Latest / Pod Save America / “One last ride on the pollercoaster.”

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“One last ride on the pollercoaster.” · Pod Save America

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: What's his closing argument? That people are too focused on COVID.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: He said this at one of his rallies. COVID, COVID, COVID,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: he's complaining. He's jealous of COVID's media coverage.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: On today's pod, I talk with Tom Bonior, whose political
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: data firm has been analyzing the early vote numbers, not
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: for predictions, but for some interesting insights about who is voting.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Before that, we'll break down the results of our final
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Polar Coaster survey with Change Research, talk about what the
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Trump-McConnell takeover of the Supreme Court could mean for the election,
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: and answer a few of your questions about the final
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: few days of the 2020 campaign. This is it, Dan.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: This is it. How you feelin'? I was up at
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: 3 o'clock this morning. Me too. How do you think
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: I'm feeling?
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: I was feeling I was up at 3 o'clock as well.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: And I've been trying to go to bed earlier knowing
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: that I'll wake up in the middle of the night.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: And that didn't really work because I was up late
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: prepping for the pod. So there you go. A couple
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: days out. A few quick notes. Check out the final
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: Pod Save the World before the election where Tommy and
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: Ben talk to one of Joe Biden's senior campaign advisors,
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: our friend Tony Blinken, about what a Biden foreign policy
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: would look like and what's at stake in this election
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: at the global level. Great interview with Tony. Check it out.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: Also want to give a shout-out to the incredible team
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: at What A Day who are celebrating one year of
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: their fantastic daily news podcast. I cannot believe it's been
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: a year already. In these last few days before the election,
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Akilah and Gideon will be looking at important down-ballot races,
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: talking to first-time voters, priming listeners on what to expect
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: on November 3rd. This morning, they did a fantastic interview
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: with Charlotte Swayze, who's been on Pod Save America. She's
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: the pollster for Data for Progress. answers all your questions
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: about polls, what to look for, what not to look for,
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: what to be careful of. It's a really great interview.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: Check it out. Akilah and Gideon do a fantastic job
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: every day. Make sure to check out What A Day
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: if you haven't already and subscribe on Apple Pods, Spotify, Stitcher,
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: or wherever you get your podcasts. And finally, it's crunch time.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: We need everyone who's listening to this podcast to volunteer
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: in the next few days. From right now until polls
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: close on Tuesday, the Biden campaign and other Democratic campaigns
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: need you to help remind voters to make a plan
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: to vote, return their ballots in person at this point,
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: answer questions about voting, and basically turn out every single
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: Democratic voter in America. There are a ton of opportunities
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: in all the states that will make a difference. So
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: go to votesaveamerica.com slash volunteer to sign up for shifts
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: that work for your schedule and help us cross the
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: finish line strong. Travis Helwig of Crooked Media fame was
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: just tweeting yesterday. He was very nervous about the polls
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: like we all are. He signed up for a text
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: bank in Florida, texted a bunch of people, got 10 voters.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: Travis Helwig gets 10 voters. It's better than he's done
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: on Twitter in years, you know? So you too, you
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: too can get voters.
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: I mean, for Travis, 10 voters, he gets 10 voters
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: in a phone bank, but he probably loses nine voters
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: per tweet, so.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: More phone banking, less tweeting.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. We have a lot of news to
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: get to. I do want to start, Dan, with the
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: president is continuing his super spreader rallies all over the country,
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: just giving people COVID wherever he goes. Now, he's also
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: giving them hypothermia. He was in Omaha for a rally
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: last night. And after the rally was over, in 30
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: degree weather. He took his helicopter. He took Marine One
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: out of the rally. He left all of his supporters
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: there who were stranded because a bus took them there,
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: but the bus wouldn't pick them up to go back
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: to the parking lot where their cars were. And so
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: there was no Trump campaign bus. And so they all
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: wandered around in freezing weather for a couple hours. And
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: then seven of them had to go to the hospital
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: because they had hypothermia.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: Well, if that's not a fucking metaphor, I do not
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: know what is.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: Trump leaves supporters in the cold.
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: Look, look, if the COVID doesn't get you, the cold will.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Think about the fact that in 2016, it was an
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: entire scandal that Hillary Clinton called some of his supporters deplorables.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: He has given them COVID and hypothermia. That's what Donald
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Trump thinks of his supporters.
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: It has been sort of a banner day for the
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: Trump campaign, like killing your supporters. Never good, right? Trying
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: to kill them two different ways in the same event.
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: Really bad.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Really bad.
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: But then one of his.
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: Spokespeople Hogan, someone, went on CNN this morning and they
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: asked him about whether it made sense for the vice
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: president to go to Wisconsin because Wisconsin has experienced a
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: serious spike in COVID. Hospitals are nearing capacity there. So
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: did it make sense to have a large crowd event there?
• 5:01
  Speaker 4: And his answer was, of course it made sense. The
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: vice president has access to the best doctors.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: Just like Donald Trump saying, like, I got COVID, no
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: big deal. I had access to a life-saving treatment that
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: none of you can have.
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: That's Donald Trump's argument on COVID. I got better. I
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: got better. I told everyone I thought I was going
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: to die and I was scared shitless. But then I
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: got a magic treatment that none of you can get.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: You'll be getting it soon enough. Next couple of weeks.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: Everything's in the next couple of weeks. But for now, just,
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: you know, hang out amongst yourself at this rally. No
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: big deal. So that's what the president's doing. He's closing strong.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: He did get some good news earlier in the week.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: Monday night was not great, Dan.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: It was.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: It was bad enough that the Senate confirmed Amy Coney
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: Barrett to the Supreme Court by a vote of 52
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: to 48. The first time in modern history a justice
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: was confirmed without a single vote from the minority party.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: But then, later that day, the court's right-wing majority ruled
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: that all Wisconsin mail-in ballots will be thrown out if
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: they arrive after Election Day, even if they're postmarked before
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: Election Day. Even worse was a footnote in Brett Kavanaugh's
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: concurrent opinion where he argued that states that require mail-in
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: ballots to be returned by Election Day, quote, want to
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: avoid the chaos and suspicions of impropriety that can ensue
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: if thousands of absentee ballots flow in after Election Day
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: and potentially flip the results of an election, essentially echoing
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: one of Donald Trump's many voter fraud conspiracies. That's what
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: Brett Kavanaugh did. So a lot to unpack here. None
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: of it even remotely great. Let's start with Justice Barrett,
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: who was sworn in by Clarence Thomas at yet another
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: White House super spreader event with Donald Trump. So he
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: could get a campaign photo op. No masks, of course.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: To me, like the entire stunt was a perfect encapsulation
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: of how Trump and the Republican Party, which includes Amy
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: Coney Barrett, just have zero fucks left to give. They
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: had a super spreader event when they nominated Amy Coney Barrett.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: Trump got COVID. Bunch of White House staffers got COVID.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: Chris Christie ended up in the hospital. Donald Trump ended
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: up in the hospital. They spread COVID throughout D.C. She
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: gets confirmed back to the White House for another party.
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: I mean, it it's not surprising that Donald Trump threw
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: that event because he is stupid and his default is
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: always whatever the most dangerous thing pro-COVID thing is, he's
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: going to choose at every juncture. So he obviously did
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: it because in his weird, demented little brain, to not
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: do another super spread event would be to admit that
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: COVID is contagious and to admit his fault. Obviously, he
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: would rather give people COVID than admit he's wrong. The
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: thing that is notable is that Amy Coney Barrett went
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: to the event, participated not just in the swearing-in, but
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: also in a photo op hanging off the balcony, which
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: she very well knew would be part of a last-minute
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: Trump campaign commercial, essentially, a taxpayer-funded campaign commercial, and went
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: along with that. She did not have to do that, right?
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: It is pretty rare in a pre-Trump era for justices
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: to be as explicitly involved in box, particularly one who's
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: going to– she left that event to go to work
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: at the court the next day to therefore rule on
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: cases– that have implications for Donald Trump's reelection. And so
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: the fact that she put herself in that position, allowed
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: that to happen, did it gleefully, is a giant warning
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: sign about the kind of justice she will be. It
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: is yet another. This is not a conservative justice. This
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: is not an originalist. This is another Republican political hack
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: put on the court to do nothing more than reward
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: Republican donors and make sure the Republican Party.
