Latest / The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson / GOP Donors Disappeared in Spam Filter Crackdown plus Midterm Issues & What's More Imoprtant to Voters
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: People believe you never get tired.
- 0:02Speaker 2: I never get tired.
- 0:04Speaker 1: And, Mr.
- 0:05Speaker 2: President, what will be... If I got tired, it would
- 0:07Speaker 2: be a big story I could tell.
- 0:09Speaker 1: Keisha James is a corrupt person.
- 0:11Speaker 2: She's totally corrupt, and I can't imagine it, and... I
- 0:15Speaker 2: feel badly for whoever she's looking at because they won't
- 0:18Speaker 2: get a fair shake.
- 0:19Speaker 1: You're listening to the 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson.
- 0:23Speaker 2: Good Saturday morning. Nice to have you with us on
- 0:25Speaker 2: the 47 Morning Update. And we've got a couple big
- 0:27Speaker 2: stories for you. First up, you may not realize just
- 0:31Speaker 2: how much money big tech is costing Republican candidates in
- 0:34Speaker 2: this primary. Well, now we have whistleblowers are explaining exactly
- 0:38Speaker 2: what's happening. How many emails to solicit donations from conservatives
- 0:43Speaker 2: you're not seeing because they're purposely sending them to your
- 0:46Speaker 2: spam file. We'll break that down for you in just
- 0:49Speaker 2: a moment. Before we get to that, though, I want
- 0:51Speaker 2: to talk to you real quick about the midterms and
- 0:54Speaker 2: the elections they're heating up. Congressional control and President Trump's agenda, man,
- 0:58Speaker 2: does it hang in the balance. And every headline has
- 1:00Speaker 2: the potential to shift the odds. On CalSheet, you can
- 1:03Speaker 2: trade major primaries, election outcomes, and the biggest political storylines
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- 1:14Speaker 2: Senate seat. Troy Jackson, the Democrat right now, is at 58,
- 1:18Speaker 2: and Susan Collins is at 42. What does that mean? Well,
- 1:21Speaker 2: it means if you put $ 100 on Susan Collins, if
- 1:23Speaker 2: you put $ 100 on Susan Collins... That means you would
- 1:29Speaker 2: get $ 228 back if she wins. Another one of the
- 1:33Speaker 2: big elections right now that everyone's looking at is in Texas.
- 1:36Speaker 2: Ken Paxton against James Tallarico. Right now, Paxton is currently
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- 2:11Speaker 2: see Kalshi.com slash Regulator. Up next, we also have some
- 2:15Speaker 2: really in-depth polling numbers now about what is the most
- 2:18Speaker 2: important issues for Republicans, Democrats, and independents ahead of the midterms.
- 2:23Speaker 2: So will this change the narrative? Or is what Donald
- 2:26Speaker 2: Trump and other Republicans talking about right now exactly what
- 2:29Speaker 2: the American people want to hear? It's the 47 Morning Update,
- 2:33Speaker 2: and it starts right now.
- 2:34Speaker 1: Story number one.
- 2:35Speaker 2: You may not realize just how hard it is for
- 2:39Speaker 2: Republicans to raise money right now when big tech is involved. Yes,
- 2:44Speaker 2: the deck is stacked against us. In such an unfair way,
- 2:48Speaker 2: it's truly unbelievable. A newly published study now estimates that
- 2:52Speaker 2: Republican fundraisers lost $ 117 million last year after email providers,
- 3:00Speaker 2: chiefly Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo, inappropriately flagged GOP fundraising messages
- 3:08Speaker 2: as spam. while allowing Democratic fundraising emails to go through
- 3:13Speaker 2: directly into your inbox.
- 3:16Speaker 1: The New York.
