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Trump Campaigns for Darline Graham in South Carolina · Balance of Power

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  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts. Radio.
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  Speaker 2: News.
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  Speaker 3: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch
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  Speaker 3: Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts or watch
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  Speaker 3: us live on YouTube.
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  Speaker 1: Alongside Kaylee Lyons, I'm Joe Matthew. With 13 days to go,
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  Speaker 1: that's where we are in two important debates this evening
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  Speaker 1: that we're going to have our eyes on. With regard
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  Speaker 1: to the midterms, these are two critically important Senate races.
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  Speaker 1: Remembering the presidents in South Carolina this evening, Darlene Graham.
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  Speaker 1: But we'll be watching debates in Michigan, Al-Sayed, of course,
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  Speaker 1: and Mike Rogers. And in Kansas, with Roger Marshall and
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  Speaker 1: Pastor Hamilton. That'll be their first opportunity to square off
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  Speaker 1: before viewers in an actual official debate. And it's where
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  Speaker 1: we start with Bill Ferrys, who's been covering the midterms
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  Speaker 1: for us here in Washington as Bloomberg News senior editor.
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  Speaker 1: We're going to get with Kyle Kondik in a moment
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  Speaker 1: from Sabato's Crystal Ball. They've been moving dozens of seats,
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  Speaker 1: in many cases, in the direction of Democrats. When you're
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  Speaker 1: looking at 13 days and some 13 million people already
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  Speaker 1: early voting, what's the point of a debate right now?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, you're still catching potentially 70% or more
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  Speaker 4: of the electorate. In a lot of these states at
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  Speaker 4: this point, we've seen in several states, 25% or so
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  Speaker 4: of the total vote number is already coming in. But
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  Speaker 4: that still leaves a big group of people who wait
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  Speaker 4: till later. Some of those mail-in ballots get mailed on
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  Speaker 4: election day or just the day before, too. And so
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  Speaker 4: in the states that do counting... for weeks afterwards, that
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  Speaker 4: will play a part. But you are, yeah, you're reaching,
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  Speaker 4: you're reaching some of these voters who are still either
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  Speaker 4: undecided or haven't gone out there. But what we're seeing is,
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  Speaker 4: you know, a lot of really, really tight races. So
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  Speaker 4: I think we're going to see an increasing intensity in
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  Speaker 4: the next 13 days or so of the president traveling,
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  Speaker 4: of People like J.D. Vance out on the road today
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  Speaker 4: as he is in Ohio and trying to close that gap.
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  Speaker 4: You have maybe five or six jump balls out there
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  Speaker 4: for the Senate where the polls show two or three
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  Speaker 4: point gaps and those could go either way at this point.
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  Speaker 5: Well, yeah, the latest being the Marist poll in Michigan,
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  Speaker 5: which shows El Sayed up by just two points over
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  Speaker 5: Mike Rogers. Remembering the primary in which El Sayed was
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  Speaker 5: supposedly up double digits on Haley Stevens and barely beat her,
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  Speaker 5: how much can we rely on a poll in a
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  Speaker 5: state like Michigan?
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  Speaker 4: I think every election in the last several cycles has
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  Speaker 4: been a test of the whole polling industry. It's a
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  Speaker 4: hard question to answer now, but there is a consistency
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  Speaker 4: to a lot of these polls. We know that they've
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  Speaker 4: changed their methods, and everything we know shows that these
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  Speaker 4: are fairly tight races. I think El-Sayed knows what some
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  Speaker 4: of his weaknesses are. He's trying to reach out to
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  Speaker 4: a lot of those voters who maybe weren't with him
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  Speaker 4: in the primary. And he's bringing in a big gun
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  Speaker 4: at the very end next week with former President Obama
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  Speaker 4: coming in for a big rally in Detroit.
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  Speaker 5: Yep, Obama's going there and Trump's going there by the
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  Speaker 5: end of this week as well, right? Sunday's the president's
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  Speaker 5: trip to Michigan. Bill Ferry is helping us cover the
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  Speaker 5: midterms here at Bloomberg, Bill. Thank you so much. And
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  Speaker 5: as we think about the polls and the race ratings
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  Speaker 5: that are tightening, it seems, as we get closer to
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  Speaker 5: Election Day, we want to turn now to the crystal ball,
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  Speaker 5: which yesterday moved 28 House races in the direction of Democrats.
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  Speaker 5: And Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball, the
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  Speaker 5: University of Virginia Center for Politics, is back with us now.
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  Speaker 5: on Bloomberg TV and radio. It's great to have you back, Kyle.
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  Speaker 5: To see almost 30 races moving in the same direction
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  Speaker 5: certainly is something. Are these unique to each individual seat,
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  Speaker 5: or is this just something indicative of a wave happening?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's much more the forest than the trees.
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  Speaker 6: You know, we could talk about the specifics of a
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  Speaker 6: lot of these races, but the overall environment is really
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  Speaker 6: what's pushing us to make a lot of changes. And
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  Speaker 6: we've moved a lot of things in our ratings toward
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  Speaker 6: the Democrats, you know, House, Governor and Senate. Since Labor Day,
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  Speaker 6: I think a lot of us were waiting to sort
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  Speaker 6: of see what would happen after the summer and, you know,
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  Speaker 6: the start of the sort of traditional campaign season. Started,
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  Speaker 6: of course, the campaign season goes way before Labor Day
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  Speaker 6: these days. But what we saw at Labor Day was
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  Speaker 6: that the president's approval basically still kept getting worse or,
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  Speaker 6: you know, staying in a reduced position. And the Democratic
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  Speaker 6: lead in House generic ballot polling, you know, ticked up
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  Speaker 6: a few points, too. And we just had a couple of,
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  Speaker 6: you know, prominent ones come out this morning. New York Times,
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  Speaker 6: I think, was D plus 10 or 11. CNN was
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  Speaker 6: D plus 10. I mean, those are, you know, that's
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  Speaker 6: like what we saw in 2018 or maybe even a
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  Speaker 6: little bit better than what we saw in 2018.
