Latest / Normally / Normally Podcast: 2026 Midterm Election Forecast, Democratic Socialists' Rise, Trump’s Election Security Push & New Jersey Voting Controversy

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Normally Podcast: 2026 Midterm Election Forecast, Democratic Socialists' Rise, Trump’s Election Security Push & New Jersey Voting Controversy · Normally

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, we are back on normally the show with
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: normalist takes for when.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: The news gets weird.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: I'm Mary Catherine Ham and I am joined today because
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: our friend Carol is on an vacation.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: We are letting her enjoy.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: I am joined by Kelly Maher, my friend from Colorado
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Operative Extraordinaire, a now analyst who can bring.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Us news from, as she puts it, the Big Square States. HILLO,
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: how are you doing.
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: Hi, Mary Gatherine, I am great. It's gonna be one
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: hundred here in Colorado, so it's gonna be another hot one.
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: It seems like that's happening everywhere a little bit.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: I am, and when one was.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: I am in Wisconsin, where it is lovelyally, although I
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: must say without my children for a couple of days,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: I am really getting a glimpse of the kind of
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: person I would be were they not taking up my
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: time and energy.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: And I don't love it, Kelly, I don't really. It's fine.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: I do other healthy stuff too.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: But as you might have noticed, because I've been talking
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: to you for the past forty eight hours, I've gone
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: down an internet research rabbit hole about the Jackson five
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: and Michael Jackson and the Jackson family, which happens to
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: me periodically because I grew up on the Jackson five
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: right to my dad, and then on Michael Jackson because
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: I grew up in the eighties, and so I'm I've
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: always been fascinated, and then I watched the biopic and
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: now I'm here with no kids, and I can't stop
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: watching old Michael Jackson clips and digging up more information.
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: Well, and even though we are very close in age,
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: we're just enough removed from one another that I was not.
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: I did not grow up with Michael Jackson the same
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: way that you did. However, You've been sending me childhood
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: clips of him, and my gosh, he was so talented,
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: so talented. Like my first exposure was really kind of
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: the we Are the World super Bowl halftime right, because
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: I'm like, I was the new kids on the block.
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: And then yah, so just just those couple years made
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: that different man, that guy as a child was unbelievable.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I have a real affinity for Jackson five era
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Michael Jackson. Anyway, So I have many other thoughts, but
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to use the entire podcast because that's
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: not what this podcast is for.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: So but I do recommend to you, all of you.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Ed Sullivan showed debut of the Jackson five just for
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: your general pop culture and music edification, just go watch
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: those videos without worrying about the legacy or anything that
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: came after.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Just those Ye all right, exactly.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: So, now that we're done with that obsession, let's go
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: back to my work obsession, which is politics and elections. Yes,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: So this week I have been studying up on House
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: and Senate preview basically, like what's the forecast, what are
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: we looking at to brush up, because now we're in
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: the home stretch here. Most of the primaries have wrapped
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: up or will shortly in early August, and the table
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: is sort of set at the moment for the time
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: in which voters become very engaged and actually start paying
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: attention and so maybe even as closely as I pay
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: attention to old Michael Jackson documentaries, and so they're getting
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: tuned in and I'm trying to figure out where we are.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: So I just wanted to start by kind of laying
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: out House and Senate prospects real quick in order for
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: there is a path for Republicans to hold the House, right,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: But I'm kind of of the mind these days that
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: we might be in an era where the waves just
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: can't be that big because districts have sorted to such
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: a degree into more red and more blue that the
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: things on the table for flipping just aren't that many.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: This year, that has been exacerbated by the fact that
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Republicans actually won the redistricting war, and as a result,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: the universe of toss up seats is eighteen right. Yeah,
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: for perspective in twenty ten, which was a huge waveyear
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: for Republicans, sixty two seats in that election, So we're
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: talking about a universe of eighteen right now that are
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: really contested well.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: And so the.
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: Old school political view on that is that a mid term,
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: particularly a midterm election in a second term, is usually
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: a wave for the opposition party, almost always, regardless of
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: who is in power and what party is in power.
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: And I think that is like a really good top
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: level analysis that the waves are still coming, but they're
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: acting as waves that are like closer to the shore.
