Latest / Pod Save America / “You Fetter Believe It!”

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“You Fetter Believe It!” · Pod Save America

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  Speaker 1: That's SimpliSafe.com slash Crooked. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Welcome
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 1:47
  Speaker 4: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 1:48
  Speaker 5: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: On today's show, Democrats fight off a red wave in
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: a historic midterm that defied most expectations and handed Donald
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Trump and MAGA Republican election deniers.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: A stunning defeat. That felt good to say.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: We'll go through all the big races and early data
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: to unpack exactly what happened, including some of the races
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: that are too close to call at this hour. And
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: we'll also talk about what's next for both parties. But
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: first and most importantly, thank you to everyone who signed
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: up for Vote Save America today. everyone who gave your
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: time and your money and your energy to this campaign,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: especially in such a tough year. We said a lot
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: of these incredibly close races would be decided by the
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: margin of effort. And that's exactly what happened. That's because
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: of all of you. So we wanted to thank you
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: all for that.
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: All right, some stats. In this midterm cycle, VSA volunteers
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: and donors raised $ 5. 2 million and filled 46,672 volunteer shifts.
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: to help elect progressives and pass progressive ballot measures across
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: the country, and our VSA community of 1,270 super volunteers
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: were a huge part of its success, making over 1.5
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: million voter contacts. That's amazing.
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: That's unbelievable.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: That is unbelievable. You guys are the best. All right,
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: let's get to the news. And for the first time
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: in a long time, it is good.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: As of this morning, the Democrats have a very good
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: chance of holding the Senate, thanks to big wins by
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire and John Fetterman in Pennsylvania.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Republicans are still favored to flip the House, but it's
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: still not a sure thing. And right now they're only
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: projected to have a very slim majority. Democrats won governor's
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: races in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Kansas, New York, Massachusetts, Maryland, Minnesota,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: and Michigan, where they also flipped the state legislature, giving
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Democrats the first trifecta there in 40 years. It appears
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: right now they're about to flip the Pennsylvania statehouse as well.
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: Pennsylvania is such a big deal.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: That's huge.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Voters enshrined abortion rights in the state constitutions of California, Michigan,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: and Vermont, while Kentucky rejected an abortion ban. Missouri and
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Maryland legalized marijuana. Nebraska raised the minimum wage. And South
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Dakota expanded Medicaid. There's probably more, but let's stop there
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: for now and talk about big picture before we dive
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: into these results. Obviously, we don't have all the data yet,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: but what do we know so far about how and
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: why this happened last night?
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: Dan.
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: Verbal message box.
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: Hey, message box at us for a second. No, I
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: have to go read the message box.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: Hey, Dan, what am I going to say on Monday?
• 4:17
  Speaker 5: It's sitting in my outbox. It did sit when we
• 4:19
  Speaker 5: were done here. So I'd say a couple of things here. One,
• 4:22
  Speaker 5: it's very clear the red wave did not happen. And
• 4:24
  Speaker 5: it did not happen because Democrats very successfully were able
• 4:28
  Speaker 5: to turn this election from a simple thermostatic up or
• 4:33
  Speaker 5: down typical midterm into a referendum on Republican extremism. embodied
• 4:38
  Speaker 5: by the decision of the Supreme Court in the Dobbs case.
• 4:41
  Speaker 5: And you saw Democratic turnout go up. You saw independents
• 4:45
  Speaker 5: who may have qualms about President Biden or are concerned
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: about inflation vote for Democrats because Democrats were running as
• 4:52
  Speaker 5: the bulwark against that extremism. And it allowed us to
• 4:55
  Speaker 5: dramatically outperform when anyone thought was possible in the House,
• 4:58
  Speaker 5: potentially hold the Senate with the obvious caveat that there
• 5:01
  Speaker 5: is a lot of vote to be counted. Some very
• 5:03
  Speaker 5: important Senate races that could go either way and could
• 5:07
  Speaker 5: tip this. We could still end all of this with
• 5:09
  Speaker 5: losing the House and the Senate, but the early results
• 5:12
  Speaker 5: show that the anti-MAGA pro-democracy majority in this country came
• 5:16
  Speaker 5: out to vote and sent a pretty powerful message in.
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: Blue and purple states. Dan, what do you think the
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: verdict is on the Mitch McConnell one-sentence answer, Canada equality matters?
• 5:27
  Speaker 5: I think that is, I mean, very, very clearly matters.
• 5:30
  Speaker 5: You can look at it in a couple of ways.
• 5:31
  Speaker 5: There are some Political environment, partisan makeup of states is
• 5:35
  Speaker 5: obviously the most important thing. So you saw very good
• 5:38
  Speaker 5: candidates like Tim Ryan fall along the lines of that state,
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: but in very, very close races.
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: And he probably pulled some of those house races over
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: the finish line. He probably won some seats in Ohio
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: because of Tim Ryan.
• 5:50
  Speaker 5: But you saw in, whether it is in Pennsylvania, it
• 5:53
  Speaker 5: is in governance races in Michigan, you saw good candidates
• 5:56
  Speaker 5: beat bad candidates. And if we hold on in Nevada
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: and win the runoff in Georgia. That will be yet
• 6:02
  Speaker 5: another example of the Republicans will have left a lot
• 6:04
  Speaker 5: of potential opportunities on the table because they ran very
• 6:07
  Speaker 5: bad candidates who were out of the mainstream, who embodied
• 6:10
  Speaker 5: that extremist message.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: In fact, where Republicans ran less Trumpy candidates, those candidates
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: outperformed the more MAGA candidates in those same states. So
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: like Mike DeWine in Ohio, outperformed J.D. Vance by a lot.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: Chris Sununu in New Hampshire outperformed Don Bolduc by a lot.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Brian Kemp in Georgia outperformed Herschel Walker by a lot.
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: Split ticket voters exist, people. Yeah, I know.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: It's impossible for everyone to believe it's a real thing.
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah, split ticket voters exist. Also, it looks like independence
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: just didn't break bad, which is really unusual.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: I do.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Hasn't ever happened in a midterm for the president's party
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: since like, what, 2002?
• 6:57
  Speaker 5: 2002 is the one modern political history exception to that rule.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: And in 2002, George W. Bush's approval rating was sky high,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: which is what happened. Joe Biden's approval rating as of
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: this midterm was the worst approval rating of any post-war
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: president to head.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: Into a midterm.
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: I want to understand more as we get more votes
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: and people look at it more closely. So McConnell saying
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: candidate quality matters was a dig at McCarthy because he
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: was saying people pay attention to their senators and not
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: as much to their House candidates. But yet we did
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: see a lot of these more extreme MAGA House candidates lose.
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: But then you have like a guy that was at
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: the insurrection winning on Long Island, which I think is
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: kind of strange. And so like how much of what
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: happened in these House races where it's closer than we
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: thought it would be is because there was this national
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: conversation about how extreme these Republicans have gotten, how much
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: of it was the breaking through of these individual candidates
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: and how terrible they were. And I just, I don't
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: think we know right now.
• 7:50
  Speaker 5: Yeah, there are some examples like, I think it's the
• 7:52
  Speaker 5: Marcy Kapp receipt in Ohio, which was gerrymandered for the
• 7:55
  Speaker 5: specific purpose of forcing her out. She won because of
• 7:58
  Speaker 5: a Trump endorsed candidate named J.R. Majewski, who lied about
• 8:00
  Speaker 5: his service in Afghanistan. It was a general nut job.
• 8:03
  Speaker 5: And like, that's one specific example. He got a ton
• 8:05
  Speaker 5: of attention, part because And we'll talk about this a
• 8:07
  Speaker 5: little later. Shine the spotlight on that candidate and nationalize
• 8:10
  Speaker 5: that race in a way that was actually helpful to Democrats.
