The Chuck ToddCast
Full Episode - The Challenge Of Messaging The 2026 Midterms + Can A Moderate Republican Win California’s Governor Race
14 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What challenges do Democrats face in messaging for the 2026 midterms?
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Chapter 2: How does Trump’s political standing influence the Republican Party?
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I am the aforementioned title name of said podcast. I'm Chuck Todd. We have, let me give you a lay of the land of the show today. I'm going to talk a little bit about the struggle that I think both parties are going to have trying to figure out how to message for campaign 2026. I will get to that. Got some interesting first polling.
Chapter 3: What are the implications of the Renee Good shooting on public opinion?
um on the uh incident in minnesota and where the american public is on the uh the shooting of a civilian by an ice agent a civilian protester my interview today is with an potentially interesting i say potentially interesting i think he's interesting but when i say potentially interesting we'll see if he gets traction as a candidate but it's a candidate for governor of California.
And as I've said, I'm going to end up with more candidates for California Gov than most other sort of individual state races, because this is the fourth largest economy in the world. And in many cases, California deals with many of the problems we're going to be dealing with, and they deal with them first and soonest. But I'm always intrigued
When there's somebody trying to take the center lane in California because it's pretty difficult to win in the center lane in California. And so a candidate, somebody who calls himself a lifelong Democrat turned Republican, though, I think in the conversation, I think he's kind of always been in the sort of center, center, right place. His name is John Slavitt.
Definitely to the left of the two Republicans currently running in California, but choosing to run as a Republican. He's also got his own podcast he's doing. He's a person from Silicon Valley, made some money in the tech world, though not enough to self-fund his own campaign. So he's not that kind of tech titan, if you will. Yeah.
Chapter 4: What strategies does Jon Slavet propose for California's governance?
But I'm always intrigued by seeing, you know, why go the partisan way? As many of you know, especially at a time, I think the most interesting poll number I've seen in the last week is the yet- More growth among those that are calling themselves independent rather than a member of either political party, as my friend Bruce Melman put it.
These latest Gallup polls show where they had 27 percent identifying as a Democrat, 27 percent identifying as Republican and 45 percent identifying as independent. Well, what that really means is 73 percent of the country is choosing not to be a Republican and 73 percent of the country is choosing not to be a Democrat. That think about that.
Um, fact, when we start to talk about what I want to dive into before we get to my conversation with, uh, John Slavitt, um, which is how do you message in this political environment? Um, because I think it's going to be quite difficult. Uh, so I'm going to get to that in a second, obviously after the interview, um, I've got, uh,
It is Wednesday and every Wednesday I want to have a new top five list. Yes, I'm playing the algorithmic game. So sue me. But it's a little point of privilege. It's my podcast. It's my top five list. So, yes, it will be about the Miami hurricane. So deal with it.
But even if you're not a fan of the Hurricanes, if you're a fan of college football, if you're a fan of sports history, I think you'll like my top five list. And then we'll do some Q&A. Always a popular segment. But let me dive into this issue of what I think is going to be an extraordinarily challenging message.
Because, you know, when it comes to campaign 2026, we already know the three endings. OK, we just don't know which ending it's going to be. And we don't know how we're going to get there. But the time the votes are counted next November, the verdict is going to be instant, even if we're not quite sure of the meaning right away. Right.
If Democrats win both the House and the Senate, it's going to be framed as a full rebuke of Donald Trump. Hard stop. If Democrats only win the House. It's going to be called a partial rebuke and everyone will obsess over the size of the majority. Right. If it's 20 to 30 seats, you know, there'll be those that are going to say this was a blue wave. Right.
I think you have a hard time calling it a wave without winning both the House and the Senate. But I digress. I'm going to get to the political map in a few minutes. And then, of course, if Republicans hold both chambers, well, you'll have a spiraling Democratic Party, if you will, and Republicans will feel vindicated and Trump will claim total validation. So those are the three basic outcomes.
So we kind of know one of those, you know, door number one, door number two, door number three, I think there's... The most likely scenario is somewhere it's either one or two. Three feels like a pretty far fetched given where we're starting, because I think it is worth noting. And it's it's a it's a it's a it's a point I made in my weekly podcast with Chris Saliza on his Substack feed.
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Chapter 5: How does California's healthcare budget impact governance?
I mean, it's larger than the annual budget of the city of New York. Okay. The next line item.
Remember, General Motors is a healthcare company that makes cars, right? The cost of healthcare is a problem on every level of government or business.
It's the largest line item. That's right. Just like our federal government is a healthcare organization with an army. Right. So California is not that different. One hundred and sixty billion on health care. It's estimated by the federal government. And this is not just this is well before Trump that Medicare fraud is at least 10 to 15 percent. Okay, so we suffer from that in California as well.
So out of that 160 billion, 30 billion of which comes from the California State General Fund, 130 billion of which comes from the feds. There's a huge amount of fraud, which we should get to the bottom of. Now, I know that this is a common talking point. But it's a real issue.
Waste, fraud, and abuse, my friend. I've heard waste, fraud, and abuse as a phrase.
I'm sure you have.
As a catchphrase going back to Newt Gingrich.
