretty much a must win for Democrats if
[0:17] Speaker 3: they're going to have any chance at all of taking
[0:19] Speaker 3: the Senate.
[0:20] Speaker 2: Tomorrow, main voters will cast their ballots in the Democratic
[0:23] Speaker 2: Senate primary, where Graham Platner, the leading Democratic candidate to
[0:27] Speaker 2: take on incumbent Republican Susan Collins, is facing new controversies.
[0:33] Speaker 4: The New York Times reporting several ex girlfriends describe unsettling behavior,
[0:38] Speaker 4: one alleging Platner grabbed her hard enough to leave Marx
[0:41] Speaker 4: and during one argument, twisted her arm behind her back
[0:44] Speaker 4: and blocked her in a room. Platner fiercely denies any violence.
[0:49] Speaker 2: Midterms tend to be tough for the incumbent party, and
[0:52] Speaker 2: this year has come as Trump's approval ratings continue to slide.
[0:56] Speaker 2: Polling data compiled by Real Clear Politics show the president's
[0:59] Speaker 2: over We're all rating is hovering around forty percent on average,
[1:03] Speaker 2: Just thirty four percent of Americans approve of how he's
[1:06] Speaker 2: handling the economy.
[1:08] Speaker 5: I think the big.
[1:08] Speaker 1: Things on the Republican side are just Trump's grip on
[1:11] Speaker 1: the Republican Party and how long that lasts.
[1:14] Speaker 2: Bloomberg political correspondent Nancy Cook.
[1:17] Speaker 1: On the Democratic side, I think that they are really
[1:20] Speaker 1: looking for leaders and looking for ideas that are going
[1:23] Speaker 1: to bring them back to power.
[1:24] Speaker 5: And there's a lot of competing.
[1:25] Speaker 2: Factions, Nancy says. Democrats and Republicans are fighting for control
[1:30] Speaker 2: of the House and the Senate and so much more.
[1:34] Speaker 1: Trump is not going to be able to confirm people
[1:37] Speaker 1: to lead agencies if he fires them, or confirm judges
[1:40] Speaker 1: if Democrats control the Senate.
[1:41] Speaker 5: He's not going to be able to.
[1:43] Speaker 1: Pass legislation through Congress if Democrats take back the Senate.
[1:47] Speaker 1: And Democrats meanwhile, want to take back the Senate and
[1:50] Speaker 1: the House because they want to have checks on Trump.
[1:53] Speaker 2: As all eyes are on these national races, state and
[1:57] Speaker 2: local elections are also painting a clearer picture of US
[2:00] Speaker 2: political sentiment and strategy. Votes are still being tallied in
[2:04] Speaker 2: the primary for California governor.
[2:06] Speaker 6: It's one of the top jobs in democratic politics is
[2:10] Speaker 6: a state where you get to lead a lot of
[2:13] Speaker 6: the liberal Democratic opposition to Trump.
[2:16] Speaker 2: Eliahu Cammisher has been following elections in California.
[2:20] Speaker 7: For Bloomberg, you have a massive economy. If it was
[2:23] Speaker 7: its own country, it would be around the fourth biggest
[2:27] Speaker 7: GDP in the world.
[2:29] Speaker 6: And you get to also set the agenda for Democrats.
[2:33] Speaker 2: Nancy and Eliyah who say it's all building to a
[2:36] Speaker 2: bigger question who will run and who could win in
[2:40] Speaker 2: twenty twenty eight.
[2:41] Speaker 1: There's a real fight for ideas and leadership in the
[2:44] Speaker 1: Democratic Party, and who wins in November will give us
[2:47] Speaker 1: some really key clues as to what type of Democrat
[2:52] Speaker 1: is best positioned to become the Democratic nominee in twenty
[2:55] Speaker 1: twenty eight.
[3:01] Speaker 2: This is the big take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah
[3:03] Speaker 2: Holder today on the show, as US midterm election season
[3:07] Speaker 2: begins to ramp up, my co host David Gera, and
[3:10] Speaker 2: I sit down with Bloomberg's Nancy Cooke and Eliahu Camisher
[3:14] Speaker 2: to understand what's at stake and which messages will land
[3:18] Speaker 2: but voters.
