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A Strong Close—And an Iowa Poll Shocker · Pod Save America

0:20
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
0:22
Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
0:22
Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor.
0:23
Speaker 1: We are coming to you with a special episode with
0:26
Speaker 1: just one day left before the results start coming in.
0:29
Speaker 1: The final polls have arrived, including an atomic bomb from
0:32
Speaker 1: Ann Seltzer. And this race is either headed towards the
0:36
Speaker 1: closest finish we've seen in our lifetimes or a landslide
0:40
Speaker 1: or a million different outcomes in between. None of which
0:42
Speaker 1: should really surprise us because of the last decade in politics.
0:46
Speaker 1: We're going to get into all that a bit later on.
0:48
Speaker 1: But first, the three of us, Dan, Vote Save America's
0:52
Speaker 1: own Nina Harris, were out canvassing in Arizona and Nevada
0:55
Speaker 1: over the weekend. You guys want to talk about what
0:58
Speaker 1: stuck with you out of all of our door knocks
1:00
Speaker 1: and canvas kickoffs?
1:02
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
1:03
Speaker 4: I mean, the best part is meeting all the folks
1:05
Speaker 4: who were there from Vote Save America. There were people
1:09
Speaker 4: who lived in Nevada or Arizona and just came over
1:12
Speaker 4: to do a shift. There were people that traveled from
1:13
Speaker 4: out of state. I talked to a guy who had
1:16
Speaker 4: come to a Pod Save America live show in Las
1:18
Speaker 4: Vegas in 2018 with his daughter, who was in high
1:20
Speaker 4: school at the time.
1:21
Speaker 3: She asked a question. later got so.
1:23
Speaker 4: Interested in politics that she worked for, interned for Jackie Rosen,
1:26
Speaker 4: now is getting an advanced degree out here in California.
1:29
Speaker 4: And those are just, you know, the best part of
1:31
Speaker 4: doing the show is meeting people like that who are,
1:34
Speaker 4: you know, taking action and getting off the polar coaster
1:37
Speaker 4: that last weekend and knock some doors.
1:40
Speaker 5: Yeah.
1:40
Speaker 2: So first of all, one thing that was two hopeful signs.
1:45
Speaker 2: One is we were knocking on, we'd have to walk
1:48
Speaker 2: a bunch of doors before getting to the next door
1:50
Speaker 2: that we would knock. in part because we've hit a
1:52
Speaker 2: lot of these doors. And a lot of these people
1:54
Speaker 2: have either said, please do not knock on my door again.
1:57
Speaker 2: I already voted or I'm planning to vote. But we
2:00
Speaker 2: were onto these last few doors and there's one person
2:03
Speaker 2: that answered the door while I was knocking on doors
2:06
Speaker 2: with Nina. And she was like, I'm gonna vote sometime
2:09
Speaker 2: next week.
2:09
Speaker 1: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
2:11
Speaker 2: You have to vote on Tuesday now. She didn't know
2:14
Speaker 2: how to vote. She didn't know where to vote. We
2:15
Speaker 2: got her that information. And there are other people I
2:18
Speaker 2: know you guys knocked on a door of somebody who
2:21
Speaker 2: was truly undecided.
2:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, she was a 73 year old Asian-American woman in
2:28
Speaker 1: East Las Vegas. And we knocked on her door and
2:32
Speaker 1: there was a very large barking dog that she was
2:37
Speaker 1: barking while she was trying to talk to us. And
2:39
Speaker 1: it was sort of broke. You know, we're trying to
2:40
Speaker 1: understand her. And she basically was like, she's like, President Trump, Trump.
2:45
Speaker 1: And we're like, no, no, Trump. And she's like, and
2:49
Speaker 1: we held up our lit and it said Kamala Harris,
2:51
Speaker 1: you know, and we're like, Kamala Harris, he goes, did
2:53
Speaker 1: she let in all of the, all of the migrants?
2:57
Speaker 1: And we're like, no, no, no. Yes, but it's good.
3:01
Speaker 1: And we were like, look, if she becomes president, here's
3:03
Speaker 1: what she's going to do on the border. And she's
3:05
Speaker 1: already done this and it's going to close. And then
3:07
Speaker 1: people who are here and working out of a path
3:09
Speaker 1: to citizenship. And also, and then Tommy's in the background.
3:11
Speaker 1: Tommy's goes, and she's going to lower your taxes, lower
3:14
Speaker 1: your taxes. And then Nina and I are like, and
3:16
Speaker 1: your prescription drugs and also your healthcare and stuff like that.
3:19
Speaker 1: And she starts licking it all. And she goes, yeah, okay.
3:22
Speaker 1: I'm voting Kamala. And then Nina's like, really? She's like,
3:25
Speaker 1: I promise. I promise Kamala. And we're like, yeah.
3:28
Speaker 4: Shout out to Nina, who is absolutely fearless about talking
3:31
Speaker 4: to everyone. Like the Trumpiest person we walked by. The
3:34
Speaker 4: dude next to her on the plane that she then
3:36
Speaker 4: had to sit next to for an hour when he
3:38
Speaker 4: turned out to be a Trump fan.
3:40
Speaker 3: Every waitress we had. We got one. We got two waitresses.
3:42
Speaker 3: We lost the hostess.
3:43
Speaker 1: That's right. We lost the hostess. We got the waiter.
3:45
Speaker 3: Which is tough.
3:46
Speaker 1: I didn't get any of my dealers. I will say.
3:49
Speaker 3: Blackjack, not drugs.
3:51
Speaker 1: Don't look at me like that.
3:52
Speaker 3: Both.
3:54
Speaker 1: I will say the people... Even the people who were
3:56
Speaker 1: voting for Harris, especially in Vegas, were like really enthusiastic.
4:00
Speaker 1: They were like, yes, of course, Kamloff. There was a
4:03
Speaker 1: lot of of course, of course. We kept saying that
4:05
Speaker 1: the vibes felt better in Vegas than they did in Phoenix.
4:09
Speaker 1: Part of that, though, when we talked to a lot
4:10
Speaker 1: of the folks who have been on the ground in Arizona,
4:13
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's necessarily like the vibes aren't
4:16
Speaker 1: as good because we're losing Arizona. is it is, it's
4:18
Speaker 1: really tense in Arizona. Like the, like people are afraid
4:22
Speaker 1: to put Kamala Harris signs up and there's a lot
4:24
Speaker 1: more Trump signs this time. And there's like people talking about,
4:27
Speaker 1: you know, threats and harassment and stuff. And it was very,
4:30
Speaker 1: it really gives you a window into like what it's
4:32
Speaker 1: like being on the ground in a highly contested swing state.
4:36
Speaker 3: Yeah.
4:36
Speaker 2: We, the other, the other point to note is that
4:39
Speaker 2: we didn't see any Trump or Republican canvassers out on
4:43
Speaker 2: any of the, we were in like, look, we have,
4:44
Speaker 2: We have knocked on doors in college towns. We have
4:47
Speaker 2: knocked on doors in Madison, Wisconsin. And that's a breeze.
4:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's when you get people who aren't on your
4:52
Speaker 1: list and they're walking their dogs and they're like, oh,
4:54
Speaker 1: friend of the pod.
4:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, you open the door. It's a call Congress sweatshirt. Like,
4:58
Speaker 2: I think we got this person in the back.
5:00
Speaker 3: A stop Project 2025 button.
5:02
Speaker 2: But these were the really closely divided and like last
5:07
Speaker 2: kind of persuadable areas. And so you do feel that tension.
5:10
Speaker 1: How about the guy in Henderson? We were in a
5:13
Speaker 1: suburb of Vegas, Henderson, and it was like a pretty
5:16
Speaker 1: divided neighborhood, Trump and Harris. And one guy opens the
5:19
Speaker 1: door and we were actually looking for his wife and
5:21
Speaker 1: he's like, she's voted. And we're sort of nervous. We're like, well,
5:24
Speaker 1: what about you? Are you voting for Harris? He's like, yeah.
5:27
Speaker 1: And they're like, what about your neighborhood? He's like, it's
5:28
Speaker 1: a tough neighborhood. He's like, half of us are voting for.
5:31
Speaker 1: Kamala and the other half are treasonous assholes. We're like, okay,
5:36
Speaker 1: we got them. We got them.
5:37
Speaker 2: Joe Biden's message worked on it. Yeah, that was the
5:40
Speaker 2: other thing too. It's like, there were so many people
5:42
Speaker 2: turning out to knock on doors. We, like in all
5:45
Speaker 2: these places, there was like more people than we expected
5:47
Speaker 2: to see. And you go look on some of these
5:49
Speaker 2: Republican candidates and they're putting up their pictures of their
5:52
Speaker 2: campus kicks off and they don't have the bodies.
5:54
Speaker 1: They don't have the people. I will say, just in
5:57
Speaker 1: case you're thinking like, oh, well, is about like reminding
6:01
Speaker 1: voters or there's some people who still aren't super tuned
6:05
Speaker 1: in remember the guy who is like a like late
6:09
Speaker 1: 20s he's washing his car Anne Henderson we go by
6:11
Speaker 1: we start talking he's got his headphones on like who
6:14
Speaker 1: are you gonna vote who are you gonna vote for
6:15
Speaker 1: and he's like uh probably Kamala yeah Love it's like Probably?