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I kind of want to understand how much attention
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: does it take to get how bad a House candidate
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: is to cost them their seat? Because we have a
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: few places where there are some Trumpy people that won
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: in kind of more moderate districts. And then we have
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: cases like that where because it was so big and
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: it was so public, it seems like it mattered.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: I still think in the House.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: It's more about sort of larger structural environmental forces here.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, you were talking about the anti-Trump majority. I
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: remember talking to Michael Podhorzer for The Wilderness, like before
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: the election season started, or at least at the very beginning.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: And he said to me, he's like, I know Democrats
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: are nervous. Democrats have a lot of things to be
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: nervous about, but there is a path and that path
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: is the anti-Trump coalition showing up. And the best chance
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: to get them to show up is to make them
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: understand that the threat of Trumpism is still very real.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: And the threat of Republican extremism is still very real. Now, that,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: of course, was before Dobbs. And then Dobbs became the
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: greatest example of MAGA extremism. But also all of these
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: candidates that Trump had were also just terrible, terrible candidates.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: The economy was the top issue for voters. Three-fourths of
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: voters said it was fair or poor. Four-fifths said inflation
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: caused them either severe or moderate hardship. But Democrats still
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: won 40% of voters who said the economy was just, quote,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: not so good.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: So that was actually a big deal.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: It looks like slightly more Republicans turned out than Democrats.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: This was an R plus four electorate. But independents and
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: especially independent women broke for Democrats slightly and then broke
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: for Democrats by a bigger margin in the Senate races
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: in Arizona, Georgia, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania. Abortion was the
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: second most important issue for voters and the most important
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: issue for most Democrats, especially, in states where the outcome
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: of the race would determine the future of abortion access
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: in that state, like Pennsylvania and Michigan.
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: It's interesting, notable that abortion, obviously, we talked about this before,
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: but abortion was more salient in issues where the vote really,
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: really mattered, as opposed to California, where there's a constitutional
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: amendment now that will be in place soon. It's also
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: interesting and probably not surprising that independents broke particularly hard
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: against the wackiest Republican candidates. That makes sense.
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: I do. Just thinking back how we were feeling in
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: the days before, obviously the narrative had turned sour on
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: us and there were a lot of bad polls, but
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: there was this hope that we talked about it, that
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: we're lighting this candle for this Dobbs vote that's going
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: to be out there, that's going to show up. And
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: it does seem like that happened. It seemed like we
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: did have that Dobbs vote in a way that really
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: helped us.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: With independents and independent women.
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: Even in Kentucky.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: We'll have, you know, the data will come in in
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: the next month and we'll have more sort of like
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: demographic data. But in the initial exits that are now,
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: you know, weighted with some of the results, you see
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: that like young people made up slightly less of the
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: electorate than in 2018. There was some erosion among voters
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: of color. There's some erosion for Democrats among.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: White college voters.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: Voters, but still the coalition basically held that we had
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: in 2020 and 2018.
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: I also think it's worth just caveating that sometimes the
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: sub samples that you just mentioned within the exit polls.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: get changed drastically over time because you are not talking about,
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: you know, those are not the best numbers.
• 11:36
  Speaker 5: Unless they confirm our prior beliefs.
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: In which case, we'll cling to them.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: The point is they're better than they were last night
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: because overnight they sort of weight them to the results.
• 11:46
  Speaker 5: One other exit poll result that I think is worth
• 11:48
  Speaker 5: noting is that in Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania exit poll, abortion
• 11:50
  Speaker 5: was the number one issue, outpacing.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: Inflation by eight points.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: Because if Mastriano had won, they would have banned abortion.
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: I just mentioned it, but The fact that in Kentucky,
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: by polls, one of the most anti-abortion states, an anti-abortion
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: measure failed at the ballot box just tells you that
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: there really is, from Kansas to Kentucky to everywhere, this
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: big pro-choice majority that turned out. And I think that
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: that is, it's really hopeful.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the Senate. As of this recording, it's
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: still too early to call it. Mark Kelly is leading
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: in Arizona. Raphael Warnock is leading in Georgia, though it's
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: looking like that will definitely go to a runoff. Catherine
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Cortez Masto is behind in Nevada right now, but she
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: could end up winning once all the mail-in ballots are counted.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: We just don't know how many are out there or
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: where they are or what the split is, but we
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: should find out more about that today. But the big
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: win to celebrate right now is John Fetterman's victory over
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: the pee-drinking puppy killer from New Jersey.
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: John, take your boot off his neck. He lost.
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: Why'd you sit on that branding until today?
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: I like that.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: Dan knows that. We talked about that on the Thursday podcast.
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: You guys do a show on Thursdays?
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I know.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: It's probably pretty good. Here's a clip from Fetterman's victory speech.
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: This race.
• 13:12
  Speaker 6: Is for the future of every community all across Pennsylvania,
• 13:16
  Speaker 6: for every small town or person that ever felt left behind.
• 13:22
  Speaker 6: I'm proud of what we ran on. Protecting a woman's
• 13:26
  Speaker 6: right to choose. Raising our minimum wage.
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: Fighting the union way of life.
• 13:41
  Speaker 6: Healthcare is a fundamental human right. It saved my life
• 13:47
  Speaker 6: and it should all be there for you when you
• 13:49
  Speaker 6: ever should need it. Standing up to corporate greed. Making
• 13:58
  Speaker 6: more things right here in America and right here in Pennsylvania.
• 14:04
  Speaker 6: And standing up for our democracy.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: How did Fetterman do it?
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: I mean, I just want to say pour one out.
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: In this case, I guess a warm glass of pee
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: for all the people who had Fetterman's done because of
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: the debate takes. You know, look.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: Dan and I have made our.
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: Thoughts on this.
• 14:25
  Speaker 5: I like to be known that at 4.30 this morning,
• 14:28
  Speaker 5: I woke up to see what time it was. I
• 14:30
  Speaker 5: saw that John was texting with one of our friends
• 14:31
  Speaker 5: on the East Coast about Clark County mail-in ballots. At
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: that exact moment in time, he was also running through
• 14:36
  Speaker 5: his list of people, Democratic strategists who complained about Fetterman
• 14:39
  Speaker 5: trying to exact revenge on them.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: I was. It was like my Arya Starkala.
• 14:43
  Speaker 6: I like that.
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: I like that a lot. Good for you.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, yeah. Anyway, enough about that.
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: That's it. Anyway, I want to talk about how Fetterman
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: did it. I mean, it seems like he outran Biden
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: in some of the more rural counties and then did
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: incredibly well in Philadelphia.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: I mean, this is sort of the bath.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: The what we've talked about since Hillary almost won in
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: 2016 in Pennsylvania is no, you can't just focus on
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: the places where we drive up the boat in places
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: like Philadelphia. They have to drive down the margin. in
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: rural counties. He was explicit about that even in his
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: victory speech that he wanted to go to those places
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: to try from day one. And he was the right
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: person to do it.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: He outran Biden by eight to 10 points in a
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: lot of those rural counties that Trump won.
• 15:28
  Speaker 5: It's the Obama 2012 coalition is what he reconstituted.
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 15:32
  Speaker 5: With an added like sprinkling of suburban, former Romney suburban voters.
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: And I will also say that like, you know, there's
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: an online debate that probably doesn't translate into the real
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: world between.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: Like, Come on. Is it?
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: Make it, make it happen.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: Is it, is it economic issues? Is it kitchen?