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: There's not anything that anybody's gonna, you know, surf because
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: somebody who does not surf and really is not particularly
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: good at this analogy has no concept of how to
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: do that. Because I'm not athletic at all.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: I've served twice. I will say, very fun and very difficult.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: But as soon as you actually do it once, you're like, oh,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: I understand why people devote their lives to this. It
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: feels natal Okay, so yeah, that probably won't be happening,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: but yes, I think so. Twenty twenty two was disappointing
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: as a wave of election for Republicans who were sure
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: that that was coming Ashore.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: I was one of them.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: I looked around and I thought, oh my gosh, these
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Democrats are not focusing on kitchen table issues at all.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: They in fact, were framing a lot of their arguments
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: around abortion post Dobbs. I thought that that wouldn't work
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: so well because it wasn't speaking to day to day issues.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: But it turns out it did work pretty well. It
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: held the dam for them, and it was sort of
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: a trickle that happened for Republicans. This sort of and
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: this is interesting as a warning for Democrats this year
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: if they are spared a shellacking. That worked against Democrats
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: in the end, because what they didn't do was a
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: just for Joe Biden.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because Joe Biden said.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: Look, everything turned out fine, but I'm strong what are
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: you guys talking about?
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: Why would you replace me?
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: And he was able to credibly make that argument, So
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: I would just you know, watch out for that guy.
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: Because he was able to credibly make that argument until
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: he wasn't and it was you know, too far down
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: the road, right, Right, So that's a warning for like,
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: if you if you escape a shell acking, it does
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: not mean you shouldn't examine your party's shortcomings. So yeah,
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: I think we said that at the time, right, It
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: is that it's not a mandate, right, like not getting
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: not getting absolutely wrecked because of previous political like the
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: previous political cycles. Acting in that way like doesn't mean
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: that it's necessarily a mandate to be bananas.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: Yes, the parties continue to tell themselves every single.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Time they love us, they just love us, And in fact,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: all the data says they don't love you.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: Most people in your own.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Party don't love you. A lot of people are leaving
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: both parties to become independents. You are not beloved, Okay,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: So the path for Republicans and hat tip to the
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: good people at Cook Political Report who break all these
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: things down. Republicans are favored in two hundred and twelve seats.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: If they won half of the toss ups, they would
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: have a four seat advantage. That would be a good
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: night for them. Democrats are favored in two hundred and
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: five seats. If they won all the toss ups plus
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: half the lean Republicans, they'd have an eleven seat edge.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: So that's again we're playing between the forties. These are
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: not these are not big swings. You know, more than
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: that could happen. Our friend Guy Benson was referencing I
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: believe it was from twenty ten an Illinois GOP operative
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: the day after the election, saying, I'm proud to announce
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: that we have won five of our four targeted races
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: in the state. One that they hadn't anticipated, right, so
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: it could happen.
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: And that is one of the things is like the
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: typical wisdom, the typical political wisdom is mostly been thrown
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: out the window in the last decade. And so you know,
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: I say all the time when people are like, oh,
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: what did the tea.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: Leaves look like? I'm like that.
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: Anybody who tells you that they can anticipate what's going
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: to happen is probably wrong.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah. A couple notes on data.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: We talk a lot about far left candidates winning primaries
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: for Democrats and that becoming sort of the picture of
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: the party. I will note that out of twenty two
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: competitive primaries for Democrats thus far, fourteen of them have
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: been won by establishment candidates, so it's not an across
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: the board phenomenon. It does still have the probability of
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: affecting people's views of the Democratic Party because the far
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: left candidates who win the Socialists are very loud about it,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: very loud. Yeah, And we are going to talk about
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: Colorado as one of the examples of this in a
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: little bit, but it's worth noting that not all of
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: these districts are being won by loopy people. There is
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: a financial edge for Republicans post Scotis decision that allows
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: the party machines to be more involved. The NRCC has
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: eighty two million D triple C seventy three. There's a
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: little bit of an edge for Republicans on super PACs
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: as well, at the moment that may change. Democrats are
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: very good at raising money. And then the one that
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: Republicans are squinting at and saying I think everything will
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: be okay is the generic ballot, yeah, which I don't
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: know what you think about it? What do you attribute
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: the fact that the generic ballot is closer than some
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: say it should be given the Trump's Given Trump's unpopularity,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: and this being a midterm where the Republicans are in power,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: it seems basically that a lot of people distrust Republicans,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: don't love how things are going, the president is unpopular,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: and yet it is not redounding to Democrats benefit.
