Latest / OneLegUpAlex Media / Where We Stand on Election 2024 With Cygnal: Feb 20,2024

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Where We Stand on Election 2024 With Cygnal: Feb 20,2024 · OneLegUpAlex Media

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And as I promised a month ago on January twentieth, twenty twenty four,
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we are going to do something on the twentieth of every month leading up to
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election day and then of course the actual day when the next president puts their
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hand on the Bible, or it could be the same present puts their hand
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on the Bible once again to take their second term. Well with me to
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discuss the polls and everything this month is Mitchell Brown. He's the director of
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political strategy with Signal CYGNL. Thanks for joining me, Mitchell, Thanks for
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having me. Alex So, your colleague Ryan released a lot of numbers and
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it does seem like here in February twentieth. I know it's a while away,
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but immigration is going to play a role here, isn't it. It's
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going to be the most important factor deciding this election. It's going to kind
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of revert back to what we saw in twenty sixteen compared to twenty twenty.
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And I know that you were dealing with Vivek's campaign. Was a little insight
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into that and what you guys were able to accomplish with Levic. Yeah,
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I mean working with the Vek was an honor. We had a traggy going
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in. It's an interesting scenario when you're working with a candidate who, prior
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to getting into the election obviously had a very low name idea. Not many
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people in the Republican Party, let alone anywhere, knew who the VIK was
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at the time. So for us, who was taking an unknown candidate and
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making him a presence that can be felt on the stage and someone who can
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actually translate to the polls and kind of strike something there. And we have
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great pride in what we were able to accomplish there. We outlasted a lot
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of well known candidates, so again it got to a place where we were
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happy with the performance. Obviously we knew going against President Trump like from the
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start was a tough uphill climb, but I think Veke managed to maintain his
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relationship with Trump kind of car about his own path. I think he also
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helped in bringing a bunch of new style voters to the Republican electorate. You
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know, people talk about posters and really they only have about ten minute segments.
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But I want to delve in here. When you know someone running for
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campaign taps you guys as their polster, what goes into that? Like,
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how do you make the numbers work for the candidate. That's what it is,
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right. Well, again, there's two types of things. That's all
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polling. It is kind of separated too. Facets. You have internal polling,
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which is not meant for public release, and it's just what the campaign
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uses to actually go out and try to be effective as a campaign, and
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it influences their decisions, whether it comes to what their or their ads look
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like on TV, what their mail looks like, what their digital looks like,
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should they be focusing more on this county or this state or whatever it
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might be. And then there's public release polling, which is to show that
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your candidate is starting to make a name for or saying, hey, this
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is a tight race, so we can help with fundraising by publicly release and
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data. So it's it's multifacet in that. But internally, I mean,
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all you really care about is having accurate data to inform decisions. You know,
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when someone sees the newsletter that you guys send out, it doesn't look
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Democrat leaning. So do you guys also work on the other side as well?
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Or are you sort of conservative focused? Oh yeah, we're only a
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Republican polling firm. But again, I care about being accurate. We've been
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rated the number one most accurate private polster for the past three election cycles by
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well five thirty eight and the New York Times. I mean that's we're not
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out here to change any data or make it look good for Republicans. And
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again I it are. Yeah, our data shows Democrats up. But when
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we're talking about an election like that that's on like the popular voute nationwide,
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like a dead heat election and due to electoral college, is actually much more
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beneficial for Republicans than it is for Democrats. I think we I feel like
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we kind of saw that in two thousand with the Gore Bush that went to
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the Supreme Court. But on the other hand, you know, I feel
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like a lot of Democrats are swaying to Republicans. Is signals showing that as
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well. Yeah, be careful how I word this. It's not that they're
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moving to Republicans. It's just there's a decent group of your traditional Democrats or
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your blue dog Dems that are over Biden and a lot of the far left
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ideology, so they're kind of identifying more as independence Now. It's not that
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there's a group of Democrats that are going out and saying they like Trump.
