Vibes Only
The polls are broken, the stakes are unprecedented, and vibes drive the future of American politics.
Every Thursday, political strategist Brian Derrick (founder of Oath) and new media strategist Glennis Meagher (co-founder of Generator Collective) break down the biggest stories in American politics, elections, and culture.
This isn't your standard cable news commentary. Get an insider's look at the US political machine, current news of the week, and the digital strategy shaping our world - delivered with the honesty, insight, and humor of two people who've actually worked in the trenches of US politics.
Hit follow and stay ahead of the news cycle every Thursday.
Vibes Only
We All Live in Texas Now: Talarico and a Historic Sweep
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Annie Andrews flipped South Carolina. Adam Hamilton flipped Kansas. James Talarico flipped Texas. We're here to dive into how this Blue-nami happened!
Quick side note - the audio version of this one is out a day early because we just couldn't wait to get into midterm results with y'all. The full video lands on YouTube and Spotify Thursday morning (tomorrow) per usual.
Vibes Only is back this week with what the founder of Oath.Vote and elections expert, Brian Derrick, is calling the biggest wave election of our lifetime. Democrats flipped the House and Senate, with seven Senate pickups as of recording: North Carolina, Ohio, Maine, Iowa, Kansas, Texas, and South Carolina. Susan Collins finally lost to Troy Jackson in Maine, Mississippi and Alaska are still too close to call, and Texas just scrambled the 2028 map while making us so f*ckin happy.
It was a night of firsts for Keisha Lance Bottoms, Deb Haaland, Gina Hinojosa, Amy Acton, Amy Klobuchar, Chris Pappas, Peggy Flanagan, Abdul El-Sayed, and Allison Montgomery. Brian walks through the House flips, how North Carolina's gerrymander became a dummymander, and statehouse wins in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Hampshire, and the Texas House.
Then, what comes next: Robert Garcia's two-word warning ("Lawyer up"), whether Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer are locked in as leaders, and why Glennis wants a new era of radical accountability.
Also: Kool-Aid Man but make it blue, the best election night tweets, a Chris Pappas pronunciation showdown, Brian's 2024 video of hope, plus we start to dive into the exit polls on who swung back at loser Trump and why. We close with a Good Vibe Goodbye: thank you to everyone who voted, phone banked, and text banked, plus the Oath Candidate of the Week scorecard for the season. How'd our recommended candidates do?
One more episode next Thursday, then Vibes Only takes a little break.
Follow Vibes Only wherever you're listening, and leave a comment telling us what you want to see next season.
EPISODE RESOURCES/LINKS
I'm Brian Derrick.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:And I'm Glennis Meagher. Welcome back to Vibes Only.
BRIAN DERRICK:Election Day was Tuesday and it was a historic night for Democrats as we flipped both the House and Senate.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:We'll be discussing how this blue tsunami just happened from Talarico and Hinojosa in Texas to Amy Acton in Ohio and Susan Collins losing finally in Maine.
BRIAN DERRICK:Oh, I love just hearing that. And we're also gonna be talking about what a Democratic Congress is actually going to mean, what comes next, and what races we're still watching for the final results to come in. Let's get into it Howdy, Glennis.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Yee-haw, Brian.
BRIAN DERRICK:Yee-mother-f#%&ing-haw! Holy. We all live in Texas now, baby. Let's go. How we doing?
GLENNIS MEAGHER:I have chills.
BRIAN DERRICK:How we feeling? How we
GLENNIS MEAGHER:feeling? It's a great- it's a great morning in America. How are you?
BRIAN DERRICK:Uh, yeah. The vibes are strong.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Unmatched.
BRIAN DERRICK:The vibes are high.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Unprecedented.
BRIAN DERRICK:Wow. Yeah. I mean, the biggest wave election of our lifetime.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:100%. I met one of my colleagues for a drink pre-poll closing, and I was like, "I gotta get home. I gotta get back. Like, I'm not doing the party circuit. I just need to be, like, on my couch holding my breath." I
think it was, like, 8:17 and the Florida numbers were coming back. And I was like, "Wait a minute. Wait a minute."
And then, like, 8:27, I messaged someone else and I was like, "This looks really good." Cut to… I mean, where do we even begin?
BRIAN DERRICK: So at 6:00 PM, the first polls closed in Indiana and Kentucky, and we started to get returns. And we were like, "That's weird. That- that's weird that we're competitive in Indiana Fifth. Like, that's bizarre. Why is that happening?" Like, whoa, was it a sign- Whoa … of what was to come. Holy shit.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:I have chills. Yeah. Okay.
BRIAN DERRICK:Chills. Spook. The spook. I wanna go federal, like Senate, House- Okay … states. But first, just like wh- what's the- what are you most excited about? Like, what i- what is, like, wind in your sails this morning?
GLENNIS MEAGHER:The wind in my sails is a little bit more, like, philosophical. I remember being in Texas on Sunday and thinking, "If we don't win majorly in the United States of America, I may have lost some faith in the country." Right. I just have this vision of like, you know, the, the Kool-Aid or whatever it was, like going through the wall.
