Will There Be A Blue Wave in 2026? Here’s How We Can Ensure It Happens

Welcome to The Siren Podcast, Brian Derrick, co-founder and CEO of OathVote. Welcome. Thank you for having me on. Super excited to be here. So excited to have you and so excited to talk to you. This is important shit that you're doing. So let's just jump in. Tell my audience, what is OathVote? Yeah, thank you. We created Oath as a platform for donors to figure out where their dollars would have greatest impact. The fundraising system, I think many people know, is so broken. And we're all inundated with requests for more, more, more donations from Nancy Pelosi and many people that we've never heard of that are texting us and emailing us and calling us if you're unlucky. And we wanted to give everyday donors sort of the power and the strategy that billionaires have, that Elon Musk has when he's doing his political giving. He has a whole team of people. And so we set up oath where we do all of this expert analysis and then make recommendations to Democrats for free about where they should spend their dollars. Who doesn't want that, right? Because if you're going to give your hard-earned money to a candidate, you want it to make a difference. You don't want to just throw it into the wind, especially not now in this climate where money is even tighter than it was before, despite the fact that they said the opposite during Biden's term. We can diagnose that all day long. But it is. It's massively, massively important. Plus, you're actually putting money in winnable races, which is also massively important. So what was the impetus for you to start this? What were you doing before you started it? And what made you decide, you know what? No, I'm going to do this. And we know now the reasons why. I come to this work from the campaign space. I am a former campaign manager, finance director. I've been a comms consultant, all number of things on federal, state and local races. And in doing that, I had a front row seat to just how much money was being wasted in the ecosystem. It's really important that people are engaged, that they are donating and volunteering and phone banking, all the things that are our superpower as Democrats, because we do have the power of the people behind us. But that power can only go as far as we know where to direct it. Right. You have to be putting your efforts into the right things in order to make a real difference. And so as a finance director, I was seeing not just tens, hundreds of millions of dollars being poured into races, primarily against Republican villains. Right. Where Democrats would be so angry about a Mitch McConnell or Lindsey Graham that they would want to give to get rid of them, which is completely understandable. But what we were seeing was that those dollars are oftentimes flowing directly to consultants and on really expensive ad buys that don't actually advance that goal. And so we – me and my co-founder, her name's Taylor. She does not come from politics but from big data world at big consulting firms. and we really got together and saw the root of the problem as being a lack of transparency that campaigns were not being super forthcoming with how much money they had how much they needed what the polling actually looked like what their path to victory really was and so we wanted to empower donors with more information uh because it's up to you right if you want to give to a really long shot race like cool go for it but you should know that it's a long shot from the start You shouldn't think that that's a neck and neck contest when it's not. So that's what really made us start Oath. We were just working on it as a side project nights and weekends. We both had full time jobs. Our friends loved it. They started sharing it online. And in three, four months, we had directed two million dollars through the platform to candidates all over the country and changed the game in a lot of these races through the power of information, through the power of data. treating people like they're smart, telling them the reality and giving them an opportunity to give where it mattered. And that blew my mind. It totally changed my career path and how I saw the political space as a whole. And so we both quit our jobs and have been building oath ever since. I mean, again, this transparency thing, right? But the consultancy class, like for me, that's Sam Schwartz and I, who co-founded The Siren with me, it was born in part because of that chasm that existed between lawmakers and creators and the people because of this cudgel in the middle that was the consultancy class that was like gatekeeping all of that. And it felt like and deciding where those dollars were going. Right. So these big campaigns and lawmakers, et cetera, would give tons and tons of money to this consultancy group, and then they would decide where that money would go and not be transparent about it at all. Like no one knew. And so we're doing hashtags, and like it seems so futile. And it wouldn't move the needle, change anything. You're talking to the same people all the time, and that was so frustrating. So Sam and I were like, well, we need to build something that is more of a bridge between the lawmakers, the electeds, the campaigns, et