Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Interview Only w/ Reid Wilson - The Midterm Story Everyone Is Missing… State Governments

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Interview Only w/ Reid Wilson - The Midterm Story Everyone Is Missing… State Governments · The Chuck ToddCast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Todd cast is brought to
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: you by Chapter. Now, almost everything you hear about Medicare
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: is somebody quietly trying to steer you somewhere. And you're
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: skeptical of that, as you should be. I get it.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's a federal lawsuit going on right now
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: over exactly this. Companies that branded themselves as unbiased while
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  Speaker 1: allegedly pointing people toward whatever would pay them the most
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: as some sort of broker. So if your default is
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: to distrust everyone in this space, honestly, I get it.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: I'm a bit distrustful these days myself. That's the whole
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  Speaker 1: reason I want to tell you about Chapter. They're independent
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  Speaker 1: Medicare advisors whose entire model is that their advisors are
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  Speaker 1: not paid to push any one plan. They're just trying
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  Speaker 1: to help. Yes, there's compensation that goes with it. but
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: it's across the board is what they're trying to do.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: At the end of the day, they're advocating for you.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: They're not the insurance companies themselves. They're an actual person
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: who actually goes through your doctors, your prescriptions, your needs,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: and then compares them to every single plan available to
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  Speaker 1: find the best one that will work for you and
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  Speaker 1: hopefully save you a couple dollars too. And here's the
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  Speaker 1: part that sets chapter apart. They don't disappear once you've
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  Speaker 1: been in They will keep advocating for you. They're kind
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  Speaker 1: of like almost like a concierge service. You're just there.
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  Speaker 1: I need help. You're like customer service. You know, the plan,
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  Speaker 1: get hit with a wrongful medical bill, they'll help you
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: fight it. They want to stay an advocate for you
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: even after you've done this. So look, I get it.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: I think there's all sorts of space. You see a
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: lot of people are throwing themselves in this healthcare space.
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  Speaker 1: What I like about these chapter folks, I've spent time
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  Speaker 1: with them. This is a very transparent organization. It is
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  Speaker 1: Medicare and all of its affiliated stuff can be very confusing.
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  Speaker 1: The whole point of this is to make this easier
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: and less confusing. OK, so look, take the skepticism you
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: already have in all of this, point it at your
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  Speaker 1: own plan for 20 minutes. It's free. There's no pressure.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: And then call chapter today at 980-734-4200. One of the
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  Speaker 1: hallmarks of the 1994 and 2010 waves were the fact
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  Speaker 1: that while everybody was focused on all the changes in Washington,
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  Speaker 1: they had dramatic impacts in the state. They had generational
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  Speaker 1: impact on the politics of a variety of state legislatures
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  Speaker 1: across the country. And if if 2026 is a wave year,
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  Speaker 1: it isn't going to stop at Senate and congressional races.
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  Speaker 1: It will in many of these states. It'll actually start
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  Speaker 1: with the governor's race. People forget the governor's races in
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  Speaker 1: many cases drive turnout, drive the conversation. And yet, as
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  Speaker 1: as as I told many of you on my Monday
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  Speaker 1: podcast for the first time in six months, the number
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  Speaker 1: one Democratic candidate. fundraiser on ActBlue was not a Senate
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  Speaker 1: or a House candidate, but it was a gubernatorial candidate,
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  Speaker 1: and it was Amy Acton. You may not be surprised
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  Speaker 1: at why she became suddenly a national donor recipient there.
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  Speaker 1: But my friend Reed Wilson, who he and I worked
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  Speaker 1: together at the Hotline, he was a Hotline editor-in-chief. He
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  Speaker 1: went to found a terrific news organization called Pluribus that
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  Speaker 1: focuses on state legislatures, not just on the politics side
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  Speaker 1: of it, but on the policy side of it, since
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  Speaker 1: we know the paralysis of Washington has meant more stuff
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  Speaker 1: happens in the states than happens on the national level.
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  Speaker 1: But he's got a great insight about where legislatures are going.
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  Speaker 1: If this is a wave year federally, is it going
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  Speaker 1: to trickle down to the states? So we're going to
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  Speaker 1: spend a little bit of time talking about the states. Mr. Wilson,
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  Speaker 1: it's good to see you.
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  Speaker 2: How you doing, Chuck?
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  Speaker 1: Nice to see you. So you're founder, editor-in-chief of Pluribus,
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  Speaker 1: but you are part of the state affairs network, state affairs.
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  Speaker 1: Give people the elevator pitch.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, sure. So we are the largest employer of statehouse
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  Speaker 2: news journalists in America. We've got 15 newsrooms around the country.
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  Speaker 2: I run the one here in D.C. where we cover
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  Speaker 2: sort of all 50 states and the trends coming out
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  Speaker 2: of them. We think that states are important because what
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  Speaker 2: happens on a state legislature's floor today is going to
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  Speaker 2: be the subject of federal policy next time. Think about
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  Speaker 2: welfare reform in the 90s, right? A program of four
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  Speaker 2: Republican governors in the Midwest before Bill Clinton made it
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  Speaker 2: his signature domestic policy achievement. The Affordable Care Act came
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: out of Massachusetts. Don't tell Mitt Romney. And then the
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  Speaker 2: one big bipartisan thing under President Trump in the first
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  Speaker 2: term was criminal justice reform, which started out as a
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  Speaker 2: project of, if you can believe it, the Koch brothers
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  Speaker 2: and George Soros together in states like Kansas and Oklahoma
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  Speaker 2: and Texas. We know D.C. is broken. We know nothing's
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  Speaker 2: happening here. But everything is happening at the state level
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  Speaker 2: on A.I., on social media, on energy and the return
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  Speaker 2: of nuclear health care innovations. That's sort of the one
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  Speaker 2: thing Congress did was when that big, beautiful bill, they
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  Speaker 2: shoved a whole bunch more work into state health care offices.
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  Speaker 2: So now the states are dealing with that.
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  Speaker 1: So.
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  Speaker 2: Our point is that, you know, what happens in Sacramento
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  Speaker 2: or Albany or Austin today is going to happen in
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  Speaker 2: 25 states across the country next year and then federally
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  Speaker 2: the year after that. So we track those trends and
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  Speaker 2: we absolutely love doing it.
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  Speaker 1: So 88 of the 99 chambers are on the ballot.
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  Speaker 1: Do I have that right? 88 of the 99. And
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  Speaker 1: of course, for those of you wondering why 99 and
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  Speaker 1: not 100, well, you can thank our friends in Nebraska,
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  Speaker 1: which is not only unicameral, technically nonpartisan, right?
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  Speaker 2: Technically nonpartisan. They don't run with party labels, but everybody
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  Speaker 2: knows who's in charge.
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  Speaker 1: It is true, although I had somebody ask me, it
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  Speaker 1: was a question that, and I'm curious how you would
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  Speaker 1: have answered this question. He said, look, you've been, you know,
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  Speaker 1: he's right. I've been sort of been a crank about
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  Speaker 1: the duopoly. I think it's certainly been problematic. I don't
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  Speaker 1: think that's two parties represent the country very well. He says,
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  Speaker 1: what if we had no parties? You know, would it
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  Speaker 1: be better if there were no party labels on the ballot?
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  Speaker 1: And I said, well, we run that experiment in Nebraska.
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  Speaker 1: And my answer to him was Nebraska certainly is ideologically
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  Speaker 1: leans to the right. But because of the lack of
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  Speaker 1: party labels, it is not as partisan as other legislatures.
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  Speaker 1: But you follow this closely. It was my directionally correct
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  Speaker 1: on this.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're right. I think Nebraska, the lawmakers
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  Speaker 2: get along there better. And as a matter of fact,
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  Speaker 2: a lot of the partisanship that we see at the
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  Speaker 2: federal level hasn't seeped down to the state level with
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  Speaker 2: some very notable exceptions. But I think state lawmakers are
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  Speaker 2: generally more likely to get along. They're less likely to
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  Speaker 2: lob partisan bombs. And I think that's a little bit
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  Speaker 2: because most states are firmly in the control of one party.
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  Speaker 2: So if the minority party isn't really a threat to
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  Speaker 2: win election to take over, you can work with those people.
