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Inside Politics
Dems Hope To Gain 4 House Seats With Virginia Gerrymander; GOP Targets Michigan As Democrats Push For Senate Control; Michigan Race Divides Democrats Over Israel & Party's Future; Congress Under Scrutiny Amid Eric Swalwell Allegations; House Ethics Committee Issues Rare Statement Encouraging Anyone With Sexual Misconduct Claims To A Make Report. Aired 12:30-1p ET
Aired April 20, 2026 - 12:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[12:30:00]
EMILY DAVIES, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: -- progressive, pointing to redistricting, and this is what we're going to see from the Democratic Party moving forward, and that's scary and dangerous. So that's how they're using it.
DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: And I mentioned a lot of money is being spent. Just check this out. This is the Virginia redistricting referendum spending. Fifty-five -- $56 million spent on the groups supporting it, meaning --
ASTEAD HERNDON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.
BASH: -- people who are supporting changing the lines, the congressional lines, $23.8 million opposing it. Now, they're being dwarfed, those who oppose it, obviously, by the spending. But it means getting out the vote. The question is, I go back to where we started, is the intended mixed messaging and muddling of --
HERNDON: Yes,
BASH: -- what it really means to vote yes or no, is that going to make a difference?
HERNDON: Yes, I mean, I was personally shocked. Like, I haven't seen these ads. You know, I live in New York. I've been kind of insulated from them. And then last night, I was watching basketball, and I was like, throughout that commercial, like, I know these two sides, and I can barely determine what they're advocating for.
BASH: Exactly.
HERNDON: It is quite confusing, and it's intentionally confusing, to your point. You know, I think the politics of it is a little messy because, you know, Republicans are certainly trying to use this to paint Spanberger in a different light. But we know the Virginia governors are term-limited. It'll be less of a question about re- election -- BASH: After one limit. I mean, one term.
HERNDON: -- after one term. But I think this really shows how the Democratic kind of base has moved to a more activist embrace. You know, when this fight started, when Gavin Newsom kind of did this to respond to Texas, I think it was pretty unclear whether Democrats would be able to mount this type of effort.
But their base has become more motivated to say, hey, Donald Trump twists the rules, and if we play by them --
BASH: Yes.
HERNDON: -- we're going to be shut out of power. And that has grown in its effectiveness among a big slice of what I think used to be more passive Democratic base.
BASH: Let me just show you guys the maps and show our viewers the maps. So the current map in Virginia, you see here that there are six seats that were won by Kamala Harris and five seats. I think we're going to have it soon. Do we have it? OK.
There are -- I'll just tell you, there are five seats at Donald Trump won. So it's pretty split. As I mentioned, it's a purple state. There you see it. It's on the left side of your screen.
This is what they want on the right, what they want to move it to. And this is what people are going to be voting on tomorrow. A change so that 10 seats will be effectively made so that a Democrat is almost sure to win one all the way on the western side of the state. Lower West would be a Donald Trump seat.
And just sort of to give you a little bit of perspective in 2024, the Republicans represented by 46.1 percent. So, meaning, Trump voters made up 46.1 percent of the vote. And the congressional breakdown would certainly not reflect that, it would look like you have a very small percentage of Republicans.
And to be fair, let's just look at another purple state, North Carolina. The percentage of 2024 Harris voters, 46.7 percent.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
BASH: So it's also split. And it flips the other way. The way that they're moving the map, there will be only three Democratic seats and 11 Republican seats. That is the definition of gerrymandering.
MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. And this is what Hakeem Jeffries, he points to North Carolina as the reason why he believes he's not in the majority right now. He is determined, he's going state by state to try to allowed -- force Democrats to fight back in the gerrymandering of their districts in sort of a certain way.
So two points. One, voters don't like this.
HERNDON: Yes.
RAJU: They don't like partisan gerrymandering, which is why Republicans say they can have mounted upset here, despite being significantly outspent here. And their -- this poll suggests that Republicans are more motivated about to vote. We'll see how that ultimately happens.
But the implications for the House and how it governs and democracy for all this partisan gerrymandering is so significant. You're not going to get members who are catering to general election voters because a primary is going to determine everything. That means our politics are going to be more left or more right.
