Latest / Paging America / Healthcare on the Ballot: Kansas, Maine, and Michigan

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Healthcare on the Ballot: Kansas, Maine, and Michigan · Paging America

0:00
SPEAKER_03: Medicare for all is incredibly popular with voters.
0:02
SPEAKER_03: So is lowering the age of Medicare to 55.
0:04
SPEAKER_03: So is adding vision and dental and glasses to Medicare.
0:08
SPEAKER_03: So is a robust public option that allows people to buy into Medicare when they otherwise can't.
0:13
SPEAKER_03: Like all of the above is the answer because what the American people are saying,
0:17
SPEAKER_03: they're not saying that any one policy is a policy.
0:19
SPEAKER_03: They're saying we need help.
0:22
SPEAKER_03: Fix the damn system, right?
0:23
SPEAKER_01: Make it better, make everyone have it and make it more simple.
0:29
SPEAKER_01: Hey Rob, I think I'm gonna see you later today, isn't that right?
0:33
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you're like hitting the road,
0:34
SPEAKER_03: heading east out here to Grand Rapids, Michigan, right after we record.
0:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's right.
0:39
SPEAKER_01: And that's because we are going to be attending a rally and then a watch party for
0:45
SPEAKER_01: the Dr. Abdul El-Sayed versus Mike Rogers debate in Grand Rapids, Michigan today.
0:53
SPEAKER_01: And we're gonna be joined by a couple hundred of our best friends.
0:58
SPEAKER_01: And with doctors and nurses and some folks from SEIU and others all joining in
1:03
SPEAKER_01: to highlight the healthcare stakes of the election and to support Dr.
1:07
SPEAKER_01: El-Sayed.
1:10
SPEAKER_03: And I've been doing the phones the last few days, talking to fellow physicians and nurses.
1:14
SPEAKER_03: And people are fired up.
1:16
SPEAKER_03: And of course, people have lives.
1:17
SPEAKER_03: And even folks who can't make it, they're like a lot of people fired up.
1:21
SPEAKER_03: And we got a letter out there in Michigan approaching 1,000 signers of doctors
1:26
SPEAKER_03: and other health care professionals.
1:28
SPEAKER_03: A ton of excitement about electing a fellow doc to the U.S. Senate.
1:32
SPEAKER_03: And yeah, be there tonight.
1:34
SPEAKER_03: It'll be good to see you.
1:34
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, that's great.
1:35
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, we'll get into more details on this.
1:38
SPEAKER_01: This show is gonna be all about the US Senate and all the healthcare stakes and
1:42
SPEAKER_01: the healthcare drama that's engulfing a number of these races.
1:46
SPEAKER_01: So I hope you all enjoy it.
1:49
SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to Paging America.
1:50
SPEAKER_01: This is the show where we explore the power and profit shaping
1:52
SPEAKER_01: the American healthcare system and your home base for news and viewpoints
1:56
SPEAKER_01: from people building the universal healthcare movement.
1:58
SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, campaign strategist, Miles Baker.
2:01
SPEAKER_01: And I'm Dr.
2:01
SPEAKER_01: Rob Davidson.
2:02
SPEAKER_01: We're going to spend some time talking about three Senate races
2:06
SPEAKER_01: and exploring how health care is becoming sort of central to those races.
2:12
SPEAKER_01: First, Kansas, then Maine.
2:15
SPEAKER_01: And then we're going to talk about the state nearest and dearest to our heart,
2:19
SPEAKER_01: Michigan, before we go rally later today at the debate outside of the debate venue.
2:25
SPEAKER_01: Let's start with Kansas because Rob,
2:29
SPEAKER_01: if you had told me Kansas was going to be competitive this year,
2:32
SPEAKER_01: I would have told you I'm not interested in talking to you anymore.
2:38
SPEAKER_03: You've said that to me at times about certain reasons.
2:41
SPEAKER_03: I say, Miles, what do you think of this?
2:42
SPEAKER_03: He's like, no, no, I'm the campaign strategist.
2:44
SPEAKER_03: That is crazy.
2:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I am not.
2:46
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to even, but this is, I mean, it's really sorry.
2:49
SPEAKER_01: So you may recall that the Republican running for Senate in Kansas,
2:53
SPEAKER_01: Roger Marshall became nationally famous recently.
2:57
SPEAKER_01: When the New York Times reported that he had sued 700 of his OBGYN patients
3:02
SPEAKER_01: for unpaid bills as low as $101.
3:05
SPEAKER_01: 81 of them were arrested.
3:09
SPEAKER_01: Marshall had patients' paychecks and bank accounts garnished,
3:12
SPEAKER_01: routinely charging patients an 18% annual interest rate,
3:16
SPEAKER_01: a rate set by Marshall himself, according to his attorney.
3:19
SPEAKER_01: Here's a quote from the Times piece from one of the patients he sued.
3:23
SPEAKER_01: I had every intention to pay.
3:25
SPEAKER_01: I was just struggling, said Kelly Klutz, whom Mr. Marshall sued in 2015 over a $129 bill.
3:32
SPEAKER_01: Mr. Marshall sued Ms.
3:34
SPEAKER_01: Klutz when her baby was nine months old and eventually garnished her bank account.
3:39
SPEAKER_01: I was recently divorced, trying to do everything on my own, said Ms. Klutz, 45.
3:43
SPEAKER_01: I told them I could make partial payments,
3:45
SPEAKER_01: but it seemed like no matter what I said, they wanted the full amount all at once.
3:49
SPEAKER_01: At the first debate,
3:50
SPEAKER_01: Marshall said the actions he took
3:51
SPEAKER_01: against his patients were common business practices.
3:54
SPEAKER_01: Rob, have you ever sued one of your patients for like a little bit of time?
3:59
SPEAKER_03: I have not, right?
4:00
SPEAKER_03: But I mean, for 25 years, I belong to a group, an independent group of emergency doctors.
4:06
SPEAKER_03: And we would have people who said, I just can't do that, right?
4:10
SPEAKER_03: Self-pay individual.
4:11
SPEAKER_03: I can't pay that, right?
4:12
SPEAKER_03: And we would always offer like, hey, can you do 20 bucks a month, 15 bucks a month?
4:18
SPEAKER_03: And some people would literally say,
4:20
SPEAKER_03: literally,
4:21
SPEAKER_03: I have to choose between feeding my kids, paying for my heat or doing this.
4:26
SPEAKER_03: And it'd be like, okay, the big scheme of it all.
4:30
SPEAKER_03: At the same time,
4:30
SPEAKER_03: Roger Marshall was making three quarters of a million dollars a year in
4:34
SPEAKER_03: the same reports.