cetera, and the people. And the conduit for that was the creators. So you kind of have to cut out this consultancy class where it was sort of rife with, you know, self-serving, I would say, abuse. But that's, you know, another conversation. But it's a very similar sort of origin story where you sort of saw from the inside the ineffectiveness of what was going on. But I'm curious, too, like for us, obviously, it was driven by what we were experiencing here in this country and watching our country sort of facing fascism and authoritarianism and the institutions being degraded by Trump, etc. You know, what's your personal sort of political impetus? Like what's your personal story for this moment and what makes you what drives you to identify these problems and find solutions? Yeah, I have always felt called to public service. I never really had a strong interest in like private sector jobs. I went to school for public affairs. I wanted to work in government and mostly nonprofits, honestly, because I was just raised with the idea that our purpose is to leave the world better than we inherit it. And so I have always found that to be the most fulfilling way to spend my time. And I wanted my full-time job to also be oriented towards what I saw as my life purpose. And so I've been primarily fundraising, but also just as an activist working for advocacy groups, human rights groups, and a myriad of causes from cancer research through LGBT civil rights for my entire career. And I think I felt pulled into hard politics, right, electoral politics, as the country seemed to veer away from a path where those efforts would be effective and appreciated. At the time, I was working for Lambda Legal, the country's largest impact litigation organization focused on LGBT equality. So they sue for civil rights for LGBT people. And there was this ceiling of what we could achieve with Trump in office. And so I was going to protest after protest after protest in the first Trump administration and ultimately was like, none of this can really be fixed until we get this guy out of here and get our country on a better path. And so I went from being a political hobbyist, so to speak, right, someone who volunteered on campaigns and consulted on the side to my exclusive full time 100 hour a week focus of how do we move away from whatever we want to call what Trump is and is trying to do to this country and toward a future that actually works for more people where we're working to uplift everyone through a rising tide. instead of blaming and dividing in order to benefit the wealthiest and most privileged in the country. So I think that that's what motivates me. That's why even when things are super dark now, to me, it's not even like a choice that I have to recurrently make. Like I've made the choice. I will leave this country better than it was during like my parents' generation. And for me, it's a matter of like how and when, not if. Right. We are so aligned on that because I think it's easy to sort of slip into just sort of this like apathetic despair about the state of things. But we have to also recognize that like that's useless and that we can. And it's not a question of if it's that we will. We have to. What choices do we have? Right. Like it's we are so aligned in that. And it's self-fulfilling, right? I think that people, when you lose hope, you lose the ability to fix the problem you're hopeless about, right? You have to believe that there's a path forward and cultivate that belief. It's not something that I or anyone can give to somebody, right? It's not something that you can give to your listeners, but you can cultivate it in yourself and teach people how to participate in that practice of cultivating hope and then deploying it by taking action. I love telling people being the smartest person in the world is useless if you don't do anything with it. If all you do is like consume more and more and more information and sit at home in fear because of the information you're consuming, why even bother, right? You're not helping anybody. You have to put it into action. And that can be a million different things, showing up to the protest, running for office yourself, making that phone call to your elected representative, signing a petition, like volunteering, donating. There's so many ways, but you have to actually put that knowledge into action for it to be powerful. And giving people a tool, like what Oath is doing, that empowers them further, right? So it's like it's we want you to we want you to do something. We know you want to do something. Sometimes you don't know what that something is. We're going to help you navigate what that might be or the best something might be that it will have the most return on your investment. And that's that's that's really important, too, because people need to feel that that seed of empowerment and autonomy and agency, especially now when it feels like everything is trying to pull that away from them. So, yeah. I think that people oftentimes chalk up a whole election an election cycle as a win or a loss And it so much more complicated than that right Of course we lost the White House in 2024 Devastating And I will not try and quantify the damage done. It's incalculable. But it's also