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  Speaker 1: So.
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  Speaker 6: I think this is much more just about the overall
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  Speaker 6: environment as opposed to race by race developments. I mean, look,
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  Speaker 6: there are going to be exceptions to the rules, you know,
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  Speaker 6: like Brian Fitzpatrick, who is a Republican in the Philadelphia area.
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  Speaker 6: You know, he he might survive even though he's one
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  Speaker 6: of the few Republicans in a Harris one seat. But
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  Speaker 6: but that's more the exception than the rule. I think
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  Speaker 6: in these kind of swing districts, you're going to see Democrats.
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  Speaker 1: Do quite well. Well, sticking with the forest here, 28
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  Speaker 1: ratings changes push number of seats, as you write, at
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  Speaker 1: least leaning to Democrats past 218. Do you take a
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  Speaker 1: stab at a number of seats that will flip? I mean,
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  Speaker 1: I've been thinking maybe.
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  Speaker 6: 230 to 235, you know, 235 is such a landmark
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  Speaker 6: number because that's what Democrats won in 2018. And that
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  Speaker 6: was a really good year for Democrats in the House.
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  Speaker 6: I don't know if I quite think Democrats will get there,
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  Speaker 6: but they certainly could. And we're still kind of finalizing
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  Speaker 6: exactly where, you know, where we're going to place all
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  Speaker 6: the races after we move them all out of the
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  Speaker 6: out of the toss-up column and, you know, push them and,
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  Speaker 6: you know, we'll miss some, but we hope to get
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  Speaker 6: a lot of them right.
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  Speaker 1: But, yeah, I'm thinking, you know, one of the.
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  Speaker 6: Ways of looking at this is that the House majority
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  Speaker 6: is the last three Congresses have been really small. You know,
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  Speaker 6: 222 was the biggest majority in the last three Congresses.
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  Speaker 6: I think Democrats are at least going to get beyond
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  Speaker 6: that and have a more workable majority, even if it
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  Speaker 6: might not be, you know, huge.
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  Speaker 5: Well, I note here, as I'm going through the list
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  Speaker 5: of the 28 ratings changes you made, that two of
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  Speaker 5: the moves you made from Tossup to Leans Democratic are
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  Speaker 5: seats in Iowa. One, the seat that is being vacated
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  Speaker 5: by the Republican Senate nominee Ashley Hinson, the other belonging
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  Speaker 5: to Zach Nunn, who we know is a vulnerable Republican incumbent.
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  Speaker 5: How much do you expect that House races in a
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  Speaker 5: state like Iowa will influence the Senate race and vice versa?
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  Speaker 5: Is the fate of Ashley Hinson tied to the fate
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  Speaker 5: of Zach Nunn?
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  Speaker 1: Not necessarily.
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  Speaker 6: You know, one thing about Iowa, so it's only got
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  Speaker 6: four House seats, but three of them are very competitive
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  Speaker 6: this year. And again, I think Democrats very well could
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  Speaker 6: end up winning all three seats. You know, Democrats did
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  Speaker 6: win all three seats back in 2018, but Kim Reynolds
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  Speaker 6: was still reelected governor as a Republican. And the way
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  Speaker 6: it is in Iowa is that, again, even though it's
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  Speaker 6: only got four House seats, three of them are actually
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  Speaker 6: less Republican than the state as a whole because Iowa four,
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  Speaker 6: the fourth district, is extremely Republican. That's sort of the
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  Speaker 6: Northwest Iowa seed. So there's a world in which, you know,
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  Speaker 6: Ashley Hinson wins, but Democrats win the governorship and maybe
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  Speaker 6: win two or even three of these U.S.
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  Speaker 1: House races.
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  Speaker 6: Because again, there is some recent precedent for that based on,
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  Speaker 6: you know, how the districts line up compared to the state.
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  Speaker 1: Bill Ferrys was talking about jump balls on the Senate side.
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  Speaker 1: We've got a couple of big Senate debates tonight. Kyle,
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  Speaker 1: and I'm just looking at your overall ratings for the
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  Speaker 1: upper chamber here. When it comes to the Senate, 49
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  Speaker 1: at least leans D, 46 at least leans R, and
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  Speaker 1: you've got five toss-ups. Are you taking a stab at
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  Speaker 1: who controls the Senate after this? I do really think
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  Speaker 1: it's still up in the air.
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  Speaker 6: Look, again, I think if you take the polls at
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  Speaker 6: face value, I think you'd say, yeah, the Democrats are favored.
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  Speaker 1: I don't necessarily know if we should look at it
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  Speaker 1: that way.
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  Speaker 6: And, you know, the leads for Democrats in many of
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  Speaker 6: these races are really quite small or the races may be,
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  Speaker 6: you know, functionally tied. I think like Iowa and Kansas
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  Speaker 6: kind of fall into that group. And even, you know,
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  Speaker 6: Maine is really close. Democrats are leading probably by three,
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  Speaker 6: four points in Ohio and Texas. But, you know, that's
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  Speaker 6: not some sort of you know, insurmountable lead for, you know,
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  Speaker 6: for Republicans to overcome, particularly in states that are generically
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  Speaker 6: fairly Republican-leaning.
