Latest / The Front / Why do Democrats keep choosing the wrong candidates?
Transcript
- 0:04Speaker 1: From The Australian, here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
- 0:07Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, November 3, 2026. What's fair when it comes
- 0:13Speaker 1: to the tax treatment of investment properties? The Australians are
- 0:17Speaker 1: revealing today the construction sector's worried the government's rule about
- 0:21Speaker 1: new builds being exempt from negative gearing and capital gains
- 0:24Speaker 1: tax might discourage investors from renovating or renewing houses. The
- 0:31Speaker 1: Australian's economics editor Matt Cranston is reporting this morning on
- 0:35Speaker 1: a $ 170 billion black hole in the May budget. That's
- 0:38Speaker 1: the one that's already caused months of headaches for the government.
- 0:42Speaker 1: Those stories are exclusives live now at theaustralian.com.au. The midterms
- 0:49Speaker 1: are on in America and you'd expect voters to give
- 0:52Speaker 1: the widely unpopular Donald Trump the kind of walloping presidents
- 0:56Speaker 1: can usually expect in congressional and state elections. But The
- 1:00Speaker 1: Democrats are fracturing over candidate choice and tactics, and the
- 1:04Speaker 1: Republicans can't decide whether to embrace Trump or disavow him. Today,
- 1:09Speaker 1: Cameron Stewart on what to watch in the wild ride ahead.
- 1:16Speaker 1: The Democrats seem to have a knack for choosing the
- 1:18Speaker 1: wrong candidate, whether it's Kamala Harris or Hillary Clinton. Cameron
- 1:23Speaker 1: Stewart is the Australian's chief international correspondent, and he's been
- 1:26Speaker 1: in the United States as Americans prepare to vote in
- 1:29Speaker 1: the midterms. Cam, have the Democrats done a better job
- 1:32Speaker 1: this time of choosing candidates who Americans actually want to
- 1:35Speaker 1: vote for?
- 1:36Speaker 2: Well, it depends where you look at it. Sometimes they've
- 1:38Speaker 2: chosen the right candidate. The problem for the Democrats, Claire,
- 1:41Speaker 2: is that there's effectively a real power tussle between the
- 1:44Speaker 2: left wing of the Democrats, the one that's represented by AOC,
- 1:47Speaker 2: Bernie Sanders, et cetera, and the more centrist wing of
- 1:51Speaker 2: the Democrats, you know, the Bill Clinton sort of world,
- 1:53Speaker 2: if you like. And they're having a rumble about who
- 1:56Speaker 2: should take precedence. And so what you've actually seen is
- 1:59Speaker 2: the Democrats have chosen some candidates who are quite to
- 2:02Speaker 2: the left. And we've never had a better example of
- 2:05Speaker 2: this than what's happening in Michigan at the moment with
- 2:07Speaker 2: the candidate there, 41-year-old Abdul El-Saeed.
- 2:11Speaker 3: You might have noticed the president and the vice president
- 2:14Speaker 3: can't keep my name out their mouth. They don't even
- 2:17Speaker 3: know what my name is half the time. It's okay.
- 2:19Speaker 3: My job is to make sure that in a couple
- 2:21Speaker 3: of days, they don't have to remember my name.
- 2:23Speaker 2: They can go on and call me Senator. All he
- 2:28Speaker 2: is a Muslim. He's very left on the Democrat spectrum.
- 2:31Speaker 2: And Michigan is a state that has voted twice for
- 2:34Speaker 2: Donald Trump. And so it's a big risk that Democrats
- 2:37Speaker 2: have taken there. It would have been an easy Senate
- 2:40Speaker 2: seat to win. They can't afford to lose it. And
- 2:42Speaker 2: El-Sayed is only a couple of points up ahead of
- 2:45Speaker 2: his Republican candidate, Mike Rogers. I think that's a really
- 2:48Speaker 2: good example of where Democrats have taken some unnecessary risks
- 2:53Speaker 2: in these midterms. And if they lost Michigan and therefore
- 2:56Speaker 2: lost the Senate, that would be really shooting themselves in
- 2:59Speaker 2: the foot big time.
- 3:01Speaker 1: His opponent for the Democratic nomination was a woman called
- 3:04Speaker 1: Haley Stevens, who's now endorsing the Republican.