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: Stays in power. That's what it is. This is not
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: liberal and conservative. This is not.
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: you know, some sort of historic discussion about or dispute
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: about legal principles.
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: It's about Republican political power. And she played that role willingly.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: John Roberts is a conservative justice. Anthony Kennedy was a
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: conservative justice. You know, once in a while had a
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: good decision. Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh are partisan
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: hacks that are on the court now. That's what they are.
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: I think that John Roberts is a partisan hack and
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: he is the person.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: I do not want to say that.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: No, no.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: Cause I want to make this clear. I don't want
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: to say like John Roberts's decisions are horrific. but they
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: come from a conservative ideology that we deeply disagree with.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: It is bad. It is a bad, bad ideology that
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: is very harmful to people, but it is mostly cohesive.
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: I know you normally say this is an echo chamber,
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: but John Roberts is just a smarter political hack than
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: Brett Kavanaugh, right? In 2008, Democrats washed away Republicans by
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: building a massive internet grassroots fundraising machine. About a year later,
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: one of the first decisions that is made but in
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: the Roberts court is citizens United.
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: It's the only way.
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: To allow the Republicans to compete is to change campaign finances,
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: overturning a recent precedent in McConnell versus FEC from a
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: few years ago. Then after Democrats win in 2012 with
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: a massive turnout of black and Latino voters, they got
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: John Roberts guts, the voting rights act under the false
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: premise that racism in elections is over. So Roberts is
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: just more clever than the rest of these people. He
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: would not have shown up at that event. But we
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: should watch John Roberts very carefully for rulings that will
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: respond to a Biden victory in a way to help
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: Republican Party power. I do not like John Roberts, just
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: as an FYI.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: No, I don't either. I'm just saying like- No, like,
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: this is what conservatives believe, that, like, fucking corporations are
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: people and should, like, be able to say whatever they want.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: They believe that there shouldn't be voting right protections. Like,
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: that is their fucking awful belief, you know? But it
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: is their belief. Like, Brett Kavanaugh, as we're about to
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: talk about, is on a fucking revenge trip. That's what
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: Brett Kavanaugh's on. And he's fucking dumb. And Amy Coney Barrett, again,
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: doesn't give a shit. She is a campaign prop, and
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: she is proud to be a campaign prop. That's what
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: she is. Anyway, they're all bad. So shortly after being
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: sworn in, Justice Barrett received a request from the Luzerne
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: County Board of Elections in Pennsylvania to recuse herself from
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: a Supreme Court case where Republicans in Pennsylvania also want
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: to throw out mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: The court already rejected the Republican request to throw out
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: ballots in a 4-4 tie ruling last Friday because Roberts
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: rolled with the liberals. But now they hope that if
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: they bring the case again, Barrett will rule with the
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: conservative majority. Luzerne County asked Barrett to recuse herself because
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: Trump publicly said that he needed her on the court
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: to help him win the election. Is there any justification
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: for Barrett not to recuse herself in this case?
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: No.
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: But there's no one to make her recuse herself because
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: Supreme Court justices do not abide by any sort of
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: code of ethics.
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: No rules about recusal.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: Can do whatever the fuck they want.
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: Whatever they want. Which is something we should change. But
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: of course.
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: She is going to sit on here and she, of course,
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: if this case comes, she's going to roll with the Republicans.
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: It's like, it's a, this is, this is why she's there.
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: This is why they rushed this because they easily could
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: have done this next week, right? They could have confirmed
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: her afterwards, even when they were still in power without
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: rushing this in the very deeply dangerous ways they did
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: it because they need, they want her there for those rulings.
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: And she will gleefully do it, gleefully.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: So between these Wisconsin and Pennsylvania ballot cases, there are
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: two big concerns. Most immediate concern is that a bunch
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: of voters won't know about these rulings and therefore mail
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: in their ballots too late because they thought they had
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: they thought it was postmarked by a certain day and
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: it arrived after Election Day. It would still be OK
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: in Wisconsin. Now that is not the case. So what
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: do we do about that? To avoid that, the campaigns
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: and state Democratic parties are doing everything they can to
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: to let voters know that if they have an absentee ballot,
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: they need to personally hand deliver their ballot to either
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: a Dropbox or county elections office if you're in Wisconsin
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: or a county elections office if you're in Pennsylvania. Super,
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: super important. Do not mail in your ballots at this point.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: Do not. Tell the people in your life who have
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: mail-in ballots, have not sent them in yet, do not
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: send them in via mail at this point. Drop them
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: off personally and You can look at votesaveamerica.com to find
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: out either if your state has drop boxes, you can
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: do drop boxes. If there's a county elections office, you
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: can do that. Depends on the state. So drop off
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: your ballots in person. That's number one. But there's a
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: broader concern that has to do with this Kavanaugh footnote
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: that I mentioned, where he endorsed a Bush v. Gore
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: argument that the Supreme Court can essentially overrule the way
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: state Supreme Courts interpret a state's election law, which basically
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: gives the United States Supreme Court veto power over whatever
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: state Supreme Courts decide is the right interpretation of election laws.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: That's what Brett Kavanaugh thinks should happen. And of course,
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: there was also Kavanaugh's insane comment that, quote, if the
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: apparent winner the morning after the election ends up losing
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: to late arriving ballots, charges of a rigged election could explode.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: So first of all, what's wrong with what Kavanaugh said
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: and how potentially dangerous is it?
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: I think it's important to approach this carefully because there
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: are the short-term implications and the long-term implications. And if
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: we focus too much on the short-term implications, we end
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: up doing Trump's dirty work to dissuade people from voting,
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: to make them think their vote does not count, right?
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: Of course, Kavanaugh has this view. He was one of
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: the litigants in Bush v. Gore, although as Ron Klain,
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: the Biden advisor and a former chief of staff and
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: our friend pointed out, In Florida in 2000, Brett Kavanaugh,
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: among the Bush lawyers, argued vociferously for mail ballots that
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: were sent by military members serving overseas be count if
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: they arrived after election day to count.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: Oh, he took a different position? You're kidding me.
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: It is weird. The coincidences here are hard to fathom.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: This is what I mean by pure party hack.
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: Pure party hack.
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: Do you mean because....
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: Kavanaugh believed when he worked for Ken Starr that presidents
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: could be sued and investigated. Then when Bush was president,
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: he had a different view. And then when Obama came,
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: he switched back.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: And then under Trump- Hack in a robe. That's what
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: he is.
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: This is the distillation of the Republican strategy, right? The
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: reason that McConnell, in particular, with the help of Trump
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: and millions of dollars in dark money from corporate and
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: Republican interests, have gone into packing the Supreme Court with
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: Republican hacks is the Supreme Court is the Republican break
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: glass plan for minority rule, right? They can put in
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: voter suppression, they can put in gerrymandering, but if we
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: win elections, we can undo those things. The court is
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: the one that is insulated as it currently stands from
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: our agency to change things through normal electoral politics. So
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: of course they want that because Democrats are having potential to,
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: we can win state, we can win governorships and appoint
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: state Supreme Court justices or And states where there are elections,
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: like in North Carolina, elect them, right? Because there are
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: more of us than there are of them. But the
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: way to prevent that, the way to always be able
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: to put your thumb on the scale for Republicans, despite
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: the fact Republicans represent fewer voters, is through the Supreme Court.