6:20
Speaker 1: What else can I say to you? What else can
6:22
Speaker 1: I say? Do you want to talk about politics here
6:23
Speaker 1: on a Sunday morning? He's like, please go away.
6:26
Speaker 2: And I also just found myself too, there was somebody
6:28
Speaker 2: that answered the door and he was not on the list,
6:31
Speaker 2: but I think his two members of his family were
6:33
Speaker 2: on the list and he was like, I don't vote
6:35
Speaker 2: and I'm not registered to vote. And he's already passed
6:36
Speaker 2: the deadlines. We're like, well, we'll get you next time.
6:39
Speaker 2: And I just found that you realize at the end here,
6:42
Speaker 2: you just want to go to something so simple. I
6:45
Speaker 2: was like, commos for lowering costs, Trump's for a national
6:47
Speaker 2: sales tax. Tell your family, tell your friends, tell everybody.
6:50
Speaker 4: You also realize just how divorced the kind of cable news,
6:53
Speaker 4: Twitter conversation about politics is.
6:55
Speaker 3: And we're in a very working class neighborhood.
6:57
Speaker 4: And I guarantee you those people are not up to
6:58
Speaker 4: speed on whether Liz Cheney should be out on the
7:02
Speaker 4: trail or how many interviews Kamala Harris had done or
7:05
Speaker 4: call her daddy versus Joe Rogan.
7:06
Speaker 1: The squirrel assassination.
7:10
Speaker 3: We were so busy. I kind of have missed that.
7:11
Speaker 3: Me too.
7:12
Speaker 1: I don't want to go there. But yeah, it was
7:13
Speaker 1: like a lot of people.
7:14
Speaker 4: Living in some tough, you know, economic circumstances and a
7:17
Speaker 4: reminder of, who we as Democrats are supposed to be helping.
7:20
Speaker 4: We want the government to help and, you know, some motivation.
7:23
Speaker 1: And then on the flip side, all of you, all
7:25
Speaker 1: the volunteers are so consuming all of the information. We
7:29
Speaker 1: got off the plane last night. Tommy and I were
7:32
Speaker 1: walking to the car and this was like, I mean,
7:35
Speaker 1: I didn't even know who the hell Ann Seltzer was.
7:36
Speaker 3: I've been telling all my friends about Ann Seltzer.
7:38
Speaker 1: Now I'm telling all my friends about the Seltzer poll.
7:41
Speaker 1: Hopefully a lot of you guys were out there on
7:42
Speaker 1: the doors too, making calls to your friends in the battlegrounds.
7:46
Speaker 1: You know who else was making calls to his friends?
7:48
Speaker 3: Who?
7:48
Speaker 1: This guy.
7:50
Speaker 4: Hello?
7:51
Speaker 3: Aaron, Tim here. What's up, man? How are you? Hey,
7:54
Speaker 3: I'm good. Anything going on?
7:57
Speaker 1: What's up?
7:57
Speaker 6: Not much going on right now.
7:58
Speaker 5: Just two days to the election. Yeah, nothing big. Hey,
8:02
Speaker 5: I'm calling. We got an operation going. We're getting folks
8:05
Speaker 5: that are pushing to make sure their friends have voted
8:07
Speaker 5: and got somebody else to vote.
8:08
Speaker 1: You guys done already voting?
8:10
Speaker 6: Yes, we have. All right.
8:12
Speaker 5: You taking anybody else to poll?
8:14
Speaker 3: Well, I made sure Wolfie voted. That's good work right there, man.
8:18
Speaker 1: We're going to win this thing, Aaron, and I'm.
8:20
Speaker 3: Grateful for that support.
8:22
Speaker 5: If you get anybody else to the polls, I know
8:23
Speaker 5: you got all the kids to vote and everything, but
8:26
Speaker 5: call somebody else, get them. We're making a chain of
8:28
Speaker 5: this stuff. Pod Save America listeners, hey, I just made
8:31
Speaker 5: my call to friends, to my three friends.
8:33
Speaker 1: Get out there, make the difference on this thing.
8:35
Speaker 3: We got two days.
8:36
Speaker 1: Let's win this thing.
8:37
Speaker 3: All right, Tim Wallace. Come on, Tim.
8:39
Speaker 1: You know what, guys? If Tim Walls, who is doing
8:43
Speaker 1: a million rallies a day, can find the time to
8:46
Speaker 1: call his friends, you can find the time today and
8:49
Speaker 1: tomorrow morning, whenever, right up until polls close, to call
8:51
Speaker 1: your friends in swing states and get them to vote.
8:54
Speaker 3: Three friends.
8:54
Speaker 4: Also, according to our folks over at Votes of America,
8:57
Speaker 4: the Votes of America volunteers have made nearly $ 12 million.
9:01
Speaker 4: voter contact attempts, including 215,000 door knocks and nearly 5
9:06
Speaker 4: million calls made. So people have been putting in the work.
9:09
Speaker 4: So thank you, everyone.
9:09
Speaker 1: So proud of you guys.
9:10
Speaker 3: That did that.
9:11
Speaker 1: You should be proud of yourselves, too.
9:13
Speaker 6: All right.
9:13
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the candidates' final weekend. Kamala Harris clearly
9:16
Speaker 1: believes every swing state is still in play because she
9:18
Speaker 1: was everywhere from Georgia and North Carolina to Michigan over
9:21
Speaker 1: the weekend. Today alone, the campaign has a series of
9:24
Speaker 1: rallies and concerts in Atlanta, Detroit, Las Vegas, Milwaukee, Phoenix, Raleigh, Pittsburgh,
9:30
Speaker 1: and one final event in Philadelphia that will feature Lady Gaga,
9:33
Speaker 1: The Roots, Oprah, Ricky Martin, and Fat Joe, which is
9:36
Speaker 1: always how you end a campaign.
9:38
Speaker 3: What a coalition.
9:38
Speaker 1: What a coalition.
9:40
Speaker 2: Get Liz Cheney up there.
9:41
Speaker 3: Maybe George W.
9:42
Speaker 2: Bush is a surprise guest.
9:44
Speaker 1: George W. Bush and Taylor Swift walk out.
9:46
Speaker 3: Joe looks like he lost a few. You know?
9:48
Speaker 6: No.
9:48
Speaker 3: He's looking like a healthy Joe.
9:49
Speaker 1: I haven't seen him.
9:50
Speaker 3: I just want to give him some credit.
9:51
Speaker 1: The big celeb cameo this weekend came from Kamala herself.
9:54
Speaker 3: Body positivity, Joe. I thought of it too late.
9:57
Speaker 1: The big celeb cameo came this weekend from Kamala herself
10:00
Speaker 1: who made a surprise appearance on Saturday Night Live. Let's listen.
10:05
Speaker 3: It is nice to see you, Kamala.
10:06
Speaker 1: It is nice to see you, Kamala.
10:08
Speaker 3: And I'm just here to remind you.
10:11
Speaker 1: You got this. Because you can do something your opponent
10:15
Speaker 1: cannot do.
10:16
Speaker 6: You can open doors.
10:24
Speaker 1: See what you did there?
10:24
Speaker 3: Like to a garbage truck, right? Kamala, take my Pamela.
10:33
Speaker 6: The American people want to stop the chaos.
10:36
Speaker 3: And end the dromala. With a cool new stepmamala.
10:42
Speaker 6: Kick back in our pajamas and watch a rom Kamala.
10:48
Speaker 3: Like legally blonde-a-la. Because what do we always say?
10:52
Speaker 6: Keep calm-a-la and carry on-a-la.
10:54
Speaker 1: What did you guys think about SNL?
10:57
Speaker 3: Just really funny. It was good. It was well done.
10:59
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm really going to miss Dana Carvey as
11:00
Speaker 3: Joe Biden. That is just... Hilarious.
11:03
Speaker 1: I didn't get to watch the entire skit until last
11:05
Speaker 1: night we got home. Once again, he just nailed Joe Biden.
11:09
Speaker 2: It's also pretty intense that they did that Joe Biden
11:12
Speaker 2: bit in front of Kamala Harris who's sitting there in
11:14
Speaker 2: that chair.
11:14
Speaker 1: I know.
11:15
Speaker 3: Which was great.
11:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was good.
11:17
Speaker 2: I mean, like, I appreciate that it was a pretty
11:20
Speaker 2: on message.
11:21
Speaker 3: Very on message. It was.
11:23
Speaker 2: I know that Trump wants to shut down NBC and
11:25
Speaker 2: put Lorne Michaels in prison for some sort of law-breaking
11:28
Speaker 2: related to this, but it was a pretty good in-kind contribution.
11:30
Speaker 3: I'll take it.
11:31
Speaker 1: Well, you see, they gave Trump the same amount of
11:34
Speaker 1: time during a NASCAR race yesterday.
11:38
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was definitely a high-information skit. You had to
11:41
Speaker 4: know about Trump's stupid garbage truck driving press conference stunt, which,
11:46
Speaker 4: by the way, Politico found some voters, some Puerto Rican
11:48
Speaker 4: voters in Pennsylvania who saw that and actually thought it
11:51
Speaker 4: was a continuation of the kill Tony joke that kicked
11:55
Speaker 4: this hole off, calling Puerto Rico an island of garbage.