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: There's the much maligned kitchen table issues, or is it
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: abortion and democracy? John Fetterman did all of the above.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: He talked, he talked about abortion a lot. He talked
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: about democracy, but he was relentless on talking about economic issues.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: He was focused on economic populism. Um, and he was
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: still progressive on issues like choice and, and marijuana legalization and,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: and stuff like that. So, He has criticized before John
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: Fetterman the sort of like left moderate ideological divide. He
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: says it's kind of phony and it's really about voters
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: wanting to know that you're someone who's going to fight
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: like hell for them. And that's exactly who John Fetterman is.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: And that's, I think, why he won.
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: He also did a very, I think, good job of
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: blunting some of the crime attacks that he was facing
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: just by, I think he never really got defensive. He
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: doesn't really do defensive in a way that I think
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: people should look at because even when he was getting
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: hit for being on the parole board. He never backed
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: away from talking about the importance of reform. He talked
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: importance of giving people a second chance. He didn't pivot
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: and say, no, no, no, I'm the tough on crime guy.
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: He kind of kept to his, he kept to what
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: people liked about him. And I think that that, I
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: think that was good.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:59
  Speaker 5: I mean, he's obviously a very non-traditional candidate. He was
• 17:01
  Speaker 5: running against a really non-traditional opponent, but it was the
• 17:05
  Speaker 5: classic way in which you just win a campaign. You
• 17:08
  Speaker 5: run everywhere. You take no vote for granted. the measure
• 17:12
  Speaker 5: that has almost always decided who's going to win or
• 17:15
  Speaker 5: lose is the question in the poll about who's going
• 17:17
  Speaker 5: to fight for you.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: Always.
• 17:18
  Speaker 5: He hammered that home. He had an actual economic plan.
• 17:22
  Speaker 5: He had a four-point plan. He mentioned it all the time.
• 17:24
  Speaker 5: Make shit at home. Take on corporate greed. It was good.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: It is the.
• 17:29
  Speaker 5: Model of what Democrats should do because we can talk
• 17:33
  Speaker 5: about some of the troubling trends in some of this
• 17:36
  Speaker 5: otherwise very good night, but if we want to have
• 17:39
  Speaker 5: a consistent shot at a Senate, Democratic Senate, and make
• 17:44
  Speaker 5: the Electoral College more friendly to us, we are going
• 17:46
  Speaker 5: to have to have the Fetterman coalition in all of
• 17:49
  Speaker 5: these states.
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: They also won with like the most enormous disadvantage you
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: could ever imagine, which is your candidate having a stroke
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: and not being able to campaign for months and months
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: and months and ran a relentlessly brutal, but funny and
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: lighthearted and devastatingly effective campaign to change the way people
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: think about Dr.
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: Oz.
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: It was so, so impressive.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: And made sure that he was framed as this out-of-touch
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: plutocrat that's not going to fight for you. I mean,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: I also, too, you know, we talked a lot in
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: the last couple episodes about, like, the media narrative is
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: mostly about the issues of democracy and abortion. But, like,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: when we were in Nevada with the candidates there and
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: we were with Katie Porter down in Orange County, like,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: Democrats in their speeches, in their ads, like, they all
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: had economic plans. They were all talking to volunteers about,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: you're going to hear inflation rise. when you, when you
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: knock on the doors, here's what you say about inflation.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: Here's what you do it.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: And don't forget to talk about protecting abortion access and
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: don't forget, you know, like it was just an all
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: of the above strategy and it worked.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: We were, I actually just went to look because, uh, uh,
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: Susie Lee, who we were with in Nevada, um, uh,
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: and is currently, that was one that Ralston thought we
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: might lose just kind of up by nothing.
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: We'll see if it holds.
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: Hopefully it does. Um, when we were doing a canvas
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: kickoff with her, she ran through all these issues, democracy
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: ran through abortion and, But then she said, you're going
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: to get questions about inflation. And here's how I want
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: you to talk about inflation. Talk about how serious it is.
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: Talk about how we're the people that are going to
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: address it. And I do think, you know, we talked
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: a lot in the run up about how we felt
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: like Democrats had a cleaner argument on abortion than they
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: were able to make on inflation. But I do think
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: Republicans just hoping that they could say, look at these
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: terrible Democratic cities. Look how bad things are. Crime, crime, immigration, immigration, inflation, inflation,
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: without having a clean message of their own of what
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: they're going to do really hurt them. Because Dr. Oz
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: had nowhere to go. None of these Republicans has anywhere
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: to go. And if even if we're winning 40 percent
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: of the people who said this was their most important issue,
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: that is a real failure on the part of Republicans
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: to make a clean message in a year where they
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: really could have succeeded.
• 19:49
  Speaker 5: It was a massive strategic miscalculation from McConnell and McCarthy
• 19:54
  Speaker 5: is they wanted to be the generic alternative. And by
• 19:56
  Speaker 5: being the generic alternative who stood for nothing, they created
• 19:59
  Speaker 5: a vacuum that Democrats filled with accurate pictures of their extremism.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: Well, you know who else filled that vacuum is Donald Trump.
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: Yes, and a lot of their candidates.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: And the Supreme Court.
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: But to contrast it on abortion access and Dobbs, Florida
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: Republicans passed a 15-week abortion ban. So there was a
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: law in place that they could point to and say,
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: this is our alternative. And, you know, look, Florida might
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: have been just sort of a uniquely weird situation this cycle,
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: but Democrats didn't seem to benefit from turnout around the
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: Dobbs decision in Florida like they did everywhere else. That
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: is true.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: What do we know about the outstanding votes in Arizona, Nevada,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: and what's going on with Georgia?
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: Georgia's likely to be runoff. Yeah. That's an easy answer.
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: In Nevada, we are... We thought we were waiting for
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: the county Reno is in and Clark County, which is
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: where Las Vegas was in. Then we got some of
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: the Reno vote, and it wasn't leaning towards Catherine Cortez Masto,
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: as we hoped. So now, in five minutes, we're recording
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: this in the morning on Wednesday. In five minutes, we're
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: going to find out how many votes there are outstanding
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: in Clark, which will tell us if Catherine Cortez Masto
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: can catch up. But either way, even whatever we're going
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: to hear, it's going to be incredibly close in Nevada.
• 21:12
  Speaker 5: The fundamental question in both Arizona and Nevada is, There's
• 21:17
  Speaker 5: a bunch of outstanding mail vote. Some portion of that
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: mail vote is mail ballots that were dropped off on
• 21:23
  Speaker 5: election day. There is some theory that those mail drop
• 21:27
  Speaker 5: off on election day voters are actually profile more like
• 21:30
  Speaker 5: in-person election day voters who profile as more Republican. So
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: the split between traditional mail balloting and in-person drop off
• 21:38
  Speaker 5: on election day, it helps will determine whether how much
• 21:42
  Speaker 5: outstanding Democratic vote there is in Arizona and Nevada. And
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: if it is We need a ton in Nevada. We
• 21:50
  Speaker 5: need to win the in-person drop-off at a very good
• 21:54
  Speaker 5: rate to make up the delta. In Arizona, the number
• 21:57
  Speaker 5: of in-person drop-offs and how those voters profile will determine
• 22:00
  Speaker 5: whether Masters and Kerry Lake can catch up to Kelly
• 22:04
  Speaker 5: and Hobbs.
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: And right now, Kelly is outrunning Hobbs by a few.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: So he's in better shape than she is. So as
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: you guys mentioned, Georgia's headed for a runoff.
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: How does Raphael Warnock win a runoff? And is it
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: easier or harder if the Dems have already won the
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: Senate by then?
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: I wrote a couple advantages and disadvantages.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: Cool.
• 22:29
  Speaker 5: Pro con list, eh?
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: Why not? Here's a couple. Kemp was on the ballot.
