The Midterms
C.J. Cregg and President Bartlet's senior staff race to convert a post-assassination-attempt approval surge into midterm gains while battling moral dilemmas over exploiting tragedy, a tainted candidate, and the fate of the House.
A week after an assassination attempt propels President Bartlet's approval numbers skyward, the White House scrambles to turn sympathy into political advantage while confronting the ethical cost of doing so. The episode opens with Josh Lyman convalescing in a hospital bed—plugged into the staff's lives by speakerphone as C.J. Cregg fumbles a press gag about "The Theory of Everything"—and the administration riding a surreal 81% approval rating. Staffers convene in the Roosevelt Room, energized by polls and haunted by the shooting's aftermath, and immediately split over strategy: exploit the spike to win back the House or refrain from appearing to profit from national trauma.
C.J. asserts restraint. Toby argues for aggression, urging the White House to use the moment to crack down on guns and hate groups; his fever builds into raw anger as he demands registration and disclosure for extremist organizations, punctuated by an outburst—"YES I DO!"—that exposes how close the stakes have come to personal obsession. Bartlet, alternately sardonic and paternal, worries less about electoral arithmetic and more about moral clarity; he repeatedly returns to the small, local contest that has lodged in his conscience—a school board race against Elliot Roush, a man Bartlet once beat and now polls dangerously high in. C.J. counsels against presidential intervention in a local race, warning it will galvanize opposition and undercut the broader goal of reclaiming the House.
Parallel to the national calculus, the staff handles raw, intimate failures and loyalties. Sam Seaborn recruits Tom Jordan, a prosecutor with a compelling biography, to run for an open House seat left when Congressman Grant Samuels dies; Sam's pitch is muscular—"you'll have the full weight of the Democratic National Committee"—and he sells the campaign in five minutes. When Jordan's background surfaces—an all-white fraternity, jury-selection tactics that favor white jurors—racial leaders object and Leo McGarry moves to cut the White House's support. Sam refuses to abandon the man he recruited; the argument between Sam, Leo and Josh becomes a moral throat-punch: Sam sees desertion as betrayal, Leo sees politics as arithmetic, and Josh, recovering in his apartment, tries to broker a strategic view while still dealing with trauma.
Toby constructs a legalistic path to target extremist organizations by framing the shooting as the act of "at least three card-carrying members of West Virginia White Pride," a rhetorical maneuver meant to justify a broad federal response without immediate judicial cover. Bartlet calls the shooting what it feels like to him: "a lynching," and he presses the Attorney General to act, handing Toby keyhole satellite photos of the group's diner headquarters as proof. The moral urgency and legal uncertainty ripple through the staff: Donna enforces rules around Josh's recovery; C.J. refuses media pieces about the staff's psychological aftermath; Charlie navigates personal grief and intimacy—he and Zoey Bartlet briefly explore life beyond the White House—and technical support Andrew Mackintosh and his son Jeffrey bring tender, grounding moments to the Oval Office corridors.
The President alternates private obsession and public restraint. He broods over Elliot Roush, recounting cookie-bake sales and the small-town politics that seed national movements. He attends a Talk Radio reception to meet polarizing media figures and squares off with Dr. Jenna Jacobs over scripture and public speech, trading barbs that expose both political theater and moral conviction: Bartlet's sardonic litany of biblical injunctions forces the crowd to confront context and hypocrisy. The episode threads sharp satire with high stakes as the staff tries to keep ethical lines intact while playing for narrow, brutal wins.
On Election Night, tension resolves into a bitterly ironic result: twelve races come down to the wire and in none does the incumbent party retain control in those contests; the flips split seven to five in favor of the opposition, leaving the House effectively unchanged. Tom Jordan loses decisively—"probably 58-42"—and the Jordans angrily note the absence of White House support. Sam absorbs the loss and the sense of betrayal; Leo, pragmatic and exhausted, defends the budgetary and political calculus that forced withdrawal. The episode closes with the staff gathered on a stoop, exhausted and rueful, clinking beer bottles and intoning "God bless America." The line lands as both a benediction and a question.
