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Why You Shouldn't Panic About the Polls · Pod Save America

• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Welcome to a special episode of Pod Save America. I'm
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Dan Pfeiffer. This is the first of four bonus pods
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: I'll be hosting on Sundays in the lead up to
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: the election. These episodes will be focused on something that
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: keeps us all up at night. Polling. What's a good poll?
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: What's a bad poll? And how can you tell the difference?
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: If you like these episodes, I highly recommend you sign
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: up to get my subscriber show, Polar Coaster, by subscribing
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: to Friends of the Pod at crooked.com slash friends or
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: through the Apple podcast feed. It's where we dig really
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: deep into polling. It's a great way to support Crooked Media.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: And we have a 25% off discount for annual subscriptions
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: right now. In today's episode, I'll be talking with Kamala Harris,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Senior Campaign Advisor David Plouffe about the state of the race,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: the Harris campaign's targets in the last 30 days, and
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: how the electoral map is shaping up. And then with
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: ECHI's research partner, Carlos Odeo, to discuss the latest with
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  Speaker 1: the potentially most consequential vote of the entire election, the
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Latino vote. David Plouffe and I worked on the Obama
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: campaign together. He was Obama's campaign manager in 2008. He
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: was senior advisor in the White House. And when he left,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: I took his old job. There is no one whose
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  Speaker 1: political instincts I trust more. So let's get into it.
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  Speaker 1: Here's David Plouffe.
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  Speaker 2: Dan Pfeiffer, always a privilege to talk politics with you.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Okay, we are in the middle of a quadrennial tradition.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: It's October. There is panic in the streets. Axios today
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: says the blue wall is crumbling. The vibes are everywhere.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Every anxious Democrat... in town is calling every political reporter
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  Speaker 1: in earshot to vet their concerns. Where do you see
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: the race right now and how has it changed, if
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: at all, in the last couple of weeks?
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  Speaker 2: Well, Dan, I think from the time Kamala Harris became
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: the nominee, we saw a lot of movement, five, six
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: points depending on the state. But what we've seen for
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: the last few weeks, and the data is consistent this week,
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: is basically a tied race in seven states. And I
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: don't think that's going to change. So- You know, I
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: think it's 47-48 for each of us. I'd still rather
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: be Kamala Harris than Donald Trump because I think she's
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: got a slightly higher ceiling. I think she's got a
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: better ability to win more of the undecideds based on
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: who they are. And I think Donald Trump is much
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: more reliant on first-time and infrequent voters this time. I
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: think he's got a fragile mathematical problem there. So you
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: put all that together, but the reality is, Donald Trump
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: barely won in 16, but won barely lost in 20.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: He's a little stronger this time than he was last time.
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  Speaker 2: So he's going to get 48% of the vote. And
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: so I know for all of us that want to
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: see Kamala Harris win, we wish there was an easy pathway.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: That pathway does not exist. This is basically going to
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: come down to, history would suggest it's not going to
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: come down to several thousand votes in seven states, but
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  Speaker 2: it's going to come down to a very narrow margin.
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  Speaker 2: And so I think the question for people who've already
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: done so much quite frankly, is, you know, what else
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  Speaker 2: can be done? Because every ounce of effort spent by
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: anybody sharing content, making calls, making another donation, traveling to
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: a battleground state matters because this thing is going to
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: be decided on the margin. So I think the freak
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: out is because there were a bunch of polls, I'd say,
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: in the last month that showed a lead for Kamala
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Harris that was not real. It's not what we were seeing.
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  Speaker 2: We've seen this thing basically be tied, let's say, since,
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: you know, mid-September. So this is the race we have.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: It's the race we expected. I don't think it's going
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  Speaker 2: to open up for either candidate. I think it's going
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  Speaker 2: to be close all the way in. And I would
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  Speaker 2: just remind everybody, whether it's internal data or public data,
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  Speaker 2: you know, a poll that shows Donald Trump up 48-47
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  Speaker 2: that then shows us up 48-47 is essentially the same thing.
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  Speaker 2: This thing's going to be decided on the margins in
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  Speaker 2: these few number of states.
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  Speaker 1: That's very validating because that's like the core principle of
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  Speaker 1: this podcast is a poll that shows you up to
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: and a poll that shows you down to shows the
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  Speaker 1: exact same thing, which is a very close winnable race.
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  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the persuadable voter universe, the undecideds. How
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  Speaker 1: big is that universe and who are those voters?
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  Speaker 2: It's not that big, but, you know, it's probably a
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: true undecided. And let's be clear about that. That is
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: people that we certainly believe they are going to vote.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: And they yet have not decided between Harris and Trump.
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  Speaker 2: You know, that's like 4%. Then you have a little
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: bit of soft Trump support, soft Harris support that I'm
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: sure both campaigns are spending time on. Then you've got
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: people who might be deciding between Harris and third party
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: or Trump and third party or whether to vote at all.
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  Speaker 2: So you've got to treat them all as a unit, right?
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  Speaker 2: You've got to run a campaign to reach those undecideds
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  Speaker 2: and hope more of them in a tied race. If
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: more of them fall to your side, that's a huge deal.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: And we think we can do that. And then you've
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: got these other questions around, you know, turnout, and third party.
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  Speaker 2: The third party number is going to be pretty low,
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: but it's not going to be zero. So the question is,
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  Speaker 2: in some of these states, you might be able to
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  Speaker 2: win it at 49, but you might have to go
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  Speaker 2: closer to 49.5, 49.7. And in every state, it's a
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: variety of people. This is not like there's one cohort.
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  Speaker 2: It's like most of the undecideds are suburban women between
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: the ages of 40 and 60. You've got young, you've
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: got black, you've got white, you've got brown, you've got non-college, college.
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  Speaker 2: So from a campaign perspective, it's challenging because you've got
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  Speaker 2: a bunch of different types of voters who receive information
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: in a bunch of different types of way that you've
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  Speaker 2: got to reach. And you want to be in their communities.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: You want to be in their social media feeds. You
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: obviously want to do advertising. Hopefully they'll see the candidate where,
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: as you have seen and have commented on, where Kamala
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: Harris and Tim Walz are going to go everywhere. There's
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: an audience, basically, of people that we think will be
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: decisive in this election.
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  Speaker 1: And I think in previous campaigns, sometimes you have a
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  Speaker 1: diverse group of people who make up your undecided universe,
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  Speaker 1: but you have a commonality in persuasive messages. For us
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: in 2012, it didn't matter whether we were trying to
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: get Latino voters or rural white non-college educated white voters.
