Latest / Pod Save America / Election Night Cheat Sheet (feat. Steve Kornacki)

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Election Night Cheat Sheet (feat. Steve Kornacki) · Pod Save America

• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Welcome to another special episode of Pod Save America. I'm
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Dan Pfeiffer. This is the final bonus pod I'll be
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: hosting on Sundays in the If you like these episodes,
• 0:29
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• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Polar Coaster, by subscribing to Friends of the Pod at crooked.com
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: slash friends or through the Apple podcast feed. It's where
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: we really dig deep into polling and political trends. It's
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: a great way to support Crooked Media. And we have
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: a 25% off discount for annual subscriptions right now. In
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: today's episode, we're going to dig deep into the state
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: of the race as we approach the final days of
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: the election. And I can think of no better person
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: to join me in this conversation than Steve Kornacki. He's
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: national political correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC and the
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: man behind the magic wall. Steve, welcome to Pod Save America.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Thanks. Great to be here.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: So before we get into the nuts and bolts of
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: the race and what we're going to see in this election,
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: I do have to ask you. What is your plan
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: for how to get ready for election night? Do you
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: have one big meal early on? Do you stop drinking
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: water at like three? How much caffeine do you take?
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, you are on call for days potentially. How
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: do you get ready?
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  Speaker 2: It's not too elaborate. The excitement of everything gets me
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  Speaker 2: easily through the night. I don't have to do anything
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  Speaker 2: artificial for that. I guess the big thing is I always,
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: I carve out like two hours in the middle of
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: the afternoon to go take a walk Just clear my head.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: You know, you get all those anecdotal turnout reports. They're useless. So,
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: you know, just ignore it.
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: I know you guys have game-planned a whole bunch of
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: different scenarios about how this election could go. We didn't
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: learn for several days in 2020. Have you guys thought about,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: based on changes in who's voting, how votes are being counted,
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: when we're likely to get a result here, or what
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: some of the different scenarios may be?
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I'm sort of cautiously optimistic it's going
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: to be quicker, maybe significantly quicker. The main difference is
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: just the volume of vote by mail this time around.
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  Speaker 2: It's down dramatically. That's what really clogged it up in
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: 2020 in some of these states. Plus, some have changed
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: their procedures to make it even better. Others that haven't
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: even changed their procedures, at least they have more experience
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: with it now, a couple of elections under their belt. So, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: I remind people, you go back one election further, 2016,
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: it was a close election. It was a couple of
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: states by about 50,000 votes, 75,000 votes. We had the
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: verdict by 1.30 in the morning, I would say.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: That is a verdict I remember quite well when that
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: came down, as you can imagine. All of the polling
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: suggests that this is one of the closest races in history.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: We're basically at a one-point Harris lead in most of
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: the national polling averages. Battleground states are, at least if
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: you look at the New York Times average, all under
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: two points. Many of them tied or under one point.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: How are you sort of seeing the race along those lines?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sort of at the point where I don't
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: think it's going to change dramatically. I don't know if
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  Speaker 2: I'd even trust it if a bunch of polls suddenly
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: showed some kind of movement. And, you know, my overall
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: thing here, the last two months really has been, I
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: just don't trust confidence, you know, period. The more confidently
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: somebody is asserting they see something in the polls or
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: the early vote, the more skeptical I become.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: I think that's fair, particularly when it comes to the
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: early vote. You know, 2020, 2016 marked in many people's
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: minds by a pretty significant polling miss, mostly on the
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: state side in 2016, everywhere in 2020. Do you have
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: greater confidence that the polls are accurate this time? If so, why?
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, it's one of those cautiously optimistic things again.
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  Speaker 2: But there's an argument that the fact that they're so
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: close right now across the board, Trump is running at
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  Speaker 2: a higher number than he polled at in the past,
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  Speaker 2: and the race is closer than it ever was in
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  Speaker 2: the polling in 16 and 20. Is that the sign
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  Speaker 2: that the Trump voters who were missed in 16 and
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  Speaker 2: 20 are now being accounted for? Whether that's because of
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: methodological changes from pollsters, did it self-correct? Was the big
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  Speaker 2: miss in 2020 more the product of just the weirdness
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: of COVID, the pandemic? Did that somehow? So, I mean,
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  Speaker 2: that's one way to look at it. But yeah, I mean,
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  Speaker 2: when it's happened two elections in a row, I don't
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  Speaker 2: discount the possibility that again, the Trump votes undercounted, maybe
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  Speaker 2: not by as much, but even by a little would
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  Speaker 2: make a huge difference. And Poll misses do not always
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  Speaker 2: have to favor Republicans. We've seen it before the other way,
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  Speaker 2: and I'm very alert to that possibility, too.
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  Speaker 1: The other thing I always try to tell people is
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: if the polling has Harris up one and Michigan and
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  Speaker 1: Trump wins by two, that's not actually a polling error.
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  Speaker 1: That is within the range of expected outcomes. There's a
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  Speaker 1: chance that this could end up where we have a
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: big polling miss one way or the other, but the
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: more likely scenario in a race this close, if you
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  Speaker 1: look at 16 and 20 as benchmarks, is the outcome
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  Speaker 1: is likely within the margin of error of the polling average,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: which is not an error. It just is the reality of,
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  Speaker 1: it's like 2022, right?
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 1: Some states, they underpredicted Democrats. Some states were right on,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: but historically accurate polls, right?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, like the big miss in 20, for instance,
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  Speaker 2: was Wisconsin. It was the worst of any swing state.
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  Speaker 2: The average was about eight and a half for Biden
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  Speaker 2: going into election day. Six tenths of one point was
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  Speaker 2: the final result. There was a famous, you know, ABC
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  Speaker 2: poll October 2020 in Wisconsin that had Biden up 17 points.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: You know, I mean, that's the scale of what we
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: were talking about four years ago.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So it's election night, right? The first battleground state
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: where the polls close is going to be Georgia. What
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: are you going to be looking at in Georgia? And
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  Speaker 1: I think that one of the things I just want
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  Speaker 1: to tell voters is, you know, everyone has their model, right?