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: And so they're going to adjust their views to make
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: that more likely and easier to do.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: I think it's also important. I mean, Brett Kavanaugh, in
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: this concurrent opinion, reveals once again that he is a
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: right-wing partisan hack. He also reveals that he's not super bright, uh,
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: nor are his clerks. Like they're all pretty stupid because
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: there was a bunch of, um, mistakes in the ruling,
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: just factual inaccuracies that any reporter would have to correct.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: Any politician will be held account for, or at least
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: called out about if they made them. He said that
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: a lot of States want to call the election that night,
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: which is not how it works at all. The media
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: calls the election or the media makes a projection. States
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: don't actually certify results for days or weeks later because
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: states always wait for absentee ballots to come in, overseas ballots,
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: provisional ballots. So just the basic knowledge of an election
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: would lead you to not say that states want to
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: call the election on election night. That's not what happens.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: He said that Vermont never changed their rules to allow
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: voters to mail in ballots. When they did, that's not
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: true at all. Vermont actually sent everyone a ballot this
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: year because of COVID. Just skipped over that. Could have
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: Googled that one, put it in a fucking Supreme Court opinion.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: I mean, there was a lot of alarm over this
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: opinion because from a lot of like legal observers, liberal
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: legal observers on Twitter and other places that, you know,
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: this is Brett Kavanaugh and soon Amy Coney Barrett setting
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: things up for Donald Trump to steal this election? Because
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: basically what they'll say is, you know, there's a lot
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: of theories about how they might do this, but if
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump says on election night that he doesn't want
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: ballots to count that come in after election day, or
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: even ballots that do come in on election day but
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: aren't counted until the day after election day, that suddenly
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: the Supreme Court's going to step in and agree with him. Like,
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: what do you think about all this concern?
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: The whole Supreme Court fuckery of the last few days
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: has a specific purpose, which is to convince people that
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: their vote does not count. That is what they want.
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: They want you to think they can steal the election.
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump cannot steal this election. We decide what happens here.
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: Brett Kavanaugh doesn't decide. Donald Trump doesn't decide. Mitch McConnell
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: doesn't decide. There are more people in the country and
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: in the battleground states who want Joe Biden to be
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: president than Donald Trump. And if they turn out and vote,
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: if they turn their mail ballots in in person, they
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: drop them off, they do what they are supposed to
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: do here, then the Supreme Court will play no role here.
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: The only way the Supreme Court gets to steal the
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: election is if we let them do it.
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: We have agency here. We have power here. Donald Trump
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: does not.
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: I think you mentioned Ben Wickler and some other people
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: have been talking about this, but what Trump and Brett
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: Kavanaugh want to do is they want to intimidate us.
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: We should use this stuff to motivate us.
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: When there was all of the furor around the rigging
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: of the Postal Service, What that actually led to was
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: a huge number of Americans requesting their mail ballot early.
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: It was leveraged by Democrats, this podcast, others, to raise
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: awareness about voting. We should do the same thing here.
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: We should use this to fire our people up, to
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: use the news coverage of this to inform them about
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: what we're supposed to do. We can't worry about whether
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: the Supreme Court is going to steal the election because
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: it won't matter if we vote. If we don't vote,
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: things can be different. But that that's up to us.
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: That's not up to Brett Kavanaugh.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: It's also what we've said many times, control what you
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: can control. And I don't want to be Pollyannish here
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: or naive. Like I don't put literally anything past Donald
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: Trump or the Supreme court, but when we're alarmist about it,
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: when we're telling it, when we're saying things like the
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: Supreme court's going to steal the election, We have to
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: ask ourselves, what is the goal of saying that? Are
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: we going to change? Are we going to shame Brett
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: Kavanaugh into doing the right thing? No, we're not. Are
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: we going to shame Donald Trump into doing the right thing? No,
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: we're not going to do that. What can we actually
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: accomplish by that? Now, should we make people aware of
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: what's happening? Absolutely. Should we let people know what Brett
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: Kavanaugh is trying to say in this footnote? Yes, for sure.
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: But like you said, there is a danger in telling
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: people that this thing could just get stolen. Like, My
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: little cousin texted me that night, a Monday night, and
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: he goes, you know what? This is horrible. The Supreme
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: Court's going to steal this. Why are we even bothering?
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: And that message cannot get out to voters from us,
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: that the Supreme Court could do this, because there are
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: a lot of people who pay a lot less attention
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: to the news than we do. And if they casually
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: hear that the Supreme Court might steal the election, they
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: might just stay home. And like, I'm as worried about
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: the election as anyone. But I do think in this
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: final week, like, you know, Stacey Abrams says, I'm not
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: pessimistic or optimistic, I'm determined. Like, we have to show
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: a little determination and not be so cowed all the time.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: Even if we're like, personally nervous, like we have to
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: show some determination. And I also think like, I'm not
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: optimistic or pessimistic because optimism is guessing what might happen, right?
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: I am hopeful because hope is about believing that you
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: can make something happen. And I do think that like
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: we need to be hopeful in these last five or
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: six days. And like because that getting people to believe
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: that we can do this, like you said, if we
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: turn out, if enough people turn out, the Supreme Court
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: will not have a say in this. Donald Trump will
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: not have a say in this. If we beat him
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: by five or six points in Pennsylvania, it won't matter.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: You know, we won't get to the point where there's
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: sort of late arriving ballots and litigation, all this kind
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: of stuff. You know, Donald Trump will threaten litigation and
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: all this bullshit, of course. He'll say crazy things on Twitter.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: But if the margin is big enough, we'll win. And
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: I think we have to go into, you know, you
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: see Donald Trump tweeting in these last couple of days like,
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: Up two in Michigan, up 45 in Wisconsin. The red
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: wave is building, right? Like he knows all that's bullshit. No,
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: like we shouldn't be lying about how good we feel,
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: but we should be confident and hopeful in these final days.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: That doesn't mean cocky. That doesn't mean knowing that we're
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: going to win, but we should feel hopeful about the
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: amount of people voting and what that can do to
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: the final results.
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: I mean, we, the reason like we don't, like you said,
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: we like, we're not saying that Joe Biden is going
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: to win. But it is true that Joe Biden is winning.
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: He is winning right now. And we have to just
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: keep doing what we are doing, keep working our asses
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: off for the next six days. And he will be
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: president of the United States. Kamala Harris will be vice president.
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: The Democrats will take the Senate. And then we can
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: start doing the very hard work of fixing our democracy
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: and undoing all.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: Of the shit that Trump has done. But it is
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: right there.
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: And the thing is, Like we treat so much like
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: Trump is this like magical strong man. He is a
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: fucking Yahoo, right? Yes, he won in 2016. We beat
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: him in 2017. We stopped him from getting rid of
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: the ACA in 2017. We beat him in 2018. We
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: won the election in 2019. And we are winning right now.
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: We just have to finish doing the work.
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: We take nothing for granted, but we can do it.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: It doesn't mean he can't win. But it does mean
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: that we should be confident. We should be hopeful heading
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: into these last couple of days. That's what we should
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: be and determined.
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: The final installment. Speaking of polls, the final installment of
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: the Crooked Media Change Research Polar Coaster Series is here.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: A national poll of 1,125 voters taken on October 23rd
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: and 24th. So Friday and Saturday of last week, because
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: you're all just as obsessed with the horse races as
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: we are. Joe Biden leads Donald Trump 51 to 43,
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: an eight point margin that's right in line with the
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: current national polling averages. A few highlights from the horse race.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: Fifty seven percent in our poll said they already voted.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: Two percent plan to support third party candidates and only
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: two percent are still undecided. Very low undecided number at
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: this point. Biden gets five percent. of 2016 Trump voters.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: He has a 13 point margin among 2016 third party
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: voters and a whopping 25 point margin among people who
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: did not vote in 2016. Anything else interesting to you
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: from the horse race section?
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: I don't care about the horse race.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: Great. Then that's it. We're moving on. So the main
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: reason we conducted this poll was to find out what
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: in the news is actually breaking through to different kinds
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: of voters and what effect this might have on the race.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: So what do we mean by that? We all spend
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: a lot of time analyzing the messages that politicians and
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: campaigns and ads deliver to voters. We don't spend nearly
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: enough time analyzing what actually gets through the media filter
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: to the eyes and ears of voters. So we asked,
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: what stories have you heard about over the last week?
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: Where are you hearing them from? And how does it
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: make you feel about each of the candidates? Any other
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: reasons I missed about why we thought this poll was
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: a good idea?
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: Well, throughout the entire Polar Coaster series, we have tried
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: to make these polls in our partnership to change research
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: look a little bit more like campaign polls than media polls, right? Like, yes,
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: we are curious, even though I presented, I didn't care.