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: He will not be on the ballot this time. Democrats
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: are genuine. These are advantages for Warnock. Yeah, I'm doing
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: it from the perspective of Democrats.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: Democrats generally love Raphael Warnock because he's an incredible candidate,
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: senator in person. Republicans were holding their noses. And without
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: having other Republicans, they have to turn out just for
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: the purpose of electing the schmuck.
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: Fine.
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: If we manage to pull it out in Arizona, Nevada...
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: The fact that Senate control is not at stake would
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: make revving up enthusiasm more important. It would make it
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: more about the candidates themselves. And then as in 2020,
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: once again, we'll have a massive amount of Republican infighting
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: as the kind of, you know, story unfolding. Trump and DeSantis,
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: Trump going to Georgia, all of this arguing. And that
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: was that was extremely helpful in helping us gain the
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: majority vote. when Warnock and John Ossoff won the day
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: before the insurrection.
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: By the way, Kayleigh McEnany was on Fox News this
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: morning saying Ron DeSantis should go to Georgia and campaign
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: and that Donald Trump should not. So I'm sure that
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: landed well at Mar-a-Lago. At the 19th hole.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. We're going to get to him.
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: Oh, yeah.
• 23:38
  Speaker 6: Oh, God.
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: He's just.
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: There he is.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: Doing.
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: Putting and.
• 23:43
  Speaker 5: Raging.
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: Looking at Ivana's grave and.
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: Furious. He calls it.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: Apparently blaming Melania for Dr. Oz.
• 23:50
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: His future write off.
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah. And then if now disadvantage, if Senate control is
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: at stake, then it becomes a massive clusterfuck with Republicans
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: revving up the base. And that's what.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: I'm worried about. I'm worried about the.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: Hold your nose and vote for Herschel Walker because even
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: if you don't like him, Senate controls it.
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's my disadvantage.
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: That's my fear.
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: That's my fear.
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: And like, so, yeah.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: It's interesting.
• 24:13
  Speaker 5: The other question is, one of the takeaways we may
• 24:16
  Speaker 5: have from this election is that Democrats are now a
• 24:18
  Speaker 5: better midterm voting party because our coalition has changed and
• 24:23
  Speaker 5: we do very well in specials. We've done very well,
• 24:24
  Speaker 5: always in very well specials. We did particularly well in specials.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: Maybe that goes to runoff.
• 24:27
  Speaker 5: This will profile as a special election. So, I mean,
• 24:29
  Speaker 5: you can sort of argue it either way and the
• 24:31
  Speaker 5: political environment is going to matter a lot.
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: The point, if we go to a runoff, And the
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: Senate control is at stake. We're all going to be
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: freaking out and pushing everybody to do everything they can
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: because no one's going to know.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: And I think he has a good... Democrats have a
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: good argument there, which is Senate control is at stake.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: And this is about Joe Biden's ability to fill a
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: whole bunch of judicial vacancies. And let's remember the reason
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: that we're in this mess because of Dobbs is because
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: of judicial vacancies.
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: For sure.
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: And this is what's at stake in this election. I mean,
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: I think it's pretty clear. Check the Republican court. Make
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: sure we have the ability to confirm is good.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: Although, you know.
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: stop Joe Biden from confirming any more radical judges is
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: also going to work on the other side.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about the House.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: So as Lovett mentioned, the theory going into the election
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: was the candidate quality would matter less in House races,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: which would help Republicans pick up anywhere from 20 to
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: 40 seats. That isn't going to happen. So what did
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: happen with the House? Dan, what do you think? And
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: where do you think this ends up?
• 25:30
  Speaker 5: It's hard to say. There are a lot of outstanding
• 25:32
  Speaker 5: votes in California. We're probably not going to know the
• 25:34
  Speaker 5: answer about a whole bunch of California House races for weeks, maybe.
• 25:39
  Speaker 5: But it looks like it's going to be very, very close.
• 25:41
  Speaker 5: I think some of the projections are somewhere between a
• 25:43
  Speaker 5: one-seat Republican majority to a 13-seat Republican majority, depending on
• 25:47
  Speaker 5: how some of this stuff breaks. A lot of the
• 25:49
  Speaker 5: places Republicans had to win were in purple and blue states.
• 25:54
  Speaker 5: And purple and blue states voted just like in a
• 25:56
  Speaker 5: presidential election, not in a midterm election. It's certainly not
• 25:58
  Speaker 5: like the midterm election we expected. And so Democrats did better,
• 26:02
  Speaker 5: and they won mostly in seats that Joe Biden had won,
• 26:05
  Speaker 5: and with the one exception, which I know we'll get to.
• 26:07
  Speaker 5: And so Republicans then blew a bunch of races they
• 26:10
  Speaker 5: shouldn't have blown, like some of the ones we talked
• 26:12
  Speaker 5: about in Ohio that were Trump's fault. And therefore, they
• 26:17
  Speaker 5: blew a historic opportunity to take the House in a
• 26:20
  Speaker 5: pretty spectacular fashion.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: How much of a difference does it make if Republicans
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: have a small House majority versus a bigger one?
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: So Kevin McCarthy, by temperament and flaws at the core
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: of his being, was always going to be a weak speaker.
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: He just gives off a weak ability to be manipulated
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: kind of energy. Him needing to keep his entire caucus
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: together where three, four, two, whatever defections means he no
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: longer has a majority to pass things makes him extraordinarily meek.
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: It makes him someone who needs everybody, has to respond
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: to everybody. It also turns a lot of must-pass bills
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: into a real clusterfuck for him, where if he's losing
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: anybody and all of a sudden it's, do we shut
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: down the government or do I go walk across the
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: aisle and ask Nancy Pelosi for help, is going to
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: be a question that comes up more frequently. And that
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: will be in a climate in which everyone is fucking
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: furious at him for not delivering the bigger majority of
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: If he does manage to become the speaker, which he
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: still probably will, but man, it's pretty fucked.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: It seems like Marjorie Tova Green and that crew is
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: going to try to extract concessions from him to even
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: give in exchange for their support for him being speaker.
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: And listen, Donald Trump engages once every two years on
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: congressional strategy, and he's been shouting about using the weapon
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: of the debt ceiling against Democrats. So that's coming. that
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: train's coming down the tracks.
• 28:00
  Speaker 5: If the Democrats cannot eliminate or at least forestall the
• 28:04
  Speaker 5: death ceiling confrontation, and I know, and that is not
• 28:06
  Speaker 5: going to be Joe, that is going to be really
• 28:08
  Speaker 5: on Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to get that done.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 28:10
  Speaker 5: Cause you're gonna have to do it in reconciliation.
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: You mean during, you're talking about basically that they should
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: do it during the lame duck.
• 28:15
  Speaker 5: We have one last chance to take this detonator out
• 28:17
  Speaker 5: of the Republicans hands.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: But it's up to them.
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: It's up to Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.
• 28:20
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: But I mean, the other story of the house is clearly, uh,
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: Ron DeSantis' strength in a, in a, Florida gerrymander was
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: enormously helpful. And then for Democrats in New York, the
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: map we wanted got tossed out. Thank you, Andrew Cuomo.
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: And we lost a bunch of seats there. I wonder, though,
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: how much of New York Lee Zeldin running a surprisingly
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: strong race kind of pulled some of those Republican candidates
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: over the finish line.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I wanted to ask you guys about New York because,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: you know, everyone's first reaction, and this is a correct reaction,
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: is like, oh, we got screwed on the maps in
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: New York, right? And if If that, you know, Andrew
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: Cuomo's conservative judges didn't strike down the map, we might
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: win the House, which I think is true. But the
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: seats that we're losing, including Sean Patrick Maloney, the chair
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: of the DCCC, just lost his, are still Biden plus
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: five districts all the way to Biden plus 15 districts.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: And then Kathy Hochul only is five or six points
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: ahead of Lee Zeldin.