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: That's all these polling is a model of what people
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: think the electorate is going to look like, Republican turnout,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: Democratic turnout, by demographic group, by age. And sometimes we
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: learn early on that that model is off. Are there
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: specific counties in Georgia, specific things you'll be looking for
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  Speaker 1: when those polls come in? North Carolina obviously comes 30
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: minutes later. But I just want to research your warning signs.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: So I'm going to look at a couple of places
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  Speaker 2: in Georgia. First is what I call the blue blob.
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  Speaker 2: And it's the Atlanta metro area. It's now nine counties
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  Speaker 2: in that core that Biden won by, you know, cumulatively
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  Speaker 2: like 37 points in 2020. It counts for more than
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  Speaker 2: 40% of the vote. statewide is just getting bluer and
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: bluer every election. My question there is, I guess one
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  Speaker 2: of them is, is the blob expanding? There's one county
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  Speaker 2: in that area that's been moving pretty dramatically towards the Democrats,
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  Speaker 2: but just missed Fayette County the last time around. If
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  Speaker 2: the Democrats are flipping that this time around and expanding
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  Speaker 2: that blob, I think that's a sign because that's talking
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: about enthusiasm in the suburbs. You know, one of the
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  Speaker 2: things Democrats are hoping for here, that would be a
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  Speaker 2: very good sign for them of that. Then I look
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  Speaker 2: further north, sort of the fringes of the Atlanta metro,
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  Speaker 2: two giant counties there, Cherokee County and Forsyth County. Cherokee,
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  Speaker 2: in fact, I think used to be one of the
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  Speaker 2: top plurality producing counties for Republicans anywhere in the country.
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  Speaker 2: It's just massive and has stayed heavily Republican, but you
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  Speaker 2: still see it there. Whereas Romney was winning that county
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  Speaker 2: by like 50 points back in 2012. In 2020, it
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  Speaker 2: was just under 40 for Trump. So I want to
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  Speaker 2: see the Trump people believe They've arrested that slide. They
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  Speaker 2: think it's a bunch of things. It's four years of
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  Speaker 2: Biden has changed attitudes there a bit. They think Trump
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  Speaker 2: has mended fences with Brian Kemp, who did very well
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  Speaker 2: in a place like Cherokee County. Is that true? Has
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  Speaker 2: Trump arrested the slide there? Has he clawed stuff back?
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  Speaker 2: That's what they're counting on. There's a whole swath of counties,
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  Speaker 2: many of them rural, many of them with significant Black populations,
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  Speaker 2: where Democrats are hoping for higher turnout You know, something
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  Speaker 2: they saw in a lot of cases with Raphael Warnock
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  Speaker 2: when he won his first runoff victory back at the
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: start of 2021. So I want to see what's happening
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  Speaker 2: in those places, too.
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  Speaker 1: We tend to get the vote pretty late out of Atlanta.
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  Speaker 1: Is that right?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Fulton, DeKalb, you know, and that's a wild card
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  Speaker 2: everywhere this year is just the sequence and how this
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  Speaker 2: is going to happen. So it's I think what we're
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  Speaker 2: going to get in Georgia, though, early. is more of
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  Speaker 2: the pre-election day vote. Then we'll start getting the election day.
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  Speaker 2: We saw huge, huge disparities, obviously, in 2020, where the
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  Speaker 2: election day vote was so Republican friendly. The only thing
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  Speaker 2: I see from these early voting stats that we're seeing
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  Speaker 2: is clearly there's more interest from Republicans in voting early
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  Speaker 2: this time. Does that just mean we're going to look
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  Speaker 2: up and say, wow, there's a lot less Republicans voting
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  Speaker 2: on election day than last time, you know?
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  Speaker 1: I mean, that is such the big question here, because,
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  Speaker 1: you know, obviously, I find most of the early voting
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  Speaker 1: prognostication to be kind of like sorcery. You can read
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  Speaker 1: into whatever you want. You have all these people talking
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  Speaker 1: about the gender gap and the gender gap is huge
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  Speaker 1: in the early voting across the board. Now, if you
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: dig deep, it's also the same gender gap as 2020.
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  Speaker 1: Is that still good because you have more Republicans voting,
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  Speaker 1: therefore more men? Hard to say. The one place where
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  Speaker 1: I do take it incredibly seriously is John Ralston in Nevada,
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  Speaker 1: who has been quite dark on Democratic prospects. Are you
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  Speaker 1: seeing anything in Nevada?
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  Speaker 2: I mean, I see what you're seeing from him because
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: I have the same attitude. You make the exception for
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: him because it's so established. You go back decades doing
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: this in the state, and he has a great track record.
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  Speaker 2: But again, it's I think what hangs in my head
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  Speaker 2: here a little bit in Nevada and everywhere is just
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  Speaker 2: we're so tied into the patterns that we saw in 2020.