The Midterms tightens the screws on conscience versus calculation. It propels characters through moral contagion: Toby's righteous fury threatens civil liberties even as it seeks justice; Sam's loyalty courts dishonor in service of political wins; Bartlet's personal fixation on a small-town schoolboard tests presidential restraint; C.J. keeps the narrative together, fumbling jokes and steering the press away from exploitation. Through sharp dialogue—C.J.'s flub over "physicists" and "psychics," Bartlet's biblical mockery, and the searing declaration that the shooting "was a lynching"—the episode dramatizes how trauma reshapes strategy, how local fights feed national contests, and how political institutions strain under the weight of their own principles. The finale refuses tidy redemption: the House survives, reputations fray, and the staff returns to work, bruised but still in motion.
Events in This Episode
The narrative beats that drive the story
The White House press briefing room pulses with frantic energy as C.J. Cregg, under the remote, demanding direction of a recovering Josh Lyman, fumbles a critical science announcement. Josh, confined to his hospital bed, insists C.J. lead with the 'Theory of Everything,' but C.J.'s exhaustion and the relentless flow of information from Toby and Leo lead her to repeatedly confuse 'physicists' with 'psychics.' This comedic yet telling misstep immediately grounds the narrative in the chaotic, high-stakes reality of the administration. Amidst the rapid-fire policy updates, the death of Congressman Grant Samuels emerges, a seemingly minor detail that will ignite the episode's central political battle. C.J.'s struggle to maintain accuracy and composure under pressure establishes the human vulnerability within the political machine, while Josh's frustration from afar underscores his continued, albeit physically distant, influence. This opening sequence, while light in tone, swiftly sets the stage for the moral and political complexities that will define the midterms.
From his hospital bed, a recovering Josh relentlessly coaches CJ on leading with the 'Theory of Everything' announcement, badgering her until she flubs 'physicists' as 'psychics' in practice amid mounting …
As C.J. hurries toward the briefing room, she's ambushed by rapid-fire policy directives: Toby drills her on spin to downplay a 0.7% CPI spike as an artifact of an 'outdated' …
Toby announces an astonishing 81% approval rating, sparking sarcastic skepticism from Sam and C.J. about its 'soft' post-assassination reliability. Tension dissolves as President Bartlet enters with Leo, launching into a …
Leo verifies the astonishing 81% approval rating from credible sources like CNN and USA Today, dismissing 'soft' doubts as Sam details Bartlet's 61% edge over GOP leaders. Ed and Larry …
In the bustling Outer Oval Office, Charlie juggles a phone call while enduring Margaret's quirky trivia on acalculia, then receives Mrs. Landingham's request to summon technician Andrew Mackintosh for her …
Charlie enters the Roosevelt Room amid staff mapping midterm targets like Cumberland and Monroe. C.J. warns the post-shooting 'honeymoon' is ending, urging restraint against exploiting tragedy; Toby aggressively pushes leveraging …
A week after the assassination attempt, the White House staff convenes, riding an astonishing 81% approval rating. The Roosevelt Room crackles with tension as Leo and Bartlet enter, immediately confronting the ethical tightrope: exploit national sympathy for midterm gains or uphold restraint. Toby, his voice raw with the recent trauma, demands aggressive action against hate groups and gun violence, his fury a palpable force against C.J.'s measured call for decorum. President Bartlet, however, remains fixated on a small-town school board race, haunted by the unexpected resurgence of Elliot Roush, a forgotten rival. Leo struggles to pull Bartlet from this personal obsession, fearing it will derail his recovery and the broader strategy. Meanwhile, Sam Seaborn, ever the idealist, recruits Tom Jordan, a compelling prosecutor, for a vacant House seat, promising the full, unwavering weight of the Democratic National Committee. This act establishes the core conflict: the administration's strategic ambition collides with its moral conscience, revealing the personal cost of public service and setting the stage for the difficult choices ahead. The initial energy of the approval surge quickly gives way to the heavy weight of ethical compromise.
