Political junkies might know Chuck Todd best for his years as the host of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” which he led from 2015 until last year. These days, he’s the host of "The Chuck Todd Cast" on YouTube and other podcast platforms.
He’ll be in Kansas City on Friday to accept the Make a Mark Leadership Award from the Poynter Institute.
Ahead of his visit, Todd told KCUR’s Up To Date that he views the U.S. Senate race in Kansas as very competitive, particularly if some Republican voters decide to stay home this election cycle.
“I think just the entire Midwest has been hit hard by (Trump’s) policies, whether it's the trade war with Canada, the tariffs overall, the price of diesel thanks to the war with Iran," Todd said. "So, I think you've had this, and you throw in the disruption in labor with the way immigration enforcement has worked.”
While he views Missouri as a comfortably red state, Todd thinks Kansas could become a key swing state in future presidential elections.
“It’s almost as if Missouri’s swing state status has been slowly creeping west, and slowly making its way to Kansas. I do think by 2036, Kansas is in the battleground,” he said. “You can sort of see that growth, the growth of the two university towns, coupled with the growth in Wichita and Topeka, throw in the Kansas City suburbs, and you can see this coming together (for Democrats).”
On the Missouri side of the state line, Todd has been following the ongoing congressional redistricting saga.
“I'll tell you what I'm concerned about with the Missouri situation is, I don't think these are legal elections. If you're going to have nominees chosen with one set of maps now on the ballot for another set of maps, that is a recipe for not having the entire delegation sat,” Todd said.
“I will say this: the Missouri Secretary of State, I mean, the entire state ought to be angry with him. He just didn't do his job, and he allowed for this chaos to happen. But I'll let others and the voters of the legislature decide how much he messed this up. But he really single-handedly created this chaos.”
- Chuck Todd, political journalist and host of the Chuck Todd Cast