true that we won some really, really important elections down ballot that have made a real difference in people's lives, right? In North Carolina, we broke a Republican supermajority so they can no longer override the governor's veto where we have a Democratic governor in North Carolina. And that is preventing them from stealing House seats in 2026 in the way that they want to. And so like there are these small wins that we can really champion that add up over time. It's not an overnight one-time thing, but we want to build it so that people can find those opportunities, can make a meaningful difference, and see the progress from year to year, cycle to cycle, and invest in the way Republicans have been playing this long game for decades. Mitch McConnell is like how many hundreds of years old? I don't know, right? It's like a plot. It's a conspiracy. And he's been waiting for his moment for all of this time. And I don't want it to take that long, but I think we do need to be thinking long term about how to fight back and win at the state and local level while we push back directly on Trump and win and work to win the White House in 2028. Right. It's definitely easy to and I'm certainly someone who does this often. It's easy to focus on, you know, the executive and the top and the federal level. And what happens here in the wake of COVID in a lot of places at that time, Moms for Liberty, et cetera, with our school boards, you saw that local level being ignored and the ramifications of that leading to these overwhelmingly far right school boards that were banning books, et cetera. And then what happens is the Democrats are like, hold on, hold on, hold on. I didn't realize I needed to pay attention to that. And you see that, you know, whether that's a cliche to say the pendulum swing back. But unfortunately, people have to stick their hands in the fire. And what's great about what you're doing is you're trying to say, oh, no, no, the fire's all around us. But in the midst of that, here are some things you can do. So let's talk about the political landscape for Democrats right now, because everyone's talking about the midterms, of course, and there's some great fear, and I would say legitimate fear. We can't suffer from a lack of imagination when it comes to Trump about there not being free and fair elections. But let's just suspend all of that for a moment and deal with the reality that at this moment in time, we still have midterm elections coming. We still have a political landscape that we're contending with. We have people talking about how historically unpopular Republicans are right now. What is the political landscape for the midterms and another even local and down ballot races look like for Democrats? Yeah. Failure to plan is planning to fail. And so we have to be ready. We have to be ready for the midterms to happen, for them to be competitive, for them to be free and fair. And we have to be ready to win them. We have to have a plan to win them. And we have to be ready for attacks on them as well, which we can talk about. But the stakes are so high. We have to, number one, flip the House. That has to be the number one priority going into the midterms is taking back control of one chamber so that we can block any legislation that Trump wants to pass for the remainder of his term because all legislation requires that it's passed in both the House and the Senate. We have a shot at flipping the Senate. It would require us holding competitive seats in Michigan and Georgia and flipping four seats in the Senate. That would probably be Maine, Ohio, North Carolina and Alaska are rated as the most competitive by our internal analysis. In the House, Republicans have been trying to gerrymander their way to a majority, steal more seats so that they can insulate themselves from the accountability of voters in the midterms. It's not going to work. We have a large list of targets that we actually can flip enough seats in order if they continue to try to steal elections, they continue to try to steal more seats for gerrymandering. We can still control the House, but currently the money is not going to the right places in order to do that, which we can talk about. And then you look below federal level and you have 36 gubernatorial races, races for governor, 30 attorneys general, 26 secretaries of state, 82 state Supreme Court seats, over 5,000 state legislative seats, tens of thousands of local positions that control school boards and how elections run and how counties operate. And all of these really important seats of power that we don't think about, but ultimately that can contribute to something like the 2020 election being stolen or can be our backstop and our firewall against that. So the stakes are really high and there's dozens and dozens of really competitive races where people can make a huge difference with just a little bit of time or a little bit of money. So let's talk about that, because you said the money is not currently going to the right places, and I want to jump in on that. So what does that look like, and how do we fix that? Yeah, so let's look at just the House. Democrats have already directed over $350 million to U.S. House races in the 2026 cycle. Less than $50 million of that has