- 3:16Speaker 2: Post reports that the study, authored by Dr. Cameron Ellis
- 3:20Speaker 2: of the University of Iowa and Dr. Lars Powell of
- 3:24Speaker 2: the University of Alabama, uses itemized Federal Election Commission, FEC,
- 3:29Speaker 2: donation records to separate first-time donors from repeat donors across
- 3:34Speaker 2: the Republican platform when read, and its Democratic counterpart, ActBlue.
- 3:41Speaker 2: Then they tracked how the donations moved during two stretches
- 3:44Speaker 2: of spam filtering last year. The first stretch ran from
- 3:49Speaker 2: June 30th of 2025, when GOP consulting firm Targeted Victory
- 3:54Speaker 2: told Google that WinRed fundraising emails were landing in spam.
- 3:59Speaker 2: Through September 15th, 2025, when Google dropped a spam blacklist
- 4:03Speaker 2: called Serbal, that the researchers say had been improperly flagging
- 4:09Speaker 2: the messages. During that window, spam filtering cut first-time WinRed,
- 4:14Speaker 2: that would be the Republican donations, by 75%. Across Gmail, Outlook,
- 4:20Speaker 2: and Yahoo. The second stretch affected only Outlook ran from
- 4:25Speaker 2: February through April of last year and saw first-time WinRed, again,
- 4:30Speaker 2: Republican donations, drop 83%. Now, together, the two periods cost
- 4:36Speaker 2: Republicans 172,126 expected first-time donors, which the researchers converted into
- 4:46Speaker 2: 117 million using the on-record FEC data. Quote, it's a
- 4:52Speaker 2: pretty big number, is what Powell told the Post. He
- 4:54Speaker 2: said the loss doubled as a gift to the other side.
- 4:59Speaker 2: You can really think of that as an in-kind donation
- 5:03Speaker 2: to ActBlue recipients. And they're right. If you lose out
- 5:07Speaker 2: on $ 117 million and the other side gets their money
- 5:11Speaker 2: they're raising, it literally is an in-kind donation. It's doubling
- 5:17Speaker 2: the impact. Now, Allison Powell also wrote that a, quote,
- 5:21Speaker 2: narrow linked level placement decision would by a small number
- 5:24Speaker 2: of mailbox providers, produced a measurable and economically meaningful drop
- 5:30Speaker 2: in political fundraising for Republicans, and that the mechanism was
- 5:34Speaker 2: observed only because private paired test evidence actually leaked into
- 5:40Speaker 2: public reporting. Powell was upfront about the limits of studying
- 5:44Speaker 2: a system companies keep, well, making sure that you don't
- 5:47Speaker 2: know how it actually works, saying, quote, we can't read
- 5:50Speaker 2: their minds. he said, but pointed to other evidence pinned
- 5:54Speaker 2: down to the cause, saying inbox placement data and paired
- 5:58Speaker 2: email tests show when the filtering happened and supported the
- 6:02Speaker 2: WinRed links were the trigger. And that is the reason
- 6:06Speaker 2: why big tech is clearly in the bag for liberal Democrats. Now,
- 6:10Speaker 2: email placement for the GOP, the researchers found, normalized once
- 6:14Speaker 2: Google stopped using it on September the 15th. So this
- 6:19Speaker 2: was done by design. Now, for scale, just so you know,
- 6:23Speaker 2: the RNC, the NRCC, and the NRSC fundraising totaled $ 377
- 6:30Speaker 2: million combined in 2025. Gmail, just so you know, has
- 6:34Speaker 2: more than 3 billion users. Google, by the way, pushed
- 6:40Speaker 2: back hard. A spokesman said that the study relies on
- 6:43Speaker 2: deeply flawed methodology that fundamentally misunderstands how Gmail works. and
- 6:49Speaker 2: called the $ 117 million figure a theoretical estimate rather than
- 6:52Speaker 2: a real-world number, saying quarter-span protections apply equally to everyone,
- 6:58Speaker 2: regardless of political affiliation, and we encourage bulk senders to
- 7:02Speaker 2: follow the best practices to reach inboxes. The spokesman said,
- 7:06Speaker 2: adding that people are in full control of their inboxes,
- 7:10Speaker 2: with the power to mark messages as spam, block senders,
- 7:14Speaker 2: and unsubscribe at any time. Microsoft, they even just straight
- 7:18Speaker 2: up declined to comment, and Yahoo did not respond to
- 7:20Speaker 2: requests for comment about the story either. Now, this also
- 7:24Speaker 2: comes after there was previous reporting that GOP consulting firm
- 7:28Speaker 2: Targeted Victory revealed in 2025 that Google was flagging conservative
- 7:33Speaker 2: fundraising emails as actually dangerous. Let me say that again.