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  Speaker 2: You know, I remember talking to a state lawmaker in Arkansas,
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  Speaker 2: a Democrat in Arkansas. And I said to her, like,
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  Speaker 2: how do you get anything done? And she says, well,
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  Speaker 2: I bring the good ideas to Republicans and they slap
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  Speaker 2: their name on them and they pass them. And it's like,
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  Speaker 2: I don't care whose name is on it. They just
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  Speaker 2: pass it.
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  Speaker 1: Believe it or not, Angie Nixon, who, of course, is
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  Speaker 1: a DSA adjacent Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, a state lawmaker.
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  Speaker 1: I asked her this question. I said, you know, and
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  Speaker 1: she goes, oh, I can get a lot done. She goes,
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  Speaker 1: I've got Republicans I get along with, always have gotten
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  Speaker 1: along with, and said basically the same thing. If I've
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  Speaker 1: got something I want to get on, you know, I
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  Speaker 1: know who the ones that are going to be kind
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  Speaker 1: of interested in an idea like this. And yeah, that
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  Speaker 1: it's sort of, and Florida is one of those states.
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  Speaker 1: It's not, the legislature is pretty dramatically gerrymandered in one direction.
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  Speaker 1: So the minority party is considered more of a partner,
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  Speaker 1: not a threat. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: And I think that's the case in a lot of states. Now,
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  Speaker 2: there are the exceptions are the states where party control
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  Speaker 2: is up for grabs. You know, in Arizona, the lawmakers
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  Speaker 2: all hate each other. Wisconsin is a pretty partisan viper pit.
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  Speaker 2: So when when things are contested, I think that just
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  Speaker 2: stands to reason that partisanship is going to is going
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  Speaker 2: to show itself more.
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  Speaker 1: So this century, the big wipeout for Democrats took place
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  Speaker 1: in 2010 with a bit of a follow-up in 2014. Yeah. How–
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  Speaker 1: They dug a huge hole for themselves.
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  Speaker 2: Huge hole and they're still digging themselves out.
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  Speaker 1: I was just going to say, how deep is that
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  Speaker 1: hole still?
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  Speaker 2: So the hole is still pretty deep. I mean, Democrats
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  Speaker 2: went from holding about 60 chambers before the 2010 elections
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  Speaker 2: to about 30 chambers, a few more than 30 afterwards.
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  Speaker 2: It was basically the entire South. They're still only in
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  Speaker 2: the 30s. Yeah, they are. And the entire South remained Democratic.
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  Speaker 2: I'm sorry, was Democratic, went Republican. None of those chambers
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  Speaker 2: have flipped back with the exception of the Virginia chambers.
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  Speaker 2: It is it was it was a total wipeout. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: you know, before the 2010 elections, Democrats held the majority
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  Speaker 2: in the West Virginia House by not a small margin. Today,
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  Speaker 2: of the hundred House members in West Virginia, 11 of
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  Speaker 2: them are Democrats. So that I mean, this was just
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  Speaker 2: like Every you know, all the old yellow dog Democrats
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  Speaker 2: who had been voting that way because Democrats own the
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  Speaker 2: South for, you know, since the Civil War, they all
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  Speaker 2: lost and they are they are no more and they're
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  Speaker 2: probably not coming back.
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  Speaker 1: Some of these southern states, though, are pretty competitive statewide. And,
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  Speaker 1: you know, are they is there more of a gerrymander
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  Speaker 1: problem on the state legislative level than on the congressional level?
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  Speaker 2: There is in some states, and I will say this,
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  Speaker 2: say in every state because most states that have the
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  Speaker 2: independent redistricting boards, that still applies to state legislatures, even
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  Speaker 2: if it doesn't apply to congressional districts as well. But
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  Speaker 2: Florida is a pretty gerrymandered state. Georgia, you could make
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  Speaker 2: the argument, is pretty gerrymandered. Wisconsin, was gerrymandered and this
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  Speaker 2: is this is like the end of decade problem that
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  Speaker 2: happens right when you when you draw a lot of
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  Speaker 2: lines is that people move and uh some areas grow
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  Speaker 2: and some areas shrink and different demographics move around and
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  Speaker 2: so now i mean a state like wisconsin despite a
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  Speaker 2: gerrymander uh is actually in play this.
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  Speaker 1: Year i do find it interesting that basically the chambers
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  Speaker 1: that are up for grabs They look like our presidential
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  Speaker 1: swing state slate. It's Arizona. It's Wisconsin. It's Michigan, Minnesota,
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  Speaker 1: New Hampshire. I'm like, oh, I know those states. They're
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  Speaker 1: always in play.
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  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 1: These are all closely competitive. Sure. New Hampshire and Minnesota
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  Speaker 1: federally slightly lean blue. But the others.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 1: They've been our swingiest presidential states. It's interesting, the two
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  Speaker 1: states not on there that also would be on that,
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  Speaker 1: which are North Carolina and Georgia.
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  Speaker 2: So North Carolina, very heavily gerrymandered map. They have been
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  Speaker 2: doing that for a very long time. And actually, as
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  Speaker 2: a matter of fact, there's a great a great statistic
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  Speaker 2: sort of historical nugget here. North Carolina does not allow
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  Speaker 2: the governor to veto redistricting maps. Now, you would think
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  Speaker 2: that in this well, in this day and age, that
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  Speaker 2: works against Democrats, right? Because Democrats are more likely to
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  Speaker 2: win the governorship than they are control of the legislature.
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  Speaker 1: Guess who created that law? You're stealing my punchline.
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  Speaker 2: You're stealing my punchline, of course. Roy Cooper was the
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  Speaker 2: state senator who passed that bill back when it was
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  Speaker 2: much more likely that the Dems were going to control
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  Speaker 2: the legislature rather than the governorship.
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  Speaker 1: North Carolina is the only state in the union that
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  Speaker 1: properly understands what the founders intended when it came to
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  Speaker 1: the Constitution, that Number one, article one meant supremacy, not
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: co-equal branch. And they believe the legislative branch should be
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  Speaker 1: more powerful than the executive, which I do believe the
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  Speaker 1: founders intended. All right. I don't know about you, but
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  Speaker 1: when I put one, two, three, I don't put the
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  Speaker 1: least important thing. Number one, that's just me.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 1: So it is funny to me now. I, it is, look,
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  Speaker 1: I think we know what, what, it's kind of ridiculous
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  Speaker 1: that the legislature has done this in north carolina over
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  Speaker 1: the years but um it's about my only defense of
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: it is that well if they're following the if they
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  Speaker 1: really are following the founders yeah the intent was that
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  Speaker 1: the legislative branch should be supremacist.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah well and you know for the longest time north
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  Speaker 2: carolina was one of those states that only allowed their
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  Speaker 2: governor to serve one term uh up until the 80s
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  Speaker 2: uh now now it's only virginia so.
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  Speaker 1: Right so um Are you seeing evidence of a wave
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  Speaker 1: building in the states? I want to hold off on
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: governor's races for the moment. I want to get to those.
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  Speaker 1: What are you seeing in the states? Is this a
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  Speaker 1: bit more– is some of the national tide not trickling
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  Speaker 1: down to these races?
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  Speaker 2: No, I think it is very much trickling down and
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  Speaker 2: that it trickles down because of a I don't want
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: to say a lack of knowledge, but a lack of
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: awareness about who your state legislator is. You ask somebody
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: who the president is. Everybody knows you ask who the
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: senator is. Most people know the governor.
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  Speaker 1: I know the party at least. Right.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. You don't. The very there are very few people
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  Speaker 2: who know who their state legislator is. And so that.