- 3:08Speaker 4: I think people are sick of this hate and division.
- 3:10Speaker 4: You know, they don't want negativity. I'm not trying to
- 3:12Speaker 4: hurt anyone. I'm still a very proud Democrat. I plan
- 3:16Speaker 4: to stay in the Democratic Party. Just a Democrat for Rogers.
- 3:20Speaker 1: What's that about?
- 3:21Speaker 2: It's an extraordinary moment in America. Even by American politics standards, Claire,
- 3:25Speaker 2: that's a big thing to say. It's an extraordinary moment.
- 3:28Speaker 2: So Hailey Stevens is a more traditional Democrat, pro-Israeli, and
- 3:33Speaker 2: El-Sayed is vehemently anti-Israeli. In fact, he said things that
- 3:37Speaker 2: many people interpret as anti-Semitic.
- 3:40Speaker 3: I don't know what else to call that except for
- 3:42Speaker 3: a genocide. Like when you target the Palestinian people as
- 3:44Speaker 3: a function of their being Palestinian and then try to
- 3:47Speaker 3: move them into neighboring countries because they speak the same language,
- 3:51Speaker 3: you commit war crime after war crime targeting their infrastructure,
- 3:55Speaker 3: their schools, their hospitals. I don't know what else to
- 3:58Speaker 3: call that.
- 3:59Speaker 2: He's very much of that left wing of the Democrat
- 4:01Speaker 2: Party who's really fallen out with Israel. So they had
- 4:04Speaker 2: a Barney with their primary. He narrowly won over Stevens.
- 4:08Speaker 2: And they've had a very uneasy relationship in the months since,
- 4:12Speaker 2: but it came to a climax just a couple of
- 4:14Speaker 2: days ago, late last week. There was an outside group
- 4:17Speaker 2: of supporters that did an ad for El-Sayed, which was
- 4:20Speaker 2: a pretty nasty ad. It was saying they can't afford
- 4:22Speaker 2: to buy groceries because they've got to pay $ 7 to
- 4:25Speaker 2: the US government to bomb Palestinians in Gaza. It was
- 4:28Speaker 2: a nasty ad. And Stevens demanded that El-Sayed distance himself
- 4:33Speaker 2: from the ad. He refused to do so. And so
- 4:36Speaker 2: what happened on Sunday is, was she went to a
- 4:39Speaker 2: church service where the Republican candidate Mike Rogers was, and
- 4:42Speaker 2: she endorsed him. I mean, rather than just sit it out,
- 4:44Speaker 2: she actually endorsed him. And this is a mushroom cloud
- 4:48Speaker 2: over Michigan politically today as a result of that. I mean,
- 4:52Speaker 2: the Democrats have gone nuts. Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader,
- 4:56Speaker 2: said it was incredibly duplicitous and a huge betrayal of
- 5:01Speaker 2: the Democrat ideals. Nancy Pelosi, the veteran Democrat, came out.
- 5:04Speaker 2: Of course, Donald Trump loved it. He invited Hayley Stephens
- 5:07Speaker 2: to join the Republican Party. But we just don't know
- 5:10Speaker 2: what impact this will have on LCA's campaign. It's an
- 5:12Speaker 2: extraordinary situation.
- 5:18Speaker 1: Usually in midterms, the sitting president loses some bark. In
- 5:21Speaker 1: this instance, the widespread expectation was that Donald Trump, who
- 5:24Speaker 1: is in the last two years of his final term,
- 5:26Speaker 1: would lose a lot of bark. He's polling in the
- 5:29Speaker 1: 30s in terms of approval. All the Democrats really had
- 5:32Speaker 1: to do was kind of not annoy anyone, wasn't it,
- 5:35Speaker 1: to do well in this election?
- 5:37Speaker 2: Pretty much. They were the Steve Bradbury of politics, you know.