- 7:38Speaker 2: Google was flagging conservative fundraising emails as, quote, dangerous. The
- 7:44Speaker 2: New York Post reports that a recent memo from the
- 7:47Speaker 2: consulting firm Targeted Victory not only revealed that Google's Gmail
- 7:51Speaker 2: service has been flagging Republican fundraising emails as spam, but
- 7:56Speaker 2: often sending them directly to users' spam folders. The memo,
- 8:00Speaker 2: obtained exclusively by the Post, suggests that this issue has
- 8:03Speaker 2: been ongoing throughout the summer months of June and July.
- 8:08Speaker 2: Targeted Victory, whose clients include prominent Republican figures such as
- 8:13Speaker 2: Representative Steve Scalise, Senator Marsha Blackburn, as well as National
- 8:17Speaker 2: Republican Central Committee. They conducted tests to investigate the issue.
- 8:22Speaker 2: The tests involved sending identical emails through Gmail, with the
- 8:26Speaker 2: only difference being the inclusion of either a WinRed donation link,
- 8:31Speaker 2: a Republican fundraising link, or an ActBlue link, a Democratic
- 8:35Speaker 2: fundraising platform link. The results showed the emails contained WinRed
- 8:40Speaker 2: links were constantly flagged, yeah, consistently flagged as suspicious or dangerous,
- 8:46Speaker 2: while those with ActBlue links were discovered that, well, they
- 8:50Speaker 2: were delivered without any issues. So this is another example.
- 8:55Speaker 2: of just what we're up against going into the midterms.
- 8:57Speaker 2: This idea of lying, stealing, and cheating to win an
- 9:00Speaker 2: election is alive and well and part of the strategy
- 9:04Speaker 2: of the Democratic Party. So get ready, my friends. This
- 9:07Speaker 2: is another example of just how hard it's going to
- 9:09Speaker 2: be Come November, if Republicans don't get out and vote.
- 9:13Speaker 1: Next, story number two.
- 9:14Speaker 2: I want to also just get something else on your
- 9:16Speaker 2: radar screen real quick that is also, I think, a really,
- 9:19Speaker 2: really important story. And it deals with what we're talking
- 9:23Speaker 2: about with socialism. But there's also something else that's come
- 9:26Speaker 2: out that is definitely driving the issues during the midterms.
- 9:31Speaker 2: The most pressing midterm issues for rural voters. what they
- 9:35Speaker 2: want the candidates to address. There was a survey of
- 9:38Speaker 2: 2,241 registered voters living in rural areas. Here is what
- 9:43Speaker 2: they said. Cost of living is number one at extremely
- 9:46Speaker 2: important 69%, very important 25%, and somewhat important 5%. And
- 9:52Speaker 2: then there's like not that important. I think it's 1
- 9:55Speaker 2: or 2%. Cost of health care. 56% of rural voters
- 10:00Speaker 2: said they want a candidate to address this issue. Now,
- 10:02Speaker 2: by the way, I thought that was already addressed. We
- 10:04Speaker 2: had Obamacare. It was just fixed all right. It wouldn't
- 10:06Speaker 2: just cost you anything. It was just be fine. If
- 10:08Speaker 2: you liked your doctor, you're going to keep your doctor.