BRIAN DERRICK:Yes. Kool-Aid Man.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Kool-Aid Man.
BRIAN DERRICK:Yeah.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:But make it blue. And I just like, last night I had a renewed faith in America. I texted that to someone. I was like, "I have a renewed faith," seeing the voter trends and how young men or men 18 to 29 were D plus 38. Like just seeing these numbers and I like holistically, philosophically feel truly like it is a new day in America.
BRIAN DERRICK:Yeah. Yeah. How about you? It is the-- It's the end of the Trump era. Like we needed a insane high watermark to have sort of generational kind of impact, and we fucking hit it. Like absolutely bananas. I mean, specific races, we won, as of recording, I believe every statewide race in Texas we won, or we're leading in. That hasn't- Mm … been called yet, and we flipped the Texas House. So it wasn't just a, like Talarico is an anomaly, he has crossover appeal, and is gonna like break through. It was, it was blue. It was Blexas Yeah. It was blue Texas. Um- Blexas … that is a complete scrambling of the map ahead of 2028.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Yeah.
BRIAN DERRICK:Like, if Texas is legitimately in play for Democrats, I mean, we can talk about a mi- a- That presidential blah blah. Right. But like that, that is one thing that's just like a nuclear bomb. A nuclear- No, totally … bomb in-
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Like-… BRIAN DERRICK: in politics. Like- New York and California is to Democrats what Texas is to- Yeah … Republicans for the electoral map. And if the, if Texas is in play in the electoral map in 2028 for Democrats-
BRIAN DERRICK:Yeah
GLENNIS MEAGHER:sayonara, Republicans.
BRIAN DERRICK:Insane. Insane. And then just o- obviously the down ballot stuff with the legislatures.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Mm-hmm.
BRIAN DERRICK:Plural. We got every single trifecta that I wanted. Minnesota, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona- Right … Nevada. We flipped both chambers in New Hampshire, North Carolina House, Texas House. Like, so many legislatures. We broke super majorities in Kansas and Iowa and Ohio and Indiana. Like, uh, just- Check, check, check … nowhere was safe. Nowhere was safe. Oath sent over 400,000 individual donations to those-
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Wow… BRIAN DERRICK: races. So- Wow… BRIAN DERRICK: I felt super invested. We made up- Yeah… BRIAN DERRICK: in the, some of Texas House, we, we accounted for 90% of their individual donations were from Oath donors. So I'm like really gonna own that this week, and that's like lifting… It's like, oh- Totally… BRIAN DERRICK: I did like years for something, you know? Yeah, for sure, and the people who wrote those checks or did those PayPals, or sent the money- Yeah,
BRIAN DERRICK:of course… GLENNIS MEAGHER: to Oath, One hundo
GLENNIS MEAGHER:that really mattered. You know, I p- I posted a tweet last night that was like, you know, Trump went out of his way to make it a referendum on himself by saying, by saying with, with like the lowest-… disapproval rating- … since Harry Truman, 37%, saying, "Pretend I'm on the ballot." And someone twe- tweeted like, quote, Trump, "Pretend I'm on the ballot," America, "Okay."
BRIAN DERRICK:No, it's
GLENNIS MEAGHER:so true. This was just an absolute rebuke of Donald Trump and MAGA politics, and the illegal wars, the tariffs, the killing of American citizens at the hands of ICE. All of these things, America said,"No, you are corrupt as hell. You're making my life more expensive."
BRIAN DERRICK:Yeah.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Fuck you.
BRIAN DERRICK:Fuck you. Fuck you, bro. Um, okay, we have to talk about the Senate, but before we do, I wanna read you some funny tweets.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Okay, yeah.
BRIAN DERRICK:And we can flash them up on YouTube. Uh, first one, "Fuck it. Dig up Lindsey Graham. I want him to see this."
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Wait, I saw that one.
BRIAN DERRICK:Um, okay, next one. Blue Hussein tsunami.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Wait, I saw that one.
BRIAN DERRICK:Wait, it's so good. Uh, my, my fave. There were a bunch of like this, but, "Bad night to be a stupid fucking idiot."
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Wait, I love the ones that were like, "Pronouns back in email so they can share
BRIAN DERRICK:tomorrow
GLENNIS MEAGHER:morning."
BRIAN DERRICK:Oh my gosh. All the woke 3.0 stuff was very funny to me. Um, wait, I have more, I have more.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Did you see the they, them energy?
BRIAN DERRICK:Wait, what?
GLENNIS MEAGHER:There's this like famous like video, like a meme video of like doing a chant with a crowd being like, "They, them, energy. They, them, energy." Oh, yeah. It's so good. And people, and people were like, "Me in my first meeting tomorrow morning." 100%."How I'm starting my first meeting tomorrow morning." Oh my God, it's
BRIAN DERRICK:so good.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:People loved. I posted like mid in the evening as the returns were coming back the infamous clip now of we got guns too.
MODERATOR:Your opportunity to, um, say just a few last words to, um, to the voters. Hmm.
JAIME WEST:We have guns too.
