Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Full Episode - What To Watch For On Election Night + The Midterm Story Everyone Is Missing… State Governments

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Full Episode - What To Watch For On Election Night + The Midterm Story Everyone Is Missing… State Governments · The Chuck ToddCast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Todd cast is brought to
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: you by Chapter. Now, almost everything you hear about Medicare
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: is somebody quietly trying to steer you somewhere. And you're
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: skeptical of that, as you should be. I get it.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, there's a federal lawsuit going on right now
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  Speaker 1: I'm a bit distrustful these days myself. That's the whole
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  Speaker 1: reason I want to tell you about Chapter. They're independent
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  Speaker 1: even after you've done this. So look, I get it.
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  Speaker 1: I think there's all sorts of space. You see a
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  Speaker 1: lot of people are throwing themselves in this healthcare space.
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  Speaker 1: What I like about these chapter folks, I've spent time
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  Speaker 1: with them. This is a very transparent organization. It is
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  Speaker 1: Medicare and all of its affiliated stuff can be very confusing.
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  Speaker 1: The whole point of this is to make this easier
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  Speaker 1: and less confusing. OK, so look, take the skepticism you
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  Speaker 1: And then call chapter today at 980-734-4200. Hello there and
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: welcome to the Thursday episode of the Chuck Todd cast.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: This is the one that's going to live for the weekend.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: It's my second to last one before the big day,
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  Speaker 1: before election day. And I've got a good consider this
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  Speaker 1: your election primer episode. Let me give you a quick
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  Speaker 1: little rundown of what I've got. My guest is Reed Wilson.
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  Speaker 1: Reed is the editor and founder of Pluribus News. a
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  Speaker 1: news organization that focuses on the state, state legislatures, governors,
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  Speaker 1: things like that, what's happening in the states, both on
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  Speaker 1: a policy and a political level. Reid also is a
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  Speaker 1: former editor-in-chief of the Hotline, used to work for me
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: when I was at the Hotline. And so we give you, basically,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: we do the preview of the midterms through, you know,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: which legislatures could flip and the chambers that may flip.
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  Speaker 1: key governor's races, but more importantly, the policies that are
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  Speaker 1: really impacting states and are animating some of these state issues.
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  Speaker 1: And then we dig in a little bit to some
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  Speaker 1: key ballot measures as well. I am about to give
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  Speaker 1: you sort of what I would call my viewing night
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  Speaker 1: preview is sort of how to watch early returns to
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  Speaker 1: look for clues. about what the national climate is going
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: to look like and all of that. So this is
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: what I mean when I feel like, look, we'll have
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: it all here, the various scenarios, the various ways. I'll
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: do a little bit more of it. My Monday episode
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  Speaker 1: will be just sort of, you know, everything that's out
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: there from the weekend, cleaning things up, things that I
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: don't think you should miss going forward. We'll also have
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: a few, I'm going to take some questions. And of course,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: I'll give you my college football preview. And I got
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: one more thing to say about the whole Pat McAfee.
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  Speaker 1: Because I will confess that it's gotten under my skin
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: how he's behaving here, because I've actually experienced what he's
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: claiming to experience. And it's just like, man, you know,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: get your head out of your ass, buddy. I don't
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: know how else to put it. And the thing is,
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: is that I thought he was thought he was bigger
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: than this and I thought he was better than this.
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  Speaker 1: But I'll I'll get to that later. It's football talk.
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  Speaker 1: Very scary. Very scary when you realize that college football
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: Saturday falls on Halloween, right? All the easy metaphors, the
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: dad puns for upsets, et cetera. But we've had two
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  Speaker 1: straight weekends of massive, a bunch of supposedly ranked teams losing.
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  Speaker 1: I say supposedly because one of my favorite debates is
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  Speaker 1: If you beat a top five team, but they're not
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  Speaker 1: a top five team by the end of the year,
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  Speaker 1: did you beat a top five team?
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  Speaker 2: Right?
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  Speaker 1: UCLA gets credit for beating a top, I think it
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  Speaker 1: was a top 10 team at the time in Oregon.
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  Speaker 2: Are they?
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  Speaker 1: Miami doesn't get credit for beating a top 15 team
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  Speaker 1: in Wake Forest because Wake wasn't ranked at the time.
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  Speaker 1: They may end up being a top 10 team when
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  Speaker 1: the season is over. And suddenly that Miami victory that
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  Speaker 1: we got dinged for is actually more impressive.
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  Speaker 3: Anyway.
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  Speaker 1: So, yes, I'll be whining a little bit about the treatment,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: as usual, of the University of Miami. But I will
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  Speaker 1: save that for the end of the podcast. I do
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  Speaker 1: want to kick off, though. The big news of the
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  Speaker 1: last 24 hours is the story in The New York
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  Speaker 1: Times about the Alaska Senate race and the reporting that
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  Speaker 1: indicates that, you know, this is one of those, cue
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  Speaker 1: the Casablanca quotes. I'm shocked that there's gambling going on here.
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  Speaker 1: The Times found some receipts, you know. You know, it
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  Speaker 1: was pretty clear the Dan Sullivan candidacy didn't second Dan
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  Speaker 1: Sullivan didn't come out of nowhere. And for those of
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  Speaker 1: you that have not paid attention to this, there is
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  Speaker 1: a second Dan Sullivan that was recruited to run. He
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  Speaker 1: ran as an independent. He ended up in the top four.
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  Speaker 1: The way the ranked choice voting system works in Alaska,
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  Speaker 1: I say the way it works, it could change in
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  Speaker 1: two years because the idea of ranked choice voting. is
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  Speaker 1: on the ballot one more time. And the way this
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  Speaker 1: story went and the way the governor's race went, there's
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  Speaker 1: every indication that Alaskans are going to dump this system
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  Speaker 1: after this year. But the basic story is, you know,
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  Speaker 1: somehow somebody recruited a second Dan Sullivan, a different middle initial.
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  Speaker 1: And you sit there and you're like, yeah, this looks
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  Speaker 1: like election shenanigans. Who's behind it? Was the Peltolo campaign
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  Speaker 1: behind it? And there was A court fight over this.
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  Speaker 1: He claimed he decided to run on his own. Now
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  Speaker 1: the Times seems to have some evidence that there were
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  Speaker 1: some people associated with Paltello's camp. Mary Paltello, the leading
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  Speaker 1: Democrat in the race, was involved in this effort. And
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  Speaker 1: here we are. It is this story hit on October 28th. So, yes,
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  Speaker 1: I think it officially qualifies as a so-called October surprise. Look,
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  Speaker 1: this is something that Republicans had assumed Democratic operatives were behind,
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  Speaker 1: and there's a reason for this. This is not a
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  Speaker 1: unique tactic, right? Political parties have been doing this. recruiting
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  Speaker 1: third party candidates, you know, boosting up. You know, we've
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  Speaker 1: seen it just in this primary cycle. Right. You've seen
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  Speaker 1: Republicans going out of their way to boost progressive candidates
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  Speaker 1: to see if they could get progressive nominees, just like
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  Speaker 1: we saw in 2022. Quite a bit. Democrats spending money
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  Speaker 1: to help MAGA candidates. And certainly I think there was
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  Speaker 1: some evidence in a few places that it happened this cycle.
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  Speaker 1: So both parties engage in these type of tactics, trying
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  Speaker 1: to Help the other party nominate a less electable candidate.
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  Speaker 1: Try to create confusion on the ballot. And the question is,
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  Speaker 1: what is fair and what is out of bounds? Right.
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  Speaker 1: And and, you know, I think it all goes to
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  Speaker 1: your to your perception of this. I'll give you a
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  Speaker 1: quick few top line immediate reactions I had to the
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  Speaker 1: story when it hit one. Alaska is a small state,
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  Speaker 1: and this matters because a story like this, you're asking yourself,
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  Speaker 1: dropping this late, how much is it going to penetrate
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  Speaker 1: the electorate? Well, Alaska is a small state. It's a
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  Speaker 1: small town state. Everybody knows everybody. My guess is most
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  Speaker 1: people already assumed this was a political dirty trick, probably
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  Speaker 1: even assumed Paltello was around it, at least in the
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  Speaker 1: political intelligentsia. I say this because I happen to be
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  Speaker 1: connected to some folks in the political intelligentsia of Alaska politics.
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  Speaker 1: And so nobody is surprised that there is now some
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  Speaker 1: evidence that links people associated with the Democrats or with Patel.
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  Speaker 2: That's one.