[3:22] Speaker 3: Nancy, let me start with you. You are a political
[3:24] Speaker 3: correspondent for Bloomberg, and I imagine that these days the midterms
[3:27] Speaker 3: are taking up a lot of your psychic space. We're
[3:30] Speaker 3: talking right before a few closely watched races This week
[3:33] Speaker 3: in Maine and South Carolina, And I want to start
[3:35] Speaker 3: with Maine. There's a primary determine who's going to challenge
[3:38] Speaker 3: Republican Senator Susan Collins, and Graham Platner has been the
[3:41] Speaker 3: front runner. Now he is dealing with some personal controversies
[3:45] Speaker 3: that could derail the success he's had in broad strokes.
[3:48] Speaker 3: First of all, who is he and how did he
[3:50] Speaker 3: become the front runner in Maine.
[3:52] Speaker 1: So Graham Platner is a very interesting figure. You know,
[3:55] Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer, the minority leader in the Senate, had wanted
[3:58] Speaker 1: Janet Mills, who is the sitting governor who has been
[4:01] Speaker 1: a really successful critic of Trump, has governing experience. He
[4:05] Speaker 1: had really wanted her to be the Democratic nominee for Senate.
[4:09] Speaker 1: But she's seventy six, and there is, obviously, in the
[4:12] Speaker 1: post Joe Biden era, a lot of sensitivity about putting
[4:15] Speaker 1: up someone in their mid to late seventies for a
[4:18] Speaker 1: six year Senate term. And a lot of people in
[4:22] Speaker 1: Maine also passed on getting into the race. They didn't
[4:24] Speaker 1: want to run for Senate against Susan Collins, who is
[4:27] Speaker 1: a longtime Republican incumbent. And so while everybody in Maine
[4:31] Speaker 1: was deathering around Graham Plattner, who was a veteran and
[4:34] Speaker 1: an oysterman. Threw his name into the ring and ended
[4:38] Speaker 1: up getting a lot of energy just from actual voters,
[4:41] Speaker 1: and Bernie Sanders endorsed him, and Elizabeth Warren endorsed him
[4:45] Speaker 1: based on sort of the connection that he had with
[4:47] Speaker 1: voters and also these messages of economic populism that he
[4:51] Speaker 1: was espousing.
[4:53] Speaker 3: Because I can't wait to wait into that fight alongside
[4:58] Speaker 3: Graham Platner.
[5:00] Speaker 1: And I think that people in democratic politics came to
[5:03] Speaker 1: view him as kind of one of these new outsider
[5:05] Speaker 1: candidates that they're looking for. But there has been this
[5:09] Speaker 1: steady drip of problematic stories about him. He has a
[5:13] Speaker 1: Naziling tattoo on his chest, which he ended up covering up.
[5:17] Speaker 1: He has said different stories about whether or not he
[5:19] Speaker 1: knew it was affiliated with the Nazis. The New York
[5:22] Speaker 1: Times came out with a big story about how he
[5:24] Speaker 1: treated some of his ex girlfriends, you know, sort of
[5:28] Speaker 1: allegations of physical abuse.
[5:31] Speaker 5: Which he has said are not true.
[5:33] Speaker 1: And Janet Mills has said, you know, she's not going
[5:35] Speaker 1: to she wasn't going to run anymore.
[5:36] Speaker 5: But her name is.
[5:37] Speaker 1: Still on the ballot, And so's this really interesting dynamic
[5:40] Speaker 1: in Maine where now Democrats are stuck with this candidate
[5:43] Speaker 1: who is kind of imperfect, who has all these headlines
[5:46] Speaker 1: running against Susan Collins, who you know, Republicans don't totally
[5:50] Speaker 1: love but still want her to control the Senate. And
[5:53] Speaker 1: Maine is really important to the Senate race because it
[5:57] Speaker 1: was one of the seats that Democrats viewed as most
[5:59] Speaker 1: prompts to flip and potentially take over from Republicans, and
[6:03] Speaker 1: now that just really seems in doubt and.
[6:05] Speaker 2: Ncy Graham Platner seems to represent a sort of shift
[6:08] Speaker 2: in the typical candidate that Democrats have been running. Right,
[6:12] Speaker 2: what do you think his brand of politics signals about
[6:15] Speaker 2: the democrats broader strategy heading into these midterms and what
[6:19] Speaker 2: happens if he wins and what happens if he loses.