MODERATOR:All right
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Like how, how I feel, you know? Of them seeing these returns. So good. Wait, that's
BRIAN DERRICK:literally brilliant.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Yeah. Great night to be a Democrat. Let's start talking about-
BRIAN DERRICK:Yeah… GLENNIS MEAGHER: some of these wins. Let me see-
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Should we-
BRIAN DERRICK:Let me see if I can… Oh, yeah, you go.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:No, you go.
BRIAN DERRICK:No, you go. You go. No, you
GLENNIS MEAGHER:go. No, I was saying should we start with the Senate? Like, where do you wanna
BRIAN DERRICK:start? Yeah, let's work our way down. So Senate, as of recording, we have flipped. I'm gonna see if I can do it off the dome.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Okay.
BRIAN DERRICK:North Carolina, Ohio, Maine, Iowa, Kansas, Texas, South Carolina I, I wasn't counting on my fingers. How many was that?
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Oh, I don't know.
BRIAN DERRICK:I think that was it. And then we have Alaska and Mississippi that have not yet been called. So that's a-
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Too close to call
BRIAN DERRICK:pickup of seven so far, which puts us at 54 seats. Presumably we have a path to 56.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Yeah. Like, we don't need Fetterman. We don't need Judas.
BRIAN DERRICK:Oh, no. We're way-- We're, we're over- Mm-hmm … the Fetterman-
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Mm-hmm… BRIAN DERRICK: Fetterman vibes. Yeah.
BRIAN DERRICK:Which surprised you the most? It has to be South Carolina. Just insane. South
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Carolina. I-- When I saw-- I, I have-- I'm a masochist, so I do in fact watch the New York Times needle. And when I saw- Yeah … that needle go to likely Dem early in the night- I know.
BRIAN DERRICK:It
GLENNIS MEAGHER:did … very early in the night, I was like, "Oh my God." 100%. Oh my God. That, to me-- We, we weren't even talking about South Carolina really. I think maybe we were joking about it. But I think people just had this assumption that in the MAGA Republican Party, Donald Trump is, was a kingmaker. If Donald Trump said that this person was the candidate, that candidate would win.
BRIAN DERRICK:Yep.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Especially in a deep red state like South Carolina.
BRIAN DERRICK:Nope.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Rejected. No, no, no. Rejected. Like,
BRIAN DERRICK:ah. And now Annie Andrews is gonna turn all your kids trans. I know. Trans Carolina. Trans Carolina, get ready. Get
GLENNIS MEAGHER:ready. But you know, you know what was crazy, Brian? When I was in Texas this weekend, I talked to a lot of Paxton voters, and that was when they were like,"I'm voting for Paxton because," they were like, "Talarico, he's-" He's
BRIAN DERRICK:trans.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:He's trans. Basically, they were like- He's trans"He's trans." He's trans."He believes in, like, six genders. He said God is non-binary." And they were just, like, espousing the MAGA- Ugh … $158 million of Elon Musk's wasted money, cash that he burned in Talarico attack ads. They were just spewing them out, and I was nervous on Sunday. I was like, "Oh, you know, like, there's a lot of Paxton voters out there."
BRIAN DERRICK:Yeah. Totally. But
GLENNIS MEAGHER:1.5 million more Talarico voters or whatever that margin ends up being.
BRIAN DERRICK:Yeah, which is so bananas. Like, a lot of them weren't even squeakers.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:No.
BRIAN DERRICK:They were- Huge … it was a hammering. It was- Huge margins… fucking hammer time. Kansas really is a huge boon as well because that is- Mm-hmm … like a state that we can really move into, into play for, for all future cycles. The gubernatorial, I believe- Yeah… is not, is uncalled as of recording. That is correct. But we are winning. We are leading in the governor's race there as well.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:I just wanna say, Adam Hamilton, first time a Democrat has gone to the Senate on behalf of Kansas since 1932. Like-
BRIAN DERRICK:Crazy… GLENNIS MEAGHER: the Dust Like, it's, it's crazy. I mean, I was skeptical about a bunch of these. I, I've been on-- I've been talking about that, and-
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Yeah
BRIAN DERRICK:I think that given how consistently misled we've been about many of these races, Kentucky and South Carolina, and like, like Iowa even in- Mm-hmm … 20, in 2020, 2022, 2024, like being so- The polling consistently wrong. The polling. Yeah. Yeah. The, uh, no matter how you slice it, I think that that was kind of best available option was- You
GLENNIS MEAGHER:mean your mental state… BRIAN DERRICK: skepticism. Yeah. 100%. And yet- Well, we played a starring role in the movie. We said this last week, like-
BRIAN DERRICK:Right… GLENNIS MEAGHER: we've f- the have looked good, and we've still lost in a landslide. Right, right. Right, right, right, right. And so the shoe is on the other f- it just feels, it just feels-… GLENNIS MEAGHER: crazy. It feels crazy. It was crazy. I wanna talk about some, like, historic diversity wins that we had- Yeah … for, for governors. Deb Haaland, the first Native American woman elected to governor in US history. Gina Hinojosa in Texas. She is the first Latina ever to lead Texas as governor. Keisha Lance Bottoms, the first Black woman elected governor in the United States, the history of the United States of America. Amy Acton, the first woman to govern the state of Ohio. Amy- That's my governor. Amy Klobuchar. Okay. First woman to govern the state of Minnesota. Chris Pappas, New Hampshire. Pappas, Pappas? Pappas. No, wait. Chris Pappas.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Chris, Chris Pappas. Hard A, soft A.