- 10:09Speaker 2: You like your plan, you got to keep your plan right. Oh, wait,
- 10:11Speaker 2: that didn't happen. Okay, so they're still angry about that.
- 10:14Speaker 2: On the issue of health care, it's at 56% is
- 10:17Speaker 2: extremely important. 34% was somewhat important. 9% are, excuse me, 9%
- 10:24Speaker 2: somewhat important. 34% very important. And then about 1% it
- 10:28Speaker 2: not that important. So that's massive. What's also interesting is
- 10:32Speaker 2: what came in third to rural voters. Fraud in government programs,
- 10:36Speaker 2: extremely important. More than 54% of respondents said that's extremely important. 29%
- 10:42Speaker 2: said very important. And 12% said somewhat important. You look
- 10:46Speaker 2: at immigration. Now, this number has dropped significantly because people
- 10:50Speaker 2: feel like immigration is very much under control right now
- 10:53Speaker 2: because Donald Trump is the president. So immigration is still
- 10:57Speaker 2: the fourth most important issue to roll voters. 45% say
- 11:00Speaker 2: it's extremely important. 30% say very important. 21% say somewhat important.
- 11:06Speaker 2: Then at number five is an interesting one. The conflict
- 11:09Speaker 2: with Iran. Extremely important, 42%. 35% very important. 19% somewhat important.
- 11:16Speaker 2: The rest, not important. Agriculture and farm policy for farmers, 35%.
- 11:21Speaker 2: And again, this is rural voters. 35% say extremely important. 42%
- 11:25Speaker 2: say very important. 27% also said somewhat important. And then
- 11:29Speaker 2: you had 17% said not important to them. That's significant.
- 11:34Speaker 2: After that, you have abortion at 28% very, or extremely, 27%
- 11:36Speaker 2: very important. And then 27% somewhat important. Gun policy, 26%,
- 11:38Speaker 2: extremely important. 27% very important. And 28%, it's somewhat important. Now,
- 11:50Speaker 2: I give you those numbers just so you kind of
- 11:52Speaker 2: understand the bigger picture here of what this actually means.
- 11:55Speaker 2: What we're seeing right now in all the data points
- 11:59Speaker 2: that we have is that the big story of this
- 12:03Speaker 2: election for a lot of citizens is still... What I
- 12:07Speaker 2: mentioned earlier, fraud, waste and abuse like that is still
- 12:11Speaker 2: very important to many people. And I think that's that's
- 12:15Speaker 2: very interesting to see that there are that many people
- 12:18Speaker 2: that say, hey, this still matters. Immigration still extremely important
- 12:22Speaker 2: to people, even though we're winning on the issue. So, again,
- 12:25Speaker 2: another example here. of where that is that is something
- 12:28Speaker 2: that they say look is very very very very important
- 12:31Speaker 2: now i i look at this data and and one
- 12:34Speaker 2: of the things that i see from this data is
- 12:37Speaker 2: not only do you have just people that are concerned
- 12:40Speaker 2: and and it does come down i do think to
- 12:42Speaker 2: the economy um i think it's very much comes down
- 12:45Speaker 2: to the economy and it is all about the gas
- 12:48Speaker 2: prices and people are upset they're frustrated and And I
- 12:51Speaker 2: get it. And by the way, I understand why. Because
- 12:54Speaker 2: if you're paying four, five, six dollars a gallon, you're
- 12:56Speaker 2: not happy. So the big picture and the big takeaway
- 12:59Speaker 2: here from rural voters is that it's about pocketbook. Then immigration.