- 5:40Speaker 2: They just had to stay on the ice. But really,
- 5:42Speaker 2: they have made some big mistakes. And the other extraordinary
- 5:45Speaker 2: controversy is the controversy in Alaska with what they call
- 5:49Speaker 2: the two Dan Sullivan scandals, where the Republican Senate nominee,
- 5:54Speaker 2: Dan Sullivan, is running against a Democrat contender. But the Democrats,
- 5:58Speaker 2: the campaign team, decided to try and find another Dan
- 6:02Speaker 2: Sullivan to put into the race to try and confuse
- 6:05Speaker 2: and split the Republican vote. The Republicans wouldn't know which
- 6:09Speaker 2: Dan Sullivan they should vote for. So they found a
- 6:11Speaker 2: Dan Sullivan in a small fishing village and who actually
- 6:14Speaker 2: agreed to run. And so that's how it happened. So
- 6:16Speaker 2: it was really a dirty tricks campaign by the Democrats.
- 6:19Speaker 2: And the Republicans have gone nuts and they're trying to
- 6:22Speaker 2: work out any legal avenues to try and disavow the
- 6:26Speaker 2: outcome in Alaska, which is a very important state in
- 6:29Speaker 2: this battle. But As things stand, they're not having much
- 6:32Speaker 2: success because it seems like it's not illegal to actually
- 6:35Speaker 2: have someone with the same name to go on the ballot.
- 6:38Speaker 2: So there's an extraordinary situation in Alaska, and that might
- 6:41Speaker 2: even delay the result in Alaska, which is one of
- 6:44Speaker 2: those states that the Democrats are desperate to win. So again,
- 6:48Speaker 2: another major controversy, Claire, just on the eve of the
- 6:51Speaker 2: midterm elections.
- 6:54Speaker 1: In Ohio, Vivek Ramaswamy, who was a candidate for the
- 6:57Speaker 1: Republican nomination for president last time around, obviously brilliant, very
- 7:01Speaker 1: talented politician, fairly controversial. He's gone really controversial now with
- 7:06Speaker 1: an attack out on his Democratic opponent, a woman called
- 7:09Speaker 1: Amy Acton, where he got her mother to say, please
- 7:13Speaker 1: don't vote for Amy.
- 7:15Speaker 4: In the ad, Acton's mother called her daughter a liar.
- 7:18Speaker 4: Don't vote for people who lie.
- 7:20Speaker 1: Don't let her become your governor.
- 7:23Speaker 4: But the ad leaves out that Acton has not seen
- 7:26Speaker 4: her mother since she was 12, when Acton's stepfather was
- 7:29Speaker 4: charged with sexually assaulting her.
- 7:32Speaker 1: What was going on there?
- 7:33Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a very nasty and a silly piece
- 7:36Speaker 2: of politics, really. And interestingly, J.D. Vance actually endorsed it
- 7:41Speaker 2: shortly afterwards, but it really rebounded on the Republican Party.
- 7:44Speaker 2: That's been widely panned and widely criticized. And that was
- 7:47Speaker 2: a bit of an own goal for the Republicans. But
- 7:49Speaker 2: it does show, Claire, the sort of vicious and nasty
- 7:52Speaker 2: nature of these midterms. I mean, you're seeing that sort
- 7:54Speaker 2: of dirty tricks campaign. You're seeing the Democrats do this
- 7:57Speaker 2: stuff in Alaska that we talked about. You're seeing very
- 8:00Speaker 2: nasty stuff over Israel and Gaza in Michigan. I mean,
- 8:03Speaker 2: this is a brutal midterms campaign. And Donald Trump, of course,
- 8:07Speaker 2: has a unique part in the middle of it because
- 8:10Speaker 2: he has said People should vote according as if he
- 8:13Speaker 2: is on the ballot. He is trying to make it
- 8:16Speaker 2: about Trump. And interestingly, of course, the Democrats are desperate
- 8:19Speaker 2: to make it about Trump because his poll ratings are
- 8:22Speaker 2: very low 30s, the lowest of his presidency. Yet, interestingly,
- 8:27Speaker 2: a lot of the Republicans are not so keen to
- 8:29Speaker 2: make it about Trump because of his lack of popularity.
- 8:31Speaker 2: And in fact, if you look at a lot of the,
- 8:33Speaker 2: when I was over there traveling through the States just
- 8:35Speaker 2: last week, the campaign ads, Claire, the Republican campaign ads
- 8:38Speaker 2: really don't feature Trump. A lot of those campaigners don't
- 8:41Speaker 2: want the president in it, which I think says a
- 8:43Speaker 2: lot about how helpful Republicans think he is to their
- 8:46Speaker 2: actual campaign.
