Election forecaster Nate Silver told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria Sunday that the polling would have to be “very wrong” for Republicans to retain control of the House, despite President Donald Trump promising “some amazing results.”

“You’ve been very vocal on the issue. Your model at this point says the Democrats have about a 75, 76% chance of winning the Senate and a 95% chance of winning the House,” Zakaria said. “But what you say is that the data actually should point everyone in that direction, and everyone is being hesitant because they have been burned in the past.”

“Yeah, look, if you take a step back and think about what are the background conditions in this election, you have gas at $4.30 a gallon. You have a president with a 37% approval rating. You have a long history of the president’s party doing poorly at midterms, including in 2018 when, under President Trump, the GOP lost 41 seats in the House. You’ve seen high turnout in Democratic primaries all year,” Silver said.

“We can talk about the early voting data, too,” Silver continued. “You know, the hard place versus the rock, I guess, is that to win in the Senate, Democrats have to win in some states that President Trump carried by double-digits in 2024. So, that’s why in the House, the polling would have to be very wrong. More wrong than in 2016 for Democrats to fail to win the House. But the Senate — everyone’s trying to guess — will this wave be big enough to inundate red states like Texas, Iowa, Ohio, Kansas, Alaska?”

Silver added, “I think the early voting data so far suggests that Democrats are turning out irregular voters. Republicans haven’t yet, the young men that voted for Trump in 2024 probably haven’t voted in this election yet. They may by November 3rd. But it seems like if you’re going to fit, based on recent precedent, that you ought to give at least as much weight to the midterms, where, where you had some problems in state by state polling, but you didn’t have this systematic presidential year polling bias.”

Watch the clip above via CNN.

The post ‘The Polling Would Have to Be Very Wrong’: Nate Silver Suggests Dems Are a Near-Lock to Win House — Solid Favorite to Win Senate in CNN Hit first appeared on Mediaite.

(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

President Donald Trump seethed on Sunday over Fox News giving air time to Democrats in the lead-up to the consequential midterm elections.

“FoxNews is spending far too much time putting on the OPPONENTS of Republican Party Candidates, people that love our Country, and have Great Policies and Ideas,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “These American Patriots are being absolutely ‘blurred out’ by the Media, and Fox is doing little to help. That’s the only reason this Race is close, if it is indeed close. President DONALD J. TRUMP”

Trump’s complaint came just hours after Fox News host Larry Kudlow, who served in the first Trump administration, fawned over the president in a phone-in interview.

“I think you’re on a roll, OK?” Kudlow said. He added, “You’ve been relentless! Your campaigning, it’s Herculean. You’re turning the tide. You’re getting voters out. You’re raising enthusiasm. The economy is booming. We’re the hottest in the world. Stocks are doing great. Drug prices are coming down. Oil is flowing through the Persian Gulf. I mean, I think in the last month you may have turned this whole thing around!”

“I have worked very hard,” Trump said. “I’ve done 14 rallies in nine days and it’s a lot.”

In recent weeks, Fox News has interviewed Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed twice; Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) talking about El Sayed; Kentucky Senate candidate Charles Booker (D), who’s running for Sen. Mitch McConnell’s seat (R-KY); and Rob Sand (D), who’s running in Iowa’s gubernatorial race.

Last week, Trump complained that Fox News was promoting Democrats in a bid to be “politically correct.”

Trump has been criss-crossing the country to stump for vulnerable Republicans as the future of the House and Senate hang in the balance. He rallied in six different states over the past week alone, and was expected to return to Michigan on Sunday where El-Sayed was narrowly leading Mike Rogers (R).

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The post Trump Seethes That ‘Fox is Doing Little to Help’ Republicans Win the Election — Hours After Appearing on the Network for a Fawning Interview first appeared on Mediaite.

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A local Iowa official called out Saturday for her past arrest record after appearing in a political ad ripping a Democratic Congressional candidate as “just plain dangerous” has spoken out — accusing the House hopeful of “spiritual abuse.”

Shellie Flockhart posted a lengthy message on X addressing her 2017 arrest for child endangerment after a Saturday report in The Washington Post highlighted her record in light of her appearance in the ad about Democrat Sarah Trone Garriott.

Trone Garriott, who is running for the House of Representative against incumbent Rep. Zach Nunn (R-IA), slammed the ad on X.

“Paid actors, corrupt politicians, and now this. This is who Zach Nunn has speaking for him in his ads,” wrote Trone Garriott, whose bio on Emily’s List identifies her as a minister.

