Full Episode - Tuesday Was A REALLY Good Night For Democrats + Can A Democrat Win Statewide In Florida?

Chuck Todd walks through a primary night that was, in his words, a really good night for Democrats — and one that may have just answered whether 2026 is shaping up as a genuine blue wave. The night's biggest single story came out of Iowa, where Zach Lahn pulled off a stunning upset of Randy Feenstra in what Chuck characterizes as a "MAHA vs. MAGA" race — Trump endorsed the establishment Feenstra and lost, which Chuck predicts will drive the president absolutely nuts. Iowa Democrats also got a substantial ticket boost when Josh Turek blew out Zach Wahls in the Senate primary, and combined with the surprisingly strong gubernatorial candidacy of Rob Sand, Iowa is now the cleanest test case in the country for whether the political wind has truly shifted — a right-leaning state where the politics are visibly in flux. Chuck flags that Lahn can probably be painted as too far right in a general, that having "congressman" as your first name has become a real disadvantage in 2026, and that the night was an unambiguous positive for Democrats nationally. He also walks through results elsewhere: New Jersey's seventh district will see Tom Keane (still mysteriously MIA from his own campaign) face Rebecca Bennett; South Dakota's gubernatorial race is headed to its first-ever runoff after four candidates each cleared 20%, and Deb Haaland is on track to become the first Native American woman governor in U.S. history. The conversation then turns to California, where Chuck warns it will be days before we have full primary results but where turnout is already on pace to exceed 2022. He cautions viewers about the inevitable early "red mirage" from the mail-vote curve, predicts Hilton has enough of a lead over Steyer that he likely survives, and argues Xavier Becerra would much rather face Hilton than Steyer in a general — though a potential scandal is looming over Becerra that could reshape the whole race. Chuck argues a Becerra-Hilton race would be a conventional Democrat-versus-Republican contest, that Steyer has spent $500 million across his last two campaigns and still has a low ceiling because he's created a genuine sense of voter exhaustion, and that the single most fascinating race in the state right now is CA-06 and Kevin Kiley. The Los Angeles mayoral picture is clarifying too: Karen Bass and Spencer Pratt appear set to advance, which Todd argues is exactly what Bass wanted — it will be far easier to turn Pratt into a Trump acolyte in a general election than to face the formidable Nithya Raman. He notes that Matt Mahan became known as "big tech's candidate" in ways that genuinely hurt him, and closes with one to watch in Montana, where independent Seth Bodner is quietly hoping the Democratic candidate eventually bows out so he can consolidate the anti-incumbent vote into a real challenge. Then, Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings — the former Orlando police chief turned local executive who is now running for governor of Florida — joins the Chuck Toddcast for a candid conversation about the challenges of being a Democrat in modern Florida and the lessons his unusual career path (accountant, then cop, then mayor) brings to executive leadership. Demings reveals that Governor Ron DeSantis personally threatened to remove him from office over his opposition to ICE operations in Orange County, and uses that experience as the entry point to a broader discussion about what's gone wrong with American law enforcement. He argues you cannot solve police shortages by lowering recruiting standards — exactly what he says ICE did when it ramped up so quickly that screening and training went out the window, with the predictable consequence that ICE has now begun poaching trained officers from state and local departments. Demings makes the case that we have to get criminals off the streets but it has to be done lawfully, that state law enforcement should not be doing immigration work, and that being elected sheriff as a partisan position creates real tensions because the actual responsibilities of the job aren't partisan at all. He pushes back on the idea that he's running to be a "performance politician" and frames his candidacy as wanting to bring competent local-government experience to a state level that he says is suffering from leaders chasing viral moments rather than delivering services. The conversation turns to the structural challenges facing Florida and the deeper question of why Democrats can't win statewide in a state that's growing more diverse by the year. Demings argues Florida's underpaid state legislators simply don't attract quality talent, that many longtime Florida Democrats have left the party out of pure frustration, and that the party's central task is to restore basic public belief in government's capacity to function. He's willing to give DeSantis credit for diversifying and growing Florida's economy, but argues the state needs to find efficie