You'll have less incentive to compromise and you're going to get these partisan ideologues from state after state of the state. The House is already such a partisan institution. Can you imagine if it's even more so and there are fewer members willing to cut deals? That's not necessarily good for democracy.
HERNDON: I think that's such a huge point, I mean, because I think Democrats are factually right about like, you know, Republicans did this and certainly Trump has pushed this. Remember places like Indiana were places he was trying to get even more seats and they resisted him on that front.
BASH (?): Yes.
HERNDON: But the impact is in legislation. The impact is how it's driving Congress further apart. And we can see a causal relationship between why is Congress so much more broken or why isn't Congress passing things that are to the scale of what American wants and the makeup of how they get there.
BASH (?): Yes.
HERNDON: Because to Manu's point, it is all about the primary more than it is about finding space in the middle, which as you talk to Americans, they universally dislike.
[12:35:06]
And so I'm like that activist to kind of voter base gap on this issue is a huge thing because if you're invested in Democratic Party or Republican Party --
BASH: Yes.
HERNDON: -- you don't care. It doesn't matter if they win. But for the rest of the folks, they are seeing a democracy that both sides have contributed to breaking.
BASH: All right. Well, in Michigan, it's getting very messy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is governing. It's not middle school. (END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: Democrats are duking it out in a juicy Senate race that Republicans want to flip. Manu Raju is here, but he was there. And we'll give you his report next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[12:40:19]
BASH: You got to see what's happening in Michigan. The Democratic Senate primary is pitting three candidates with very different ideas and funding, and it exemplifies the party's identity crisis. How progressive are Democrats and who can beat a Republican in November?
Our own Manu Raju hit the trail in Michigan.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RAJU (voice-over): Democrats are going more bullish about their chances of flipping the Senate. But in Michigan, a primary fight could douse those hopes.
MALLORY MCMORROW (D), MICHIGAN SENATE CANDIDATE: Donald Trump should not be the president.
REP. HALEY STEVENS (D), MICHIGAN SENATE CANDIDATE: I'm leading the articles of impeachment on RFK Jr.
DR. ABDUL EL-SAYED (D), MICHIGAN SENATE CANDIDATE: People love to say, well, it's because he's Arab and Muslim. No, it's because I'm -- from Michigan.
RAJU (voice-over): What started as an intraparty feud now is a clash over the party's future, what it stands for in the Trump era and just how far left they should go? The battle includes former public health official Abdul El-Sayed, a 41-year-old who is backed by Bernie Sanders and is staking out the most progressive positions.
RAJU: This is about electability. Your party wants to hold on to this seat, of course.
EL-SAYED: There is this notion that electability is about being the least offensive. If that were true, why would Donald Trump have won the presidency twice?
RAJU (voice-over): The party establishment has its own favorite, Haley Stevens, a more moderate congresswoman from the Detroit suburbs.
STEVENS: Every single poll shows I'm the best person or the only person that can beat Mike Rogers.
RAJU (voice-over): And then there's a state senator, Mallory McMorrow, angling for both wings of the party. While offering this warning as the GOP unites behind Mike Rogers, a former congressman who narrowly lost a Senate bid in 2024. As they aim to make Michigan their firewall to prevent Democrats from netting the four seats they need to win back power.
MCMORROW: And if he wins this seat, if they are successful in trying to buy this seat, then there is no path at all for Democrats to take control of the U.S. Senate.
RAJU (voice-over): That's left Democrats struggling with a thorny question in the swing state that President Donald Trump narrowly won twice and lost once. Should they nominate a firebrand to energize the base and take a harder line?
JEFF ALBRIGHT, MICHIGAN VOTER: Anybody committed to shutting down Trump and the MAGA movement, that's --
RAJU: Number one for you?
ALBRIGHT: -- number one.
RAJU (voice-over): Or a more traditional Democrat or even a leadership ally who could appeal to swing voters like this one.
RAJU: Your vote is up for grabs.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It very much is.
RAJU (voice-over): And speaking to CNN in his hometown of Ann Arbor, El-Sayed went further to the left than his foes on issues like abolishing ICE.
EL-SAYED: It's just the same lack of courage that Democrats deploy to argue as to why they should be taking money from corporations or why they should be hedging their bets on clear, obvious policies like abolishing ICE or guaranteeing health care through Medicare for All.