[6:22] Speaker 1: I've been to Kentucky in the last month, I've been
[6:24] Speaker 1: to Texas. I've been talking to a lot of voters,
[6:27] Speaker 1: and I think that people are very mad, you know,
[6:29] Speaker 1: they're very mad at both parties, and so that is
[6:32] Speaker 1: what gives an opening to candidates like Graham Platner. And
[6:35] Speaker 1: I think that there is this tendency for voters to
[6:39] Speaker 1: kind of look for the non politician.
[6:41] Speaker 5: Now and that is very alluring.
[6:43] Speaker 1: And you have to remember a decade ago we saw
[6:45] Speaker 1: that with Donald Trump, and so I think what Graham
[6:48] Speaker 1: Platner shows us is like, how much appetite is there
[6:51] Speaker 1: really for an outsider? Are you comfortable with the fact
[6:53] Speaker 1: that there might be a lot of skeletons in their closet,
[6:55] Speaker 1: you might not know exactly what you're getting.
[6:57] Speaker 5: How much do you want that?
[6:59] Speaker 3: And I think the uniqueness of Maine is a huge
[7:01] Speaker 3: part of this. I've got family in Maine, and it's
[7:03] Speaker 3: been interesting to see sort of how they have processed
[7:07] Speaker 3: what's come out, what they've said about their friends who've
[7:09] Speaker 3: kind of noticed, who have maybe supported Platnir and seen
[7:11] Speaker 3: all this come out, and there is kind of an
[7:13] Speaker 3: iconoclastic mold to a lot of maners. I think, Sarah,
[7:17] Speaker 3: you've got family in California. I know that you've been
[7:18] Speaker 3: following the races there very closely because of it.
[7:20] Speaker 2: Yeah, Ellie, who I really wanted to talk about this
[7:22] Speaker 2: because in my household, we've been refreshing and refreshing the
[7:26] Speaker 2: results from the gubernatorial and LA mayoral primaries. California has
[7:30] Speaker 2: pretty reliably produced national candidates. They've tested national strategies there,
[7:36] Speaker 2: at least as far as the Democratic Party goes. So
[7:39] Speaker 2: as you look at some of the key California races,
[7:43] Speaker 2: what is at stake both locally and nationally.
[7:46] Speaker 6: I think the big race is the governor's primary, and
[7:49] Speaker 6: it's been really the first truly wide open gubernatorial primary
[7:54] Speaker 6: in decades. So now it's come down to Javier Basera,
[7:59] Speaker 6: Joe Biden's former health secretary, and Steve Hilton, the former
[8:04] Speaker 6: Fox News commentator. He was also in the British government
[8:09] Speaker 6: under David Cameron, a proponent of Brexit. And then also,
[8:13] Speaker 6: it's still too early to call the former hedge fund
[8:17] Speaker 6: founder Tom Steyer, who became a billionaire and then left
[8:21] Speaker 6: his hedge fund to pursue climate activism.
[8:24] Speaker 7: He's trailing in third.
[8:25] Speaker 2: What does this matchup say to you and what's driving
[8:29] Speaker 2: these two very different candidates appeal in the state.
[8:32] Speaker 7: Yeah, it's a good question.
[8:33] Speaker 6: I think with Bisera, what it really says is actually
[8:37] Speaker 6: the staying power of a candidate who has a long
[8:41] Speaker 6: political track record and has risen through the ranks of
[8:45] Speaker 6: democratic politics. He started in Congress in the nineteen nineties.
[8:49] Speaker 6: He is a fixture in the state. You know, early
[8:52] Speaker 6: in this race, he was pulling at four or five percent,
[8:56] Speaker 6: He was at the bottom of the pack, and even
[8:59] Speaker 6: the state Democratic Party people were kind of telling Javier, hey,
[9:03] Speaker 6: I think you probably need to drop out, because there
[9:05] Speaker 6: was actually some worries early on that two Republicans could
[9:09] Speaker 6: make it to the top because it's a top two.
[9:12] Speaker 2: Primary format, which would be pretty unheard of for California.
[9:15] Speaker 7: That would have been unheard of.
[9:16] Speaker 6: The state Party was essentially they were shaming people like
[9:20] Speaker 6: Javier and some of the lower polling candidates saying, like
[9:23] Speaker 6: they were releasing these public polls saying, you guys kind
[9:25] Speaker 6: of need to drop out. He didn't drop out, and
[9:27] Speaker 6: then we had this huge kind of October surprise that
[9:31] Speaker 6: didn't happen in October, but.