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: Well, I think that what you said earlier was very true, right,
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: which is that everybody hates everybody. However, right from a
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: generic ballot standpoint, and this was this is a conversation
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: that I was having with some people about not just
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: like the governor in Colorado is up and that's that's
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: a conversation, but the down ballot just just the way
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: that you want people to govern in Colorado, we have
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: three We have the treasure the attorney general, and the
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: Secretary of State. And although Democrats have swept Colorado for
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: years and years and are likely to do so again,
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: people want like you want a Republican cop type in
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: the attorney General's office, right, Like you want your accountant
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: who's probably a Republican in the Tatum's office, right, And
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: you want somebody who is the diligent note taker at
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: the meetings, who is probably also an expert in Roberts
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: rules as your secretary of State, right, And so from
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: a generic ballot standpoint, if people are looking at the
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: way that the parties are branding themselves, right, we've had
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: now ten years of every Republican is Donald Trump, right,
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: which which is the way that they have been trying
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: to tie Republican candidates to his increasing unpopularity, especially here
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: in Colorado in places where he's unpopular, less so in
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: places where he's popular. But if you're looking at just
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: the personality type of who you want running the things,
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: tends to be more Republican, especially as Democrats are having
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: this kind of internal struggle where they're branding themselves as
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: more DSA because the numbers may not bear that out,
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: but the way that people perceive, the delta between the
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: reality and how people are perceiving Democrats might be the
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: thing that they're going to have to fight against the hardest.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: The counter to that, of of course's voter enthusiasm, which
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: is very much on the side of Democrats right now,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: and that may matter a lot. As my smart friend
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: and former colleague Chris Steyerwaldt points out in the Rail
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: the last time the congressional ballot was the generic ballot
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: was tied and a party in power was squinting at
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: it saying everything would be fine was summer of twenty ten,
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: and that didn't turn out well for the Obama era
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: Democrats in the Senate.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: Just a few quick.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: Updates because I wanted to do some heavy house because
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: we don't usually talk about that as much.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: In Maine news.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: It appears that Troy Jackson, who is the you know,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: longtime many generations manor and lagger is how he is branded,
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: is likely to be the nominee in Maine. He's not
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: super charismatic. The Free Beacon, by the way, reports that
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: sort of like oysterman Graham Platner.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: In addition to being.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: A lagger, he's also a highly paid union guy based
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: out of Boston, Massachusetts when he's doing that work, So
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: like it's a little more complicated than that. So that
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: looks like that will probably be the setup in Maine.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: In South Carolina, Darlene Graham, who is the sister of
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: Lindsay Graham, appointed to that spot in the what we
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: thought would be a placeholder position has now said I'm in, guys,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: I'm running.
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: Hey, I'm in. And by the way, just as a note,
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: I saw a lot of people pushing back against her
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: and saying like, oh, nepotism, why would you do family
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: blah blah blah blah blah, as if this is some
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: kind of new concept, right, and this is and this
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: is a thing that I would like people to understand
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: American history more, especially around two fifty. It's like, this
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: is a thing that has occurred over and over and
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: over again over the course of American history where somebody
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: has vacated and their brother or it in you know,
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: recent Colorado politics, their wife or this is not an
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: uncommon practice.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: In Yes, yes, I think that is important to point out.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: I still don't love it, especially in this case. Yeah,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: partly because I just need I don't know anything about
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Darling Graham, Like what do we have actual I think we.
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: Was gonna learn a lot real quick.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Number one before Also, South Carolina politics famously.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: Brutal, so we'll see where this has.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Although the President seems to have put his seal of
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: approval on this, which probably seals it for Darlene Graham.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: But I kind of thought as a placeholder. She was
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: nice if she didn't run, because nobody in that race
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: got a leg up on.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: Anyone else, and then you could just run the race.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: But now we have this situation.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: So that's the update there By the way, out of
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: the nine competitive seats for the Senate, seven of those
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: states Trump won. So it's not a great universe of
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: opportunities for Democrats. And the two states where Kamala Harris
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: did win, New Hampshire and Maine Maine, they've already messed
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: up in some fashion. And New Hampshire has kind of
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: snuck up on Democrats and it's about tied and they're like, wait,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: what's going on. So it's a new new is running there.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: All right, So that's the rundown. When we're back on normally,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: we'll do some deeper dsa talk. Oh all right, we
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: are back on normally with some discussion of the socialists. Yeah,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: as I keep saying, perhaps several generations of economica literacy
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: were a bad idea, no joke.