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  Speaker 5: Kyle, Crystal Ball moved first on this last week. A
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  Speaker 5: shift in the Senate race in Minnesota away from from Democrats.
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  Speaker 5: Everything we're talking about here is directionally toward the Democrats.
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  Speaker 5: But both crystal ball, interestingly, in the Cook political report
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  Speaker 5: yesterday moved Minnesota away from the Democratic Party toward the
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  Speaker 5: Republican Michelle Tafoya.
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  Speaker 7: What's going on there?
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  Speaker 6: There's I think there's kind of a there's a lack
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  Speaker 6: of decent, great, great information about Minnesota, particularly in the
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  Speaker 6: public space. You know, Peggy Flanagan, the Democrat, you know,
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  Speaker 6: she was the sort of the more left wing option
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  Speaker 6: in the primary. Democrats opted to nominate her over Angie Craig,
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  Speaker 6: who was more of a battle tested, you know, competitive seat.
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  Speaker 2: U.S.
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  Speaker 1: House member.
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  Speaker 6: Flanagan's leads in public polls have been kind of soft.
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  Speaker 6: And actually, even for Amy Klobuchar, who's running for governor,
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  Speaker 6: her leads have been kind.
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  Speaker 1: Of soft, too.
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  Speaker 6: Now, you know, sometimes, you know, in a bluish state,
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  Speaker 6: sometimes the Democrats are the ones who are understated and
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  Speaker 6: sometimes Republicans are in Republican-leaning states, which It gives me
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  Speaker 6: a little bit of caution about some of these red
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  Speaker 6: state races we're talking about.
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  Speaker 1: But, you know, there hasn't really been a lot of
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  Speaker 1: outside money there.
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  Speaker 6: Michelle Tafoya, the former NFL sideline reporter, is running as
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  Speaker 6: a Republican candidate. I just kind of wanted to flag
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  Speaker 6: that one as a place where it doesn't seem quite
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  Speaker 6: as formed as some other places. And, you know, again,
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  Speaker 6: the polls have just been kind of soft for Democrats
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  Speaker 6: in Minnesota for a while now. You have outgoing Governor
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  Speaker 6: Tim Walz as being really unpopular. And there's, you know,
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  Speaker 6: that social services scandal over... there that has been a problem,
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  Speaker 6: I think, for Democrats.
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  Speaker 1: So just something to watch. Again, I think planning it
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  Speaker 1: is still favored at the end of the day. He's
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  Speaker 1: re-rating races before our eyes. Kyle Kondik, great to have
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  Speaker 1: you back with us with 13 Days to Go. Managing
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  Speaker 1: Editor Sabato's Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center
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  Speaker 1: for Politics. Stay with us on Balance of Power. We'll
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: have much more coming up after this.
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: us live weekdays at noon and 5 p.m. Eastern on
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• 10:43
  Speaker 1: With big news today, the president has lost the pot vote.
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  Speaker 1: I didn't even know they had a poll like this,
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: but the latest Marijuana Moment NUGMD quarterly tracking poll shows
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: just 29% of cannabis consumers now approve of the Trump
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: administration's action on the issue as the rescheduling process continues
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: to experience delays. You might say, well, that shouldn't be
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: a shocker here. Are you kidding me? You think all
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: the potheads are voting for Donald Trump? Well, actually, yeah,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: they had been in droves. Go back a little bit here.
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  Speaker 1: This is down 29%, down from 48% last quarter. And
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: get this, 73% in the quarter before that. Because the
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: president said that he was going to help to legalize marijuana.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: They had given up on the Biden administration at that point,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: getting in on MAGA. I started thinking about this. What's
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: the methodology on a poll of potheads? Well, they actually
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: told us they spoke with 654 cannabis consumers who live
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: in states with legal markets. October 8th to October 15th.
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  Speaker 1: Imagine being the pollster who had to make these phone calls.
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  Speaker 1: First of all, just getting the pickup would be a success.
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  Speaker 1: And then like, hey man, how'd you get my number?
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  Speaker 1: I don't know if there's an AI vote. We certainly
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  Speaker 1: talk about this being the first AI election. There's a
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  Speaker 1: lot of use of AI in campaign ads, which we're
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: going to talk to Gautam about in a moment. He's
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  Speaker 1: with us here in studio today. The question is more broadly, though,
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  Speaker 1: about the underpinning of the entire economy and the stock market.
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  Speaker 1: Because a lot of people are voting against AI, voting
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  Speaker 1: against data centers, even as their 401ks and pensions might
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  Speaker 1: rely on the share prices of the companies that they've
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  Speaker 1: decided to hate. And the whole concept of an AI
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  Speaker 1: bubble came up with Ken Griffin. Did you stay up
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  Speaker 1: for this? You probably tuned in for the late edition
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: of Balance of Power yesterday, didn't you? We had a
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  Speaker 1: special with Ken Griffin, of course, the force behind Citadel.
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  Speaker 1: And here's what he said.
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  Speaker 8: There's almost certainly bubbles within this moment in time. And
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  Speaker 8: any radical transformation of our economy is generally intertwined with
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  Speaker 8: a bubble. But what's left in the wake of these
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  Speaker 8: bubbles is often game-changing for the world. And the companies
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  Speaker 8: that are on the other side of that bubble are
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  Speaker 8: the market leaders for.