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  Speaker 1: It was the economic message is what brought them to
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  Speaker 1: the finish line for us. Do you have that here
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  Speaker 1: or are we sort of in a more fragmented space
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  Speaker 1: where we have a slightly different approach to each of
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: these groups?
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  Speaker 2: Well, the economy is at the top of the list,
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: of course. And I think we've made big progress on
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: that from when the race started in terms of people saying,
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: who do you trust to look after people like you?
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: Who has economic plans that will help people like me?
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  Speaker 2: We've in some places taken the lead on that and
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: we're down double digits. So economy is huge and that's contrasted.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: Trump's plan will raise taxes by $ 4, 000. It'll blow up
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: the deficit. It'll create inflation. And of course, it'll be
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: targeted towards the wealthy. So that's very important. Health care
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: is important, both from an economic lens, because voters, as
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: you know, look at it, you know, usually first and
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: foremost through an economic lens and then a health care lens.
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  Speaker 2: So you've got Trump going to cost people a lot
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  Speaker 2: more money and also tens of millions of people lose coverage.
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  Speaker 2: Huge issue. Abortion is important to some of these voters,
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  Speaker 2: particularly on the turnout side. But there's also the character traits,
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  Speaker 2: which is, you know, who do you trust to be
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  Speaker 2: a strong leader? You know, who's stable? And again, I
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  Speaker 2: think we've made huge progress in that regard. So, you know,
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  Speaker 2: the ads we're running this week, not solely because we're
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: running a lot of different ads to a lot of
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  Speaker 2: different people, you know, have people who worked for Trump
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  Speaker 2: speaking about how unstable he is and how unfit he is.
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  Speaker 2: And we also have a bunch of, you know, military
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  Speaker 2: leaders and Republicans saying that Kamala Harris has the strength
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  Speaker 2: and judgment to be commander in chief. That's important part
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: of the message. You know, at the same time as
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: you're driving economic contrast, health care contrast. And we're also
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  Speaker 2: at a point in the news, she does this in interviews.
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  Speaker 2: We still do it, you know, in some of her ads.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: You know, Trump is 100 percent universally known. Now, he's
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: not it's not 100 percent universally known the damage he'll
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: do to the country. We've got to remind people of that. But,
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: you know, even things like Kamala Harris's biography, there are
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  Speaker 2: still some voters out there who will decide this election
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  Speaker 2: that aren't sure she was a prosecutor, you know, that
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: don't understand what she did there. don't understand our middle
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  Speaker 2: class upbringing. We've made a lot of progress there, so
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  Speaker 2: I think we've filled in a lot of that circle.
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  Speaker 2: So I think that it's a bunch of different things.
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  Speaker 2: And with data, you have a sense of what messages
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  Speaker 2: matter the most. But it's not just, let's compare economic
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: plans and values. That is, of course, at the top
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: of the pyramid. But we've got to do these other
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: things too. And obviously, they're taking wax at us. So
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: we have to make sure we're defending our flank where
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: we see damage being done.
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  Speaker 1: When you were looking at your internal polling, did There
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: are always certain character trait measures that you view are
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: essentially correlated to victory. For us in previous campaigns, it's
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: been fight for people like you, working to grow jobs
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: or whatever it is. Are there a couple of things
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: in there that you guys are looking at that you
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: want to share with us that you think are important
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  Speaker 1: to winning over that last group of persuadable voters?
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  Speaker 2: Well, that economic question is core for us too, fighting
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: for people like you.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: And is that fights for you as opposed to trust
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: in the economy?
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: Fights for you. You know, who will look after the
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: middle class? Who will offer ideas and plans that will help,
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: you know, people like you and your family? So all
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: those types of questions are important. And in many battleground states,
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: we've actually taken a lead. Strong leaders are always important
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: in a presidential race. This is not a legislative race.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: And I think you always have to remember that, that strength. People,
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: as they're making this decision, you know, imagine you during crisis.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: Imagine you behind the Oval Office desk. And so, you know,
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: that's certainly something we pay attention to. Some places where
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: I think we entered the race with a big deficit
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: on who's best on costs and inflation, on immigration, on crime.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: We've seen Kamala Harris make huge progress in those areas,
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: but we'd like to make some more. But that look
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: after you, fights for people like you is huge. And
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: it's particularly important because Trump's out there saying, hey, I
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: had the best economy in the history of the world.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: I'll just bring it back, which of course is bullshit
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: and not true. But you know, when you remind people
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: that everything he's going to do is shower the tax
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: cut for the wealthy, you're going to pay for it.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: Middle-class voter, you are going to pay $ 4, 000 more a
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: year because he wants to talk tough on this tariff,
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: doesn't know what he's doing, but you'll pay the price. Um,
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: You know, tens of millions of people lose health care coverage.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: That means everybody's going to pay more.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: These things matter.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: I guess the other thing I'd make on the strong
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: leader thing, there's a really important part of this for Trump.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: And this is where your listeners can help share content, ads,
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: interviews where Trump seems unstable because the argument is, listen,
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: he's the oldest person ever to seek this office. He's
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: clearly not as stable as he was, and he wasn't
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: particularly stable back then. He won't have anybody around him stopping. OK,
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: like Laura Loomer, Marjorie Taylor Greene, these are the people
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: he listens to. Project 2025 gives him no guardrails. And
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: the goal here is sort of absolute and unchecked power.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: And that scares voters. So when we think about messages
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: against Trump, there's economic messages for sure about how he's
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: going to screw working people and take care of the
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: wealthy and hurt our overall economy. Like every economist who's
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: looked at his plan says it will increase inflation, blow
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: up the deficit, and add cost to middle-class people. It's
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: like a trifecta of terribleness. Healthcare and abortion, clearly huge contrast.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: But this leadership thing about just imagine him basically unstable
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: with no guardrails, with unchecked power, to not do anything
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: to help you but to seek revenge is really, really important.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Are we going to see more of that in your advertising?
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: I know most of the ads to date have been
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: positive about Kamala or just contrast on her bio and
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: the economy, and some immigration stuff. I know you have
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: this ad running with Olivia Troy and some former Trump
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: people that is related to sort of his response to
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: the hurricane. Are we going to see more of that
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: sort of like go big picture contrast with Trump on instability,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: sort of the larger, you know, because you sort of,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: some of the advertising, and this is not a critique
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: of it, but could be run against a normal Republican.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: Trump's obviously not a normal Republican. Is there an effort
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: to maybe raise the stakes down the stretch here?