- 8:47Speaker 1: Yeah, there are certainly some Republicans who are disavowing Trump
- 8:50Speaker 1: and who are saying, well, I haven't always voted for
- 8:53Speaker 1: the measures that the president wants. And Democrats are saying, well,
- 8:57Speaker 1: too late, basically. What was your sense in America, Cam,
- 9:01Speaker 1: of how fired up Americans are about this? And of course,
- 9:05Speaker 1: this is a place where there's voluntary voting. I mean,
- 9:08Speaker 1: are they going to turn out in numbers that would
- 9:10Speaker 1: actually give a proper indication of how upset they are,
- 9:13Speaker 1: for example, about fuel prices and the war in Iran,
- 9:15Speaker 1: which is so unpopular?
- 9:17Speaker 2: It appears that they are. I mean, the early turnout figures,
- 9:19Speaker 2: of course, they can vote in most states now already,
- 9:22Speaker 2: are very strong there. One of the strongest we've seen
- 9:24Speaker 2: for a midterm. So there does seem to be a
- 9:26Speaker 2: fair bit of passion out there. It doesn't always mean
- 9:28Speaker 2: it's going to go against the Republicans. That is the tradition,
- 9:31Speaker 2: of course, in midterms. And as you say, gas prices,
- 9:35Speaker 2: petrol prices in America, it's the land of the automobile.
- 9:38Speaker 2: I mean, it's absolutely key. And especially up in those
- 9:41Speaker 2: northern states where they need the fuel prices to heat houses.
- 9:44Speaker 2: I mean, Alaska, for example, a very, very big and
- 9:47Speaker 2: sensitive topic. The Iran war is very, very unpopular there.
- 9:51Speaker 2: largely because A, Trump promised no more endless wars, but
- 9:55Speaker 2: B also, it's very easily linked and rightly linked to
- 9:58Speaker 2: the gas prices. So look, Trump's on the nose, but
- 10:01Speaker 2: the Democrats, interestingly, when you see polls, people don't love
- 10:04Speaker 2: the Democrats. They haven't sort of suddenly raced into vogue.
- 10:07Speaker 2: We've seen the dispute in Michigan, a lot of tensions
- 10:10Speaker 2: within Democrat ranks as well. So it's just really difficult
- 10:14Speaker 2: to pick exactly where this is going to go. The
- 10:17Speaker 2: polls at the moment say that The Democrats will win
- 10:20Speaker 2: the House of Representatives, the lower house, quite easily. They've
- 10:23Speaker 2: only got a couple of seats to pick up there.
- 10:25Speaker 2: But the Senate, Claire, remains a toss-up. And what's interesting
- 10:29Speaker 2: is that the Democrats who need four Senate seats to
- 10:31Speaker 2: win are ahead in more than that. So they should
- 10:35Speaker 2: win the Senate in theory. But almost all of those
- 10:38Speaker 2: races are within, the polling says, are within the margin
- 10:42Speaker 2: of error. So it really still is a toss-up.
- 10:49Speaker 1: Trump won the last election, at least partly telling Americans
- 10:53Speaker 1: there'd be no more foreign wars. And of course, then
- 10:55Speaker 1: he started a war that is, as you say, incredibly unpopular.
- 10:59Speaker 1: That's also the reason why Australians are paying a huge
- 11:02Speaker 1: amount of money for petrol and diesel, the war in Iran.
- 11:05Speaker 1: What will, if the Democrats do manage to get control
- 11:08Speaker 1: of the House of Representatives, what would that mean for
- 11:10Speaker 1: the war in Iran, if anything?
- 11:11Speaker 2: Well, they'd be more important if they get control of
- 11:13Speaker 2: the Senate as well, because that suddenly stops the Trump
- 11:16Speaker 2: administration in lots of ways. It means that he has
- 11:19Speaker 2: to go to Congress for a lot more authority on actions.