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Now it's more sentiment against Biden and just a little more move to the centrist
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style of a thought. Mitchell. You know, in twenty twenty, I
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felt like it was all about personality. He didn't like his tweets, didn't
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like the way he handle the pandemic. But this year, I just feel
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like it's all about the issues. It's a far cry from what we saw
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in twenty twenty. Is when the polling is concerned. Yeah, Trump is
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great as a candidate when he's not in office, when he has something to
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point to, and especially when he's been given the gift of Joe Biden's term,
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it's a really strong place to be in. When Trump's attacking telling people
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like what's going wrong in their lives, that doesn't really work as a campaign
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style when you're in office, and people in twenty twenty, especially with the
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pandemic coming through and the George Floyd riots, it was a personality test and
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people thought, Okay, maybe this is a little too crazy for me.
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I'm going to go with what I think. I know who Joe Biden is.
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People are now regretting that decision. In across the board, people think
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that their lives are not better today in twenty twenty four than they were in
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twenty twenty. So it's about back we have a do you guys have a
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poll on that? Like how lives were for voting Biden in twenty twenty compared
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to now, did you guys sort of do a poll on that? Uh?
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Yeah, I mean it again, the way that we word it was
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a little different. Mostly it's asked by people's financial situation, and you're getting
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close to it's in between two thirds and three quarters of voters say that their
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financial situation has not gotten better or has gotten worse in the past four years.
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And I know that. You know, inflation has been a hot button
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issue it you know, typically in these elections, economy tops everything else where
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does economy rate this year? Economy is always one that shows up as what
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voters say is their number one issue, but it doesn't actually determine elections.
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It's a yeah, it's something everyone thinks about, but what gets people to
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vote is visceral reactions or their heart. People don't vote with their mind.
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So Republicans ran on this inflation in an economy message in twenty two and it
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didn't work well. So again, I think we need to touch back in
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on like what actually drives people, And yes, obviously people care about the
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economy, but it's not what's deciding their vote. And that's why I think
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this is coming back to immigration for this election. I want to ask you
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about the media intake. Is it any different than twenty twenty? Are people
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actually not watching a Fox News or CNN? I mean, what do you
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guys see? Yeah, I mean it's steadily declining, like the viewership obviously
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of cable broadcast, but Fox and Republican Primaries is still what you want to
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be gonna want to be buying when it comes to general I mean, you're
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seeing more people that are getting their information via digital ads or streaming serve,
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so it's not really necessarily changing how campaigns are going about it. Still the
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TV, they're still cutting an ad so it can be on your Hulu or
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or whatever streaming service. People are watching Peacock whatever it might be, And
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then they're still going to target sporting events for a lot of their campaigns.
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That's still going to be the main mode that people are spending in twenty four
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is going to be some sort of video ad. But you're here to see
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again more text email across the board. While tv dwindles, it's going to
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find a place where it rests like it will never die off. It's always
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going to be the number one medium. It's just I guess how people are
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consuming the video. You know here in New York's being up ads all we
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saw or is the Mazi pillop ads and the tom Swazi ads And got to
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ask you, is last week in indication of where this general can go?
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Or is that sort of a Democrat talking point they hope that that's what happens.
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I mean, just look at the PVII of that district. Santos drastically
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overperformed. And when we took a look at this district, Trump wins this
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district. I mean, it's just Santos had an outlasting effect. And so
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if you look at this, this performed two PVII. So I don't think
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that's really anything people should celebrate. It's having the first time someone being removed
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from Congress in decades kind of poisoned an already heavy D seat. So I
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don't really think it's it's like kind of a barrier on anything or a gauge
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on what's gonna happen in November. I don't think so either. I know
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that this long ise that is typically read anyway for Trump or any other candidate.
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All right, well, I gotta ask you this because obviously he's meant
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to reactionary. And what was saw last couple of weeks with the hops being
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beat up by the migrants. Have you guys delved into the polling of that.
