Mara Liasson

It might help her again, but it's getting more and more difficult for Republicans to win in blue states just as it's become very difficult for Democrats to win in red states.

Yeah.

I think they have a fighting chance.

I think the problem for Democrats this year is that the Senate math is just so bad for them.

To flip the chamber, they would have to net four seats.

They only have two clear pickup opportunities.

One of them is in Maine.

a blue state.

And one of them is in North Carolina, where they got the recruit they wanted, former Governor Cooper, who's very popular.

But they got the recruits they wanted in some other places, like Sherrod Brown in Ohio or Mary Peltola in Alaska.

But it's really hard to do this.

And to me, the main race is a microcosm of the Democrats' bigger, and I would call them existential challenges.

They have to learn how to win red states and rural areas because in 2030, after the next census, a whole bunch of electoral votes from the blue wall states in the northern Midwest are going to move south because they're going to follow the population.

That's what the census does and that's what reapportionment does.

And they're going to go to states like Texas and Florida and Georgia.

And Democrats, in order to survive as a competitive party, are going to have to learn how to win in those states.

So I would say Maine is an example of this.

There's a good part of Maine that's very red.

And even though it's voted for Democrats for president, this is a good place for Democrats to start learning how to reconnect with the white working class in rural areas.

And they're going to have to do that if they're going to survive.