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  Speaker 2: That makes those candidates even more susceptible to a wave
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  Speaker 2: than a federal candidate. If you're State Senator Chuck Todd
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: and you've got an R or a D after your
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: name and that party's on the outs, well, nobody really
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: knows who you are and they're more likely to vote
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  Speaker 2: against you. You mentioned the 2010 election. I maintain we
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: always talk about the most important election of our lifetime.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, 2010 really was. And just the amount that
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: the states shifted that year is almost without historical precedent. And,
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: you know, as you said earlier, like Dems are still
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: trying to dig out of that hole. So this time
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: and Dems lost something like six hundred and seventy legislative
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: seats that year for for just for context. There are
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: about six thousand seats that are up this year. So
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: that's one in 10 seats that they lost in that
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: election alone. Sure, in 2010, a larger share of the
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: House of Representatives swung away. But let's also not forget
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: that 2010 was the census year, which means that 2012
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: was the reapportionment redistricting year. And so the new ours,
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: you know, I always joke like the first thing that
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: a new legislative majority does when they get into power
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: is they figure out where the light switch is. They
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: figure out where the bathroom is and then they rewrite
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: all the election laws to benefit themselves. And that's really
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: what happened. So Dems aren't going into this year ahead
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: of a census and redistricting year that happens in 2030.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: But the fact is, you know, they picked a really
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: terrible year to have that wave election. Now, are the
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: R's going to have the same situation? I think in
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: in to a degree. I mean, we're still in a
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: place where the state level lines have been drawn to
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: to disfavor competition. So there are fewer competitive seats than
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: there were in 2010. But, you know, the the R's
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: are in for a real bad day at the state level.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: The Dems, just to put this in context, they're they're aiming.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: They say publicly they're aiming to flip six chambers control
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: of six chambers.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: I really think it's it's their ceiling is higher than that. Well,
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: I was just going to say. I look at here,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: they're close in Arizona, in theory. They're close in Wisconsin now.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: It's a map that's not aging well. They're close enough
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: in Michigan. They're obviously super close in Minnesota. In all
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: four of those cases, New Hampshire, I'm setting aside here.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: God only knows the 400-member house map of multi-member districts
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: and all of that. It's a much harder place to handicap.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to get into that. Um, but plus
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: you have a fairly popular incumbent Republican governor that's likely
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: to win and, and, and sort of might be a
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: tad insulated from the wave. But if this is the
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: wave that we think we're seeing develop, and I'm, you know,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: I think we're looking at a D plus 10 or
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: 11 environment up above what we've, what, what is, what
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: we'd seen at seven, eight, nine, maybe a month ago. Well,
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: then to me, Democrats are, are having a bad night
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: if they're not flipping those two Arizona chambers, the Wisconsin chambers,
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: Michigan and Minnesota, correct? I mean, is that a fair
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: measurement there?
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely. I mean, when you talk about close in Arizona,
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: they're two seats away in both the House and the Senate.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: If you can't pick up two seats in Maricopa County.
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  Speaker 1: In this environment.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: In this environment.
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  Speaker 1: Where the lead Republican is an election denier. Yeah. It's
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: been consistently trailing by high single digits. Right. And all
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: this money has been poured in by the DGA for
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: Hobbs anyway to the to the chagrin of some people
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: in the state of Texas. I mean, if it doesn't
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: bring the chamber, that's money wasted almost.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. And I think I mean, Pennsylvania, the state
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: house is is a D plus one or two. I
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: think it's D plus two. Now they just want an
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: extra one. The Senate, if they can't bring the Pennsylvania
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: Senate along, that's I think that's a loss. wisconsin the
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: wisconsin assembly looks at risk the senate is maybe at
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: risk but if they you.
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: Know it's hard right yeah yeah yeah in this year
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: if you can't win those you're you're you're not it
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: is not a way of election i think you got
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: to expand the map to look at the georgia house
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: uh i think you should expand them.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: Out it's it's doable it's not likely uh and.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: But what did we learn from Virginia? You know, Virginia
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: in 25 and New Jersey in 25 both had legislative–
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: a bunch of legislative obviously was on the map as
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: well since it's the odd-numbered year. And it is striking
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: how often 25 serves as a– is very prescient, very
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: much a– tells us what's to come. Democrats did very
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: well on both nights.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: To pick up.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: Right. Yes. Yes. So what does that tell you? What
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: are states that could behave like Virginia and New Jersey
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: did in 2005?
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: The one that you just mentioned, the chagrin of Democrats
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: in Texas. The Texas State House is not out of
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: reach for Democrats. Now, it is a reach. I'm not
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: saying they're going to win. But if, you know, if
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: Calarico is.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: If Hinojosa wins.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: If Hinojosa wins.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Then she probably brings the House with her.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: She brings the House with her. I don't think she
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: brings the Senate. The Senate is a much wider margin
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: that favors Republicans. What is it?
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: There's fewer state– do we technically have fewer state senators
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: than members of Congress in Texas?
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so. There are 33 members of the–
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: and I think there are 37 members of the delegation.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: So just like California. California has more U.S. House seats
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: than it does state Senate seats.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: Florida is getting there. We're close in Florida. We're close.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: We're close.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: I think, yeah, Florida is like, that's out of the question. Oh, sure.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: No, no, I'm talking about close up having more state
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: senators than congressional.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And then you got to talk about New Hampshire. Yes,
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: there are 400 members of the state house. That always
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: flips in way of elections. There are New Hampshire house.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. It's a barometer. It's definitely a weather vane.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: It is. Okay. Yeah. And the New Hampshire Senate too is,
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: the R's have about a two to one margin in
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: the state Senate, but it's only 24 members. You're talking
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: about a smaller, smaller state. The interesting thing to me
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: is that, yes, it's going to win. It is like
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: the one Republican incumbent this year who's completely safe and
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: hasn't been terribly close to her Democratic opponents anymore. I
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: went back and looked, and in the last 75 years,
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: New Hampshire has only kicked out one first term incumbent.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: There have been some others that have retired.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was Benson, right? Was it him?
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: Craig Benson, 06, I want to say.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what was 06? Wavier.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, 06 was Wavier, definitely. But Benson had some other problems, too.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: He was not the most popular guy in New Hampshire.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: But AI very much is.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, she's a familiar face. This episode of the
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  Speaker 1: was the Chuck Todd cast. It's the best way to
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• 23:04
  Speaker 1: you're getting every discount. Is Rob saying how lonely of
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: a victory is he going to have?
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: Well, he's going to win and he's going to win by,
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: by an increasingly large margin in the last, the last
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: surveys I've seen.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: What, what, I mean, what is it? When do you
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: hit a tipping point? Look, I, no Democrat has won
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: more than 55% of the vote in an Iowa governor's
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: race since, I think it's 1966. When I was doing
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: this earlier, that had stuck in my head. And it
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: was like, OK, that tells me there really may be
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: a ceiling, a pretty hard ceiling for sand at 54, 55.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: But is there a if he gets to, you know,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: is there a tipping point number there that you're like,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: if he gets to 57, he's bringing the you know,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: he's bringing something in the legislature.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and he could. I mean, the Iowa Dems have
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: won a couple of special elections this year. There are
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: just these little signs around the margins that the environment
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: was moving this direction even before gas prices went through
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: the roof and Trump's approval rating went in the toilet.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: The Dems have won. I think it's I think it's
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: a dozen state legislative special elections previously held by Republicans
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: this year alone. And, you know, we talk about 1994.
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: The two special elections in Kentucky and Oklahoma that presage
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: that there were some specials in 2010 that showed off
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: that the hours were coming back then. And 2006 had. Yeah.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah. No, I remember one in it was Ohio, too.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: I remember in 2025 where Democrats came up short, but
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: it was in like a Bush plus 15 or 18
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: district and they lost by two.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: And it was like, was that the Jean Schmidt seat?
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: Jean Schmidt seat.
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: She is, by the way, a member of the Ohio
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: legislature right now.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about the Ohio legislature because veto proof
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: majority right now. Amy Acton, frankly, two weeks ago looked
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: like she might be one of these, you know, might
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: have to learn what life is like being a governor
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: with a with a. with a legislature that could overwrite
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: every one of your vetoes, I'm guessing that's less of
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: a concern now that she may not have a lonely
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: victory if she pulls this off.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and Democrats are talking about that in a lot
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: of states where the goal is not to win the majority.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: The goal is just to break the Republican supermajority.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Break the supermajority, right. Yeah.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: Ohio's won.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Where else is that?