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: Well, I think, you know, some of our most effective
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: ads have been on abortion, have been on women's health care,
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: have been on health care generally, the ACA. We ran
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: a really important ad, I think, coming out of the
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: debate on that that tested really well and got great
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: response to it. And that's unique to Trump. What's interesting,
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: of course, is most Republicans aren't talking about ripping up
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: the ACA. This is kind of unique to Trump. And
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: since he tried to do it 60 times, we can
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: believe he'll do it again. You know, we've got an
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: ad on the air now with national security officials, you know,
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: saying talking about his former national security advisors, his defense
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: secretary's warning that he's not fit to lead, that he's unstable.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: So that'll be part of the argument. I think what
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: you have to do is we all have to raise
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: the risk of a Trump second term. Some of that's
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: policy risk, what he would do to the economy. Some
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: of that's on abortion, nationwide abortion ban, appointing more conservative
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: Supreme Court justices, ripping healthcare away from hundreds of millions
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: of people in this country. But it's also on this
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: leadership and this character. So it'll be part of the
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: mix going forward for sure.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: When you and I used to work together, you used
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: to describe a presidential race as a series of governor's
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: races in the battleground states. Is that still how you
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: see it? Even though politics is much more national now,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: the local media is less important than it used to be.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Trump clearly thinks it's national because he's doing events at
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Coachella and Madison Square Garden. But how do you sort
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: of see that interplay between a localized race and the
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: national political trends?
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: Well, sure, there's no borders anymore, or maybe never, but
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: particularly now. But let's be clear, Trump's doing this, one,
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: he's a New York guy at heart and I'm sure
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: he's always wanted to play the garden.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: Could be his last chance, I guess.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm sure there'll be echoes to what the famous
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: rally that was held there in the mid thirties. Uh,
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: we'll see. Uh, but I think he's also starting to
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: have pretty poor crowds in these battleground states. Um, so
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: I think the act is getting a little tired in
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: these States. So he's going out. So I think, you know,
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: the way we look at it is that's why you
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: do national interviews, whether it's, you know, call her daddy
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: or Stephen Colbert, uh, or other podcasts that we're going
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: to do, those are not based in battleground states. They
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: reach battleground states. I think where it's a governor's race
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: is your schedule has to be really smart. Your, obviously,
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: operational organization has to be very intensive. And then local media,
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: particularly local television, still matters a great deal. So I think,
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: but it is particularly true around the operation. And it's
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: hard because, you know, you're not running in one state.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: You're a national campaign. And even though there's been races
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: historically where there was more battleground states, you know, there
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: are seven. It's a lot. Um, so you, you've got
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: to make the doors you're knocking, um, kind of the,
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: the ground game, um, the surrogate game, you know, you,
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: that all is still very state specific, but it's a
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: presidential campaign as a blend of what happens nationally. Cause
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: voters tend to see big moments nationally and process them,
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: but also they want to see you show up in
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: their town and, you know, talking to local reporters, but more,
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: more than anything else is to have people who represent
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: your campaign in the community, knocking on doors, being out there,
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: trying to, convince people to vote. So I think definitely
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: the national overlay, that's always been the case. I think
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: it has intensified with the way people get information. But
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: I still think at the end of the day, listen,
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: you know this, it's always humbling when you're a campaign professional,
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: when you tell people how little the campaign matters, meaning
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: a good campaign is not going to turn a 54
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: or 46 loss into a win.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: It's impossible.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: But if you have the best campaign on the ground
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: and you think you execute best against your goals, it
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: can give you a half a point or a point. which,
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: of course, this race very well could come down to.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: So that's what you're doing all this for, basically.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of concern out there among folks about
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: the possibility of another polling error where the polls are
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: underestimating Trump's support. I mean, the public polls were way
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: off in 2020, but even the Biden campaign polls where
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: data was off in the sense that he was campaigning
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: in Ohio and Iowa at the very end there. And
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: those states ended up performing just like they did in 2016.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: How are you guys thinking about that? Have you adjusted, uh,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: sort of your modeling or your polling to try to
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: ensure you don't have a similar situation this time?
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: Right. So I'd say I wasn't a part of the
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: campaign in 20, neither were you, but I think their
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: data was much better than the public polls. That's why
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: they weren't going to Florida and Texas, for instance, because
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: they didn't see a pathway, even though public polls were
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: suggesting that it was essentially tied. So we spent a
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: lot of time on this. Uh, I think the lesson
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: you'll learn, because of course, Republicans, their strength was overrated
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: in 2022. 18 was probably a blend. So I think
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: what you want to do is make sure that you're
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: being very conservative. And I think we are. So I
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: don't think we're sitting here with internal data showing a
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: really tight race where we'd rather be us than Trump.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: And it's based on undercounting either his vote share among
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: certain demographics or his turnout. I think we've all learned
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: that lesson. But I'd say a couple of things. One is,
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: I think Kamala Harris may surprise at the end of
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: the day with either straight up Republicans or independents who
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: are essentially Republicans. We're seeing continued strength there. And that
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: matters a great deal given how big those cohorts are.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: And we're being conservative there as well. We're not overstating
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: our numbers internally, but I think you see the leading
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: edge of things that could be quite positive. And then again,
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: I think Trump is just incredibly reliant on voters who've
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: either never voted before, haven't voted in a long time,
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: never voted Republican. So, you know, that's a big challenge.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: You know, as we look at the race, we give
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: him credit for doing a good job there because my
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: view on Trump basically to break it down is, you know,
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: if you think he's going to get 100 votes in
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: a precinct, you probably just assume he gets 110 so
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: you can win a race where he overperforms. So I
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: really can't speak to the public polls. I spend very
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: little time looking at them.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: As I know you do.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: I just don't. And most of them are horseshit. You know,
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: some of them may be close. But generally, I'd say
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: any poll that shows Kamala Harris up four to five
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: points in one of these seven states, ignore it. Any
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: point that shows Donald Trump up like that, ignore it.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: This thing's very close. It's a margin of error race.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: But again, I'd rather be us than him because I
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: think we have the ability to get to 49 and
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: a half or 50. I'm much more confident about that
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: than Donald Trump, but it's going to be close all
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: the way in. So I think we're doing what we
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: can to be conservative in the data. And obviously, you know,
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: we're a campaign that has a bunch of different sources
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: of data as we did in the Obama days. You know,
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: you have traditional polling where traditional pollsters are calling, you know,
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: six or 800 people. Some of that's calling, some of
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: that's online panels, but we're also doing the larger data sets.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: you know, where you have a larger amount of respondents.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: And that's always good because not only do you have
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: a little more confidence in the overall numbers, but then
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: you've got enough respondents so you can really look under
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: the hood at different ethnicities, different age, you know, education
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: to make sure that we think all that makes sense. But,
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: you know, listen, I think it may be that our
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: internal data is exactly right. But if I were to
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: hazard a guess, I think it may be undercounting her
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: strength amongst Republican-leaning independents. So we won't put that in
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: the bank, but let's hope that's right.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: Are you guys projecting turnout at around 2020 levels? And
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: do you think the electorate looks similar? I guess that's
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: sort of been the baseline everyone's using is 2020, since
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: 2020 was almost essentially a tie race. You lose a
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: point with one group from Biden's 2020 numbers, then you're losing.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: And if you gain a point, then you're ahead. But
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: obviously a lot changes in four years. And this was
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: a pretty tumultuous four years. And we have obviously a
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: very different candidate in Kamala Harris. How much is the
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: electorate the same or different, do you think, from 2020
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: in terms of turnout and composition?