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: We are curious whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden is
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: winning right now. Like that's interesting information, but we're more
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: focused on the instructive information, right? That's why we've tested
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: so many messages to give advice to our listeners about
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: what works when they're talking to the undecided voters in
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: their lives or the people who are deciding between Donald
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: Trump and Joe Biden or between voting and not voting.
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: This poll, we wanted to look at a very specific
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: question that we were always fascinated about in polling in
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: the Obama campaign. We always asked, what have you heard
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: about Barack Obama recently?
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: And was it positive or negative?
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: And because that was actually more interesting most of the
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: time than Obama's approval rating or the horse race, because
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: the approval rating horse race is like the snapshot in
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: time right now. The what have you heard question is
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: a leading indicator of where things are going. And that
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: question is never more important than in the final stretch
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: of a campaign, because it tells you whether you are
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: closing with momentum or on the defensive. And like whenever
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: I think about 2016 and all the things we missed.
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: In 2012, we were obsessed with that positive-negative question for
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: Obama and Romney at the end. Obviously, in hindsight, Jim
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: Comey's idiocy around emails ensured that voters were hearing mostly
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: negative information about Hillary Clinton as they were making their decision.
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: And when you look at the exit polls in 2016,
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: voters in Wisconsin who decided in the last week, Donald
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: Trump won those voters by 29 points. He won them by,
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: I think, 17 points in Pennsylvania, right?
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: And from this poll, there is good news for Biden
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: on that front. But that's why we wanted to see it,
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: because I think it tells us about where the race
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: is going, not where it is right at this moment,
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: which will not be relevant one moment from now.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: Well, so what did we find that was most interesting
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: to you? I know you wrote about this poll in
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: this morning's message box. I did.
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: I wrote about it in the message box this morning,
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: which you can subscribe to at messagebox.substack.com. We are very
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: close to our donations goal for Black Voters Matter. We
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: are so close with six days to go. And abortion
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: and paid subscriptions are going to that very important organization.
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: But the most interesting things to me are Biden is
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: winning the message war. People are overwhelmingly hearing more positive
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: information about Biden than Trump. People are hearing overwhelmingly negative
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: information about Trump. Only 20% of people said they were
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: hearing mostly positive information about Trump. So that means that
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: the majority of Trump supporters are hearing negative information. Other
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: thing is that the, so we ask people about a
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: whole bunch of stories, political stories, international stories for the world,
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: those out there, pop culture events, sports, to see what
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: people are paying attention to. And people are dialed into
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: the news like never before. Nine in 10 are following
• 28:03
  Speaker 4: it very closely or somewhat closely. Two thirds are following
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: it very closely. More Biden supporters are following it very closely.
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: But what is interesting is the four stories that more
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: than eight in 10 respondents are paying a lot or
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: a decent attention to include the Supreme Court, the debate,
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: the record early turnout, and the new spike in COVID cases.
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: In every single one of those, it made people feel
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: more negative about Trump than Biden.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: And the Supreme Court is an interesting one, too, because
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: the Republicans clearly thought that was going to help them.
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: Yes, that is exactly right.
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: 48% of voters who said that the stories that they
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: saw about the Supreme Court confirmation made them feel more
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: negative about Trump created only 25% for Biden.
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: So that's a huge winner.
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: Obviously, and unsurprisingly, the spike in COVID cases 53% of
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: all voters feel more negative about Trump, including 44% of
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: that small sliver of undecided and third-party voters. And so
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: the short version of this is voters are paying a
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: ton of attention, and the issues they are paying the
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: most attention to make them feel worse about Trump. So
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: that is not good news for Trump.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: So talk a little bit about one of the big
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: findings from this poll is that Trump voters— and particularly
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: Trump voters who get most of their news from Fox News,
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: which is, I think, over 60% of his voters, basically
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: live in their own information universe, which we basically already knew.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: But I do think these findings really put a fine
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: point on that.
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: So you're correct.
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: 62% of Trump voters say they get most of their
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: news from Fox. We gave people a multiple choice menu
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: of a whole different of options to list where they
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: got most of the news from. And 62% of Trump
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: voters chose Fox.
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: And so what we did in.
• 29:51
  Speaker 4: This poll was we compared the Republicans who are Fox
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: watchers with Republicans who are not Fox watchers. And and
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: this makes some measure of intuitive sense, but the Fox
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: watchers are much more engaged in the news than non-Fox watchers.
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: 76% of them report following the news very closely. Only
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: 43% of non-Fox watching Republicans report the same, which makes sense.
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: If you watch cable, you are inherently a news junkie, right?
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: Like you would have to be to suffer through that, right? So,
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: and throughout the vast majority of the issues, more of
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: the Fox watchers reported hearing a lot or a decent
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: amount about the Supreme Court confirmation by 14 points, the
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: debate by 10 points, et cetera. So they're more dialed
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: into the news. On every story are the Fox watchers
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: more dialed in except the stories that are bad about Trump.
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: The non-Fox watchers who do not pay close attention to
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: the news, more of them knew about Trump's Chinese bank account,
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: him chanting, lock them up about Governor Whitmer and about
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: Trump calling Fauci a disaster than the Fox watchers. So
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: the takeaway from this is we knew Fox was bad,
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: but this very clearly shows how bad Fox is, how
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: much of a propaganda network it is, because they were
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: very clearly hiding bad information about Trump from their viewers.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: And conversely- the Fox watchers who are Trump voters were
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: the ones who heard the most about Hunter Biden and
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: the laptop story.
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: 90% of them, 91% of them.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: Versus like, I think it was like 70 something percent
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: of non Fox Republicans had heard about the Hunter story. Now,
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: of course, a lot of Democrats had heard about the
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: Hunter story too, but not nearly as many as had
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: heard about we're following the real news stories shaping the election.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: But it was interesting because we asked, You know, we
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: asked sort of like, what are the biggest issues in
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: the election? And of course, COVID wins. Trump's handling of COVID,
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: 51% shows is the biggest story of this election. And,
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: you know, that's true across like most voters. But when
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: you get to Trump voters, so it's not like they're
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: voting for Trump because they think he handled COVID perfectly.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: Because even among Trump voters, like he's only got like
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: a 70% approval rating on COVID, even though like 100%
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: of them are voting for Donald Trump, right? It's that
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: those voters think that the main issue in the election
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: is either Hunter Biden or rioting and looting in cities
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: or the supposed radicalization of the Democratic Party, right? Joe
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: Biden and Antifa warrior. That's what they think. They're in
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: a universe where they see the biggest problems facing America
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: as those issues. Hunter Biden's laptop over COVID. That is
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: what Fox News does to people's brains.
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: I mean, it is a like the poll really does
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: reveal the massive right wing media apparatus and what a
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: tremendous advantages. Imagine if you had a completely partisan outlet
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: that was committed from top to bottom to reelecting the
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: president of the United States. And that outlet was a
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: major source of news for six in 10 of their voters, right?
• 33:02
  Speaker 4: Where you can give them good news. You can hide
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: bad news. You can push out disinformation about the opponent.
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: Like that is a massive, massive apparatus and ability to
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: set the four corners of the poker conversation in this country.
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: The problem is for them this time is that COVID
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: is such an overwhelmingly all-consuming issue that they can't, change
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: the subject in a way they could in a normal election.