In the ad, Flockhart, 55, who serves as a council member at large in Dallas Center, Iowa just outside of Des Moines, is one of several women who denounce Trone Garriott for her stance on trans issues, labeling the candidate as “dangerous.”

Flockhart, who did not immediately respond to Mediaite’s request for comment, took to the social media platform later Saturday with a message:

Today, I want to address a painful chapter from my past head-on, one that has recently been resurfaced by someone close to me through social media posts aimed at discrediting and shaming me.

More than 9 years ago—3355 days, to be precise—I made a grave mistake: I drank and drove with my children in the car. It was inexcusable, a profound failure in judgment that endangered those I love most and shattered the trust others placed in me.

I owned that mistake fully at the time, fulfilling all legal requirements and embracing the consequences. Since then, I’ve committed every day to sobriety, working a program that continues to guide my path.

Flockart also addressed Trone Garriott directly.

“Hey, @SarahforIowa A pastor’s job is grace and healing—not weaponizing a 10-year-old OWI against someone with a decade of sobriety. That’s not accountability. That’s spiritual abuse,” Flockhart wrote.

Trone Garriott’s campaign did not immediately respond to Mediaite’s request for comment.

The post Woman in Controversial Political Ad Accuses Democratic Congressional Hopeful of ‘Spiritual Abuse’ first appeared on Mediaite.

Screenshot via FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth (L)/Screenshot via CNN (R)

President Donald Trump’s new favorite media star works for the unlikeliest of places: CNN.

Trump has long been one of the network’s biggest critics and he even tried banning them from the White House recently (along with Politico and MS NOW) over what he described as “fake news.”

There is one part of CNN that Trump does like though, and that’s chief data analyst Harry Enten.

Trump has been praising the CNN reporters for months and that praise has only increased in the weeks ahead of the midterms. The president has even taken to showing clips of Enten at his rallies.

Donald Trump. Showing CNN clips. At MAGA rallies.

These are indeed strange times.

In the months that Trump has been praising Enten, the reporter has been doing his job, which has meant highlighting Trump’s increasingly poor approval ratings. He recently declared there’s a “five-alarm Trumpster fire” after Trump hit a new low, but even that couldn’t stop Trump’s fandom.

Here are the times Trump has praised Enten and a highlight of Enten’s coverage of Trump during the same period.

Trump Flubs Enten’s Name as He Praises Reporter

All the way back in August 2025, Trump was praising Enten, but he unfortunately flubbed the reporter’s name and called him “Harry Emden” during a clash with CNBC’s Joe Kernen on his approval ratings.

“There was a gentleman on Harry Emden yesterday on CNN, and he went crazy over how well Trump was doing. Now, you know, you don’t put that on because I think CBS is a shade. Actually, CNN is a better shade than NBC. I think NBC is probably the worst of them all. But if you check CNN tomorrow, watch Harry Emden. And you’ll see about the numbers, but that’s okay,” Trump said.

Enten joked later that some of his friends suggested he change his name after Trump’s comments. He said he gives Trump a “fair shake,” but not a “positive spin” in his coverage.

“It could have been far worse,” he said. “I am thinking of going down to the courthouse in New York when I get back to change my name. That was what some of my friends suggested.”

Trump Praises Enten as ‘Honorable’ and a ‘Good Guy’

While speaking to reporters in May, the president was asked about his MAGA following being “divided” and he jumped into praising Enten for highlighting a poll showing his MAGA support remains strong.

He said:

I like Harry Enten, you know. He’s got a lot of energy. I like him.

But he did a poll and he’s a good pro, and he gives the good and the bad, but I think he’s an honorable guy because we got a lot of good.

You know, he predicted I was going to do great with the Muslims in Michigan and win Michigan, and I did. I did good, and I won Michigan by a lot.

He made a lot of good predictions.

But he did a poll two weeks ago that said Trump is, I mean, this is up. You can check. 100 percent popularity with MAGA.

The poll in question is an NBC survey that found Trump’s support among the MAGA base was 100%. Less than a third of respondents identified themselves as MAGA. Overall, he received a 44% approval and 54% disapproval.

That very day Enten was covering Trump’s polling and he declared the president was “falling through the floor.”

The day after Trump’s praise, Enten continued highlighting the president’s increasingly poor numbers.

Trump Tells CNN Not to ‘Fire’ Enten

In a Truth Social post in August, the president praised the “credibility” of Enten, even as he accused CNN of being in a “DEATH SPIRAL.”