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: Obviously, you'll have more younger voters as a percentage of it,
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: just as people age into the electorate and people age
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: out of the electorate. But I think that turnout is
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: the hardest thing for any campaign to predict. So obviously,
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: you've got historical data. You've got polling. So you're asking
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: people whether they're going to vote or not. You draw
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: some conclusions based on that. We're beginning to get early
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: vote data in who's requested ballots, who sent them back in.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: You know, in a lot of states within 10, 12 days,
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: we'll have people voting in person early. So that's really
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: when you begin to get a sense of how many
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: people who are first time voters are showing up in
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: that early vote universe. How many of them, you know,
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: didn't vote in 20? How many of them are people
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: who voted in 20 but not in 22? So I
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: think right now our assumption is it's going to be,
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: you know, in the 2020 range. Obviously, in the Biden
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: Trump race, I think the belief is it would have
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: been a lot lower, maybe as low as 140 million.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: This is a more interesting race to people. I think
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: that Kamala Harris has created a lot of energy on
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: our side. The enthusiasm gap has obviously been eroded that
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: Trump had in 2024 1.0 campaign. But as we look
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: at it, obviously, we're trying to make sure that what
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: would it take to win if national turnout's 145, 150, 155, 160, 162.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: And again, the one thing that I think is pretty constant,
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: and I think most observers of this would agree, sort
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: of neutral observers, the handful that you could really trust
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: to have smart both data and take on this, is
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: his sort of base of foundation is built on a
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: rickety element, which is all of these people who don't
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: have vote history, who may say in a poll they're
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: going to vote. But as you and I know, that's
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: the toughest thing to do in politics, is to get
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: that cohort all the way through the funnel.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: You know, it's weird hearing You and I have this
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: conversation about Trump because this is the argument people made
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: against Obama in 08. But the difference here is we,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: and you in particular, understood that and then built a
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: massive field operation to account for that challenge. And that's
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: something that, based on all the reports, Trump has not done.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: No, it's a very decentralized. And listen, you know, we
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: believe in empowering people, right? So if people want to
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: go and organize on their own, that's amazing. But I
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: do think it's pretty light given where this race stands.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: which is he cannot win unless he does, I think,
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: a pretty extraordinary job of turning out that cohort. Now,
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: we obviously have, maybe we're less reliant on that, but
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: it's still incredibly important. Obviously, we've got massive turnout needs
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: and challenges in our base of every type of voter
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: and got to max that out. But we like what
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: we're seeing in the early vote data so far. We
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: particularly like what we're not seeing on the Trump data,
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: which is there's not an army of kind of incels
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: showing up in early votes in their voting history. So,
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: you know, maybe they'll show up on Election Day. We'll see.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: But so far, there's not a leading edge that that's
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: something crazy is afoot there.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: Last question for you. Harris campaign has pushed really hard
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: for a debate. You accepted debates. You challenged him to debates.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Last night, Trump said he was not doing a debate.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: He has also, as of the recording of this, not
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: yet accepted the CNN town hall. Just what's your reaction
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: to his refusal to debate and how, if at all,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: this affects your campaign strategy going forward?
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: Well, Dan, I could spend three hours talking about what's
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: going on here with the psychology. I mean, I think
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: what's clear is his campaign know what's happening. They knew
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: what happened in the first debate. They don't want him
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: to debate again. I also think they see his rallies,
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: which are like a disaster. And what's interesting to me
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: is we've used some of his rally footage and ads.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: We'll do more of that. But when we do particularly
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: qualitative research with swing voters or voters that aren't sure
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: if they're going to vote, a lot of this stuff,
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: you know, they see it. That's the world we live in, right?
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: Somebody shares some crazy thing he said. Like, by the way,
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: the thing he said that, you know, Joe Biden became
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: mentally impaired, Kamala Harris was born that way. A lot
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: of voters saw it and a lot of voters didn't
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: like it. You know, that speaks to the both lack
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: of character and instability. So I think his campaign sees
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: how he's performing, you know, Yes, on the debate stage,
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: but around that, they want to keep him off. I
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: think whether he generally believes he won the debate or not,
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: I tend to think he's convinced himself he did. There's
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: got to be in some, you know, the dark addled
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: recesses of that brain, some kind of subconscious understanding that
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: he doesn't want to get humiliated again. So I'm not
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: even sure he'll do the CNN debate. He's rescheduled Univision
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: for next week. Kamala Harris is doing it. We're talking
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: on Thursday today from Nevada.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: We'll see.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't be surprised if he bails on that. I mean,
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: he might just want to stay basically in his safe
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: space from now to the end. But we're going to,
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: you know, we're continuing, you know, as you've seen, you've
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: commented about this very smartly, like the world has changed.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: The way you reach voters, even from when we work together,
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: has changed a lot. And, you know, some of that's
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: direct interaction. Some of that's putting out content that maybe
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: people who worked in politics in the 1980s don't understand.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: But somebody who's a 22-year-old likes and will share and
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: will use it to get motivated. So we're going to
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: keep doing that. And we've had an active week this week.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: They'll keep building on that just to reach these voters
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: because there are people who generally know they're going to vote.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: They have a plan to vote, right? And people who've
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: decided who to vote, they're probably going to vote earlier.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: They have checked into the race for months. But this
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: last group of people who aren't sure whether they're going
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: to vote or who they're going to vote for, the
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: delta between what they know about this race and positions
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: and Kamala Harris and Donald Trump and the rest of
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: the electorate is pretty far. They see stuff. So we
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: want to make sure that we're in their feeds or
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: we're in their podcasts or we're advertising in smart ways
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: so that at that moment where they'd be making a
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: decision about whether to vote or who to vote for,
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: we're putting our best foot forward. And obviously the ground
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: game is part of that as well. Trusted people from
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: the community making the case is incredibly important. So I
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: think that we're not going to get the debate with
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump, I don't think. So that moment is not
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: going to be there. So we can bemoan that or
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: we can just deal with it like adults and say, OK,
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: what's plan B? And plan B is, I think, to
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: be everywhere we can in smart ways and make the
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: case about who would be a better president for the
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: next four years, because that's really where voters are. I mean,
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: Bill Clinton famously said elections are about the future and
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: they are. And I think we've got a decisive advantage
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: on who do people think has best plans for the future.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: By the way, who understands the future? Who would be
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: a more stable leader on women's health care? Massive advantage