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  Speaker 1: Two, right now, Trump's Republican Party does a lot of
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  Speaker 1: dirty tricks. There's an expectation that they don't play by
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  Speaker 1: the rules. There's an expectation that they're always looking for
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  Speaker 1: a way to cheat. What does that mean? It means
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  Speaker 1: I think Democrats, I think voters end up holding Democrats
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  Speaker 1: to a higher standard because you're the party, because the
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  Speaker 1: Democrats are the party that asked to be held to
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  Speaker 1: a higher standard that point to the other side and say, hey,
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  Speaker 1: they're low standard. They're a low standard party. And when
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  Speaker 1: you do that, it means when you fight fire with
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  Speaker 1: fire as a political party, don't be surprised if voters.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: end up punishing you for something that they might not
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  Speaker 1: punish the other side for because, hey, they expect Donald
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  Speaker 1: Trump to behave like a jerk. They expect Donald Trump
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  Speaker 1: to want to cheat. They expect Donald Trump to break
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  Speaker 1: the rules. You may think, well, that's not fair. Well,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: life ain't fair, right? These things aren't necessarily fair, but
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: especially if you project yourself as being above this, as
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  Speaker 1: they're the dirty tricksters. We're not the dirty tricksters. They're
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  Speaker 1: the ones that cheat. We don't cheat. So when you
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  Speaker 1: do that, don't be surprised that the voter ends up
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  Speaker 1: holding the person that only cheats once harsher, that might
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  Speaker 1: be harsher to it than the entity that may be
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  Speaker 1: cheating all the time. I say this, for instance, it
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: is the Republican Party that most recently you know, was
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: right in a court of law was proven to play
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  Speaker 1: this game. Let me remind you, this happened in 2020
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  Speaker 1: in the Florida Republican Party. And it was, you know,
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  Speaker 1: now proven that it changed an outcome in a state
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  Speaker 1: Senate race. A Republican former state Senator named Frank Artilles
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: offered a gentleman named Alex Rodriguez $ 50, 000 to run as
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: an independent in a Miami-Dade County race against a Democrat
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  Speaker 1: whose name was Jose Javier Rodriguez. And so what happened
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: was the Republican candidate, Ileana Garcia, won by 32 votes,
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: while the namesake Rodriguez, the third-party candidate that took $ 50, 000
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: from a Republican operative to run, received 6,000 votes. And
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: then this sham candidate, Alex Rodriguez, admitted under oath that
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: he was paid $ 50, 000, and the political consultant, Frank Artilles,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: was convicted, on three counts. And it turned out the
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: scheme also had a dark money component to it. It
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: enabled consultants working for the state's power company, Florida Power
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: and Light, to do that. But here's the thing. Running
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: the ghost candidate wasn't illegal. The Republican operative was not,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: Frank Artilles was not convicted for running the ghost candidate.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: That isn't illegal in the state of Florida. Artilles was
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: convicted over the payments, right? Not the ploy itself. I
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: say that because this is, in some ways, this is standard.
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  Speaker 1: You talk to any political consultant and this is sort
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: of like, yeah, there's always some sort of shenanigan here.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe it's a libertarian candidate, a green candidate, a socialist candidate,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: a nationalist candidate, right? We've all seen those things. So
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  Speaker 1: I throw all that out there to say this. I
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: don't know how much of an impact this is gonna have.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: I think it's fair to say if Dan Sullivan wins,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: we're going to say it had a lot of... That
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: the confirmation that Paltello's campaign was involved or Democrats were
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: involved had enough of an impact. If Paltello wins, we'll say, yeah,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: voters are pretty cynical. They assume everybody's dirty, everybody's corrupt.
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  Speaker 1: So they made a choice based on which party that
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: they wanted in charge of the Senate. So... I don't
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: want to assume this has zero impact and I don't
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: want to assume this changes everything in this race, but
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  Speaker 1: I don't think it's insignificant. You know, and I think
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: that there is a, you know, the Democrats want to
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: portray themselves as the party of good government, as the
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: party of playing by the rules. And I think whenever
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: they get caught not playing by the rules, and this
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: is something I'm going to get on my hobby horse here,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: that the One of my great fears of the second
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: election of Trump was that it was perhaps going to
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: change the Democratic Party more than it would change the
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: Republican Party. And that there was going to be, if
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: you can't beat them, join them. Whatever it takes to win.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Not what it takes. The great book by the late
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Richard Ben Kramer, but whatever it takes. We live in
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: a whatever it takes mentality right now. We live in
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: a whatever it takes society. And if that's the mindset
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: of most Americans these days, then this story is meaningless.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: It'll be as meaningful as Elon Musk writing $ 500 million
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: checks to prop up one candidate, right? You think in
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: theory that should be an outrage to people, but there
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: is such a cynicism and an expectation that the wealthy
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: in this country think they can buy whatever they want,
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: and that politics is that corrupt and dirty, and that's
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: just what it is. Um, But I wouldn't dismiss this
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: story as not having an impact at all, because I
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: go back to the small state aspect. Look, small state
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: politics are cutthroat. In some ways, it can be more
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: cutthroat than big state politics, because in a big state,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: there's more observers, i.e. journalists, watching everything. And small states
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: are sometimes fewer, and it can be nastier and dirtier
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: and more personal and all of those things. So, look,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: you see the glee with which so many Republican operatives
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: are sharing the story because they're just looking for anything, right,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: to change the narrative at the moment. And it is
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: the reaction and almost the enthusiasm of the right-wing influencers
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: and the White House operatives that tells me, boy, they'll
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: take anything at this point, right? Anything that might.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: That might give some independent voter pause about making this
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: election basically an election about Donald Trump. And that's ultimately
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: what it is, right? Is our Alaska voters, is this
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: a referendum on Mary Patello and Dan Sullivan, or is
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: this a referendum on Donald Trump? Now, if it continues,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: if this is really a campaign that's a referendum on
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, then this story's a blip, and this story's small.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: By the way, there's one other aspect to this, because
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: I've been, I do think, in theory, in the ranked
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: choice voting world, that this story actually has less potential
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: impact or harm Dan Sullivan than if this were just
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: like what the Florida Republicans did with the ghost candidate
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: in the state Senate race that siphoned away votes. And
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: there isn't a second chance at that vote in theory, right? Now,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: maybe I'm curious if the Sullivan campaign is messaging this, hey,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: don't forget, ranked And maybe they don't want to do this,
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: but rank Dan Sullivan twice, right? Vote for both Dan Sullivans.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: I wonder if they're having any sort of messaging like that,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: because it is a way to sort of neutralize this.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: But of course, Sullivan's name being just on the ballot
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: the first time guaranteed that he took a slot of
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: the top four, which may have always been the point
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: of the dirty trick as it is. It's funny about
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: dirty tricks, right? We know both parties do it. We
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: know everybody engages in it. It's when you get caught,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: how you get caught, and sort of what voters expected
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: of you. How out of character is it? And I
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: think at the end of the day, that's the open
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: question I have. I'm not going to sit here and
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: presume I know how the Alaska electorate is going to
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: absorb this story. But one thing I do know is true.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: That in small states, a story, even if it drops
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: this late, is definitely going to make its way. So
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: this idea that maybe people won't know about it in time,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: I don't think that's true at all. I think in
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: that case, it's true. Hey, one more additional piece of
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: news on Alaska. And that was before we learned this
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: story that broke in The New York Times. The biggest
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: news out of Alaska was coming from Lisa Murkowski, who
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: decided to endorse the Democrat in the Alaska governor's race.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: And the language she used seemed to say, hey, She
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: was sending a message more on just the governor's race.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: She said, be sure to vote for those that have
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: Alaska's interests first. Of course, Mary Patola is a native
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: Alaskan and all of that. All of this comes after
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump just went and attacked her and eviscerated her
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: and all this stuff. So it's interesting. Look, on one hand,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: it's possible that the dirty trick aspect of this turned
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: some voters off. It's also possible some of those same
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: voters are going to be looking to what Lisa Murkowski
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: has to say. And it will matter, actually, what she
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: says about this story as well. And it'll be an
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: interesting tell. Does she choose not to comment? Does she
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: say anything or does she not say anything? There's no
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: reason for her to be on the trail. It's not necessarily.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: So if she decides to react to the story and
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: to the new time story, it will be a choice.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Just like it was choice that she decided to endorse
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: the Democrat in the Alaska governor's race. So look, everything
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: Lisa Murkowski is doing at the moment is a reminder
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: of why it's possible Democrats only need three Senate seats,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: not four. So keep that in mind. This episode of
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: the Chuck Todd cast is brought to you by Kalshi.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: It's an exchange where you can trade on what you
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: actually think is going to happen, sports, politics, culture, whatever
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: is on your mind. So I thought on today's segment,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: I would focus on the three long shot Senate races
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: that Democrats are targeting here in the last two weeks,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: South Carolina, Mississippi, and Kansas. And what's interesting in doing
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: a quick odds check here. And the question is, if
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: you were a only to invest in one, which one
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: would I suggest investing in? And oh, by the way,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: some of these you can invest in and then get
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: out before getting the final result. So you got South Carolina,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: Darling Graham sitting at 74%. Annie Andrews, you can get
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: for a quarter, 26, basically just over a quarter, 26%,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: 26 cents. Mississippi, Hyde-Smith is at 88. Scott Colum's at 12. Kansas,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: Roger Marshall's at 60. Adam Hamilton's at 40. So the
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: question is, what's the better... You know, if you were
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: to you only can pick one, what's the better long shot?