11:57
Speaker 3: So brilliant plan there.
11:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think SNL's not changing any minds. But I
12:03
Speaker 1: do think it projects confidence and optimism in the final weekend,
12:09
Speaker 1: and she can hang. I got a text from a
12:12
Speaker 1: friend who, he was always going to vote for Kamala,
12:14
Speaker 1: but there was, like a month ago, I was really
12:17
Speaker 1: trying to convince him that she's good, she's a great candidate,
12:20
Speaker 1: she's going to win. And he was like really down
12:22
Speaker 1: on it. And he texted me after that. He was like, oh,
12:24
Speaker 1: she's going to win now. She's going to win. That
12:25
Speaker 1: was amazing. I'm like, okay, well, let's not go too crazy.
12:28
Speaker 1: But I think it did give some people who were
12:30
Speaker 1: probably already on her side like, all right, let's do this.
12:32
Speaker 3: It's fun.
12:42
Speaker 1: Who will be disappointed even if we win.
12:46
Speaker 3: But I thought it was good.
12:48
Speaker 4: I think SNL is primarily consumed on YouTube these days,
12:51
Speaker 4: and 9.3 million people had watched the opening skit.
12:54
Speaker 3: So it's pretty good.
12:55
Speaker 1: Yeah. Harris pretty much stuck to the closing argument she
12:58
Speaker 1: delivered in D.C. over the weekend. The campaign also released
13:01
Speaker 1: two final two-minute ads, one that shows Harris talking to
13:05
Speaker 1: people she's met on the campaign trail. promising to be
13:08
Speaker 1: a president for all americans touting her economic plans they
13:10
Speaker 1: also have like big giant block letters on the screen
13:13
Speaker 1: take on price gouging uh bring down the cost of
13:16
Speaker 1: groceries bring down the cost of prescriptions if that was
13:19
Speaker 1: the the prose version of the final ad there was
13:21
Speaker 1: a more poetry version that just came out right before
13:23
Speaker 1: we recorded uh that's sort of more sweeping it's got
13:27
Speaker 1: the movie narrator voice it's doing freedom uh hits trump
13:30
Speaker 1: and elon musk ties them to ties trump to billionaires
13:33
Speaker 1: and politicians doing the same old shit i like that
13:36
Speaker 1: one too Any thoughts on her overall final pitch in
13:39
Speaker 1: these last days, either with the ads or on the stump?
13:42
Speaker 2: Honestly, my overall reaction is that it's like there's nothing
13:45
Speaker 2: particularly new in the video. And it's a testament to
13:47
Speaker 2: how just exquisitely on message this campaign has been from
13:51
Speaker 2: the moment she became the candidate until these final days.
13:54
Speaker 2: They are trying to hammer these key points that they
13:56
Speaker 2: think will bring along the last few undecided on things
13:59
Speaker 2: like costs, on common sense solutions, something that she said
14:02
Speaker 2: in her speech and that is in both of these
14:04
Speaker 2: ads clearly must be something that tests very well. amongst
14:06
Speaker 2: a narrow sliver of voters they're trying to get to.
14:09
Speaker 2: And I like the ad. Look, I'm a sucker for
14:13
Speaker 2: this morning we rise kind of an ad. It works
14:16
Speaker 2: on me every time. That'll never change for me. But overall,
14:20
Speaker 2: it is just a reminder that we're going to talk
14:23
Speaker 2: about what we know, what we've learned over the course
14:26
Speaker 2: of this campaign. And we have learned a lot. But
14:27
Speaker 2: I do think one thing we are going to find
14:29
Speaker 2: out on Wednesday is about the value of an incredibly
14:32
Speaker 2: effective campaign strategy. And a campaign that is on message
14:36
Speaker 2: trying to reach people.
14:38
Speaker 1: And yeah. I will say at her rally on Sunday night,
14:43
Speaker 1: she didn't mention Trump's name once. It was the first time.
14:46
Speaker 1: And in the first ad, doesn't really mention Trump. Trump's
14:50
Speaker 1: barely mentioned in that second ad, the Freedom ad. And
14:54
Speaker 1: I think that there's been like listening to her message,
14:57
Speaker 1: the ads at the end of the week. Tommy and
14:58
Speaker 1: I had this, you know, like friendly debate on the
15:01
Speaker 1: last pod about the fascism and the economic stuff. The
15:05
Speaker 1: truth is they did it all. You know, at the
15:08
Speaker 1: end of the day, they realized that you kind of
15:10
Speaker 1: you have to you have to raise the stakes of
15:12
Speaker 1: the election. You have to remind people what they don't
15:14
Speaker 1: like about Trump. You have to introduce her. You have
15:17
Speaker 1: to make sure that she's defined in a way that
15:19
Speaker 1: she's acceptable to people. And then you also have to
15:21
Speaker 1: talk about her plans for those. You know, like I
15:23
Speaker 1: think they did it all.
15:24
Speaker 3: They definitely did it all.
15:25
Speaker 4: I mean, I think the question the challenge in politics
15:27
Speaker 4: is measuring inputs versus outputs. And you can obviously put
15:31
Speaker 4: all of that in the speech. The question is what
15:33
Speaker 4: gets to people. And it is kind of funny that
15:35
Speaker 4: there's two final two minute ads. Like usually you have
15:37
Speaker 4: one because you're making some choices.
15:39
Speaker 3: This campaign that has a billion dollars. Right. There's got
15:41
Speaker 3: so much money. But I think they're great. I love
15:43
Speaker 3: the clips of her.
15:44
Speaker 4: Talking with voters where she seems like a human being
15:46
Speaker 4: connecting them.
15:47
Speaker 3: I like the policy stuff at the top. I hate
15:48
Speaker 3: the narrator voice stuff, but whatever. That's fine.
15:51
Speaker 1: Not us.
15:52
Speaker 4: Who knows what voter is going to see this ad
15:56
Speaker 4: that hasn't already seen a trillion ads.
15:58
Speaker 3: We don't know.
15:59
Speaker 4: But I did like usually these campaigns close on a
16:03
Speaker 4: positive message, at least Democrats close positive, close optimistically. I noticed, too,
16:07
Speaker 4: that they proactively released to press that they had not
16:11
Speaker 4: mentioned Donald Trump in that event. I don't know if
16:13
Speaker 4: that's undercut by then releasing an ad that very much
16:16
Speaker 4: does mention him as a clips of Elon Musk looking
16:18
Speaker 4: like a goober. I'm guessing no one gives a shit.
16:21
Speaker 4: But I like her like, you know, telling us that
16:23
Speaker 4: there is a different brand of politics that we can
16:26
Speaker 4: achieve on Tuesday.
16:28
Speaker 1: I also think the decision to do everything everywhere all
16:32
Speaker 1: at once is very reflective of the information environment we're
16:36
Speaker 1: in now and how there's just like huge segments of
16:39
Speaker 1: voters that they need to reach that aren't getting their
16:42
Speaker 1: news from the same place, that aren't watching the same media.
16:45
Speaker 1: And so it's like, all right, little... little cost for
16:48
Speaker 1: this group of voters, little freedom and abortion for this
16:51
Speaker 1: group of voters. They kind of have to do it all.
16:54
Speaker 1: And for us, it seems, because we are junkies who
16:56
Speaker 1: pay attention to this all the time, it seems like
16:58
Speaker 1: it's all over the place. But if you're one of
17:01
Speaker 1: these voters we talk to over the weekend and you
17:02
Speaker 1: just happen to turn on the TV or look on
17:04
Speaker 1: YouTube or wherever you get your news from, hopefully you
17:07
Speaker 1: see the right uh the right message.
17:08
Speaker 2: Yeah you feel that like you feel that like you
17:10
Speaker 2: just you just feel this ad just like a pen
17:13
Speaker 2: an inch above the paper and they're just like trying
17:14
Speaker 2: to fucking drag the pen just down get the fucking
17:18
Speaker 2: thing i'm like just get on the fucking thing i don't.
17:21
Speaker 1: Quite know what that like it's a metaphor i think.
17:25
Speaker 2: It's just like that that this is a this feels
17:27
Speaker 2: to me like ads aimed at people who are either
17:30
Speaker 2: yeah trying to get them to vote Well, the people
17:33
Speaker 2: that are leaning towards Kamala, that are open to Donald Trump,
17:35
Speaker 2: and they're just trying to get people to just like
17:37
Speaker 2: that last little gap of like, am I really going
17:39
Speaker 2: to vote for this person?
17:40
Speaker 1: It's what you were just saying about on the doors.
17:42
Speaker 1: Like the best thing about talking to undecided voters is
17:46
Speaker 1: you don't have much time and you really do have
17:48
Speaker 1: to boil it down to just like, what's your, what's
17:50
Speaker 1: the thing you're going to say to them if you
17:51
Speaker 1: have five seconds?
17:52
Speaker 3: Yeah. Right.
17:53
Speaker 4: On the Republican side, it is like they're closing on
17:56
Speaker 4: a dead squirrel somewhere.