Sam strides into the White House lobby for an unexpected reunion with prosecutor Tom Jordan and introduces his pregnant wife Sarah with disarming humor, feigning surprise at their marriage before …
In the Mural Room, Sam drops the pretense, revealing the DCCC recruited him to pitch Tom for Grant Samuels' vacant congressional seat after Seymour Worthen's withdrawal. He unleashes a data-packed, …
In a tense hallway confrontation spilling into Toby's office, C.J. calls out Toby's anger over her lack of support for his aggressive push to leverage the assassination attempt for gun …
In Toby's office after their hallway clash, C.J. pivots from guns policy to flag media calls probing staffers' psychological aftermath of the assassination attempt, warning it's ethically risky and could …
Energized by a post-shooting epiphany, Toby pitches Sam a precarious surveillance plan: frame the assassination attempt as the work of 'at least three card-carrying members' of West Virginia White Pride …
Fresh from his clash with Sam, Toby intercepts Donna heading to Josh's apartment with lunch, urgently pleading to join and pitch his hate crimes surveillance plan. A fleeting, warm Yiddish …
Toby, still reeling from the shooting's impact, unveils a legally precarious strategy: frame the assassination attempt as the work of 'at least three card-carrying members of West Virginia White Pride,' justifying a broad crackdown on extremist groups. Sam immediately recognizes the dangerous echo of Jim Crow-era tactics, a blatant circumvention of civil liberties, but Toby's resolve remains unyielding, driven by a desperate need for justice and a sense of personal violation. Donna, a sentinel of Josh's recovery, rigorously enforces strict visitation rules, highlighting the lingering fragility beneath the staff's public resilience and Toby's isolation in his zeal. Bartlet, deaf to Leo's pragmatic warnings, continues his almost manic tracking of Elliot Roush's school board campaign, his conviction rooted in the belief that local battles seed national movements and that these small fights hold profound moral weight. The act's tension ratchets tighter as C.J. delivers a devastating blow to Sam: Tom Jordan's prosecutorial record reveals a troubling pattern of favoring white jurors for black defendants, threatening to unravel his candidacy and expose the White House to charges of profound hypocrisy, forcing Sam to confront the ethical cost of his recruitment.
In the President's bedroom, Bartlet obsessively fixates on Elliot Roush's 46% poll surge in a tiny school district board race, commissioning polls and arguing its insidious national threat via local …
Outside the President's bedroom, C.J. assures Leo the fundraising calls are progressing well, then tentatively raises her unease about media requests for 'aftermath stories' on the assassination attempt's psychological toll—a …
In Josh's bullpen, trauma-fueled Toby pitches Step 3: public disclosure of hate groups' memberships and funding to expose threats post-assassination attempt, framing it as urgent justice. Idealist Sam instantly counters …
As Toby and Sam clash over ethically dubious hate-group disclosures, C.J. interrupts to confront Sam privately in the Mural Room about his recruited candidate, Tom Jordan. She reveals Jordan's prosecutorial …
Charlie enters the Roosevelt Room and discovers young Jeffrey sitting alone, sparking a gentle, playful exchange where he jokingly mistakes the boy for a cabinet member and quips about his …
Charlie exits the Roosevelt Room and briefly greets Sam in the hallway before Sam enters Leo's office, where Josh joins via speakerphone. Leo discloses a damaging report of Tom Jordan's …
Bartlet, a solitary figure, makes campaign calls from the Residence, a principled, if impractical, stand against soliciting donations on government property. This quiet act of integrity contrasts sharply with the escalating moral battles engulfing his staff. Charlie Young, navigating the President's moods, finds a brief, grounding respite with Andrew Mackintosh and his son Jeffrey, technical support staff, whose simple presence humanizes the White House's intense corridors. The core conflict erupts as Sam confronts Leo and Josh (via speakerphone) over their cold decision to abandon Tom Jordan. Sam's loyalty burns, seeing desertion as a profound betrayal, while Leo and Josh, calculating political arithmetic, prioritize the broader goal of winning the House, sacrificing Jordan as a liability. Toby, consumed by a righteous, trauma-fueled fury, clashes violently with C.J. over his increasingly aggressive and potentially unconstitutional methods to combat hate groups, his raw anger exploding in a defiant 'YES I DO!' when challenged. Bartlet, in a private moment with C.J., reveals his deep personal investment in the Elliot Roush race, declaring he 'doesn't care about winning back the House,' his moral conscience overriding electoral strategy, before pragmatically yielding to C.J.'s counsel.