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: And what's the one long shot where if you're if
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: you get cold feet as the results roll in, you
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: might be in good place. And I'll tell you, it's
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: hands down for me, Annie Andrews. I think Annie Andrews
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: at 26 cents. I think Annie Andrews will probably be
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: at 40 cents at 715 on election night. Now, it's
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: up to you. You can stick or you can get out.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: But no matter what, if you're looking to see if
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: your investment can go up and you want to play
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: the day trading game of these three races, that's the
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: one that I think you have the best shot at doing.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: We'll know we'll have an idea of turnout. I think
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: it's going to be an incredibly close race and we're
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: not used to close races in South Carolina. And so
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: I think the opportunity to sort of get out before
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: you might, you know, you can get out half and
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: then keep half in it, things like that. But to me,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: it's an easy. I think you're not going to have
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: enough day trading room to, I think, mess around in Mississippi.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: And I think Hamilton's too high priced. If anything, Roger
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: Marshall might be a slight bargain at 60 cents if
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: you want to hedge against a blue tsunami.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: So here's what you need to know about Kalshi. You're
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: going up against other traders directly. There's no house setting
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: the odds. just people putting their own opinions on the line.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Trade $ 25 with the code Chuck Todd, and they'll throw
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: in another $ 25 instantly. And of course, please remember, trade responsibly.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: There was one other development that happened in another story
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: that I've been following, obviously one I've been following very closely,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: which is The Ramaswamy exploitation ad on the trauma that
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Amy Acton in the Ohio governor's race happened to her
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: when her stepfather was credibly accused of raping her. And
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: then he skipped the state on bond, you know, is
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: that they tracked down, the Daily Mail tracked down Amy
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: Acton's rapist, the stepfather that she said raped her. And
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: they tracked down one of his biological daughters who basically
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: has been re-traumatized. And she just talked about how much
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: that this whole story has re-traumatized her. She talked about
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: how her father raped her sister when she was underage.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: Her sister's no longer living. She died in her 60s.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: And it's just, you know, I saw the story and
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: it just got me all upset all over again.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: That somebody made this choice. Ramaswamy is, I think, going
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: to pay a steep price for this. It's not just
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: the price of losing an election, but I think he's
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: going to be ostracized from mainstream politics, and he should be.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: You choose to, not without a lot of remorse and
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: a lot of apologies and a lot of regret, and
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: he's yet to do any of it. But somebody tracked
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: this woman down. Ramaswami didn't. Ramaswami paid somebody to do it,
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: and somebody chose to do it. Somebody realized that this mother,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: there's a really gut-wrenching piece to read out of the
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: independent news organization Ceteo. I encourage you to read it.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: They did a pretty deep dive, sort of like, how
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: did this come to be? How did they find her?
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: Who was the, and got some, you know, all of
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: this is anonymous. understandably because nobody wants to put their
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: name on it, but apparently there were some Republican operatives
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: who were pushing back saying they shouldn't do this, that the,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: that the, um, biological mother of Amy Acton was not
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: all there. It was clearly something wrong. This woman was
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: living in her car. She didn't even really live in
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: a real location. Uh, and they chose to do this anyway.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: But what really upset me is the fact that like
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: anybody that has been traumatized by this man, this, this, this, uh,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: this man who, um, Amy Acton, like I said, the
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: law enforcement, I mean, there was a warrant, there was a,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: you know, for him, did this to him. And then
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: anybody else he abused, it turned out he abused others,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: have been re-traumatized by it. And just the lack of,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: did you not care, right? I want to go to
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: the operatives that enabled, that went down this. Did you
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: not see what you were doing? I mean, I'm glad
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: to know there were a few that spoke up and said, hey,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: we shouldn't do this. This is wrong. I can't, you know,
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: and that's why it's even grosser to me that the
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: president and the vice president have stuck by this. It's
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: intriguing to me. I do get this since J.D. Vance
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: realizes this is, he's stuck with it, right? He's stuck
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: with it because he's decided to be a MAGA disciple.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: And if you're in MAGA world, you know, never back down, right?
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: That's the never apologize, never back down. That's the Trump way.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: That's the MAGA way. You know, it's funny. It's like
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: watching Rubio go to the rallies with Trump. He knows
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: the sitting secretary of state shouldn't be doing it. He
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: knows he shouldn't be doing it. So he goes up
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: there and says, like, you know, one sentence. You know,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: there's a... There's one of the times I met privately
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: with President Trump in his first term. They insisted on
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: a photo. And the photo is... It's like, I didn't
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: really want to take a photo with him. I didn't,
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: you know, need him broadcasting a photo of this. You know,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: I was doing my job as a journalist. And it's like,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: I physically look like I'm trying to get out of
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: the photo. I didn't realize I was doing it. My
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: wife pointed this out to me once. And it's like,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: that's the feeling I get with both Vance in how
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: he realizes this is what, what does he become a
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: part of or a Rubio? What is he becoming a
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: part of and how easily this happens? And I guess
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: you could say actually all three of these stories, right?
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: The Democratic operatives who have decided to fight fire with fire.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: And it's like, if Trump can cheat, why shouldn't we
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: try to do these things? Or, you know, the never
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: back down mentality that Vance has adopted or, you know,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: Rubio knowing it's wrong what he's doing, but he's going
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: with it anyway, because he'd rather stay in the good
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: graces of the leader of the Republican Party than do
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: what he thinks is right. You know, this is this
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: is what's this is the virus in our politics. OK,
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: this is the larger virus that's in our politics. It's
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: why I'm, you know, such a skeptic about both parties
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: at the moment. It's why I think we need a
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: disruptive moment against both parties. Both of them need, you know, yes,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: the moral depravity of Donald Trump. is like a thousand
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: times worse, okay? This is not, I know some of
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: you don't both sides this, but the fact of the
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: matter is it's more powerful when you win the right
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: way than when you win the wrong way. And for
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: the most part, Democrats are likely to have a pretty
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: good night on Tuesday by simply meeting voters where they
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: are and reminding voters that Donald Trump broke all of
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: his promises, right? That is politics conducted the right way.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: That is normal everyday politics. And, you know, whatever, you know, there,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: there's lines you go up against and then there's lines
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: you get tempted to cross and then you do it
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: and then you get caught and then you kind of
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: have regrets. Just think about those moments, you know, to
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: anybody who's an operative listening here, think about these things.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: You know, one of the, one of, um, one of
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: my closer friends, closest friends, um, sort of, you know,
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: got caught up in political controversy themselves. And it's one
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: of those where it's very hard. I get it. It's
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: very hard to step out and think about the big
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: picture sometimes in a moment that you're in. And sometimes
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: you don't quite see what, you don't really realize that
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: you're in a moment until it's too late.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: I know most people get involved with politics for the
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: right reasons, not the wrong reasons. But when you get
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: to the point of mercenary, when it's just whatever it
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: takes to win, there's this thing. If you're saying the phrase,
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: whatever it takes, check yourself. Ask yourself what this should be.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: Some of you may say, oh, you're being naive. I
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: know politics ain't being bad. You know, and Look, I
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: sort of loathe the way we are, but I'd like
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: to think that, you know, we're just not going to
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: continue to define decency down. Like I saw Roger Marshall
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: accused Adam Hamilton of grooming. He just said it matter
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: of factly, me just just at a you know that
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: he was grooming people at his church that's a that's
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: a loaded statement there's like no i don't you know
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: just throwing it out there like that's there was a
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: time that if a sitting senator accused his opponent of
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: grooming people that might actually be considered like what That's
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: what evidence do you have? That's a stunning charge. Why
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: are you saying this? It would be considered beyond the pale. But,
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: you know, obviously we're so far. Donald Trump has taken
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: us so far past the decency, whatever the whatever, you know,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: the decency line that we've we've sort of lost our
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: we've lost our mores. But I would say to to
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: to some of my Republican friends who are outraged or
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: pretending to be outraged about the tactic in Alaska. number one,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: did you speak out about what Ramaswami did? If you did,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: then you have a little more credibility for me. If
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: you didn't, suck it. All right. You don't, you know,
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: you can sit this one out. And if you've participated
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: in the, you know, the mindset of, well, I don't
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: know if it's true, make them deny it mindset. You
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: do realize every time you go down that road, You
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: just sort of erode the credibility of all politicians and
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: you erode the credibility of the democracy. So, yeah, I know.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: I've turned this story a little bit into a bit
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: of a moral and ethical tirade. But if you want
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: a better politics, you have to practice it. You can't
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: just keep saying you want a better politics and then
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: not practice it. All right. I want to go through
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: a little bit of how different ways to absorb election night.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: If you already don't know, Chris Silliza, myself, Jeffrey Skelly,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: and the Decision Desk HQ crew in a live stream
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: brought to you by CalShe and Newsphere, the terrific news
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: organization that I'm also a part of. We are bringing
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: you election night coverage. like nobody else can bring it
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: to you. We're going to have a live stream. There'll