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  Speaker 1: Decades to come. Well, maybe we should hope so, considering
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  Speaker 1: the markets are also relying on this. Gautam Mukunda is
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  Speaker 1: a lecturer at Yale School of Management. He's a Bloomberg
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  Speaker 1: Opinion contributor. has become a regular voice on the program
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: and is with us in studio today. Nice to have
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  Speaker 1: you in Washington.
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  Speaker 7: Good to be back.
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  Speaker 1: I don't want to turn you into a market analyst here,
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  Speaker 1: but when we talk about the politics around AI, it's
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  Speaker 1: funny that we frequently forget about the financial obligations or
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: the support, the financial support that it's giving so many
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  Speaker 1: households in this country.
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  Speaker 7: So, absolutely. And I'm actually writing this chapter of my
• 13:52
  Speaker 7: next book right now.
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  Speaker 1: I love that. James, we beat him to it.
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  Speaker 2: So.
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  Speaker 7: So there's this weird dynamic happening right now where since
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  Speaker 7: it is the AI trade that is essentially keeping the
• 14:04
  Speaker 7: entire market afloat in a way that it's having distortionary effects.
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  Speaker 7: We've talked about that. But the basic number, Donald Trump
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  Speaker 7: clearly tracks the stock market really, really closely. It's the
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  Speaker 7: one economic number that's trending in his favor right now.
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  Speaker 7: And so, one, it makes the administration say, we're not
• 14:20
  Speaker 7: going to regulate these guys under any circumstances, right? Because
• 14:22
  Speaker 7: popping that bubble is the thing that knocks the last
• 14:25
  Speaker 7: supports out.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 7: And it is this sort of weird countervailing factor where
• 14:32
  Speaker 7: lots of people who, as you said, their retirement accounts
• 14:34
  Speaker 7: are depending on it, are nonetheless so alienated by the
• 14:38
  Speaker 7: industry and its behavior and what they're hearing about it
• 14:41
  Speaker 7: and any number of things. And, you know, it does
• 14:44
  Speaker 7: seem as if the industry, it's almost as if they've
• 14:47
  Speaker 7: adopted a policy of how do we alienate the average
• 14:49
  Speaker 7: American as much as possible? And that tension is, I
• 14:56
  Speaker 7: think cannot last forever.
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  Speaker 1: How about alienate the average shareholder? Is it the same thing?
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  Speaker 1: I mean, these are the same people.
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  Speaker 7: Once they start going public, it is going to become
• 15:04
  Speaker 7: the same thing and that's going to have a whole
• 15:05
  Speaker 7: bunch of different kinds of a whole bunch of different effects,
• 15:08
  Speaker 7: but it is the same people. But at the end
• 15:11
  Speaker 7: of the day, I would say like a first rule
• 15:13
  Speaker 7: of politics is if you wait long enough on really
• 15:17
  Speaker 7: one sided issues, the public will get what it wants.
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  Speaker 7: And the public really doesn't like these companies. You may
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  Speaker 7: or may not feel that's justified, but it really doesn't.
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  Speaker 7: But it wants AI or doesn't it? A lot of
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  Speaker 7: us are using it every day. We're asking it what
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  Speaker 7: to make for dinner. We're giving it access to our
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  Speaker 7: bank accounts. And when we turn on TV or when
• 15:37
  Speaker 7: we go on social media, half of the garbage we're
• 15:39
  Speaker 7: watching was made by AI.
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  Speaker 1: So let's split that out, right?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 7: In a way, this reminds me of COVID, where people
• 15:44
  Speaker 7: would always say to me, well, my students would always
• 15:47
  Speaker 7: say to me, well, everybody stayed home during COVID.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 15:50
  Speaker 7: And I would always say, no, everyone you knew stayed
• 15:53
  Speaker 7: home during COVID.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 15:54
  Speaker 7: But a majority of American workers still went to work.
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  Speaker 1: Wow.
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  Speaker 7: Right? The people working in grocery stores.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: Well, that's right.
• 15:59
  Speaker 7: They still went to work. So it's everyone you need.
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  Speaker 2: So, sure.
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  Speaker 7: I use, you know, like, Claude is my prosthetic brain
• 16:05
  Speaker 7: at this point.
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  Speaker 1: Is it?
• 16:06
  Speaker 7: Oh, constantly. Every day, constantly for everything. And, you know,
• 16:11
  Speaker 7: that's fun. And my friends at Anthropic probably know more
• 16:13
  Speaker 7: about me than I'm totally comfortable with.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: But....
• 16:16
  Speaker 7: Most Americans, only about half of Americans have used chatbots
• 16:19
  Speaker 7: in the last year or so. And most of the
• 16:21
  Speaker 7: ones who do use it as basically a glorified Google.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: Well, that's right.
• 16:25
  Speaker 7: So what you're describing is not the day-to-day basis. And
• 16:27
  Speaker 7: in particular, people who really use these things are using
• 16:30
  Speaker 7: the frontier tools that are just better. The experience of
• 16:33
  Speaker 7: using Fable or Opus is completely different from the experience
• 16:37
  Speaker 7: of using the free interfaces. And so they don't get
• 16:40
  Speaker 7: that same thing that we get.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: Interesting. Fascinating.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: When you turn to the dark side, you don't have
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: to look far here. And the infiltration of AI-generated ads,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: the spending that we've seen, it was 202 ads based
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: on the study that we saw this week, and over
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: $ 137 million spent in the campaign. More of it, interestingly,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: most of it, actually, by Republicans. And a lot of
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: people are savvy enough to tell. Do they really think
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: John Ossoff is getting his hair done in a beauty salon?