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: I have to be really way more careful about I
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: do not really talk politics with my kids, but they
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: love to overhear what I say, you know, when I'm
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: on the phone particularly with you. And the other day
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: I said something I was I was driving, Oh more,
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: what we need here is another government program, and I
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: heard out of the backseat the Commies aren't coming. The
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: Commies aren't coming.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: You know, they're not wrong. You know what, it's snappy.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: I think it could work in an election.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: So the DSA takeover, the Democratic Socialists takeover of the
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: Democratic Party, which they are very loud about advertising, is
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: their plan. It continues a pace, even with relatively few
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: of them winning their primaries in deep blue areas. When
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: they win those seats, which they inevitably will, they will
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: come to Congress ready to exert power and bully. And
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: as I keep saying, they're not known for dabbling in institutions,
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: the Socialists and Marxists and communists, they're known for the
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: long march through the institutions. So just like watch out
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: or in the case of the new DSA document which
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: is their platform that was like recently released, just the
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: abolishment of all the institutions is kind of what they're into,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: So watch out for that.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: I want to talk a little bit about this Nate
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: Silver finding, which I think on a gut level, you
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: and I probably already knew. Chris Hayes. Rey states it
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: succinctly on X, which is the most left wing people
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: in America are people with postgraduate degrees who are financially strapped,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: and the most right wing people are those without four
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: year college degrees who are rich. The Democratic Party is
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: becoming the home for those frustrated, yeah, left leaning, very educated,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: downwardly mobile.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: Voters, and those are the DSA voters.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: They are largely white, they are largely postgraduate and graduate
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: degree folks. And I just want to say, what you're
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: finding in that tweet, Chris Hayes, is that HVAC greater
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: than DSA.
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: I jog all the time that with my kiddos, that
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: they I won't pay for college anymore, but I will
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: pay for a welding school, right.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, it's a conversation worth having.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: In Nate Silver's piece, he refers to Peter Turchin's elite
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: overproduction hypothesis. It basically argues that America is producing too
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: many college graduates relative to the number of high prestige,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: well paying jobs available to them. People who wind up
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: in this situation often carry heavy student loan burdens. You'll
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: notice that from the talking points or other sorts of debt.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: Even in their if their material situation is objectively just fine,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: it's rarely great. They're gloomy about their own financial prospects
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: and feel aggrieved about the state of the country. Their
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: class status is ambiguous, privileged in some senses, but they're
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: part of the have nots in other meaningful ways. And
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: I would argue because I don't know, it's a chicken
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: and egg thing, either because they gravitate toward DSA and
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: hear all of this stuff, or because their annoyance with
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: other I don't know, non college rich people right makes
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: them feel that they're being cheated. They gravitate towards this
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: ideology that says it's never your fault, and in fact
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: someone is taking from you. The general contractor who graduated
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: from your high school is not doing the right way,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: which is not true.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: I love those guys. Those guys are great well.
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: And this and this is the end game of the
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: bill of goods that has been sold for a very
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: long time that the path to wealth and success is education, right,
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: and it's one that I bought, it's one that you bought.
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: We graduated high school, we went to college, that was
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: the path that was supposed to be the way to
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: make you upwardly mobile, but that's not it was. It
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: was the focus on learning, not production, right right. And
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: now we're sitting here and actually a great example of
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: this is what happened in Colorado. Colorado has recently dropped.
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: We used to always be, you know, really top for economics,
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: and now we've recently. Last week they announced Newsweek announced
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: that we're down to twenty five. We have one of
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: the most educated popular in the country, but you know,
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: we're seeing a declining economic state. And then we saw
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: Milak Kiros take out Diana to get in Denver fifteen
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: term incumbent Diana Degett has been in Congress since I
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: was in high school. I met her when I was
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: a girl scout. Like it's a The DSA, especially in Colorado,
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: is the perfect codification of exactly what nat Silver's argument
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: is interesting.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and Kiros is out there, you know, some very
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: interesting messages, something akin to the nine America deserved nine
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: to eleven argument, Like you know, they had their they
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: had their real concerns with us.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that kind of thing I would.
