WILLIAM BRANGHAM: We're fewer than 100 days into the new Congress, but elections are on a lot of minds this week.

Two key congressional seats are up for grabs in Florida, and, as we heard earlier, so is a swing seat on Wisconsin's state Supreme Court.

Plus, President Trump is talking openly about staying in office for a constitutionally prohibited third term.

For more, we are joined by our Politics Monday team.

That is Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report With Amy Walter and Tamara Keith of NPR.

Good evening.

So nice to see you both.

AMY WALTER, The Cook Political Report: Hello.

Great to see you.

TAMARA KEITH, National Public Radio: Great to see you.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Let's talk about the Supreme Court case.

Deema touched upon this in her very good report.

But, Amy, how much can you read into the results of a single state's Supreme Court race?

AMY WALTER: Right.

Right, this far away from the 2026 midterm elections, you have to be careful not to read too much on it, especially the topics and the issues that folks are talking about today are unlikely to be the topics we're going to be talking about in November.

One thing, though, that is going to be really important is to look at turnout.

Now, what we have known in this Trump era is that in lower turnout elections, which a state Supreme Court race in April normally is, Democrats tend to have an advantage now.

And that is because the Democratic base voter tends to be older, they tend to be higher educated, more affluent.

Those are voters who show up in election after election.

Trump's core base are people that don't always show up in off-year elections.

They show up in presidential elections.

So this is a really big test to see if the Trump coalition is actually going to turn out.

And Elon Musk is spending a lot of money doing just that, arguing that they can actually get those people who normally aren't paying much attention to politics without Donald Trump off of the couch and into the voting place.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Right, because Elon Musk cuts both ways in that regard.

I mean, he can be a big driver for the MAGA base, but he can also bring Democrats out because they're furious.

TAMARA KEITH: Right.

And this is the first big proxy battle of this new Trump era.

And Elon Musk has made it very clear by spending a lot of money, having a rally, handing out giant checks, that he's putting his political capital and his literal capital into this.

President Trump also has endorsed Brad Schimel.

Brad Schimel's literature has Donald Trump all over it.

And so while a lot of the messaging that the candidates are using, they're talking about crime and things that the state Supreme Court doesn't even actually deal with very much... while that's a lot of the messaging, the reality is that this is a proxy war.

Democratic big donors have also put money in.

Democratic small donors from all over the country are sending their dollars into this race.

And so you have this record-breaking state Supreme Court race.

I will say, as Amy cautions, in April of 2023, the Democratic-backed candidate for a state Supreme Court seat, she won.

And everybody said, wow, abortion is going to be this huge factor in the 2024 presidential race.

And in the end Donald Trump won Wisconsin.

It's this 50/50 state.

He won.

And this wasn't actually much of a predictor.

Abortion was less of a factor than anyone would have imagined it 19, 20, 22 months earlier.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Right.

Let's talk about these Florida elections.

We have got two special elections, both in GOP House seats right now.

One of these is Matt Gaetz's seat.

This is the seat that he is not refilling after his bid to become attorney general failed.

The second is Mike Waltz's seat that he is not filling because he has now ascended to become Trump's national security adviser.

Those are thought to be safe seats.

I mean, your team has called them solid R. And Trump won both of those districts by more than 30 points.

AMY WALTER: More than 30, yes.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So, again, are there real implications here if the Republicans win both those seats again?

AMY WALTER: Right.

So, again, this is why we're looking really much more at the margin than we're looking at the winner and loser or what the topics of the debate are.

You're right, Donald Trump won the more competitive of these districts by 30 points.

Nobody thinks the Republican is going to win this by 30 points or even 20 points.

The question is, what if it's single digits?

What is that going to tell us if the margin has shrunk that much?

It, again, suggests that the ability for Republicans to turn out those Trump voters is really being challenged when he's not on the ballot.

Now, this is also a time when Donald Trump is about as popular as he's ever been with his base.

And so, if you're Republicans right now and looking at these special elections and you say, wow, even when Trump's this popular, we still can't get folks to turn out and vote for Republicans, what happens next year if he's not this popular with the base or that the base still likes him, but they're just not as energized as they are today?

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Right.

Right.

AMY WALTER: That's what we're really looking for.

What we have seen in the most recent special elections for legislative races is that Democrats are outrunning what they should be getting by about nine points.

That is a significant number, when, again, if we look to 2026, if that's how well Democrats are doing in 2026, that puts them on a really good path for the House, flipping the House.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Right.

And this is akin, Tam, to what happened with GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik, who was supposed to be U.N. ambassador, but then they looked at the numbers and they thought, no, no, no, no, why don't you stay there because we need to protect that seat.

TAMARA KEITH: Yes, and certainly the president needs a Republican House and does not want to take any chances.

Elise Stefanik is nothing if not a loyal Trump Republican at this point.

And there were some questions about who the Republican candidate would be in that district.

And she is popular, as President Trump has said.

Going to the Florida Six House race, what is remarkable there is just how much money is being spent, which means just how much money is being donated.

On the Democratic side, they raised, as of mid-March, $9.5 million.

That is a lot of money.

That would put it in the top 20 for the races that happened in 2024 of House races.

If the Democrat comes up short, comes up well short, that's a big question for Democrats about where they're putting their money.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Let's shift one more gear here, staying with you, Tam.

Last night on Air Force One, you asked President Trump about these repeated comments that he has made about assuming the presidency for a third time, which we know the Constitution says you can't do.

Let's listen to what he had to say.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: I don't want to talk about a third term now, because, no matter how you look at it, we have got a long time to go.

We have a long time.

We have almost four years to go.

And that's a long time.

But, despite that, so many people are saying, you have got to run again.

They love the job we're doing.

Most importantly, they love the job we're doing.

TAMARA KEITH: Are you planning to leave office January 20, 2029?

Or are you saying you might not?

DONALD TRUMP: Go ahead.

Any other questions?

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: For people who didn't catch that, that's you saying... are you planning on sticking around?

And he says, "Any other questions?"

He didn't want to answer, but he cannot get around the Constitution, can he?

TAMARA KEITH: There are some novel legal theories that are being floated by the likes of Steve Bannon and others of that ilk.

And, no, he can't get around the Constitution, but that doesn't mean that people aren't actually talking about it.

And the fact that President Trump isn't dismissing it out of hand means that it can't be ignored, even if a lot of people still think that it's a joke, even if he's smiling when he's saying it.

There is -- it's something that cannot be completely dismissed.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Do you think this is just idle talk?

Should we just not be... AMY WALTER: No, I think you should take him literally and seriously with all these matters.

And, look, quite frankly, he's seen that there's not been much pushback on much of what he's doing from anybody.

Why would he not try to do this?

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Amy Walter, Tamara Keith, so nice to see you both.

Thank you for being here.

TAMARA KEITH: You're welcome.

AMY WALTER: You're welcome.