17:57
Speaker 1: For some reason. I mean, look, and I will say
17:59
Speaker 1: they're at, we're about to talk about Donald Trump. their
18:01
Speaker 1: ads are closing on the message, probably the right message,
18:04
Speaker 1: you know, at least if you're the Republicans and want
18:06
Speaker 1: to win. Trump, on the other hand, he's taken a
18:20
Speaker 1: different approach to his final days on the trail, where
18:23
Speaker 1: he has openly fantasized about people shooting Liz Cheney and
18:27
Speaker 1: journalists and said he regrets ever leaving the White House
18:30
Speaker 1: after his failed coup, promised to put an anti-vax conspiracy
18:35
Speaker 1: theorist in charge of public health, mused that it should
18:38
Speaker 1: be illegal to release polls that show he's losing, called
18:41
Speaker 1: Democrats demonic, and deep-throated a microphone. Let's listen.
18:46
Speaker 6: To get me, somebody would have to shoot through the
18:50
Speaker 6: fake news. And I don't mind that so.
18:55
Speaker 2: Much, because.
18:57
Speaker 3: I don't mind.
18:58
Speaker 6: This is a group of people, a large group of people,
19:00
Speaker 6: larger than people think, but it's a very demonic party.
19:05
Speaker 6: We had the safest border in the history of our
19:07
Speaker 6: country the day that I left. I shouldn't have left.
19:10
Speaker 6: I mean, honestly, isn't this better than my speech? I
19:14
Speaker 6: love being off these stupid teleprompters because the truth comes out.
19:19
Speaker 1: Isn't this better than my speech sounded like? If I
19:23
Speaker 1: didn't know that he didn't drink, I would think he.
19:25
Speaker 3: Was a little... He hates his prepared remarks.
19:28
Speaker 1: So Politico's headline about Trump's final weekend is, Trump returns
19:32
Speaker 1: to his grievances for his closing argument. The Washington Post
19:35
Speaker 1: went with, GOP's closing election message on health baffles strategists,
19:40
Speaker 1: worries experts. And the New York Times story out of
19:42
Speaker 1: the Pennsylvania event called Trump, quote, sluggish and aggrieved. That
19:46
Speaker 1: was in the headline. And the piece pointed out that
19:48
Speaker 1: Susie Wiles, who's running the Trump campaign, appeared to be
19:51
Speaker 1: giving Trump the wrap it up sign at some point
19:54
Speaker 1: during the remarks, I bet. What do you guys think
19:57
Speaker 1: is going on with Trump in these final days? And
19:59
Speaker 1: would anyone like to argue that any of it is strategic?
20:02
Speaker 3: No chance.
20:02
Speaker 4: I mean, I walked by the TV this morning and
20:04
Speaker 4: I heard him repeatedly mention Al Sharpton. And I was like, what,
20:06
Speaker 4: what happened here? Did Al Sharpton endorse Donald Trump? No,
20:09
Speaker 4: he was telling a long whiny story about Van Jones
20:12
Speaker 4: being mean to him. And I believe 2017, that's where
20:15
Speaker 4: we're at. It's just like a grievance fest. And I
20:17
Speaker 4: think we're not, we don't know if he's going to
20:18
Speaker 4: win or lose, but there's just no question if he
20:21
Speaker 4: loses that part of it is because of this last,
20:24
Speaker 4: since what is it? October 27th was the Madison square
20:27
Speaker 4: garden hate fest, which was so terrible that even Megan Kelly,
20:30
Speaker 4: like a, died in the wool MAGA person now, was
20:34
Speaker 4: complaining about it.
20:35
Speaker 3: Then he's talking about shooting reporters.
20:36
Speaker 4: I mean, the bulwark just had a piece out where
20:38
Speaker 4: Trump came off stage after the event where he suggested
20:41
Speaker 4: that reporters might get shot and he knew he had
20:44
Speaker 4: screwed up. He knows that relitigating 2020 is bad. So
20:48
Speaker 4: he seems just like an exhausted old man who is,
20:51
Speaker 4: you know, at the end of a process that would
20:52
Speaker 4: be brutal for someone half his age. And I think
20:54
Speaker 4: he also takes cues from the audience and he wants
20:56
Speaker 4: to entertain them. And he doesn't think his speech is entertaining.
20:59
Speaker 4: You know, he starts with, are you better off than
21:01
Speaker 4: you were four years ago? And then he's bored of that.
21:03
Speaker 4: And by the end, he's doing the weave for 96 minutes.
21:06
Speaker 4: And we're talking about, you know, squirrels or something.
21:09
Speaker 1: Yeah.
21:09
Speaker 2: I mean, like he jokes about worth hearing the amount
21:13
Speaker 2: of like kind of a performative laughter from the crowd
21:16
Speaker 2: when he jokes about reporters getting murdered. You know, we
21:19
Speaker 2: went through a new cycle of actually there's an explanation
21:23
Speaker 2: for his weird, violent fantasy about murdering Liz Cheney.
21:26
Speaker 1: Right. The chicken hawk.
21:28
Speaker 3: Yeah. The the.
21:29
Speaker 1: We were trying to call the journalists chicken hawks, too.
21:32
Speaker 3: Yeah.
21:33
Speaker 2: The SNL part that people aren't talking about is the
21:35
Speaker 2: part with the Trump impression. And it actually really kind
21:38
Speaker 2: of captures something about Trump in the homestretch here, which
21:40
Speaker 2: is like, I don't want to keep doing this.
21:41
Speaker 1: I don't want to be up here anymore. I don't
21:44
Speaker 1: want to be with you people.
21:45
Speaker 2: Donald Trump still wishes he were running against Joe Biden.
21:49
Speaker 2: You can see in how he is right now that
21:51
Speaker 2: he is fundamentally pissed off because if Joe Biden were
21:54
Speaker 2: the candidate, he thinks he'd be walking away with this thing.
21:56
Speaker 2: And now he's fighting it to a draw. I am
21:57
Speaker 2: sure he is seeing the actual internal polling from the
22:00
Speaker 2: Trump campaign showing how fucking close it is. It's infuriating
22:03
Speaker 2: to him. And there's like just he's angry. He's angry
22:08
Speaker 2: and he's tired. And when he's tired, he can't help
22:10
Speaker 2: but be himself. And it's kind of productive.
22:12
Speaker 1: I've heard some people surmise that maybe all this RFK Jr.
22:17
Speaker 1: shit happens. that's going on where he's like letting rfk
22:21
Speaker 1: jr out saying he's going to run public health and
22:24
Speaker 1: trump saying i'm going to put him in charge of
22:25
Speaker 1: women's health and trump's appearing with him uh in michigan
22:28
Speaker 1: and all this kind of stuff has to do with
22:30
Speaker 1: like maybe they're trying to like get some rfk jr
22:33
Speaker 1: curious voters on board with trump especially places where rfk
22:37
Speaker 1: jr couldn't take himself off the ballot like michigan like
22:40
Speaker 1: wisconsin like maybe but i also think uh occam's razor
22:44
Speaker 1: here is just like uh Trump says whatever the fuck
22:46
Speaker 1: comes out of his, what's on his mind.
22:48
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I don't know that RFK is the most
22:50
Speaker 4: loyal guy. I mean, he's always been kind of a
22:52
Speaker 4: narcissist in it for himself. But yes, you know, Trump's
22:54
Speaker 4: out there getting questions about whether he would ban vaccines.
23:00
Speaker 4: Not get rid of vaccine mandates, ban vaccines. And, you know,
23:03
Speaker 4: we're not just talking about like mRNA vaccines or COVID.
23:07
Speaker 4: You know, RFK Jr. is someone who questions the polio vaccine, measles.
23:11
Speaker 4: I mean, things that, you know, put humanity in a
23:14
Speaker 4: much better situation.
23:15
Speaker 1: And by the way, Trump left it open when asked.
23:17
Speaker 3: Left it open.
23:18
Speaker 1: Left it open. Yeah, I mean, again, as you're making
23:21
Speaker 1: arguments to people in the last minute, RFK Jr. also,
23:25
Speaker 1: he decided to tweet, like, when Trump takes office in January,
23:28
Speaker 1: the first thing we'll do is remove fluoride from drinking water.
23:31
Speaker 3: It's like, what?
23:32
Speaker 1: It's like something that has helped people's dental health for
23:36
Speaker 1: decades now.
23:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, like, that's what America is going to go for
23:39
Speaker 2: the polls? They want more cavities?
23:41
Speaker 6: Yeah.
23:41
Speaker 2: Let's time for America's children to have more cavities. That's
23:45
Speaker 2: what everybody's out for right now. I do like I
23:47
Speaker 2: think two things can be true. I think he is
23:48
Speaker 2: hearing like, hey, there's some the low information RFK people
23:51
Speaker 2: still may be voting for RFK. Let's try to get
23:53
Speaker 2: something in front of those people, counting on the fact
23:55
Speaker 2: that in the last 72 or 48 hours of the election,
23:58
Speaker 2: the fact that Donald Trump is suddenly promising to end
24:00
Speaker 2: all vaccine mandates and maybe take vaccines off the shelves
24:03
Speaker 2: is not going to reach the other kinds of people
24:05
Speaker 2: for whom that might be persuasive or at least a
24:08
Speaker 2: another final proof point for how Donald Trump is unstable
24:11
Speaker 2: and dangerous.