RAJU (voice-over): But a glaring divide is over Israel, in a state with a huge Arab American community in Dearborn and a big Jewish voting bloc in Oakland County.
RAJU: Why he's voting Abdul?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because he's not taking AIPAC money.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's against the apartheid, against sending tax money to fund a genocide in Israel.
RAJU (voice-over): An independent U.N. inquiry concluded last year that Israel had committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, an accusation the Israeli government firmly rejects.
El-Sayed, a son of Egyptian immigrants who's born in Michigan and lost to Governor Gretchen Whitmer in a tense 2018 primary, was blunt on his views.
RAJU: You said the Israeli government is evil. Do you think they're just as evil as Hamas?
EL-SAYED: Yes. Killing tens of thousands of people makes you pretty damn evil. It's not how evil is this one versus that one. Hamas, evil. Israeli government, evil. We could say both.
RAJU: Is Netanyahu, in your view, he's a war criminal?
EL-SAYED: Absolutely. Do you not think he is? When you conduct a genocide, you're a war criminal.
RAJU: What do you make of the fact that Haley Stevens is backed by AIPAC?
EL-SAYED: I find that disastrous for our politics. And you should be more interested in what's happening in Michigan than you are interested in what's happening in Tel Aviv.
RAJU (voice-over): But about 60 miles away in Lansing, one Stevens' supporter touts the Congresswoman's support for Israel.
ROBIN GILLIS, MICHIGAN VOTER: It's a normal position for a normal Democrats to support and, you know, be allies with Israel. I'm a normal Democrat. I want to vote for a normal Democrat.
RAJU (voice-over): The 42-year-old Stevens, who first won a battleground district in 2018, is running a middle-of-the-road campaign and wants to stay focused on economic issues.
RAJU: You have the support of AIPAC in this race. I'm wondering, do you embrace that support?
STEVENS: Well, look, I'm campaigning in a grassroots way alongside a ton of engaged Michiganders.
[12:45:00]
RAJU: But there's also talk from some of your opponents here that Israel, in their view, committed genocide in Gaza. Do you agree with that?
STEVENS: I don't agree with that.
RAJU (voice-over): McMorrow, the 39-year-old Democratic whip in the state Senate, goes further than Stevens.
RAJU: Do you think that Benjamin Netanyahu has committed war crimes in Gaza?
MCMORROW: I do. You know, watching the devastation, I do believe that war crimes were committed.
RAJU (voice-over): She stumps in breweries, including one in the Detroit suburb of Canton.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I like Mallory. She's a tough talker.
RAJU (voice-over): McMorrow says El-Sayed's rhetoric does not match reality.
MCMORROW: Rhetoric is nice, but results are better. RAJU: Do you think that he is pretty much all rhetoric, his campaign?
MCMORROW: I think a lot of it is. Just doing rallies and talking about issues and having rhetoric without knowing how to actually implement those things is not going to shake it up at all. That's just lobbing bombs from the outside.
RAJU (voice-over): Yet McMorrow has drawn criticism from El-Sayed, shifting her stances on issues such as Israel and corporate PAC money.
EL-SAYED: I know where my positions are, and it's clear that she's moved on a lot of these questions.
RAJU (voice-over): While Stevens accepts corporate PAC money, McMorrow says she now refuses it, after accepting it in past campaigns.
EL-SAYED: That's a change. That's a flip.
RAJU (voice-over): McMorrow defends her pivot.
MCMORROW: Over the years, I learned that not only can we campaign differently, but we can't be Republican-lite. And I am willing to be somebody who evolves.
RAJU (voice-over): El-Sayed has accused McMorrow of co-opting his positions and copying his homework poorly.
MCMORROW: This is governing. It's not middle school.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BASH: And Manu is still here. I don't know. If anybody goes up to Capitol Hill, if she wins, she might change her stance. It is a lot like middle school.
RAJU: I was about to say.
BASH: Yes. I just want to note that conversation that you had, first of all, is such a great piece. Thank you so much for going up and doing it. The -- El-Sayed said that Hamas and Israel are the same. Just for the record, Hamas is designated as a terror organization by the U.S., E.U., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and others.