BRIAN DERRICK:Pappas. Pappas, Pappas,
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Pappas.
BRIAN DERRICK:Pappas. Pa- Pappas, Pappas.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Chris Pappas.
BRIAN DERRICK:I'm actually not, I'm actually
GLENNIS MEAGHER:not sure. I'll do both, and then we can take the right one. Chris Pappas. Chris Pappas. He is the first-
BRIAN DERRICK:Just keep both. Keep both.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Yeah.
BRIAN DERRICK:Chris- He is the- Pappas. Chris Pappas. Chris
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Pappas.
BRIAN DERRICK:Chris Pappas. First…
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Gay rights, gay rights. He's the first openly gay man elected to-
BRIAN DERRICK:Fag!..
GLENNIS MEAGHER:the United States, United States Senate. Lesley Stahl, gay. Peggy Flanagan, first Native American woman elected to the Senate. Abdul El-Sayed, first Muslim elected to the Senate. James Talarico.
BRIAN DERRICK:First trans-
GLENNIS MEAGHER:What is-… BRIAN DERRICK: senator. I know, we need- First trans
BRIAN DERRICK:senator. I know.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:And then we have, of course, historic wins in Texas with James Talarico. First time we've sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1988, and Kansas since 1932.
BRIAN DERRICK:It's literally, I mean, so, so many amazing wins there. It's Republicans' worst nightmare.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Totally. Someone texted me this morning-
BRIAN DERRICK:Like, they're so afraid of people that do not sit next to them in their specific pew at church, that I, it like- Or
GLENNIS MEAGHER:country club… BRIAN DERRICK: like any- Totally, totally. And it's just kinda like- Wow. It's an army of DEI headed their way. And I, I say that jokingly. They're all, like, so super talented superstars, rock stars coming out of last night, earned their spots twice over, but it's just funny. Like, Laura Loomer was tweeting,"Better start learning Arabic." Oh, I know. And everyone's posting Duolingo that they're, like, practicing their Arabic.
BRIAN DERRICK:It's so funny.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:It's so racist. It's so- It's so- They're so racist. They're so Islamophobic. They're so- It is. It's really crazy … homophobic. It's crazy. They're- they have-- Ugh. Did you see in Alabama, the first transgender woman was elected to the Alabama Leg?
BRIAN DERRICK:No, I didn't.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Yeah, Allison Montgomery, District 25.
BRIAN DERRICK:Sick.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Yeah.
BRIAN DERRICK:I love it.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:I know. I love it, too. Ah. I'm like, this is woke three, baby.
BRIAN DERRICK:It does feel like I'm exhaling for the first time in two years. Not a
GLENNIS MEAGHER:joke. Oh. Not a joke. 100%. I went on a walk this morning, and I was like-- I had, like, an out-of-body experience. I was like, "Oh, we've been working really, really hard."
BRIAN DERRICK:Totally.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Oh. Like,
BRIAN DERRICK:I-- It is weirdly teleporting me back to this, to this bench that I sat on to record the video that I posted after Kamala officially lost.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Oh, yeah.
BRIAN DERRICK:Hi, friends. I have been sitting here for a really long time trying to figure out how to put into words how I'm feeling, and a woman was just running by who happened to follow me on Instagram and stopped, and we just had a, a incredible conversation and shed some tears, and now I know exactly what I wanna say to all of you. Um, and that is that this community is incredibly powerful, and I've always known that it's powerful. We've always known that it's powerful. I live in the loudest city in the world. Um, because we can raise tons of money and sign up hundreds of volunteers and flip elections by narrow margins and, like, this hard power was always there. But I think that what I'm remembering now is that that actually started with just the power of community, just the power of connecting with each other and being there for each other and sharing a mission, and, uh, and values and space together. And that is still here. So first of all, if you cannot get off of the couch today or you're under the covers, just remember that there are actually almost 70 million of us under the covers with you, and that you're not alone in how you're feeling right now. And I hope that that actually does bring some solace because that is the very same community that's going to help us get out of this show together. And there will be so much time to figure out what went wrong and what we're gonna do next time and, and all of that, but right now, just knowing that we have each other when it feels like we have nothing else is a huge first step. And I'm so, so grateful for this community and the hope and motivation that you all give me in the same way that I hear that from you. And for now, I will just leave you with a reminder not to give Trump more power than he actually has. The truth is that this whole year, every government that was in power during the post-pandemic inflation era was pushed out of power in the UK, and in Italy, and in Germany, and in Austria, and in Japan. It happened everywhere. There was global inflation, and then there was a political price. And so let's not give Trump's hateful rhetoric and ideology more power when there are other reasons that we were facing headwinds this year. I love you all. I'm here for you, and I believe in our ability to come back from this together. Today, rest, cry, movies, ice cream, and tomorrow, back to work. And like, you kind of don't even realize how you're carrying this weight around, like every day, all the time, even when I'm not working, even when I'm taking time off, even when I'm not on my phone. Like- Mm-hmm … you really just kind of have this weight 'cause it changes your worldview in a way, of like the country that you live in and like the, of your neighbors. It-
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Strangers… BRIAN DERRICK: it, it It, it affects, it affects you. And so it really feels like that weight is like lifted, at least in part today, for the first time in- Restored faith.