4:35
SPEAKER_03: Like, yeah, I think we can probably go without that $101 in Roger Marshall's pocket.
4:40
SPEAKER_03: Crazy.
4:41
SPEAKER_03: This is not routine practice.
4:43
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure that there are.
4:44
SPEAKER_01: There's like a range of physicians and physician groups
4:47
SPEAKER_01: where there's some are scrupulous,
4:48
SPEAKER_01: some are less scrupulous about how they collect their fees.
4:51
SPEAKER_01: And this is just like pursuing like these tiny dollar amounts seems so silly.
4:56
SPEAKER_03: I mean, Well, I mean, I think it's well within his rights under the law, right?
5:03
SPEAKER_03: As a business owner,
5:04
SPEAKER_03: if you provide a service and you generate a bill and there's an agreement
5:08
SPEAKER_03: that you will get paid for that service and people don't pay,
5:11
SPEAKER_03: that is something under the law that is a right he had.
5:16
SPEAKER_03: No one is denying that he had the legal right to do these things.
5:20
SPEAKER_03: We're just saying he's a fucking horrible person for having
5:25
SPEAKER_01: done this.
5:26
SPEAKER_01: Right.
5:27
SPEAKER_01: There's daylight between the law and morality.
5:30
SPEAKER_03: Well, and he ran for Congress originally as the doctor serving rural Kansas, helping patients.
5:37
SPEAKER_03: That was all his persona was this wonderful doctor who was just helping people in poor Kansas.
5:43
SPEAKER_03: What a great guy.
5:44
SPEAKER_03: How could you not like this guy?
5:46
SPEAKER_01: And he was just suing people into oblivion.
5:51
SPEAKER_01: Unbelievable.
5:53
SPEAKER_01: The volume of people that were put in handcuffs is incredible,
5:58
SPEAKER_01: too, over these tiny dollar amounts.
6:00
SPEAKER_01: And certainly, he knew that was happening and continued the practice.
6:07
SPEAKER_01: Really sort of abusing the legal system and the debt system in a way
6:13
SPEAKER_01: that he is also incredibly rich.
6:18
SPEAKER_01: So it's not like he is a wealthy person with more than one home
6:23
SPEAKER_01: and some additional reporting that he has property in Florida and spends
6:28
SPEAKER_01: an enormous amount of time there.
6:30
SPEAKER_01: So he really didn't need to do this.
6:33
SPEAKER_01: It almost was for the love of the game.
6:37
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
6:39
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
6:40
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I think I'm not a historian, but I think debtor's prison was banished in this country.
6:46
SPEAKER_03: Was it the late 1700s, early 1800s?
6:48
SPEAKER_03: So this was like his end around to that, right?
6:51
SPEAKER_03: Like getting these More on how this race has developed,
6:53
SPEAKER_03: because this has been really interesting.
6:55
SPEAKER_03: So our organization, the Committee to Protect Healthcare,
7:19
SPEAKER_01: We held a press event in the state with Kansas physicians who blamed him for
7:26
SPEAKER_01: the Medicaid cuts that are going to be really devastating for rural Kansas hospitals
7:31
SPEAKER_01: and clinics.
7:33
SPEAKER_01: And some reporters found him and said,
7:36
SPEAKER_01: would you respond to these doctors,
7:39
SPEAKER_01: these Kansas doctors who say your Medicaid cuts were bad for Kansas?
7:43
SPEAKER_01: And he looked straight into the camera.
7:47
SPEAKER_01: And said there were no Medicaid cuts, which is such a like like it's an incredible lie.
7:52
SPEAKER_01: He he knows it's a lie.
7:54
SPEAKER_01: Everyone who hears it knows it's a lie.
7:56
SPEAKER_01: You have to believe that the voters of Kansas are incredibly stupid
8:01
SPEAKER_01: or not paying attention at all in order to say something like that into the camera
8:06
SPEAKER_01: and think there's not going to be any consequences.
8:08
SPEAKER_01: Well, it turns out there was a bunch of consequences.
8:10
SPEAKER_01: It went viral.
8:12
SPEAKER_01: People watched it all over the country.
8:15
SPEAKER_01: And then right after that is when
8:17
SPEAKER_01: the New York Times dropped this incredible story sort of overshadowing
8:21
SPEAKER_01: that first viral event where he looked like an idiot or looked like a liar.
8:28
SPEAKER_01: And then you have the New York Times story that makes him look like a monster.
8:31
SPEAKER_01: And then you had his opponent,
8:34
SPEAKER_01: Adam Hamilton,
8:36
SPEAKER_01: just rock him in a big public debate, just like dominate him in the public debate.
8:41
SPEAKER_01: And so you had like these three big moments, one right after another.
8:46
SPEAKER_01: It must've been,
8:47
SPEAKER_01: must've been probably the worst month of Roger Marshall's political career far
8:51
SPEAKER_03: and away.
8:52
SPEAKER_03: He still didn't go to jail for a hundred dollar bill, right?
8:55
SPEAKER_03: Totally.
8:55
SPEAKER_01: He still didn't have as bad of a day as these women that he was jailing over
8:59
SPEAKER_01: a hundred dollar bills.
9:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
9:01
SPEAKER_03: I mean, you have senators now.
9:02
SPEAKER_03: I remember Kennedy from Louisiana talking about going to Nebraska.
9:06
SPEAKER_03: I'm not going to try to imitate his accent, which he seems to have really piled on as of late.
9:11
SPEAKER_03: But like him saying,
9:12
SPEAKER_03: if you had told me I was going to Kansas to campaign,
9:15
SPEAKER_03: I'd say we are in a world of trouble, to paraphrase.
9:18
SPEAKER_01: I believe his quote was, Kansas should have been a fat guy layup.
9:21
SPEAKER_01: They shouldn't, by any
9:22
SPEAKER_03: measure, be having to
9:40
SPEAKER_03: Spend resources and time and energy and be worried about him losing Kansas.
9:45
SPEAKER_03: But it's real, right?
9:47
SPEAKER_03: If you believe polls,
9:48
SPEAKER_03: which we got all taken with a grain of salt,
9:50
SPEAKER_03: but the polls,
9:50
SPEAKER_03: the vibes, the current climate, it's looking like it could be a thing.
9:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
9:57
SPEAKER_01: So because everyone is exercising an abundance of caution,
10:02
SPEAKER_01: optimism is almost, I think some people like optimism.
10:06
SPEAKER_01: Some people would like the Democrats to win and were disappointed
10:08
SPEAKER_01: that Donald Trump won a second time.