- 11:23Speaker 2: He'll have a raft of committees, Senate committees and House committees,
- 11:27Speaker 2: boring into his finances, his family, his cabinet colleagues. I mean,
- 11:32Speaker 2: the Trump administration, if you like, will be absolutely flat
- 11:35Speaker 2: chat just defending itself if it loses both houses of Congress.
- 11:39Speaker 2: But in foreign policy, Claire, the president has shown he
- 11:42Speaker 2: acts alone. He's got a lot of executive authority. With Iran,
- 11:46Speaker 2: it's difficult to see how that will necessarily change what
- 11:49Speaker 2: he does. And so for Australians, it might not have
- 11:53Speaker 2: as direct an impact as we would think, but the
- 11:55Speaker 2: war in Iran is critical for gas petrol prices here
- 11:58Speaker 2: in Australia. It is relevant to Australians. Inflation in America,
- 12:01Speaker 2: of course, becomes global to some degree. That's relevant as well. So,
- 12:05Speaker 2: you know, what would Trump be like in his second,
- 12:08Speaker 2: his final two years if he didn't have the Congress involved?
- 12:11Speaker 2: is a really important and open question. I mean, will
- 12:15Speaker 2: he be the classic lame duck president that just can't
- 12:18Speaker 2: really do much? He certainly can't do legislative stuff, but
- 12:21Speaker 2: he can do other stuff. Or is he a unique
- 12:24Speaker 2: character like Trump with his back to the wall, who
- 12:26Speaker 2: loves to fight from a position of adversity? Is he
- 12:29Speaker 2: going to be more erratic, more wildcard, more unpredictable, and
- 12:33Speaker 2: in some ways, a little more frightening in some aspects?
- 12:39Speaker 1: One area where Congress really does matter is AUKUS. This
- 12:42Speaker 1: is the Australia-United Kingdom-US deal for us to buy, borrow
- 12:46Speaker 1: and then build our own nuclear submarines, Cam. We've heard
- 12:50Speaker 1: hesitation about AUKUS from some Republicans and some Democrats. If
- 12:54Speaker 1: the Democrats do do well at the midterms, what will
- 12:57Speaker 1: that mean for AUKUS?
- 12:58Speaker 2: I think AUKUS is pretty safe at the moment. I've
- 13:00Speaker 2: just been in Washington last week talking to people about
- 13:03Speaker 2: AUKUS and there's a couple of people in the Pentagon
- 13:06Speaker 2: who are still sceptical. Elbridge Colby, for example, the third
- 13:09Speaker 2: most powerful person in the Pentagon, is still sceptical, even
- 13:11Speaker 2: though he claims he isn't. That's what I'm being told
- 13:13Speaker 2: in Washington. However, the rest of the American machine, from
- 13:17Speaker 2: the White House to the Hill, to both houses of Congress,
- 13:20Speaker 2: to the US Navy, is very supportive, Claire. And I
- 13:23Speaker 2: just don't think that the congressional election will change the
- 13:26Speaker 2: longer-term trajectory of August.
- 13:29Speaker 1: We talked about the Democrats' capability of choosing the wrong
- 13:31Speaker 1: candidate in any circumstance, Cam. Are they going to be
- 13:35Speaker 1: able to choose a presidential nominee to take on the
- 13:37Speaker 1: legacy of Donald Trump, whoever comes next, J.D. Vance or
- 13:40Speaker 1: Peter Hegseth or whoever the Republicans put up?
- 13:43Speaker 2: That's a great question. I mean, there's a whole bunch
- 13:46Speaker 2: of names popping up. John Ossoff in Georgia, for example. Newsom,
- 13:49Speaker 2: of course, Gavin Newsom in California. Will Kamala have another go?
- 13:53Speaker 2: Will Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan have a go? There are
- 13:55Speaker 2: names floating around at the moment. You can pick something
- 13:57Speaker 2: wrong with each of those candidates. There's no sort of
- 14:00Speaker 2: perfect candidate. Really what they need, if you like, someone
- 14:02Speaker 2: coming from almost nowhere, a Bill Clinton or a Barack Obama,
- 14:06Speaker 2: you know, someone who is a bit of a clean skin.
- 14:08Speaker 2: They haven't got that at the moment, so it's not
- 14:10Speaker 2: obvious where they're going to go. But then again, the
- 14:11Speaker 2: Republicans have got the same problem as well. I mean,
- 14:14Speaker 2: where are they going to go? You know, is J.D.