24:12
Speaker 1: Tim Alberta in the Atlantic has a long piece about
24:14
Speaker 1: sort of the Trump campaign towards the end. And, you know,
24:17
Speaker 1: he makes a good point that based on all the
24:19
Speaker 1: people he talked to close to Trump, Trump just doesn't
24:22
Speaker 1: like calm and normal and disciplined. He doesn't trust it.
24:25
Speaker 1: And he gets bored. Like I was saying with his speech,
24:27
Speaker 1: he also just gets bored with everything seeming normal and
24:30
Speaker 1: going well for him. He loves the chaos. He wants
24:33
Speaker 1: to trust his gut and say whatever the hell he wants.
24:36
Speaker 1: And All the kind of qualities you want in a president.
24:40
Speaker 2: Just a classic. Look, the man needs therapy. You recreate
24:43
Speaker 2: the patterns you had in your childhood. It makes you
24:46
Speaker 2: feel safe. You don't trust when things are going well. Trump,
24:49
Speaker 2: we've been there. We've all been there. Got to work
24:51
Speaker 2: through that.
24:52
Speaker 3: I can't believe that Tim Alberta piece came out this weekend.
24:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was on our flight. We were on our
24:57
Speaker 1: flight to Arizona. But look, I think he has closed horribly. Again,
25:02
Speaker 1: he might win.
25:03
Speaker 3: Right.
25:04
Speaker 1: Because maybe a lot of the vote is already a
25:06
Speaker 1: lot of vote is already baked in and a lot
25:08
Speaker 1: of people have already decided. And so maybe that's enough
25:10
Speaker 1: for Trump to win. I just it is not it
25:12
Speaker 1: was not surprising to hear David Plouffe and General Malley
25:15
Speaker 1: Dillon and folks on the Biden campaign saying that they
25:17
Speaker 1: are in the last week they won undecided voters by
25:21
Speaker 1: double digits because I don't think Trump has done anything
25:25
Speaker 1: to convince people in this last week who weren't already
25:28
Speaker 1: inclined to vote for him. Detroit Free Press front page
25:32
Speaker 1: split screen. It says, VP Harris voices optimism for America
25:37
Speaker 1: in message to Michigan. And then on the other side,
25:39
Speaker 1: it says, Trump campaigns in swing states says he shouldn't
25:42
Speaker 1: have left White House. Like that's the front page that
25:45
Speaker 1: Michigan voters are waking up to.
25:46
Speaker 3: That news. All right.
25:48
Speaker 1: So this weekend, we also got the final dump of
25:50
Speaker 1: polls in this race. The last round of Time Sienna
25:54
Speaker 1: swing state polls came out on Sunday morning. It's kind
25:56
Speaker 1: of a surprising mix. They have Harris up three points
25:59
Speaker 1: in Nevada. Two points in North Carolina, two points in Wisconsin,
26:03
Speaker 1: one point in Georgia, tied in Pennsylvania and Michigan, and
26:06
Speaker 1: down four in Arizona. Nate Cohn wrote in his analysis
26:09
Speaker 1: that there's some evidence of late deciders breaking for Harris.
26:12
Speaker 1: He has it at 16 points, 58 to 42. The
26:15
Speaker 1: gap is much wider in the Sunbelt states. And then
26:18
Speaker 1: Trump leads by about the same margin among late deciders
26:21
Speaker 1: in the Blue Wall, which is interesting.
26:23
Speaker 2: Do you want to stop and talk about that?
26:24
Speaker 1: No, you want to keep going? Let's keep going. All
26:25
Speaker 1: in all, it suggests that there's more movement in the
26:28
Speaker 1: Sunbelt states. And it's going towards Harris. But basically, everything
26:32
Speaker 1: tied everywhere, at least according to The Times. Their average
26:35
Speaker 1: now is one point or less in every battleground except Arizona.
26:39
Speaker 1: Want to stop and just talk about these polls?
26:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do this first. Because overall, it's just another
26:44
Speaker 2: set of polls showing it's really, really close. And the
26:47
Speaker 2: fact that voters in the Sunbelts are breaking towards Harris
26:50
Speaker 2: comports with what David Plouffe was saying. There is this
26:53
Speaker 2: one strange number out of these polls, which is that
26:56
Speaker 2: in the northern swing states, Trump led 60 to 40
27:01
Speaker 2: among late deciders, which is in opposite of the three
27:04
Speaker 2: Sunbelt states and from what we've heard from the Harris campaign.
27:07
Speaker 2: So it was just strange and just one of those like, well,
27:10
Speaker 2: that data point makes a narrative really hard to form.
27:14
Speaker 1: And that's all.
27:14
Speaker 2: Yeah.
27:15
Speaker 1: So that, you know, it's all tied up. I do
27:18
Speaker 1: think one explanation for her doing better in the Sunbelt
27:21
Speaker 1: and then slightly worse in the northern battlegrounds is it's
27:23
Speaker 1: just the electorate is starting to return to form to
27:28
Speaker 1: the 2020 electorate a little bit. And, you know, you
27:30
Speaker 1: saw this, some, uh, you gov did had done a
27:33
Speaker 1: series of polls of black voters and Trump share of
27:37
Speaker 1: the black vote has basically stayed the same over the
27:40
Speaker 1: last several months, but Harris's has grown in the, in
27:44
Speaker 1: their final wave of polls. And so you're starting to
27:46
Speaker 1: see in high quality polls that sort of focus on
27:51
Speaker 1: an entire demographic so that you don't get these like
27:53
Speaker 1: you know, crosstab small samples, you see the black vote
27:56
Speaker 1: starting to look more like it did in 2020. You
27:58
Speaker 1: see the Latino vote starting to look more like it
28:00
Speaker 1: did in 2020. The youth vote starting to look more, right?
28:02
Speaker 1: So you're seeing some reversion in some of these polls to, like,
28:06
Speaker 1: what the electorate was like in 2020, which would make
28:08
Speaker 1: sense of why the Sun Belt is getting a little
28:10
Speaker 1: better for her, and then it's getting a little tighter
28:12
Speaker 1: in the northern battlegrounds.
28:13
Speaker 6: Yeah.
28:13
Speaker 3: I also want to.
28:15
Speaker 2: Nate Cohn pointed this out about late deciders that... Both
28:19
Speaker 2: of these things can't be true. It can't be true
28:20
Speaker 2: that in Pennsylvania, according to the Times, late breakers are
28:23
Speaker 2: going towards Trump. And according to the Harris campaign, they're
28:25
Speaker 2: going towards Harris. Just one of those things has to
28:27
Speaker 2: be true. And the question is, what is the artifact
28:29
Speaker 2: of this polling that's pulling out that kind of information?
28:31
Speaker 2: It might just be that people saying that they are
28:34
Speaker 2: late deciders may have in a previous poll, is what
28:36
Speaker 2: Nate pointed out, might have already have been saying they
28:38
Speaker 2: were voting for Harris had they been called a week
28:40
Speaker 2: or two earlier.
28:41
Speaker 1: Yeah.
28:41
Speaker 4: There's generally just a mixed bag. I mean, we want
28:43
Speaker 4: her to win in the Midwestern states, first and foremost,
28:46
Speaker 4: because that seems to be the most likely path. But
28:47
Speaker 4: there was a surprisingly strong result out of Nevada that
28:50
Speaker 4: we hadn't seen in a while, which seemed to cut
28:52
Speaker 4: against the doom and gloom we'd seen from John Ralston
28:55
Speaker 4: about the early vote. So again, we're just emotional basket cases.
29:00
Speaker 3: That's right.
29:01
Speaker 1: Well, the poll heard around the world.
29:03
Speaker 3: There we go.
29:03
Speaker 1: Dropped on Saturday night as the legendary Ann Seltzer of
29:07
Speaker 1: the Des Moines Register came down from the mountaintop with
29:09
Speaker 1: a tablet that showed Kamala Harris leading Donald Trump 47-44
29:15
Speaker 1: in the state of Iowa, a state that Donald Trump
29:17
Speaker 1: won by eight points in 2020, and where Seltzer's June
29:20
Speaker 1: poll of this year had Trump leading Joe Biden by
29:23
Speaker 1: 18 points. In 2020, Seltzer's final poll showing Trump up
29:29
Speaker 1: by seven was the first and only sign that the
29:32
Speaker 1: polls were underestimating Trump, like they did in 2016 when
29:36
Speaker 1: Seltzer's final poll showed him with a seven-point lead over
29:40
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton. He ended up winning the state by nine
29:42
Speaker 1: that year. That was a. A terrifying moment for all
29:45
Speaker 1: of us in 2016 when we're like, oh, maybe this
29:47
Speaker 1: is not going to go the way we think.
29:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, I remember where I was. Let's all ignore that.
29:51
Speaker 1: Yeah. According to the poll, the shocking result this time
29:55
Speaker 1: around is based on a surge towards Harris among older
29:59
Speaker 1: and independent women. Trump, of course, called it a fake
30:01
Speaker 1: poll done by a Trump hater in a call with
30:03
Speaker 1: an NBC reporter. He had previously called it a really
30:05
Speaker 1: great poll, of course. The Harris campaign said on a
30:08
Speaker 1: briefing call, quote, We are seeing that we're closing strong.