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  Speaker 2: And I just think when you talk about early vote
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  Speaker 2: and these different vote methods, I think there's volatility there
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: in how voters are going to make these choices. And
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: I think the fact of Trump and the Republicans deciding
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: this time they want to embrace it, so much coverage,
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: even in conservative media the last four years about, wow,
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: this might have been a blown opportunity. And so I just,
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: you know, we may end up looking back at this
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: and saying, well, everything was inverted this time, you know,
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: in these patterns. And so that's kind of in my head, too.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: You would assume, I mean, this is pure anecdotal assumption,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: that the Republican voters most likely to switch to mail
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: voting would be stalwart Republican Election Day voters. But you
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: guys actually have an analysis from your decision desk folks
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: today about Arizona, saying that you're a whole bunch of
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: newly registered men turning out in Arizona.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: And also the best, the sort of John Ralston of
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: Arizona was also looking at it and looking at the
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: turnout rates. What was interesting to me was if you
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: look in Maricopa, which is pretty much the ballgame out there,
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: close to it, it is the first congressional district in
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: And that's one of the most competitive. That's Dave Schweikert,
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: the Republican, who barely survived in 22. This is one
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: of the races of the side of the House. This
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: is the highest income area in Maricopa County, highest college
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: degree concentration. This is a place where Democrats think, you know,
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: just demographically, based on some of those factors, they can
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: make more progress this time. And the turnout levels there
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: are significantly higher than elsewhere in Maricopa County, like the
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: core city of Phoenix or Tempe or something like that.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: And what does that tell you, if anything? Well, then
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: that's the question.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: How do you read it? Are those the types of
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Republican voters who are kind of turned off by Trump?
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: Because demographically, that's where Trump has struggled among traditional Republicans.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: Or have they made peace with Trump and they're just,
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: you know, they're ready to go? Yeah, I'm like you.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: That's why there's that sorcery we're talking about here.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Let's move around to North Carolina. It's the next state
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: where the polls will close. Anything you're looking for specifically
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: in North Carolina? And do you guys have any sense
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: of whether the hurricane is going to impact on vote
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: counting in that state?
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't get the sense on the vote counting side.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: I guess there's been some reports that the little bit
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: less participation in the Western North Carolina area. We were
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: running the numbers of the other day. I didn't see
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: a very big difference there. What I'm looking for mainly
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: is a couple of things similar to Georgia, Eastern North Carolina.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: There's a swath of, you know, large black population, generally
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: rural counties. Obama, you know, did very well there when
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: he won a state. No way. That's the last time
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: a Democrat carried it. Can Democrats kind of recapture that
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: a bit? One thing they got to worry about there
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: is the black populations have been declining in a lot
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: of these counties too. So it's not just a turnout
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: question in some places, but I want to see if
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: the Democrats are making meaningful gains there. And then I
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: want to look at, there's counties outside of the sort
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: of big major metros, just outside of them, bedroom community counties,
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: down by Charlotte, you got Union County. And similar to
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: what I was describing with Cherokee and Georgia, big bedroom
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: community suburbs, a lot of banking industry kind of affiliations there.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: Went for Trump by 30 points in 2016, came down
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: to 24 in 2020. Is he arresting the slide? Is
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: he clawing it back? Similar just outside Wake County, where
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: Raleigh is, the other big population hub. Johnston County, just
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: outside of there, similar story. I want to look at that.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: Nash County is right around there. That's when a lot
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: of people are talking about. So In all these states, too,
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: there's the question of you can't pinpoint a single county,
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: but you've just got this collection of, in North Carolina,
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: dozens of counties, rural, small population counties, where Trump has
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: expanded the Republican support by leaps and bounds, even from
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: where it was under Romney 12 years ago. Take those collectively.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: Is he continuing that trend or not?
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Right. And you are running into diminishing returns with some
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: of that, right? In most of these states, the population
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: that has fueled that surge, white, non-college educated voters, has
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: gone down as a percentage of the electorate over the
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: last four years and certainly over time. North Carolina is
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: the one exception to that where I think it has
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: stayed flat. When the results come in, we're testing a
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: bunch of propositions that have been manifest in the polling.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: Three big ones. One is, is Trump making gains with
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: black voters, particularly black men, working class black men? We
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: will get a sense of that in Georgia and North Carolina.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: If he is improving on his margins in those counties
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: you talked about, particularly those rural black counties in both
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: those states. Then the second one is, is he really
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: making gains with Latinos? Have we snapped back to where
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: we were? Is he getting across that sort of magical
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: 40% number? Do you think you can get any sense
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: of that in those early states? Do we have to
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: wait till we go west to know that?
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: I'm going to cautiously look at Florida, which closes at
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: seven and reports very efficiently. Not for Miami-Dade, because Miami-Dade,
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Trump made huge gains there. Demographically, though, lots of Cuban-Americans.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: It's different than a lot of other heavily Latino areas.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: Where I'm going to look in Florida in particular is
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: Osceola County, which is just south of Orlando. It's one
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: of three majority Hispanic counties in the state. And it's
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: the one with the highest concentration of Puerto Rican voters.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: It's about one third Puerto Rican. As a whole, the county,
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: it's a big size county. Obviously, you want to see
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: there if there's any evidence that the events of the
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: last week have had any impact. But it's also notable
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: because this showed that, you know, Trump's gains with Hispanic
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: voters in 2020, Miami-Dade got all the attention. But again,
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: because of the Cuban-American factor, I think Osceola was actually
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: the more dramatic example of it. Trump gained 11 points.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: He lost it by 25, Osceola, the first time he ran,
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: got it all the way down to 14. the next
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: time out. It's one of his best improvements in any
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: county in Florida. And that's exactly the kind of place
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: that his campaign has felt they're going to make more
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: gains in, big gains in. The kind of place where
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: the way they've been talking, a Trump victory in that
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: county would be something in the range of what they're thinking.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: So I want to see if that's happening there. I
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: know Florida, you can't extrapolate as much as you used to,
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: but I think that one might be more meaningful than Miami-Dade.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was, and I probably left it off my
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: list because it's A, not competitive, and B, a lot
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: of emotional PTSD as a Democrat in Florida over the
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: last few cycles. But it is also, I mean, that
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: is when every Democrat knew we were in big trouble
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: in 16, was when Florida dumped in the mail-in early vote,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: and all of a sudden it looked very different than
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: we thought. In part, that election was less about Latino gains,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: but then similar in 20, big alarm. And we're going
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: to get that vote pretty fast, right, in Florida at least.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: It is state law within 30 minutes of poll close,
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: they have to report out all the mail and early vote. Typically,
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: that's like 65, 70% of the vote in a county.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: Everything but the sort of small panhandle part of the state,
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: that's 90% of the state is going to do that.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: So by 7.30, you've got just about every county has
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: lighted up one color or the other. And then they
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: just add the same day to it. And that can
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: be very quick. You can have full counties by 8 o'clock.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: I wish Florida was competitive for Democrats. It would make
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: our electoral math easier. I will appreciate not being in
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: the situation where you are hanging on, waiting for the
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: votes for Miami-Dade and Broward to come in and possibly
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: make up that gap because it always takes longer than
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: you think and it doesn't go as far as you
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: want it to. And so I at least have that
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: emotional trauma removed. Let's take a quick break. We'll be
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: right back. All right, let's switch to Pennsylvania, viewed by
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: many as the state that will decide this election, because
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: if you don't win it, it becomes very hard to
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: piece together the replacement electoral votes to get to 270,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: particularly for Kamala Harris. What are you thinking in Pennsylvania?