gone to the top-tier most competitive races. So that's less than 15%. That's concerning, right? We want to focus the dollars on the races where they're going to make the biggest difference. And while money and politics matters a lot, that's why I do what I do. It is not magic. You cannot just magically turn an R plus 50 district into a D plus two through money. It doesn't really work that way, particularly at the federal level. And so we want to move money to this narrow band of races where we can flip the house. We can pick up a 225, 235 seat majority, but it will require us being really disciplined. We've seen all these special elections. We're good at that. That is a challenge, right? That is like an aversion that Democrats tend to have. And I want to be clear, like I'm not saying don't give any money to candidates in red places, in red seats, in red. It's just about being strategic in the overall allocation. We just want to make sure that we're spending the most on the races that are going to cost the most and where we have the greatest chance of success. we have set up oath if you go to the platform with an impact score zero to ten and every candidate gets an impact score based on how competitive the race is what are the stakes of winning or losing like is it going to be the one to help flip the chamber for example and the financial need looking at how much money the candidate already has how much money we think they need in order to run an effective race based on like the media market how much their opponent raised how much outside spending is coming in. We do all of it. We do all the work. Simple, simple, simple impact score, zero to 10. And then people can make their own decision. If you love a candidate and they have a low impact score, we say, boom, you can still give them money. They're still on the platform. But you should know when you give that that's not going to be the dollar that helps us flip the U.S. House if that's your top priority. Right. So let's identify some. Let's talk about the House right now. And I do want to jump into the Senate, too, because those are fascinating races as well. And some of those races I would have said would have been beyond reach a year ago. But what are some of these races in the House that you're talking about with the highest impact score? Yeah, I think that there are five that are standout right now that are getting a lot of attention. It's five women, just by coincidence, that by themselves could flip the House for us. It's Joanna Mendoza in Arizona. It's Janelle Stelzen in Pennsylvania. It is Christina Bohannon in Iowa. Paige Cognetti, also in Pennsylvania. And Rebecca Cook in Wisconsin. All of them very highly rated by us because they're running against vulnerable Republicans who have taken a lot of bad votes, who have done a lot to enable the authoritarianism of the Trump administration, who voted to cut a trillion dollars in Medicaid and to bankrupt rural hospitals and all of these other things that they've done since Trump took office, making them really out of step with their districts. Meanwhile, these Democratic women are much more aligned. They're fighters. Like, they want to show up and really deliver for the everyday person who's struggling to pay the bills in their district. And we see them as a really good fit. And so our analysis shows that those are just five examples of really high-quality races where dollars could make a big difference right now. Can I ask you, because I'm curious, but also it's important for people listening who might not know, who are the Republicans? We can go if you can. Oh, yeah. If you don't mind. So let's start with Mendoza in Arizona. Who's the Republican that she's running against there? She's running against Juan Siscomani. Oh, I know Siscomani. OK. Yeah, Siscomani is one of the guys who didn't vote for the ACA extensions in that last vote. And now a quick word from one of our sponsors who make this show possible. Now that the holidays are over, you might be feeling like you've got a big spending hangover. The drinks, the holiday food, the gifts, it all adds up. Luckily, Mint Mobile is here to help you cut back on overspending on wireless this January with 50% off premium wireless. Mint Mobile's end-of-year sale is still going on, but only until the end of the month. Cut out big wireless's bloated plans and unnecessary monthly charges with 50% off 3, 6, or 12-month plans of unlimited. All plans come with high-speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. Use your own phone with any Mint Mobile plan and bring your phone number along with all of your existing contacts. If I had needed this product, it's absolutely what I would use. So this January, quit overspending on wireless with 50% off unlimited premium wireless. Plans start at $15 a month at mintmobile.com slash jojo. That's mintmobile.com slash jojo. limited time offer upfront payment of $45 for three months $90 for six months or for a 12 month plan required a month equivalent taxes and fees extra initial plan term only 50 gigabyte may slow when network is busy Capable device required Availability speed and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com. Yep. Right? Yeah. Yeah, correct. Yeah, I think he also voted for the Big Ugly Bill. Yeah. And so a whole litany of things there that I think people should be aware of, of like where he stands. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so Stelson and PA. Stelson's running – wait, I just – Is it Scott Perry? It's Scott Perry, who's like an election denier and has been wildly sort of out of step with the district, I think, for a long time, honestly. Yeah, I used to work with a nonprofit called Red Wine and Blue, and we had some target states. Are you familiar with them? Yeah, they're amazing. Yeah, so one of our target states was – well, almost all of these, actually. We were working with Pennsylvania. I mean, we're working with Wisconsin, but Pennsylvania was one of our target states, Ohio as well, which isn't on this list. But Scott Perry was definitely within my sights a lot for being an election denier, for not even complying with subpoenas, et cetera. But I would – oh, God, would I love to see him go. I mean, I'm just – I'm sorry. I'm just like sticking my teeth into – this is so fascinating to me because these are people I really want to beat. A hundred percent. Okay. So – yeah, sorry. No, I was going to say another one who sort of falls along those same lines. Rob Bresnahan in Pennsylvania. He originally ran on banning stock trading in Congress and then was elected and then became one of the most prolific stock traders while in Congress. Shocker. I know he's been making tons of money on AI investments while pushing data centers on basically like pushing to deregulate data centers. And so just the worst of the worst kind of self-dealing and like profiting off of the office. So really horrific. And that's where Paige Cognetti is going to replace. Okay, so that's the Pennsylvania as well. And the people of Pennsylvania, you know, it's it really it's the economy, stupid, right? Like, it's also what hold on. This guy's getting rich while I'm paying his salary while I'm struggling to afford groceries right now. Like the last last two, we can do them quickly. But Bohannon and Cook. Iowa and Wisconsin are interesting. Iowa is very interesting right now. I'm like, what is going on in Iowa? Yeah. Bohannon is running against Marionette Miller Meeks. And she came within like 100 votes of getting her out. That was in 2024. Sorry. It was 700 votes. And it is absolutely her time. She's run twice. And she's come so, so close. It was actually not supposed to be as competitive as it was, but she's just an exceptional candidate. And then the last one is Rebecca Cook in Wisconsin running against Derek Van Orden. You might remember. Okay, yeah. I can't stand him. Sorry. He's like, he makes news a lot. He screamed at like interns in the House. A video went viral. He also tweeted celebrating that 17 million people would lose health care as a result of their cuts in the big, ugly bill last year. He's just a really ugly, ugly person. Yeah. And Rebecca Cook is well positioned to get him out. Okay. First of all, anybody out there listening to this, you need help with these races, please let me know because I can't stand any of these people. I mean, I don't like any of them, but Van Orden trolls me all the time. Really? Oh, God. He loves to come after me. He loves to troll me. We could just speculate all day about why. He'll ask his theories on that, small in the pants, et cetera. But, yeah, I would give anything to make sure that he does not return. Plus, he's really just a Trump-flunky loyalist. Yeah. He really is. I think that your listeners should donate to Rebecca Cook every time Derek Van Orden trolls you. I love it. I love it. Let's punish him. Yeah. And so thank you for doing that. And I've taken you for a half an hour already, but we could do the Senate if you have a few minutes to jump into that. But the thing, too, real quick that I wanted to identify here is it's important, so important what you're doing at Oath to get everyday American people to donate. But like this also can drive that consultancy class that how much did you say? Three hundred and fifty million and only 15 percent has gone to these races. Like we need to get them to see this as well. And so, well, let's before we pause to go to the Senate, how do we do that? Yeah, we are trying to that's sort of the big picture, right, is tactically every day. I want to offer smart recommendations to donors giving 50, 100, a thousand dollars, whatever. Big picture, we want to change the overall incentive structure of how the democratic ecosystem works. And we are working directly with the DNC to do that. We're trying to get them to put some guardrails in place to stop the sharing of everyone's data everywhere. The other thing I should mention is when you donate through oath, we don't give the candidates your cell phone or email. So they can't contact you. Yeah. Like data privacy should be a basic, basic thing that we're all owed at this point in 2026, the year of our Lord. Like, come on. And so I think that one is through the official party infrastructure. And we are making like some headway there. And they understand that they have a real problem if they want people to keep giving and want people to be engaged. If you treat them like an ATM, they will not. Separately, we are creating a really powerful ecosystem