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: on health care, generally massive advantage on some of these
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: economic questions around fighting for like you advantage. So we
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: just got to continue to press that case. But Democrats
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: and those that are helping because this is a big coalition, Democrats, independents, Republicans,
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: people you and I used to square off with are
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: in the tent now. This is going to be really close.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: I mean, Donald Trump's going to get 48% of the
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: vote everywhere, maybe 48 and a half. We just got
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: to get more than that. And I think we've got
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: a plan and an ability and a candidate to do that.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: But that's just the reality. I think we'd all like
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: it to be easier than it is, but it's not
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: going to be. That's not the country we live in.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: It's very divided. And Trump obviously has some appeal that
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: other Republican candidates don't have. He also has some weaknesses
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: that we're exploiting. you know, I think particularly with suburban
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: voters and suburban women.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: David, Plouffe, great to talk to you. Good luck out there.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: It's going to be a crazy few weeks, and it
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: was great to hear what you had to say here.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: Go Sixers, Pfeiffer.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break, but before that,
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: I've got an ask. If you're listening to this podcast,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: you're already supporting the work we do here at Crooked Media,
• 28:04
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• 28:07
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• 28:10
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• 28:13
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• 28:16
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• 28:26
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• 28:41
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• 28:46
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  Speaker 1: to crooked.com slash friends or the Apple podcast feed to
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: learn more. Carlos Odeo is a co-founder of Equis Research,
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: a firm that specializes in tracking the Latino vote. With
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: new polling from the New York Times on Latino vote
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: coming out this week and Kamala Harris doing a Univision
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: town hall this past Thursday, there's no one I wanted
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: to talk to more about the state of Latino vote
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: than Carlos. Carlos Odio, welcome back to the show. How
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: are you doing? Doing great.
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: As well as one could, given that where we are
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: in the election, early voting started in Arizona yesterday. So
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: I feel like I'm doing well relative to circumstances.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's really all you can ask for these days,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: because I've talked to a lot of people who are
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: not doing great. So that is good. Every hopefully thoughtful
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: conversation about the Latino vote must begin with the stipulation
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: that the Latino vote is not a monolith. It is
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: incredibly diverse, people with different backgrounds, ideological preferences, different family histories,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: geographic diversity, et cetera. And so we're going to stipulate
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: that for a second. But when you were on The
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: Wilderness with Jon Favreau a few months ago, which now
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: I think feels like an eternity ago, given we had
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: a different candidate back then, I'm pretty sure. You said
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: something that I thought was a good way to set
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: the table for this conversation, which is Latinos are not
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: a monolith, but they are a group. Can you maybe
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: explain what that means? Absolutely.
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: So there are great divisions within the Latino electorate, in
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: great part because the Latino community is really a political project.
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: When you are living in your own life, you tend
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: to identify based on your own nationality, especially if you
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: grow up in a place that is very Latino, like
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: Los Angeles or parts of Texas or Miami, like I did,
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: or in New York, where I grew up saying I'm
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: Cuban and your friend would say they were Colombian or
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: they were Mexican or what have you. But the rest
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: of American politics and society tends to put you in
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: this one bucket and you learn quickly where you fit.
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: It's kind of the high school cafeteria metaphor we use,
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: which is you walk in and you say, well, I
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: don't sit at that table. I don't sit at that table.
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: I guess I sit with these kids. And so, but
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: there are great divisions that are based on country of origin,
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: based on geography, based on language that you speak. Some
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: people have been in this country for 13 generations. Some
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: are immigrants or the children of immigrants. And yet the
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: movement we have seen in the Trump era cuts across
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: all of those divisions because there is still a commonality
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: in terms of how you are perceived in this country
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: and that's how you perceive yourself and your interests in
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: the context of an election.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: And that movement, when it cuts across, is it cutting
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: across on educational lines, ideological lines? Help us unpack that.
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: Excellent question, because I do think there's a little bit
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: of a square peg, round hole, or whichever way that goes,
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: happening here when it comes to education. Because education is
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: such a meaningful cleavage among white voters, non-college white, college white,
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: worlds apart, that people now try to apply it in
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: the non-white context. And to some extent it works, but
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: not for the reasons people think. At least 70% of
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: registered Latinos are non-college. Among the population overall, it's something
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: like 85%. It is such a large chunk of the
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: electorate that it obscures anything that's happening underneath. The reality
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: is if you don't have a college education, you're less
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: likely to be partisan. You're less likely to be following
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: politics or very aware of the ins and outs of
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: politics in a way that the swingy voters live in
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: the non-college bucket. So you would expect them to be
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: the first to move. Whether that's about class or not
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: is a separate question. Some part of it is about class,
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: but it hurts the conversation to oversimplify. Ideology in some
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: ways is way more interesting because a lot of what
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: we saw in 2020 was conservatives essentially going back to their,
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: or for the first time to their true quote unquote
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: political home. Where racial polarization comes into play is that
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: you have Latinos, black voters, AAPI voters who identify as conservative,
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: but couldn't vote for Republicans, didn't feel like they belonged
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: with the Republican Party, and were voting for Democrats because
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: they thought Democrats were looking out better for their interests.
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: That's still, by the way, the case to date, even
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: after movement. And yet, those were the first people to move,
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: were people whose ideology and vote choice had previously not matched,
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: but now were moving toward Donald Trump.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: Where some of these folks were people who were identified
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: as conservative, but were voting for Democrats because voting for
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: a Republican was a bridge too far, Or were some
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: of them people who were conservative-identifying Latinos who simply weren't
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: voting because they could not bring themselves to vote for
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: a Republican?
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: Aha, that's the right question.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: It's both.
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: You had some who were voting with Democrats. It was
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: basically socially unacceptable to vote for Republicans. And so many
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: of them did vote for, especially in the Obama years,
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: voted for Barack Obama. Many voted for Hillary Clinton. But
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: many others sat it out. couldn't vote for the Republican,
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: but couldn't also stomach voting for the Democrat either. And
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: it's a lot of those who Trump appeals to. And
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: so one of the big questions as far as where
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: the Latino vote falls is whether some of the more
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: Trumpian element among an irregular voting Latino actually turns out
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: for Donald Trump in the way a white working class
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: male Trump voter came out of the woodwork in a
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: 16 or a 20. You know, I should say today still,
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: about 25% of conservative Latinos are still voting for Kamala Harris.