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: Now, you're talking about a more significant Latino voting population
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: than like in North Carolina. So you're starting to really
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: see it here. You look in Philadelphia, first of all,
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: Democrats obviously depend on massive pluralities and turnout from Philadelphia.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: So you want to see if you can get a
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: sense of the turnout early. But also, you saw in
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: 2020 in Philadelphia, progress for Trump in working class majority
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: Hispanic areas. Not huge, but he did actually, while losing
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: ground in Pennsylvania as a whole, he actually improved in
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: the city of Philadelphia, which is Philadelphia County. So you
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: want to see that. And then you want to see, again,
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: for the Latino vote in Pennsylvania, another area that Trump
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: folks have targeted for growth is you can call it
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: the Route 222 corridor. Some people have called it the
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: Latino belt. but you've got this network of small mid-sized
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: cities with large and really fast-growing Hispanic populations. Allentown, Redding, Hazleton. Hazleton,
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: it's a small city, but turn of the century, it
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: was 5% Latino. Now it's almost 70% Latino. These are
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: places where if you looked inside the cities, Trump made
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: gains of 10, 15 points, net points in 2020, even
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: as he lost the state. So This is where his campaign,
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: you know, the way they've been talking about this, if
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: that's happening, this is where you're going to see it dramatically.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: So look there, you know, and look, you want to
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: look at the collar counties, you know, this is where
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: the Democrats, Chester County is in the Trump era. There's
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: no county in Pennsylvania that has moved more in the
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: Democrats direction than Chester, you know, high college educated concentration
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: right outside Philadelphia.
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: It's like his hair is cracking 60% there. They want
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: to keep growing there. And then the one, you know,
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: Bucks is a big swing County there. And the other
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: one I really want to look at is, um, is Lackawanna, Scranton.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: It's interesting because it's very classic for the sort of
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: Midwest region, whatever you want to call it. I know
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: nobody up there would say they're in the Midwest, but
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: Obama won it by 28 in 2012, came all the
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: way down to three for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Biden
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: comes along and he brought it back up to nine.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: And it's interesting because Scranton is where he's from originally.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: Was there a local effect for Biden that produced that
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: or was there something else? Is Trump able to bring
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: that back down and maybe even flip that county. I'm
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: paying close attention there.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: We had Bob Casey at a Ponce de America show
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: in Philly a couple of weeks ago. And I'm sure
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: you know this, Bob Casey is a very big map guy.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: He calls himself the Steve Kornacki of the Senate. And
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: we went through the map, and Lackawanna County was the
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: county that he was most focused on. Obviously, it's where
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: he's from, so it means a lot to him. And
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: for his race, he's got to get big numbers out
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: of there. But he also pointed that out as a
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: place where if that snaps back to 16, that's a
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: hard place for Biden to find those votes. Pennsylvania, to me,
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: is the real test about the suburbs. Is she beating
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: Biden's numbers in the suburbs? Which, if you believe there
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: is some bleed anywhere, right, if it's a little bleed
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: with Black men, with Latino voters, with young voters, with,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: you know, all the different possible groups, you know, white,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: non-college educated voters, right? So you can even appoint, if
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: you lose a point or two with any of those groups,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: so you got to make it up somewhere. The most
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: likely place, I believe, and I think the polling shows
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: to make it up is in these suburbs? Like, is
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: she juicing those numbers? Is she getting some of these
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: Haley voters, these Republican-leading independents, right? And I think you
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: will see some of that in Georgia and North Carolina,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: but Pennsylvania is the one where I think it really
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: comes home because it's so critical to her, right? Yeah.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: Of the 67 counties in Pennsylvania, there are 10 that
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: have actually, you know, gotten more Democratic, you know, since 2012.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: And I, obviously, as a whole, Democrats are doing worse
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: in Pennsylvania than they were when Obama ran in 12th.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: But there's 10 counties where they've actually gotten even better
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: than they did under Obama. Montgomery, Chester, Delaware, these collar
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: counties right outside what you're talking about, these big suburban
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: counties right outside Philly. A little bit of a sleeper one,
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: South Central Pennsylvania is Cumberland County, where Carlisle is. There's
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: actually been democratic growth in that area. It has a
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: lot of these demographic characteristics. And you go out, Allegheny County,
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: You think Pittsburgh, it's 1.2 million people. There's a lot
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: of inner suburbs within Allegheny County that, again, fit this
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: demographic profile that's been so rich for Democrats. So yeah,
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: I mean, a place like Chester County, an easy benchmark
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: to start with is she over 60%, you know, because
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: Biden was able to get it up to the high
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: 50s because she cracked 60% there. That starts to get into,
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: you know, I think an encouraging territory for her.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: All right, let's move to Michigan. I think Michigan is
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: perhaps one of the more confusing states to look at
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: because of the the sort of kind of hard to
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: gauge impact of the uncommitted movement, protest over Gaza, the
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: very large Arab American population. What are you looking at
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: in Michigan?