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: And so it is very possible and maybe even probable
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: that Joe Biden will win this election despite that right-wing
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: media apparatus. But in the long run, this is a
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: thing that we as progressives have to figure out. Because
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: in a different world, if Joe Biden becomes president and
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: can get COVID under control, The ability of Republicans to
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: set the issue agenda in American politics is going to
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: give them an advantage in every single fight to come
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: for as far as the eye can see.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: And one of the reasons it gives them an advantage
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: is because despite some in the media and some pundits saying, oh,
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: Democrats and Republicans each live in their own media bubbles,
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: it's not really true. And this poll shows that it's
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: not true. Republicans, Trump supporting Republicans— are living in their
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: own media bubble. A vast majority of them are getting
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: their news from Fox, and that's it. Democrats, independents, third-party voters,
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: unaffiliated voters are getting their news from a whole bunch
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: of different sources. And we know about the Hunter Biden
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: laptop story, right? It has reached us. We run a
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: partisan podcast. We are trying to get Democrats elected. We
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: have talked about that story on this podcast. We do
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: not hide... We do not hide bad stories from our listeners,
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: and neither does the media. And I think, like, look,
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: Steve Bannon knew this in 2016, that when he wanted
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: to drop Hillary email stories, Hillary corruption stories, whatever it was,
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: he didn't want to just do it on Breitbart. He
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: wanted to do it, he wanted to place a story
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: in the New York Times because he knew that the
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: New York Times still had widespread credibility. And what the
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: right knows is that they can seed some of their
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: conspiracy theories with mainstream media organizations that it can actually
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: set the agenda and affect voters. And this time, Trump
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: and his goons couldn't do that as well, like you said,
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: because of COVID. But in the future, when there's not
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: a pandemic, they may be able to do that unless
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: there is a countervailing force on the other side.
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: That's exactly right.
• 35:35
  Speaker 4: And like Ben Smith, the New York Times media columnist,
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: had a very smart column about this over the weekend.
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: looking at the differences between how the mainstream media has
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: responded to Republican disinformation in 2020 as compared to 2016.
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: But what that column, which is very smart, does not
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: take into account and something that needs much more exploration
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: and investment on the progressive side is the role that
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: Facebook plays. Biden and Trump voters, by basically equal numbers,
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: say they get most of their news from Facebook. Facebook is...
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: overwhelmingly pushing right-wing content. If you get the email that
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: Kevin Roos in the New York Times sends out every
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: day with the, or sorry, if you get the, Kevin
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: Roos in the New York Times tech columnist has put
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: together a Twitter account that every day, it's a bot
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: account that puts out the 10 link posts on Facebook
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: with the most engagement. And it is a fucking dystopia
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: of stupidity. I think today, as we record this, I
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: think Dan Bongino was like eight of the 10 people
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: top posts. It's Ben Shapiro, San Bongino, it's a bunch
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: of shit. And that's a huge problem, which is that's
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: where the mainstream media can put up levies, but Facebook
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: is the flood that goes over them and can knock
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: them right down. And it just happens to be that
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: in this election, the number one issue is of such
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: great consequence to so many people that a bunch of
• 36:58
  Speaker 4: that sort of misinformation, marginalia bullshit does not matter in
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: the way it did in 2016 and the way it
• 37:05
  Speaker 4: could very well matter in the 2022 midterms, the 2024 election.
• 37:09
  Speaker 4: There is a huge, giant, raging siren inside these numbers
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: for what progressives have to do to fix this asymmetry
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: in our ability to get our message.
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: Out on our terms.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: And I would encourage everyone to read your message box
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: today where you talk a little bit more about that.
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: And I mean, because, because I, I, because I compliment you,
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: Tommy and love it by name for your, uh, your
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: creativity and courageousness and starting crooked media.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: I did. I did appreciate that. Of course, we're trying
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: our best. Like I always say more crooked medias. I'm
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: I'm give us some competition. I want a whole progressive
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: ecosystem over here.
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: Uh, can I say, can I say one more thing
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: about this? That is so important because before, uh, the
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: both sides, people come after us. We do not want
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: a Fox News on our side. That is not what
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: we want.
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: I don't think it is politically useful, by the way,
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: to have a Fox News.
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: Or even possible.
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: To be like Fox News.
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 38:09
  Speaker 4: But we want a progressive media ecosystem that does not
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: delegitimize or tries to replace the traditional media.
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: We want it to complement it.
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: We want it to push back when we think the
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: mainstream media is regurgitating Republican talking points or doing something
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: else wrong. But like Democratic voters have always had a
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: very wide ranging media diet, and we just want to
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: increase one part of it. It is a different approach
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: than what the Republicans are doing. So take your both
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: sides bullshit and take it somewhere else.
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: Also, they use, you know, look, they traffic in fear
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: and anger and misinformation on their side. That's how they
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: handle their voters and their audiences, right? That's how they
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: engage them with fear and anger and misinformation. What we
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: try to do is to engage people with real information,
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: not misinformation. We try to have a little fun. We
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: try to inspire people to go do something, to act,
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: to be involved, to do something about the world around you.
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: So we take an entirely different approach. And I do
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: think Writ large, that's what progressives need to do. We
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: should not copy Fox News, but we need sort of
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: a countervailing force. Okay, we have some time for audience questions.
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: Questions.
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: Kate Johansson asks, is there a point at which texting
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: and phone banking becomes ineffective? I've been volunteering every weekend
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: since September. and this last weekend was brutal. Way more
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: opt-outs and hostile voters, way fewer constructive conversations.
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: Is there a point where it becomes less productive on Wednesday?
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: And look, just so you know, Kate, because there are
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: so few undecided voters right now, because so many people
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: have already voted right now, the universe of people that
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: were texting and phone banking just You're going to get
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: a lot more people who are either going to be
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: hostile or going to be like, I already voted or
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: stop talking to me. Like we're getting down to a
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: smaller pool here. But, and I've been telling volunteers this
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: when I've been talking to phone banks. You could call
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: 100 people or you could text 100 people. You get
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: like two or three voters out of that.
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: That's huge.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: That is huge for a campaign because if we have
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: thousands of volunteers and everyone gets just a couple people
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: in a shift, that really adds up. That's like the
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: margin in a state. So like the one thing you
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: should know is like do not get discouraged in these
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: final days if you're getting a lot of opt outs,
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: hostile voters, all that kind of stuff. It is because
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: we are getting down to the undecided, don't usually pay
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: attention to politics, don't usually vote pool of voters. Anna
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: Thompson asks, what should folks do on election day and night?
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: Watch coverage, volunteer more, doom scroll? We kind of talked
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: about this on Monday's pod, but Dan, what do you think?
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: What's your advice?
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: I mean, if we were living in a non-COVID world,
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: there would be massive amounts of people out doing GOTV,
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: driving people to the polls, making last phone calls, knocking doors,
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: doing everything you can to pull out that last group
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: of voters. So there was going to be volunteer work
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: to do up until the moment the polls close on
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: the West Coast United States. And so election day is miserable, right?
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: They're like, do anything you can to feel productive and
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: not look at Twitter. Cause Twitter is going to be
• 41:16
  Speaker 4: filled with a bunch of unsourced out of context anecdotes
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: about lines places. Or I saw three Trump flags on
• 41:23
  Speaker 4: the way to get coffee this morning.
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: Oh my God. Like it's, it's not productive, right?
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: Volunteer.
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: You know, if you can volunteer, if that's something you
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: can do on election day, because you voted weeks ago,
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: because you early voted or voted by mail a long
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: time ago, then volunteer.
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: I think it'll make you feel better.
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: There is no upside to in being on Twitter, you'll
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: get no valuable information, really ever, frankly, but particularly on
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: election day.
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's going to be important to get our
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: voters out on election day because, you know, the way
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: it's looking now is that we've banked most of our
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: votes early and Republicans will have this big election day turnout.
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: But we still have, you know, 20 to 30 to
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: 40 percent of our voters are saying they want to
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: vote on election day. And if, you know, all the
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: data analysts on campaigns look and see that we're down
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: here or we need more turnout here or more turnout
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: among this group. Like we're going to need to really
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: move on election day and trying to get people out
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: of their houses and lines and go in a vote.
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: And so we need a lot of people to help
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: with that. So it's really important to do that on
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: election day. Emily asks in Jacksonville, we flipped blue in 2018.
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: I keep hearing if we flip again, Biden will win Florida.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: Is that true? If Biden gets Florida, is it over?
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: If Biden gets Florida, it is basically over. I feel
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: pretty confident saying that.
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: Well, John, you're a little younger than me.
• 42:44
  Speaker 4: So you probably weren't sitting in Gore campaign headquarters when
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: the networks called it for Gore.
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was going to say.
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: And we celebrated. And they took it back.
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: I'm talking about a real win. I'm talking about a
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: called win, not a Florida 2000 win. I'm talking about
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: the electoral votes are in his column in Florida.
