The question is going to be what happens if we win? Do we start holding people accountable? Do we start actually implementing policies that can reduce the burden on people as far as affordability goes?

You know, or do we just increase interest rates and try to make poor people poorer? And I think that's what's going to come down to, you know, this election's coming up in a couple of weeks now. The question is what happens when the rubber meets the road in January?

How do Democrats go about winning the hearts and minds back of the people that were Obama Trump voters or Bernie Trump voters? You know, how do we win those people back? Like here in East Tennessee, you got Jerry Green running for governors.

You got, in my district, Michaela Barnett running in Tennessee, too. You've got Marquetta Bradshaw running for Tennessee Senate against, you know, against a wacko who is Marcia Blackburn, who's done some really incredible ads, I think, as far as just embarrassing herself. And there is an opportunity for the Democrats to reclaim places like West Virginia, Tennessee, Texas.

And I hope we don't mess that up. And I think we can. I think we can go forward bringing people out like Alexandria, like Bernie, like Barack Obama, and then doing something for the American people when we take the Senate and the House back in January.

KEILER: The question about what kind of Democrat can win, right, in some of these races. And the New York Times reported that it obtained an audio recording from a recent closed-door fundraiser that AOC attended. The Times quoting her saying, if Abdul can win in Michigan, anybody can win anywhere.

And describing this particular race as part of a generational project for the progressive movement. If he does win this seat, do you think a progressive is more likely to become the Democratic nominee in 2028? Do you think that that makes it more likely that AOC might be finding a window or a door there to walk through? How are you seeing this race?

TRENT: Sure. Yeah, I mean, I think that that changes the people's calculus of what they think is possible. The over to the window of who can win, for sure.

But I really do think it comes down to which party shows up in the speakership, which party shows up in Senate majority leader, if we get the majority. I think that if it stays like Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, and it's more of the same, people trying to claw back what we had when Trump won the second time, trying to get back to where we were then, then I think that does less for the American people's trust and faith in the Democratic Party as the solution. My analysis is that voters have been going looking for transformative change.

That's what drew them to Barack Obama in 2007. I think that's what drew them to Bernie Sanders. And I think that's what drew them to Donald Trump twice now, is that they they're looking for something substantially different than what's being delivered.

So, yes, I think Abdul winning in Michigan is going to go. You know, it's going to definitely take us in a step towards that direction. But what really matters is which Democratic Party shows up.

Is it the Bill Clinton Democratic Party that shows up in Washington or is it the FDR Democratic Party that shows up? And I think the FDR Democratic Party is the one that sent us on to generational majorities and supermajorities. And the Bill Clinton party is the one that sort of preceded, you know, thousands and thousands of losses across this country.