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, so Wayne County is going to cover
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: a lot of the uncertainty you're talking about. That's where Dearborn,
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: Dearborn Heights, you know, Hamtramck, you have cities with large
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: Muslim American, large Arab American populations. The way they do
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: the vote counting in Michigan, they do it by, you know,
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: at the municipal level. So I think we should be
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: able to have access to some of those individual results,
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: hopefully early, they could start answering that. Also in Wayne,
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: obviously that's where Detroit is. Detroit, same story really as Philadelphia.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: As a city, Trump actually made a little bit of
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: progress there in 2020. That's a place where is Trump gaining,
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: as you're saying, small but meaningful support with Black voters,
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: particularly Black men. And what's the turnout level in Detroit?
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: What's the turnout level among Black voters in Detroit? Because
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: You look at it, you know, Biden was able to win,
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: you know, Wayne County 68 to 30 last time around.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: When you start playing with the numbers, if it just
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: went to 64, 34, that's, in terms of raw votes, because,
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: you know, Wayne County, it's 25% of the state, just
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: that one county. So that's going to move massive raw votes.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: And then the other quick test I have in that region,
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: you know, because you got Wayne, you got Washtenaw, where
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: University of Michigan is, and then you got the two
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: big suburban counties, Oakland, higher income, high college plus suburb, McComb,
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: blue collar auto industry suburbs. And measure McComb against Oakland.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: This is one of the tests I'm going to do.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: In 16, when Trump won Michigan by a sliver, McComb,
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: his support in McComb, he won it by 12, almost
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: completely canceled out Hillary's support in Oakland, which she won
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: by eight. Basically canceled these other out. In 20, when
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: Biden won, Biden won Oakland by 14 and Trump only
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: won McComb by eight. And there was actually a net
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: difference of 70,000 votes in the Democrats' favor, and they
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: won the state by 154,000. So almost half just came
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: from that disparity. So, I mean, I want to know,
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: are we looking at a tiny, insignificant disparity between them,
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: or is it netting out in the Democrats' favor like
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: it did four years ago?
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: And for our listeners who may not know, Macomb County
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: is the quintessential home of the Reagan Democrat. This was
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: the famous study that Stan Greenberg, Clinton's bolster, did to
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: look at why Democrats were losing working class white men.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: This is Macomb County. And once again, finding a similar
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: level of significance, because for a long time, that was
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: a county everyone was looking at to see if we
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: were holding on to the New Deal coalition or not.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: So it's welcome back to the news, Macomb County. All right,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: let's move to Wisconsin. Wisconsin is interesting because on paper,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: it should be the most difficult of the blue wall
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: states for Democrats. It's the whitest. It's the most rural.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: It's been the closest, not that any of them have
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: large margins recently, but Wisconsin was about a half a
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: percentage point. Yet for a long time, it's the one
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: Democrats felt best about. I think that's shifted a little
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: bit in the last few weeks here as the polls
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: have narrowed there and Tammy Baldwin's race has narrowed as well. Wisconsin,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: I'm going to look at two things. I'm curious what
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: you're looking at. One is the wow counties around Milwaukee,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: and then also the massive growth in Dane County in
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: population and whether we, because it is one of the
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: most Democratic counties in the country. And so, or at
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: least among the battleground states, can you get even more
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: vote out there to make up for any losses in
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: the rural areas? What are you looking at?
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I mean, exactly. It's like geographically, Wisconsin, just
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: if you paint the map is very red right now.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: The Democratic support, as we see in so many places,
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: increasingly geographically concentrated. They just keep squeezing more and more
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: out of Dane County every election. I think every election
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: this century, the Democratic plurality in Dane has grown. There's
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: a test right there because they increasingly need it to
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: compensate for these losses they've taken everywhere else in the state. Milwaukee, Again,
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: very similar to what we talked about with Detroit and Philadelphia.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: Trump showed a little bit of signs of inroads there
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: in 2020. Are we seeing more of that or not?
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: Of the three wow counties around Milwaukee, Ozaukee is the
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: one that I'm most interested in because it's moved the
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: most dramatically away from the Republicans. It was 55-43 for
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: Trump in 2020. That was the best performance for a
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: Democrat there since LBJ in 64. It has the second
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: highest concentration in of white college educated voters of anywhere
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: in Wisconsin, second to Dane. You know, Harris is threatening
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: to win a place like Ozaukee County. And then we say, wow,
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: I like to say bow wow, because you've got Brown, Outagamie,
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: and Winnebago counties, Fox River Valley, and they all tell
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: the exact same story. This is Green Bay, Appleton, Oshkosh,
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: and they tell the exact same story. Trump got up
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: to about a 10, 12 point win in 2016 in
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: these counties. And then he gave back some of those gains,
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: not all, but some. And he lost them by, you know,
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: mid-high single digits. And so is he back at 16
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: levels in the bow counties or is he still back
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: in the single digits? Because he needs to get back
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: to where he was there.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: Let's end this little tour of the map in Arizona,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: which is a state that I think Democrats genuinely feel
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: the worst about among the seven, although many believe it's
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: still very winnable. But it's the one in the polling
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: average where Trump has the largest lead. Once again, that
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: large lead is two. So it's not it's not gigantic.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's in Maricopa County. It's a little
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: bit more than 60% is going to come out of there.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: And then south of that, you got Pima or Tucson
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: is another 15% is going to come out of there.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: So more than three out of four votes coming from
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: those two counties. Unfortunately, with Maricopa, we can break it
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: down by congressional district. So I was mentioning earlier the
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: first congressional district that Dave Schweikert seat. I think that's
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: we want to key in on that one, you know,
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: kind of right away. The other question, though, in Arizona, too,
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: is it's the Hispanic vote. Because again, by exit polling
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: in 2020, Biden carried the Hispanic vote in Arizona by
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: 24 points, 61 to 37. I pay attention to the
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: polls that come out there and the Hispanic numbers, it's
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: all over the place. There was one that had Trump
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: up seven with Hispanic voters in Arizona recently. I think
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: it was the CNN one this week had Harris up 18.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: But that's where, again, given how tight the margin was
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: in 2020, even a relatively small gain with Hispanic voters
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: could erase for Trump, you know, that gap.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: Just a couple more things. On the Senate, barring some
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: sort of recount sort of situation, there's a good chance
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: we're going to know who has the Senate control in
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: the first 24 hours here, right, given the size of
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: the states where this is happening and where they're going
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: to come. Is that right?