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: Kansas is another one. Florida, Florida is certainly in that
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: category of states where they're not going to, they're not
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: going to come close to a majority, but they can
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: break the, the Missouri is another one too. Right. I
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: think Missouri is too. Yeah. But if, you know, if,
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: if David Jolly becomes, becomes governor by, that'll be a,
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: that would be a wave wave day. Then, you know, his,
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: his veto would actually mean something.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to guess single state, biggest issue in
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: state legislative races, data centers.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: Data centers are big. Um, no, the single biggest issue
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: everywhere that everybody's talking about all the time is affordability,
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: gas prices, all this kind of stuff. Um, data centers
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: is creeping into the conversation and it's creeping in for
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: a couple of interesting reasons. First of all, like I,
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: like I said, in the top, like Congress isn't doing anything,
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: they're not doing anything on AI. They're not doing anything
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: on data centers. The States really are. And it's a
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: bipartisan project. Um, We've seen moratoriums and bans pop up
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: in red states and blue states sponsored by members of
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: both parties. And just to give you a flavor of
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: how much the data center conversation has changed, in New York,
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: Kathy Hochul called for a one-year moratorium. They actually got
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: a one-year moratorium done. Her opponent called her crazy, said
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: that's a nutso idea. In Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro called for
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: a one-year moratorium. His opponent, the treasurer Stacey Garrity out there,
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: said that wasn't enough. She wanted a three-year moratorium. And
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: then the biggest red flag to me happened in Texas
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: a couple of weeks ago where Greg Abbott, who had
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: been an evangelist for data centers and all the money
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: they brought to the state, he just hit pause on
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: new permitting for data centers. So if even Greg Abbott
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: is saying, whoa, guys, I'm on the wrong side of
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: this in a tighter than expected election, that tells me
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: the politics have totally changed.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: So the cynic in me says the easiest legislatures to
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: buy off are state legislatures. Actually, no. The easiest legislatures
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: to buy off are city councils. The next easiest are
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: the state legislatures. The hardest are sometimes Congress. And yet
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: big money has a huge impact in congressional races. Who
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: are the biggest financial players in these state legislative races
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: besides the two parties? I know the two parties are,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: but I'm talking about the industries that are– absolutely petrified
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: of what's about to, of what's coming at them. Who,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: who is it that is, that is pouring the most
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: money in some of these places? Yeah.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: You're reminding me of John Brose's old line where, you know, my,
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: my vote can't be bought, but it can be rented.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: But the, the biggest players in pretty much every state
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: is the utility, right? It's, it's Dominion in Virginia. It's,
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: you know, Pepco up around, up around Maryland. PG &
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: E is a massive player in California. It's basically, You're
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: most likely to see the industries that are regulated most
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: at the state level. So health care plays a huge
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: role in places where where where Medicaid is decided and
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: education groups. There's there's a whole sub industry of people
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: who are hired to administer things like education, savings accounts
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: and voucher programs. Those are those are billion dollar companies.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: And they'll come in and spend a bunch of money
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: on pro-education savings account candidates to get them elected. The
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: giant in the local economy is always huge. So I'm
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: from Washington State. Boeing was always big. player, Weyerhaeuser, the
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: timber company was always a big player, and Microsoft. They'll
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: write those checks. It is basically the dominant industry in
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: that state. You can imagine that in Nevada, it's the
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: casino companies that are paying a lot of money too.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: Well, I was just going to ask two things where
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: the state legislatures are going to be the canaries, regulatory
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: canaries first, it looks like. One would be this fight
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: between Sports books and prediction markets where the states want
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: to have supremacy over the feds and the prediction market
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: guys want the feds. with supremacy over the states. And
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: then the other is AI regulation. I mean, how big
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: is the tech and the casino interest right now across
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: the board?
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: This is interesting. So we've been looking at this a lot.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: We've been trying to find the evidence that the AI
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: and crypto companies specifically are spending more in the states
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: than we can find. Right. They're not really. They're involved
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: in a couple of governor's races. They're big in for
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: Greg Abbott. They're big in for some of the Rick
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: Jackson in Georgia. They're less so in the state legislatures,
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: or at least the money that we can find. We
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: haven't been able to find a ton of it yet.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: I was having a conversation earlier with my reporter who
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: covers the prediction markets fight and all these legal battles.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: And I was asking her what's going to come up
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: next year. And she said, you know, not a lot.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: And it's not a lot because there are so many
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: lawsuits playing out right now that everybody knows it's going
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: to the Supreme Court anyway.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: So they're waiting for the courts to decide who's going to.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: And then when we know for sure, we get clarification
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: of where's the How are they going to be regulated? Right.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: How are these prediction markets going to be regulated through
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: the CFTC or is it going to be through the gaming?
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's when the flood is going to come,
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: depending on what the ruling is, of course. And the
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: parallel to that is the sports gaming companies that after
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: the Supreme Court decision, you'll remember this 2018. I think
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: it was the sports marketing, sports betting companies flooded into
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: the states that would have them. ran ballot initiatives in
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: the states where the legislature was more reluctant. And the
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: most expensive set of ballot measures that I ever saw
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: came in California a couple of years ago, where they
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: ran four different ballot measures on sports betting, each of
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: which would have given the dominant slice of the pie
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: to one group. Collectively, they spent half a billion dollars
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: on that, and every single one of them lost almost 80-20.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: It's so funny. Florida, Texas, and California. I don't mean
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: to get off on a sidetrack here, but look, I'm,
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: it's no secret. I'm a sports fan, no secret that
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: I enjoy gambling. So I pay a lot of attention
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: to this, right? When politics and, and you know, my,
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: one of my favorite hobbies, uh, collides, you're, you're going
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: to pay a lot of extra attention. The stories I
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: heard about the fights between essentially the tribes and the,
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: and the casino interest, depending on the state. And in fact,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: there was a fight over, um, ballot initiative that was
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: going to get on the ballot in Florida. And I
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: heard a story of a guy who basically said, hey,
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: I've got half a million signatures. You could pay me
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: for them or you could pay me to destroy them.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: And that's how this system was working right now in
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: some of this. That's how cutthroat the fight was between
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: the tribes and the casino operators, in this case, FanDuel.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: In some places, FanDuel and DraftKings are partners with the tribes.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: In Florida, they weren't.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, and this is like, I love alcohol politics
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: because there are so many different layers and players and
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: they're all at each other's throats all the time. Gambling
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: is the same way, right?
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: Somehow they have like, they're strange bedfellows depending on the state.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they love each other today, they hate each other tomorrow,
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: whatever it happens to be. In California, you have the
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: four distinct groups, right? You have the tribes, you have
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: the card rooms, which are distinct from the tribes. You
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: had the big casino operators, the MGMs of the world.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: And then you had the FanDuel, DraftKings type big national companies.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: They all went at each other. They all spent a
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: half a billion dollars and they all got clobbered. So
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: just fantastic stuff.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: Our political consultant friends were the only ones that made money.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: On that, right? And so along that line, I have
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: a buddy of mine who worked on the Maryland law
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: that allowed the casino out at the National Harbor out here.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: And he was telling me he would get on the
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: conference calls, the weekly conference calls with all the consultants.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: And it was like, you name a political consultant, that
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: person was on the phone. They hired everybody. And the
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: people they didn't hire were hired by the opposition. So
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: it was just a consultant money fest. Yeah.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: It is something else. One more issue I want to
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: pick at before we jump to governors. I'm going to
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: give you a theory, and I'm curious whether there's a
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: there there. Look, I think if Gina Enosa wins, it's
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: because of vouchers. It's like the political environment helps a lot.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Don't get me wrong. But the difference between her getting
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: 47 and actually getting enough to win, why is the
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: woman who was the January 6th activist supporting Enosa? It's
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: over 47. Abbott and vouchers and funding of education. Is
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: the voucher movement on its, what kind of setback would
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: that be if, you know, so one? And is that
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: the right read on this, that it would be– I mean,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: you look at Iowa, I could argue that the sand
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: backlash is powered in some ways or sand success is
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: powered a little bit. Backlash over the education funding was
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: a big cause of watching Kim Reynolds' approval rating go
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: down in Iowa. We've seen what happened in Kansas with Brownback.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: It was all due to education funding. Am I overrating
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: it or is there something– is there starting to be
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: a pattern developing here that Vouchers, while they sound good,
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: the implementation has not gone the way parents had hoped.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: So I chuckled there for a second because you mentioned
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: Sam Brownback. And Democrats in Kansas are still running against
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: Sam Brownback. It's amazing.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: Hey, it still works.