In Josh's apartment, a raw and pacing Josh, still recovering, ruthlessly prioritizes retaking the House by urging Leo to redirect resources from flagging districts, framing Tom Jordan as a toxic …
In Josh's apartment, Sam unleashes a moral tirade against Leo and Josh for ditching Tom Jordan—a candidate Sam personally recruited—framing it as a betrayal of promises and ethics amid pragmatic …
In the President's bedroom at night, Bartlet summons C.J. and presses her on the lack of national press for Elliot Roush, his former New Hampshire opponent now leading a school …
In the President's bedroom, Bartlet confesses to C.J. that retaking the House isn't his focus—his moral outrage fixates on opponent Elliot Roush polling at 53% in a New Hampshire school …
Amid election night tension in the communications office, Sam summons Ginger, who reports all twelve key races remain too close to call, prolonging razor-thin uncertainty. Urging staff to seize phones—starting …
Sam enters his office, startled to find Tom and Sarah Jordan waiting amid election chaos. Sarah bitterly mocks their pointless trip, as Tom's loss is certain (58-42 in a 49% …
Election Day dawns under a stormy sky, mirroring the White House's internal turmoil. Sam absorbs the gut-wrenching news of Tom Jordan's decisive loss, Sarah Jordan's bitter accusations of betrayal from the White House twisting the knife deeper, leaving Sam to grapple with the personal cost of political calculation. At a talk radio reception, C.J. navigates the surreal landscape of media personalities before President Bartlet, accompanied by Toby and Sam, delivers a scathing, sardonic rebuke to Dr. Jenna Jacobs, dismantling her selective biblical interpretations with intellectual precision, asserting moral authority and revealing the very tactic that defeated Roush years ago. Amidst the political fray, Charlie and Andrew Mackintosh share a quiet, poignant moment, finding solace in shared grief and the resilient notion that 'if they're shooting at you, you know you're doing something right.' The episode culminates on Josh's stoop, where the exhausted staff gathers, clinking beer bottles as the final election results confirm a bitter, ironic truth: despite months of intense effort and millions spent, the House remains effectively unchanged. Their collective, weary 'God bless America' lands as both a benediction and a profound, lingering question about the true cost and meaning of their work, leaving them bruised but still moving forward.
In the radio hosts' reception, C.J. Cregg politely endures a baffling, insular chat with two radio guys fixated on station formats, personalities like Imus and Stern, and their own faded …
As C.J. escapes the banal radio host banter, Jenna Jacobs enters the reception amid a storm of flashbulbs, instantly transforming the festive space into a political battleground—her presence as a …
In a late-night bedroom encounter, traumatized Toby requests leave to process the assassination attempt's emotional toll and vents frustration over legal barriers to targeting extremists. Bartlet sharply refuses, granting only …
Sam interrupts Bartlet and Toby's raw confrontation with shared trauma over the assassination attempt, thrusting prepared remarks for the Talk Radio reception into the President's hands. Bartlet rallies them to …
Amid the lively reception area's flashbulbs and hors d'oeuvres, C.J. indulges in absurdly branded banter with talk radio host Gary 'with a G,' who boasts of his 900,000 Rocky Mountain …
Amid applause at the reception, President Bartlet pivots from pleasantries to surgically dismantle conservative radio host Dr. Jenna Jacobs. He exposes her lack of credentials in psychology or theology despite …
On the moonlit White House portico, Charlie playfully approaches Zoey, who sets aside her book for a kiss. Still scarred by Charlie's parental losses and the recent assassination attempt, Zoey …
Leo abruptly interrupts Charlie and Zoey's tender moment on the White House portico, urgently seeking President Bartlet, whom he suspects performed at the talk radio reception. He clarifies a need …
On Josh's apartment stoop at night, recovering Josh, C.J., Donna, and Toby share a buoyant interlude amid post-assassination recovery and midterm frenzy. Josh rhapsodizes about the outdoors after three months …
Sam approaches the senior staff on Josh's stoop after checking results, delivering the crushing news: in 12 pivotal races, every incumbent and prior party lost, but it split 7 Republicans …