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I know you said fifty seven percent do not want legals here, They
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want to actually catch them and deport them back. And did that come about
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because of what happened in Times Square or is that a general feeling even before
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that attack happened. Well, so the number you just referred to is actually
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fifty seven percent people support putting migrants in detention centers until they're deported. Sixty
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six percent of Americans support deporting legals. And I know that's just another event
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that's leading to this is it's been spiking everywhere in the country. Boston,
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it's happening. It's a daily life thing in southern California, in Arizona,
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and in Texas. So while that's just one instance that people are seeing and
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it's changing sentiment, that's happening everywhere Chicago. It could name a place DC
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where I live. It's impacting everyone, So it wasn't solely related to that,
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but it's just what sentiment is showing. So, like I said,
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two thirds of Americans want to deport illegal migrants, while fifty six or fifty
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seven percent want to put them in detention camps until they do so instead of
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this catch and release that the Biden administration has been doing. We also showed
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that sixty percent of Americans support what Governor Greg Abbat is doing in Texas and
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fighting the federal government and sending his own troops to the border. We also
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had a number of fifty one percent of Americans which should support shutting down the
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government over the border. There's so many angles to this election. I want
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to ask you this are New York and DC, Chicago, Boston, your
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main cities that are pretty blue. Are they happy? Are you seeing any
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trends like yeah, they're not happy here, They're moving out. What is
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that still going on? Yeah? I mean people who don't want to live
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there, don't live there anymore to change the makeup of the cities, Like
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politically, you know what I mean, Like the people don't want to deal
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with it moved to Florida, moved to Tennessee, moved Texas, moved to
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South Carolina. They're not staying there. So you're not going to see any
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change like in the voting patterns in these cities. Sure you might have the
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occasional like surprise and people just realizing how bad this is for their community.
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So sure you might see like a d C that's a ninety one percent Democrat
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vote city, maybe it goes to eighty seven percent, But it's nothing that's
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going to fundamentally change any of these cities. I'm there, sorry, min
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So noa. And I mean we would hope it would only because we once
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more common sense in these cities, but maybe that just won't happen. I
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don't I don't know. I'm voting wise. When you did the Leesel,
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did you guys work on the Lezel? Then, Kathy Hopell Race, what
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were you seeing there? And why did he come up short? Because I
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know it was the city. But he made a really good run at that
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governorship last year. Yeah, I mean it's a it shows how strong of
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a candidate he was, so I mean, yeah, he came up short,
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but that's a long shot seat for a Republican to win him performing that
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well as a testament to who he is and in his strength as a candidate.
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Also coupled with just a lot of things going against the governor in New
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York. So that campaign was was well done. Again, he's a he's
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a strong candidate and has a great political future. So again he outperformed what
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people thought he could do when he initially got into the race. But it's
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an uphill battle New York regardless, like it's without some seismic shift. That's
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about as good a performance you're going to see for fuel election cycles there staying
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here in the state. Obviously, Trump is continuing to get you know,
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hit with all these fines and but that's not really affecting his pull numbers,
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is it. It's making them better. I would say he's collecting indictments and
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all this as rocket fueled for his presidency. That's what it feels like.
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Yeah, I mean, I think the way that they're that it seemed like
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the considered effort to go against Trump is these indictments and then to not if
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you see, like any of the mainstream news, they're not they're choosing to
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not air his remarks, they're giving like like if you look at like the
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Iowa Coxes in New Hampshire, they were giving a platform to the Santus and
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Haley, but when Trump would speak, they would cut it off and say
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they didn't want to air it because of disinformation. That's another gift to Trump.
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It's gotten to the point where people understand just how egregious, like the
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political targeting is in every more indictment they throw at him, it's going to
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be better for him, especially when it turns out to just look ridiculous,
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like when you have what's going on in Georgia with the prosecutor paying her lover.
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When you have New York setting up a precedent that is insane and you're
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going to have and you have the governor had to literally go out and say
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to real estate investors and businesses that this was essentially one off thing that we
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won't ever do it again. No one believes any of these things. So
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again it's only you know, at a time where there's a bunch of four
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lease spaces in our city, it's a really great time to do This means
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I'm being sarcastic because it just shows it could be done to anybody, And
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why wouldnybody want to invest here at a time where we need investing back in
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New York post pandemic. You know, I'm looking at your stats from this
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past Thursday holding dump, and I see that there's a big spike thirteen point
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spike in voter zoo planned to vote in person. And I always think since
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the Democrats wanted to go through with this, Republicans had to sort of adapt
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and beat them at the mail and as well. But they're still strong on
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going on on election day. Yeah, I mean Republicans always that are going
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to want for the large part, going to want to vote in person on
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election day. But Republicans should be actively getting people to vote by mail and
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to vote early and to ballot harvest. You can't continuously try to stick to
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old methods when your opponent is trying new things and trying to gain any little
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advantage they can. You have to play the same game. So, like
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I said, again, Republicans need to be ballot harvesting. They need to
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be telling voters that voting early is fine and voting by mail it is fine.