[9:33] Speaker 7: Eric Swalwell faced some really serious.
[9:36] Speaker 6: Sexual assault and sexual misconduct allegations and his campaign imploded
[9:41] Speaker 6: and he resigned from Congress. He dropped out of the race,
[9:46] Speaker 6: and there was kind of this remarkable, almost overnight surge
[9:51] Speaker 6: for Javier. He also has a record as a California
[9:55] Speaker 6: ag of suing Trump like one hundred and twenty Times,
[9:58] Speaker 6: and you know that whole a lot of sway amongst
[10:01] Speaker 6: California Democratic voters whether you're gonna be able oppost Trump. So,
[10:04] Speaker 6: you know, almost overnight he saw a huge surgeon the poll.
[10:07] Speaker 6: He went to the front runner status, and he's held
[10:09] Speaker 6: that through you know, through the primary.
[10:12] Speaker 3: You've walked through the personal dynamics. I'm curious, sort of
[10:15] Speaker 3: from a policy perspective, what issues were on the ballot
[10:18] Speaker 3: for California voters. And I think there's this tendency, rightly
[10:20] Speaker 3: or wrongly, to look at a primary and a state
[10:22] Speaker 3: like California and try to divine some indication of what
[10:25] Speaker 3: the broader electorate is looking for here in the midterms.
[10:28] Speaker 3: Should we do that in this case? Are the issues
[10:30] Speaker 3: animating the California electric the same as the ones you
[10:32] Speaker 3: think that are animating voters around the country.
[10:34] Speaker 7: I think so.
[10:35] Speaker 6: I mean, the affordability is the big one in California
[10:38] Speaker 6: right now, and you do see this kind of division.
[10:42] Speaker 6: Tom Steyer ran on this populis message of saying we're
[10:45] Speaker 6: going to tax corporations, We're going to tax billionaires, and
[10:50] Speaker 6: we're going to you know, use that revenue to make
[10:52] Speaker 6: things more affordable. We're also going to go like directly
[10:56] Speaker 6: at the pocketbooks of utilities in the state, which have
[11:00] Speaker 6: kind of a state mandated monopoly. He spent over two
[11:03] Speaker 6: hundred and fifteen million dollars of his own money pushing
[11:06] Speaker 6: this message out into California and that bought him a
[11:11] Speaker 6: role in this in this election, but it didn't totally
[11:16] Speaker 6: resonate with people. And I think because if you're selling
[11:19] Speaker 6: a populist message, people have to believe the person who.
[11:23] Speaker 7: Is selling that message.
[11:25] Speaker 6: And at the end of the day, Tom Steyer is
[11:26] Speaker 6: a billionaire and a lot of people I talked to
[11:30] Speaker 6: he said, you know, like that's kind of a non
[11:31] Speaker 6: starter for them.
[11:34] Speaker 2: After the break, how Trump's endorsements are influencing the midterms
[11:38] Speaker 2: and whether AI could be the next political battle line.
[11:49] Speaker 2: Presidential endorsements can make a big impact on local races.
[11:53] Speaker 2: They can elevate a candidate's name recognition put them on
[11:56] Speaker 2: the national map. But with President Trump's approval rate declining,
[12:01] Speaker 2: we wanted to ask Nancy and Eliah who what kind
[12:03] Speaker 2: of influence he has on the midterms this time around.
[12:07] Speaker 1: I think Trump still has a huge amount of sway
[12:09] Speaker 1: over how Republican politics is going to play out both
[12:13] Speaker 1: in the midterms and in twenty twenty eight, I was
[12:17] Speaker 1: in Kentucky and there was a Republican primary with Thomas
[12:21] Speaker 1: Massey and Ed Gallaran, who is the Trump endorsed candidate
[12:25] Speaker 1: who no one had ever heard of, and he's a
[12:27] Speaker 1: Navy seal but he'd never held office before, and basically
[12:31] Speaker 1: his whole message to voters was like Trump endorsed me,
[12:33] Speaker 1: and that was like, that was it. He refused to
[12:36] Speaker 1: outline policy positions, he wasn't doing media interviews, but it
[12:39] Speaker 1: was like Trump endors me.