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: And could Emily have just asked you that question directly?
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's Emily via Twitter. So maybe it was my Emily.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: No, I think that, like, I think Nate Silver's on 538,
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: they have, like, if Biden wins Florida, it's 99% chance
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: he wins. And if he doesn't win Florida, he still
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: can win. He still has paths. But winning Florida would
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: be much better. Now, Jacksonville specifically, I'm not sure about.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: What do you think about Jacksonville?
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, Duval County is a big swing county.
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: Steve Shale, our friend, who's ran Florida for, Obama a
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: couple of times and is the expert in Florida politics
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: points that out a lot. So that is a big
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: chunk of Democratic votes that you can go get in
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: the city of Jacksonville, which.
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: Is in Duval County. I hope I got that right.
• 43:44
  Speaker 4: But Florida is the state to watch because it's the
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: one where we're going to get the most information about
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: the electorate first. They count their mail ballots in advance.
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: They dump them in when the polls close. In many cases,
• 43:55
  Speaker 4: we'll get a chance to see what is happening there.
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: And whether it means we're in Florida or not, But
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: it's a chance to see whether some of the assumptions
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: we made about the election hold true.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: Florida, man, always. Pat Deves asks, how and when are
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: provisional ballots counted? In general, I know states vary or
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: some tossed. In Texas, I've been told that if you
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: get a mail-in ballot but decide to vote in person,
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: your ballot is provisional unless you bring the original mail
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: ballot to the polling location. This is just one example
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: from a friend's experience. I'm worried.
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: Provisional, it differs by state. And the big thing here
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: is go to votesofamerica.com and find out the rules for
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: your state. I talked to Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman in
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: Pennsylvania a few weeks ago. I asked a question because
• 44:39
  Speaker 4: there's a lot of concerns about mail balloting in Pennsylvania.
• 44:42
  Speaker 4: And he said, trust the Postal Service. Put your ballot in,
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: send it in early, or drop it off in person.
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: But in Pennsylvania, if you requested a mail ballot, and
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: I think 2.6 million mail ballots have been requested, but
• 44:54
  Speaker 4: then you go vote in person, you have to bring
• 44:56
  Speaker 4: your mail ballot with you, including every piece of it,
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: including all the various envelopes. And if you don't, you
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: end up filling out a provisional ballot, which if it
• 45:02
  Speaker 4: gets counted, will get counted much later in the process.
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: So the rules are different everywhere. Check the rules, follow
• 45:09
  Speaker 4: the rules, go to votesaveamerica.com.
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: Emily Clark asks, can we wear Vote Save America merch
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: to the polls? Fuck yes, you can. Please do.
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: I hope that's true.
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: I hope I didn't just tell people to break the law.
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: I think you can wear Vote Save America.
• 45:27
  Speaker 5: There are rules.
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's electioneering laws. So you can't be telling
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: people to vote for Joe Biden or Donald Trump too
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: close to the polls. But Vote Save America.
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that seems.
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: I want to save America by voting. What's wrong with that?
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: Look, you and I aren't lawyers, but we do follow
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: a lot of lawyers on Twitter. And so I feel
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: confident in that opinion.
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, the legal minds that I quickly scroll through,
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: they say fine. They say fine. Take it from me.
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: When we come back, my interview with TargetSmart CEO, Tom Bonior.
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: I am now joined by Tom Bonior, a democratic political
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: strategist and CEO of the analytics firm TargetSmart. Thanks for
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: coming on the pod, Tom.
• 46:17
  Speaker 5: Thanks for having me on.
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: So on Monday's Pod Save America, we told people not
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: to read too much into the early vote data, especially
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: when it comes to predicting the outcome. You guys have
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: been analyzing early vote data for a few cycles now.
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: Can you talk about what early vote can tell us
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: and how your analysis goes beyond just the raw vote
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: totals that are just broken down by party registration that
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: we see out there?
• 46:42
  Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely. Like in a way, it's almost easier to
• 46:45
  Speaker 5: say what it can't tell us. And this is a
• 46:47
  Speaker 5: lesson learned from 2016 that I will own a hundred percent.
• 46:51
  Speaker 5: It can't tell us who's going to win. You know,
• 46:53
  Speaker 5: we got pretty excited in 2016 about the early vote
• 46:56
  Speaker 5: overall showing what looked like good numbers for Democrats. And
• 46:59
  Speaker 5: then obviously ended up not being true. Lesson learned was
• 47:03
  Speaker 5: there were a lot of regular voters who were feeling
• 47:06
  Speaker 5: that democratic advantage in the early vote. And in the end,
• 47:11
  Speaker 5: The real important thing was these infrequent voters, first-time voters,
• 47:14
  Speaker 5: sporadic voters. And so lesson learned, we applied that to
• 47:17
  Speaker 5: what we're looking at now. We applied that 2018 too,
• 47:20
  Speaker 5: and it actually worked pretty well in predicting the blue
• 47:23
  Speaker 5: wave we saw in 2018. So that's really what we're
• 47:26
  Speaker 5: focusing on at this point. Forget about it. Almost 75
• 47:29
  Speaker 5: million people have voted already, which is crazy. And if
• 47:32
  Speaker 5: you can't learn something from 75 million people voting... then,
• 47:36
  Speaker 5: you know, you're probably not paying attention to the right things,
• 47:38
  Speaker 5: which again, you know, I did that in 2016, so
• 47:41
  Speaker 5: I'll own it.
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: Well, can you just talk about for people who like
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: don't know what TargetSmart does, like when you analyze the data,
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: you do something called modeling, right? And so it's not just,
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: you're not just looking at like, you know, 40% of
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: Democrats voted and 30% of Republicans and a bunch of independents.
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: And that's what we know so far. Like you're doing
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: something a little bit more than that. Can you sort
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: of explain what you do for people?
• 48:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah. So we build a national voter file. So a
• 48:06
  Speaker 5: file of all 210 million or so registered voters in
• 48:10
  Speaker 5: the country. And we maintain a lot of information on it,
• 48:14
  Speaker 5: not to get creepy about it. We won't go down
• 48:15
  Speaker 5: that path, but we have like some basic information on
• 48:19
  Speaker 5: their past voting behavior being one of the most important things.
• 48:22
  Speaker 5: Which elections do they show up for in the past?
• 48:24
  Speaker 5: Which have they not voted in? How recently did they
• 48:26
  Speaker 5: register to vote? Are they registered as a Democrat or Republican?
• 48:29
  Speaker 5: Are they older? Are they younger? We look at race
• 48:31
  Speaker 5: and ethnicity, things like that. So It's that contextual data
• 48:36
  Speaker 5: that gives us a lot of depth of information about
• 48:40
  Speaker 5: who's voting and like, is it meaningful or not? Is
• 48:43
  Speaker 5: this like someone who's going to impact the electorate in
• 48:45
  Speaker 5: a way that's going to make it look different than
• 48:47
  Speaker 5: it did in 2016? Or is this someone who we
• 48:49
  Speaker 5: expected to turn out anyhow?
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: So you talked a little bit about what happened in
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: 2016 and 2018. Like what sort of change between 2016
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: and 2018 and how you analyze the early vote data
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: And how did that actually match up with what happened,
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: I guess, in 2018?
• 49:07
  Speaker 5: So the biggest change was focusing on how the electorate
• 49:11
  Speaker 5: would change from the base expectation, right? So there are
• 49:15
  Speaker 5: certain voters who you know reliably are going to come
• 49:18
  Speaker 5: out in a certain election. We have models, but mostly
• 49:22
  Speaker 5: we just look at the elections they voted in. If
• 49:23
  Speaker 5: you vote in one presidential election, odds are you're going
• 49:26
  Speaker 5: to vote in the next one. You're certainly likely to
• 49:28
  Speaker 5: vote in a midterm election like 2018. But if you're
• 49:30
  Speaker 5: a new registrant and you vote, or you're someone who's
• 49:33
  Speaker 5: been registered to vote, maybe you came out in 2012
• 49:35
  Speaker 5: and you came out in 2008 in the Obama elections,
• 49:38
  Speaker 5: but then you've stayed home since then. Then you come
• 49:40
  Speaker 5: out in 2018. That tells us something about the trends.