RAJU: Yes. And this issue is such a dividing line in the Democratic Party, in Michigan, in particular, where it's so raw, so emotional. And we saw Democrats getting tripped up with this in the 2024 election cycle, the way Joe Biden dealt with it, then Kamala Harris dealt with it. Potentially, this cost her winning Michigan, and you're seeing this play out.
And the way that Haley Stevens answered that question, too, Dana, when I asked her, do you embrace that support from AIPAC? She would not say, because she knows how complicated it is and how it could be a decisive issue in this primary.
BASH: Yes, it certainly is. Thank you so much. As I said, great piece. Don't go anywhere. Coming up, new reporting exposes Capitol Hill's uneven power dynamics, as the House Ethics Committee encourages anyone with a sexual misconduct claim to come forward.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[12:51:57]
BASH: Who knew what and when? Major questions now engulf those closest to Eric Swalwell, as disturbing sexual assault allegations brought down the now-former congressman that includes one of his very good friends, I guess he says now-former friend, is Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona. He's also a potential 2028 presidential contender.
Astead interviewed Gallego for his new podcast, "America Actually."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. RUBEN GALLEGO (D), ARIZONA: You know, there is a culture in D.C. that is certainly existing where not just him, but many other politicians, we heard of someone that being, you know, flirty, but never inappropriate, never predatory, never towards staff and things of that nature.
My judgment was off because of many reasons, but number one, because I knew this man as a family first. We weren't just work colleagues. Our families ate dinner together. Our kids were in camps together. And I have to learn from this, and I will learn from this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: And Astead, I want to bring you in first. Tell us more about that conversation.
HERNDON: Yes. We were scheduled to talk to Senator Gallego about a number of issues as this kind of Swalwell fallout happened. And then it became fairly clear that, you know, he was both getting wrapped up, and as someone who was associated with him, and as someone who had proactively defended him online.
So that was my first set of questions was, one, did you know something? Had you heard about some of this before? And the senator said what he had told other reporters on the Hill that week, that he did not have any knowledge, that this was kind of the first time.
He'd only heard about Swalwell being, quote unquote, "flirty." I guess that only reinforced the question to me, though. Considering how you all were so close in his own telling, and considering how you had heard kind of these rumors of flirtiness, why then go that next step for the proactive defense?
He said he was deceived by Swalwell, that many others were deceived by Swalwell. But I think that kind of question of lapse of judgment will hang around, Gallego, that will not stop those sort of questions. And I also just think it kind of speaks to the culture of harassment and cultural misogyny he's talking about in Washington, D.C.
That's not just the dramatic actions that former -- that Swalwell was accused of doing, but it's also things like men defending their friends proactively online before you have the facts and information. And so I think that's the reason why this has become so much of a question for the Arizona senator also. And I don't think -- and I don't know if these answers are going to stop that.
BASH: Right. I mean, the fact is after he did that, then he torched Swalwell, but it was not until he first defended him.
HERNDON: Yes. And specifically --
BASH: Yes.
HERNDON: -- cast some doubt on some of the folks who are gathering some of those stories.
BASH: Right.
HERNDON: And I think that really has -- I think that part specifically was what angered folks.
BASH: Yes, you're exactly right. I mentioned that the House Ethics Committee is now encouraging staff or anyone on Capitol Hill to come forward with information that they might have about improper conduct with anybody. This is after a really great story written by a lot of our colleagues about how it really is on Capitol Hill.
[12:55:04]
"Congress's assessed pool of inflated male egos that breed predatory behavior -- and unfortunately, that hasn't changed after Me Too." That's according to a Democratic House member. "Men too often weaponize their positions of power and the pervasive drinking culture to prey on women."
DAVIES: It's definitely a very bad part of Washington, and it, like, affirms what so many people outside of here think about what happens. And I think when stories like this come up, it's a really important moment to, like, take a look at what we all hear and what we think is normal living here, being in this space, and like reexamining a lot of the smoke and wondering, you know, how much of that is leading to a really bad fire.
RAJU: And the fact that the House Ethics Committee made that statement is significant in and of itself. It rarely makes statements, but it shows you the amount of public pressure that is now coming out.
BASH: Yes, no question.
Thank you all. Thanks for all your great reporting. Thank you for joining Inside Politics today. CNN News Central starts after a quick break.
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