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Voters Picking New Govs In NJ And Virginia, New Mayor In NYC; Dick Cheney, Most Powerful VP In Modern History, Dies At 84; CA Voters Head To Polls To Decide On Prop 50 Redistricting Ballot Measure. Aired 12:30-1p ET
Aired November 04, 2025 - 12:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- that Ciattarelli is just going to be a yes-man to Trump, and will just do whatever Trump wants to do.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't believe that. I believe he's going to help us. I really do. Like, they said that about Trump, that he was no good, and look what he did. And any Democrat says that to me, I got a couple words for him, which I can't say on the microphone.
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DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: Sure you can. We're cable.
We're back with more Inside Politics coverage across the country on this Election Day. We want to bring you two very smart political hands. David Axelrod, Former Senior Adviser to Barack Obama, among many other jobs. And Patrick McHenry, the former Republican congressman from North Carolina and Speaker for how many days?
PATRICK MCHENRY (R), FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE: Momentarily.
BASH: David Axelrod --
DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: That's going to be a movie, the McHenry Days.
BASH: The McHenry Days?
MCHENRY: 23 days.
BASH: 23 days, but who's counting?
David Axelrod --
AXELROD: Yes.
BASH: -- I wanted -- you to take us back in time to the first election of the first term, I guess --
AXELROD: Yes.
BASH: -- of Barack Obama, the New Jersey-Virginia elections.
AXELROD: Yes.
BASH: And Republicans did really well.
AXELROD: Yes.
BASH: So is there sort of an analogy between what you experienced then and what you're looking for tonight?
AXELROD: Well, look, I do think that there are going to be some augurings in this. It will be overdone, as we always do. But there will be some augurings in this, because I think Democrats are going to do very well tonight. And I think when you put it together, I was just -- because this is what geeks do, I woke up in the middle of the night and looked at crosstabs from the CNN poll.
BASH: Wow.
AXELROD: But when you look at those and you see where the -- not just that his approval rating is not good, but the direction of the country, their attitudes about the economy, the primacy of the economy, the belief that his policies have actually made things worse and not better. This -- there will be a message here, and it probably will set up the kind of debate we're going to see in the midterm.
BASH: What do you think?
MCHENRY: Well, I think if -- a lot's changed in terms of how we communicate and everything else. The Democratic Party wanted the message out of today to be to moderate women that are very relatable, serve within the U.S. House, won competitive governor's elections, which is kind of the leadership they want to bring about for the Democratic Party.
But enter Mayor Mamdani, right? And you then have the loudest, most vibrant voice in the Democratic Party be on the very, very far left, anti-Semitic.
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All the bad things they're trying to rent out of their party are now vividly exposed. And he has two constituents in his town, the Democratic leader in the House, Democratic leader in the Senate, the potential next speaker of the House.
This is a complicated thing because the message out of this is very different and much more divided then -- and really highlights the divisions of the Democratic Party. That is a different notion today based off the speed of the memes and the messaging and everything else than it was, I think, in 2009.
BASH: And if there were two very different Republicans, you would call it a big tent.
MCHENRY: Of course. But I'm -- look, I am who I am. So, I mean, so -- but -- and that's what they'll call it. I -- but I think this is also proof positive that the major parties in this country cannot have nice things, right? And I think this is something we can unify on, which is you think the electorate's in one place and you have these midterms that are these extreme outliers for what a presidential election looks like.
AXELROD: Yes.
MCHENRY: So I think we'll learn a lot. I think David is foremost in the world on understanding the underlying pieces of data here on what matters. But I think the overall message coming out of this, Republicans will use this to make Mamdani the next Nancy Pelosi, a fantastic fundraiser in e-mails, in your inboxes very soon.
AXELROD: I couldn't agree more. I am glad you are who you are, by the way.
MCHENRY: I say.
AXELROD: Don't ever change. But I said on TV the other day that, you know, if I were sitting there on the Republican side, I'd be looking at these numbers and I'd say, we're going to get our asses kicked and we better have a story line here and Mamdani supplies the story line and we'll see.
I mean, he's not going to be -- the mayor of New York is not going to be the spokesperson for the Democratic Party, but he will be a great fundraiser --
BASH: Be the poster child (ph).