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: be an, actually an in-person event for invitees in DC.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: If those of you that know me and would really
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: like to be, be there, you know, you know how
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: to find me. And so please do. I would love
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: to see some of you come down, but we're going
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: to be the, essentially the, the official election night broadcast
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: for decision desk HQ results. Those of you that, that are,
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: that are, paying them to get results. You're not going
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: to be getting them after us. We'll be doing it
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: at the same time, but you'll be able to see
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: the calls and you'll be able to understand why they
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: haven't made calls in real time. We will be sharing
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: that in some ways you will get insight on the
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: boiler room of the Decision Desk, DDHQ team, and in
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: a unique way that no other broadcast can bring you,
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: nobody else. And they're, as you've come to know, they're
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: the best at this and they only get better with
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: every election that we hold. And I don't say every cycle.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, every individual election, they get better at finding,
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: at getting it faster and counting the vote faster and
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: doing the best that they can there. So please do that.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: But I put together, and I'm going to give you
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: a little bit of highlight. I wrote a more extensive
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: piece on both my sub stack and my column that
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: appears on Newsphere, sort of my viewer's guide. So let's
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: say you didn't want to have to stay up till
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: three in the morning to find out what happened. Although
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: if you're listening to my podcast, my guess is you
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: will be up till three, four, five. You know, you
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: may wait until we call Alaska, the Alaska at large
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: house seat, not just the Alaska Senate race. Dirty little
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: secret because of rank choice voting. The Alaska Senate race
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: might not get called until the weekend. OK, but and
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: if we're waiting on Alaska to decide control of the Senate.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: I think that tells you a little bit something different
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: about the night, that's for sure. But let me give
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: you sort of how I will early on, and you'll
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: see it in our coverage, but early on, some of
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: the early races, early house seats in particular, that will
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: be the clues that I'll be looking at, the tea leaves,
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: if you will, that I'll be reading. to try to
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: figure out, is this a blue wave? If so, how
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: big is it? First, I will give you one of my,
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: it's a bit morbid, but it's an exercise I enjoy
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: doing that is, I think, worth it. If I went
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: into a coma and woke up the Wednesday after the election,
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: and I was told I could only get the results
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: in one state, which state would it be? Well, for me,
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: it's an easy, it's a no-brainer call. It's I've been
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: saying this probably for a year now, ever since it
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: was officially an open seat race in the Senate. And
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: that is, you know, you have three House seats that
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: are up for grabs, three swing House seats. You've got
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: an open governor's seat. You got an open Senate seat.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: In fact, we haven't had both seats open at the
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: same time in Iowa in the same election cycle, both
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: the Senate and the Gov seat this way. I think
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: since the 60s. So this was a unique it's a
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: it's a unique moment in Iowa political history. But if
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: I only had the results of one state, I think
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: I could know everything that happened.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: If Democrats win two or three of the competitive House seats,
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: there's two open seats and there's one open seat, the
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: Ashley Hinson seat and two incumbents, Zach Nunn and Marianne
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: Miller Meeks. One, the districts are one, two and three.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: The fourth district is also open. That's the Randy Feenstra seat.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: He left that, he's the congressman that's leaving, ran for governor,
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: lost in the primary. But it's the conservative seat. It's
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: the Northwest Iowa seat. That seat is not in play.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: All the other three seats are, right? The third is
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: the Des Moines seat. And then the first and the
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: second are the Eastern, basically the Eastern half of the
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: state divided in half. One's got Iowa City, one doesn't.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: That's the basic difference between the two. And if Democrats
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: win two or three, you know, win two or three
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: of those House seats, either all three or two of them,
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: then you know the Democrats have won control of the House.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, you could arguably say if they win all three,
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: then they actually mathematically would have enough to actually do this.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: If you told me they won only the Gov seat,
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: but not the Senate seat, then I would be like, oh,
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: did Democrats come up short in the Senate? That would
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: be my first reaction. But if they won all five,
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: I'd be like, whoa, how big did the wave get?
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: I will assume if they win all three House seats,
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: I assume we're looking at 235 to 240 House seats overall.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: And if they win the Senate seat, then I know
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: they've won the Senate. I know that, you know, obviously
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: they need four seats, so they need more than just Iowa.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: But if they've won Iowa, then it means they've won Ohio.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: It means they've won North Carolina. It means they probably
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: held Michigan. And then at that point, they just need
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: one more to come in somewhere. Is it Maine? Is
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: it Texas?
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: Is it Alaska? We'll see if Alaska has shifted back
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: into the Republicans' direction after the October surprise from the
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: New York Times hit. But you see my point there.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: The Iowa victory pretty much guarantees that. So if you're
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: wanting one state, and I think that if Democrats sweep it,
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: and they might, that's not out of the question. They might.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: They sweep it. Iowa becomes the poster child of the wave.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: And it was sort of like, you know, that will
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: be where all the after action reports are and everybody
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: will go there. And remember, Iowa was home to more
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: Obama-Trump counties than the other 49 states combined, counties that
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: flipped from Obama to Trump, all in the eastern half
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: of the state. In fact, Dave Wasserman, the terrific congressional
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: expert at the Cook Political Report, he tweeted on Wednesday
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: an interesting theory that he has. You know, he said, look, 2018–
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: He called it the Whole Foods election, meaning Democrats made
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: all their gains by winning all the suburbs, basically winning
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: people that were already allergic to Trump. And so they
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: won places that they probably should have already had and acquired.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: This wave, if it ends up happening, means that Democrats
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: will have– that the areas that were lost to Trump
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: and congressional seats one and two in Iowa– are the
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: two canaries in the coal mine here, since they had
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: the most Obama to Trump counties, that this is potentially
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: the full-on rejection that the voters, the Democrats lost to Trump, right?
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: The ones that were never into Hillary. They were Obama people,
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: didn't like Hillary. It's why they voted for Obama against
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: Hillary before. They were likely Bernie people. And then they
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: ended up Trump and then stuck with Trump for a while.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: Is this the election that Democrats get them back? Well,
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: the only way they're carrying Iowa and Ohio is if
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: that's exactly what happened. And remember, both of those were
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: swing states in 2012 and ended up not looking like
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: swing states by 2016. So it is I think it's
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: an interesting theorization. And this has been one of mine. Right.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: Is to say this goes to the whole Charlie Cook
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: red undertow. Is this going to be a wave, particularly
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: in the red? in the light red states, right? Like
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: your Texas, your Iowas and your Ohios, and then potentially
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: less impactful in the blue states. But I'm less convinced
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: of that. I'm not saying that's not a possibility, that
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: this is one of those, you know, like 18 was
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: a wave in blue and purple areas, but not in
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: the red areas of the country. You know, but I'm
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: not seeing that, I don't feel like the same thing.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: It's just like what happened in 24, where Kamala was
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: very competitive in the purple areas, which is why Democrats
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: held on to all those Senate seats in states that
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: Trump narrowly won. But in the blue states, Trump overperformed
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: left and right. So the question is, are we going
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: to have some sort of divide like that between the two?
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: And I guess I'm less convinced because all the evidence
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: coming in indicates that Democrats are fired up everywhere. They're
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: fired up in blue states like Virginia. They're fired up
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: to vote in Florida. They're fired up to vote in Texas.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: They're fired up to vote in Iowa. Right. There's there's
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: not been you know, but the only place they're not
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: fired up is Michigan. That's where we're seeing where you
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: are seeing. And so I will say this. This is
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: the week that I have started to become more open
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: to the idea that Rogers can win that Senate seat
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: for what it's worth. But anyway, to go back to
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: my election night focus, Iowa, Iowa, Iowa, right? It has everything.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: If I only had one state, now the downside to
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: election night is Iowa's, we won't start to see some
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: results in Iowa until the 10 o'clock hour. And that
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: defeats my whole purpose of helping you get to bed
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: by 11 p.m. So, but that was my coma testing.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: And there's one other reason why I find Iowa to
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: be a pure test, because I think the Senate race
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: is the purest test of the political environment. And why
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: do I say that? I think Ashley Hinson has been
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: a better, an above hour. I think Ashley Hinson and
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: Josh Turek, collectively, I'm trying to think of another competitive
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: state where I'd say, hey, these are A candidates and
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: A campaigns. Sometimes you can get A candidates, but you
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: don't get two A campaigns. I think Turek's been an
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: A candidate. I think Hinson's been an A candidate. I
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: think Turek's ran an A campaign. And I think Hinson,
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: in this political environment, has run an A campaign. She's
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: been more aggressive at trying to distance herself from Trump
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: than anybody else in a similar situation. Right. She's avoided
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: Trump where she could. And to me, it's the it's
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: her experience running in a swing district. Right. She's been
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: she's vacating one of those swing districts in the eastern
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: part of Iowa. And that is I think that experience,
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: you know, she she knows her vote. She knows the
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: swing voter in Iowa better, I think, than than some
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: of the other Republicans that we've seen. So my point being,
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: what makes it, you know, if Abdul Al-Sayed loses, we
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: will say it was a candidate issue, not an environmental issue, right?