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: Maybe they do in Atlanta. Yeah. Or is their vision
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: fulfilled when they see something like that or Abdul El-Sayed
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: playing a Death to America game?
• 17:20
  Speaker 7: I mean, look, wherever John Ossoff gets his hair done,
• 17:22
  Speaker 7: I want to know.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Listen, I'm coming with you.
• 17:24
  Speaker 7: But so in a weird way, I think this is
• 17:27
  Speaker 7: really useful.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 17:28
  Speaker 7: Because a lot of elections come down to how do
• 17:31
  Speaker 7: I feel about this person's character? And they're right. Do
• 17:34
  Speaker 7: I think that they can be trusted?
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: Mm hmm.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: And.
• 17:37
  Speaker 7: If you use AI to put fake imagery of your
• 17:41
  Speaker 7: opponent up there without any kind of disclaimer, you're saying
• 17:45
  Speaker 7: something profound about your character and what you're willing to
• 17:48
  Speaker 7: do to win an election. And so right now, I
• 17:52
  Speaker 7: think they might be effective because people aren't used to
• 17:54
  Speaker 7: seeing these AI tools. We all know people who can't
• 17:58
  Speaker 7: tell the difference between the things.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: And as we're learning, a lot of states don't require
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: you to make that declaration.
• 18:02
  Speaker 7: But whether it's required or not, right? Creating fake video
• 18:06
  Speaker 7: is something that it says something about.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 18:08
  Speaker 7: You should not be doing. So I would say like
• 18:11
  Speaker 7: in this election cycle, maybe it'll work.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 18:13
  Speaker 7: But once people get used to this stuff, I think
• 18:15
  Speaker 7: doing that is something that I've certainly, I will use
• 18:18
  Speaker 7: as an immediate marker.
• 18:19
  Speaker 9: Fascinating.
• 18:20
  Speaker 7: This is someone who can't be trusted.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: Right. You know, we're going to talk in our next
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: segment about this, the vague Ramaswamy ad in Ohio. This
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: is pretty ugly stuff. And that has been the rap
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: people pushing backs as this says something about you, the creator.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: Which is the essence of all negative advertising, isn't it?
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: It is.
• 18:38
  Speaker 7: Disclosure, I have met Vivek and I know him and
• 18:41
  Speaker 7: have dealt with him on previous occasions.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: He's been on our program.
• 18:44
  Speaker 7: So, yes. But, yeah, this is exactly right. So we
• 18:47
  Speaker 7: know negative ads in general, when you run them, They
• 18:51
  Speaker 7: drive up negatives for both candidates. So it's not just
• 18:55
  Speaker 7: you are shooting yourself. This ad is, I think it
• 18:59
  Speaker 7: might be the first murder-suicide in the history of modern
• 19:01
  Speaker 7: American politics.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Listen to that.
• 19:03
  Speaker 7: It is so catastrophically bad.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: If he loses, they're going to point to that ad.
• 19:07
  Speaker 7: So that's the suicide part. This is so bad. It
• 19:09
  Speaker 7: is so unwise. It is so reeking of desperation and
• 19:14
  Speaker 7: a bad character that I think it's going to hurt
• 19:17
  Speaker 7: the other Republicans on the ticket in Ohio.
• 19:19
  Speaker 9: Wow.
• 19:21
  Speaker 7: When you see, you know, hardcore partisan Republicans saying this
• 19:24
  Speaker 7: is disgraceful.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: Yes, exactly.
• 19:27
  Speaker 7: And then instead of backing off and, you know, what
• 19:28
  Speaker 7: they could have done is just fobbed it off and said,
• 19:29
  Speaker 7: you know, it was a pack. We had nothing to
• 19:30
  Speaker 7: do with it.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: It's worth $ 4 million.
• 19:32
  Speaker 7: You're going to spend $ 4 million to tell people that
• 19:36
  Speaker 7: your opponent grew up so poor that she lived in
• 19:38
  Speaker 7: a tent with an abusive parent and is now the
• 19:40
  Speaker 7: leader for the next governor of Ohio. That's not a bad, story.
• 19:44
  Speaker 7: That's an inspiring story. I don't know what that is.
• 19:47
  Speaker 7: I mean, again, it tells you something about the person
• 19:51
  Speaker 7: that they would choose this approach, and it's nothing good.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: I love the fact that I can talk to you
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: about anything. We've got a minute or so left. Is
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: there such thing? I've been asking a lot of people
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: this lately. Is there such thing as an October surprise
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: anymore in a news cycle like this? in a world
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: with Donald Trump where every day is the October surprise?
• 20:09
  Speaker 7: I mean, every day is surprising now. We have reached,
• 20:13
  Speaker 7: Bill Simmons calls it the Tyson zone, where there is
• 20:16
  Speaker 7: no headline so insane that you're like.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: No, that could be true.