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Again, we need that vote turnout and as many people voting just as
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much as they do. This pollster pack. This stat pack is filled with
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different things. We're gonna link it on our description in the podcast below.
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But I'm seeing now independence Now the GOP has gained some, but now they
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lost a little bit. Where do the independence land do you think come November
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of this year? Yeah, I mean obviously that's the million dollar question right
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there. And I think it varies by what the independent looks like and what
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state they live in. Why the why I say, like the economy is
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not an effective message to run on or why it's not something that actually decides
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aboute is so when people talk about like the swing voters and independence, like
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you often hear the refrain about suburban women. And so one thing I want
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to touch on there is like just by income. So say you're looking at
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like the Philadelphia suburbs, the main line very high income earning areas. So
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for them, the inflation economy message doesn't work. Why they didn't turn out
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for Republicans in twenty two or twenty was abortion. So for them, when
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it doesn't matter how much eggs are or how much gases, like, they
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don't second look at something. They just go in and buy what they need.
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And sure they might overall notice a price difference, but it's not affecting
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their dayta decisions. They are going to be more concerned with abortion issues like
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that. When you go look at Michigan and Wisconsin, where voters tend to
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feel the brunt of this inflation higher and again have felt it for a decade
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now. Just again with the loss of job and kind of destruction of their
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community, those independents are going to lean right. So it's looking at it
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based on education and income. Again, the parties have had a monumental shift
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in the past two decades. Republicans are no longer the party of the country
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club. It's a party of the blue collar working class voter income and education
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are now the number one determinent of someone's vote. The more educated, more
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income you earn, the more likely you are to vote down. You know,
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I think union guys are going to vote Republican. I mean, we've
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seen Trump go to the UAW and by the way, he did a better
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job that than Biden did. I don't know if you were following that or
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not, but when he was at the UAW, he rocked the place.
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Biden was sort of half they're half not if you will, Yeah, I
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mean a Union leadership's going to endorse Biden, but there's going to be very
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large breaks in every Union with the average voter going out and voting for Trump.
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And why Trump is unique is those voters wouldn't break and go vote for
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a Nikki Haley. They would only go do that for Trump. And these
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were the voters who either they haven't voted before or never voted Republican. And
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that's why Trump swung the Ross bell in sixteen. I want to ask you
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about vivec. The wheelhouse for him was which demographic and what was his weak
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spot that you guys found? Well, yeah, so for him, obviously,
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it's a base that was very trumping an American for America First, but
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a younger version, so like an under thirty five America first Republican was really
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receptive for the VIC. Now there was even a lot of people who were
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like still Trump voters that were supportive of the VIC, so like if Trump
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wasn't there of a VIC would be their style of politician. And then the
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people who did support the VIKE almost universally went to Trump. So again it's
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a younger America first voter was where he did well, and he obviously where
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he fell behind obviously was a group that we knew he would fall behind it
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and it's that traditional neo con older conservative. Well he's sort of I don't
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know who script him or went off script sometimes, but he was given it
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to Haley on the debate stage. And Nikki y is still there. So
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if you were to consult her right now, would you kindly tell her to
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leave the race? I mean, this is is it? What's she trying
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to prove by staying in just just out of Curiosity's that's a good question.
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I mean, this was never a race to begin with. The only state
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or territory that she would have a chance of winning is the district of Columbia
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and Republican primary. Because all the consultants and establishment like her. Outside of
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that, she's going to she'd lose all fifty states. She's gonna lose her
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home state. If if this announcement she has today isn't her dropping out,
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she's gonna again get destroyed in her own state. What she's doing is placating
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to the donors who are there, And campaigns are a way to maintain a
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lifestyle and maintain relevancy. And there's a whole campaign staff behind her, So
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they're selling a dream of the never Trump group. So it's a there is
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that sliver of the Republican Party and that's still what she's playing to. But
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uh, I think if you asked her or anyone in her team if they
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thought this was still a race, that they'd be lying to you if they
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said it was. But right not. Hey, these team will publicly say
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that, but I'm sure behind closer as they do. All Right, So
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you guys are posters and you've worked with guys like the vec Romswami candidates like
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the vick Romaswamy. Do you advise them on how to be on that but
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debate stage or is that a totally different team? Oh? I mean it
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varies by canadate. Like I said, I mean, we were posters for
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Trump in twenty twenty. I mean we do a bunch of congressional a bunch
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of centrail races. Everyone changes. I mean, it depends what but they
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want. We talked about what should be talked about on there. But we're
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not doing debate prep with the candidates. We're not their general consult and our
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campaign manager. We're just saying, hey, these are the kind of the
22:47
messages and the issues that are top of mind for voters right now. But
22:52
outside of that, we're not like giving advice on how to act or or
22:57
what to say in debates. Got to ask you, being a poster for
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Trump, did you work with him directly and did you ever did you guys
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ever feel pressure like you got to get him the right numbers because he can
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fly off the handle a little bit if one the information is wrong. Yeah.