10:11
SPEAKER_01: I find that as I chat with them,
10:13
SPEAKER_01: even if there's an overwhelming amount of evidence as they're starting to be
10:16
SPEAKER_01: in Michigan and Texas and some of these places,
10:20
SPEAKER_01: there's a lot of evidence that things are going in the right direction for
10:23
SPEAKER_01: the Democrats.
10:25
SPEAKER_01: That there is no optimism to tap into.
10:28
SPEAKER_01: And some of our colleagues and friends,
10:30
SPEAKER_01: like they just are just going to be white knuckling it through election day.
10:35
SPEAKER_03: Guilty.
10:35
SPEAKER_03: Guilty.
10:36
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
10:36
SPEAKER_01: You can see, you can understand that with Kansas.
10:40
SPEAKER_01: The very latest poll showed Adam Hamilton up by four.
10:44
SPEAKER_01: And these are real pollsters.
10:48
SPEAKER_01: I believe the latest one was GBAO, which is a very real pollster.
10:51
SPEAKER_01: These are not fly-by-night operations sort of doing polling for the first time.
10:54
SPEAKER_01: A lot of these have been road tested for a long time and are rated A.
10:59
SPEAKER_01: And in the aggregate,
11:01
SPEAKER_01: the averages,
11:03
SPEAKER_01: both the betting markets,
11:05
SPEAKER_01: which do have some predictive power,
11:06
SPEAKER_01: although I wouldn't put as much stock into them as the poll averages,
11:09
SPEAKER_01: Both the poll averages and
11:10
SPEAKER_01: the betting markets now have Adam Hamilton just slightly favored to win in Kansas.
11:16
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
11:17
SPEAKER_03: I mean, like, hey,
11:18
SPEAKER_03: to that,
11:18
SPEAKER_03: we're going to be watching for the results of Kansas come in on election night.
11:22
SPEAKER_03: And that's awesome.
11:23
SPEAKER_03: That's awesome.
11:24
SPEAKER_03: And this guy, nobody deserves it more.
11:26
SPEAKER_03: Roger Marshall needs to go back to, well,
11:28
SPEAKER_03: hopefully not practicing medicine because he sounds like he was
11:30
SPEAKER_03: a pretty fucking awful person when he did that, but to something else, right?
11:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
11:34
SPEAKER_01: He could go.
11:35
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't have to do medicine or politics.
11:36
SPEAKER_03: He should.
11:37
SPEAKER_03: Go count your money.
11:38
SPEAKER_01: He's kind of an older guy.
11:39
SPEAKER_01: Just stay in Florida, man.
11:41
SPEAKER_01: Just stay in your big house in Florida.
11:43
SPEAKER_03: What's up with all these Florida people running in other
11:44
SPEAKER_01: The Republican Party has lost their minds and everyone now just is like,
11:48
SPEAKER_01: they just,
11:48
SPEAKER_01: the whole party is, all their social events, everything, it's all just in Florida.
11:53
SPEAKER_01: It's like another country.
11:55
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, that's for another day.
11:59
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
12:00
SPEAKER_01: Let's turn to Maine.
12:01
SPEAKER_01: Maine's got some interesting things going on.
12:03
SPEAKER_01: So where incumbent Senator Susan Collins is facing unexpected headwinds
12:07
SPEAKER_01: from former state legislator Troy Jackson,
12:09
SPEAKER_01: who is the Democrats' last minute choice to replace Graham Plattner.
12:12
SPEAKER_01: In early June,
12:13
SPEAKER_01: after losing his own gubernatorial primary,
12:15
SPEAKER_01: during their first debate this past Tuesday,
12:17
SPEAKER_01: Jackson made sure to highlight Collins' votes for Trump's big bill and
12:20
SPEAKER_01: to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.
12:23
SPEAKER_01: Collins,
12:23
SPEAKER_01: who voted against the final passage of the bill because of the cuts to
12:26
SPEAKER_01: the Medicaid program,
12:27
SPEAKER_01: voted to send it out of committee because of the billions of dollars
12:30
SPEAKER_01: to fund rural healthcare in that weird slush fund that It might be working,
12:34
SPEAKER_01: might be not, but it has a black box.
12:36
SPEAKER_01: Jackson said the law is crucifying Maine.
12:39
SPEAKER_01: Let's listen to Collins' defender votes and Jackson's response.
12:42
SPEAKER_02: And he knows very well that I proposed paying for the rural health care fund
12:51
SPEAKER_02: by increasing the costs on everyone who taxes for people making over $250,000
13:00
SPEAKER_02: a year.
13:01
SPEAKER_00: And let's direct a response to Senator Jackson.
13:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well,
13:03
SPEAKER_00: Senator Collins is like an arsonist who helped set the fire,
13:06
SPEAKER_00: and then she wants credit for bringing a cup of water to put it out.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: All right.
13:11
SPEAKER_01: All right.
13:12
SPEAKER_01: All right, Trent Jackson.
13:13
SPEAKER_01: I'll buy that.
13:14
SPEAKER_03: I'm going to talk about this, right?
13:15
SPEAKER_03: A trillion dollars in Medicaid cuts and a $50 billion slush fund that who knows what
13:20
SPEAKER_03: the hell has done or will do, right?
13:22
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
13:24
SPEAKER_03: And is required that whatever that slush fund is funding has to be appealing to
13:30
SPEAKER_03: or satisfy the whims of this administration and what they would like to see done
13:34
SPEAKER_03: and funded in healthcare.
13:35
SPEAKER_03: That doesn't sound like a very helpful thing to most Mainers or most people.
13:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and also it's part of the project of aggregating capricious power inside
13:44
SPEAKER_01: of various communities.
13:45
SPEAKER_01: Parts of the Trump administration where they now just have unilateral control
13:49
SPEAKER_01: over large swaths of funds,
13:51
SPEAKER_01: which there's no reporting that in this instance they're stealing from it.
13:55
SPEAKER_01: But a bunch of other pots of money seem to be going to various grifts and familial enterprises.
14:01
SPEAKER_01: So every time we're moving in that direction,
14:04
SPEAKER_01: we're moving away from a government that looks like
14:07
SPEAKER_01: a developed country's government.
14:11
SPEAKER_01: It's like, it's bad.
14:13
SPEAKER_01: So Jackson also criticized Collins for voting to confirm Brett Kavanaugh.
14:17
SPEAKER_01: And this has become a big part of what the race is hinging on,
14:20
SPEAKER_01: is Collins' vote for Brett Kavanaugh.