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: Chuck Schumer, who in his previous two elections, the Senate
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: won 66 percent, 70 percent is in the mid 50s.
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: After spending a lot of money, you look at the
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: upstate map, the bottom fell out. A lot of upstate
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: New York behaving like a lot of other kind of
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: rural whiter parts of the country, kind of reverting to
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: the mean.
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: There were a lot of indicators on the bad vibes
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: scorecard before the election. There was the economy, there was inflation,
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: there was a lot of Trafalgar polls. We can get
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: into that later. But then there was also the fact
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: that the president of the United States was campaigning in Yonkers,
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: which didn't make me feel great about sort of the
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: broader trends or what numbers people were probably seeing that
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: have more access to data than I do. But it
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: does seem like there's a weird Florida and a weird
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: New York story this year.
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'll also say too, so it does look like
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: we're losing a couple of these New York congressional, we'll
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: see what happens when it's all done, but we're going
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: to lose a couple by a point or two, win
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: I think one by a point or two, which means
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: everything mattered and New York had the chance to pass
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: a couple ballot measures, one of which would have kept
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: the better redistrict, the redistricting in place, but also New
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: York Democrats didn't get behind enough a measure that would
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: have gotten rid of this antiquated requirement that you have
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: to be registered 10 days in advance of election, and
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: that would have gotten rid of another dumb rule, which
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: requires an excuse for absentee ballot. So New York has
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: been behind in how accessible voting is compared to California, Colorado,
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: and a lot of even Republican states. They had an
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: opportunity to fix it. Republicans spent a ton of money
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: to stop those ballot measures. Democrats didn't do enough. And
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: it really could be that the control of the House
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: at stake and the fact that Sean Patrick Maloney who
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: kind of ran a bunch of shenanigans to put himself
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: in place because he was the guy that could win
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: the seat and then loses. It's just not been it's
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: not a great day to be a leader of the
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: New York Democratic Party.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: But what do the voters do? So I keep wondering, right,
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: like why?
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: I do think it might come down to something as
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: simple as there's cranky people all over the country.
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: Wrong track.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: And all these exit polls was like off the charts
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: in New York when it's just all Democrats in charge.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: from local all the way up to state, the only
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: thing you can do to express your distaste is to
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: vote against the Democrats.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, of course.
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, of course.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: That's true.
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: I mean, like two things can be true. One can
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: be that Democrats, Democrats really fucked up strategically. Another is that,
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: you know, Democrats that another can be that they just
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: had a bad, a bad, a bad night in a
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: few key places. Although I will say that, like, you know,
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: the district I my my district from growing up is
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: sending an insurrectionist to Congress, right? Like there's, it was
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: a very bad day in New York.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: So one of the biggest concerns about this midterm was
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: the number of election deniers running for offices that would
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: put them in charge of our elections, like governor, secretary
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: of state, just about all of them lost. Though we
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: are still waiting on final results in Arizona and Nevada, and,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: you know, Carrie Lake could end up being governor still.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: But there was a lot of pearl clutching over Democrats
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: employing various tactics, to boost some of these MAGA candidates
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: in the primaries. Any lessons from the results? Any reflections
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: on the democratic meddling, the much maligned democratic meddling?
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: The ends justify the means.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: They sure did.
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: Look, as somebody who lost a lot of money in
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: the casino recently, you can't win if you don't play.
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: I mean, listen, I grew up under the tutelage of
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: Mitch McConnell and Canada quality matters. And we learned that
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: in a lot of places.
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: Where did you grow up?
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: I was just making a joke. You guys all looked
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: at me like, really?
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: I didn't know you were. Were you a page? Yes.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: Are you Josh Holmes?
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: I'm not a high-heeled lobbyist, as Tim Miller calls him. Yeah,
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: he called him a lobbyist in lifts, I think.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: So funny.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: No, look, I realized there's a lot of strategists and
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: people who are very upset, Twitter strategists and people who
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: are very upset by this. But this is one for
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: Democratic strategists people who work on these campaigns, the DSCC,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: the DCCC, you know, they get a lot of shit.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: They did really well in this midterm. In this strategy
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: and others, like let's give these people their due. They
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: did really well.
• 33:29
  Speaker 5: I hate this conversation because it takes place in Twitter.
• 33:33
  Speaker 5: There's a very black and white thing. Like Democrats either
• 33:35
  Speaker 5: did it.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 33:36
  Speaker 5: Everything they did was exactly right or exactly wrong. And
• 33:38
  Speaker 5: it's different in every single case. If we had not
• 33:41
  Speaker 5: meddled in Pennsylvania and Doug Mastroianni was probably still winning
• 33:44
  Speaker 5: that race. He won by like 24 points. Same things
• 33:47
  Speaker 5: likely happen in a couple other places. And Trump endorsed
• 33:50
  Speaker 5: these people too. So was it the Democratic ads or
• 33:53
  Speaker 5: the endorsement of the very popular with a Republican base,
• 33:56
  Speaker 5: former president who looms larger of everything? We don't really know.
• 33:58
  Speaker 5: But the point is extreme candidates are less electable and
• 34:03
  Speaker 5: we want to run against extreme candidates. There is risk
• 34:05
  Speaker 5: in that for sure. And when Kerry Lake takes arizona
• 34:08
  Speaker 5: and succeeds from the union we might reap the some
• 34:12
  Speaker 5: of the uh the whirlwind there.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: But which for some reason is so hard for people
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: to understand especially twitter people right that extreme candidates are
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: easier to beat than than less extreme candidates but like
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: would you have rather maggie hassan run against chuck morse
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: in new hampshire i wouldn't have because now we could
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: be sitting here talking about how we not going to
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: get the senate.
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: Back it's a look it's um We live in an
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: uncertain world. It is a decision to try to maximize
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: your victories while taking a certain amount of risk. That
• 34:39
  Speaker 4: is looking to read down to our benefit right now.
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: It could have gone the other way, but you make
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: the best decision you can. Also, one other part of
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: this that always bothers me, Democratic consultants are not going
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: door to door putting a gun to Republican voters' heads.
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: It is based on a theory, the theory being the
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: Republican base has become so extreme and so radical. that
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: if you show them how awful these candidates are, they
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: will get behind them and show the other independent and
• 35:04
  Speaker 4: Democratic voters in these states how unpalatable and extreme the
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: Republican Party has gotten. Stepping back and letting Republicans nominate
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: someone who seems less extreme, even though that is not
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: giving Republicans what they actually want, is also a way
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: of kind of covering for what's become of the Republican Party.
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: So why would we do that? Why would we help
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: them in that way?
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: It's not our job to fix Republicans' problem. It's our
• 35:26
  Speaker 5: job to beat them. And in this case, we did.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: And the examples that worry me the most are like
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: the Cary Lake example. But as you point out, the
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: type of meddling was different in every election. And I
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: think in that one, it was like, some yahoo at
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: the arizona democratic party put out a press release saying
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: that she like supported barack obama once like that's not
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: a right that's not a lot of meddling.
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: And then and then in maryland uh when democrats helped
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: you know get a a far right candidate into the
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: nomination on for the governor's race larry hogan the very
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: popular republican governor declared the race was over the next
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: day and it was and we flipped the district we
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: flipped maryland baby massachusetts.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: So all this talk of election deniers brings us to
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: MAGA King Donald Trump, who might have had the worst
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: night of anyone. This is now the third election in
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: a row he has lost for the Republican Party. There
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: are reports that he's rip shit and that everyone in
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: the party is rip shit at him. Though, of course,
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: they're not saying it out loud or on the record.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: You know, everyone's very afraid, as usual. Meanwhile, Ron DeSantis
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: just had the best night of arguably any Republican in
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: the country.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: How does last night sound?
