What Split Ticket's models say about November

One of the best things to emerge from Election Twitter is Split Ticket, a site—like ours—devoted to rigorous election analysis. We're delighted to welcome founder Laskhya Jain on this week's episode of The Downballot podcast to tell us about how Split Ticket came to be and how he learned to trust the data over his vibes. He also gives us a sneak preview of the next update to his Senate model and spotlights several House races he thinks could be bellwethers in November. We knew we'd found a kindred spirit because we could have gone on for hours, but we're sure we'll have Lakshya on again!

Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard also discuss the shock Democratic flip in the race for Tulsa mayor, where Republicans got locked out of the general election in Tuesday's primary. Is Nir now a convert to the wisdom of top-two primaries? They then drag Utah Republicans for their naked attempt to eviscerate citizen-sponsored ballot initiatives just so they can keep gerrymandering before returning to Alaska to catch up on the surprising exit of a top GOP recruit in the state's House race.