14:23
SPEAKER_01: She has long been a Republican who at least paid lip service to,
14:30
SPEAKER_01: and in some cases took very real votes, to protect reproductive rights.
14:35
SPEAKER_01: But she was the deciding vote on the Kavanaugh nomination.
14:38
SPEAKER_01: Collins quoted Ruth Bader Ginsburg saying no justice would be able to say
14:42
SPEAKER_01: in advance how they would vote on one bill or another.
14:45
SPEAKER_01: Here's how she answered when the moderator pressed her on whether
14:47
SPEAKER_01: or not she thought Kavanaugh had lied to her.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: And Senator, a quick follow up.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: You reported that you did have a chance to interview Brett Kavanaugh before his nominating vote.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: You said at the time that he said that he considered Roe v. Wade settled law.
15:01
SPEAKER_00: Do you feel at any level that Brett Kavanaugh lied to you on that day?
15:05
SPEAKER_02: I do not feel that he lied,
15:08
SPEAKER_02: but I think that he should not have said it was settled law because to me that meant
15:15
SPEAKER_02: that it would not be overturned.
15:18
SPEAKER_02: But to be fair, you cannot ask a nominee how he might vote on some hypothetical future case.
15:28
SPEAKER_01: It was impossible to believe that Brett Kavanaugh Was not going to try to overturn Roe v. Wade.
15:38
SPEAKER_01: If you had read anything about Brett Kavanaugh,
15:41
SPEAKER_01: if you knew,
15:42
SPEAKER_01: if you'd read the newspaper once,
15:44
SPEAKER_01: if you had turned on your computer once or twice and just Googled like Brett,
15:48
SPEAKER_01: you could even probably spell his last name wrong.
15:50
SPEAKER_01: And like Brett Kavanaugh,
15:52
SPEAKER_01: and you would have got to People talking about how he was against Roe v. Wade.
16:02
SPEAKER_01: It's an absurd dance that she's trying to perform,
16:04
SPEAKER_01: and I think that's why it's not working very well.
16:06
SPEAKER_03: It's not working.
16:08
SPEAKER_03: We talked about last week the fly-in that we did with the Committee
16:12
SPEAKER_03: to Protect Healthcare,
16:12
SPEAKER_03: bringing doctors in to talk to Senate staffers about Heidi Overton.
16:16
SPEAKER_03: Heidi Overton Her vaccine views,
16:19
SPEAKER_03: and we talked about a little bit in the interview with Dr.
16:21
SPEAKER_03: Offit, are crazy, like Trump.
16:23
SPEAKER_03: And she was in the Oval Office for the ridiculous EO on MMR.
16:26
SPEAKER_03: But also her views on abortion, right?
16:29
SPEAKER_03: She celebrated the fall of Roe v. Wade as a victory for life, right?
16:32
SPEAKER_03: She calls medication abortion dangerous for women and girls and that she's protecting them.
16:38
SPEAKER_03: And the FDA is undergoing a big review.
16:40
SPEAKER_03: Now, I think they're saying it's not going to come out until March.
16:42
SPEAKER_03: So well after the midterms, well after the new Senate is sworn in.
16:46
SPEAKER_03: And Susan Collins has the ability to sink that nomination with one vote, right?
16:50
SPEAKER_03: It's a one vote Republican majority on the committee, the health committee.
16:54
SPEAKER_03: She could sink it today.
16:55
SPEAKER_03: Boom.
16:56
SPEAKER_03: She could just today come out and say,
16:57
SPEAKER_03: I will not support this person because of reviews on vaccines and on abortion.
17:01
SPEAKER_03: Done.
17:02
SPEAKER_03: Because with her vote on Kavanaugh, right, she screwed over a lot of people in this country.
17:06
SPEAKER_03: But in Maine, it is still legal to have an abortion.
17:08
SPEAKER_03: So she can look Mainers in the eye and say,
17:10
SPEAKER_03: well, I didn't take away your right to have an abortion.
17:12
SPEAKER_03: We have a right, right?
17:13
SPEAKER_03: We just took away the federal, the protection at the national level.
17:17
SPEAKER_03: With Heidi Overton and the FDA,
17:19
SPEAKER_03: and if they scale back the Medicaid I think we've seen,
17:25
SPEAKER_03: I don't know if it was Holly that came out recently saying we need
17:30
SPEAKER_03: a national abortion ban, right?
17:32
SPEAKER_03: He said something about Planned Parenthood and everybody's mailbox with the medication abortion.
17:37
SPEAKER_03: She will be screwing over people in Maine, right?
17:39
SPEAKER_03: The people she has sworn to represent.
17:43
SPEAKER_03: And people are letting her know that.
17:46
SPEAKER_03: And I just feel like she can't stay silent on this and hem and haw
17:50
SPEAKER_03: and pretend like this is not an issue that she needs to deal with.
17:53
SPEAKER_03: She needs to deal with it.
17:54
SPEAKER_03: And again,
17:55
SPEAKER_03: she could be,
17:56
SPEAKER_03: right now,
17:56
SPEAKER_03: just put it to an end and put all of us out of the misery of even thinking about it.
18:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, that's the tell that this is all...
18:04
SPEAKER_01: Kabuki theater that this is all play acting
18:08
SPEAKER_01: because today she could sink Heidi Overton's nomination.
18:12
SPEAKER_01: She could ensure that there is not an ideological zealot in charge of
18:17
SPEAKER_01: the FDA's safety review process,
18:20
SPEAKER_01: repurposing the safety review process for ideological ends
18:24
SPEAKER_01: to ban medication abortion.
18:26
SPEAKER_01: She could do that today and she chooses not to.
18:29
SPEAKER_01: Every day she wakes up, she chooses not to do that again.
18:32
SPEAKER_01: And that means that she,
18:33
SPEAKER_01: that means that I think that means that likely she was lying all along.
18:37
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't just Brett Kavanaugh who was lying.
18:39
SPEAKER_01: It was Susie Collins who was lying.
18:41
SPEAKER_01: Right.
18:41
SPEAKER_03: And it doesn't absolve her of past sins, right?
18:44
SPEAKER_03: Her vote to Kavanaugh did the damage it has done.
18:47
SPEAKER_03: Right.
18:47
SPEAKER_03: For people in Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, all the places where abortion is illegal.
18:53
SPEAKER_03: Right.
18:53
SPEAKER_03: It did damage for that.
18:55
SPEAKER_03: But like this,
18:56
SPEAKER_03: this has impacts because two thirds,
18:58
SPEAKER_03: almost two thirds of abortions in this country are for medication abortion
19:01
SPEAKER_03: because it is safe.