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it does.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: Watch how long people run against Trump. We're going to
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: be in an old folks home and somebody's going to
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: be running against Trump.
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: I haven't seen vouchers playing a huge role in the
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: paid communications that happen. I think one of the things
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: that is happening is that the voucher programs were promised
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: as spending X amount, and suddenly they're ballooning in costs,
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: and now they're three, four, five times what those costs were.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: At the same time, kids are leaving public schools. And nationally,
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: we're down something like 90,000 kids over just the last year.
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: And since the pandemic, we've seen the rise in charters,
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: the rise in private schools. And there was another great story,
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: when Iowa passed their vouchers. This is one of the
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: first stories we covered as a news company. When Iowa
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: passed their vouchers, wouldn't you know it, all the Catholic
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: schools changed their tuition to exactly what it would cost
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: or what the maximum, which are what Look, I know
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: we're shocked.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: Look, I've watched this in my home county where I
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: grew up, Miami-Dade County.
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: Oh, your high school is shutting down, isn't it?
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: Well, it's not shut down yet. They're going to try
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: to create, believe it or not, a sports magnet, sports
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: industry magnet. God bless. But the point being is that
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: we've had this. I understand parent empowerment. I'm all for it.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: Trust me. We all believe we know what's best. And
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: I think, you know, I think a lot of times
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: we do on this front. The issue is competition doesn't
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: fix the public schools. The public schools cannot be subject
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: to the free market. It doesn't work this way. Government doesn't.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: If we had a free market for the Postal Service, you,
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: my friend, wouldn't have gotten mail on a regular basis
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: where you grew up in Washington state. You know, it's
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: just too damn expensive. You know, we don't need to.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: Let me let me say one other thing. So the
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: on the on the voucher program, I think what we're
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: seeing in a lot of states and a lot of
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: these governors races and the reason that they're also competitive
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: is that the Republican Party is a lot more fractionalized, factionalized,
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: excuse me, than than you would be led to believe.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: Like there's this one thing holding this bizarre coalition together.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: And it's Donald Trump. And when we look in a
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: lot of these states, look under the hood, there are reasons,
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: there are these very hyper localized reasons that Republicans are
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: not terribly thrilled with their own party, with their own
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: gubernatorial nominees. And I mean, the reason that a Laura
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: Kelly can win in Kansas is that there are really
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: three parties in Kansas, right? There's the Democratic Party, which
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: is maybe a There's the traditional business Republican Party, which
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: is maybe a third. Call them the call them the
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: I don't know, the Time Atchison Party, really. I mean,
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: that's he's pretty typically conservative.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: Party.
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: And they're the crazy nutjobs who are, I mean, not
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: crazy nut, you know what I mean? They're, they're hyper conservative.
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: They are a little more conservative, a little more, right.
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: A little more, a little more religious conservative.
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: The same thing, the same thing exists in Arizona. The
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: same thing exists in Texas. And when you have the, I.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: Think increasingly we're going to see this in Florida, that
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: really Florida is a three party state. And that's probably
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: what we're seeing right now.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: And now most of the time when the Republican Party
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: elects a somebody from that centrist wing or maybe even
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: somebody from a dominant conservative wing, but is fine. Yeah,
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: they're going to win when they nominate a Sam Brown.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: back when they nominated Andy Biggs, when they nominated Kerry Lake. Like, no,
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: there's a big chunk of those centrist, not centrist, those
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: business conservative Republicans who are going to say, no, that's
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: too much for me. I'm going to vote for this.
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: I'm going to vote for a Laura Kelly. I'm going
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: to vote for a Katie Hobbs, who's not a scary
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: Democrat and who can just get the job done. I mean,
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: I think that's I think I think the fissures in
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: the Republican Party are run much deeper and are much
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: more consequential than the fissures in the Democratic Party between
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: the Rahm Emanuels and the socialist guys. You can see
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: Rahm Emanuel voting for AOC in November if that's the
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: way these things work out. It's a lot harder to
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: see George Bush's brother voting for Ken Paxton, which he
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: said in a Facebook post last week that he's not
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: going to.
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: You know, Abbott intrigues me the most of these governors
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: because You know, before this year, I would have said,
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: you know, that guy's had a pretty he's pretty successfully
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: basically straddled the two Republican parties.
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: Basically, you had Dade Phelan's Republican Party and you had
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: Dan Patrick's Republican Party, the former speaker and the current
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: Senate president slash lieutenant governor.
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: And who, by the way, has run four speakers out
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: of office, not just Dade Phelan, but Joe Strauss before
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: him and a couple others, too. Yeah.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I you know, it's sort of like. What would
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: be the shock? What are like huge wave shocks? Dan
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: Patrick not winning would be one of those where I
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: don't think it's going to happen, but if it happened,
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: it wouldn't totally shock me, right? Like it's exactly the
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: type of thing that does happen in wave years when
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: everybody's just like, you know what? That's it. We need
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: to turn the page. But Abbott had done a pretty
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: good job of straddling the fence. And then I feel
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: like two things happened, right? One was the Paxton impeachment.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: That was a combo platter of the two of your
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: three parties getting together to impeach him. And the other
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: was Abbott deciding to go after Republicans in primaries who
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: didn't support vouchers. If he loses, will that be among
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: the explanations that he just alienated too many people in
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: the in this sort of Bush wing of the party?
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't put that at the top of the list.
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: It may be a factor down below. I have seen
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: a lot of coverage of current and former Republican lawmakers
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: in Texas who are all saying they can't vote for
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: Ken Paxton. I have not seen the same stories about
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: I can't vote for Greg Abbott. I think that if
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: Abbott loses, it's it's a data center issue. I mean,
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: I read his.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: That's where he is. Yeah.
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: I mean, the answer you might blame Elon Musk.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: Like I have a theory that like, boy, if you
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: were to ask Democrats, hey, if you introduced a new
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: main character in the last three weeks of the campaign,
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: could you make it a tech guy? I think they'd
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: all say yes.
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. And then Musk has spent on Paxton alone, what,
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: 158 something million dollars. You know, he's spent a lot
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: for Abbott, too. These and like it's so very clear
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: what Musk wants to do in Texas, like he's building
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: his own city.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: He said it.
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And so I think. I think if there's a
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: victim of data centers this year, it's more likely to
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: be Greg Abbott. That race just feels like the easiest
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: to tie to those.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, to be totally ham-handed, like if
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: you were playing, you know, CNN pundit, you'd say, who's
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: the data center victim? You would say that guy.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. That guy or a, or a now, okay.
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: Before last week, I might've said Ramaswamy in Ohio. He
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: looks like he was just lit himself on fire.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: Well, but my thesis on Ramaswamy, the reason that makes
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: this even worse is because you were, you're on the
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: same thing I am, which is I never bought his,
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: I never bought the idea that he was a slam
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: dunk because he was a tech guy. And then now obviously, look,
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: you throw the other thing in, but I think part
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: of the reason he was struggling was because of his
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: tech background. Yeah.
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: And I've also heard from a lot of folks that
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: he's not running a great campaign. Um, you know, he's
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: been jetting off in his private jet to Wimbledon and, and,
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: or the U S open, whatever tennis tournament that was.
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: So that's not a great look too. He doesn't connect
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: very well with people. Uh, and then you add in the,
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: the Amy Acton, uh, is like actually a pretty good
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: candidate and has been, has been doing pretty well there. Um,
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: so we, I think we all looked at Rama Swami's
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: bank account and said, well, this guy's definitely going to run.
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: And that's, that's not how it works in a lot
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: of these States.