- 14:15Speaker 2: Vance going to– he's got the golden handcuffs tied to
- 14:18Speaker 2: the president. If the president's approval rating goes down, then J.D.
- 14:21Speaker 2: Vance hasn't got much chance, just like Kamala had no
- 14:24Speaker 2: chance when Biden went down. Will Marco Rubio come? I mean,
- 14:27Speaker 2: it's a fascinating contest, and there's no clear frontrunners on
- 14:31Speaker 2: either party at the moment.
- 14:33Speaker 1: Barack Obama said at a rally recently in Georgia that,
- 14:37Speaker 1: you know, he was making fun of Trump.
- 14:39Speaker 4: I don't know if.
- 14:40Speaker 5: You've noticed, but he seems very focused on home renovations.
- 14:47Speaker 5: He should be on HGTV. Guys building a ballroom that's
- 14:54Speaker 5: bigger than the White House.
- 14:56Speaker 2: It's paved over the Rose Garden.
- 14:57Speaker 5: Put a helicopter pad.
- 15:00Speaker 4: On the South Lawn and there's gold everywhere. What's up
- 15:03Speaker 4: with the gold?
- 15:05Speaker 2: Everything, more gold. He's got the white ass looking like
- 15:09Speaker 2: Saddam Hussein opened.
- 15:10Speaker 5: A cheesecake factory.
- 15:12Speaker 1: There's gold everywhere. He suggested that Americans have had enough
- 15:20Speaker 1: of Trump and have had enough of the kind of
- 15:21Speaker 1: nastiness and they've seen through, they've seen behind the curtain, finally.
- 15:26Speaker 5: And I don't know about you, but I am tired
- 15:28Speaker 5: of being angry. And I'm tired of being divided. I
- 15:32Speaker 5: want friendship and neighborliness and joy and generosity. I want
- 15:39Speaker 5: everybody rolling up their sleeves in the common enterprise of
- 15:43Speaker 5: rebuilding America. I want everybody handing our country and our
- 15:49Speaker 5: world off to our kids a little better than.
- 15:52Speaker 4: They are right now.
- 15:53Speaker 5: That's what I want. That's what you want.
- 15:58Speaker 1: Do you think that's right?
- 15:59Speaker 2: I don't think that can be proven at all, to
- 16:01Speaker 2: be honest. Okay, Trump is very unpopular now. I mean,
- 16:04Speaker 2: let's remember how unpopular he was after January 6th at
- 16:08Speaker 2: the end of his first term. People completely wrote off
- 16:11Speaker 2: the concept of him coming back in any form whatsoever
- 16:14Speaker 2: and ended up winning another term of the presidency four
- 16:17Speaker 2: years later. I just think that that sort of prediction
- 16:19Speaker 2: is not accurate. I think the Democrats have their own problems.
- 16:22Speaker 2: The Democrats don't really know who they are at the moment.
- 16:24Speaker 2: They don't really know what sort of party they want
- 16:26Speaker 2: to be. They're not selling themselves well. And while Donald Trump,
- 16:29Speaker 2: while the mega movement has certainly controlled the Republican Party
- 16:33Speaker 2: to a massive degree, Trump will not be there in
- 16:36Speaker 2: two years' time. What does that mean for the Republicans?
- 16:38Speaker 2: They have to reinvent themselves to some degree because he's
- 16:40Speaker 2: a unique character. You can't just reinvent another Donald Trump.
- 16:43Speaker 2: So I think both parties are going through really formative
- 16:46Speaker 2: stages in trying to work out exactly what they stand for.
- 16:49Speaker 2: So I wouldn't actually say that one side of politics
- 16:52Speaker 2: is hugely dominant over the other or that one side
- 16:54Speaker 2: of politics has a limited future at all.
- 16:57Speaker 1: Well, you'll be analysing the results live for us, Cam.
- 17:00Speaker 1: I can't wait to find out what happens. Thanks so much.
- 17:02Speaker 2: Pleasure.
- 17:07Speaker 1: Cameron Stewart is The Australian's Chief International Correspondent. You can
- 17:10Speaker 1: check out all his reporting