19:03
SPEAKER_03: It is more accessible, right?
19:05
SPEAKER_03: The costs are less.
19:07
SPEAKER_03: In rural communities, Maine is a very rural state.
19:10
SPEAKER_03: I trained in Maine.
19:11
SPEAKER_03: I trained in Portland,
19:12
SPEAKER_03: the one big city,
19:12
SPEAKER_03: but it is a rural state,
19:14
SPEAKER_03: like a lot of places,
19:15
SPEAKER_03: but tons of Maine, like lots of trees and a few people here and there.
19:19
SPEAKER_03: But to have access to abortion in a state like Maine where it is legal,
19:23
SPEAKER_03: you need to be able to get medication abortion by telehealth, right?
19:27
SPEAKER_03: The means by which so many women exercise that right.
19:31
SPEAKER_03: And she'll be screwing those people over and she'll have to, you know, she has to own that.
19:37
SPEAKER_03: And I think people need to make sure that the voters in Maine understand her place
19:42
SPEAKER_03: in this right now.
19:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
19:44
SPEAKER_01: Just a little bit on the politics before we move on to the next race.
19:47
SPEAKER_01: So this one's a pure toss up.
19:49
SPEAKER_01: This one's like, as far as I can tell, like it's a coin flip.
19:52
SPEAKER_01: I think it,
19:53
SPEAKER_01: I think the big lesson here is like,
19:55
SPEAKER_01: I always think Maine is a story of a pox on everyone's house and
20:00
SPEAKER_01: the factional disputes of the Democratic Party.
20:02
SPEAKER_01: The heavy-handed work by Schumer and leadership at the Senate created
20:09
SPEAKER_01: a factional problem inside a more establishment candidate.
20:11
SPEAKER_01: And then the pretty irresponsible work in having Graham Plattner run in
20:15
SPEAKER_01: the first place created this really short campaign timeline and this sort of Uh, uh,
20:20
SPEAKER_01: uh,
20:20
SPEAKER_01: compromise that ended up with, I think ultimately a good candidate in Troy Jackson.
20:24
SPEAKER_01: He's just like, didn't have time to build as big of a campaign.
20:27
SPEAKER_01: Um, he's not as he's, he's the local guy, right?
20:31
SPEAKER_01: Like he's not like banging away on television or doing vertical video
20:35
SPEAKER_01: with panatone screens on Instagram, you know, he's, he's not, he's not a mummy.
20:42
SPEAKER_01: Um, But yeah,
20:44
SPEAKER_01: so this is so like unlike in North Carolina where you have a total retreat of
20:49
SPEAKER_01: the Republican Party or you have like,
20:51
SPEAKER_01: you know,
20:52
SPEAKER_01: total retreat in Georgia, this one's really going to come down to the wire.
20:55
SPEAKER_01: And I think all all all factional factional teams in
21:00
SPEAKER_01: the Democratic Party have like lessons to learn and big deltas coming out of Maine.
21:04
SPEAKER_01: And ultimately, I think Troy Jackson does pull this one off like fingers crossed.
21:08
SPEAKER_01: But I'm not sure it should have been close.
21:12
SPEAKER_01: So, yep.
21:13
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean,
21:14
SPEAKER_03: she's the very last of an almost dead breed of New England,
21:20
SPEAKER_03: Northeast,
21:21
SPEAKER_03: kind of moderate,
21:22
SPEAKER_03: so to speak,
21:23
SPEAKER_03: moderate or more progressive Republicans that used to be fairly common up there.
21:27
SPEAKER_03: I was up there when Olympia Snowe was a senator.
21:30
SPEAKER_03: Susan Collins was kind of early on in her career.
21:33
SPEAKER_03: And these seem to be reasonable people that I didn't have major issues with, honestly.
21:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
21:40
SPEAKER_03: Seem to be.
21:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I just think that they used to be,
21:44
SPEAKER_01: but I mean,
21:44
SPEAKER_01: she's like, I mean,
21:46
SPEAKER_01: the ProPublica reporting on how she's just taking money
21:49
SPEAKER_01: from defense contracts is incredible.
21:51
SPEAKER_01: I mean, she's just like, as she's as swampy as it gets.
21:56
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is, those are like quid pro quos for campaign cash.
21:59
SPEAKER_01: That was,
22:00
SPEAKER_01: you know,
22:00
SPEAKER_01: that's just,
22:01
SPEAKER_01: that's corruption in any,
22:02
SPEAKER_01: and in like a, in a world in which the DOJ or the FBI We're functional institutions.
22:08
SPEAKER_01: Susan Collins wouldn't be heading for the ballot.
22:10
SPEAKER_01: She'd likely be headed for prison or like indictment at minimum.
22:15
SPEAKER_01: And so we're in a funny world where the rules don't apply right now.
22:18
SPEAKER_01: And that's why you get to see Susan Collins still being on the ballot.
22:22
SPEAKER_03: We're hoping, man.
22:23
SPEAKER_03: Maine, we need you, Maine.
22:24
SPEAKER_03: Turn out, folks.
22:25
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
22:26
SPEAKER_01: If you're in Maine, anything you could do, we're rooting for you.
22:29
SPEAKER_01: All right.
22:29
SPEAKER_01: Why don't we do this, Rob?
22:30
SPEAKER_01: Let's go to our favorite state.
22:32
SPEAKER_01: Is it our favorite state?
22:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's our favorite state.
22:36
SPEAKER_03: So I'll take it.
22:36
SPEAKER_03: It's my home state as well.
22:37
SPEAKER_03: Your home state.
22:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:39
SPEAKER_01: Tonight,
22:39
SPEAKER_01: Republican Mike Rogers will face off in a debate against Dr.
22:42
SPEAKER_01: Abdul El-Sayed,
22:44
SPEAKER_01: who the Committee to Protect Healthcare has endorsed, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed.
22:49
SPEAKER_01: We've also endorsed Adam Hamilton and Troy Jackson, just as a note on that.
22:56
SPEAKER_01: This is another toss-up race, according to the Cook Political Report.
22:59
SPEAKER_01: We are privy to quite a bit of polling in Michigan and toss-up, I don't know.
23:06
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if it's awesome.
23:07
SPEAKER_01: I think Dr.
23:08
SPEAKER_01: El-Sayed is winning and is at his average,
23:11
SPEAKER_01: the pulling average having winning by five across the board,
23:14
SPEAKER_01: you know, like when you when in the aggregators.
23:16
SPEAKER_01: So like and it's been pretty consistent.