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: All right let's um travel the governorships um okay pretty
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: much for the most of the year not counting our
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: friend mr mckee in rhode island who because he knew
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: he was going to not get out of a primary
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: he had to be the most vulnerable incumbent governor in
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: the country um after him i always said tina kotech
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: is that still.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: The case That is an excellent point. I'm glad you
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: brought this up because one of the big theme trend
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: that I think we're seeing this year is that, yes,
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: we're all obsessed with this Democratic wave that looks like
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: it's coming at the federal level, coming at the state level.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: But there are a couple of Democratic governors who. who
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: are not safe in their home states. And Tina Kotek is,
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: is way up there. Um, you know, I think she
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: probably wins. Oregon hasn't elected a Republican governor since 1982,
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: but boy, there have been a lot of things going
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: wrong in Oregon. It is, it is speaking of data centers,
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: like Oregon's had data centers longer than just about anybody
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: else because Intel is based there and that's, that's how
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: they operate their business. It is, I mean, it's totally
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: closer than it should have been. Kotex signed a transportation
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: funding bill earlier this year that raised the gas tax.
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: Great timing. Voters went to the took it to the
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: polls in a referendum, rejected it. Eighty three. Seventeen. I mean,
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: it was not close. So Kotex has had. And by
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: the way, this is the third Republican governor, excuse me,
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: Democratic governor in a row who's had some electoral issues.
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: But still survived.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: I know, but they keep surviving.
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: I mean, John Kitzhaber had to resign. And that's how
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: Kate Brown ascended to the spot. I mean, Kotick would
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: not have won four years ago, but for the third
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: candidate in the race, correct? I think there's a good
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: case to be made that the third candidate pulled more
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: from her than from Drazen. Remember, that third candidate was
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: a former Democratic state senator, conservative on the conservative side.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: But I don't know.
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: I hear you. And I understand she was the ex-Democrat
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: who got the she was the Phil Knight party.
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: You had a Phil Knight party, a Democratic party. And
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: that might have been part of the problem. She was
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: too associated with one donor, correct?
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. And well, hey, Greg Abbott in Texas. Let's
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: see if that becomes a problem, being associated too much
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: with one donor. But so beyond Oregon and also with McKee, look,
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: another candidate who's going to win but not by the
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: margin that she should is Amy Klobuchar in Minnesota. That's
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: going to be a closer race than people think. Look.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: It's funny. I was going to ask about her because,
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: you know, I believe that she basically saved Democrats in Minnesota. Right.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: If Tim Walz is if it's not her and it's
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: Tim Walz running again, you know, we'd be saying Senator
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: Michelle Tafoya or we'd be talking about that, too. Or
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: whoever it was that was the new Democratic nominee wouldn't
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: be as strong as an Amy Klobuchar.
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, yeah.
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: But what kind of penalty do you expect her to pay?
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: It sounds like you think she may have her lowest
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: statewide victory number that she's ever had.
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I should have looked up what she won by
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: in the Senate race last time, but it was probably
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: in the 60s.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, she overperforms in the Iron Range, where she
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: grew up and where her dad was from. And that's
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: a pretty Republican area. And she's she's lucked out on
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: her opponents over the years. You know, some people, you know, uh,
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: having that guy, uh, who, uh, the NBA player who
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: sort of, it's off the deep end Royce, uh, Miller,
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: I think is Royce, Royce white.
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: No, I think it was in Texas.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: I think it's right there. I can't remember. But anyway, we're, it, Honestly,
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: he's sort of Looney Tunes, a little.
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: More like Looney Tunes.
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: But this looked I mean, this fraud thing, this fraud
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: scandal that's been going on in Minnesota for a couple
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: of years. You know, a lot of times Republicans will
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: bring something up and it's like not really a scandal. Now,
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: this was a thing. And voters in Minnesota are mad
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: and begin like add that in with Oregon, add that
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: in with Dan McKee in Rhode Island. And I kind
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: of get the sense that. voters don't care what the
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: letter is behind your name. They just hate who's in charge.
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: And now that's going to punish the Republicans at the
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: federal level. It's going to punish the Republicans in some
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: of these state races. But in some of these blue states,
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: voters are just as unhappy.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: Let me back up then. Look, you've done this for
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: a living for a long time as well. I'm torn
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: on two thoughts, you know, and I noticed that there's
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: some other prognosticators that think that the wave will be
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: even bigger in the blue states than it is in
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: the red states. I think if this is really a
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: red undertow year, as Charlie Cook proclaimed it, then you
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: might see Democrats do better in red states and actually
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: underperform a bit in the blue states, right? What you're seeing,
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: which trend would you bet on more? I mean, and
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: how much is Minnesota just unique to Minnesota?
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of these state
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: races turn on issues that we don't expect. The number
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: one issue that Rob Sand and Zach Lawn are advertising
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: about in the state of Iowa is cancer. There are
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: all these cancer clusters that are popping up in Iowa
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: because of ag interest.
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: When do they find out it's ag pesticides? And then
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: when the ag industry, what do you mean I can't
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: use that pesticide anymore?
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Exactly. But we're talking about we're talking about a
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: fraud scandal in Minnesota that doesn't exist in other states.
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: We're talking about, you know, too many taxes and transportation
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: funding in Oregon, which isn't a problem in other states.
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: You know, it's we're talking about data centers in Texas
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: like these. These issues are unique to governors races because
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: people vote differently for governor than they do. for federal races.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: Your governor is the person who paves your roads, is
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: the person who controls. make sure your school's operating okay,
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: fills the potholes, all that kind of stuff. Don't forget
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: Gretchen Whitmer's big slogan was fix the damn roads. And
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: Josh Shapiro's slogan in Pennsylvania is get bleep done. I
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: don't know if I'm allowed to swear on this podcast,
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: but he says get shit done all the time. We
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: apparently have a lot of governors who'd like to swear.
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: So all of these things are different. rare that a
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: big national wave sweeps out a lot of governors and
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: it's still the hardest thing to do in american politics
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: is to beat a sitting governor uh the the one
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: hint that i get that we're in a here's the
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: race that will decide whether or not this is a
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: tectonic shift in american politics or just a really bad
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: wave yeah it's going to be in vermont It's going
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: to be in Vermont.
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: Oh, I was going to add one more to it.
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: But OK, Vermont. OK, go ahead. Yeah. Make your Bill Scott. Yep.
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: Phil Scott is an anti-Trump Republican. He's never endorsed him.
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: He's never voted for him. He won two years ago
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: with 73 percent of the vote. And he didn't run
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: a TV ad. Now he's in a race against an
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: economist who's never been on a ballot before. His name
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: is Amanda Janu. The last couple of polls I've seen,
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: one had him up by five or 10. One had
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: her up by a couple of points. In both cases,
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: Bill Scott was in the low 40s. If he loses
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: this year, that just tells me that the R the
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: R label is so toxic that even a guy like
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: him who has built a brand. I mean, he's been
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: governor for what he's he's running for his sixth term.
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: They do two year terms up there. So he's got
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: such a brand that that if even he loses, that's
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: that's tectonic shift.
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: So it's interesting. You're getting to something that I was
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: about to ask you because it's about– you brought up
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: the point where, as we say, the second hardest thing
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: to do in American politics is defeat a sitting governor,
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: the hardest being defeating a sitting president. So in 2022,
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: exactly one incumbent governor lost, and it was in the
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: swing state of Nevada. Joe Lombardo ran as, you know,
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: as as center, you know, basically, arguably Sisolak only lost
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: because he shut down the strip.
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: He don't shut down the strip during COVID. He probably
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: ekes out reelection. I have looked at Lombardo.
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: And still Lombardo only won with 49 percent.
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: Correct. And so you pointed out Vermont as one wave test.
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: I feel like Lombardo is the other, that there's not
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: a fireable offense. He's out-raising Ford because all the local
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: interests believe he's been fine. If he wasn't, Ford would
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: have raised more money. He's the state AG. They would have–
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: I'm sure they– I'm sure– I've always said Nevada is
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: a one-party state. It's not D or R. It's casino.
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: It's gaming, yes.
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's gaming. And I– I'm guessing both Ford and
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: Lombardo are considered fine. And I'm sure that guys at
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: the MGM are like, it doesn't really matter. Lombardo feels
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: like if he loses, that's environment. It's not that. Is
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: that a good wave test?