[12:40] Speaker 3: MASSI the latest Republican lawmaker to lose after being declared
[12:44] Speaker 3: disloyal by the President.
[12:46] Speaker 1: And so I still think that Trump holds a ton
[12:48] Speaker 1: of sway in a bunch of different states and is
[12:51] Speaker 1: still powerful enough that just like him endorsing someone or
[12:55] Speaker 1: tweeting about someone really makes a difference.
[12:58] Speaker 3: Nancy, you talked about the power of the Trump endorsement,
[13:01] Speaker 3: and he quite proudly has trumpeted that. After the primaries
[13:04] Speaker 3: that we've seen thus far, we did see a crack
[13:06] Speaker 3: in that Waller and his ability to do that. In
[13:09] Speaker 3: Iowa and the scubernatorial primary, Zachlon defeated President Trump's pick
[13:14] Speaker 3: that's Randy Fiinster, the congressman. What does that tell you,
[13:17] Speaker 3: is that an anomaly in light of all of the
[13:19] Speaker 3: successes that Donald Trump has had thus far, or is
[13:21] Speaker 3: it assigned to you that power may not be as
[13:24] Speaker 3: strong as the president's presenting. And as we've kind of
[13:26] Speaker 3: accepted here over the first primaries we've seen, I think
[13:29] Speaker 3: that his.
[13:29] Speaker 1: Power is still strong, but I think that we're seeing cracks,
[13:33] Speaker 1: and we're seeing that in polling. We're seeing that as
[13:35] Speaker 1: I talked to voters. We're seeing that in Iowa. And
[13:38] Speaker 1: I feel like Iowa is a good example of a
[13:41] Speaker 1: place where people are mad about a lot of Trump policies.
[13:44] Speaker 1: You know, Iowa, when I was there in twenty twenty
[13:47] Speaker 1: four for the Republican caucuses, it's, you know, was really a.
[13:51] Speaker 5: Trump country at that point.
[13:53] Speaker 1: However, people are very mad there about the tariffs. You know,
[13:57] Speaker 1: they're really mad about the war in Iran. It has
[13:59] Speaker 1: raised fuel prices, prices for fertilizer. You know, a lot
[14:03] Speaker 1: of farmers are mad about the policies that they've done
[14:07] Speaker 1: with tariffs on beef. I mean, there's just like a
[14:09] Speaker 1: lot of economic policies that are hurting people in Iowa voters,
[14:14] Speaker 1: they're Republicans and they're not happy about it. And I
[14:17] Speaker 1: think that that's why we saw the Trump back candidate
[14:20] Speaker 1: not win, because Iowa voters are looking at their own
[14:23] Speaker 1: pocketbooks and thinking like, this agenda is not working for me,
[14:26] Speaker 1: even though I voted for this guy.
[14:28] Speaker 2: I mean, that is a pattern we've seen in past midterms,
[14:31] Speaker 2: right Nancy. In general, incumbent parties tend to lose ground,
[14:35] Speaker 2: and we're obviously seeing polling indicate that the president has
[14:38] Speaker 2: made a lot of choices that are unpopular with voters.
[14:42] Speaker 2: What are we seeing this year in terms of the
[14:44] Speaker 2: breakdown between where Democrats are potentially picking up votes and
[14:48] Speaker 2: where Republicans are holding strong.
[14:50] Speaker 1: The Republican base is still pretty with Trump on things
[14:53] Speaker 1: like you know, the economy and immigration or you know,
[14:56] Speaker 1: they're still willing to give him some grace. But I
[14:59] Speaker 1: think that where DeMar.
[15:00] Speaker 5: Crats see, you know, there was a whole crew.
[15:02] Speaker 1: Of people who really swayed towards Republicans in twenty twenty
[15:05] Speaker 1: four for the presidential race. And this was you know,
[15:08] Speaker 1: swing voters, independents, black men, young men, Hispanics, and that
[15:14] Speaker 1: whole crew is kind of up for grabs in the midterms,
[15:18] Speaker 1: and that coalition that Trump assembled has really been framed.
[15:22] Speaker 1: They're not locked in with a Republican party, they are
[15:25] Speaker 1: not Republicans, and so I think that Democrats are trying
[15:28] Speaker 1: to win those people over. Democrats are also really trying
[15:31] Speaker 1: to win over working class people again, white working class people.