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: And if Tallarico wins, but Gina Hinojosa loses, we will say, boy,
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: this was a candidate issue for Republicans with Paxton, not
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: an environment issue. Now, look, if Gina Hinojosa wins in Texas,
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: then we'll say, no, no, no, no, this was bigger
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: than just a bad candidate in Ken Paxton. And, you know,
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: I will not accept any analysis that says, oh, Ken
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: Paxton dragged Abbott down. That is not the case. That
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: doesn't happen. And I don't buy that. So to go
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: back to why Iowa is my coma, if I were
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: in a coma state, the only result I'd want, or
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: desert island, you could do that with the whole desert island.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: If you could only get the results of one state
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: on your desert island, which would it be? That's a
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: little less morbid than my coma test. is that if
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: Ashley Henson wins that seat, we'll say she was able
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: to overperform. She was able to overperform. She ran a
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: good campaign, was able to overperform the environment. If she loses,
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: we'll say it was the environment. Because she's run a
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: good enough race to survive in some ways. One of
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: the other phrases I've used sometimes, you can win a
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: campaign and lose an election. And sometimes you can lose
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: a campaign and win an election. And in wave years,
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: that happens quite a bit. Take Maine. You know, I
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: don't think Troy Jackson's run a winning campaign. That doesn't
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: mean he won't win the election. And so it is,
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: you know, particularly in wave years, the environment can just
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: overwhelm no matter how good of a campaign, no matter
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: how good of a campaign you want versus like, you know, take,
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: you know, take Georgia 2022 in that Senate race. Warnock
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: ran a good campaign. Walker ran a terrible campaign. The
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: environment favored Republicans, but Walker ran such a bad race.
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: Warnock ran a good race that he was able to
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: eke it out, but it did take a runoff, right?
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: That just shows you, I think it's a reminder, frankly,
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: how impressive it appears what Ossoff is putting together in Georgia. Because,
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: you know, yes, the 22 political environment was slightly to
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: the right of certainly the situation we're in now, and
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: you had a Democratic president, etc., But the fact that
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: Ossoff doesn't look like he's even remotely getting a scare here,
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: I think, tells you a lot about candidate quality on
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: the Republican side. You know, not an A candidate, but
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: an A campaign being run by Ossoff.
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: That's for sure.
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  Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Toddcast is brought to you
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  Speaker 4: All right.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: So let me go back to how I'm watching election night.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: It starts with our Indiana and Kentucky, which has parts
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: that basically they close it. The polls close at 6 p.m.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: Indiana has parts of the state that are in Eastern Time,
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: parts of the state that are in Central Time. So
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: there are some areas that are 7 p.m. And, you know,
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: the first sort of tea leaves that are going to
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: be worth reading are Kentucky's 6th District, Indiana's 5th District
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: and Indiana's 1st District. So the Kentucky 6th, this is
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: an open seat. This is Andy Barr, the Republican nominee
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: for Senate. He's about to become the next senator to
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: replace Mitch McConnell in Kentucky. Well, Andy Barr has been
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: the congressman from the 6th District. And there was a
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: time in the 90s, especially when Ben Chandler held the
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: seat back in the day, a Democrat, a great-grandson of
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: Happy Chandler, the baseball commissioner. One great or two? I
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: have to check myself on that. I think it's just one.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: I think he was just the great-grandson. But it was
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: a swing district. When I was covering politics in the 90s,
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: Kentucky 6 was always an exciting, the first, anytime you
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: were looking at midterms, you knew, whoa, Kentucky 6, one
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: of the first ones out there. It's one of the
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: first swing districts we get to go. Well, it hasn't
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: really been a swing district in a good decade or so.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: And it's kind of a deep, it's a Trump double
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: digit district. But it is one of those that I
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: think Dave Wasserman is describing where blue-collar Democrats who left,
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: who abandoned the Democratic Party for Trump, if they're coming
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: back or if they're not turning out, right, one or
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: the other, well, we can get an early clue in
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: Kentucky 6. So we will have an early clue. And
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: Kentucky counts its vote pretty quickly. And I think we'll
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: have a good idea of what's happening. A Democratic win
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: in Kentucky 6. And I know all of the.
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: Handicappers have moved it into the toss-up category or toss-up
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: lean are, but barely. This is a pure environmental type
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: of race. This isn't a case where there's super uniquely
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: weak or whatever, strong candidates one way or the other.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: This is just purely environment. A Democrat win in here,
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: and I think, you know, you start to say to yourself, well,
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: we know Democrats are going to win the house. The
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: question is how big is the wave going to be?
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: Then you got Victoria Sparks in Indiana's fifth district. Um, look,
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: she is, uh, what's the right way to describe Victoria Sparks? Well,
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: she's comfortable being a thorn in the side of Republican leadership. She's,
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: I guess you'd call her iconoclastic. I don't know. She's,
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: she marches to the beat of her own drummer. Um,
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: But plenty of, there's been some, there's been a lot
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: of chatter that, you know, she's, you know, she's sort
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: of consistently underperformed as a candidate. She's not a traditional politician.
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: Let's just put it that way. But it's still a
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: pretty Republican district that she represents. If it's flipping, and look,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: it's not a great year for Republicans in Indiana. Looks
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: like the return of the Bayh family, third generation of Bayhs,
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: Bayh running for secretary of state, likely going to win.
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: There's sort of a three way race here with the
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: former Republican mayor of Indianapolis as the third candidate in
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: the race. I think it's very likely here that Bobai
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: can can win a three way race. And that's a
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: big deal for Indiana Democrats to try to revitalize themselves
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: to get somebody elected statewide. If we're not calling sparts
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: and that looks like a 50 50 race. Another tea
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: leaf that tells me we may be going north of
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: 230 House seats for Democrats and getting inching every closer
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: to 235. Now, how about the counter? What if there
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: is polling error? What if Republicans are more fired up
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: than we all think there is? Well, we actually have
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: an early test in Indiana, Indiana's first district, Frank Mervin.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: This is a district Republicans have been trying to get forever.
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: And in neutral years or lean Republican years, it's always
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: a top target. It's not been a target this cycle.
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: If for some, you know, if this race is super
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: close and uncallable and we're having to wait and wait
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: and wait, well, then suddenly you got to say, oh,
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: is something, you know, did we miss something? So it's
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: not only does Indiana provide us a clue as to
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: whether there's a wave happening, but it also provides us
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: a clue early in that northwest Indiana district, whether there's
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: an undercount somewhere.
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: It's 7 p.m.
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: My adopted home state of Virginia, I say that because
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: I will always say I'm a Floridian because I'm not
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: a native Virginian. I am a Virginia resident. I'm a
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: native Floridian. But in my adopted home state, we've got
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: a terrific what I call small, medium and large test
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: when it comes to democratic chances and what how big, small,
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: you know, or existent, if you will, a democratic wave in.
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: There are three congressional races that I think represent different
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: categories of how big the eventual House majority could be
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: for Democrats after the midterms. The swingiest of the three
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: is Virginia's second congressional district. This is the Virginia Beach seat.
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: This is a weather vane district. Whichever way the wind
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: is blowing, that party usually carries it. It's a very–
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: it's a pretty evenly divided district. Every once in a
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: while during remaps, attempts are made depending on which party
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: has control of the legislature to try to add a
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: few more Republicans or add a few more Democrats, however
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: it works. But there's two ways to look at the
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: results in the second district in Virginia. And again, this
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: is 7 p.m. So this is stuff– and Virginia is
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: a fast counting state. So we're going to get a
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: quick clue. And remember, Virginia has been incredibly prescient when
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: it comes to directionally where American politics is heading, particularly
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: the year before. I mean, we have seen the 1994
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: Republican tsunami was foreshadowed by the Republican sweep in Virginia
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: in 1993. The 2006 wave in the Democrats' favor was
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: previewed by the 2005 success of the Democrats statewide there. 2018,
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: successful midterm for Democrats. It was the Virginia Democrats swept
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: and had huge turnout in suburbs that powered the Democrats then.
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: And it was sort of not only did you see
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: a similar result in 18, but even how it was
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: done in some ways, was copied around the country. It
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: was a suburban revolt against Donald Trump. And even 2022,
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: the narrow Republican midterm victory where they got back control
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: of the House, in some ways, was forecasted by the
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: Glenn Youngkin victory in Virginia in 2021. So Virginia is
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: an incredible, and we saw Virginia had a huge, big
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: Democratic turnout. And I think that will likely see that
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: it probably correctly forecasted the political environment that we're in
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: right now. So, but these three house seats, Virginia too
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: is the swing. This has also got a significant African-American vote.
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: If this is a blowout, by the way, if Elaine
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: Luria is beating Jen Kagan's pretty handily, and it's a
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: quick call, that tells you something about the power of
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: the democratic turnout, particularly African-American turnout. But even just a
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: victory here, will indicate, oh, Democrats are going to win
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: the House. We just don't know by how much. Then
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: there's Virginia's first district. This is Rob Whitman. This is
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: a district that one of the few that during the
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: 2024 election actually shifted in the Democrats' direction. So this
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: is a district that was already trending their way. And
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: I sort of attribute the competitiveness of this district to
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: the blue blob that is Northern Virginia. It feels like
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: Northern Virginia is encroaching on.
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: It becomes a bigger and bigger part of the state
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: to the point that the blob has merged with the
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: Richmond suburban blob. And it's almost like Northern Virginia is
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: becoming Northern Virginia. Just everything, at least east of 81.
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: And that would be indicative beating Whitman Democrats beating. And
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: this is a target race. So if this is the two,
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: if if Both the first and the second flip, and
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: it's the only two flips in Virginia. I think we're
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: looking at somewhere between 230 and 235 House seats. Then
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: there's the tsunami one, when I say small, medium, and large.