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: That's a big chunk. That said, for Biden, it was
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: probably 35% of conservative Latinos. And then in past elections,
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: it was higher than that. And so we do see
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: some of the erosion. And a big part of that is, though,
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: the open question of who at the end of the
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: day turns out or doesn't. That's where a lot of
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: the dynamism is coming from in this election.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: So Hillary Clinton did very well historically with Latinos. Donald
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: Trump then does incredibly well for a Republican. He makes
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: gains over those four years. What have you found as
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: to what he did over that four-year period when I
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: think the general sense was he had these cruel and
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: racist immigration policies, he said horribly racist things, identified with Nazis,
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: all these things that you would on paper at least
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: suspect would further polarize the Latino vote against him, but
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: it worked in the exact opposite direction. So help unpack
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: that mystery for us.
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so and the way to understand this is you
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: have Hillary Clinton gets per catalyst 71% of the Latino
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: vote in 2016. So you have 71, 29. You then
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: have this change to Biden where it's 62, 38, right?
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: So Trump goes from 29 to 38%. Where we find
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: ourselves today, if the election were today, is that it
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: would probably be closer to 60-40. We're kind of hovering
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: around 60-40. One of the big questions we can talk
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: about is whether Trump crosses the 40% line or falls
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: below it. That's kind of the game of inches that's
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: getting played right now. But to an earlier point you made,
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: all we're going to be debating right now is essentially
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: about somewhere between 3% and 8% of Latinos. Of course,
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: this is what you sign up for when you talk
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: about elections. We're talking about a very small sliver of voters,
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: but they're the ones who are most critical to election
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: results at the end of the day, They are also
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: the ones among whom polling is least equipped to give
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: us a very accurate read at any given point. But
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: I wanted to contextualize that we're talking about a small
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: number of people at the end of the day. What
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: Trump did well, so to speak, between those years is
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: you had a set of factors here. The biggest was
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: that the economy came to overwhelm all other considerations. COVID
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: was a very, very big factor here. So in the
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: midst of COVID, people's priorities shifted. I described the kind
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: of conservative Latino who in the past couldn't bring themselves
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: to vote for a Republican who at the end of
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: the day said, well, all these concerns I have, I'm
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: going to put them aside because if my one consideration
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: is who is going to be better for me and
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: my family when it comes to the economy, then for
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: this one set of sliver of economically conservative Latinos, Donald
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: Trump was the answer. An election was going to be
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: a referendum on who is better for the economy. Trump,
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: the businessman, whose businessman persona still carried a lot of appeal,
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: still does today, was going to win out at the
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: end of the day. And that's essentially what you saw happen.
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: And I think to some extent, we are still dealing
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: with the repercussions of COVID era politics. A lot of
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: what we saw where conservative Latinos were most approving of
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: the Trump agenda was in, quote unquote, reopening the economy,
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: concerns that Biden was going to shut things down, was
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: in living without fear of COVID. And so that dynamic
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: that you saw play out most dramatically in Florida, you
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: see some aspects of it also in a place like Nevada,
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: where you have an economy dependent on the service industry,
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: on tourism, that was rocked so heavily in the midst
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: of the pandemic.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: That's a great answer. I mean, this is obviously one
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: of the great political questions of our time to figure
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: out for sociological reasons, but also for Democrats to figure
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: out how we reverse these trends. Because as you and
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: I have talked about before, the math for winning 207
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: electoral votes gets really hard if these numbers keep moving
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: even a few points in the wrong direction, right? We
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: run out of voters.
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: And actually, the way to understand that is if you
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: took all of the same dynamics from Arizona in 2020,
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: the electorate stays the same in terms of who votes,
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: in terms of support levels, and you drop Latino support
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: by one point, Joe Biden loses Arizona in 2020.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, the margins are so narrow. And then if
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: you were losing voters with the fastest growing population in states,
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: that is not a game you want to play, right?
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: It's how we went from great optimism about Texas to
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: less optimist about Texas these days. Coming out of 2012
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: and 2016, Texas seemed like it was on an inexorable
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: path towards being a blue state. It's in the same
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: place for the last couple of elections because we're losing
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: ground with the fastest growing group of voters. Let's get
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: back to the overall numbers here. As you said, and
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: I assume this is what you guys are seeing in
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: your polling, that Kamala Harris is sort of right around,
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: or at least maybe in spitting distance of Biden's 2020 numbers.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: Is that right?
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: She's just a few points shy.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: And so she's got to make up those points or
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: find other voters somewhere else, basically. That's right.
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: Biden was essentially 62-38. In an average of polls over
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: the last month, you're looking at 57, 38. No. Our
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: poll was 54, 38. So, you know, in both cases,
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: you have Harris struggling to get past 60, Trump struggling
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: to get past 40. But it's shrunken down to where
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: it's a game of these last few inches. You're seeing
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: a lot of stability otherwise, except for this last little
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: morsel of the electorate that's left.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: Do you have a sense of who that last morsel is?
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: Yes. So it is slightly more male, but not in
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: a way that is overwhelming, I would say. And I
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: should say that the number of undecideds is small and
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: has stayed small. We also include, when we talk about
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: persuadable voters, people who have chosen a side but don't
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: seem entirely set, which still only gets you to 7%
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: to 8% of registered Latinos. So we're talking a small
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: piece here. They do tend to be more married than
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: the electorate overall. It gives you an indication, actually, like
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: some of the most movement we've seen has been with
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: voters who are 30 to 49. So it's exactly the
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: kind of voter who was around in the Obama years
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: that didn't get pulled off the sidelines in those elections.
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: And so people who are kind of stuck in the middle,
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: they do actually tend to speak Spanish more in the
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: overall electorate, despite some stereotypes to the opposite. They tend
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: to consume media more in Spanish. They tend to be
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: getting news from YouTube more than the electorate overall. So
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: it's not a clear profile other than to say it's
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: kind of the least partisan element of the electorate. It's
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: who you would expect would be persuadable in this moment
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: in time.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: It's just pretty close to the remaining undecided group of
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: white voters, black voters, young voters. That's sort of what
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: we're fighting over, right? People who get their news from YouTube.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: That's what we're fighting over right now.
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: The people we talk to least. Yeah, that's right. It's
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: like the great paradox, right? Like the people we most
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: need to talk to are the ones that are hardest
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: to talk to.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. You know,
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: in 2022, we saw sort of a split in how
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: the quote unquote battleground states performed like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: And then what we saw in California and New York,
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: and I'm speaking broadly, not just Latino vote here, where
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: we saw Democratic underperformance. Are you seeing any differences between
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: Latino engagement or performance in sort of not just Arizona
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: and Nevada, but also the pockets of Latinos in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin,
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: than in sort of the broader national electorate?