30:11
Speaker 1: I would not read into it any more than that.
30:15
Speaker 1: Point taken, but let's do it anyway. Tommy, how should
30:17
Speaker 1: people be thinking about this poll?
30:18
Speaker 4: I mean, I think it's a shocking outlier, but one
30:22
Speaker 4: from someone who's considered one of the best pollsters in
30:24
Speaker 4: the business, if not the best. I personally cannot overstate
30:28
Speaker 4: how large insults are loomed in my life because she
30:31
Speaker 4: basically called the Iowa caucuses in 2008, or at least
30:35
Speaker 4: she had Obama winning by basically the margin that he
30:37
Speaker 4: ultimately won by. So, you know, you explained how Seltzer
30:42
Speaker 4: got this result, which was older voters, independent women breaking
30:46
Speaker 4: for Kamala Harris. Oddly, she has Harris winning senior men,
30:50
Speaker 4: men over 65 by two points, which is just kind
30:52
Speaker 4: of like hard to fathom. Seltzer says she doesn't know
30:56
Speaker 4: exactly how, why this is happening. She thinks it's because
30:59
Speaker 4: of Iowa's extremely draconian six week abortion ban and the
31:04
Speaker 4: impact that is having. The one thing that's just worth
31:06
Speaker 4: knowing is Seltzer's methodology is different from a lot of
31:10
Speaker 4: other pollsters because she basically just draws her sample by
31:14
Speaker 4: randomly calling Iowa phone numbers, landlines and cell phones. They
31:18
Speaker 4: contacted a thousand adults to get 808 Iowans. They waited
31:21
Speaker 4: a little bit, but they're not doing all the kind
31:23
Speaker 4: of monkey business that a lot of other pollsters are
31:25
Speaker 4: doing where they are basically asking respondents who they voted
31:29
Speaker 4: for in 2020 and waiting their sample that way.
31:32
Speaker 3: So it looks like that electorate.
31:33
Speaker 4: So, you know, it's a gutsy, poll to release because
31:38
Speaker 4: she knew, you know, she says in an interview with
31:40
Speaker 4: Tim Miller, she did yesterday, one day my methodology won't
31:44
Speaker 4: work and I'll explode and like spread into little pieces
31:47
Speaker 4: over Des Moines or something very funny like that.
31:49
Speaker 3: But we'll see.
31:52
Speaker 6: Yeah.
31:52
Speaker 2: I mean, like my takeaway from the poll. So first
31:53
Speaker 2: of all, there's another poll out of Kansas that showed
31:56
Speaker 2: Trump only winning by five. And I bring it up
31:58
Speaker 2: only because these are polls that can't heard because no
32:00
Speaker 2: one else is polling states. And those polls could actually
32:03
Speaker 2: end up becoming outliers. And it turns out that the
32:06
Speaker 2: polls showing a tie or Trump ahead are correct. And
32:08
Speaker 2: we'll say, oh, these were outliers because maybe those voters
32:12
Speaker 2: were because of how she samples or because of the
32:14
Speaker 2: politics of those places slightly different. But all in all,
32:17
Speaker 2: it tells me like, you know, Nate Cohen wrote up
32:21
Speaker 2: about these times, Sienna polls, that basically if there's a
32:23
Speaker 2: polling error like 2020, it could turn out that Donald
32:27
Speaker 2: Trump could run the table. If there's a polling error
32:29
Speaker 2: like 2022 could turn out that Harris runs the table.
32:32
Speaker 2: And I think the truth is we just don't know
32:34
Speaker 2: because as Tommy pointed out, a lot of these polls
32:36
Speaker 2: are being weighted towards the 2020 sample, which is just
32:41
Speaker 2: a way to kind of basically have them all heard
32:43
Speaker 2: towards a result that kind of looks like 2020 with
32:46
Speaker 2: certain assumptions about how the electrode has changed baked in.
32:48
Speaker 2: But that's not really a poll, right? That's something else.
32:51
Speaker 2: That's a model or that's.
32:59
Speaker 1: That, you know, she's defending her weighting, right? Which is
33:01
Speaker 1: not weighted towards recalled vote or party, even party ID
33:05
Speaker 1: or registration, but it is by demographic. And so she's
33:08
Speaker 1: getting enough of each kind of voter in Iowa and
33:12
Speaker 1: by region, right? So she's trying to get, so she's
33:14
Speaker 1: trying to avoid the light.
33:16
Speaker 3: At least congressional district breakdowns.
33:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, just getting a bunch of excited libs, but who knows?
33:22
Speaker 1: I think there's just a signal in the poll. I
33:24
Speaker 1: think that's the best you can say, right? Which is
33:26
Speaker 1: that there is, that Harris is holding up surprisingly well, maybe,
33:31
Speaker 1: among older voters. Now, of course, the polls said that
33:35
Speaker 1: Biden was doing really well with seniors, and then he
33:38
Speaker 1: did typical performance with seniors. He did a little bit
33:41
Speaker 1: better than Hillary had. And it's showing that women, older women,
33:46
Speaker 1: independent women, are really, really motivated to go vote. And
33:52
Speaker 1: that could have implications for Wisconsin, that traditionally that has
33:55
Speaker 1: been What Seltzer's poll has told people, and this was
33:59
Speaker 1: the case in 16 and 20, like, oh, well, if
34:01
Speaker 1: Trump's doing that well in Iowa, then maybe Joe Biden
34:04
Speaker 1: or maybe Hillary Clinton aren't doing as well as we think,
34:07
Speaker 1: according to the polls in Wisconsin, which ended up being
34:09
Speaker 1: true those years. She could be wrong, of course. Her
34:12
Speaker 1: last miss, her last big miss on the presidential level
34:14
Speaker 1: was in 2004. But even then, she had Kerry up
34:18
Speaker 1: by three. Bush ended up winning by 0.7. So that
34:22
Speaker 1: wasn't it.
34:22
Speaker 3: It's tight.
34:23
Speaker 1: This is what she has in this result is an
34:25
Speaker 1: 11 point swing from the 2020 results. Margin of error
34:28
Speaker 1: at the 95% confidence level is nine. Let's say that
34:31
Speaker 1: it's nine, right? Let's say she's off by nine. That's
34:34
Speaker 1: still Trump plus six in Iowa instead of Trump plus
34:37
Speaker 1: eight would still be a shift to the left by
34:40
Speaker 1: two points.
34:41
Speaker 2: The takeaway for me, like stepping all the way back is, okay, well,
34:46
Speaker 2: it seems like Anna suggesting there's an error in the
34:48
Speaker 2: polls that looks a bit more like 2022, that there
34:49
Speaker 2: is this pro-choice, anti-Dobbs vote, and then the question becomes, okay,
34:56
Speaker 2: Iowa's a place with a draconian abortion law. Wisconsin's a
34:59
Speaker 2: state that just elected a Supreme Court judge to stop
35:04
Speaker 2: them from having a draconian, ancient abortion law in place,
35:07
Speaker 2: but it's a state where that was very much a fear.
35:09
Speaker 2: You have Michigan, where Gretchen Whitmer campaigned on protecting abortion access.
35:13
Speaker 2: You have Pennsylvania, where you have a Democratic governor that
35:16
Speaker 2: has been able to protect abortion access. The question is,
35:18
Speaker 2: what does that anti- Dobbs pro-abortion coalition look like in
35:23
Speaker 2: states where abortion isn't as much under threat or in
35:26
Speaker 2: a state like Arizona where they have a ballot measure
35:28
Speaker 2: or Nevada where they have a ballot measure? And I
35:30
Speaker 2: guess that to me is the open question.
35:32
Speaker 4: For what it's worth, Tim asked Ann Seltzer about what this...
35:36
Speaker 4: result could mean for Wisconsin. He's like, because there's a
35:38
Speaker 4: lot of white people in both places and they eat
35:40
Speaker 4: at Culver's. And she cautioned against that kind of analysis.
35:44
Speaker 1: I mean, Iowa- She just said she can't. She's like,
35:46
Speaker 1: I'm not qualified to know because I don't pull Wisconsin.
35:48
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, she said the only way I would agree
35:49
Speaker 4: to do that is if I pulled that state. But
35:51
Speaker 4: it's also just worth pointing out that Wisconsin is getting
35:53
Speaker 4: hundreds of millions of dollars worth of messaging every day.
35:55
Speaker 4: There's field teams, there's people knocking doors. Iowa's got none
35:58
Speaker 4: of that because it's not a competitive state. So it's
36:00
Speaker 4: probably easier.
36:01
Speaker 3: To reach people.
36:02
Speaker 4: They're just not hearing the campaign messaging. So it's just like,
36:05
Speaker 4: it's a big like, Who knows? But the hopeful version
36:08
Speaker 4: is definitely like, OK, maybe this is a signal that
36:10
Speaker 4: something good is happening out there.
36:12
Speaker 1: Another high quality, highly rated pollster, Marist, just came out
36:17
Speaker 1: with their final national poll, 5147 Harris. They are the
36:21
Speaker 1: other big high quality pollster that does not wait by
36:25
Speaker 1: education or pass vote. So there's something there's there's some
36:28
Speaker 1: split there. And, you know, we'll find out.
36:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, we will find out. But I will say, I
36:34
Speaker 2: just want to be like, even if the election results
36:37
Speaker 2: end up mirroring the kind of cascade of ties, that
36:40
Speaker 2: will not mean that their approach was the correct one.
36:43
Speaker 1: It will just mean that they.
36:44
Speaker 2: They herded luckily, correctly, and we will run in in
36:48
Speaker 2: the next midterms and the next presidential, the same confounding,
36:51
Speaker 2: what do these mean? We will have no idea until
36:52
Speaker 2: the votes come in.
36:53
Speaker 1: Okay, we're going to take a quick break, but two
36:55
Speaker 1: things before we do that. First, reminder that we're going
36:57
Speaker 1: to be doing a show every day until the race
36:58
Speaker 1: is called. What a day, as always, is going to
37:02
Speaker 1: have a new episode in your feet every morning, breaking
37:05
Speaker 1: down what you need to know in just 20 minutes.
37:07
Speaker 1: The hosts of Strict Scrutiny and Hysteria will be making
37:10
Speaker 1: appearances across the network to unpack breaking news, so make
37:13
Speaker 1: sure you're following all these shows to get the very latest.
37:15
Speaker 1: And again, Vote Save America shout-out and request. As you
37:20
Speaker 1: probably know, mail-in ballots come in all the time with
37:22
Speaker 1: little mistakes, like a missing signature, and they can get
37:24
Speaker 1: thrown out if they aren't fixed. That's why we need
37:27
Speaker 1: your help reaching these folks to correct or cure their ballots,
37:31
Speaker 1: that's what it's called, by going to votesaveamerica.com slash cure
37:35
Speaker 1: and signing up to volunteer. This is incredibly important.
37:38
Speaker 3: So important.
37:38
Speaker 1: This is like a signature issue or whatever, and they
37:40
Speaker 1: give you a chance to fix it, and, you know,
37:43
Speaker 1: there's like, thousands of ballots that need curing usually in
37:47
Speaker 1: every state. I think there's already a couple thousand in
37:49
Speaker 1: a bunch of the states where early votes come in,
37:51
Speaker 1: and that can be the margin.
37:53
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is a voter who voted, who made a
37:55
Speaker 4: little mistake, and you can make sure their vote counts.
37:58
Speaker 3: Yeah.
37:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a reminder, too, that there's going to be
37:59
Speaker 2: work we're going to have to, like, even if we
38:01
Speaker 2: get good numbers, good results starting Tuesday night, we have
38:04
Speaker 2: to be vigilant, and there's going to be work to
38:05
Speaker 2: do between now and the moment Kamala Harris is inaugurated.
38:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, and of course, again, as we just heard from
38:10
Speaker 1: Tim Walz, you can call a friend. You can reach
38:13
Speaker 1: out to a friend, text a friend. in swing states,
38:15
Speaker 1: not in swing states, just get people to vote in
38:17
Speaker 1: these last 24, 48 hours. This message has been paid
38:20
Speaker 1: for by Vote Save America. You can learn more at votesaveamerica.com.
38:23
Speaker 1: This ad has not been authorized by any candidate or
38:24
Speaker 1: candidates committee. We'll be right back. All right, we're getting
38:40
Speaker 1: to the end here. We said all along, rather be
38:42
Speaker 1: us than them. You guys still feel like that's true?
38:44
Speaker 3: I think so.
38:46
Speaker 4: I would have had a different answer two weeks ago,
38:47
Speaker 4: to be totally honest with you. And now I feel
38:50
Speaker 4: hopeful because Kamala Harris is closing strong. I think Trump
38:53
Speaker 4: has fumbled every bag he has been handed for 10
38:57
Speaker 4: days now.
38:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would rather be us than them. It wouldn't
39:00
Speaker 2: have changed for me over the last couple weeks, even
39:02
Speaker 2: with the ebb and flow, because the push to replace
39:05
Speaker 2: Joe Biden with Kamala Harris was just a bet on politics.
39:08
Speaker 2: And we are practicing politics. Donald Trump is doing something else.
39:11
Speaker 2: And I still would rather bet on politics.
39:13
Speaker 1: Yeah. I, I, I much rather be us. I mean,
39:16
Speaker 1: I think the question is what are, what are we
39:20
Speaker 1: talking about when people head into the voting booth? And
39:23
Speaker 1: we are, what the Trump campaign would want people to
39:25
Speaker 1: be thinking about when they head into the voting booth
39:27
Speaker 1: is Joe Biden. Uh, whether or not you feel better
39:31
Speaker 1: off than four years ago, inflation, immigration squirrels, right?
39:35
Speaker 5: Yeah.
39:35
Speaker 1: We're not talking about any of the things that we
39:37
Speaker 1: know the Trump campaign wants people to think about because
39:39
Speaker 1: it's in their ads. And so now again, maybe people
39:43
Speaker 1: have already decided. And so that doesn't matter. Um, but
39:46
Speaker 1: they are not doing that at the end. And Trump's
39:49
Speaker 1: just saying crazy shit. He's being off his rocker. He
39:52
Speaker 1: has anyone who's just tuning into this whole thing. Think
39:55
Speaker 1: of what they have seen in the last week from
39:57
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. And because it's maybe like, well, sometimes that
40:00
Speaker 1: works with people. Yeah, that works with his base, but
40:02
Speaker 1: not people who are just doing it. So and I
40:04
Speaker 1: think fundamentally, if you're zooming out like she her coalition
40:09
Speaker 1: is relying on more reliable voters. than his, right? And
40:14
Speaker 1: now his base is certainly reliable. The turnout in the
40:16
Speaker 1: rural areas already early vote is like through the roof,
40:19
Speaker 1: but he's betting on low propensity men to save the
40:24
Speaker 1: day for him. And it could pay off, but it's
40:27
Speaker 1: a riskier bet.
40:28
Speaker 3: Plops army of incels.
40:29
Speaker 2: I just think about like, I will, for me, like
40:31
Speaker 2: the last week and a half has truly to me
40:33
Speaker 2: been about Trump on Joe Rogan versus Michelle Obama. And
40:37
Speaker 2: I just think like Michelle Obama made a case, not
40:39
Speaker 2: just to people who are going to vote for Harris,
40:41
Speaker 2: but for the people around those people, right? Like for
40:44
Speaker 2: them to go to their husbands, to go to their
40:45
Speaker 2: brothers and their sisters and to say, please come with me.
40:48
Speaker 2: I don't, Donald Trump has not given a message to
40:51
Speaker 2: his MAGA base or on that show that says, I
40:53
Speaker 2: know you're with me. Here's how to go get some
40:55
Speaker 2: other people. He just has not done that.
40:56
Speaker 3: Yeah. All right.
40:57
Speaker 1: Before we sign off for the last time, before results
40:59
Speaker 1: come in, while we're all in agonizing suspense, we thought
41:03
Speaker 1: it'd be a good time to talk about what we've
41:04
Speaker 1: learned from this race and any takes we feel confident about,
41:08
Speaker 1: regardless of what happens on Tuesday.
41:11
Speaker 3: I'll run through a couple quick.
41:14
Speaker 2: Polling is broken.
41:15
Speaker 1: I hit that one. Candidates matter.
41:18
Speaker 2: Switching from Biden to Kamala is why we have a chance.
41:20
Speaker 2: She has been an extraordinary candidate. She took on the
41:22
Speaker 2: mantle and she deserves so much praise for that no
41:25
Speaker 2: matter what happens. And I am sure there'll be plenty
41:27
Speaker 2: of recriminations if we were to lose. And I just
41:30
Speaker 2: want to be on record saying that because I would
41:31
Speaker 2: like to not be a part of that.
41:33
Speaker 3: There'll be not a.
41:34
Speaker 2: Perfect campaign, but if it required a perfect campaign to
41:37
Speaker 2: defeat this fucking moron, then America's got bigger fish to fry.
41:41
Speaker 2: campaigns matter. She ran a great campaign. The bigger points
41:43
Speaker 2: to me are the full takeover of the Republican Party
41:45
Speaker 2: by Trump is complete. And I don't know what comes
41:48
Speaker 2: next for Republicans if Donald Trump loses, but we cannot
41:51
Speaker 2: forget what these people fucking did. Every single one who capitulated,
41:54
Speaker 2: every single one who sold their souls for him, they're
41:57
Speaker 2: not walking away from that.
41:57
Speaker 3: We will remember.
41:59
Speaker 2: The last piece too is because Kamala became the candidate
42:03
Speaker 2: late because of a lot of headwinds around people being
42:06
Speaker 2: frustrated by the cost of living and anti-incumbency. trend that
42:10
Speaker 2: is global. It may not manifest in this election, but
42:14
Speaker 2: there's not just an anti-Trump coalition out there. There is
42:18
Speaker 2: a pro-freedom, pro-democracy, economically populist coalition out there that we
42:23
Speaker 2: can assemble. We see that with Dan Osborne and the
42:26
Speaker 2: success he's had. We see that with ballot measures across
42:28
Speaker 2: the country. That movement, that majority is there for us,
42:33
Speaker 2: win or lose.
42:34
Speaker 3: Yeah.