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, look, once you take West Virginia officially,
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: you know, off the table and the Republicans get that pickup, yeah,
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: you know, Ohio should be a pretty efficient vote counting state.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: So you'll know kind of Sherrod Brown there. And then
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: if Brown doesn't hang on, I mean, you'll have to
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: test her later, but if Brown, you know, doesn't hang on,
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: then Democrats have to pull a rabbit out of the
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: hat somewhere. It'll be clear if there's any chance for
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: them to do that in Texas, I think pretty early.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: And then there's that wild card in Nebraska. I know
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: not technically a Democrat, all of this stuff, but again,
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: barring something like that, you know, if Ohio is a
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: four or five point win or something for, you know,
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: for the Republicans, you'll know that on election night. Yeah.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: And then finally, the House, good chance we're not going
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: to the House for weeks, right? Because we're going to
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: be waiting for California ballots. If the House proceeds as
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: we suspect, and there's not some sort of giant wave,
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: and we're down to a few seats, probably decided in California,
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: you have second maybe to New York, the largest batch
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: of toss-up winnable races. They don't count those votes. Those
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: votes can be postmarked by Election Day. Is that right?
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: So they're coming in for a while after that?
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, they're coming in for a while. They're very
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: slow at counting it, and it's a... It's another conversation.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: But yeah, for the House, it could be election month
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: if we're waiting on them. Yeah.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: Hopefully you don't have to wait on them and you
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: can actually go home and get some sleep over that
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: period of time. Steve Kornacki, thanks so much for joining us.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: Everyone is smarter from having listened to this conversation. And
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: good luck. And we will be watching you very attentively
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: on Tuesday Night and Beyond. Thanks again.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: Hey, thanks a lot, Dan. This was fun.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: You can catch Steve as part of MSNBC's election night
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: coverage on Tuesday, November 5th at 6 p.m. Eastern. Okay,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: before we go to break, I have an ask for you.
• 29:08
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• 29:11
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• 29:14
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• 29:56
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• 30:12
  Speaker 1: wanted to answer some final questions from our subscribers. And
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: joining me now is producer of Polar Coaster, the amazing
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: Caroline Reston. Caroline, thank you for being here instead of Elijah.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: I appreciate it.
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: I'm really happy to be here.
• 30:21
  Speaker 5: I don't know if it's because I haven't eaten or
• 30:22
  Speaker 5: I've had two cups of coffee or I'm stressed, but
• 30:25
  Speaker 5: I'm like actually weirdly shaking right now from anxiety.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: Electoral anxiety, you think?
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, electoral.
• 30:31
  Speaker 5: I mean, after listening to you and Steve Kornacki, I'm
• 30:33
  Speaker 5: just like so overwhelmed with anxiety.
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: But I'm very excited. Listeners, do everything you can. Don't
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: be stressed like me.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: Yes. Channel your stress by doing something in the final
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: days by going to votesaveamerica.com and signing up.
• 30:47
  Speaker 5: Yeah, be productive with that stress. Okay, so we got
• 30:50
  Speaker 5: some really great Discord questions here. The first one is
• 30:53
  Speaker 5: from Callier338. They say, I'm from a deeply blue state
• 30:59
  Speaker 5: that is quite far away from most swing states. Is
• 31:01
  Speaker 5: there evidence that texting and calling folks from the other
• 31:05
  Speaker 5: side of the country sways undecided voters? Or how do
• 31:08
  Speaker 5: voters respond from people who are contacting them out of state?
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: In general, they may not know you're from out of state,
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: so that's a plus. But the voters where that is
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: probably most helpful is GOTV calls. And that's usually what,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: if you're signing up to volunteer for a campaign, you're
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: going to be calling people to remind them to vote.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: These are people the campaign has decided are likely Kamala
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: Harris or Democratic Senate or congressional voters. who have not
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: yet voted. So you're just trying to remind them to
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: vote and giving them information about their polling places or
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: early voting options. But everything helps. Do what you can
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: from a blue state or a deeply red state, either one.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: It definitely helps, do it.
• 31:42
  Speaker 5: Okay, this next question is something I've been really thinking
• 31:44
  Speaker 5: about too. It's from SwingingLiberal901. There is so much conversation
• 31:50
  Speaker 5: about how Harris is polling with key constituencies, but how
• 31:54
  Speaker 5: worried are you about the inability of polls to capture
• 31:57
  Speaker 5: voters' inherent sexism and racial biases?
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: This is a great question. Both of Barack Obama's races, 2016,
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: and then obviously in the most vivid way possible in
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: Kamala Harris' election. And so we don't know. Now, back many,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: many years ago, Tom Bradley, who was the black mayor
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: of Los Angeles, ran for governor. And the polling showed
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: him winning. And then he ended up losing the governor's race.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: And then that became known as something called the Bradley effect.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: And the Bradley effect was this idea that people will
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: tell pollsters that they are willing to vote for a
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: black candidate. But then when they actually get into the
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: voting booth and are asked to pull the lever, or
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: fill in the bubble, or whatever you're doing, they won't
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: do it. And so basically this idea is they might
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: have seemed more racially sensitive than they are. There was
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: some sense that a similar thing happened in 2016 with
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton. Now, studies have shown, like retroactive studies that
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: looked at the Bradley election, that that is actually not
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: what happened. It was actually just a polling error. There
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: have been some political science and sociological experiments to test
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: this proposition that have not found that it exists. There
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: isn't a lot of evidence that inherent or silent sexism
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: is why the polls were wrong in 2020. Now, this
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: is not saying that racial biases and sexism are not
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: huge parts of the electoral calculus for people and overhang
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: these elections. That is absolutely true. But we don't have
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: any evidence that they affect the polls. And we saw
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: no evidence in either one of Barack Obama's elections, either
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: in the primary or the general election in 2012 of
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: the Bradley effect. He actually outperformed his polls.