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: There is always state variation. So when I give these
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: national numbers, of course, some states are a little bit
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: above that line. Some are below that line. Also, what
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: Harris needs to win in those states is going to differ.
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: So again, Arizona, the margins are much tighter, can't afford
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: to lose very much, whereas in Nevada, because of a
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: changing electorate, there's more wiggle room. But largely speaking, though,
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: it's not in the polling, at least, what the dynamic
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: we saw in 2022, meaning the movement does seem to
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: shift up and down kind of evenly. Even I should
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: say in Florida, even though the levels in Florida are
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: much worse for Democrats, the in-cycle movement has been equivalent
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: to what we're seeing everywhere else.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: What are the best messages that Democrats should be using
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: with this last group of Latino voters here?
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: From our last poll, there was this dynamic that I
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: think is so fascinating. And you've seen it bear out
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: in other polling more broadly for the electorate. When you
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: ask who is better for the U.S. economy among Latino
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: voters in battleground states, Trump has a three-point advantage. Generically speaking, Trump,
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: the businessman, still is trusted better on the economy. When
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: you ask who is better for middle and working class families,
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: it's plus 21 Harris. When you ask who cares more
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: about people like you, it's plus 26 Harris. And so
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: there is this tug of war, right, where if it's
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: a generic question of who I think is going to
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: be better on the economy, Trump has a little bit
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: of an advantage. When you bring it down and ground
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: it in specific people, is he going to think about
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: you when it comes time to make decisions? You see
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: Harris's advantage open up.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: Or get exploited.
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: And so, you know, a lot of this is not
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: a mystery. A lot of this is not rocket science, frankly.
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: It's like a lot of blocking and tackling, Dan, that
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: we've always been talking about. Her economic agenda is very popular,
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: even among the Latinos who say that Trump would be
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: better on the economy. Majorities of people who say Trump
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: would be better on the economy strongly support all of
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: her main planks of her opportunity agenda, whether it's expanding
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: child tax credits, whether it's expanded opportunities. for first-time homeowners,
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: whether it's expanded childcare, all incredibly popular, even among people
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: who think generically that Trump would be better. So a
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: lot of this is just about reassuring voters who have
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: frankly been rocked by rising prices that Harris gets it,
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: that Harris is going to be fighting for them, that
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: she's not some loony radical who's out of touch with
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: their lives and their priorities. And so a lot of
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: that is just for showing.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: Up, frankly. Where does immigration fit in this, right? Trump's
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: running on mass deportation. He's threatening to pull TPS status
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: from people who are in this country legally, wants to
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: shut down the border. The common, I think, largely naive
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: narrative is that would be very bad in the Latino community.
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: But that would seem much more complicated than that. So
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: maybe you could talk a little bit about the interplay
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: of immigration, border security, comprehensive immigration reform, and the overall
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: Latino vote. Yeah.
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: Look, Latinos, like all Americans, want order at the border.
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: There was this period of time in the midst of
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: the Biden term where it felt like we were getting
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: rocked by crisis after crisis. It was rising prices. It
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: was the border, as it was depicted in the news,
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: you know, migrants arriving in big cities. You had wars
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: breaking out all over the place. And then a sense,
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: whether fair or not, that Biden did not have the
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: vitality to handle these crises. And so in that context,
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: The border was very damaging among a conservative kind of Latino.
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: I think the Harris campaign has run an actually a
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: very good Latino campaign. They have run a very smart
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: Latino outreach effort. If there's one thing I think it's missing,
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: it is the contrast on the other side of immigration.
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: They've done a good job on the border piece in
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: the sense of saying, well, look, we had a bipartisan
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: border bill and Trump killed it. He's not actually looking
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: for solutions. But there is this contrast on what do
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: you do about somebody who has been here 20 years
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: and is married to an American citizen and American kids
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: that has been entirely absent from the debate and literally
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: from the debates, you know, they get asked about the
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: border and it hasn't come up. And in the broader
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: campaign and in the ad traffic that you've seen today,
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: you know, there was a big difference in how the
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: campaigns would treat someone who has been living and working
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: here for decades, the Harris and Biden proposal was to
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: keep families together. The Trump proposal is to deport those
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: very same people. It is an incredible contrast, but by
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: the way, moves even non-Latinos. Because again, it speaks to
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: a different part of immigration that speaks to democratic strengths.
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: And so people like a balanced both and approach to immigration. Ideally,
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: that would be part of the conversation because it does
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: bring back some of the traditional partisan lines, the lines
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: in the sand that we saw among Latinos.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: This is something I've been mystified by because the polling
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: on it seems actually pretty clear that when you raise
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: the stakes, you make it about solving the whole problem.
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: We have advantages. When you focus on just the border,
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: you're only playing defense, right? And you're playing on their territory.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: We're going to lose a.
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: Fight on the border.
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: We're never going to win a fight on the border alone.
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: And so I just, I'm thoroughly mystified by why they
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: would do it. Can you fathom any reason in polling
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: you've seen about why you wouldn't, is there a fear
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: about backlash with white voters or whatever it is that
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: would keep you from talking about a broader, like protecting
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: the dreamers, keeping families together, going back to essentially the
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: Obama era message on immigration reform? Man, I don't know.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: I'll be honest.
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: I think it's straight up fear. You know, I do
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: think there were some polls that showed there was high
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: support for quote-unquote mass deportation.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: But man, just dig one step deeper and you can
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: look at the fact that when you ask me is
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: mass deportation in this moment, people literally assume you mean
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: get the border under control.
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: Like people who arrived yesterday. And there is a difference
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: in how Latinos and Americans more broadly perceive someone who
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: just arrived versus someone who has been in this community
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: a very long time.
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: Right. And the kids, right?
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: And the kids, the dreamers, if you ask, do you
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: think we should deport all immigrants? There's actually 39% of
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: Latinos in that poll support a expanded deportation program. When
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: you ask, should we protect and put spouses of American
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: citizens on a pathway to citizenship? Only 8% oppose. When
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: you ask, should we put dreamers on a pathway to citizenship?
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: Only 13 oppose. So, you know, again, So much of
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: winning is about picking the right fights, as Dan, you
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: yourself say so well. You cannot be reactionary. You have
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: to pick the fights that benefit you, and you can't
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: allow the other side to reframe it, whether that's on
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: the economy. We can't debate the economy more broadly. Democrats
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: have to be fighting about prescription drug prices. They have
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: to be fighting about specifics of the economy. And similarly
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: on immigration, you can't debate the border as this impossible problem,
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: but specifics. What would you do about this particular family?