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: Two indicates a Democratic pickup, but the question is maybe
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: it's a narrow majority. Winning one and two means, oh,
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: this is going to be more like 2006. If Democrats
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: win the fifth, this is the one where former Congressman
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: Tom Perriello is trying to win it back against John McGuire. Look,
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: the fifth has Charlottesville in it, but it's a pretty
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: Republican leaning district. Now, when Perriello won the first time
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: he covered and he represented parts of this district, it's
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: not exactly the same district. He won back in 08
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: with Obama. He kind of came in on Obama's coattails.
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: Obama really overperformed in Virginia and he brought along, it
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: was kind of a one-term wonder on that because the
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: district itself in the rural parts is there. But if
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: Democrats are winning this one, if they sweep in these three,
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: For a Democrat to win the fifth, you need a
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: depressed Republican turnout. You know, you don't, you can't, you
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: need energized Democratic turnout and depressed Republican turnout. So that's
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: why I look at that 7 p.m. hour and just
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: those three races and boom. You know, just those three.
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: It's like I said, small, medium and large. You know, one,
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: if they win the second and that's it, Democrats are
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: going to win the House, but they're probably not winning
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: the Senate. They win the first and the second. Senate's
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: definitely in play. 230 to 235 House seats in play.
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: They win the first, second, and fifth. This is a tsunami.
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: And then it means, hey, let's pay attention to another
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: state whose polls close at 7 p.m., and that is
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: South Carolina Senate. And in fact, in the 7 to
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: 9 p.m. hour, assuming we don't quite yet know what
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: those three, if you're looking for more tea leaves to
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: read to sort of either reinforce what we learned from
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: those three congressional districts in Virginia. This is where Florida,
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: you know, Florida counts quickly. And I think there's sort
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: of two ways to look at the Florida results. One
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: is if we're not calling either the GovRace or the
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: Senate race at the top of the hour at 8 p.m.
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: as soon as the panhandle polls close, because we're going
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: to see raw returns come in starting at seven. And then,
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: but there'll be no call And if they can't call
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: it at the top of the hour, particularly Florida Senate,
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: because I think that's the canary here, right? It's because
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: the more competitive Florida Senate gets, the worse the environment
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: really is, right? Because this is not candidate specific. And look,
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: Angie Nixon's been underfunded. And I would argue she's probably
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: ideologically too far to the left to win in Florida
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: under normal circumstances. But if we're not calling that race... Then,
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: you know, something's happening in Florida. It may mean the
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: GovRace is going to go in a way that, you know,
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: right now I think most folks view it as a
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: lean R. I think somebody put it in toss-up. I
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: don't think I've seen a single poll that's had Jolly ahead.
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: I've seen polls that have had Donald's only up by
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: one or two, but I don't think I've seen a
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: single poll where I thought Jolly was ahead, where we've
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: seen Jolly ahead. But at 8 p.m. there, right, we're
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: going to watch the returns come in. So we'll already
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: have a good idea. But at 8 p.m., if we're
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: not calling, that's a sign. That's a signal that something
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: is afoot. And, you know, the longer it goes in
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: some of these red-leaning states where calls aren't being made,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: you know, remember, Democrats aren't going to win red states
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: by three or four points, which means they're callable races with, say,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: 50 to 60 percent of the of the vote counted
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: for our projection purposes. If Democrats are winning South Carolina,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: for instance, if Annie Andrews is pulling the upset, as
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: I said, it's like 48.7 to 48.2. And if Adam
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: Hamilton is pulling an upset in Kansas, it's going to
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: be probably by less than a percentage point. So the
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: point is that we may have hours between 8 and
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: 11 where all of these competitive races, nothing's getting called.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: Outside of North Carolina. Some people are going to, you know,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: I actually would view that as a bad sign for
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: the GOP.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: And then if the calls that we are making are
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: all tipping in the blue direction, that's also indicative of something.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: So for the purposes of viewer guide material with Florida,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: that 8 p.m. hour is everything.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: And ditto with South Carolina Senate. Right. And I'll give
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: you one more. Georgia governor is not a result I
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: expect until after midnight. Because remember, some states, it doesn't
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: matter that polls close at seven. It's when do we
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: get the complete vote count? And as we've all learned
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: in Georgia, the biggest counties take the longest time to
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: report because they have the most vote to process. In
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: the case of these, you know, where the Democrats have
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: almost all of their vote concentrated in just a handful
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: of counties in and around Fulton in Atlanta, it means
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: it's going to be late. So I would imagine, you know,
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: the only way those races are called is if you
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: see underperformance with Republicans in some areas where, you know,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: where suddenly you're like, oh, well, the numbers aren't going
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: to add up here. We know what the early vote is.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: And so I could picture an Ossoff call fairly early
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: in that sort of, you know, 730 to 830 window.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: I do not expect the Georgia governor call. Now, That's
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: another way to find if we are able to call
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: it and it's called for the Republican Rick Jackson. I
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: think that tells you it's a better night for Republicans
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: and people realize. But I suspect that this is a
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: race that it's not going to be. And if you're
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: calling it for for Keisha Lance Bottoms before, say, 11 p.m.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: It's a bigger night, I think, for Democrats overall. On
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: that front, nine o'clock hour brings us will bring us
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: back to Iowa. But it also, those are the, these
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: will be where we, where the tsunami test is put, right?
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: I look at three races that I've always said are
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: my tsunami test, Kansas Senate, Nebraska Senate, and Texas governor.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: Like I said, Tallarico winning and Hinojosa losing is the
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: most likely scenario in Texas. It's the probability, right? Bad
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: candidate there, a state that has been slowly trending towards
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: the Democrats, but very slowly, you know, each cycle. The
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: Democratic floor goes up, which is why I think just
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: a four-point scandal penalty for Paxton dooms him. Because Abbott,
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: on his best day, isn't going to get north of 52, right?
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: He got 54 in 2022, and that was a good
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: Republican year. He's likely to get somewhere, you know, at
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: best 52, and possibly under that. And therefore, it's neck
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: and neck. If in the nine o'clock hour, you know,
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: we still haven't, we're not close to, you know, Texas
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: Gov is a knife fight and we're waiting and it's close.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: Kansas is not callable. Nebraska is not callable. Then you
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: know that the possibility of tsunami is sitting there, right?
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: And I look at those three races. If Democrats win
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: one of the three, you could probably say it's just
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: part of the big wave. They win two of those three.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: Something historic is going on. This is more like 94
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: in reverse than it is even in 06. a 2014, right?
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: It's more like a 2010 or a 1994. Look, I don't,
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to sit here. I'm not saying this
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: because I think it's probable. I'm saying this because I
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: think it's possible. And hopefully with the advent of prediction markets,
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: people are understanding probabilities and possibilities and understanding there's a
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: distinction between those two words, right? You know, the probability
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: is a Democrat. You know, there's a high probability that
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: Democrats win the House. There's a pretty, you know, sort
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: of an above 50 percent probability that this is the type.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: Because when you look at the atmospherics, you look at
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's approval rating, the likelihood that Democrats gain at
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: least three, if not four or five Senate seats is
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: pretty is pretty hot. The probability that they get more
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: than that. Now, now we're in the 15, 20 percent range.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: But as I love to say on probabilities, if an
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: airplane only had an 80% chance of landing safely, would
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: you get on it? If I told you Adam Hamilton
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: only has a 20% chance of winning, do you think
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: that's a lot or a little? Well, then do my
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: airplane test and then you tell me whether that's a
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: high probability or a low probability. Anyway. So that's, to me,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: the simple way. Like I said, if your goal is
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: to be in bed by 9 p.m. or by 11 p.m.,
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: how can you do it and feel fairly confident you
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: have an idea of what's going on? Or I'm not
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: going to presume. Let's say you're from one side of
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: the aisle that doesn't want to watch bad news. Well,
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: I've given you, and I'm not going to presume which
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: side of the aisle you're coming from, right? If you're
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: on Team Red and you see Perriello win in Virginia 5,
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: You can turn it all off, go to bed. You know,
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: you can just look at the damage report in the morning.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: If you're on Team Blue and you see that only
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: Elaine Luria was and we hadn't called it and you're like, boy,
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: that race is really close. Is she going to win
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: or not? But Whitman has won and all of that.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: And Republicans held Indiana five and they held Kentucky six.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: And well, then, you know, maybe you want to stay
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: up to see what Tallarico does or something like that.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: But you probably can go to bed going, oh, Democrat's
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: going to win the House, and that might be it.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: So this is what I thought might be useful for
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: some of you. But at a minimum, that is how–
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: because we're not going to have exit polls that I'm
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: going to find reliable. The networks have gotten completely out
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: of the exit poll business. AP does a hybrid of
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: an exit poll. It's really just sort of a survey
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: of people who say they voted. And look, this is
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: no knock on the entities no longer doing exit polls.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: It is now more expensive to do an exit poll
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: than ever before. You know, 30 years ago. when everybody
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: voted on the same day, you could have people standing
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: outside a polling place and survey every 10th person and
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: end up with a pretty accurate exit poll finding out
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: both who they voted for, how they voted, and why.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: These days, with the variety of ways we have to poll,
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: we have to vote, early vote, vote by mail, in-person voting,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: and the fact that... you know, you have, we're sort of,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: how you choose to vote actually correlates with which side
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: of the aisle you usually support, right? Blue voters more
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: likely to vote by mail or vote early, red voters
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: more likely to vote in person. It is, you know,
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: it's not like you can stand at a voting precinct
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: and get a fair representation. So the point is, it's
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: really expensive to do, it's even more expensive than ever
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: to do a good exit poll. And so, you know,
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: basically these are just election day surveys that AP is doing.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: That'll be, you know, there'll be a lot of interviews.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: There'll be, you know, I think they do 15 or
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: 20,000 interviews. So it's a significant survey, but it has
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: to be heavily weighted. And I think they're only directionally helpful.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: I don't think they're specifically accurate and we're not going
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: to have really any other Do I think there'll be
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: some private exit polls that circulate?