• 20:20
  Speaker 7: But I think the flip side of that is, at
• 20:23
  Speaker 7: this point, we've got so much information, a lot of
• 20:26
  Speaker 7: things are baked in. There is trend, right? If you're
• 20:29
  Speaker 7: just looking at the polls, it's very clear that there
• 20:31
  Speaker 7: are trends. Numbers are changing. They're changing in a bad
• 20:33
  Speaker 7: direction for Donald Trump and the Republicans. But it's a 1%
• 20:36
  Speaker 7: or 2%. The ability to have an October surprise that
• 20:39
  Speaker 7: can swing 5% or 10%.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Imagine what it would take. My God, it would have
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: to be some seismic event in the cosmos.
• 20:46
  Speaker 7: If aliens landed tomorrow, I think we'd all be like, yeah, sure, okay.
• 20:49
  Speaker 7: That seems right.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: Is this a rare treat to have you in Washington?
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: Are you not here very often?
• 20:53
  Speaker 7: I'm hoping to be back next week.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Next week? All right, let us know. It's great to
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: have you in person and great to finally... Meet you
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: in the flesh. Find him on the terminal and online.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: There's only one Gautam Mukunda. Lecturer, Yale Law School, Bloomberg
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: Opinion contributor. This is where I tell you, O-P-I-N-Go, right?
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: Try it on your terminal. Stay with us on Balance
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: of Power. We'll have much more coming up after this.
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: us live weekdays at noon and 5 p.m. Eastern on
• 21:23
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• 21:26
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• 21:30
  Speaker 3: flagship New York station. Just say Alexa, play Bloomberg 1130.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: Debate night. We've got another fight night tonight. And actually,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: I think with the timing here, we can watch them both.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: The final showdown in Michigan. Abdul El-Sayed, Mike Rogers. Detroit,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: 7 p.m. But I have to admit, I'm kind of
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: more curious to watch Kansas because we haven't had a
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: chance yet. It's going to be interesting. It's been a
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: while since Senator Roger Marshall. Doc Marshall has had to
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: hold forth in a contested debate like this with Democrat
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Adam Hamilton, the pastor. It'll be a chance for a
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: lot of Americans, us at least interested in politics, to
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: really see the pastor in action here. figure out exactly
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: how this race has become so close. We're going to
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: talk about with our political panel, the Vivek Ramaswamy ad.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: But we've got pretty interesting and important news on the
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: early vote. You know, we can talk about politics and
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: who's running negative ads and who's angry all day long.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: It is that season. but it's also early voting season.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: And this is some of the only real hard news
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: that we have, especially if you don't like polling, public
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: polling at this stage. Here's what we can tell you.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: And the numbers are coming from the University of Florida
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Elections Lab Tracker. More than 12 and a half, in fact,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: more than 12.6 million Americans have already voted. Just think
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: about that for a moment. I start every day by
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: telling you how many days we have till the midterms.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Nearly 13 million Americans are not counting down. They've already voted.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: Georgia and Virginia are leading the pack here when it
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: comes to early turnout, but we've seen some really interesting
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: numbers in other states here. Here's what we find. In Texas,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Dallas County reporting a record 76,079 in-person votes on Monday,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: the first day of voting. A record on the first day.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: On a Monday? In North Carolina, early voting is up 37%
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: ahead of the same point in the last midterm elections
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: in 2022. And in this case, we actually have a sense. Remember,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: we asked Brad Raffensperger the other day what was going
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: on in Georgia, where I don't think they're counting D's
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: and R's. They do in North Carolina. Registered Democrats casting
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: more than twice as many ballots as Republicans. Now, sometimes
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: it's dangerous to read into that, but in a general sense,
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: it points you to where the energy is. And this
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: is where we start. with our great political panel today.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: Jeannie Shanzano is with us, our Bloomberg Politics contributor and
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: Democracy Visiting Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center. Republican
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: strategist Katie Frost is back as well, knows a little
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: bit about Georgia politics, political director at the American Principles Project.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: It's great to see you both, ladies. Jeannie, are you
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: reading into that vote and the delineation in North Carolina
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: with Democrats doubling Republicans in the early vote?
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 24:28
  Speaker 9: You know, as political scientists, we're told not to read
• 24:31
  Speaker 9: into it, but it's hard not to. It does suggest
• 24:34
  Speaker 9: a lot of enthusiasm out there. But I also think
• 24:38
  Speaker 9: for me as somebody who's so interested in election security.
• 24:42
  Speaker 9: It also tells something else, which is that voters are
• 24:46
  Speaker 9: getting out early, which is the number one thing that
• 24:50
  Speaker 9: we tell people to do. Get out early and vote,
• 24:54
  Speaker 9: because there's been a lot of stories out there about
• 24:57
  Speaker 9: attempts to steal the vote, attempts to sort of make
• 25:00
  Speaker 9: people feel like the ballot is not going to be
• 25:04
  Speaker 9: cast properly, that the rules have changed. And so the
• 25:07
  Speaker 9: fact that people are getting out there, I think, is
• 25:10
  Speaker 9: a really good sign that they are taking this seriously
• 25:14
  Speaker 9: and they are going to cast their ballot and make
• 25:16
  Speaker 9: sure it counts. And that's the best we can do
• 25:19
  Speaker 9: to secure the election.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: How are you looking at this, Katie Frost? Brad Raffensperger
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: seemed very optimistic about the action in the early vote
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: when we talked to him on Monday. How about you?