BRIAN DERRICK:Yeah.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Yeah. And I, you know- Yeah … also I'll say like I was at the doctor's yesterday 'cause I was like, "Let me just add to the stress and distract myself for an hour and go to the doctor's and get a bunch of blood work done." But my nurse was talking to me about, I was like, "Oh, I, I work in politics, so my blood pressure's gonna be high today. Like don't send me to the ER," you know? Yeah. And she's like, "Oh, you must really love the, I don't know, like the political game or whatever." I was like, "Not really. What I really do is I, I care about my neighbors and the people in this country, and the fact that the United States of America is like one of, if not the richest country in the world, and people are still living in poverty. Or that we've ha- we have a system that allows billionaires and trillionaires to exist, and we still have people in poverty without healthcare who can't afford gas, who can't…" You know, like we do this work 'cause we care. Yes, of course we're like political hounds, and like we wanna see these margins, and we're tracking, you know, that, those New York Times arrows of how far the-
BRIAN DERRICK:Yeah
GLENNIS MEAGHER:the, um, counties move. But it's because we care, and that's, you know, to your point, like we have, I feel a, a renewed faith in the work and the people of America who are like, "Trump, we gave you a, like a, another chance. You're done."
BRIAN DERRICK:Didn't go great.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Didn't go great Yeah.
BRIAN DERRICK:Okay, let's talk about the House.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Let's do it. At time of recording, let's see, how many seats do we have? 228. Um,
BRIAN DERRICK:yeah, but it's really more than that 'cause there's a bunch that are-- You're looking to New York Times counter.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Yeah.
BRIAN DERRICK:It's way more. They're being so annoying, uh, with, with the races that they're calling. I would say we're-- we've flipped probably 25-ish so far, so we're probably more at like 240 right now, and we're gonna land somewhere between 251 and 256.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:That's crazy.
BRIAN DERRICK:No, crazy. Crazy. I was like, "Yeah, I'm gonna be so happy if we get to 234, 235 seats." 255, boom. That's
GLENNIS MEAGHER:crazy.
BRIAN DERRICK:Like, oh my gosh, blue nami. Okay, so- Blue nami … we swept pretty, pretty much swept the competitive flips that we were targeting. So you-- people have heard us talking about these races all year and even- Mm-hmm last year. Paige Cognetti, Christina Bohannan, Sarah Trone Garriott, Rebecca Cook, Joanna Mendoza, Bob Brooks, Janelle Stelson. Ah. Like, yeah, Sam Forstag. Like all these seats- Mm-hmm … that we have been talking about and focused on, all won, all of them.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Yeah.
BRIAN DERRICK:And then the crazy thing that had me like genuinely mind-blown last night was that candidates, Democrats were winning who I had never heard of. Like, uh, there were, there were a couple- Like, you're like, "Let me
GLENNIS MEAGHER:move my ego out of the way."
BRIAN DERRICK:Yeah. Wow.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Yeah.
BRIAN DERRICK:Uh, uh, like people know I spent every single day tracking- Totally … these races, reading these names, talking directly with the candidates when needed.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:No, you're a
BRIAN DERRICK:hound. There were ca-
GLENNIS MEAGHER:candidates- You are on these, yeah
BRIAN DERRICK:who, who raised under $100,000 to their whole- Wow … like, like, like just absolute out of left field fucking stunners- Uh-huh … that just pushed all these people out. We flipped, we-- Almost every North Carolina Republican incumbent lost. Almost every single one.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:We flipped
BRIAN DERRICK:five.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:I saw that map. I was watching MSNBC now, and they were like, "This was the map in'24," and it was like three blue dots, you know, around, like, the, the universities to last night. And I was like, "It's-- Wait." I, I had to like pause the live TV 'cause I didn't get it.
BRIAN DERRICK:Wait. Like sea change, sea change is real, and North Carolina has been rolled over by a wave, like blue.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:They are on the coast, yeah.