- 13:04Speaker 2: Then the conflict with Iran. Then other domestic policies. But 69%
- 13:10Speaker 2: of rural voters says it's extremely important for candidates to
- 13:13Speaker 2: talk about cost of living. Then health care costs. then
- 13:17Speaker 2: fraud in government programs they want you to protect their
- 13:19Speaker 2: tax dollars they want you to protect them they want
- 13:21Speaker 2: you to get they want to have better health care
- 13:23Speaker 2: and lower costs on that health care as well now
- 13:25Speaker 2: you would think that trump rx would be paying off
- 13:28Speaker 2: big then for the president right now unfortunately the polling
- 13:30Speaker 2: numbers do not seem to be making that connection yet
- 13:33Speaker 2: i don't know why but if you zoom in even
- 13:36Speaker 2: more into these polling data affordability concerns ascended across a
- 13:40Speaker 2: wide range of everyday expenses that is a concerning number
- 13:45Speaker 2: if you're a politician All right. Fifty seven percent of
- 13:48Speaker 2: rural voters cited an economic concern, including rising costs, jobs, wages,
- 13:54Speaker 2: house affordability. When asked about the biggest issue facing their
- 13:58Speaker 2: local community, 67 percent said they were at least somewhat
- 14:01Speaker 2: worried about affording gas or transportation. That is the number
- 14:05Speaker 2: that is the nail in the coffin for many elected officials.
- 14:09Speaker 2: If you have 67% of rural voters saying they're at
- 14:12Speaker 2: least somewhat worried about affording gas or transportation, that is
- 14:16Speaker 2: higher than, by the way, it was 66% that said
- 14:19Speaker 2: the same about health care and 60% that said about
- 14:21Speaker 2: food and groceries. So it is all about gas and
- 14:25Speaker 2: transportation and the pain at the pump. Now, if three
- 14:28Speaker 2: quarters rate the cost of living in their area as
- 14:30Speaker 2: either fair or poor, that is up 25 percentage points
- 14:33Speaker 2: from the last time we got these big numbers in 2017.
- 14:37Speaker 2: So the biggest affordability worries for rural voters, gas transportation, 67%, healthcare, 66,
- 14:42Speaker 2: food and gas, 60, monthly utilities, 59, and rent or
- 14:46Speaker 2: mortgage at 46%. Rural voters' unhappiness with costs doesn't, by
- 14:51Speaker 2: the way, necessarily translate into support for Democrats either. That's
- 14:54Speaker 2: also what's interesting here. According to this polling data, 40%
- 14:59Speaker 2: say they trust Republicans more to handle the cost of
- 15:01Speaker 2: living compared with 25% who say they trust the Democrats
- 15:04Speaker 2: and 27% who trust neither party. That would be a
- 15:07Speaker 2: lot of your independent undecided voters. Rural voters surveyed leaned Republican, 54%.
- 15:12Speaker 2: They identify as GOP voters or Republican leaning are independent. Well,
- 15:18Speaker 2: in rural America, you had 32% identified as Democrats or
- 15:24Speaker 2: Democratic leaning Democrats. independence. I give you that number to
- 15:28Speaker 2: tell you this. If more than 50% of your respondents
- 15:31Speaker 2: are Republican, okay, are leaning Republican, and the numbers are
- 15:34Speaker 2: this bad on gas and transportation that 67% are telling
- 15:39Speaker 2: you they're worried about it, and 66% are saying they're
- 15:41Speaker 2: telling you they're worried about healthcare, and 60% are telling
- 15:43Speaker 2: you they're worried about food and groceries, and 59% are
- 15:45Speaker 2: saying they're worried about monthly utilities, and 46% are saying
- 15:49Speaker 2: they're worried about rent or mortgage, and they're Republicans, that
- 15:53Speaker 2: is a problem going into a midterm. And then it
- 15:55Speaker 2: comes back to the question of, all right, well, what
- 15:57Speaker 2: are they watching? 27% of rural Republican voters disapprove of
- 16:02Speaker 2: Trump's handling of the economy per this poll. Among them, 59%
- 16:06Speaker 2: say they're absolutely certain to vote in the midterm elections.