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it is. The interesting thing to me is
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: that Nevada's, every state has its unique characteristics. Nevada is
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: the turnover, right? There's so many new people show up
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: every year. I remember when Dean Heller was running for reelection,
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: the statistic was something like a third of the voters
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: who were going to decide whether or not Dean Heller
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: won reelection, he didn't. a third of those voters hadn't
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: been there six years before when he, when he first
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: ran for election. So Nevada, you know, there's a huge
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: change in turnover in, in the state's electorate every couple
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: of years, you know, Vegas is growing like crazy. Reno's
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: growing like crazy. And in all the polls that I've
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: seen in Nevada, the number of undecideds is higher than
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: any other state.
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's, it's 18, 20 points. It's these newbies.
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of it is newbies. And I
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: think a lot of it is it's, it's difficult to,
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: buying to pull an electorate uh amongst whom a not
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: insubstantial um group is working from you know 5 p.m
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: to to 8 a.m on the overnight casino shifts and
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: like those are hard those people are hard to pull
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: and hard to find and so nevada nevada is always
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: going to be a weird state it's always going to
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: be a knuckle biter a nail biter um and i
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: i would totally not be surprised if aaron ford wins
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: you know you know the other line that we use
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: is you know ag stands for almost governor And all
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: the AGs, there are more former AGs in governor's offices
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: today than there are former lieutenant governors. So it's sort
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: of a natural system.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: I tried aspiring governor is what I thought the AGs
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: were for. Aspiring governor.
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: They think it's almost governor. Let me tell you.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: So if that's a wave test, if Nevada is potentially
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: a wave test, my tsunami test has been Florida and Texas.
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: That basically it takes... It takes a real collapse in
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: Republican turnout for– I can get jolly and sort of 47-48.
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: The last two or three points are– Very hard. Very difficult.
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: And you need a combination of either third-party candidate and
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: a bad base turnout. Yeah. And supercharged. Now, look, we're
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: seeing the ingredients if you want to buy into the
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: early vote. You know, the ingredients are there. I mean,
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: we see it there. But that's been my sort of
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: it's like it's one thing for Democrats to do well
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: in federal races. If they pull off the two of
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: the three, if they they are if there's Democratic governors
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: in California, New York, Florida and Texas.
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: The four largest states in the country. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: I think that's right. So we're talking about grades here, right?
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: Like there's the wave. There's the wave day. There's the
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: tsunami day.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: There's like 06 is a wave to me. 94 is
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: a tsunami. That's sort of how I like, you know.
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: And I and even 2018 was a. Wave in the
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: blue states and purple states, but not one in the
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: red states. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: And I think that's what we're seeing. So I was
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: talking to Michael McDonald from the Florida Election Lab, real
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: smart guy. Not that guy. Yeah, I know.
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: I make that joke too much.
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: He hates that joke.
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: I even sang in the last episode when I was
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: quoting my man, Michael McDonald. Look, I'm going to call
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: him a doobie brother because I hate saying the words
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: University of Florida. I mean, he has to understand that.
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: I understand very much. The but his so his point was,
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: if you look at the states where the early votes
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: report by bipartisanship, the Dems have a hugely 15 points.
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: Last time I looked, I looked this morning. And if
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: you look at the states where they report race, black voters,
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: Hispanic voters are showing up at that.
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: The Latino voter number is the is the big deal
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: to me. But anyway. Yeah.
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: Although although that's only coming from North Carolina and North
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: Carolina and Georgia. And like those are not huge populations.
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: I'd love to see more early vote reporting in some
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: other states, but not every not every state reports the
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: same way. Does that translate to Texas? The polls say
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: it does. We think it does, but we don't have
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: the same kind of data. And then the fascinating. anything
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: he mentioned to me is that in the states that
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: report race and partisanship he's seeing non-whites turn out at
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: higher than usual rates he's seeing uh white democrats turn
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: out at higher than usual rates he's seeing white independents
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: turning out at higher than usual rates who's left behind
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: it's the white republicans they are not showing up in
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: the same numbers and like now granted Everybody votes differently.
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: You know, some states have a history of mail voting.
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: Some states have a history of early voting. But boy,
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: if if those trends hold. Yeah, we're talking about the
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: higher end and tectonic shift here rather than rather than
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: even a tsunami or a wave. So it could have
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: made a big bet on getting people out on one
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: particular day. And they have to see if that pays.
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: Right. I saw that the president has decided he's going
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: to vote early in person.
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: Which I think he was also encouraging people to return
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: their mail-in ballots the other day. And I thought he
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: wasn't a big fan of those, but you know.
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're getting there. One of my favorite gags of
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: our time at Hotline together, and I passed on this
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: tradition to you when I was there, is the joke
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: was at Hotline that October was Ballot Initiative Month. And
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: it all started when the fearless, the original editor-in-chief, the
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: late Bob Balkan, was on C-SPAN doing what we would
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: all do on C-SPAN. And back then it was a
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: big deal for Hotline to get its editor-in-chief on there.
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: And we were all watching and he was asked some
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: question about a ballot initiative that he knew nothing about.
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: And it was on in September. And he said, well,
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: at Hotline, October is ballot initiative month. And it sort
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: of became this running gag and it became our tradition
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: that we started to roll out these big analysis of,
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: all right, let's talk about the battle initiatives that are
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: attracting big money. I have friends in the consultant community
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: that haven't had a human being client in decades and
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: make a fortune doing these battle initiatives. Huge money gets
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: behind them. They're big deals. Give me the Give me
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: the five or six big ones in your mind that
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: people ought to be paying attention to because, you know,
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: it isn't going to stay within the borders of state acts.
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Okay. Yes. And I was actually just on C-SPAN
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: doing the ballot initiative thing myself. So got all my
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: notes right here. So, all right. So abortions on the
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: ballot in four states, Idaho, Missouri, Nevada, Virginia. Three of
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: those states, Idaho, Nevada, Virginia, would enshrine protections in state constitutions.
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: I know Nevada, Virginia are enshrining protection.
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: OK, the pro the pro choice measures, if you will.
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: I know people get people get angsty about the podcast.
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: We use pro choice, pro life. It's simpler for what
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: people want to call themselves. You know, right. You know, whatever. OK, sure.
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: OK. Missouri is the it would repeal a constitutional amendment
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: that was approved just two years ago. We'll see how
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: that goes. But people generally don't like to take their
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: own rights away. There are trans sports bands on the
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: ballot in five states, Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska, Washington, Missouri.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: Are you surprised there's only five?
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: No, because those because most states that have the ballot
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: measure and Republican control have probably already passed them.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: Already passed it.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: OK, the thing in these. So what are these? What
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: are three of these five states have in common? Arizona, Colorado, Washington.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: They all have Democratic governors. Colorado, Washington have Democratic legislatures, too.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: They're not going to pass a trans ban. So it
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: goes on the ballot here in Arizona. In Missouri and Nebraska,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: and then in a bunch of states that have non-citizen
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: voting bans on the ballot, I think a lot of
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: these are just being used as turnout generators. Now, you'll
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: remember that back in 2004, there were 13 states that
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: had the marriage bans.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: Which side is it now?