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: What would you do about this specific kid? Because that's
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: where they have the advantages.
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: Before I let you go, I do have to ask
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: you about your native state of Florida. And the New
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: York Times had a poll out this week. Sorry, sorry,
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: I got to do it. We have to make some
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: progress in Florida. We can't just write the thing off. Agreed.
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: So the New York Times had a poll out this
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: week that had Trump up 13 in Florida. And that's
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: obviously a big outlier from what the averages have been.
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: The argument that the New York Times makes, for some
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: pretty esoteric reasons I won't get into, but is that
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: there has been a dramatic shift in the state since 2020.
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: You can see evidence of that in the 2022 results.
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: Where do you see Florida right now? So, sorry, sorry.
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: No, no, listen, here's the challenge. Florida didn't really stop
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: being a purple state. The national decision by Democrats to
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: walk away from Florida, starting in 2020, right? In 2020, actually,
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: Florida was outsourced to Michael Bloomberg. The Biden campaign didn't
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: itself run a campaign in Florida at the scale that
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: a presidential normally would. In 2022, there was no national
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: investment in Florida. It was gone, absolutely. And then obviously
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: you're seeing something similar in 2024. That's a money calculation.
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: That's just Florida's expensive. Expensive for the fact that it
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: is so tricky and oftentimes the rug gets slipped out
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: from under Democrats' feet in a state like Florida, right?
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: But it's still purple. The dynamics of it are still so.
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: But if you don't show up and you don't play
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: in it, of course you're going to get a result
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: that is worse than average. So I think in everything
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: I have seen There was a little bit of reversion
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: to what we were seeing in 2020. I understand the
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: Nate Cohn, New York Times esoteric argument about waiting on
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: pass vote. We don't have to get into that here,
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: but Nate Cohn has very good reasons that he doesn't
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: wait to pass vote. And yet what we kind of
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: want to understand is difference from 2020 and how much
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: defection there has been in addition to changes in the
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: composition of electorate. We can look at the composition of
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: the electorate with things like the voter file and understand
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: how much has changed. But you also want to understand
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: have people who voted a certain way in 2020 changed
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: their mind. And that's really only happening a little bit
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: on the margins. So you would expect a result that
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: was not 2020, but closer to it. And so Trump
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: winning by 10 seems a little bit outside of what
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: my expectation would be. I mean, I've seen some internal
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: polling in the last few days that was, you know,
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: Trump up four. That seems a little bit more in line.
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: That said, almost any result is possible in Florida given
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: the stew of elements that that have conspired to the
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: benefit of Republicans. If anything, you know, a lot of
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: the people who used to move to Arizona and retire
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: in Arizona now seem to be retiring in Florida. So
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: maybe it's all to the benefit of the wider Sunbelt
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: strategy that Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis have kind of
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: sucked up MAGA conservatives into this one state that Democrats
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: no longer really try to play in.
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's the thing that I think a lot
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: of people don't think about when it comes to Florida
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: is we talk about how in migration into Georgia- And
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: North Carolina helps us because you have all these younger
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: people who are moving to Raleigh-Durham or Atlanta. But what
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: we don't count in Florida is you have all these older,
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: more likely Republicans from New York and New Jersey who
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: are constantly moving into Florida. And then you do have,
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: it's fair to say, some shifts within the Latino, some
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: pretty dramatic shifts within Latino vote, especially since 2012, right?
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: Exactly. And newer voter, newer Hispanic voters, like the ones
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: who have become eligible to vote who are not just Cuban,
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: but Venezuelan or Colombian, they're more conservative than previous cohorts.
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: They kind of came into the electorate during the Trump era,
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: kind of caught the Trump fever. So there's a confluence
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: of events. Although I will say, I think decisions made
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: by Ron DeSantis within the state of Florida make much
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: more sense when you understand them as being a shaping
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: of the electorate, not of winning over anybody's minds, but
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: about shaping who decides to go to school in Florida,
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: who decides to retire in Florida, who decides to move
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: away from Florida. Many of the decisions they make are
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: really about sending signals, like setting up the pro-MAGA flag
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: and saying all MAGA people welcome, liberals not. And, you know,
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: I think that does obviously have an effect on the margins.
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: Just in closing here, as we go through the final
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: three weeks of this campaign, what are you going to
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: be watching for specifically when it comes to Latino vote
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: that will hopefully give you some sense of what's actually
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: going to happen on election night?
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: So there's going to be a lot of attention on
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: how much slippage there was from 2020. I already referred
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: to it a little bit at the top. that if
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: Biden was at 62, right now Harris is struggling to
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: get past 60. I want to urge people not to
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: fall into hysteria. What I do is polling. I'm not
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: a pollster, but I poll a lot. Polling is inadequate
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: for this moment. Polling can tell us that we're in
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: a 50-50 environment, but it can't tell us which side
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: of the 50-50 line Harris is going to fall on.
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: It's just not equipped for that. That's not literally what
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: it's not designed to do. It's a little bit like
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: a find my phone feature on You know, it can
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: tell you that your phone is on your block or
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: in your house, but it can't tell you whether it's
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: under the couch or it's in your bedroom. But at
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: the end of the day, look, assume this is 59-39
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: among Latino voters and there's a fight for the last inches.
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: I don't expect any vast movement in polling. If there were,
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: I think that would be something worth looking at. I
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: also would urge disregarding early vote numbers. We have been
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: burned by that so many times. And so I try
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: to step back and look at the ad traffic, look
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: at what I'm seeing in the earned media and say,
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: what is the question voters are taking from this? What
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: are we fighting about in the last few weeks? And
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: Democrats and allies need to be picking the right fights.
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: That's what these last few weeks is about. Are the
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: things that we're debating about the kinds of things that
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: are going to help Harris win this election if it's
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: what's on voters' minds? and not allow Trump to do
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: what he always does, which is distract us with side
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: conversations that actually, at the end of the day, don't
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: help move the electorate, that don't provide new information. Because
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: what persuades voters to vote and to vote for your
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: side is new information. Beating them overhead with what they
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: already know is not it. So what is the new
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: information that comes out in these last few weeks? And
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: how does that frame the choice before voters in the
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: end run?
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: Well, that seems like a great place to end it. Carlos,
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: thank you so much. And good luck over this final
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: stretch here. Hope you stay sane. Thanks.
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: Good luck to us all.
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: Stay safe.
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: Stay sane.
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: That'll wrap today's episode. Thank you to David Plouffe and
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: Carlos Odeo. I'll be back in your feeds next Sunday
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: with another one of these episodes. If you're a friend
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: of the pod subscriber, I'll be on your feet again
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: this week for a new episode of Polar Coaster. Thanks, everyone.
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: Bye.