Take the Republicans-hold-both-chambers scenario and wipe it off your chart.
Forget it.
Then stick around to the end, because what Garrett lined up for day two tomorrow matters more than anything I said today.
I spent the better part of the last two and a half weeks on the Hill for my own businesses, and the level of Republican apathy in Congress tells the whole story. They've given up on holding the House. Forget Kalshi, forget the polls. The people who need to win it have stopped acting like they can.
(To watch this morning's replay, tap this link.)
The Senate holds the real question, and I won't call it. Full toss-up. Susan Collins in Maine looks like a long shot for the Democrats. Talarico in Texas shocked me, but he keeps making a huge push. Michigan and Ohio, I see the Democrats sweeping, headlines or no headlines, because people in the core Midwest hate what they pay for groceries and gas. Some of the long shots the Democrats hope for won't happen. And Alaska counts votes in a way that takes days, so don't expect clarity there on election night.
The answer came back "impeach Hegseth"
Let me get political without getting political. I hate everybody right now. I can't stand any of them, and neither side does right by the American people in my book. That covers my full statement of politics.
I live in Arizona now, and I sat with both of our senators over the past couple of weeks. I asked one office (I won't say which) a simple question. If you get a clean sweep, what tops your priority list after the election? The answer: impeach Pete Hegseth. Number one.
I've worked the Hill for years, as Garrett has, and that answer tells me what comes next: gridlock and pet projects.
So what sits on the board? For the Democrats, the number one item comes down to the ACA subsidies (the federal help that lowers health insurance premiums for millions of people). The number of people who dropped coverage over the last year when those subsidies ran out runs massive, and it ties straight into the affordability push every one of them runs on. On energy, expect subsidies back on the plate for solar and the other green projects Congress pulled.
Defense gets tough. The budget sits at $1.5 trillion, Trump wants it closer to $1.75 trillion, and I don't see that going through without a trim. But so much money already sits locked into defense that the big primes (the Lockheeds and RTXs of the world) do just fine. I see targeted reallocations of defense assets. Wholesale cuts I don't see.
Financials and crypto fall outside my bailiwick. But if Elizabeth Warren takes the gavel on the Senate banking side, she hasn't shown that sector much love in the past, and I don't think it bodes well.
Garrett asked about the power side, where one senator out of New Mexico nuked a permitting bill nearly all of Congress supported. The bigger the Democratic sweep, the better the odds that moves. Senators and congressmen act like everybody else. Get smacked down on the football field and you realize you maybe don't have the best team out there, and you back off because you lack the numbers for the fight in the alley.
A little inside baseball: people on the Hill treat AI as much as a national security issue as anything else. You'll hear blustery speeches on the floor, but in the back chambers they understand we can't cede AI to China. That support runs under the surface where you won't see it.
Three rumor trades, and the catch
I love this time of year, because I love trading on rumors. I love trading on what people think will happen. The key, and Andrew and I say this every cycle: you've got to get out of that trade eventually.
So for today, Democratic House or full sweep, three names I like.
HCA Healthcare (HCA). I like the healthcare trade a lot, and Andrew probably hears that and wonders who took over my mic, because healthcare sits outside my wheelhouse too. But hospitals pick up massive if those subsidies come back on, and I keep an eye on HCA.
First Solar (FSLR). It hasn't shown up on my radar screen in a long time. It just did.
Eaton (ETN). More traditional infrastructure, but they do AI as well. Call it a protectionist AI play. Almost neutral, maybe a little too safe, and I like it a lot.
Anyone who knows me knows I play the big idea guy. I don't build the trades. These go to Andrew Giovinazzi, who formulates the structure on my behalf, and we'll blow out some ideas for everybody today.
Now the catch. Trump still holds the pen. He came out over the weekend, in Trumpian fashion, and said he'll serve as the veto president. Great talking point. Reality sets in on what has to get done. My read: these names get a nice pop through the end of the year, until everybody takes office in January and the market remembers that with Trump in the big seat, he vetoes everything. Trade the pop. Don't marry it.
Garrett hit me with a few more, so quick answers. GEO Group (GEO) and CoreCivic (CXW) gave us some good trades, and I think that played out. The House controls the budgets and the slashing, and the investigations into that industry alone lock it up. Bank M&A takes an Apple-merging-with-Samsung deal to get the Senate involved; Warren obsesses over monetary policy and straight-up banking, and her focus goes there.
Drones: yes and no. The drone budget didn't grow. It got reallocated. Nobody wants to see men and women go to war, and if we can shift war to machines fighting machines, both parties get behind that. More money goes to replenishment, because we burned through a lot of munitions in these recent conflicts, and that favors the big primes like RTX and AeroVironment. The up-and-comers like Red Cat (RCAT), one of my favorites and volatile as heck, wait longer for a bounce under a sweep.
If the Democrats take both chambers, the biggest shift comes as investigations into every corner of the economy, and that hurts. Reconciliation (the budget process that lets the majority pass spending without 60 Senate votes) goes to slim to none, and the high-flying, up-and-coming defense names get muted. The RTXs of the world have the pipelines to ride it out. I hope for a Democratic House and a Republican Senate, because historically that setup treats the market best, and I think it treats the economy best as a whole.
Which brings me to tomorrow. Polls open, and so does day two of Midterm Money Live at 10 AM ET. Day one covered what to protect and what to purge. Day two covers what to buy once the dust settles, and I pushed Garrett to put the two people on that I most want to hear.
First, Andrew. He stepped out of the oil stocks at the highs last week while Brent sat at $113. He already told Garrett he moved that money into four groups, and tomorrow he says which one gets the biggest slice and why. That segment alone covers your morning.
Second, Tim Colby. He runs the opposite of my segment. I told you what I saw on the Hill and what I think happens. Tim shows you what happens if every one of us has it wrong, and he brings the receipts from a vote two weeks ago where the crowd got blindsided. Every crowded trade on my list today sits inside his argument.
Garrett closes with a checklist for Wednesday morning. He gave me one line from it and asked me not to repeat it.
It costs nothing to watch. Register here and show up at 10 AM ET. Then come back Wednesday, because that's when the crew puts the trades on the table.
Frank Gregory