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: I do.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: I think there are going to be some people, if
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: you ask me, hey, I only have the budget to
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: exit poll one state. What state do you think I'm
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: going to tell them to exit poll?
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 4: Iowa.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't be surprised if some hedge fund who wanted
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: to know something before everybody else, I'm not advising any
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: hedge funds, but if any of you are listening and
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: you're I'd exit poll Iowa. Now it's expensive. Good luck.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: You need to do it multiple ways. There's a significant vote,
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: early vote. There's a significant vote by mail and there's
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: a significant election day. But if you learn what's happening
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: in Iowa, you will have a good idea of what's happening.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: in this election.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: That's not enough. You need more information about these midterm elections,
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: don't you? Well, then you're in luck. Let's get a
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: quick break. And when we come back, my friend Reed Wilson,
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: where we go through the states, which legislatures are in play,
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: because remember, the 2010 Republican wave In some ways, Democrats
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: are still paying the price on the state legislative level
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: for the 2010 Republican wave. Is there a similar situation
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: that Democrats have an opportunity here? Believe it or not,
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: there is one chamber that may be up for grabs
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: that nobody's talking about. And you're going to have to
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: listen to the interview with Reid to find out which
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: it is. But it's in a big state that if
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: it flipped, would be a BFD. So with that, let's
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: sneak in the break.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 3: When we come back, my friend Reid Wilson.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: One of the hallmarks of the 1994 and 2010. were
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: the fact that while everybody was focused on all the
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: changes in Washington, they had dramatic impacts in the state.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: They had generational impact on the politics of a variety
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: of state legislatures across the country. And If 2026 is
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: a wave year, it isn't going to stop at Senate
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: and congressional races. It will, in many of these states,
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: it'll actually start with the governor's race. People forget the
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: governor's races in many cases drive turnout, drive the conversation.
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: And yet, as I told many of you on my
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: Monday podcast, for the first time in six months, the
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: number one Democratic fundraiser on ActBlue was not a Senate
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: or a House candidate, but it was a gubernatorial candidate,
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: and it was Amy Acton. You may not be surprised
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: at why she became suddenly a national donor recipient there.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: But my friend Reed Wilson, who he and I worked
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: together at the Hotline, he was a Hotline editor-in-chief. He
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: went to found a terrific news organization called Pluribus that
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: focuses on State legislatures, not just on the politics side
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: of it, but on the policy side of it, since
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: we know the paralysis of Washington has meant more stuff
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: happens in the states than happens on the national level.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: But he's got a great insight about where legislatures are going.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: If this is a wave year federally, is it going
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: to trickle down to the states? So we're going to
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: spend a little bit of time talking about the states. Mr. Wilson,
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: it's good to see you.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 2: How you doing, Chuck? Nice to see you.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: So you're founder, editor-in-chief of Pluribus, but you are part
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: of the state affairs, network state affairs. Give people the
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: elevator pitch.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, sure.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 5: So we are the largest employer of statehouse news journalists
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 5: in America.
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 2: We've got 15 newsrooms around the country. I run the
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 2: one here in D.C.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 5: Where we cover sort of all 50 states and the
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 5: trends coming out of them. We think that states are
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 5: important because what happens on a state legislature's floor today
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 5: is going to be the subject of federal policy next time.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: Think about welfare reform in the 90s, right?
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 5: A program of four Republican governors in the Midwest before
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 5: Bill Clinton made it his signature domestic policy achievement. The
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 5: Affordable Care Act came out of Massachusetts. Don't tell Mitt Romney.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 5: And then the one big bipartisan thing under President Trump
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 5: in the first term was criminal justice reform, which started
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 5: out as a project of, if you can believe it,
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 5: the Koch brothers and George Soros together in states like
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 5: Kansas and Oklahoma and Texas.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 2: We know D.C. is broken.
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 5: We know nothing's happening here. But everything is happening at
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 5: the state level on A.I., on social media, on energy
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 5: and the return of nuclear health care innovations. That's sort
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 5: of the one thing Congress did was that when that big,
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 5: beautiful bill, they shoved a whole bunch more work into
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 5: state health care offices.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 2: So now the states are dealing with that.
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 5: So our point is that, you know, what happens in
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 5: Sacramento or Albany or Austin today is going to happen
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 5: in 25 states across the country next year and then
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 5: federally the year after that.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 2: So we track those trends and we absolutely love doing it.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: So 88 of the 99 chambers are on the ballot.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: Do I have that right? 88 of the 99. And
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: of course, for those of you wondering why 99 and
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: not 100, well, you can thank our friends in Nebraska,
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: which is not only unicameral, technically nonpartisan, right?
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 5: Technically nonpartisan, they don't run with party labels, but everybody
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 5: knows who's in charge.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: It is true, although I had somebody ask me, it
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: was a question that, and I'm curious how you would
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: have answered this question. He said, look, you've been, he's right,
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: I've been sort of been a crank about the duopoly.
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: I think it's certainly been problematic. I don't think that
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: two parties represent the country very well. He says, what
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: if we had no parties? You know, would it be
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: better if there were no party labels on the ballot?
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: And I said, well, we run that experiment in Nebraska.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: And my answer to him was Nebraska certainly is ideologically
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: leans to the right. But because of the lack of
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: party labels, it is not as partisan as other legislatures.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: But you follow this closely. It was my directionally correct
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: on this.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're right.
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 5: I think Nebraska, the lawmakers get along there better. And
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 5: as a matter of fact, a lot of the partisanship
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 5: that we see at the federal level hasn't seeped down
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 5: to the state level with some very notable exceptions. But
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 5: I think the state lawmakers are generally more likely to
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 5: get along. They're less likely to lob partisan bombs. And
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 5: I think that's a little bit because most states are
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 5: firmly in the control of one party. So if the
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 5: minority party isn't really a threat to win election to
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 5: take over, you can work with those people. You know,
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 5: I remember talking to a state lawmaker in Arkansas, a
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 5: Democrat in Arkansas. And I said to her, like, how
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 5: do you get anything done? And she says, well, I
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 5: bring the good ideas to Republicans and they slap their
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 5: name on them and they pass them. And it's like,
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 5: I don't care whose name is on it.
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: They just pass it.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: Believe it or not, Angie Nixon, who, of course, is
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: a DSA adjacent Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, a state lawmaker.
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: I asked her this question. I said, you know, she goes, oh,
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: I can get a lot done. She goes, I've got
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: Republicans I get along with, always have gotten along with
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: and said basically the same thing. If I've got something
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: I want to get on, you know, I know who
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: the ones that are going to be kind of interested
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: in an idea like this.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 2: And yeah.
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: That it's sort of– and Florida is one of those states.
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: It's not– the legislature is pretty dramatically gerrymandered in one direction.
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: So the minority party is considered more of a partner,
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: not a threat.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's the case in a
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 2: lot of states.
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 5: Now, there are the exceptions are the states where party
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 5: control is up for grabs.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 2: You know, in Arizona, the lawmakers all hate each other.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 5: Wisconsin is a pretty partisan viper pit. So when when
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 5: things are contested, I think that just stands to reason
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 5: that partisanship is going to is going to show itself more.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: So this century, the big wipeout for Democrats took place
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: in 2010. with a bit of a follow-up in 2014. Yeah. How,
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: they dug a huge hole for themselves.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 2: Huge hole and they're still digging themselves out.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: I was just going to say, how deep is that
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: hole still?
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 2: So the hole is still pretty deep.
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 5: I mean, Democrats went from holding about 60 chambers before
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 5: the 2010 elections to about 30 chambers, a few more
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 5: than 30 afterwards. It was basically the entire South. They're
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 5: still only in the 30s.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they are.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 5: And the entire South remained Democratic. I'm sorry, was Democratic,
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 5: went Republican. None of those chambers have flipped back with
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 5: the exception of the Virginia chambers.
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 2: It is it was it was a total wipeout.
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 5: I mean, you know, before the 2010 elections, Democrats held
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 5: the majority in the West Virginia House by not a
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 5: small margin. Today, of the hundred House members in West Virginia,
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 5: 11 of them are Democrats. So that I mean, this
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 5: is just like All the old yellow dog Democrats who
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 5: had been voting that way because Democrats owned the South for,
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 5: you know, since the Civil War, they all lost and
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 5: they are they are no more and they're probably not
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 5: coming back.