of donors that can start to set the rules of the road because we have specific guidelines that candidates have to follow in order to appear on the platform and receive funding. And we can continue to raise that bar. And we can also, as you're alluding to, start to set some guidelines around the types of consulting fees and where dollars are going in order to incentivize those candidates to spend their money more wisely to cut out sort of the cash grab component of people buying beach houses off of running a U.S. Senate race in Arizona or whatever. And we can do that by essentially like banding donors together and saying we're just not going to take it anymore. And that's how I see Oath is like we are donor advocates. Again, $5 donors, $50 donors, whatever. That's not what it's about. It's about we want to be respected as an important part of the ecosystem because those dollars are what fuel wins, particularly in these downpilot races. And so I think that it's a longer term project for us, but we are certainly making strides to changing the way that candidates do campaigning overall. I think that's so important. I think that, you know, people got in the weeds on the autopsy of what went wrong in 24. And you could point in a million directions. But so many of us sort of should, in my opinion, sort of stick with what we saw directly and what we know and what we know went wrong. And instead of this 30,000 foot view, we're looking at all the problems. It's if we if we really hyper focus and target these problems on a smaller level, like you were just you can make the analogy to local politics and to smaller races. It's the same in the infrastructure of what went wrong in 24. So what you're identifying is massively important because I saw it myself. I saw so much waste, like so much tens of millions of dollars where I know people are spending the money going to, you know, fancy sporting events, etc. And I'm not seeing where the money is coming out for the candidate or the campaign or the issue, etc. But I also saw this disconnect with creators. And I think that for us at The Siren, that's why we really focused our attention on building a left-leaning social media ecosystem of new media that answers that. And that's what I appreciate so much about what you're doing is that it's very much about what you saw and know that needs a fix. And so you're not just sitting on your hands and being like, that's kind of the way things are. You're actually doing the work to fix it. And it's not going to be easy. This is institutionalized. This is stuff they've been doing for a long time. Long time. But you're on your way and that's half the battle. Yeah, thank you. I really appreciate that. I mean, we see the new media sort of underinvestment as a chronic problem that we're also hoping to address, right? Yeah. We frequently conduct research and then post the results at the behest of donors, of users of the platform. And so when we hear from people and say, hey, I want to give to candidates that are investing in new media, my team can go and do that research, find which candidates are really investing in the creators and creator-driven content that actually reaches people where television ads simply cannot. And put together a really easy way to support those candidates, which then incentivizes other candidates who see that money flowing and say, I want to be on that list. Let's invest in new media. So I do think that like changing the incentive structure can be a win-win all around. Oh, my God. I love that. And it's peanut butter and chocolate, right? Like it tastes great together because it's so true. And that's how you change the way things work, you know, and that's how you lift all boats. So before we go, if you don't mind digging into the Senate side, because this is literally stuff that I geek out over. But also, I want to know, I want to know, too, as a creator, as a co-founder of a network, you know, where we should be focusing a lot of our attention and drawing our audiences to. So we're talking about Maine, which is Mills, right? Just Mills. And then, of course, is Parker, right? Platner. Platner, sorry. Platner. Yeah. So that primary hasn't happened, right? That primary has not happened. No, we still have both of them in. uh platner is currently like in norway doing ivf with his uh wife they're trying to have a baby so i don't know personally like i i have a suspicion that he might be making an exit okay but but that's total hearsay total hearsay um but yes as of now it is still a competitive primary with janet mills uh the governor and grand platner the oyster farmer this is angus king's seat because Susan Collins. This is Susan Collins. This is Susan Collins. Whoever wins will be running. Yep. Whoever wins will be running against Collins. I thought Angus King is retiring too. Maybe he's not up for reelection in 26. Did he say he wasn't returning? Not in 26 Okay right He not up Susan Collins So this is Susan Collins seat which is fascinating Janet Mills is very popular in Alaska from what I understand In Maine yes She a super popular governor She might be popular there, too. Yeah, she probably is. But Alaska is next on my list, which is why I said Alaska in my brain. But I'm sorry. So Janet Mills, who's