• 25:32
  Speaker 10: Well, you know, one of the reasons you're saying they
• 25:33
  Speaker 10: don't count Republicans and Democrats in Georgia, it's because we
• 25:36
  Speaker 10: don't have party registration here, something that I frankly would
• 25:39
  Speaker 10: like to see change. But I'll tell you, I remember
• 25:43
  Speaker 10: when we put some new provisions in place a couple
• 25:45
  Speaker 10: years ago in Georgia, everyone freaked out. We got attacked
• 25:49
  Speaker 10: mercilessly for what was going to happen in Georgia, so
• 25:52
  Speaker 10: much so that MLB took away the All-Star game. And
• 25:55
  Speaker 10: now look what's happening. We're leading the nation in early voting.
• 25:58
  Speaker 10: It was all just a bunch of scare tactics. And
• 26:01
  Speaker 10: we have made it so much easier to vote in
• 26:03
  Speaker 10: Georgia and harder to cheat, which is the ultimate goal.
• 26:06
  Speaker 10: I'm very excited about the early turnout. I will tell you, historically,
• 26:09
  Speaker 10: Republicans do tend to be Election Day voters. But I
• 26:13
  Speaker 10: have actually found the most compelling argument you can use
• 26:16
  Speaker 10: to tell someone that they need to go and vote
• 26:18
  Speaker 10: early is I remind them that any political consultant worth
• 26:21
  Speaker 10: their salt is removing people who've already voted from their lists.
• 26:25
  Speaker 10: So if you want to stop getting calls and texts,
• 26:28
  Speaker 10: go early vote.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: It'll stop. That's what you just need to do.
• 26:31
  Speaker 10: Go early vote and people will leave you alone.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: Except the commercials keep running, Katie. There's nothing we can
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: do about that. What do you think about North Carolina
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: with registered Democrats doubling Republicans? Is that the trend you're
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: referring to? You're assuming that's made up on Election Day
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: or is there more to it? I think.
• 26:49
  Speaker 10: I think there will definitely be a huge pickup in
• 26:50
  Speaker 10: that in North Carolina. But you have to realize the Democrats,
• 26:54
  Speaker 10: they are motivated because they're thinking they have a pickup
• 26:57
  Speaker 10: opportunity there in the Senate race. They have Roy Cooper,
• 27:00
  Speaker 10: who's been on the ballot almost every election this millennium.
• 27:04
  Speaker 10: He was elected attorney general in 2000. The man's been
• 27:09
  Speaker 10: running for almost my entire life. So, yes, I mean,
• 27:12
  Speaker 10: he's very much a known quantity. Everybody's used to going
• 27:15
  Speaker 10: out and voting for Roy Cooper. So there's definitely going
• 27:17
  Speaker 10: to be some enthusiasm there on the Democratic side. And
• 27:20
  Speaker 10: just a reminder, in low turnout elections, which midterms typically are,
• 27:24
  Speaker 10: it's the party that is the angriest, frankly, that turns out.
• 27:29
  Speaker 10: And that is usually the party that is out of
• 27:31
  Speaker 10: power in the White House. The statistic I always point
• 27:33
  Speaker 10: to is that only twice in the last 100 years
• 27:37
  Speaker 10: has the party in the White House picked up seats
• 27:38
  Speaker 10: in the House in their first midterms. So yes, historically,
• 27:43
  Speaker 10: the energy will be, yes, the energy would be with
• 27:44
  Speaker 10: the Democratic Party, but don't write the obituary of the
• 27:47
  Speaker 10: Republicans just yet.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: Katie and Jeannie, we got to get into this ad
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: in Ohio, and no one's having fun talking about this.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: If you haven't learned about this yet or bumped into
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: it on your doom scroll this morning, it's a new
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: attack ad in the Ohio governor's race. You remember Vivek Ramaswamy?
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: He ran for president. He was part of the Doge
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: for a minute. He's running for governor. He's got a
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: new ad up that features the mother of his Democratic opponent,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: Amy Acton, a mother who was estranged from her daughter
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: over allegations of molestation by a stepfather, and in this
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: ad calls the candidate a liar. Vivek Ramaswamy has confirmed
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: that the ad was made from the campaign, and despite
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: enormous pushback from even inside the party in many cases,
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: They've decided to, well, not even double down, they're quadrupling
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: down with a $ 4 million ad buy. Here's a taste
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: of the commercial.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: It's not easy for a mother to say this, but
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: Amy has a serious problem. She is a liar. She
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: lies about her past.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: She says she.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: Grew up living in a tent. None of that is true.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: She's lied her entire life. My daughter needs help, and
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: she can't help you if she needs help herself.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: Wow. I mean, we see a lot of negative ads
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: around here. This might be a new level. I don't know.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: We'll let our panel figure that. We did hear from
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: Acton's brother, Philip Stearns, who condemned this as despicable. You
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: know how I actually first heard about this genie? It
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: was Senator Mike Lee's aide, Dan Houser, who deleted his
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: own post. And a lot of people were talking about
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: it on Twitter last night. He deleted his post sharing
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: the video after he learned. more about amy acton's past
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: if vivek ramaswamy loses this election genie will they say
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: it was because of this ad.
• 29:52
  Speaker 9: I don't think so. Acting is up about 50 percent
• 29:56
  Speaker 9: to 44 percent. This is why the last ditch effort
• 30:00
  Speaker 9: by Vivek Ramaswamy, who apparently does not want to talk
• 30:03
  Speaker 9: about issues of concern to the voters in the state.
• 30:07
  Speaker 9: but rather wants to go on this really devastating and
• 30:10
  Speaker 9: horrific attack against his opponent, who was removed from the
• 30:14
  Speaker 9: care of her mother at the age of 12. And
• 30:17
  Speaker 9: you mentioned the ad that the campaign released by the brother,
• 30:20
  Speaker 9: who was also removed at the age of nine, over
• 30:23
  Speaker 9: charges of sexual abuse. And then they fled, the mother
• 30:27
  Speaker 9: and the stepfather fled while he was out on bail.