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: Oh, okay.
• 33:36
  Speaker 5: So if they're not voting for Kamala Harris, it's not
• 33:39
  Speaker 5: because she's a woman.
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: It's just because they hate her.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: No, no, this is a very important point. They may
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: be sexist and racist, but the question I think here is,
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: is about whether sort of silent sexism or racism or
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: hidden sexism or racism is skewing the polls in her favor, right?
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: So in other words, people are afraid to say that
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: they aren't supporting her because they're afraid of being labeled
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: sexist or racist.
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: And there's not evidence of that. But I'm not trying
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: to argue that misogyny and racism are not huge factors
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: in an election with a Black woman running for president
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: of the United States.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 34:14
  Speaker 5: All right.
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: Next question.
• 34:15
  Speaker 5: Anna Del Hunt asks, if we lose, I'm not sure
• 34:20
  Speaker 5: I'm going to find the strength to face the next
• 34:22
  Speaker 5: four years. Obviously, I'm going to do what I can now.
• 34:26
  Speaker 5: But what about on November 6th or whenever we find out?
• 34:29
  Speaker 5: What should I do?
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: Any tips?
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: I don't.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: Know how much value there is in preparing ourselves emotionally
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: for what comes next if Trump were to win. I
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: think we should focus our energy on doing everything we
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: possibly can to make sure that does not happen. If
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: it does happen, it's obviously a deeply frightening, deeply dangerous,
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: it's a crisis, right? It's a crisis. And there are
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: people in this country are going to be hurt in
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: terrible ways. It's going to be scary. If that were
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: to happen, we can all get together and figure out
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: what we're going to do after that. Because there's going
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: to be huge responsibility for all of us to do
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: what we can to prevent the worst things from happening
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: as we mobilized in 2017. But do not waste your
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: time and energy and mental space right now thinking about
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: that is my recommendation. It would be take that energy
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: and focus it on trying to win this race because
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: it is so close. It is very winnable. It's in
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: the margin of effort. We can absolutely do that.
• 35:24
  Speaker 5: Okay, this is a similar-ish question. And then we'll get
• 35:27
  Speaker 5: to something a little more positive. But DownTheBallot96 asked, I
• 35:32
  Speaker 5: already voted, I phone baked, I've canvassed in swing districts,
• 35:36
  Speaker 5: and I'm so stressed about having nothing to do on
• 35:39
  Speaker 5: election day. Is there anything productive I can do on
• 35:42
  Speaker 5: Tuesday beyond just watching cable news?
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: You can absolutely volunteer on election day. It's one of
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: the most important volunteer days out there because the campaigns
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: are going to have a list of who their target
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: voters are. And they know they have people at the
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: precincts getting updated voter rolls as who's voted. So they
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: have people calling. the people who have not yet voted.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: We may need people who can drive people to the polls.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: Like there's all kinds of things you can do on
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: election day from phone banking to driving people to the polls,
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: to being a poll watcher or working for the campaign
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: on that day, to just helping out in the office
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: to get administrative work or coffee and donuts or whatever
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: it is for the people who are working that day.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: There's so much you can do. So I would check
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: with your local campaign or local party or go to
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: Vote Save America to look for opportunities.
• 36:26
  Speaker 5: What level of creepy is it to call a stranger
• 36:29
  Speaker 5: and be like, hey, do you want me to come
• 36:31
  Speaker 5: pick you up at your home and drive you somewhere?
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: You don't call them. The campaign calls and offers them
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: a ride because you have a lot of seniors who
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: cannot get there on their own. If you live in
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: a city, parking can be challenging. People can't do public transportation.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: And so it is a thing that happens all the
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: time is that people do rides to the polls. Oftentimes,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: they're people from your community or your neighborhood, but you can.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: It is absolutely a thing that happens all the time.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: You don't call them and say, hey, you don't know me.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: Meet me outside of my windowless van in 20 minutes.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: I'll take you to those notes. I don't know why.
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: That's how I'm picturing it.
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes.
• 37:03
  Speaker 5: And my dumb ass would be like, okay, I'll get
• 37:04
  Speaker 5: into this weird man.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: If you vote. Basically, Uber has normalized that for all
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: of America, so I don't know what the difference is,
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: but you're just taking a free Uber to the polls.
• 37:14
  Speaker 5: Okay, there is a follow-up from a Discord user named Superskink.
• 37:20
  Speaker 5: They say, took Wednesday off in case I'm crying in
• 37:23
  Speaker 5: the morning again, like in 2016. What should I drink
• 37:27
  Speaker 5: on election night to celebrate Kamala's win?
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: Well, first, and a classic organic plug, you should drink
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: the Z-Biotics. They're your first drink of the night, Z-Biotics. Z-Biotics,
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: free alcohol. Okay, that one's a freebie. Drink whatever you want.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: The only thing I would tell you to drink could
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: be a long night. Drink water. Hydrate. Could be a while.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: You don't want to be this sad drunk as you're
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: waiting for the final votes of Maricopa County to come
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: in at three in the morning. Drink water, wait till
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: the election's called. If you want to have a champagne,
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: you want to have a cocktail, I will have a
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: cocktail if and when this race is called for Kamala Harris.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: I hope, you know, maybe that's at 7.30 in the morning.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: I'm okay with that if that's what happens, but that's
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: where we are.