coming on my podcast soon. Oh, good. Yeah, excited about that. So this, can we just jump in on this race? Not in Alaska. We're going to get to that next. in Maine. Yep. Yeah. So in Maine, we have Collins versus Mills or Platner, most likely. Collins has sort of hung on. She's a cockroach. We like can't get rid of her. We've tried so many times. I think it's very disappointing. We had Sarah Gideon back in the 2020 cycle, if people remember that. Yeah. Yeah. There was controversy there. But I think that But the thing that gives me some confidence that we can get Collins out is that she's always pitched herself as sort of a moderating force of like, oh, I can keep Republicans like I'll go against the party and I'll keep them in check. Well, where is the check, right? Like we couldn't be any less moderate than what we're seeing out of this administration. So it doesn't work. And so I think that that might fall flat with voters this year when they have masked men running down the streets, abducting people, throwing them into vans. Like to say, oh, I'll be a check on the president is a joke because she has not done that. And she was like part of the reason that we have a trillion dollars in Medicaid cuts and many other things. So that's what I'm hoping for. If it is Janet Mills, like you said, she's super popular in the state. People know who that is. And I would feel optimistic. And Mainers are very independent. Like Angus King isn't independent. So Mainers are very independent. They're going to do what they want. They're just going to do what they want. Right. OK, so Alaska. This is Peltola. That's how you say her name, right? Yeah, that's right. She's also extremely popular. Let's start. Let's jump in on that race. Yeah, former Congresswoman Mary Paltola, who just lost her race pretty narrowly in 2024 to be reelected to Alaska's at-large congressional seat. And that was in a year that Trump was on the ballot. So you had this massive wave of enthusiasm for Trump that worked against her. But Trump is not on the ballot in 2026. And so Dan Sullivan, the Republican incumbent in that Senate seat, is. And he has a lot of the same issues as Collins, but is lesser known, whereas Peltola has been sort of a star, rising star of the Democratic Party in many ways. She's like this outdoorsy maverick type of personality, and people really respond to her. So that race moved from just looking at like Cook Political Report, one of the forecasters that we trust pretty decently. It was rated as safe Republican, not competitive at all. And then when Mary Peltola jumped in, they didn't just move it to likely Republican. They moved it to lean Republican, two categories of a jump from one person entering the race. That never happens. It's really rare. So that was like a big win that she announced her candidacy. And now Alaska is considered in play. Wow. And that was just last week, right, that she announced, I think, maybe two weeks ago, Max? Three days ago. Okay. Everything, you know, now, days, it's like, what is it now? Hot off the presses. Yeah. Right. Okay. North Carolina is Cooper. Extremely, extremely popular. Democratic governor in a very fairly red state. Some could argue it's purple, but very popular. Yeah, that's exactly right. He was super popular as governor, successfully transitioned into Josh Stein, the new governor. and Tom Tillis decided not to run for re-election. He was a moderate, if those are left, in the Republican Party, if we count that. And he had voted against Trump a couple of times and said, I've had enough of this party, like F all of you, and is retiring. It's the former chair of the RNC who is now running in that seat. His name is Watley, not like a super well-known guy, sort of inside baseball. and I feel great about Cooper taking him on and wiping the floor with him, to be honest. Okay, that's also great news. He was actually being looked at, I think, for Kamala's VP for a minute there, if I recall correctly. Yeah, that's right. And last, of course, is Ohio. Sherrod Brown's coming back. Also extremely popular. And I still cannot believe that he lost to Bernie Moreno, but whatever. But let's talk about that race. Yeah. Yeah. So first of all, I'm from Ohio. Go Bucs. I will always hold a special place in my heart. Yeah. I have a lot of my sisters and my entire family is in Ohio. I go to Ohio every year. I'm very near and dear to my heart. Oh, I love that. I love that. Yes, I know. And so, yes, he did lose in 2024. But the thing that people have to remember is that a midterm electorate, like the The people who vote in a midterm look really different. That overall population of people looks really different than the number of people who vote in a presidential year. And so that's why like a Peltola or a Brown, Shared Brown, might win in 26, even though they lost in 24, because it's just a different set of people voting. And Democrats do much better in midterms than we do in presidential years with the current coalition. Our voters are more consistent voters, which is a change from what it was like 10 years ago. So also feeling good about Brown. That's probably the hardest of the four. It's like Ohio and Alaska are both really tough, but winnable, but winnable. And I also just want to clarify