Of course, of course. And it's real. And Bill Clinton, in fairness. Of course.
It's left and right have advocated it.
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Chapter 6: What is Jon Slavet's stance on Trump's endorsement?
And so that dollar and a half extra is pure tax. And we also have a custom fuel mix, two seasons of a custom fuel mix that our refiners have to refine, which is state imposed. No other state does this, Chuck. None of the other 49 states have a custom fuel mix. So all of these things are taxes and they get imposed on our citizens. And we can end those. There are many examples. We've also, Chuck...
We've added 50,000 full-time workers in California over the Newsom administration. So we started at about 210,000. Now we're at about 260,000 full-time workers in California, not including contractors. We're spending huge amounts of money on people in the keyboard economy when we have technology that can help do the work. I'm not saying I would mass fire people.
But when people come to the point where they're going to leave the workforce or not performing, we shouldn't backfill that role. We should actually start reducing the size of the state government. It's insane.
Let's talk about your political identity. Why aren't you running as an independent? you've not really made a case to me that you're a Republican. And I don't mean that as a pejorative or anything, but sort of where today's Republican, look, for good or for bad, both parties to me are defined more by their bases to a large majority of people than they are by their differences. Right.
I grew up in a world I think one of our problems is that there's no we don't have ideological diversity within the two parties like we did when you and I were growing up. There were conservative Democrats, liberal Democrats, there were liberal Republicans and conservative Republicans, you know.
Let me ask the social questions, because ultimately that has been the distinguishing characteristic of the California Republican over the years, sort of a low tax, you know, fiscal conservative, but social liberal. Is that how you would describe yourself?
Yeah, I'd say that I'm a radical moderate. Same sex marriage. I'm quoting Dan Schnur. I'm quoting Dan Schnur when I said that.
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Chapter 7: How does Jon Slavet propose to address California's affordability crisis?
I love that. I know Dan a little bit. I was once kind of somebody called me a radical centrist and I said, thank you. And they didn't mean it as a as a compliment. But where are you on the on the sort of those? You know, those key social issues that you know for some people become non-starters, right? Guns, abortion, same-sex marriage.
Okay. Let's see. Same-sex marriage. People should marry who they love. I mean, I think we're way beyond that, I hope. And actually, in my experience, Chuck, the Republicans that I meet, and I actually went to my first two state conventions, March and September, I had never gone to a convention of any party. And the people I met were very accepting of of people, gay, straight. It doesn't matter.
Listen, on the subject of abortion, you know, deeply personal and moral issue. I have very strong personally held beliefs, but we have settled law in California, which which I would strongly support. Women have reproductive freedom in California. I would support that because it's the law. And I have many friends in the pro-life community who have very strong convictions.
What the governor in California can do on that subject is focus on where we can all agree, which I think is parental notification. If a child, underage child is pregnant, Counseling and support for healthy outcomes, safe pregnancy, adoption if a kid can be led down that path. But I support women's rights under the law. In terms of guns, I'm a gun owner. I sports shoot.
I support Second Amendment rights. I think that California has the strictest gun laws on the books and they are enforced. I know that as a gun owner going through the process of owning and training. And you think they're good laws?
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Chapter 8: What are the implications of running as a moderate Republican in California?
Would you get rid of any of them?
Or are you comfortable with what's on the books?
I think that's an area where the majority of Californians support the laws that are on the books. You worded that very much like the politician, John. Well, I think it's true. I have personal beliefs, but as an elected official, you've got, sorry, right hand, you take an oath and you support the law.
No, no, no, I appreciate that. I always remind people we're in a representative democracy, right? That ultimately that was the design that our founders had, which is, you know, and there's a fine line. And let me ask you, you know, can you, is there an issue where you would go against the majority in your state?
Any issue? Yeah. an issue where I'd go against the majority of my state. Well, listen, I'll give you one. It's very present and just happened, Prop 50. So Prop 50 passed overwhelmingly, it was 65%. So when Prop 50 was bubbling, I came out very strongly against it on my podcast as a no on 50, meaning against the gerrymander. And just permit me, I'll speak for one minute on this.
We actually did a documentary called The Big Rig, and we put that out on State of Gold. And I interviewed, I sat down with 20 different leaders across the state, experts in redistricting and politicians, you name it. And it was a classic example of what to me was a power grab in the name of fighting Trump. And I opposed what happened in Texas. Some Republicans say, oh, well, Texas is different.
To me, de facto, When the majority party bludgeons the minority party to death, it's bad. Texas started, then California. By the way, the Democrats that were pro Prop 50 raised $120 million spent A little bit more than the majority of it, but have that money in the coffers to do what they want to do for the next campaign. And we spawned all kinds of bad behavior across the country.
Thankfully, there are some Republican legislatures and leaders resisting doing that as well. I think it's bad for democracy. Yeah. And so that's an example where I came out and made my case, which is counter to what most people in California think. But how will Democrats feel when Republicans take control of the state, which will happen at some point in California, hopefully soon?
How will Republicans treat Democrats in California? And I think we should be a shining beacon of a constitutional functioning democracy in California, not a hack job.
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