[15:35] Speaker 1: Trump was really the first Republican to come in and
[15:38] Speaker 1: take that those voters away from Democrats a decade ago,
[15:42] Speaker 1: and so I think Democrats are trying to win back
[15:45] Speaker 1: those people.
[15:46] Speaker 3: Is there anything else that we should be factoring in
[15:48] Speaker 3: as we look forward to these primaries this week and
[15:51] Speaker 3: in the weeks ahead and make our way to the midterms. Nancy,
[15:55] Speaker 3: I'll start with you.
[15:56] Speaker 1: There are new things coming up in elections, and so
[16:00] Speaker 1: how AI plays out in the election, both in terms
[16:02] Speaker 1: of what it looks like in ads, what it looks
[16:05] Speaker 1: like in disinformation online to try to convince voters. And
[16:08] Speaker 1: then AI companies are pouring a huge amount of money
[16:12] Speaker 1: into different races, and so that is kind of a
[16:16] Speaker 1: new dark money group that you can't discount because that
[16:20] Speaker 1: is a new industry that wants some say in the regulations.
[16:24] Speaker 1: And I think that that is going to play a
[16:26] Speaker 1: huge role in the midterms, sort of where that money flows,
[16:29] Speaker 1: and an even bigger role in twenty twenty eight.
[16:31] Speaker 6: I was actually going to echo that the impact of
[16:33] Speaker 6: tech and AI, and I think what we saw was
[16:37] Speaker 6: actually that tech is becoming a bit of a boogeyman.
[16:42] Speaker 6: There was one candidate. His name was Matt Mayhon. He's
[16:45] Speaker 6: the mayor of San Jose. It's the largest city in
[16:48] Speaker 6: Silicon Valley. His candidacy was backed by a huge amount
[16:53] Speaker 6: of Silicon Valley figures, some big names like Sergey Brin
[16:57] Speaker 6: also Read Hastings, CEO of Netflix. A lot of venture
[17:01] Speaker 6: capitalists came in for him, and they liked his moderate
[17:05] Speaker 6: Democrat a little more physically conservative anti establishment. But he
[17:11] Speaker 6: didn't come in saying I'm going to take on tech,
[17:14] Speaker 6: and that money ended up kind of being in albatross
[17:17] Speaker 6: for him. He was labeled as a tech bro and
[17:20] Speaker 6: he failed to kind of break out of that. And
[17:24] Speaker 6: I think a lot of people saw that and said, hey,
[17:26] Speaker 6: if you're backed by all these you know, singular billionaires
[17:31] Speaker 6: and you say you're going to turn around and regulate them,
[17:33] Speaker 6: that's a hard thing to sell. And then you know,
[17:37] Speaker 6: nearby there was a Rocanna faced a primary from a Democrat,
[17:42] Speaker 6: Ethan Agerwall, and that was spurred by Rocanna backing a
[17:47] Speaker 6: proposed billionaire tax in California. After he came out with that,
[17:52] Speaker 6: you saw a huge amount of kind of anger on
[17:55] Speaker 6: social media from some of these tech elite and they said,
[18:00] Speaker 6: is you know, done with and we're going to back
[18:03] Speaker 6: a primary against him. They backed this guy named Ethan
[18:05] Speaker 6: and he has done you know, dismally and Rokanna seems
[18:10] Speaker 6: stronger than ever. So I think that was kind of
[18:12] Speaker 6: another reflection of like Silicon Valley frustration with Democrats and
[18:18] Speaker 6: the kind of skewing towards Republicans that we're seeing on
[18:21] Speaker 6: the national level that is definitely not playing well in
[18:26] Speaker 6: California at the moment. This kind of ai nexus with
[18:31] Speaker 6: billionaires with Trump, I think that's going to be kind
[18:34] Speaker 6: of an emerging issue that's going to be, you know,
[18:36] Speaker 6: playing out in more elections to come.
[18:44] Speaker 2: This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder.
[18:47] Speaker 2: To get more from The Big Take and unlimited access
[18:50] Speaker 2: to all of Bloomberg dot Com, subscribe today at Bloomberg
[18:54] Speaker 2: dot Com Slash Podcast Offer. Thanks for listening. We'll be
[18:58] Speaker 2: back tomorrow.
[19:00] Speaker 5: Will sti ny wad

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.