He wrote:

CNN is in a DEATH SPIRAL, and so is MSNOW, the new name for MSDNC — Literally, nobody is watching either Network! The best person on CNN is Pollster Harry Enten, because he was willing to show that Donald J. Trump is six times more popular than Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, or any other President — He’s got Credibility (Don’t fire him!). CNN can be turned around with new Leadership and Anchors (MSNOW cannot!), because a Great Brand can never truly be destroyed! President DONALD J. TRUMP

This praise came days after Enten reported that Trump remained popular among the Republican base.

“This is a reality check for you. That is, Donald Trump is still the sun on which the planets of the GOP revolve around. You could see it quite well here,” Enten said.

Enten noted the president’s success rate in endorsing candidates who go on to win races and he also brought out data from Elon University that showed more than 50% of Republicans named Trump as the president they most admired. That number put him ahead of Ronald Reagan (18%) and Abraham Lincoln (8%).

Trump Cherry Picks Enten Clip and Ignores All the Bad News

In a late-night Sept. 28 post on Truth Social, Trump shared a 43-second clip from a more-than-10-minute segment from Enten that cut out all the bad news and only kept the good.

Citing data from KFF and Fox News, Enten reported that Trump’s approval from the 2024 presidential election to then among MAGA Republicans had barely budged, moving from 99% to 98%.

“There’s been no real decline in MAGA support,” Enten said.

The full segment was far less flattering and showed Trump’s downward trend was only continuing.

Enten highlighted the fact that among non-MAGA Republicans, Trump’s support fell sharply from the 2024 election. Trump was favored by the voting group over former Vice President Kamala Harris by 56 points at the time, but that number shifted to just seven in less than two years.

“That is a shift, my dear friends, of 49 points away from the president of the United States among non-MAGA Republicans,” Enten said. “So his support is definitely not just ebbing there, but is absolutely crashing there.”

Trump again shared a short clip from this segment highlighting the Lincoln and Reagan numbers comparison on Oct. 18 on Truth Social. That clip was less than 40 seconds from the full 14-minute segment. CNN’s John Berman joked at the time that the graphic of Trump’s number dwarfing Reagan and Lincoln would likely end up as a printout on his desk.

Trump Literally Thanks CNN as Enten Becomes Part of His Rallies

Trump has been so taken with Enten’s reporting on his steady MAGA support that he’s taken to showing short clips of Enten at his rallies.

During an Oct. 10 rally in Clarksville, Tennessee, Trump rolled the old clip of Enten noting that MAGA support for Trump has remained near 100% since 2024.

“That support is really holding up strong,” Enten said. “It’s really, really strong.”

Again, the full segment was less flattering with Enten noting Trump was “crashing” in support among anyone who doesn’t identify as MAGA.

“Thank you, CNN!” Trump said after airing the clip.

Trump again pulled out the Enten clip at a Kalispell, Montana rally less than a week later. The president showed only the small portions from the segment that were positive.

“That’s an honor. He’s very good. He may not have a job tomorrow, but these are minor details. No, he’s very good,” Trump told the crowd about Enten.

Enten Inspires Trump to Actually Compliment CNN

Trump’s Enten fandom has remained strong, so strong in fact that CNN’s biggest critic actually had some positive things to say about the same network he tried banning from the White House.

“They did do some nice polls on me, I must say. If CNN keeps doing those polls, I’ll like them more and more,” Trump told reporters outside the White House Friday, following the airing of Enten clips at rallies.

Trump’s compliments followed Enten declaring there’s a “five alarm Trumpster fire” after a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed the president with a low 31% approval rating.

“Trump’s approval rating hits all time low,” Enten reported just days before Trump’s CNN remarks. “This is the Reuters-Ipsos poll. You know, at the beginning of his term, he was plus six. He was two thumbs up. And now we’re talking -35 points, the worst he has ever been in the Reuters-Ipsos poll.”

The post Here Are All the Times Trump Has Praised His Favorite CNN Star — Despite Network Hammering Him with Cratering Polls first appeared on Mediaite.

CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten offered a sarcastic congratulations to President Donald Trump for “yet another record broken” Thursday — an abysmally low approval rating with independent voters.

The polling numbers for Trump and the GOP have been rough the past few months, with many election prognosticators assessing the president as a drag on Republican candidates across the country as they shift their predictions on race after race to the left.

A key factor in Trump’s bad numbers, according to Enten, is how poorly he fares with independent voters. CNN anchor John Berman brought Enten on set Friday to break down the “stunning new numbers” showing just how bad it was for Trump.