BRIAN DERRICK:Crazy. And then additionally, North Carolina, that was partly a backlash to the gerrymander there. Mm. They tried to gerrymander Don Davis out of his seat. He won, so fuck you guys.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Official-
BRIAN DERRICK:And… Yes?… GLENNIS MEAGHER: dummy manders. Dummy manders. Dummy manders, dummy manders, dummy manders. North Carolina was a dummy mander. Florida was a dummy mander. Texas was a dummy mander. And I just wanna like reiterate that people did not think that was possible. Right after redistricting, OTH put out memos saying, "This is what it would take to turn these into dummy manders. This is what Republicans are putting at risk by banking on the 2024 vote." And for real, I talked directly to media, and they were like, "Yeah, no." They were like, "No." We got Axios to pick it up eventually. But like no one thought that was possible, and it wasn't just possible, it was universally exceeded. Like we, we flipped more seats in Texas than even the redistricted ones. Like-
GLENNIS MEAGHER:How I was like dumbfounded at seeing, seeing these numbers. And just like, I don't know if you saw like Ben Shapiro posted that tweet like early in the night where it's like a th- someone holding a pizza box, and they open the door, and the room is just on fire.
BRIAN DERRICK:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Like where he was like, "How's it going? Oh." And it-- every strategy that the MAGA movement had and used against the American people to take away democracy from them, the American people said, "Hold my beer."
BRIAN DERRICK:See ya." GLENNIS MEAGHER: I'm gonna go vote." Yeah. Pretty insane. Also, in terms of the House majority, we now have subpoena power. Robert Garcia, who's gonna be the incoming chair of oversight, is like immediately sent out a statement, and it was just a two-word- I
GLENNIS MEAGHER:saw. Lawyer up… BRIAN DERRICK: lawyer up. Lawyer up, moth- uh, the, the motherfuckers was implied. It was like, "Lawyer up-" Yeah "… motherfuckers." That's pretty much the vibe. That's gonna be pretty much the energy. Wait, can I-- Brian, I'm looking at some of these, these shifts from '24 with voting groups. Can I read them out to you? Please. There's of course also much, much more exit polling and numbers to be looked at and hoods to be lifted. But men 18 to 29, D plus 38 shift. They were like, "Oh, I got got. Okay. I, I better change my vote." All 18 to 29, D plus 32 shift. Hispanic vote, D plus 28 shift. Black men, D plus 16. White non-college, D plus 14. White women-- white women are always to blame for, for quite literally everything- … D plus 11. So we even got some of those white women back from MAGA, which I'll take. But really just these huge, huge shifts from 2024. How embarrassing for Donald Trump to be one of the most disliked presidents of American history and to have this culling of an election.
BRIAN DERRICK:Yeah, the, the press is having so much f-fun with it this morning. I'm reading just like the obliteration of Donald Trump. It's all like very that energy. A diminished lame duck Trump now has to govern with the Democratic House and Senate. Tuesday night's midterm election was an extinction level event- … for President Donald Trump's party. Like, I'm obsessed.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:I know. I had to like double check. New York Times had a-- the wor- I haven't used this word since, since the SATs. What did they say? They said, "Democrats rout GOP." I was like, "Wait,
BRIAN DERRICK:what's wrong?" Make no mistake, Democrats won by epic historic margins, obliterating everything President Trump and a Republican Party remade over the past decade.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Yeah, MAGA's effectively over.
BRIAN DERRICK:Cooked. Cooked. Cooked.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:And not everyone listening should feel the same sigh of relief that Brian and I feel, the same heavy weight off our shoulders that the American people have spoken. MAGA is done.
BRIAN DERRICK:They're gonna have to come up with something new for '28.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Yeah, sure, and they will, and whatever. But Dems have gotten better at our messaging strategy. We took from Donald Trump, too big to rig. We said we're gonna make this election too big to rig. We did. Yeah, yeah. I ran a whole show around it.
BRIAN DERRICK:Yeah, yeah.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:And what did we do?
Donald Trump last night at 11:00 PM, "Yeah, I'll accept the results."
BRIAN DERRICK:Trump is
GLENNIS MEAGHER:still asleep.
BRIAN DERRICK:Uh,
GLENNIS MEAGHER:yeah. Trump is still asleep right now. No, he's-- Someone had to wake him up to be like, "Uh, Trump, uh, they've hit the Pentagon." You know? It's like No, do you know that meme? It's a meme. Okay. I know. Yeah. Um- Oh,
BRIAN DERRICK:it's funny.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Yeah,
BRIAN DERRICK:it's- Oh, it's funny.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:But you know, here's my thing. Like I was thinking about it this morning, Trump, the writing was on the wall with his like final speech. I don't know if you watched any of that, where he just talked about the Reflecting Pool and construction.
BRIAN DERRICK:Yeah.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Yeah. And nothing really about the midterms. Like he's so checked out. Like well, let's talk about what comes next.
BRIAN DERRICK:Yeah.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:I mean, obviously it's still s- this is still so fresh, but I posted this morning, "Welcome the era of radical accountability." Like this is what I wanna see from my elected Democratic leaders. Yeah. And I want this to be a core tenet of any presidential run in '28 from a Democrat. But Trump still does have some tricks that he can pull. He can do these, he can do blanket pardons for a bunch of people. He can, he can do a lot of things. But we wanna see, we wanna see the subpoenas, we wanna see the hearings. We want the dirty laundry aired out in public for the public record for eternity.