AXELROD: -- on the Republican side, as Pelosi was, as you're right. Before her, Ted Kennedy and, you know --
MCHENRY: But looking at what President Trump's message was, life's unaffordable, one year ago at the ballot box. Mamdani's message is, life is unaffordable --
AXELROD: Yes.
MCHENRY: -- one year later. And so I think that --
BASH: Because it still is.
AXELROD: And that is a through line --
MCHENRY: Yes.
AXELROD: -- you see it in, you know, the Jersey races. I think -- and you look at this poll, that is a profound issue in this country, affordability. And so people can talk about Mamdani in whatever way they will, but he's focused like a laser on that affordability issue and that's why he went from 2 percent to being on the doorstep of becoming mayor of New York.
BASH: I just want to quickly show you all some numbers. If you go back to 2009, at this time, the generic ballot was Democrats plus six, meaning the idea that Democrats would win six seats. And Republicans got 63 seats, you remember that.
And if you go back to 2017, it was D11, Democrats got 40 seats, 2025, D plus five. What's it going to be this time? Quick.
MCHENRY: Uncorrelated to what happens today.
BASH: No --
MCHENRY: Uncorrelated.
BASH: OK, but I'm just looking ahead already.
MCHENRY: Right. I don't think this is -- this dictates what's going to happen in the midterm. I don't think that was the case. I don't think the fact that you had a Democratic governor win in your second midterm at this point in -- was necessarily indicative of what was going to happen three years hence in the presidential election.
I don't think it's correlated --
AXELROD: I think she's talking about the congressional side.
BASH: Yes, so 2026, are you going to lose the House?
MCHENRY: I think it's going to be very close. And I think -- I don't think the redistricting stuff that's happening in California and all the states will predict the outcome of the House. I think it will be outside those bounds.
If history is any guide, Republicans are going to lose because history is the guide here, and that is normally what happens. I think in this case today, what you -- what Gavin Newsom wanted was to elevate himself to the presidential stage by winning this redistricting battle in California.
I don't think he's going to be a part of the narrative. I think that's going to be an interesting part of today's election, is how little he's in that narrative and how Mamdani is going to be the dominant voice.
AXELROD: Yes. Look, I think it's going to be -- I think -- like I said, there will be augurings for the next year, but it does mean something. And in your poll, what was interesting was there's a dispirited Democratic base who are mad that they're -- he's not -- they're not fighting --
BASH: Right.
AXELROD: -- Trump enough. But when you get to the vote and you say who you're going to vote for, like 98 percent of Democrats said, yes, I'm voting for the Democratic candidate. So it's important to remember that.
BASH: What a great conversation. Nice to see you both. Happy Election Day.
AXELROD: Thank you.
BASH: Coming up, Dick Cheney was one of the first national politicians in America to embrace same-sex marriage even before most Democrats, including Barack Obama. We'll look at that part of Cheney's legacy and more next.
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BASH: Back now to the death of former Vice President Richard B. Cheney. Jamie and John are back, so is Dr. Jonathan Reiner, Vice President Cheney's longtime physician. I know that you last saw him on Friday.
DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Yes. He has battled heart disease and vascular disease for almost his entire adult life. And I think he really -- he managed to squeeze every, you know, bit of juice out of his life. And as hard it is for somebody who makes a living fixing things. You know, it's hard for me -- still very hard for me to let go of people.
And I've had the blessing of having a big practice for a bunch of years now. And I take care of a lot of people through this long, you know, arc of their life. And it's both a blessing and a curse. And so, here Dick Cheney reached the end of his life. But he lived a remarkable life.
And as a physician watching a patient with heart disease thrive like this, it was remarkable. And inspiring for my other patients to see him live a full life.
BASH: Yes. I bet.
Changing subjects quite dramatically here, the position he had on same-sex marriage.
JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: Right.
BASH: Listen to this. This is 2009.
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DICK CHENEY, INFLUENTIAL REPUBLICAN VICE PRESIDENT TO GEORGE W. BUSH: Freedom means freedom for everyone. And as many of you know, one of my daughters is gay, and something that we've lived with for a long time in our family. I think people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish.
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BASH: It was such a big deal back then.