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: Change the dynamics of 2024 for Trump and the GOP?
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: I mean, like what Trump will always benefit from is
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: he has an army of pundit janitors mopping up after
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: him on primetime on Fox and Newsmax and OAN. So
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: they'll find a way to spin this. But Ron DeSantis
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: comes out of this thing looking like a political force
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: to be reckoned with. And that makes me happy in
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: the short term because it'll make Donald Trump very, very sad.
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: But it's nerve wracking in the long term. But I
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: do think like people who are looking for an alternative
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: to Trump are going to see DeSantis getting stronger and stronger.
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: And like the people who ran strongest last night were
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: Republicans were DeSantis. Uh, and then Brian Kemp in Georgia,
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: who kicked the shit out of a handpicked Trump candidate
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: in a primary and then one overwhelmingly because of perceived
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: distance from Donald Trump that helped him to get independent.
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: So, I mean, Unfair as that was, you know? Yeah.
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: Look, I mean, I wish Stacey Abrams had won as well,
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: but like, you know, I think Trump attacking Kemp probably
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: helped him. So I look, it was not a good,
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: it was a very, very bad showing for MAGA world.
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: I mean, it should come as no surprise that Trump
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: has terrible taste. And I mean, his choices for candidates,
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: if Democrats hold on here, it will be Donald Trump's fault.
• 37:57
  Speaker 5: He gave the Republicans bad candidates. They did easier for
• 38:00
  Speaker 5: Democrats to win. He cost them a whole bunch of
• 38:02
  Speaker 5: house seats. He cost them governorships. And that is on him,
• 38:06
  Speaker 5: and that is only on him. And as we talked
• 38:08
  Speaker 5: before this election, this was going to be this incredibly
• 38:10
  Speaker 5: unpredictable election. And what hurt Republicans is, one, Trump picked
• 38:16
  Speaker 5: bad candidates, forced them on them. But then also, Donald
• 38:20
  Speaker 5: Trump is very, very unpopular. There were only a small
• 38:23
  Speaker 5: slice of people who did not like Donald Trump who
• 38:25
  Speaker 5: voted for a Republican. Joe Biden, also struggling in the polls.
• 38:29
  Speaker 5: But a much larger swath of people who were not
• 38:32
  Speaker 5: particularly pleased with Joe Biden were willing to vote for Democrats.
• 38:34
  Speaker 5: Because Donald Trump had to make this election about him.
• 38:36
  Speaker 5: He picked the candidates. He did the rallies. He teased
• 38:40
  Speaker 5: his presidential endorsement the night before the election.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: Also, he made all of his handpicked candidates embrace the
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: big lie about the last election. And it turns out
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: that's not very popular with voters.
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: And didn't he raise $ 100 million and spend $ 15 million?
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: I mean, he kind of like, he didn't do all
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: he could here. He didn't leave it all in the field.
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: Guys, let's... Chill out. Keep this talk up. He might
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: not announce it next week.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, the only way it could have gone worse
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: is if only he had followed his own instincts. and
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: announced on Monday night that he was running. That's the
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: only way it could have gone worse.
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: You've got to announce your next movie before your current
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: movie comes out.
• 39:15
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think he made a mistake. I think he
• 39:16
  Speaker 5: should have announced it first. His instincts were right.
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: He got talked out of it. He wanted to do
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: it Monday night.
• 39:21
  Speaker 5: He knew what was going to happen.
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: He was right.
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: He was right.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: Well, now it seems much more likely that we get
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: a Trump-DeSantis primary. And we're going to now go through
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: another round of... do the conservative elites and the conservative
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: media have the sway to actually help defeat Donald Trump
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: or are they just going to fall in line? The
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: Murdochs this morning are already fluffing DeSantis. Uh, they're on
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: the new, they've been on that train for a while
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: on the New York, you know, cover the New York post.
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: Oh, DeSantis.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: And, uh, some of the Fox pundits have been talking
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: up DeSantis. Like you said, Kayleigh McEnany, former Trump white
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: house press secretary.
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: It's, you know, there's a.
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: Look, who knows what's going to happen. Uh, we don't even,
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: we don't know if DeSantis is going to do it
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: or not. Obviously he's going to be getting his phone
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: is just people telling him to run today. Uh, but
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: everyone seems to, even the people that maybe correctly say, Hey,
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: DeSantis is a much better national figure for the Republican
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: Party than Donald Trump. They seem to skip this part
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: where that requires beating Donald Trump in an election and
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: then him doing what? Like being cool with.
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: That for a while?
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: The path for Ron DeSantis becoming the Republican nominee runs
• 40:27
  Speaker 4: through Donald Trump either you lose to him or you
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: make him lose. And Donald Trump losing to Ron DeSantis
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: makes it existential for Trump that DeSantis go on to lose.
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: His ego requires it. So it's like, I don't see
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: how all this I don't see how this DeSantis train
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: doesn't run into this, um, uh, you know, uh, Trump train,
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: Trump train. I was trying to figure out like, could
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: Trump be, uh, uh, I forgot the word herd, a
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: herd of cows on the tracks.
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: That wouldn't have been better.
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: I don't think it would have been. That's why, that's
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: why I hesitated.
• 41:03
  Speaker 5: Um, all right.
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: How about Joe Biden? So, How about Joe Biden?
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: His approval rating in all the exits, again, was the
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: worst of any post-war president at this point in his term,
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: including Trump. And yet he is on track to have
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: the best midterm results of any post-war president. How do
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: we explain that? What does it mean for Joe Biden's future?
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: A senior White House official told Playbook this morning he's running.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: Who wants to take that first?
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think politics is pretty binary.
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: And the national narrative will be like a win is
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: a win is a win. And if I were them,
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: I would run out in front of as many cameras
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: as I could and take credit for this. And I
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: think that's what's going to happen today. Whether these results
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: show like strength under the hood, I think is a
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: far more nuanced debate that is answered in some of
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: the exit polls.
• 41:47
  Speaker 4: If we had woken up today and we were looking
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: at the bloodbath scenario, we were worried that could be
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: the case on Monday night. Everyone would be talking about
• 41:58
  Speaker 4: Biden has to say he's not running. Biden's done. Biden's done.
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: Biden's done. And none of those people today are going
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: to say that the opposite is true. But Joe Biden is.
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: He's well aware what people have said if he would
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: have lost. So how could he not view this as
• 42:14
  Speaker 4: a validation of his case?
• 42:16
  Speaker 5: I think if you want to try to unpack what
• 42:18
  Speaker 5: role Joe Biden played in this, here are the positive
• 42:21
  Speaker 5: things I can say. Passing the inflation reduction act gave
• 42:25
  Speaker 5: Democrats something to run on. That was no question ever.
• 42:28
  Speaker 5: a jolt of enthusiasm for Democrats. Remember how depressing the
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: party was in late July and August after like a
• 42:35
  Speaker 5: raft of failures.
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: Didn't Joe Manchin pass that?
• 42:40
  Speaker 5: Someone named Joe was involved. I don't really know. Joe Scarborough?
• 42:46
  Speaker 5: And then he also had, unlike Trump, had the self-discipline
• 42:49
  Speaker 5: to not make it about himself. It's very obvious the
• 42:52
  Speaker 5: data showed that in the core battleground states, President Biden
• 42:56
  Speaker 5: and Vice President Harris were not going to be a
• 42:58
  Speaker 5: net benefit with the voters who were still making their decision.
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden was in Yonkers and Kamala Harris was at UCLA.
• 43:04
  Speaker 4: She's campaigning door to door right now.
• 43:06
  Speaker 5: That's not an easy decision for politicians to make, right?