23:18
SPEAKER_01: He's like doing better and better.
23:20
SPEAKER_01: Like it's not like he's like on a downward trajectory.
23:23
SPEAKER_01: It's like tightening.
23:24
SPEAKER_01: It's like he's starting to pull away.
23:26
SPEAKER_01: It's just the pulling away is not happening as fast as you'd like to see it, I guess.
23:30
SPEAKER_01: But Roger Rogers has been attacking El-Sayed as not being a real doctor.
23:35
SPEAKER_01: And as being a dangerous extremist who is more worried about Gaza
23:38
SPEAKER_01: than your gas prices,
23:40
SPEAKER_01: the Islamophobia and the race baiting in Michigan is at a high pitch.
23:45
SPEAKER_01: They're not even hiding it now.
23:47
SPEAKER_01: They're like, he's a brown guy.
23:50
SPEAKER_01: And the TV ads are gross.
23:55
SPEAKER_01: And they got one play, the Republican Party in Michigan right now.
23:59
SPEAKER_01: And it is try to scare people that Abdul El-Sayed is not.
24:05
SPEAKER_01: There is not another substantive argument being made in the state of Michigan.
24:11
SPEAKER_01: We'll just leave it at that.
24:12
SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to get into all the different ways that they're attacking him,
24:15
SPEAKER_01: but the attacks are what you think they are, and they're coming fast and furious.
24:21
SPEAKER_01: In the meantime, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed is doing something really interesting.
24:25
SPEAKER_01: So he's famously for Medicare for All.
24:30
SPEAKER_01: I would say that What he's doing to define Medicare for All is more interesting
24:36
SPEAKER_01: than some of the other ways people campaign on Medicare for All.
24:40
SPEAKER_01: He's leaving the door open to ways that you could improve Medicare,
24:43
SPEAKER_01: such as getting rid of how complicated it is and all the different ways
24:49
SPEAKER_01: that you have to access it or deal with drugs and prescriptions,
24:53
SPEAKER_01: simplifying that, adding vision, dental, possibly lowering the age.
24:57
SPEAKER_01: There's all these ways that he's like,
25:01
SPEAKER_01: Taking Medicare for All,
25:02
SPEAKER_01: which some people just,
25:03
SPEAKER_01: it's the Bernie and Pramila Jayapal bill, and that's the only thing it is.
25:07
SPEAKER_01: And he's adding elements to it,
25:08
SPEAKER_01: which would be like progress on making our way to a single payer system.
25:14
SPEAKER_01: And that's just been an interesting thing to watch,
25:17
SPEAKER_01: how he's incorporating that into his campaign.
25:19
SPEAKER_01: And then also,
25:20
SPEAKER_01: he's making a play for Maha voters,
25:22
SPEAKER_01: which we talk about, which we say on this podcast, Democrats should do all the time.
25:27
SPEAKER_01: He's making a play by talking about healthy food,
25:30
SPEAKER_01: by talking about what makes people ill,
25:33
SPEAKER_01: by talking about public health and sort of doing so responsibly,
25:37
SPEAKER_01: not using conspiracy theorists.
25:38
SPEAKER_01: I don't know, Rob,
25:39
SPEAKER_01: you are a consumer of this campaign as a person who lives in
25:43
SPEAKER_01: the Grand Rapids media market, a new battleground in the state.
25:47
SPEAKER_01: What does it look like to you?
25:49
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, on the Rogers campaign, like they're doing that, right?
25:53
SPEAKER_03: They're pushing the racism,
25:55
SPEAKER_03: the Islamophobia because they don't, I mean,
25:57
SPEAKER_03: frankly,
25:58
SPEAKER_03: that probably politically as a campaign,
26:01
SPEAKER_03: that's what they should be doing to try to get more votes
26:03
SPEAKER_03: because they have nothing else to run on.
26:05
SPEAKER_03: They have nothing else to say that should make anyone say, oh, yeah, Mike Rogers.
26:09
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, let's have him be our senator.
26:11
SPEAKER_03: I mean, the dude basically lives in Florida now, right?
26:13
SPEAKER_03: He was a congressman from Michigan going back a ways.
26:17
SPEAKER_03: And then back in the old days, people thought of him as, I mean, he was a hawk, right?
26:21
SPEAKER_03: He was a warmongering hawk in that way.
26:25
SPEAKER_03: He was viewed as just sort of a normal Republican kind of like he is full on MAGA.
26:30
SPEAKER_03: He is Trump all the way.
26:32
SPEAKER_03: He's trying now to soften that a bit like we need to stop the tariffs.
26:35
SPEAKER_03: We need to stop the war.
26:37
SPEAKER_03: OK, great.
26:37
SPEAKER_03: Thank you for the commentary.
26:38
SPEAKER_03: You're like actually running for Senate, dude.
26:40
SPEAKER_03: What are you going to do about it?
26:41
SPEAKER_03: Right.
26:42
SPEAKER_03: So that's the one piece.
26:43
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, he has been acting
26:45
SPEAKER_01: like a pundit, hasn't he?
26:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he's like he's like a like a narrator who doesn't have any agency inside of the party.
26:52
SPEAKER_03: Like the last thing, I don't know, man.
26:55
SPEAKER_03: I don't train candidates, but candidates should not be pundits, right?
26:58
SPEAKER_03: You are running for a position where you will take a vote on something, right?
27:02
SPEAKER_03: You will push an agenda.
27:03
SPEAKER_03: You will try to pass policies.
27:04
SPEAKER_03: Don't just comment on the news, right?
27:06
SPEAKER_03: You're not a weather person commenting So yeah,
27:08
SPEAKER_03: so that piece,
27:09
SPEAKER_03: but I think a duel is showing a level of sophistication that I think is refreshing,
27:15
SPEAKER_03: particularly for people on the very progressive wing of the party.
27:18
SPEAKER_03: Because I think for years now,
27:20
SPEAKER_03: Medicare for All has been sort of like a litmus test calling card of,
27:23
SPEAKER_03: yes, I am with that crowd.
27:24
SPEAKER_03: Like you can trust me, I'm with it because Medicare for All.
27:27
SPEAKER_03: And I think because of his background,
27:28
SPEAKER_03: because of his multiple doctorates,
27:30
SPEAKER_03: because of his background in public health,
27:33
SPEAKER_03: He can look at it and say, yeah,
27:35
SPEAKER_03: like the ideal for him,
27:37
SPEAKER_03: his ideal policy is a single-payer system,
27:39
SPEAKER_03: which Medicare for All bill in Congress does do that.