Trump’s net approval rating with independents was “the worst ever heading into a midterm election,” said Enten, a whopping “50 points underwater.”

“That is way worse than George W. Bush was going into the ’06 midterm elections at 31 points underwater,” Enten continued. “That’s actually even worse than Richard Nixon was before he was forced to resign back in 1974 — he was 47 points underwater. And then, of course, [Harry] Truman, who we keep bringing up because that was a terrible midterm for Democrats — he was 27 points underwater.”

“Donald Trump, congratulations,” Enten snarked. “Yet another record broken. We’re talking about the worst ever net approval for a president heading into a midterm election.”

“These three elections were terrible” for the president’s party, Berman pointed out.

“Terrible! Awful!” Enten agreed.

“Historically awful for the incumbent party,” said Berman.

“Historically, exactly,” said Enten, noting the House and Senate had flipped during these years.

Congressional Democrats also had a “historic lead right now” in the general congressional ballot polling, Enten added, even including some past “big wave” elections.

The independent vote was key to how James Talarico was poised to be the first Democrat to win a Texas Senate seat since 1988,  as he was polling much stronger with independents than past Texas Democrats like Beto O’Rourke, said Enten.

Watch the clip above via CNN.

The post ‘Congratulations!’ CNN Data Guru Sarcastically Claps for Trump Over His Brutal Polling Milestone first appeared on Mediaite.

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President Donald Trump called out Philadelphia 76ers star LeBron James on Thursday for practicing his golf swing during the singing of the national anthem.

James made his debut with the 76ers on Tuesday when the team took on the New York Knicks in their season opener. As the teams stood on the court during the singing of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” someone in the stands caught James repeatedly practicing his golf swing. After a few seconds, James changed his motion to a jump shot.

Two days later, Trump got wind of the clip and took to Truth Social to condemn James’s actions.

“While listening to our National Anthem, LeBron James disrespects our Country!” the president said. “I said right from the beginning that he’s no good, a TOTAL DISGRACE. LeBron James should apologize to all of those Great American Warriors and Heroes who died for the American Flag, and all that our Country stands for!”

Trump was not alone in his outrage, as countless other conservatives voice their displeasure online.

OutKick founder Clay Travis called James “toxic” and added that he “can’t wait until he retires.”

Political commentator Jon Root said that athletes “need to stop disrespecting the National Anthem.”

“It’s not hard to stand for 1 min. in honor & respect for our nation & it’s servicemen and women,” Root tweeted. “They all come across as a bunch of entitled, spoiled, rich brats.”

Fox News host Laura Ingraham, who famously told James to “shut up and dribble” after he voiced his political views years earlier, sarcastically described him as “class all the way” for the gesture during the anthem.

Numerous others shared similar sentiments.

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The post Trump Shreds ‘TOTAL DISGRACE’ LeBron James for Practicing Golf Swing During National Anthem: ‘He’s No Good!’ first appeared on Mediaite.

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Zone 2 training is still having a moment—even if no one can agree on what it actually means. Legend has it that your easy, conversational-pace cardio—aka your Zone 2 heart rate—is the secret to unlocking everything from a bigger aerobic engine, to faster race times, and even to a longer life.

Whether Zone 2 deserves quite this much hype is debatable, but still, there are plenty of good reasons to master heart rate training more broadly. To train by heart rate, you aim to keep your heart rate in the "zone" that gives you your desired workout. Even if you believe every word of the Zone 2 gospel, it's completely pointless if your watch has the wrong idea of what your Zone 2 is. If you train with a Garmin watch, here’s how—and why—you should reset your heart rate zones now (and periodically).

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How Garmin determines your heart rate zones

When you first set up your Garmin, it asked for your age, weight, and a few other details. From there it generated heart rate zones, often using a default formula based on a maximum heart rate estimated from your age (typically some version of 220 minus your age). But these formulas are often wrong, since they give a single number for everybody at the same age, while real maximum heart rates vary from person to person. 

Plus, there isn’t one universally agreed-upon heart rate zone system. So if your watch assumed a max of 180 and yours is actually 195, every zone it gave you is shifted. Your "Zone 2" might really, for you, be Zone 1 (AKA a pace so easy it barely feels like a workout). Or your "Zone 2" might actually be a moderate-to-hard effort that's digging you into a hole, while you think you're taking it easy. At every step of the way, there’s a different formula and definition that determines what heart rate zone shows up on your watchface. 