• 43:09
  Speaker 5: They did that. What it says about 2024 and his
• 43:15
  Speaker 5: ability to win, we don't really know that. I don't
• 43:17
  Speaker 5: think you will ever know that. This is an election
• 43:19
  Speaker 5: that happened where really It was not about Joe Biden.
• 43:24
  Speaker 5: And that was good for Democrats. And then he, you know,
• 43:27
  Speaker 5: what comes next will come next, but how the next
• 43:29
  Speaker 5: several months played out. And he, you know, if he
• 43:32
  Speaker 5: abides by, you know, besides the one random White House
• 43:35
  Speaker 5: aide trying to send a message to the FEC this
• 43:37
  Speaker 5: morning via playbook, the, I mean, Joe Biden's timetable, as
• 43:41
  Speaker 5: we've understood it to date, is that he would operate
• 43:44
  Speaker 5: on the same timetable that Barack Obama used for his reelection,
• 43:47
  Speaker 5: which was In announcement, I think ours was like on
• 43:50
  Speaker 5: April 1st or early April of 2011. So there's a
• 43:55
  Speaker 5: several month period here. Some of the reporting suggests that
• 43:58
  Speaker 5: he's going to talk to his family and he's going
• 43:59
  Speaker 5: to talk to Jill and, you know, confirm a decision
• 44:01
  Speaker 5: that is leading towards running. The next many months play
• 44:05
  Speaker 5: out will sort of shape that political environment and will
• 44:07
  Speaker 5: include likely some pretty harsh confrontations with a new Republican Congress. Yeah.
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: The really negative indicator was the exit poll that said
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: 66 percent of respondents do not want Joe Biden to
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: run for president again. Now, that number can change over
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: time when the economy gets better, inflation goes down, et cetera. But,
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: you know, that would probably that no one likes that number.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: Well, and you said if the economy gets better. I mean,
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: I think this is like, look, I am a big
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: fan of how Joe Biden has governed as president. I
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: will forever be grateful for him for the fact that
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: he beat Donald Trump and got rid of Donald Trump.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: He has governed really well. I'm a huge fan of
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: his agenda. He has basically done everything that the Democratic
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: Party's base has asked him to do that is within
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: his power to do, right? And I do not think
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: it is his fault that we are dealing with inflation
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: right now, particularly because inflation is up all over the world.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: But if inflation persists, if the economy tips into recession,
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: if there is some combination of both, then like fairly
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: or not, he is going to be held responsible for
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: by voters for those economic conditions. And we already saw
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: in this election how many people are holding him responsible
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: for that. And we already saw that all these Democratic
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: candidates who outran Joe Biden in their states, they didn't
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: just not have Joe Biden campaign with them. They were
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: actively running ads touting their independence from Joe Biden, criticizing
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden on a whole bunch of issues, saying that
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: they don't vote with Joe Biden all the time, that
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: they disagree with him on certain issues. And so like
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: I do you know, I do wonder about, like, you're right,
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: the White House is going to tout this as like
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: a big Biden win. But I think it was, and
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: I think he did everything that you said, Dan, to
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: help make that win possible. But I think this was
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: really Democratic candidates in these states sort of running their
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: own race here.
• 45:58
  Speaker 4: And part of doing what it took to win was
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: not being in some of the key states and key places. Yeah, look,
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: I also think this is probably the least, this is
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: going to be the hardest time to have a conversation
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: about this. Joe Biden is having the best performance in
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: the midterm of any president besides George W. Bush after 9-11.
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: But again, we will face the same question. Yeah, a
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: lot of people look at Joe Biden and say, he's
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: too old. That's what I'm talking about. That's the issue.
• 46:26
  Speaker 4: And a lot of people are going to look at,
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: it's not just going to be about, do they want
• 46:30
  Speaker 4: Joe Biden to run again? We're going to have the
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: same conversation we had in 2020, which is like, who
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: is the alternative? Who is going to step up? Is
• 46:37
  Speaker 4: that a valid alternative? And are those people going to
• 46:40
  Speaker 4: start making that noise in the next few months as
• 46:43
  Speaker 4: the memory of this midterm fades and we start to
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: kind of understand the broader environment that we'll be heading into?
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: I just think we don't know.
• 46:51
  Speaker 5: When we dig into the results here, this is like
• 46:53
  Speaker 5: a lot of votes will be counted, but this is
• 46:55
  Speaker 5: undoubtedly a very, very good night for Democrats. We averted
• 46:58
  Speaker 5: an absolute catastrophe, which a lot of historical political indicators
• 47:01
  Speaker 5: said should have happened. We could have woken up today
• 47:04
  Speaker 5: losing 40 House seats, losing the Senate. losing, you know,
• 47:07
  Speaker 5: with big lie believers in charge of the electoral apparatus
• 47:10
  Speaker 5: in almost all of the battleground states. That did not happen.
• 47:13
  Speaker 5: Donald Trump could have a burst of momentum behind him.
• 47:15
  Speaker 5: That did not happen. There are underneath it some, like,
• 47:19
  Speaker 5: tough questions or troubling trends that we are going to
• 47:22
  Speaker 5: have to wrestle with. The electoral map got much more narrow.
• 47:26
  Speaker 5: Florida is gone. Ohio is gone.
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: We haven't talked about Texas, but not a lot of
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: good news out of Texas last night.
• 47:32
  Speaker 5: And the more narrow that map gets, the fewer paths
• 47:35
  Speaker 5: a Democrat has to 270. It also speaks to a
• 47:38
  Speaker 5: narrowing of our coalition and that we continue to struggle
• 47:42
  Speaker 5: with in rural areas with white voters, non-college, potentially, we
• 47:46
  Speaker 5: don't know yet, but some erosion with black and Latino voters,
• 47:51
  Speaker 5: even though they overwhelmingly support the Democrats. That's in the
• 47:54
  Speaker 5: exit polls. We have to see in precinct level data
• 47:56
  Speaker 5: if that's real. And then another one of those is
• 48:00
  Speaker 5: it is very hard to run for re-election if the
• 48:01
  Speaker 5: vast majority of the country doesn't want you to run. Now,
• 48:03
  Speaker 5: as Tommy said, that can change. We can't allow the
• 48:06
  Speaker 5: good news. which we should celebrate and enjoy and take
• 48:09
  Speaker 5: all of our energy and not worry about this until
• 48:11
  Speaker 5: after the Georgia runoff. But think about those questions, because
• 48:14
  Speaker 5: we have a lot of work to do before 2024,
• 48:16
  Speaker 5: whether Joe Biden runs or not, to address those things.
• 48:19
  Speaker 5: And the economy is a huge part of that.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: A huge part of it. I think even more than
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: the age issue, right? If we are in a recession,
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: there's inflation. I don't care who you are. I don't
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: care if you're the most talented politician in the world.
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: It's just really tough.
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: And look, I think the upside of this is, the
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: good news here is- you know, we now know that
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: the next Democratic candidate has to win Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, right?
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: That's it.
• 48:46
  Speaker 5: That's the path.
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: And we have now seen, we've been worried about like
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: a Democratic bench, Josh Shapiro, Gretchen Whitmer, hopefully Mark Kelly,
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: John Fetterman, right? Raphael Warnock, hopefully, right? We have just
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: seen a whole bunch of Democratic candidates, younger Democratic candidates
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: who are like mainstream Democrats who united the The progressive
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: and moderate wings of the party win in really tough states.
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: Like, that's good news.
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and we get some people to model success. So
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: every candidate should go and talk to the people on
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: John Fetterman's team to talk to them about how they
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: thought through and executed a messaging strategy. Everyone running a
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: campaign should go talk to organizers in Michigan to see
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: how they figured out how to flip the state house
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: and the Senate, keep the governor's race, take control of
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: the state government, keep the Supreme Court, the AG, pass
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: an abortion ballot measure, a voting rights ballot measure, and
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: then go hang out for a who did an unbelievable
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: amount of work over the course of years building, organizing,
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: like putting together an organization in an incredibly difficult state
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: and are probably the reason that we kept that governor seat.