BRIAN DERRICK:100%. Yeah, I don't wanna bring the vibes down, but the thing that I'm getting the most questions on this morning-
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Let's talk about it… BRIAN DERRICK: Jeffries and Schumer. I can't remember if we talked about it on the pod or if I did it somewhere else, but it was true before the election and it was obvious before the election. A big majority in either chamber locked in the current leader. If there was a very narrow majority in the House or a very narrow majority in the Senate, then two or three or five Democrats could've gotten together and said, "We will not vote for blank," Schumer- Yeah… BRIAN DERRICK: Jeffries, whatever, will only vote for someone else." With a 30 some seat majority in the House, that's not gonna work. Yeah.'Cause you're not gonna find 30 Democrats. I don't think, I don't think, I mean, we're, we're in the upside down right now- Yeah … with nuclear bombs, but I don't think that we're gonna find 30. The media, if you look at like Punchbowl, Politico, Axios this morning, are all convinced that both of them are 100%- Rock solid unquestionably- Yeah … locked in as majority leader in the Senate and Speaker in the House. Hakeem created a new social media profile last night that's like meant to be- That said what?… the leader's page. Oh, yeah. No, it's like kind of like the HQ, like Kamala- Yeah … had HQ or whatever her page was. So yeah, I, I don't think there's any-- W- we shouldn't gaslight our listeners to think that we're gonna have like- Some sort of revolution within the Democratic Party on Capitol Hill. But we have said this always, Brian, no matter who your elected official is, whether it's a Republican or a Democrat, and even more when it's a Democrat, you have to hold them accountable.
BRIAN DERRICK:Totally.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:So like be calling Hakeem's office. Be telling him what you want to see. He was on Morning Joe this morning saying that he's not, he's not dealing with the accountability. He wants America to look forward. Not on my watch, okay? Right. I'm gonna be calling your office every single day. He said, "Oh, that, that lives with, you know, the committee." No, no, you're leadership. Lead by example. So the work has begun anew, right? Like we we have more- Yeah … work to do now. Yeah.
BRIAN DERRICK:Yeah, and I mean, I would even argue, like there is a revolution happening in the Democratic Party- Yeah but that it's not gonna reach the speaker vote in the next month- It- yeah … when it takes place. Fair. That like it's gonna take longer for that to bubble up to the top.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Mm-hmm.
BRIAN DERRICK:But I don't s- see-- I think we're going to have a revolutionary candidate. Like I think- President … that the, the next candidate for president-
GLENNIS MEAGHER:President
BRIAN DERRICK:is gonna bring about a very different Democratic Party, and my guess is that person is not gonna want Chuck Schumer to be majority leader in the Senate. Very much the way that Trump sort of like got involved in the fight over speaker of the House and whatnot. Like-
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Yeah, yeah… BRIAN DERRICK: I, I do think that Mm-hmm. Yeah. But I don't know that it's gonna be in the next three weeks. Something I tell myself, I don't know if this is gonna be actively effective as an organizing technique, but given that Hakeem is from Brooklyn and New Yorkers now in the era of the Mamdani administration are much more engaged and much more organized. So if we can have an army of people in the city of New York holding Hakeem Jeffries to account, and, you know- Totally … only time will tell if Mamdani gets involved in, in any of that messaging or, or push to hold the administration to account. New Yorkers, we're powerful. Don't forget it.
BRIAN DERRICK:Absolutely.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Brian, we've covered the feds, the House, the Senate. We talked about some of the great diversity wins. DEI is so back with some governorships. What else was happening in the States last night? Let's talk about that.
BRIAN DERRICK:Okay, we literally could spend a full hour just talking about this, but let me give you the quick hits. Arizona, we flipped the Senate and the House. Pennsylvania, we flipped the Senate, held the House. Wisconsin, we flipped the Senate and the Assembly. Minnesota, we held the Senate, flipped the House. Michigan, we held the Senate, flipped the House. Iowa, we broke the supermajority in the House and the Senate. Indiana and Kansas, we broke the supermajority. Missouri, we broke both supermajorities. Maine, we protected our majorities. North Carolina, we flipped the House and broke the supermajority in the Senate. New Hampshire, we flipped both the House and the Senate. Ohio, we broke the supermajority. Like, uh Uh, it's- No, it- … a earthquake. It's an earthquake
GLENNIS MEAGHER:It's a, it's a, it's earth-shattering extinction event tsunami. And we have said this before on the pod, that one of the stakes of this election was what was going on in the States because of election protection for '28. Yeah. So that no fuckery could happen.
BRIAN DERRICK:Redistricting, voting rights, ballot certification, like all these things live- Veto
GLENNIS MEAGHER:power… BRIAN DERRICK: in state houses. Yeah. With the governor.
BRIAN DERRICK:I mean, we flipped the Iowa and Georgia governor seats, so flipping those legislatures and breaking super majorities on those legislatures is game-changing from having someone who can just block stuff to having someone who can, like, do stuff.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Totally. A personal victory for me last night was when Mariannette Miller-Meeks lost her seat, given that we- Yeah personally tracked her down and called her out for her protection of people in the Epstein files. I was like, "See ya." She got rocked. Yeah, rocked. And you know- She got rocked … I really, I personally have so much beef with Cindy Hyde-Smith. She is a piece of shit, and I would-
BRIAN DERRICK:Where's the beef?