• 49:44
  Speaker 5: And we can look at that at a macro level
• 49:46
  Speaker 5: and say, well, are younger voters performing at a higher level,
• 49:49
  Speaker 5: which was something we did see in 2018. We saw
• 49:51
  Speaker 5: that in the early vote data, younger voters were occupying
• 49:54
  Speaker 5: a larger share of the early vote than they had
• 49:56
  Speaker 5: in prior elections. And so that was our first clue. OK,
• 49:59
  Speaker 5: younger voters are pretty engaged here. We think they're going
• 50:02
  Speaker 5: to be a larger share of the electorate. And from
• 50:04
  Speaker 5: the polling, we have a pretty good sense that those
• 50:06
  Speaker 5: voters are going to go two to one plus Democratic.
• 50:08
  Speaker 5: So that was the first sign that, well, look, there's
• 50:11
  Speaker 5: something happening here that could be this blue wave building.
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: And so what are some of the most important trends
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: you're seeing in the data right now?
• 50:21
  Speaker 5: The number one that I'm looking at is just how
• 50:23
  Speaker 5: many people have voted already who didn't vote in 2016.
• 50:27
  Speaker 5: Because in the end, if we assume, look, the 2016
• 50:30
  Speaker 5: electorate is the one that sent Donald Trump to the
• 50:32
  Speaker 5: White House. Electoral college, not popular vote, but it happened.
• 50:36
  Speaker 5: So Question is, how is that electorate going to change?
• 50:39
  Speaker 5: Are there different people who are going to show up
• 50:40
  Speaker 5: who stayed home? We know a lot of Americans stayed home,
• 50:42
  Speaker 5: even though it was a relatively high turnout election. Tens
• 50:46
  Speaker 5: of millions of Americans didn't vote. So the big question is,
• 50:48
  Speaker 5: are they participating? Right now in the early vote, I
• 50:50
  Speaker 5: talked about just about 75 million Americans having voted already.
• 50:56
  Speaker 5: More than one in four of those early voters didn't
• 50:59
  Speaker 5: vote in 2016.
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 50:59
  Speaker 5: So that's a lot. And you're getting to the point
• 51:03
  Speaker 5: where we're approaching 20 million new voters. I've already cast
• 51:07
  Speaker 5: a ballot.
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: Now, the Trump campaign has said from the very beginning
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: that their hope is to turn out a bunch of
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: people who didn't vote in 2016, particularly non-college white voters
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: that may be Trumpy type voters, live in the same
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: areas as some other Trump voters, and they hope that
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: some of these new voters are their voters. What do
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: we know about sort of, we know there's a bunch
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: of new voters, but what do we know about the
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: breakdown between Democrat and Republican?
• 51:33
  Speaker 5: So the thing is, Turnout is up across the board, right?
• 51:37
  Speaker 5: It's not that Republicans are staying home at this point.
• 51:39
  Speaker 5: There are some theories because the president polarized the issue
• 51:42
  Speaker 5: of voting by mail and voting really so severely that
• 51:45
  Speaker 5: Republicans would just be staying home. And the fact is,
• 51:48
  Speaker 5: you know, they're coming out. They're just not coming anywhere
• 51:51
  Speaker 5: near to the intensity levels that Democrats have so far.
• 51:56
  Speaker 5: And so what we're seeing when we break things down, obviously,
• 51:58
  Speaker 5: we're looking at, you know, African-American turnout, seeing that that
• 52:01
  Speaker 5: is surging. You look at some key states. Like Georgia
• 52:05
  Speaker 5: and Texas, especially African-American seniors. This was a group that
• 52:10
  Speaker 5: actually stayed home in 2016. Look, most of them voted,
• 52:15
  Speaker 5: but there's a large share of them that didn't vote.
• 52:16
  Speaker 5: In Texas and Georgia, more African-American seniors have already cast
• 52:20
  Speaker 5: a ballot than voted entirely in those states in 2016.
• 52:22
  Speaker 5: There's still six states that voted in that. So we
• 52:26
  Speaker 5: see things in the data to that extent that are pointed, like, yeah,
• 52:29
  Speaker 5: Republicans are engaged and it's reasonable to assume that more
• 52:31
  Speaker 5: of them are going to come out on election day.
• 52:33
  Speaker 5: But right now, they're just not matching that level of
• 52:35
  Speaker 5: engagement that we're seeing from Democrats.
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: So new voters and then sporadic voters, which, as you mentioned,
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: are voters who are registered but have sat out a
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: few elections. Do you think the Democrats have an advantage
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: with both sets of voters in battleground states right now?
• 52:50
  Speaker 5: From everything we're seeing, Democrats have a pretty significant advantage
• 52:53
  Speaker 5: to the point where if these trends continue over the
• 52:56
  Speaker 5: next six days, the Republicans are looking at a deficit
• 52:59
  Speaker 5: in these battleground states of literally millions of votes that
• 53:03
  Speaker 5: they'll have to turn out on election day in order
• 53:05
  Speaker 5: to climb out of that hole.
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: And of course, we should let people know, just so
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: no one gets too excited, it's possible that on election day,
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: Republicans could turn out not only their regular voters, but
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: a bunch of new voters and sporadic voters that they
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: had been hoping to turn out that just didn't vote
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: earlier by mail, right?
• 53:23
  Speaker 4: Absolutely.
• 53:24
  Speaker 5: A Republican source told me that they said that election
• 53:27
  Speaker 5: day is going to look like a MAGA rally. They
• 53:30
  Speaker 5: believe that they're coming out in such huge numbers. There's
• 53:33
  Speaker 5: no reason to believe that they won't come out in
• 53:35
  Speaker 5: huge numbers. We know they're engaged. I think the biggest
• 53:37
  Speaker 5: challenge they have is we know that making voting more
• 53:41
  Speaker 5: accessible and more available increases turnout. We've seen that in
• 53:44
  Speaker 5: the states that have gone to vote by mail in
• 53:45
  Speaker 5: past elections, like Colorado, Utah, California. And the fact of
• 53:49
  Speaker 5: the matter is Democrats have built up this advantage in
• 53:52
  Speaker 5: turnout over a course of four or five weeks. So
• 53:55
  Speaker 5: when you show up to vote and you see a
• 53:57
  Speaker 5: line that's eight hours long, you can come back the
• 53:59
  Speaker 5: next day. Or if there's a problem with your job
• 54:01
  Speaker 5: or your childcare, you can come back the next day
• 54:03
  Speaker 5: or the next day. Republicans are putting all their eggs
• 54:06
  Speaker 5: in the basket of, Let's all show up on this
• 54:08
  Speaker 5: one day. And if something goes wrong, there's not a
• 54:12
  Speaker 5: backup plan. I think that's the biggest challenge for them.
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: At this point. What are you seeing from young voters
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: this time around?
• 54:18
  Speaker 5: So young voters are turning out, obviously, in larger numbers overall. But,
• 54:22
  Speaker 5: you know, again, we passed the early vote number from
• 54:25
  Speaker 5: 2016 about a week ago, and we're now 30 million
• 54:28
  Speaker 5: votes past it. So in raw numbers, obviously, they're turning
• 54:31
  Speaker 5: out higher numbers. But even in the share of the electorate,
• 54:33
  Speaker 5: I think that's the most interesting thing. is they are
• 54:36
  Speaker 5: accounting for a larger share of the early vote now
• 54:38
  Speaker 5: than they did at this same point in time in 2016.
• 54:41
  Speaker 5: So certainly it's a first encouraging time. Younger voters do
• 54:44
  Speaker 5: tend to vote a little bit later than older voters. Basically,
• 54:47
  Speaker 5: the way the early vote usually goes is it starts
• 54:48
  Speaker 5: older and wider, and then it gradually gets younger and
• 54:51
  Speaker 5: more diverse. And we've definitely seen that where just in
• 54:53
  Speaker 5: the last four or five days, the youth vote is
• 54:56
  Speaker 5: really beginning to pick up.