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: Ben Wickler is a hero.
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: Truly. I mean, this whole team.
• 49:53
  Speaker 5: Cannot even say how dangerous a situation we would be
• 49:56
  Speaker 5: in right now if Tim Michaels was the Republican governor
• 49:59
  Speaker 5: of Wisconsin with the Republican legislature when it came time
• 50:02
  Speaker 5: to certify in the 2024 votes in Wisconsin.
• 50:04
  Speaker 4: A person who said that the Democrat would never win
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: in the state again.
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: And by the way, we should say that the Wisconsin
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: Republicans did not win a supermajority in that legislature, which
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: was going to render Tony Evers like just, you know.
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: Unfortunately, probably looks like we're losing that Senate seat if
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: it's not been called yet. Yeah, I do also. Right.
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it has been.
• 50:23
  Speaker 4: I was going to like, look, we're recording this on Wednesday.
• 50:27
  Speaker 4: We could have had this great night and still lose
• 50:29
  Speaker 4: the Senate, still lose the House. That is very much
• 50:31
  Speaker 4: in play. But what I was feeling just last night
• 50:33
  Speaker 4: and watching this all come in is. I think a
• 50:35
  Speaker 4: lot of us, all of us who pay attention really closely,
• 50:37
  Speaker 4: it's this feeling of like, do people care about these things? Like,
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: do they care about democracy? Like, do they care? Will
• 50:43
  Speaker 4: they actually show up? Like, does it matter that there
• 50:45
  Speaker 4: are these people out there that don't believe in democracy,
• 50:47
  Speaker 4: that believe the 2020 was stolen? Like, is this breaking through? Like,
• 50:53
  Speaker 4: are these crime attacks gonna work? Are people really, like,
• 50:56
  Speaker 4: are people gonna be kind of buffeted by all this
• 50:58
  Speaker 4: misinformation and propaganda? And this is another election in a
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: row where right-wing fear-mongering just didn't deliver for them. It
• 51:07
  Speaker 4: really didn't. And it's another election where, despite our worst fears,
• 51:12
  Speaker 4: there really is a majority out there that is paying
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: attention enough to reject some of the most extreme and
• 51:16
  Speaker 4: radical people. And that continues to be true. And I
• 51:19
  Speaker 4: think that is a broader reason just to be hopeful
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: as we head into this slog of the next two years.
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: Hey, Tina Kotek wins in the Oregon governor's race. Pate
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: of America bounce.
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: Boom.
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: Nice.
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: More importantly, any thoughts on the polls? Is this the
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: end for... Trafalgar, who won the Nade Off? Is Simon
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: Rosenberg our god now?
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: I think so.
• 51:40
  Speaker 5: Yes, on Simon Rosenberg.
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: I mean, Dan, correct me if I'm wrong. It seems
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: like good pollsters did well, shitty pollsters did badly. Like,
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: Ann Seltzer nailed the Iowa results. I think she got identical.
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: The final New York Times polls were good. But, like,
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: it was hard knowing how well Trafalgar did last cycle
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: to tune those polls out. But they had... They had
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: Bolduck beating Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire. They had Zeldin
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: beating Hockle in New York. And they had Michael Bennett
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: winning by only one point in Colorado. And he just
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: mopped up. And those are huge misses. And what those
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: misses did is they also impacted the 538s and the
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: aggregators who have the very difficult job of trying to
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: figure out how to incorporate or not incorporate those polling outfits.
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: So that's a hard job. I don't know how I
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: would do it better, but I do think it's an
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: industry that is really struggling to keep you know, pace
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: with methodology to account for no one answering the phone.
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: And then just these partisan outlets like flooding the place.
• 52:37
  Speaker 5: Whether it's because the polls worked or we just got
• 52:40
  Speaker 5: lucky because Trafalgar has its ratings because for the same
• 52:43
  Speaker 5: reason that a broken clock is right twice a day,
• 52:45
  Speaker 5: they just have a pro-Trump bias. And in states that have,
• 52:48
  Speaker 5: that were Trump over-performs, they're right. And when he underperforms,
• 52:50
  Speaker 5: they don't. But the polls were right. They're not precise instruments.
• 52:57
  Speaker 5: They have something called a margin of error. These races
• 52:59
  Speaker 5: fell within the margin of error.
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: As advertised.
• 53:01
  Speaker 5: The Democratic panic that happened over the last couple, which
• 53:06
  Speaker 5: I very much felt over the week before the election,
• 53:10
  Speaker 5: did not show up in the polls. It showed narrowing
• 53:12
  Speaker 5: in the polls, but didn't show Republicans winning. And then
• 53:14
  Speaker 5: Democrats ended up winning- the close races by within the
• 53:18
  Speaker 5: margin of error of the polls.
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: And, and I do think one of one part of
• 53:20
  Speaker 4: the freak out was the fear that the polls would
• 53:23
  Speaker 4: show the same bias that they had in the previous races.
• 53:25
  Speaker 4: And that didn't happen. Yeah.
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: Which that was a real fear.
• 53:28
  Speaker 5: There's still some question I think in Ohio where there
• 53:30
  Speaker 5: are some good polls, you know, like a data for
• 53:32
  Speaker 5: progress poll kind of nailed the Tim Ryan, JD Vance race.
• 53:35
  Speaker 5: Others had it much closer than it seemed like we,
• 53:38
  Speaker 5: I think there's still a challenge in some of those
• 53:39
  Speaker 5: States have a high percentage of rural voters and non-college
• 53:42
  Speaker 5: white voters. That's sort of the Trumpier States, but in general,
• 53:46
  Speaker 5: Polls are supposed to give us a general idea of
• 53:48
  Speaker 5: how things are going to go. They're not supposed to
• 53:50
  Speaker 5: tell us exactly what's going to happen so we can
• 53:51
  Speaker 5: modulate our emotions in advance.
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: And they did.
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: And they did. I like to live on the roller coaster.
• 53:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: And I will say that, you know, New York Times-Siena,
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: which is an A-plus pollster, like their Senate race polls
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: and those House polls were very accurate, very close, which
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: was pretty good for them. And I know they've worked
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: hard at figuring out the non-response issue, including like trying,
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: like paying some people to take posts.
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: Trafalgar, real clear politics.
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: Buh-bye. No, we don't, we don't.
• 54:17
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: That's your, you embarrassed yourself.
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: And good for Simon Rosenberg.
• 54:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: And Tom Bonior, too.
• 54:23
  Speaker 4: You want to tell anybody who's introducing this concept, I think.
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: These are people who are very frustrated about partisan polls.
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: We did a whole segment on this.
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: It's a new episode.
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: Simon Rosenberg, Democratic strategist who, as we said last pod,
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: was saying that the Republican-leaning polls flooding the zone were screwing.
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: Up the averages. Designed for a narrative change.
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: And Tom Bonior at Target Smart, who's been on this
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: pod before as well, he was modeling the early vote
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: and saying that the early vote was not Definitely showing
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: a Democratic win, but at least not showing a red card.
• 54:53
  Speaker 5: That part was definitely correct.
• 54:56
  Speaker 4: All right, guys.
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: Well, that's all we have.
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: We'll be back next week, and hopefully we'll have a
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: whole bunch more results to talk about.
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: But for now, good night.
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: Well done. Well done, everyone. Yeah.
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner-Bernstein.
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: Our producers are Haley Muse and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed
• 55:22
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• 55:25
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• 55:28
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• 55:31
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• 55:34
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• 55:38
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