GANGEL: And like many other things, that's Dick Cheney. That was not a political answer. That was the way he really felt. And I think it's yet another example of he was true to himself. You might disagree with him, you might not like his policies, you might have very strong disagreements with him, but that's what he really felt.
JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR & CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: In some ways a pioneer in this issue. Not just in representing and standing up for his daughter, but also on his staff both on Capitol Hill and at the Pentagon. Not very public about it, but a strong supporter of gay Americans who served him as great public servants.
However, I will also say, no stranger to the contradictions of politics. In 2004, the Bush-Cheney campaign helped the Republican Party get anti-same-sex marriage ballot initiatives on state ballots. A lot of people think they won the state of Ohio because of it. And without Ohio, they would not have been reelected. So sometimes he would bite his tongue when it came to politics.
BASH: Real quick, Dr. Reiner. You were his longtime physician, I would venture to guess not entirely aligned with him politically. What do you want people to know about him in 15 seconds about the man?
REINER: Well, I didn't vote for him the first time he ran. My wife thought that was unusual. He was a pragmatist. And he took care of himself. And, you know, he believed in this country. He believed in the intrinsic goodness of this country.
BASH: That's a very nice way to end this conversation. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks to you both.
California today is taking center stage in the fight over redistricting. Up next, we're going to break down what happens there and how it could ripple across the country. Stay with us.
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BASH: Today, California voters decide the fate of a critical question. Prop 50, the key ballot measure that allows Democrats to redraw congressional districts. A new map could flip five Republican-held seats from red to blue.
CNN's Boris Sanchez visits the CNN virtual studio to break down the redistricting battle happening across the country.
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Redistricting has sparked major political and legal battles. But what exactly is it? Let's break it down using this hypothetical imaginary state as an example.
Say our state has allocated five congressional districts based on its population. Each district should hold about the same number of people so that its representation in Congress is equal. Redistricting typically happens every 10 years following the release of the U.S. Census.
So 10 years later, the newest census shows us that our imaginary state still has the same number of people, but many have moved around to different neighborhoods. So the state redraws its five districts to balance things out. The new map isn't quite as neat, but it is better representative of where people live.
Now, what if our state's voters leaned something like this? Under these new district lines, the balance of power is three seats for Party A, two for Party B. And say in our hypothetical that Party A is in charge of drawing the map.
They may be inclined to redistrict in a way that boosts their party's advantage. So they might redraw their lines something like this, shifting the balance of power to four seats for A and just one for B. When district lines are drawn this way to give one party more power, that is called gerrymandering.
And what's the result? Voters might not be fairly represented. What's not hypothetical? Both Democrats and Republicans use gerrymandering across the country. Under current law, racial gerrymandering or drawing lines to minimize the voting power of a specific racial group is illegal. But partisan gerrymandering is allowed under federal law.
And there are ongoing arguments about what a fair map really looks like and how to best represent a state. So when you see districts stretched and warped into abstract shapes, it can be a sign of gerrymandering. And those potential party gains, even small ones, matter.
In recent years, control of the House has been decided by razor thin margins. Even a single seat could determine which party controls the chamber. Last year, Americans elected 220 Republicans to 215 Democrats. And now both parties are fighting for every possible seat ahead of the 2026 midterms.
Earlier this year, Missouri Republicans redistricted with a goal of eliminating one of the state's two Democratic held seats. Their target, the 5th District, home to Kansas City, one of Missouri's largest cities. In the last House race, the 5th District went about 60 percent Democratic to 40 percent Republican.
But under the new plan, Missouri's 5th District is carved into three pieces. Each piece is then combined with more Republican areas, diluting what was once a Democratic seat into three new districts that all lean Republican.
In Texas, Republicans have recently redrawn the map with the goal of picking up five more House seats, a move that then prompted Democrats in California to propose their own redistricting plan.
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That's why tonight California voters will decide whether to approve Proposition 50, a measure that would authorize a new Democratic drawn map, one designed to offset the Republican gains in Texas by aiming to secure five additional House seats for Democrats.
These new maps will have their first test next year in the 2026 midterms, when both parties will be fighting to tip the scale to determine the balance of power in the House of Representatives.
BASH: Thanks to Boris Sanchez, who is going to be on News Central very shortly. Thank you for joining Inside Politics today. Stay with us. They'll be back after a break.
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