27:41
SPEAKER_03: But also saying like,
27:43
SPEAKER_03: We need to make what we're doing better and almost like prime the ground
27:47
SPEAKER_03: for eventually getting to that place.
27:50
SPEAKER_03: I mean, we've talked about polling on this show.
27:52
SPEAKER_03: Medicare for all is incredibly popular with voters.
27:54
SPEAKER_03: So is lowering the age of Medicare to 55.
27:57
SPEAKER_03: So is adding health vision and dental and glasses to Medicare.
28:02
SPEAKER_03: So is a robust public option that allows people to buy into Medicare when they otherwise can't.
28:08
SPEAKER_03: Like all of the above is the answer because what the American people are saying
28:13
SPEAKER_03: And I believe this with my heart.
28:14
SPEAKER_03: They're not saying that any one policy is a policy.
28:17
SPEAKER_03: They're saying we need help.
28:19
SPEAKER_01: Fix the damn system.
28:21
SPEAKER_01: Make it better.
28:22
SPEAKER_01: Make everyone have it and make it more simple.
28:27
SPEAKER_01: The interesting thing about the Medicare for All debate is it is incredibly popular
28:32
SPEAKER_01: if you poll it, are you for Medicare for All?
28:35
SPEAKER_01: The minute you describe it, It's got a glass jaw.
28:38
SPEAKER_01: Medicare for All as a policy has a glass jaw.
28:40
SPEAKER_01: The minute you start punching it,
28:43
SPEAKER_01: it goes under 50 really fast because there are elements of taxation
28:49
SPEAKER_01: and there are elements of what happens in the private insurance markets.
28:53
SPEAKER_01: We can go down the list.
28:55
SPEAKER_01: Unlike the ACA, ACA started out now popular.
28:58
SPEAKER_01: You talk about the specifics, it gets more popular.
29:00
SPEAKER_01: Medicare for All starts really popular.
29:02
SPEAKER_01: You start talking about the specifics, it gets less popular.
29:05
SPEAKER_01: Dr. Abdul El-Sayed has pretty much avoided those pitfalls in this really high,
29:12
SPEAKER_01: this high profile race.
29:13
SPEAKER_01: It's been fascinating to watch.
29:14
SPEAKER_01: It's actually been,
29:15
SPEAKER_01: I think it's instructive for,
29:17
SPEAKER_01: maybe there are some other elements of the campaign that people will talk about.
29:21
SPEAKER_01: He will probably underperform Jocelyn Benson, who's going to be, who's running as governor.
29:25
SPEAKER_01: People will talk about maybe some of that.
29:27
SPEAKER_01: But as far as navigating the healthcare politics,
29:30
SPEAKER_01: I think it's been a real masterclass in Michigan and the way it's played out.
29:34
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think people should pay attention, right?
29:36
SPEAKER_03: Like he has a bio and a background that allows him to do this credibly.
29:40
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
29:44
SPEAKER_03: Any candidate running for any office are going to be the people taking the votes,
29:47
SPEAKER_03: going to be the people pushing the policies and trying to convince their colleagues
29:51
SPEAKER_03: of the policies.
29:52
SPEAKER_03: People should take note of this.
29:54
SPEAKER_03: Whatever the outcome of this thing, I agree with you.
29:56
SPEAKER_03: I do think he's ahead.
29:58
SPEAKER_03: But I think it's also a state,
30:01
SPEAKER_03: and I think where you have this in some states, where we have a governor's race.
30:04
SPEAKER_03: So we have a couple of high-profile statewide races, the governor's race, the Senate race.
30:08
SPEAKER_03: And Benson is kind of running away with it, right?
30:11
SPEAKER_03: John James is a really bad candidate.
30:14
SPEAKER_03: He's lost statewide twice.
30:18
SPEAKER_03: She cleaned his clock in a debate that was kind of not that exciting of a debate
30:22
SPEAKER_01: because she just beat his ass so bad.
30:25
SPEAKER_03: It was almost like,
30:26
SPEAKER_03: I never feel sorry for John James, but it's almost like, oh my God, make it stop.
30:32
SPEAKER_03: I got to turn it off.
30:33
SPEAKER_03: I can't watch this.
30:34
SPEAKER_03: He's dead.
30:34
SPEAKER_03: Stop.
30:35
SPEAKER_03: He's dead.
30:36
SPEAKER_03: Quit beating the horse.
30:37
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
30:38
SPEAKER_03: But I think when people compare it and say, well, she's going to win by 12, whatever.
30:43
SPEAKER_03: If Abdul wins by 12,
30:45
SPEAKER_03: If anyone wins by more than a couple of points in a purple state in
30:49
SPEAKER_03: the current political environment,
30:50
SPEAKER_03: not like 2026 with all the headwinds for Republicans,
30:54
SPEAKER_03: but in like today's politics with the sclerosis of party ID,
30:58
SPEAKER_03: if someone wins by four or five points, that's pretty damn good win.
31:03
SPEAKER_03: Like you can probably go to bed thinking, all right, we did okay.
31:05
SPEAKER_03: We did okay.
31:09
SPEAKER_01: I have a different thought on this, Rob.
31:11
SPEAKER_01: I think there will be something to examine in the difference between Jocelyn Benson
31:18
SPEAKER_01: and Abdullah Syed.
31:20
SPEAKER_01: And maybe there won't be that many differences.
31:22
SPEAKER_01: I want to be honest.
31:23
SPEAKER_01: I think everyone's expecting a big difference.
31:26
SPEAKER_01: I have seen some research on regional difference and seen research on other races
31:34
SPEAKER_01: where this race got polled.
31:36
SPEAKER_01: Where Abdul's doing better than Jocelyn Benson.
31:38
SPEAKER_01: It just kind of depends.
31:39
SPEAKER_01: They just like have different coalitions in the state.
31:45
SPEAKER_01: And that overall number will be interesting,
31:47
SPEAKER_01: but I think even more interesting will be how people perform inside of
31:51
SPEAKER_01: the different parts of the Democratic coalition.
31:54
SPEAKER_01: There is not a senator,
31:55
SPEAKER_01: there is not a senator running in any,
31:58
SPEAKER_01: maybe John Ossoff,
31:59
SPEAKER_01: but I haven't seen any research that says from 18 year olds to 30 year olds,
32:06
SPEAKER_01: He is running away with it.
32:08
SPEAKER_01: Now, that's always scary in a midterm because 18 to 30-year-olds don't really vote.
32:12
SPEAKER_01: In midterms.
32:14
SPEAKER_01: But he's just crushing in a demo that people were really worried was drifting rightward.