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: Say, I would say, just basically straight up anti Semitism
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: is coming from her, and she's since tried to walk
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: it back and said, oh, you know, my Jewish neighbors,
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: I want to make sure that they're protected too and
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: protect them from anti Semitism, while also saying things that
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: are almost overtly anti Semitic. But on the business standpoint,
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: she said that it was great that Palenteer left Colorado,
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: and she actually even said I would like for Lockheed Martin,
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: one of Colorado's biggest employers of highly educated people, to
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: leave Colorado. She doesn't want any of that industry here
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: in Colorado, and she's calling for them to leave. And So,
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: if you are a business, if you are a successful business,
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: if you are a contract a do defense in space
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: the way that Lockheed Martin is, and you have the
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: senior congressional member from your state leave replaced with somebody
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: who's openly calling for you to.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: Leave the state, that's not a recipe for success.
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: Right, That's super concerning if you are somebody who employs
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: seven thousand, mostly engineers in Colorado. Right, by the way,
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: I think this is a problem that someone who is
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: on the smarter end of this type of delegation, someone
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: like AOC she runs into this problem too. Years ago,
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: she chased an Amazon facility out of her district because
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: she's like, well, we don't want that business here, ick.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: Right, right, Well, I got news for you.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: The people who aren't DSA don't have the same take
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: on whether there should be new businesses inside your district,
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: sometimes like they might actually want those jobs. Further, I
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: wanted to ask you, surely, while this is all spinning
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: out on the left in Colorado, Republicans in the state
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: are giving people a really sane choice, right, Oh.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: Katz's happening.
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: No, no, it's not. Well, you know, on the Republican side,
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: we had a three way gubernatorial primary and Victor Marx
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: made some pretty significant national news. You can see him
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: on both The lad Show with Stephen Colbert, and he
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: did an interview with Candace Owens that was definitely viral,
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: I think would be the way to put it. He
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: won the gubernatorial nod from Republicans. He was opposed by
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: a friend of mine, so full disclosure, barbar Kirkmeyer, member
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: of the Joint Budget Committee, very smart, very competent, and
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: he narrowly beat her. Now, if we're doing it by money,
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: he outspent her significantly, both on the hard side and
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: soft money coming in. However, it is really frustrating for
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: somebody like me who just wants normal Republicans to run,
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: because when we're talking about this DSA turnout in, for instance,
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: the first congressional district, and we're talking about people who
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: are making national news either on the Democrats side or
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: on the Republican side, that bleeds down right like that
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: is the branding that exists, and so we really have
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: to be thoughtful about who we're putting forth. Now. I
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: thought he was going to be to write ten just
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: because he sent out so much mail and he had
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: so much coverage. But here we sit, and so I
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: think I said it on the news, but I'm saying
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: it to my Democrat friends as well. Right like Republicans
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: are in Colorado are the ghost of Christmas future. I
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: think it's likely mathematically that we're going to end up
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: with super minorities in the House and possibly the Senate,
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: which means that the Democrats will then have veto override
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: on likely Governor Phil Wiser.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: Look, a moral victory is not a victory.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: However, it is nice to hear the arrows an attempt
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: like the party wasn't like, yes, please, Victor Marx.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: The party was like it just barely Victor Marks. Maybe
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: there's something to build on there. We will be back
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: with more.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: All right, back on Normally, I wanted to do a
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: quick discussion of Trump's big speech and pair it with
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: a story coming out of New Jersey from Governor Mick Cheryl,
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: who announced that oops, they accidentally registered to vote sixty
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: six hundred illegal immigrants in the state, so they're bad.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: Before we get to that, the Trump speech seemed to
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: basically point to the future and say, China has a
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: bunch of our information and it could lead to bad things,
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: particularly with voting tampering.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: But it didn't go full on like.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: These outside forces are why I lost elections, and which
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: is was kind of the preview of the speech, and
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: I'm glad it wasn't that right. It seems to be
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: a more responsible approach to saying, look, there are going
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: to be some problems here. I'm going to flog you
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: guys about the Save Act, because the Save Act would
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: be the thing that might solve some of these problems. However,
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: he still faces the fact that, like these Republicans, the
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: votes aren't there. They're not going to get rid of
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: the filibuster in order to pass this thing. So he's
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: kind of setting himself up for a little bit of
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: a demoralizing message about election security and then saying, and
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: the Senate's not going to do what I say to
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: change that.