GLENNIS MEAGHER:And then, oh, and then she's like,"Eat another protein."
BRIAN DERRICK:She's like, "You
GLENNIS MEAGHER:can't have any beef." Well, she's, she, you can't have beef and I'm actually gonna like fuck with our farming industry and our cattle industry. She's a horrible woman, horrible woman. She deserves to lose. Holding out hope for Mississippi.
BRIAN DERRICK:Yeah, me too. Um, I just got a note from someone who gives through us saying they're on their way to the courthouse to monitor the ballot count in Mississippi right now.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Yeah, I literally got a Google form, and I'm supposed to go to Miami this weekend, and I'm like, "Should I just go to Mississippi-"
BRIAN DERRICK:Go
GLENNIS MEAGHER:to
BRIAN DERRICK:Mississippi … and start
GLENNIS MEAGHER:recounting?"'Cause they don't do runoffs, they do a recount.
BRIAN DERRICK:Yeah. Ugh.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:I'll count those ballots.
BRIAN DERRICK:Okay, so we talked a little bit about what will happen next. We have amazing things to look forward to come, I mean, really November, December, January, we're gonna keep watching these races.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Mm-hmm.
BRIAN DERRICK:And then they'll be seated in the new Congress in January. There's like some tiny risk of them trying to pull some kind of stunt with the Supreme Court before we take back- Right the Senate. We didn't even talk about that. But like that's- I know… ultimately like the thing- Pack the
GLENNIS MEAGHER:court… BRIAN DERRICK: is that we're nomination from Trump for the rest of his term, so we're flipping the Supreme Court in 2029. Pack the court.
BRIAN DERRICK:Yeah.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Like expand the court, FDR their ass. Just to clarify for the audience, the thing that Trump could do from now until the new Congress is sworn in is push through a new Supreme Court justice. Like Alito will say,"I'm done," and then-
BRIAN DERRICK:If one of them tried to resign, right, like right now.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Trump has enemies. He pissed off so many Republicans.
BRIAN DERRICK:Exactly.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Like what?
BRIAN DERRICK:100%. Yeah, the idea that they would all like come together to do that seems, hmm, unlikely, and also It would galvanize, it would set the country on fire. There'd be riots in the streets. Like, after losing-
GLENNIS MEAGHER:We J6 their ass. Yeah… BRIAN DERRICK: like, yeah, to- I mean, not actually. I don't condone violence. I just wanna make that abundantly-
BRIAN DERRICK:Well, yeah, yeah, yeah
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Wow. What a morning in America.
BRIAN DERRICK:Yeah. This whole episode was, was a good vibe.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Yeah.
BRIAN DERRICK:What do we wanna send them off with?
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Well, I wanna s- my good vibe is thank you to everyone. Thank you to everyone who showed up and voted. Thank you to everyone who texted their friends and family members. Thank you to everyone who phone banked, text banked, posted on their social media, organized in any capacity The voters did that, and I say thank you
BRIAN DERRICK:Thank you to every single one of you. Thank you guys for listening, for following along with us all cycle. We did our Oath Candidate of the Week every week all year, and looking at the list, you're gonna be gagged.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:I'm, uh… Tell me.
BRIAN DERRICK:We won every single one of those races. Every single candidate we named as an Oath Candidate of the Week won their race. Epic.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:I'm seeing, I'm seeing Manny's 56.1.
BRIAN DERRICK:Yeah, of course you're obsessed with-
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Wow, huge
… BRIAN DERRICK:Manny now.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Well, you guys-
BRIAN DERRICK:He's not that hot, she said.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:LOL, cut to I'm like, "Oh, this is margin." Now she's like, "Is he in Congress?" Yeah. What, what's-
BRIAN DERRICK:So good… GLENNIS MEAGHER: cutie patootie Yeah, that's our good vibe, people. We did that. This is a historic morning in America, and we are getting our country back. MAGA is over. MAGA is over. Yeah. Thank you guys so much. It's been a really fun election season. We will have more to share next week, uh, because there are still results coming in. I'm gonna spend the next 48 hours deep in the weeds and in these sheets. Spreadsheets, that is. And we'll come back with more data and more things to celebrate day after day. So make sure you're following me and Glennis, and we'll be back next week. Go enjoy the day. It's a good day to be a Democrat.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:It's a good day to care about this country.
BRIAN DERRICK:Hell yeah.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:Hell yeah. Like, I need an eagle sound. Brian, a quick programming note for our audience before we go. Next week we'll be back, same place, same time as per usual. We'll break down the week's news, any election updates, and dig a little bit deeper into the midterm results, and then we're gonna go on a break.
BRIAN DERRICK:Yeah. Next week's episode will be our last for a little while. Glennis and I have both been hustling with the election cycle, and now that we've reached the finish line for now, we will be on a little bit of a hiatus.
GLENNIS MEAGHER:In the meantime, please share Vibes Only with your friends, your families. Leave us a comment. Let us know what you'd like to see next season. And until then, thanks for sticking with us. We'll see you next week