that me saying that these are winnable races doesn't necessarily mean you should go and give them all money because lots of them have tons of money already and are going to do a lot of the things that we've been talking about. are going to spend too much money on TV, are going to spend too much money on consultants. And so that's not where I would tell people to put their dollars, even though those are four of the races that we're looking at as flips. We also have to hold Georgia and Michigan. Right. Yeah. And are there any dark horses? Like I, you know, in my dream world from like Florida, you know, I know, I know, I know. But like, are there any dark horses out there you'd be like don't sleep on so there is like this just question mark in nebraska unexpected okay this guy dan osborne oh i'm familiar yeah so dan is running again um he had basically swung that uh he had overperformed i should say the the expectation by like 12 points like a huge leap in what we were capable of statewide in Nebraska. And the additional name recognition there might make it interesting. But I would say definitely, definitely still a long shot, like not on par right now with Alaska or Ohio. And then something to just like look at, particularly if your audience, someone has like a really high risk tolerance, you don't mind sort of like really going for it. There are a couple independents running in truly unwinnable races in South Dakota and Idaho. I know the person from Idaho might be coming on my podcast soon. Okay. He's a friend of a friend. Amazing. Yeah. So I think that it's a really interesting strategy that has worked down ballot where you've run an independent and no Democrat in places where Democrats are super, super unpopular. and they can sort of brand themselves as like something outside of a broken party system. And they're not Democrats, right? They are like free thinkers. They're different kinds of people. They won't always be aligned with everything that the Democratic Party stands for, but they will be a heck of a lot better than any Republican that we're going to get out of those states. And they will keep Mitch McConnell or John Thune now, sorry, away from leadership positions. So something to look at, something to consider. So like in closing, so people, can you tell them, you know, how they can really utilize what you're doing and how they can navigate the site, et cetera? So just give them a quick, like, you know, explainer in how they can utilize what you're offering to the most effectiveness for themselves and for the country. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that. If you go to oath.vote, no.com, it's just oath.vote, you can sign up, tell us what you're interested in, like give us your top issue areas, and we will send you personalized recommendations about where your dollars can have the biggest differences here. You can also just go to our top issues page and select something like reproductive rights or climate change, and we'll show you where your dollars can make the biggest difference there. or you can search for a candidate by name. If there's someone that you're really interested in or you get a text message, you can come to the site, search by name, check the impact, excuse me, the impact score. And that will give you sort of our take on whether that's a good investment at this point in time. You can also follow me at Brian Derrick and I'm always posting about what races are like up, down, need money, don't need money and that kind of thing. And so if you're social first, that's another way to stay in touch. Which is awesome. And you've got 100,000 plus followers on Instagram, which is nothing, no small, small potatoes. So congrats on that. That's awesome. Nothing compared to you. Well, thank you. Thank you. We all got to do some, you know, we all play a part here. And you're, you're, you're doing things that I could never even dream of. So, and you're helping me and you're helping people who do what I do because you're giving us this, you know, insight that that is data driven. It's not politically driven, even though it certainly will be a tool that I will use to politically motivate people to engage. But it's it's very, very important what you're doing. And it is incredibly helpful for me, but for funneling funds and energy and donation into the right direction so that we can actually make the changes that we're seeking. So thank you for that. Really, truly. Absolutely. It's like an honor to do this work and it takes a village. So thank you for what you do. And thanks for having me on. I'm thrilled to be here. It does. I will probably be ringing your bell a few more times as we go through this election cycle, because, you know, this is important, incredibly important. And I could geek out on what you know all day long. Hopefully you don't mind being my phone a friend on all this stuff, because I would love that. We are ready to nerd out anytime. You just let me know. Okay, awesome. Well, thank you so much. We will talk again soon. And that concludes this episode of the Siren Podcast. Thank you, Brian, Derek, everybody go to oath.vote and check out what they're offering. I'm going to be totally taking advantage of that as soon as we finish. So thank you so much.