To complicate things further, Garmin gives multiple options to set up your zones:

• Percent of max heart rate. This is the simplest approach. You enter (or let the watch estimate) your max, and each zone is a slice of that number. It's only as good as your max heart rate figure, which, as noted above, is often a guess.

• Percent of heart rate reserve (HRR). This method factors in both your max and your resting heart rate, so zones are based on the range your heart works across rather than just the top of it. It tends to produce more personalized zones, but it means your resting heart rate needs to be current, too.

• Percent of lactate threshold heart rate (LTHR). Here, your zones are anchored to the effort level where your body starts producing lactate faster than it can clear it, a point that's closely tied to how you actually perform. Many coaches consider this the most meaningful anchor, because it reflects your real physiology rather than a formula.

That third option raises its own question: Where does your lactate threshold number come from?

Do you need to take Garmin’s lactate test?

In the past, getting a lactate threshold estimate from a Garmin meant wearing a compatible chest strap and doing a guided test, which involved a structured, hard run on your part. On newer models, however, that's no longer the case. Garmin has been rolling out an updated lactate threshold detection that works from the wrist's optical heart rate sensor, with no chest strap and no dedicated test. Instead, the watch estimates your threshold automatically from regular outdoor runs. This feature is typically on by default and generally requires a baseline VO2 max estimate and a run or trail run recorded with heart rate. If you'd rather not leave it up to the algorithm, you can turn auto-detection off and enter your own lactate threshold heart rate manually in the heart rate zone settings. Which watches have this varies by model, so check your specific device. 

Why you need to reset your Garmin’s heart rate zones

Even if you set your zones carefully once, they don't stay accurate forever. Several things change over time:

• Your fitness changes. As you get fitter, your resting heart rate often drops, and your lactate threshold heart rate can shift. Zones based on where you were a year or two ago may not reflect where you are now.

• You age. Your maximum heart rate tends to decline gradually over the years.

• You change sports. Running, cycling, and swimming each have different heart rate behavior, and Garmin lets you set sport-specific zones for exactly this reason. If you've never touched them, you may be using running-based numbers on the bike, or vice versa.

• You switched watches or imported old data. Zones can carry over from a previous device or a profile you set up years ago.

• Your resting heart rate has changed. An outdated resting number could be throwing things off.

None of these have dramatic consequences, but if you’re focused on heart rate training, it’s worth trying to be as accurate and up-to-date as possible. If your zones are set too high, you may not be getting the aerobic stimulus you think you are. You'll also underestimate how hard your harder sessions really are, and your training load and recovery metrics can end up skewed.

On the flip side, if your zones are set too low, your "easy" runs could actually become the classic trap of training in the gray zone: too hard to recover from well, too easy to drive big gains. And because Garmin's training status, recovery time, and load features lean on your heart rate data, bad zones can quietly nudge those numbers off as well.

How to update your Garmin heart rate zones

The good news is that fixing all this should take less than 10 minutes. First, decide whether you want zones based on max heart rate, heart rate reserve, or lactate threshold. There’s a good chance you can trust the lactate threshold your watch gives you, or you can find your actual max heart rate. 

The informal way is to just notice what number you see on your watch when you can no longer speak comfortably; the more formal way is this treadmill test. You can also look through your recent hard efforts, like races, hill repeats, or all-out intervals, and see the highest sustained heart rate you've recorded. If you want a more deliberate test, a coach or a structured max-effort protocol can help, but only attempt hard testing if you're healthy and your doctor is comfortable with it. Also keep in mind that reading from a wrist-based sensor can also spike unreliably, so a chest strap gives more trustworthy numbers when accuracy matters.

Next, check your recent average resting heart rate in Garmin Connect and make sure the number your zones are using is current.

In your watch's user profile or in Garmin Connect, find the heart rate zone settings. From there you can adjust your max, change how zones are calculated, and set different zones for different sports. 

Finally, put these new zones to the test. Go for an easy run or ride at what your watch calls Zone 2. Can you hold a conversation, breathing comfortably in full sentences? Does it feel sustainable for a long time? If it feels either laughably easy or surprisingly taxing, your zones probably need another look.

The bottom line

Maybe Zone 2 is the cornerstone of your training, or maybe you think it's completely overrated. Either way, the principle is the same: You should be able to train by feel, and your watch can only help you do that if the numbers behind it are right.

Garmin gives you more ways to set your zones than most brands do. Spend 10 minutes figuring out which method your zones are using, confirming the number behind it is current, and updating it in your settings. It’ll make every easy run, hard interval, and recovery metric on your wrist more useful.