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So, Uh, I was actually working for Trump at the White House
23:15
when Signal was pulling for Trump, so I was on the other side of
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this, and I was on the Trump victory campaign. Uh, so I
23:23
had my interactions with him there. I wasn't at Signal for it, but
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Signal again delivered good data for the the Trump admin and for the Trump campaign
23:33
in those last days. But yeah, I mean Trump, Uh, it's
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hard because again, you you want to show him like where he's doing well
23:45
and and where he's not. It's just uh, you know, I mean,
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he wants to see good data, but he wants to see accurate data.
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So it's just making sure that what you're delivering him is is right and
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uh, and just being there to give the on at data when sometimes it's
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not what you want to hear. Yeah, I can only imagine that the
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pressures of that, Mitch, this has been awesome. I gotta ask you,
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how do you get the numbers? Do you email your those that you
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pull do you call up people to pull out? Do you guys get your
24:15
numbers? Yes? So kind of what makes a signal unique and why we
24:19
had like a rapid rise to where we are today is we don't care how
24:25
we contact voters, so we use we kind of revolutionize multimodal polling. So
24:30
we will do live calls, recorded calls to cell phones, to landlines,
24:36
we'll send texts, we will do online panel whatever we have to do to
24:41
contact the right voters so that we don't have to weight our polling as much.
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That's all that matters to us. So it could be any of the
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methods I just said. But again what matters to us is that say we
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have a sample, and the sample says that for an accurate voter universe,
24:57
the demographics say we need thirty five Hispanic women under the age of fifty.
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We're going to use all those methods until we get that many responses from Hispanic
25:07
women under the age of fifty. We're not going to just fill a sample,
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only get twenty seven responses and then wait the rest of it. So
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I kind of put a bow on this edition. Two things, where do
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we stay when Trump be Biden? What's the number that Signal is showing?
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And what you said earlier, But just say togain why people should trust Signal
25:30
for their data this whole election cycle? Yeah, I mean on why to
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trust Signal? Don't take my word on it, go look us up.
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And like I said, we then rated the number one most accurate private polster
25:42
in the past three election cycles. And it's what we stake our brand on.
25:47
We're the youngest group of polsters on the Republican side, but have made
25:52
our name on accuracy. And when it comes to Trump Biden, like I
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said, obviously we know Trump's not winning the pop dealer of vote. When
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it comes down to it, it's what happens in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania,
26:06
Georgia, and Arizona. And from where I'm seeing it, I think
26:11
if Trump takes two to three of those five states that swung towards Biden in
26:18
twenty twenty and that delivers in the twenty twenty four election, and again it's
26:26
I think why it's a benefit to actually have Trump and why what other Republicans
26:30
are saying that like Nikki Haley's a better general election candidate, I don't believe
26:33
to be true because while yes, she would maybe outperform Trump in Georgia,
26:38
she is definitely not outperforming Trump or even coming close to securing wins in Pennsylvania,
26:45
Wisconsin, or Michigan. And that's where I believe Trump can. We'll
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I have to see. I feel like this summer there's going to be a
26:52
change on the Democratic side that might shift everything. I don't know. We'll
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have to see, But that's just my own thought. We can weigh in
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later in the U if you like Mitchell, as the polls increase, get
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heated up even more, you know, toward the summer, would love to
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have you back. Yeah, anytime, Alex is great talking. Yeah.
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That was Mitchell Brown, the national director of political strategy for Signal on the
27:15
Alex Garrett podcast network. That was perfect. I think we got everything we
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wanted to cover that. Did you did you want to cover anything else?
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Or did we get all the Did we touch everything? No? I think
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that was a good kind of