42:35
Speaker 4: I mean, I think I totally agree that candidates matter
42:37
Speaker 4: a lot. I think that if if this were Biden
42:40
Speaker 4: versus Trump, we would be on a path to, you know,
42:45
Speaker 4: Trump getting 400 electoral votes or more, and it would
42:48
Speaker 4: be very, very bad.
42:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, the good news there is there'd be less anxiety.
42:51
Speaker 3: Less suspense. Right, there'd be more battening down the hatches.
42:55
Speaker 6: Yeah.
42:55
Speaker 3: More applying for passports in other places.
42:58
Speaker 4: I think also we learned that abortion is not a
43:00
Speaker 4: secondary issue for people. It's not a quote-unquote social issue
43:03
Speaker 4: or one that declined in salience as we got further
43:05
Speaker 4: from Dobbs. It's an issue where the results of the
43:09
Speaker 4: Dobbs decision became more and more prevalent and the stories
43:13
Speaker 4: became more personal and horrifying. And I think that drove voters.
43:17
Speaker 4: There's been a lot of polling where you've seen abortion
43:19
Speaker 4: tick up over the last few weeks in terms of
43:21
Speaker 4: its relevance. I also think like there, there was a
43:25
Speaker 4: very annoying kind of internet Twitter meme for a while
43:29
Speaker 4: when Trump would say something and people would be like, LOL,
43:31
Speaker 4: nothing matters.
43:32
Speaker 3: You know, I remember that. And like, sometimes that's true.
43:35
Speaker 3: You know, when you're in the kind of dregs of
43:37
Speaker 3: an off year or, He can say something. Most people
43:40
Speaker 3: won't see it. It won't matter.
43:41
Speaker 4: And I also think that ultimately, look, the fact that
43:43
Speaker 4: we're here suggests that January 6th wasn't the career-ending event
43:49
Speaker 4: like it should have been. But what he says and
43:52
Speaker 4: does matters on the margins. I mean, the Madison Square
43:54
Speaker 4: Garden rally has hung with him. There was a Univision
43:58
Speaker 4: poll of Pennsylvania Latino voters that found a lot of
44:01
Speaker 4: people personally offended by that joke, the kill Tony.
44:05
Speaker 3: Joke about Puerto Rico.
44:06
Speaker 4: 71% of respondents said the joke suggested there was racism
44:11
Speaker 4: in the Trump campaign and 53% think Trump is very
44:14
Speaker 4: disrespectful to Latinos.
44:16
Speaker 1: So racism in the Trump campaign.
44:19
Speaker 6: Yeah.
44:19
Speaker 3: Nick Fuentes. Yeah.
44:20
Speaker 2: I mean like the flip side to Joe Biden would
44:22
Speaker 2: be down to Trump. Uh, we don't know what it
44:25
Speaker 2: would be like right now if they had run a
44:26
Speaker 2: normal Republican, like Nikki Haley versus Biden, but like Nikki Haley.
44:29
Speaker 3: Versus Kamala Harris.
44:30
Speaker 2: Like we don't know what it would look like that
44:31
Speaker 2: they had all the trends of anti-incumbency, all the anger
44:34
Speaker 2: at the economy, all the anger at the Biden administration
44:37
Speaker 2: behind a normal candidate running a strategic campaign, I don't
44:41
Speaker 2: think we'd be pretty happy sitting here either.
44:42
Speaker 6: Yeah.
44:43
Speaker 3: Divided country, anything could happen. Sucks that we got here,
44:47
Speaker 3: but feeling better.
44:48
Speaker 1: If she loses, I think the explanation to me feels
44:52
Speaker 1: pretty straightforward, which is that voters who don't follow news closely,
44:56
Speaker 1: who don't show up in every election, we're still pissed
44:59
Speaker 1: about high prices and or at the border, which is
45:03
Speaker 1: sort of the post-pandemic malaise that has, as you said, Lovett,
45:07
Speaker 1: just taken down incumbents all over the world. And trading
45:11
Speaker 1: our very unpopular incumbent for his vice president 90 days
45:16
Speaker 1: out from the election still wasn't quite enough to overcome
45:19
Speaker 1: that environment. I think if she loses, that to me
45:23
Speaker 1: is the most likely explanation. If she wins, it is
45:25
Speaker 1: because the anti-MAGA coalition that has turned out in every
45:30
Speaker 1: election since 16 to beat Donald Trump and beat MAGA
45:34
Speaker 1: politicians did it again. And it was fueled by women
45:38
Speaker 1: who were pissed about Dobbs and people, an anti-MAGA coalition,
45:43
Speaker 1: very pissed about Donald Trump's threat to democracy. And what
45:47
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris did, which would be an incredible, like history-making
45:52
Speaker 1: achievement is in 90 days, She reminded people of what's
45:57
Speaker 1: at stake and also defined herself in a way where
46:00
Speaker 1: she neutralized Donald Trump's advantage on the economy and on
46:04
Speaker 1: immigration just enough to make sure that that anti-MAGA coalition
46:08
Speaker 1: could propel her to the White House. And it's sort
46:11
Speaker 1: of why I'm like relatively calm, because I feel like
46:15
Speaker 1: we have done all we can to make sure everyone
46:18
Speaker 1: who's paying attention knows the stakes. And when I say we,
46:21
Speaker 1: it's like the other thing that makes me sort of
46:23
Speaker 1: proud and happy at the end here. It's like the
46:25
Speaker 1: anti-MAGA coalition got the assignment. We were used to seeing
46:28
Speaker 1: that at the convention. Kamala Harris had to walk the highest,
46:32
Speaker 1: narrowest tightrope, and you can count on one hand the
46:36
Speaker 1: number of times that she stumbled. Jen O'Malley Dillon, who
46:39
Speaker 1: was the Biden campaign chair and now Kamala Harris's chair
46:43
Speaker 1: in the entire Biden campaign, who's now the Harris campaign,
46:46
Speaker 1: plus all the new people who joined, they all got
46:48
Speaker 1: the assignment. They did everything they could. The left, AOC
46:51
Speaker 1: and Bernie, did everything they could. Liz Cheney and the
46:54
Speaker 1: never Trump Republicans did like the legacy media clearly covered
46:58
Speaker 1: the stakes. A lot of people have complaints with the media,
47:00
Speaker 1: but like plenty articles out there about how, what Donald
47:03
Speaker 1: Trump's planning to do if he wins again. And so
47:05
Speaker 1: if people choose that, then like, that's what the country wanted.
47:09
Speaker 1: And I don't believe that's what the country wants. And
47:11
Speaker 1: I think that we can overcome that, but that's, I really,
47:14
Speaker 1: I'm proud of everyone for, for pulling together and, and
47:18
Speaker 1: doing everything we can to stop this guy.
47:19
Speaker 5: Yeah.
47:20
Speaker 2: It's, it's, I will say too, though, even in that circumstance,
47:23
Speaker 2: even with all of us doing everything we can, if
47:24
Speaker 2: we lose, I do think like, will that be because
47:27
Speaker 2: this country wanted someone as awful and terrible as Donald Trump?
47:29
Speaker 2: Will that be because this country wanted tariffs and a
47:32
Speaker 2: national sales tax and mass deportations? I think some people
47:35
Speaker 2: really want those things. I think some people are pretending
47:38
Speaker 2: to believe he won't do those things or actually believe
47:39
Speaker 2: he won't do those things. But I also do think
47:42
Speaker 2: that like, we can't always lay at the feet of
47:44
Speaker 2: the Harris campaign or Democrats or even the media, like
47:47
Speaker 2: what it means for someone like Donald Trump to be
47:50
Speaker 2: anywhere close to the White House. And those are deeper
47:53
Speaker 2: economic problems. Those are deeper social problems. Those are problems
47:56
Speaker 2: with social media that will continue, that we have to
47:58
Speaker 2: keep figuring out how.
47:59
Speaker 1: To fight back against. And that's true regardless of the outcome.
48:02
Speaker 2: And that is true regardless of the outcome.
48:03
Speaker 3: Yeah.
48:04
Speaker 1: That's our show for today. Tomorrow is election day. If
48:07
Speaker 1: you can get away from work to help get people
48:08
Speaker 1: to the polls, do that. We're going to record the
48:11
Speaker 1: show as late as we can tomorrow night to get
48:13
Speaker 1: the fullest picture we can. Dan will be here too,
48:15
Speaker 1: the whole gang. We will release that show as soon
48:17
Speaker 1: as possible. And as we mentioned, we'll have a show
48:20
Speaker 1: every day until there's an official call. Stick with us.
48:23
Speaker 1: Hang in there, everybody. Go get every last vote. And,
48:28
Speaker 1: you know, feel good. You should feel good.
48:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, feel good, everybody.
48:30
Speaker 2: Feel good, but also nervous.
48:35
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48:38
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48:47
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49:01
Speaker 1: is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo
49:04
Speaker 1: and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farrah Safari. Reid
49:07
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49:10
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Speaker 1: Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer, with audio support from
49:17
Speaker 1: Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Writing support by Hallie Kiefer.
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Speaker 1: Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt
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Speaker 1: DeGroat is our head of production. Andy Taft is our
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Speaker 1: executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones,
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Speaker 1: Phoebe Bradford, Joseph Dutra, Ben Hethcote, Mia Kelman, Molly Lobel,
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Speaker 1: Kirill Pelleviv, and David Toles.