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: And two groups of voters that Democrats have had some
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: concerns about just from the polling are are sort of
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: young Black voters, young Latino voters, and specifically young Black
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: and Latino men. Are you seeing any trends with those
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: groups of voters in the early vote data?
• 55:14
  Speaker 5: So, you know, as you know, especially with younger Black
• 55:18
  Speaker 5: men in 2016, there were a number of them just
• 55:20
  Speaker 5: didn't vote. That was, I think, a group that dropped
• 55:22
  Speaker 5: off more than any group in 2016. It was probably
• 55:24
  Speaker 5: one of the biggest deficiencies we've had. We've begun to
• 55:26
  Speaker 5: see encouraging signs among younger Black and Latino voters. I
• 55:29
  Speaker 5: think there's still a ways to go to see those
• 55:31
  Speaker 5: numbers get to exactly where they need to be. But again,
• 55:34
  Speaker 5: over the last several days, those numbers have begun to
• 55:36
  Speaker 5: pick up.
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: So you've written that we'll have a rough sense by
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: next Tuesday of just how deep of a hole Trump
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: will have to dig himself out of on Election Day.
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: And we'll be able to place that in the context
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: of the remaining non-voting electorate. What data are you going
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: to be looking at as results come in to see
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: if Trump has been able to dig himself out of
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: that hole?
• 55:54
  Speaker 5: Well, I think, you know, the big sort of, you know,
• 55:57
  Speaker 5: to state the obvious, like the big coalition for him
• 55:59
  Speaker 5: is non-college educated white voters. And when you look at
• 56:02
  Speaker 5: these numbers nationally, again, we'll be looking at state by state,
• 56:05
  Speaker 5: but this really encapsulates it to me. If you compare
• 56:07
  Speaker 5: the number of college educated white voters or a group
• 56:10
  Speaker 5: that are doing much better for Vice President Biden, and
• 56:15
  Speaker 5: you compare that to the total number that voted in 2016,
• 56:17
  Speaker 5: we're right now about 15 million votes behind, which sounds
• 56:20
  Speaker 5: like a lot, but really isn't when you think of
• 56:22
  Speaker 5: the trajectory of the early vote and the election day vote.
• 56:25
  Speaker 5: Non-college white voters are about 45 million votes behind. So
• 56:29
  Speaker 5: it's about a 30 million vote gap, which is significant.
• 56:32
  Speaker 5: So that's the number of things we'll be looking at
• 56:34
  Speaker 5: is just the turnout in those areas. And some of
• 56:36
  Speaker 5: those counties, when we think about the Florida panhandle, some
• 56:39
  Speaker 5: of the rural wider areas of Georgia, some of these
• 56:43
  Speaker 5: states that could be decisive and also will count early,
• 56:46
  Speaker 5: those are the ones that we're going to be watching
• 56:47
  Speaker 5: our election.
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: The other thing that I've been trying to figure out
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: looking at all this data is, so you see in
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: the early vote numbers, you know, Democrats have a red
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: party registration advantage. in a lot of these states over Republicans.
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: But then when you look at polls of people who
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: say they've already voted, Biden's advantage over Trump is much
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: larger than the party registration advantage that you're seeing come
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: out of these states. And to me, that says that,
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: you know, it's what we've seen in the polling all along,
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: which is Biden's doing better among independents that Hillary Clinton
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: did and non-affiliated voters. And he's also pulling more Republicans
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: from Trump um than hillary did are you seeing that
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: in the data that you're modeling in the early vote
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: so that's.
• 57:34
  Speaker 5: The really important caveat what we see is you know
• 57:37
  Speaker 5: whether or not people voted don't how they voted which
• 57:39
  Speaker 5: sounds like an obvious caveat but you'd be surprised we
• 57:41
  Speaker 5: talk about these things and people will say you know
• 57:43
  Speaker 5: how we voted we don't know that and so we
• 57:45
  Speaker 5: can look at the general partisanship but to your point
• 57:49
  Speaker 5: we don't see the swings we don't know you know
• 57:51
  Speaker 5: is is biden winning uh 60% of the independents or
• 57:56
  Speaker 5: are they splitting? Is he losing them? That doesn't show
• 57:59
  Speaker 5: up in this information. I mean, we can get a
• 58:00
  Speaker 5: sense among the end of who the independents are, who
• 58:03
  Speaker 5: are voting and do they look more like our voters?
• 58:06
  Speaker 5: We can get a general sense, but yeah, that's, that's
• 58:08
  Speaker 5: the big question for election night is how are these groups?
• 58:12
  Speaker 5: I will say, and the reason I feel more comfortable
• 58:14
  Speaker 5: with the analysis that we're looking at now, why I
• 58:16
  Speaker 5: feel more optimistic about next Tuesday is the, as you said,
• 58:23
  Speaker 5: the polling has shown that Vice President Biden is doing
• 58:26
  Speaker 5: better than we have in the past with a lot
• 58:27
  Speaker 5: of these groups, unaffiliated voters, independent voters, white college educated voters,
• 58:32
  Speaker 5: now even white non-college educated voters, seniors. I mean, the
• 58:35
  Speaker 5: surge that I talked about with these, you know, one
• 58:37
  Speaker 5: to four voters that didn't vote in 16, a lot
• 58:39
  Speaker 5: of them are over the age of 65, which we
• 58:43
  Speaker 5: don't think about turnout targets, but there's almost 5 million
• 58:45
  Speaker 5: voters over the age of 65 who didn't vote in 16,
• 58:48
  Speaker 5: who voted already in this election. And so, you know,
• 58:51
  Speaker 5: there's reason to believe he's doing better with those voters too.
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: Are there any other outstanding questions that you're really eager
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: to understand as the vote continues to come in?
• 59:04
  Speaker 5: You know, the big question is Republicans have been talking about,
• 59:08
  Speaker 5: we've been registering more voters and they're some evidence during that,
• 59:11
  Speaker 5: during the at least the early days of the pandemic.
• 59:14
  Speaker 5: We know that it hit communities of color a lot
• 59:16
  Speaker 5: harder than other areas. And we saw that in the
• 59:18
  Speaker 5: voter registration data. So I'm interested to see, you know,
• 59:22
  Speaker 5: these new Republican registrants, what rate they're coming at. We
• 59:25
  Speaker 5: know that traditionally new registrants do vote. at a higher
• 59:28
  Speaker 5: rate and really just looking at that Republican turnout overall.
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: And you'll have a better picture of that probably as
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: we get, like Tuesday morning, you'll probably know more about
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: what's left in the electorate for Republicans than we do
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: right now, right?
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 59:41
  Speaker 5: We'll start over the weekend and then we'll dig into
• 59:43
  Speaker 5: that coming into Tuesday just to look at what's left
• 59:46
  Speaker 5: and just how plausible it is. We won't be able
• 59:48
  Speaker 5: to project the race even, you know, in the middle
• 59:50
  Speaker 5: of the day, Tuesday, and I'm not gonna make that
• 59:52
  Speaker 5: mistake again anyhow. I decided to do less prognostication.
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: None of us are.
• 59:57
  Speaker 5: Or analysis, right? And so, yeah, we'll get a sense
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 5: of how steep the hill is that Republicans will have
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 5: to climb because it's clear it is gonna be a
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 5: hill that they're gonna be climbing on election day. And
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 5: then we can just put that in historical context and say,
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 5: you know, how many non-voters, new voters, new registrants, will
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 5: they need to get out in order to get there?
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 5: And we'll see how realistic it is.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: The only good news we can say with confidence is
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: people are voting and a lot of Democrats are voting
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: and a lot of Democrats are excited, right?
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 5: It's the most true thing you can say.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: All right. Tom Von, thank you so much for joining
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: Pod Save America and good luck to you in these
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: last couple of days.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 5: Thanks very much.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: Thanks to Tom for joining us today. We'll be recording
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: one more episode, all four of us on Friday. That's
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: our last pre-election episode. And we'll talk to you then. Bye, everyone.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: producer is Michael Martinez. Our associate producer is Jordan Waller.
• 1:00:54
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• 1:00:58
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• 1:01:03
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• 1:01:11
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• 1:01:13
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