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: The thing that's always interesting to me about Trump speeches
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: is that I always like brace myself. You know. It's
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: like it's like you're you think that you're in a
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: car and you're heading towards brickwall, and then you're like, oh,
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: it's less of what I was afraid of, right, And
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: I guess that was what I got out of the speech,
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: is that, Okay, well, you know, I think that it
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: is undeniable that China has a lot of our information, right.
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: It is also undeniable that information in electoral politics, depending
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: on how it is utilized, can be very powerful. If
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: I just think of the like arc of how we
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: used to do data analysis in two thousand and two,
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: two thousand and four when I started, versus now twenty
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: two years later, it's insane. It's absolutely insane. The ability
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: to micro target, the way to reach people.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: And so.
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: It depends on how you define intervention, but there is
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: certainly a lot of room for international intervention.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: Yes, and it's a sensitive issue. It's a sensitive issue.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: It's hard to talk about in a responsible way without
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: sort of starting the political whirlwind. But speaking of responsible
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: and its opposite. So this is the story out of
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: New Jersey, and I apologize. I actually said illegal immigrants,
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: and I didn't mean that. What I should have said
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: is non citizens who would then be illegal voters. Roughly
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: six thousand, six hundred non citizens were unwittingly registered to
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: vote in New Jersey from twenty twenty three to twenty
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: twenty four. Governor Mickey Cheryl said Tuesday, Oh, interesting, right
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: in time for an election. Roughly four hundred of them
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: improperly cast votes, She said, quote They were registered as Democrats, Republicans,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: and unaffiliated voters and were scattered across the state. She
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: added that it is unclear which elections they voted in,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: and said there was no evidence at this time that
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: any elections were swayed as a result. Yeah, but there's
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: also no evidence that they weren't. Like, this is the
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: and I hate to have a lukewarm take, but like
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: most Americans, fall in between the Trump full twenty twenty
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: rejectionism and the Mickey Cheryl, this is all innocent.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: Please don't worry about it. Right, there's a little trying. Yeah,
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: so middle ground.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: Where it's like, I don't know, seems like we should
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: not unwittingly quote unquote do things like that, and then
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: you shouldn't also lecture people about how it's never happening,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: when in fact, it does happen and we have proof
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: that it happens.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: Sometimes because we are concerned.
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: About that, Yeah, and expressing concern about it seems to
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: automatically put you in the like crazy people camp, and
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: I don't think that that's necessarily fair or true. I
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: also want to note, I think it's important to note
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: that when I worked for our congressman, that there are
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: legal immigrants who just don't know the rules and if
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: you send them about so it's not necessarily like on
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: the individual level, it's not necessarily nefarious. Right. I don't
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: want people thinking that this is necessarily like, Oh, a
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: bunch of immigrants decided to vote when they weren't allowed to,
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: and they did so in an organized way. If you
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: send somebody a ballot and they don't know they're not
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: allowed to vote, oftentimes they'll just voted and send it.
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: Which makes sense.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: By the way, if you go to the DMV, and
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: this is all part of the motor voter situation where
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: you're sort of automatically funneled. You go to the DMV,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: you get funneled in the system, you get something at
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: your house. This has all been government approved as far
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: as you know, the entire time, and so it's on
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: the government not to be making these oops mistakes. They're
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: not so good at doing that well.
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: And we need more stats, right, like is it four
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: thousand Democrats and one Republican? Is it? What is the
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: spread here? Right? Because politics and elections is a game
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: of numbers, and so like a nice quote that says, hey,
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: it's spread across the state and probably didn't change anything.
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: Maybe oops. Question mark needs to be fleshed out and
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: in a responsible way. You can't just pretend like that's
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: not a problem.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, there's an independent investigation ongoing, so we will
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: have updates as needed. Thank you so much Kelly Maher
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: for joining me on normally today. You can find her
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: at Okay Maher m A h E. R. You can
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: find her organization at Restoringstandards dot com.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us on normally.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays, and you can subscribe anywhere
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. Get in touch with us at
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: normally thepod at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening, and
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: when things get weird, act normally