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: Well, so here's the interesting thing. Gay marriage bans on
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: the ballot in 2004. All the academic literature says that
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: didn't work in turning out evangelical voters for Bush. He
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: won anyway. You ask Matt Dowd or something like that,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: and he'll say, yeah, it didn't work either. Of course,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: Bush won anyway, so he probably wants more of the
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: credit for himself. um issue number three taxes there are
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: two really fascinating tax measures on the ballot one in
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: my home state of washington uh the legislature passed a
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: millionaire's tax a tax on wealth over a million dollars
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: first time the state's ever had an income tax uh
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: now people want to repeal it it wouldn't go into
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: effect until 2028 but hey it's an income tax in
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: washington we'll see how voters feel about that historically we
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: don't love the idea And then in California, of course,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: there's the billionaire's tax, a one time five percent tax
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: on wealth over a billion dollars.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: Ever pulled over 50.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: It is not pulled over 50. But I think the
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: interesting thing here, this is the policy nerd in me
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: coming out. You know, Bernie Sanders, SEIU, Ro Khanna, they
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: all support it. Gavin Newsom opposes it. Why would he
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: oppose it right before a presidential election? He opposes it
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: because he can read a budget. California is so dependent
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: on the capital gains tax for its revenue. It's the
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: biggest share of its tax revenue of any state in
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: the country that Newsom knows that if all these billionaires
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: who happen to own stock leave the state, that puts
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: them in a terrible financial position over the long run
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: um so i think you know the the pro billionaires
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: tax folks are actually advertising against newsome in some early
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: primary states and some digital ads and stuff like that
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: try to put some pressure on him ahead of the
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: presidential but you know this shows me you can read
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: a budget and i think that's uh i think that's.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: Pretty jerry brown come out against it.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: Too I don't know, but he is very opinionated still
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: up on his farm in Sutter County.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: And he would be a budget. That is one where
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: I wonder if just nobody's bothered to ask him. But
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: I bet you I kind of think I think I
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: know where it's going to come down.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would, too. OK, the last thing I want
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: to touch on on initiatives is the initiative process itself.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: So a lot of people use the ballot initiative in
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: conservative states to pass progressive legislation that the legislature won't touch.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: They use the ballot initiative in progressive states to pass
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: conservative legislation that the legislature won't touch. So now a
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: lot of these lawmakers are getting a little frustrated that
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: people are going around them. And so we've seen nine
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: measures in seven states, California, Idaho, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota,
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: South Dakota and Utah. That would change something about the
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: ballot process. So either increasing the number of signatures you
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: need to get on the ballot, increasing the share of
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: the vote that you need to.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: Florida is at 60 percent.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: Your home state is at 60 percent.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: 57% want weed. 57% want to protect abortion rights. But
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: if you can't get 60, it doesn't make it. Yeah.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: And now there are two other ones that are sort
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: of on the other side of that. In Missouri and Montana,
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: there are measures that would limit how government officials, how
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: legislatures or the governor. could enact changes to a voter
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: approved initiative. So you pass a pro-choice measure and the
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: legislature goes in and tries to ban abortion. Well, they
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: wouldn't be able to do that under these laws. So
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: that like the fight around the process sounds really boring,
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: but it turns out to be really important for the
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: future of the ballot initiative.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: I think, look, I somehow. because you know me, and
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: you do the same, I was reading the Idaho, the
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: one about trying to, if the Medicaid funding drops below
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: a certain level, and I'm sitting there going, when you're
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: asking voters to do a bank shot type of power
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: in a referendum, you're never going to get it.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, voters get to no a lot faster than they
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: get to yes.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: Yes, I was just going to say, it does feel
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: that way. We have a big tax one in Florida, too,
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: that is really divided state county level Republicans from the
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: state Republican Party. It's been a fascinating little split because
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: it would just gut funding. It has to do with
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: homestead exemption and property taxes. But, you know, the fear
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: is that it was essentially gut services on the local level.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: And that happens a lot. So let me throw out
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: three kind of wild cards. OK, get me out of here.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: Idaho voters are going to choose an official state gun
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: from a list of five Michigan voters.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: That's a good one. And what's do we have a
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: front runner? Is it the cold?
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know anything about guns. It's
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: they were specific models, but I couldn't tell you anything
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: about it. Michigan voters will decide on whether to hold
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: a constitutional convention. This happens in a couple of states
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: every year. They're asked not to.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I believe Jocelyn Benson told me, I think it's
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: a I think they have to put it on the
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: ballot every 12 years or something like that.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: 12 years is the typical is a typical thing. Every
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: incumbent lawmaker hates the idea of a constitutional convention because
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: it would be chaos. It would be it would be terrible.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: I know the fear is that we're getting more and
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: more independent voters who are like, why not? Rather than
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: that seems like a waste of time.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And the last one, New Mexico voters will
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 2: decide whether to pay their state legislators. Their legislators in
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: New Mexico make no salary. It's the only state in
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: the country where they where they don't earn any money
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: for their service. New Mexico legislators, New Mexico voters get
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: a chance to change that. And as somebody who loves
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: my state legislators, I would vote yes if I lived
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: in New Mexico. I.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: You know, look, the only I think that the most
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: there's levels of corruption in state legislatures. right? Your full-time
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: legislatures are harder to get harder. I think harder to
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: corrupt your part-time legislatures. That's where the lobbyists run everything.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: So if you don't pay them, I can promise you
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: somebody's getting paid. Somebody is getting paid. Uh, and that's where, um,
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: where can folks find your work if they, if, uh,
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: if they'd like to do this and, Is there sort
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: of free versions, paid versions?
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: You know, advertise away. Where can they find this great stuff?
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: Check out PluribusNews.com. We're actually rolling out a big website
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: redesign this week, and it's going to look super cool.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 2: We have some legislative tracking and research tools that are
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: second to none in the industry. It is fantastic. It's
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: really cool. If you want to know, I don't know,
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: pick your favorite issue, the vouchers, school vouchers. What did
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: states do on school vouchers this year? You can type
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: that into our search bar. You'll get a full custom report.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: It's really cool. And it's changed the way I report.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: Can I make one request?
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: Of course.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: I want a beautiful cheat sheet that you just came
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: up with for our ballot initiatives. Can people follow if
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: they want to keep track? Because this is always a
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: beef of mine. I mean, look, I'm somebody who's committed this. Look,
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: at the end of the day, people want to know
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: who's controlling the House, who's controlling the Senate. We trickle
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: our way down. And then it was like, hey, what
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: happened to those ballots? What is that new gun in Idaho?
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: We want to know. But in all seriousness- Is there
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: a cheat sheet or anything that people can follow this on?
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: Yes, there is. I'll give you, good friends of mine
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 2: who I follow all the time, Ballotpedia. Just type in
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: Ballotpedia 2028 ballot measures. It'll be the first thing you find.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: It'll list it by state. It'll list it by topic.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: And then they'll have the results on election night. They
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: do great work out there.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: Well, it's going to be, we're in the weird week
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: where we get to sort of rest our brains while
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: we wait for so much data to come in. And
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: the sprint between what I always say, the minute polls
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: close and Thanksgiving week, right? Like it's going to take
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: us probably all three weeks to unpack all of those things.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: The state that will take the longest to count its votes,
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: will it be your home state or will it be California?
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 2: It'll be California. No question. Not Washington? Not Washington. We
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 2: only have one really close race, and that's the Marine.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: I can never remember her last MGP.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: I'm all for MGP-er. Let's MGP-er. It's a great... Yeah.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: Okay. Sounds good. We only have that one close race.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: California is going to have half a dozen, including just
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: even counting the governor's race. The thing I always say,
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 2: it takes time to administer a good election. We can
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: be patient with the results. It takes a lot of
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 2: time to count that many million ballots.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: My friends at the Forward Party care about this. Will
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: we see non-major... Will we see an increase in non-major
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: party legislatures, do you think, going into the next cycle?
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: I think we could. I haven't I haven't taken a
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: look on the state legislative level, but there are more
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: than a few at the federal level in these Senate
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: races where the Democrats dropped out. You know, yeah, you
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: can you can see a couple of them. I mean,
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: Angus King and Bernie Sanders could have some buddies in
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: the next.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: Well, I know there's a couple in I know there's
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: a couple in Utah that the fourth party elected somebody
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: in Utah, one in a special, and then was able
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: to hold on and So I think they're hoping they
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: can grow their ranks there.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: Keep an eye on states like Vermont and Maine. They
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 2: have the longest traditions of electing independents.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: All right. Great. Good to see you, my friend. I would,
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: you know, you all in on Sam Darnold? Where are
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: you getting nervous?
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: I was getting a little nervous. I was, I was
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: wondering when the drew lock era was going to come back,
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: but last eight, you know, Sunday.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: Night, I mean, you know, I, and I, I had a,
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: I had a bad vibe about it for you guys.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: I thought Kenneth Walker was going to do the FU game. Right.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: I thought we were going to get murdered.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: That defense is that good, man.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: I was fully prepared to go to bed.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: Is he also a Michael McDonald? Wait, he's Mike McDonald, right?
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: Mike McDonald. Mike McDonald. Yes.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: So we got Michael McDonald telling us how, you know, singing,
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: you know, singing songs for us with the Doobie Brothers.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: Michael McDonald tracking the early vote and Mike McDonald running
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: the best defense in the NFL. There we go.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: Reid, good to see you.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: Good to see you too.