- 16:09Speaker 2: So you have 27% of rural Republican voters, they disapprove
- 16:12Speaker 2: of Trump's handling of the economy. Are they going to
- 16:15Speaker 2: go to a socialist candidate? I don't know, right? Because
- 16:19Speaker 2: let me go back to this data point. 98%. of
- 16:23Speaker 2: rural Republicans say they're more likely to vote for a
- 16:25Speaker 2: Republican than a Democrat. So they may be unhappy, but
- 16:28Speaker 2: they're not dumb enough to vote for socialism, which they
- 16:32Speaker 2: know is 10 times worse. Now that's great news if
- 16:35Speaker 2: you are looking, okay, keyword, if you are looking at
- 16:40Speaker 2: election day and rural voters are still going to come
- 16:44Speaker 2: out for Republicans overwhelming. That is great news. The problem, okay,
- 16:50Speaker 2: and this is still a very big problem. is if
- 16:52Speaker 2: that's the number in a majority Republican, the majority of
- 16:55Speaker 2: people are rural voters that are registered Republicans, that are conservatives,
- 17:00Speaker 2: and these are the numbers you're getting, and this is
- 17:02Speaker 2: the data that you're getting. Let me just tell you
- 17:04Speaker 2: right now, you've got a big problem when it comes
- 17:07Speaker 2: to going into cities. You have a big problem, okay?
- 17:11Speaker 2: Not only when you go into cities, but you have
- 17:13Speaker 2: a big, big, big problem. You have a massive problem
- 17:18Speaker 2: come election day in major cities. where there are a
- 17:21Speaker 2: lot of independent voters and there's a lot of Republican
- 17:23Speaker 2: voters and a lot of Democratic voters. That is where
- 17:27Speaker 2: you can lose big time. So you put all this together,
- 17:30Speaker 2: and I'm telling you right now, pay attention. Because, and
- 17:32Speaker 2: this is, it goes back to that basic saying, it's
- 17:34Speaker 2: the economy's stupid. I'll say it over and over and
- 17:36Speaker 2: over and over and over again. It's the economy's stupid.
- 17:38Speaker 2: It's the economy's stupid. It's the economy's stupid. It is
- 17:40Speaker 2: clear it is the economy day in and day out.
- 17:43Speaker 2: People care about their economic conditions. They care about how
- 17:47Speaker 2: they feel when they go shopping. They care about paying
- 17:50Speaker 2: at the pump. They care about it. They feel like
- 17:52Speaker 2: the administration is listening to them, is working on these issues. Now,
- 17:56Speaker 2: a lot of this comes down. Notice that Iran wasn't
- 17:58Speaker 2: really up there. Why? Because most people feel like it's
- 18:01Speaker 2: on the other side of the world, which, by the way,
- 18:02Speaker 2: it is. There's a lot of people that are frustrated, okay?
- 18:06Speaker 2: A lot of people that are really frustrated with the war.
- 18:09Speaker 2: And they're frustrated because they feel like they're now having to,
- 18:12Speaker 2: they're feeling the pain and the uncertainty and the instability
- 18:15Speaker 2: on the issue for good reason. They're like, why did
- 18:19Speaker 2: we do this? Why was it worth it? What was
- 18:21Speaker 2: he thinking?
- 18:22Speaker 1: Why?
- 18:22Speaker 2: This is going to be the ballgame, folks. This is
- 18:24Speaker 2: going to be the election. And we've got less than
- 18:27Speaker 2: five weeks to turn it around. It's going to be
- 18:29Speaker 2: hard to do. But these data points I'm telling you
- 18:32Speaker 2: are extremely important.
- 18:34Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the 47 Morning Update with
- 18:37Speaker 1: Ben Ferguson. Please make sure you hit subscribe wherever you're
- 18:41Speaker 1: listening to this podcast right now. And for more in-depth news,
- 18:45Speaker 1: Also subscribe to the Ben Ferguson podcast, and we will
- 18:49Speaker 1: see you back here on Monday morning.