• 30:31
  Speaker 9: She hasn't apparently seen her mother since she was 12,
• 30:34
  Speaker 9: since she was removed. It's a horrific story. And just
• 30:38
  Speaker 9: like the person you were referencing, most Ohioans who hear
• 30:42
  Speaker 9: the story or hear the campaign ad and then dig
• 30:46
  Speaker 9: into this even a little bit are gonna end up
• 30:48
  Speaker 9: having empathy for Acton. I think equally important is we
• 30:53
  Speaker 9: just heard from J.D. Vance and the vice president's reaction
• 30:57
  Speaker 9: to this was not to condemn it like he should,
• 31:00
  Speaker 9: but to admonish Republicans who have condemned it because he
• 31:06
  Speaker 9: thinks it isn't strategic for them to do that because
• 31:10
  Speaker 9: it's going to drag down Republicans in the polls. That
• 31:13
  Speaker 9: is shameful. So it's shameful on the part of Vivek Ramaswamy.
• 31:17
  Speaker 9: It's shameful on the part of the vice president. And
• 31:20
  Speaker 9: I say here, here to Nikki Haley, who stood up
• 31:22
  Speaker 9: and said, Vivek Ramaswamy is a bad guy. I've been
• 31:25
  Speaker 9: saying it since I ran against him. And it's shameful
• 31:29
  Speaker 9: that he continues to get away with things like this.
• 31:32
  Speaker 9: And I hope that this is the end of him
• 31:34
  Speaker 9: being able to get away with it, with Republicans standing
• 31:36
  Speaker 9: up against the vice president and saying enough is enough.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah. J.D. Vance said his advice to Republicans is
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: to stop whining about it. Katie Frost, you can weigh
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: in on whether you think this ad is appropriate. I'm
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: not actually going to ask you that. As a Republican strategist,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: I'm wondering if you think this does splash back on
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: Ramaswamy and help his opponent, and if you're worried that
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: it could damage the fortunes of other Republican candidates in
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: the state.
• 32:03
  Speaker 10: When you look at the timing of this ad and
• 32:05
  Speaker 10: the way it was released, when it initially came out,
• 32:07
  Speaker 10: it was a screen recording of a focus group, a
• 32:10
  Speaker 10: digital focus group. There was no disclaimer on the ads.
• 32:14
  Speaker 10: I mean, there was about 24 hours there where people
• 32:15
  Speaker 10: weren't even sure where did this ad originate, who was
• 32:18
  Speaker 10: paying for it. I would assume that it was an
• 32:21
  Speaker 10: attempt to do a last week October surprise by the
• 32:24
  Speaker 10: Ramaswamy campaign, and it got out early. So now this
• 32:28
  Speaker 10: is going to give Amy Acton time to respond. The
• 32:31
  Speaker 10: idea of using family members in ads is not new. Actually,
• 32:35
  Speaker 10: Republican Congressman Paul Gosar out in Arizona, there was an
• 32:38
  Speaker 10: ad that was run in the 2018 cycle against him.
• 32:41
  Speaker 10: Several different voters were talking about how terrible Paul Gosar was.
• 32:44
  Speaker 10: And then at the end of the ad, you found
• 32:45
  Speaker 10: out they were all his siblings. And look, I'm one
• 32:48
  Speaker 10: of five kids. I get it. You can always agree
• 32:50
  Speaker 10: with your siblings, but I hope none of them would
• 32:51
  Speaker 10: ever appear in an ad against me. It's not unusual
• 32:54
  Speaker 10: to use family members, but I will say using childhood
• 32:58
  Speaker 10: trauma That is one I haven't seen before. And if
• 33:02
  Speaker 10: I was advising the Ramaswamy campaign, this never would have
• 33:05
  Speaker 10: made it into ad production. And it would not have
• 33:08
  Speaker 10: gone to the point of anyone saying, hey, let's go
• 33:11
  Speaker 10: find her mother.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: That would not have happened.
• 33:13
  Speaker 10: There's a great book that was written by White House
• 33:16
  Speaker 10: former deputy chief of staff Alistair Mastromonaco. She worked for
• 33:18
  Speaker 10: President Obama. And the title of her book was Who
• 33:21
  Speaker 10: Thought This Was a Good Idea and Other Questions You
• 33:24
  Speaker 10: Should Answer When You Work in the White House. There
• 33:26
  Speaker 10: are many times in politics I look at something and
• 33:29
  Speaker 10: I just go, who thought this was a good idea?
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: Well, you delineate that well, because you're right. Obviously, I mean,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's sister was appearing in ads at one point.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: Nothing is new in politics. Negative advertising is not new,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: but there is sometimes a way to actually lower the
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: bar here. And boy, I don't know. This does seem
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: like a new level. And I appreciate both of your greats.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: in talking our way through that. A remarkable moment in
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: time here with 13 days to go. And Katie, that's
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: an interesting point. Maybe he was saving this for the
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: last minute and it crept out early. He thought he
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: had to double down and you're not going to hide
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: from it now. Thanks for listening to the Balance of
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: Power podcast. Make sure to subscribe if you haven't already
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: at Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: you can find us live every weekday from Washington, D.C.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: at noontime Eastern at Bloomberg.com.