Comedian Jon Stewart wasn’t completely convinced of Democrats’ dominance in the recent elections, and, asked guests Chris Hayes and David Plouffe, “How will they squander it?”

On Thursday’s edition of The Weekly Show podcast, Stewart called the Democratic victories in gubernatorial and mayoral races, as well as California’s Prop 50 redistricting, “Amazing.”

“I guess the question next for both of you is, how will they squander it? How? How will it all go to — how will they piss this away?” Stewart asked.

“Look, I think there’s basically three elements to the victories,” MSNBC’s Hayes said. “There’s what we call thermostatic public opinion which is when one party has the White House, the other party tends to do better in the off year elections.”

He continued, “Then you’ve got like, Donald Trump is really unpopular!” causing Stewart to quip, “How dare you!”

“How can I say this? They’re going to cancel me,” Hayes joked. “You know, he’s at 39%. The national mood is dyspeptic and disgruntled…and then the third layer is, what can Democrats control? Those first two layers Democrats don’t make. The third layer is candidate recruitment, messaging, campaigns. And I think…that’s the place you’re talking about how they’re going to screw it up or how are they going to build on it, that’s the place where they can control stuff, and I think they did a lot that was right.”

Stewart added, “I think the Democrats are still a mess. I truly believe they’re a mess because there is, what this shows to me is, again, there is this underlying potential energy within the United States of America that is much larger than I think any of us could have imagined. And channelling that energy directionally will be the challenge for whoever wants to harness it. I still don’t believe they’re doing that.”

“A year is a long time,” Plouffe, who served as Barack Obama’s campaign manager, began. But I think the ’26 atmosphere should be just as good if not better for Democrats. It’s not just Trump; it’s that they’re in complete control and people are dissatisfied, right? So, I think where their campaign comes in is the quality of the candidate is always the most important thing…the piece of messaging, are you maximizing the critique against your Republican opponent as much as you can?”