32:20
SPEAKER_01: That's cool.
32:21
SPEAKER_01: You love to see that.
32:24
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
32:25
SPEAKER_03: And speaking of the regional differences,
32:26
SPEAKER_03: his campaign now is launching a big tour of parts of the state
32:30
SPEAKER_03: where maybe Democrats don't go as much, right?
32:32
SPEAKER_03: In Northern Michigan and parts of rural Western Michigan out by me to talk
32:36
SPEAKER_03: about affordability, right?
32:37
SPEAKER_03: And I think that's really important because I think Those folks,
32:40
SPEAKER_03: as much as everyone else,
32:41
SPEAKER_03: and in some ways more so,
32:43
SPEAKER_03: particularly with the cost of fertilizer,
32:45
SPEAKER_03: the cost of diesel,
32:46
SPEAKER_03: a lot of these farming communities, they're getting just absolutely destroyed.
32:49
SPEAKER_03: The cost of tariffs in Michigan, I think, has been calculated to be the highest per person cost.
32:56
SPEAKER_03: I think with all of that going on,
33:02
SPEAKER_03: him taking it to those places, I think I read some political analysis.
33:06
SPEAKER_03: He may not win these places outright because they're tough places,
33:10
SPEAKER_03: but to just get more votes,
33:12
SPEAKER_03: to do better than historically people have done,
33:15
SPEAKER_03: I think is going to be a part of that coalition he'll put together to get over
33:19
SPEAKER_03: the finish line.
33:20
SPEAKER_03: And hopefully, listen, I trust you.
33:22
SPEAKER_03: I believe in your analysis.
33:24
SPEAKER_03: To do better than people are thinking.
33:26
SPEAKER_03: That would be such a refreshing moment on election night compared to election nights
33:31
SPEAKER_03: of the recent past where we're all just unexpectedly biting our nails
33:37
SPEAKER_03: and freaking out a little bit.
33:38
SPEAKER_03: That'll be great.
33:39
SPEAKER_01: One of the phenomenon that's happening with voters, it looks like it's very early, right?
33:44
SPEAKER_01: We don't want to read too much into early data.
33:46
SPEAKER_01: But Latino voters are...
33:49
SPEAKER_01: Outpacing their normal voting practices.
33:52
SPEAKER_01: We have voter registration data that we can take a look at
33:57
SPEAKER_01: that seems like that's way ahead of where it normally is.
33:59
SPEAKER_01: There's just a lot of enthusiasm.
34:01
SPEAKER_01: There is early voting data coming out of Virginia and Hennepin County,
34:06
SPEAKER_01: which is in Minnesota,
34:07
SPEAKER_01: where you had the really violent ice crackdown in Minneapolis-St. Paul.
34:14
SPEAKER_01: A demographic of people really seeming like they are about
34:17
SPEAKER_01: to Vote incredibly differently than they have in the past,
34:20
SPEAKER_01: both at the rate and then how democratic they are voting.
34:25
SPEAKER_01: And that makes a lot of sense because a lot
34:28
SPEAKER_01: of their communities were literally targeted by the federal government
34:30
SPEAKER_01: with violence.
34:31
SPEAKER_01: And if that happens in Michigan,
34:34
SPEAKER_01: the west side of the state has a lot of Latino voters
34:38
SPEAKER_01: and has been moving left already because of demographic change and because
34:43
SPEAKER_01: of how many people have terminal degrees or master's degrees or college degrees.
34:48
SPEAKER_01: In West Michigan, that it's already having this like leftward drift.
34:52
SPEAKER_01: But if you see like a real switch,
34:54
SPEAKER_01: a real change up in the voting behavior of the Latino community in Western Michigan,
34:58
SPEAKER_01: you could kind of see Michigan just kind of slide off the map for the Republicans
35:04
SPEAKER_01: in terms of at least in terms of like the congressional districts
35:07
SPEAKER_01: in Western Michigan,
35:08
SPEAKER_01: plus running up the score in Western Michigan just makes winning statewide for
35:12
SPEAKER_01: the Republicans very, very hard.
35:13
SPEAKER_01: And I think we're I think that's going to happen.
35:16
SPEAKER_03: I would bet a lot of Yeah, I keep an eye on, like, where I live, Otto County, right?
35:21
SPEAKER_03: There's,
35:22
SPEAKER_03: particularly in the southern part of the county near Holland,
35:23
SPEAKER_03: like a big, big,
35:25
SPEAKER_03: big Mexican-American population,
35:28
SPEAKER_03: big population around Grand Rapids area, like, kind of Wyoming, that part.
35:32
SPEAKER_03: And then even, like, in pretty rural, like, Oceania County north of me.
35:35
SPEAKER_03: Sorry to get in the weeds of counties.
35:36
SPEAKER_03: But, like, so anyway, I hope so.
35:39
SPEAKER_03: I hope, again,
35:39
SPEAKER_03: I hope on November 3rd we're all just going,
35:42
SPEAKER_03: oh, what were we all freaking out about?
35:46
SPEAKER_01: All right, Rob, I'm going to jump in the car and I'm going to drive your direction.
35:50
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to drive around Lake Michigan and I'll see you in Grand Rapids at the Dr.
35:53
SPEAKER_01: Abdullah Ed rally.
35:55
SPEAKER_03: It's going to be a while.
35:56
SPEAKER_01: Should be a good one.
35:57
SPEAKER_01: If anyone listens to this before the rally,
35:59
SPEAKER_01: hopefully we'll see you there or come to the watch party afterwards.
36:02
SPEAKER_01: I guess I'll read us out now.
36:03
SPEAKER_01: Today's episode was written by Chris Savage, Dr.
36:06
SPEAKER_01: Rob Davidson, and Me Miles Baker.
36:07
SPEAKER_01: Paging America,
36:08
SPEAKER_01: The Situation Room,
36:09
SPEAKER_01: and all the on-call segments this week were produced by Peter Ogburn
36:12
SPEAKER_01: and Chris Savage.
36:13
SPEAKER_01: All shows were edited by Peter Ogburn and April Stewie.
36:16
SPEAKER_01: Music is by Annette Somerset at Duneflower Productions.
36:18
SPEAKER_01: If you enjoyed today's show,
36:19
SPEAKER_01: please subscribe and leave us a rating on YouTube,
36:21
SPEAKER_01: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.
36:24
SPEAKER_01: Your support helps others discover the podcast.
36:26
SPEAKER_01: You can also follow Paging America on Substack.
36:29
SPEAKER_01: Rob, I'll see you later.
36:31
SPEAKER_03: See you in a few hours.