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 38:07
  Speaker 5: D Little Voter asks, LeBron James just endorsed Kamala Harris.
• 38:11
  Speaker 5: I know we tend to dismiss celebrity endorsements, But so
• 38:14
  Speaker 5: close to the election, can this help? Should more celebrities
• 38:18
  Speaker 5: hold their endorsements until its peak GOTV time?
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: Celebrity endorsements, there's a handful of exceptions, Taylor Swift being
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: one of them. Their value is probably a little overstated.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: But where it matters is these celebrities have giant social
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: media platforms and followings, and they use those to announce endorsement,
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: but also the fact that their endorsement reminds people to vote, right?
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: LeBron James, you know, one of the most famous people
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: in the world to get a huge following. across the country,
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: all ages, all races, all groups, and him telling people
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: to vote could remind people who wouldn't otherwise vote to vote.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: It is less that the people are like, oh, you know,
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: I wasn't really sure which candidate I liked on minimum wage,
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: but I also care about immigration, but I also care
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: about abortion. What do I do? And it's like, oh,
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: Jennifer Lopez is for, I'm in. Like, it doesn't really
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: work that way. It's more that the reflected glory of
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: the celebrities brings more attention to the candidate and their positions,
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: and then they use their platforms to remind people to vote.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: With all due respect to Jennifer Lopez, who gave a
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: great speech at her rally with Kamala Harris last night.
• 39:14
  Speaker 5: So there is strategy to all these like mega celebrities
• 39:16
  Speaker 5: waiting until the end to do it.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You know, it's six year halftime to the other. Right.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: Do you want one post at the end or you
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: want 12 posts of the last three weeks?
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: You know, it's hard to say. Yeah.
• 39:27
  Speaker 5: I was listening to what a day and they were
• 39:29
  Speaker 5: talking about the bad bunny. effect and Bad Bunny seems
• 39:31
  Speaker 5: like actually a huge endorsement to get right at the end.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: Yes, and there's timing to it too, happening at the
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: exact moment of the offensive comments about Puerto Rico from
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: the Trump rally, like it's a very powerful endorsement. Bad
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: Bunny would certainly be on that list with Taylor Swift
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: in terms of celebrity endorsements people really care about.
• 39:49
  Speaker 5: Man, I know it's been said before, but the Democratic
• 39:52
  Speaker 5: Party is so much more fun. Like, we just are
• 39:54
  Speaker 5: such a better, more fun party. We got all the celebrities.
• 39:58
  Speaker 5: We got all the good music. They have that random comedian.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's something we should actually play up. This
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: is something that was very true of the party in
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: the Obama era, and we've sort of lost some of that.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: But we should be the fun party. We should be
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: the ones with the fun. And Kamala Harris has brought
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: that back. That's the joy, I would say. We had
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: that with Obama. We kind of lost that. in the
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: Trump era, and then Kamala Harris has brought it back.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: Her rallies seem fun as hell. They're fun anyway, but
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: the celebrities, it's all great. It's a party.
• 40:21
  Speaker 4: It really is. Okay, here's the last question, and it
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: is from yours truly.
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow.
• 40:27
  Speaker 4: A toughie.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: Dan, who's going to win?
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: I will not answer this question. I will not. It
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: is a cardinal rule of Pod Save America that after 2016,
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: we don't make predictions. We focus our energy on trying
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: to make what we want happen as opposed to guess
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: what's going to happen. The thing I will say is,
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: this is an incredibly close race. You can make a reasonable, rational,
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: credible argument that either candidate is favored. Trump, the political
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: environment is very much in Trump's favor, right? Kamala Harris
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: is the better candidate with a better campaign. I think,
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: and I wrote this in my newsletter message box this morning,
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: I think there are three reasons for optimism for Kamala
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: Harris down the stretch. One is the Democrats are more
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: enthusiastic than Republicans. That's something that has not been written
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: about much. Democratic enthusiasm is at the same level right
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: now for Kamala Harris that it was for Barack Obama
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: in 2008. And enthusiasm matters a lot, particularly when you
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: have built an organization as the Harris campaign has to
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: harness that enthusiasm into action and to votes. Second, if
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: you look at the polling, the economy is the top
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: issue for everyone. It is everyone's most important issue. It's
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: one where Trump has had a huge lead. He had
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: a 20 point lead on Biden at one point. In
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: the most recent New York Times-Siena poll, that lead is
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: down to six points. Conley Harris doesn't have to beat
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump in the economy, but she has to reach
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: a certain level of credibility and trust that the voters
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: who are cross-pressured, where they don't like Trump, they don't
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: like January 6th, they don't like how he acts, but
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: they also are deeply concerned about the cost of gas
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: and the cost of groceries and their economic future, trust
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: her enough to be willing to turn the page on Trump.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: And the third reason is, and this is something that
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: everyone listening to this obviously listened to in my conversation
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: with Ron Brownstein last week, but We are not talking
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: enough about how the demographic shifts in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: Wisconsin in particular have moved in the Democratic's favor. In
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: Michigan and Wisconsin in particular, the base of the Trump coalition, white,
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: non-college educated voters, has shrunk by two points as a
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: share of the electorate. His mountain is higher to climb
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: this time because of that. And I think that if
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: Kamala Harris can maximize her gains with core parts of
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: her coalition, then she can win this race.
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: All right. That sounds like a great place to end on.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: That'll wrap up our episode for today. Thank you to
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: Steve Kornacki and to Caroline and our subscribers for the questions.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: If you're a friend of The Pod subscriber, I'll be
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: on your feet again soon for a new Polar Coaster. Thanks, everyone.
• 42:52
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• 42:55
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• 43:21
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• 43:58
  Speaker 1: Thanks for watching!