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: Some of these southern states, though, are pretty competitive statewide. And,
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: you know, are they is there more of a gerrymander
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: problem on the state legislative level than on the congressional level?
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 5: There is in some states, and I wouldn't say in
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 5: every state because most states that have the independent redistricting boards,
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 5: that still applies to state legislatures, even if it doesn't
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 5: apply to congressional districts as well. But Florida is a
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 5: pretty gerrymandered state. Georgia, you could make the argument, is
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 5: pretty gerrymandered. Wisconsin, was gerrymandered. And this is this is
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 5: like the end of decade problem that happens when you
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 5: when you draw a lot of lines is that people
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 5: move and some areas grow and some areas shrink and
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 5: different demographics move around. And so now, you know, a
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 5: state like Wisconsin, despite a gerrymander, is actually in play
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 5: this year.
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: I do find it interesting that basically the chain that
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: are up for grabs, they look like our presidential swing
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: state slate. It's Arizona. It's Wisconsin. It's Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire.
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, I know those states. They're always in play. Right.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: These are all closely competitive. Sure. New Hampshire and Minnesota
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: federally slightly lean blue. But the others. Right. They've been
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: our swingiest presidential states. It's interesting, the two states not
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: on there that also would be on that, which are
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: North Carolina and Georgia.
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 5: So North Carolina, very heavily gerrymandered map. They have been
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 5: doing that for a very long time. And actually, as
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 5: a matter of fact, there's a great a great statistic
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 5: sort of historical nugget here. North Carolina does not allow
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 5: the governor to veto redistricting maps. Now, you would think
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 5: that in this well, in this day and age, that
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 5: works against Democrats, right? Because Democrats are more likely to
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 5: win the governorship than they are control of the legislature.
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: Guess who created that law?
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 2: You're stealing my punchline. You're stealing my punchline, of course.
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 5: Roy Cooper was the state senator who passed that bill
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 5: back when it was much more likely that the Dems
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 5: were going to control the legislature rather than the governorship.
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: North Carolina is the only state in the union that
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: properly understands what the founders intended when it came to
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: the Constitution, that Number one, article one meant supremacy, not
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: co-equal branch. And they believe the legislative branch should be
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: more powerful than the executive, which I do believe the
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: founders intended. All right. I don't know about you, but
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: when I put one, two, three, I don't put the
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: least important thing. Number one, that's just me.
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: So it is funny to me now. I, it is, look,
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: I think we know what, what, It's kind of ridiculous
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: that the legislature has done this in North Carolina over
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: the years. But it's about my only defense of it
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: is that, well, if they're following the– if they really
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: are following the founders, the intent was that the legislative
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: branch should be supremacist.
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 5: Well, and for the longest time, North Carolina was one
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 5: of those states that only allowed their governor to serve
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 5: one term up until the 80s.
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 2: Now it's only Virginia. Right.
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: So what's– Are you seeing evidence of a wave building
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: in the states? I want to hold off on governor's
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: races for the moment. I want to get to those.
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: Sort of what are you seeing in the states? Is
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: this or is this a bit more– is some of
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: the national tide not trickling down to these races?
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 5: No, I think it is very much trickling down and
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 5: that it trickles down because of a I don't want
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 5: to say a lack of knowledge, but a lack of
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 5: awareness about who your state legislator is. You ask somebody
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 5: who the president is. Everybody knows you ask who the
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 5: senator is. Most people know the governor.
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: I know the party at least. Right.
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah. You don't. The very there are very few people
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 2: who know who their state legislator is. And so that
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 2: makes those.
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 5: Candidates even more susceptible to a wave than a federal candidate.
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 5: If you're state senator Chuck Todd and you've got an
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 5: R or a D after your name and that party's
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 5: on the outs, well, nobody really knows who you are
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 5: and they're more likely to vote against you.
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 2: You mentioned the 2010 election.
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 5: I maintain we always talk about the most important election
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 5: of our lifetime.
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 2: I mean, 2010 really was.
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 5: And just the amount that the states shifted that year
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 5: is almost without historical precedent. And, you know, as you
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 5: said earlier, like Dems are still trying to dig out
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 5: of that hole. So this time and Dems lost something
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 5: like six hundred and seventy legislative seats that year for Democrats.
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 5: Just for context, there are about 6,000 seats that are
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 5: up this year. So that's one in 10 seats that
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 5: they lost in that election alone. Sure, in 2010, a
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 5: larger share of the House of Representatives swung away, but...
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 5: Let's also not forget that 2010 was the census year,
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 5: which means that 2012 was the reapportionment redistricting year. And
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 5: so the new ours, you know, I always joke like
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 5: the first thing that a new legislative majority does when
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 5: they get into power is they figure out where the
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 5: light switch is, they figure out where the bathroom is,
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 5: and then they rewrite all the election laws to benefit themselves.
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 2: And that's really what happened.
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 5: So Dems aren't going into this year ahead of a
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 5: census and redistricting year that happens in 2030. But the
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 5: fact is, you know, they picked a really terrible year
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 5: to have that wave election. Now, are the R's going
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 5: to have the same situation? I think in in to
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 5: a degree. I mean, we're still in a place where
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 5: the state-level lines have been drawn to disfavor competition. So
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 5: there are fewer competitive seats than there were in 2010. But,
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 5: you know, the R's are in for a real bad
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 5: day at the state level. The Dems, just to put
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 5: this in context, they're aiming, they say publicly, they're aiming
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 5: to flip six chambers, control of six chambers. I really
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 5: think it's, their ceiling is higher than that.
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: Well, I was just going to say, I look at here,
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: they're close in Arizona, in theory. They're close in Wisconsin now.
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: It's a map that's not aging well. They're close enough
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: in Michigan. They're obviously super close in Minnesota. In all
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: four of those cases, New Hampshire, I'm setting aside here.
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: God only knows the 400-member house map of multi-member districts
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: and all of that. It's a much harder place to handicap.
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to get into that. Um, but plus
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: you have a fairly popular incumbent Republican governor that's likely
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: to win and, and, and sort of might be a
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: tad insulated from the wave. But if this is the
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: wave that we think we're seeing develop, and I'm, you know,
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: I think we're looking at a D plus 10 or
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: 11 environment up above what we've, what, what is, what
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: we'd seen at seven, eight, nine, maybe a month ago. Well,
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: then to me, Democrats are, are having a bad night
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: if they're not flipping those two Arizona chambers, the Wisconsin chambers,
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: Michigan and Minnesota, correct? I mean, is that a fair
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: measurement there?
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 5: I mean, when you talk about close in Arizona, they're
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 5: two seats away in both the House and the Senate.
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 5: If you can't pick up two seats in Maricopa County.
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 2: In this environment. In this environment.
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: Where the lead Republican is an election denier. has been
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: consistently trailing by high single digits, right? And all this
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: money has been poured in by the DGA for Hobbs anyway,
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: to the chagrin of some people in the state of Texas.
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, if it doesn't bring the chamber, that's money
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: wasted almost.
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, totally.
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 5: And I think, I mean, Pennsylvania, the state house is
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 5: a D plus one or two.
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 2: I think it's D plus two now. They just want
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 2: an extra one.
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 5: If they can't bring the Pennsylvania Senate along, I think
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 5: that's a loss. wisconsin the wisconsin assembly looks at risk
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 5: the senate is maybe at risk but if they you know.
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: It's hard right it seems a bit yeah yeah.
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 5: Yeah in this year if you can't win those you're
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 5: you're you're not it is not a wave election i
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 5: think you got to expand the map to look at
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 5: the georgia house uh i think you should expand the
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 5: map it's it's doable it's not likely uh it and
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 5: But what we.
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: Learned from Virginia, you know, Virginia in 25 and New
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: Jersey in 25 both had legislative. A bunch of legislative
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: obviously was on the map as well, since it's the
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: odd number year. And it is striking how often 25
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: serves as a is very prescient, very much a tells
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: us what's to come. Democrats did very well on both nights.
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: to pick up right yes yes so what does that
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: tell you where what are states that could behave like
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: virginia new jersey did in 25.
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 5: The one that you just mentioned the chagrin of democrats
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 5: in texas uh the texas state house is not out
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 5: of reach for democrats now it's it is a reach
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 5: i'm not saying they're gonna win but if but if
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 5: you know if calorie is.
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: You know hosa wins if you know if you know
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: how some Then she probably brings the House with her.
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 5: She brings the House with her. I don't think she
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 5: brings the Senate. The Senate is a much wider margin
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 5: that favors Republicans.
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: What is it? There's fewer state... Do we technically have
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: fewer state senators than members of Congress in Texas?
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so.
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 5: There are 33 members of the... I think there are
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 5: 37 members of the delegation.
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: Just like California.
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 2: California has more U.S. House seats than it does state
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 2: Senate seats.
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: Florida's getting there. We're close in Florida. We're close.
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 2: I think, yeah, Florida is like that's out of the question. Oh, sure. No, no, no.
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about close up having more state senators than congressional.
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 5: And then you've got to talk about New Hampshire. Yes,
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 5: there are 400 members of the statehouse. That always flips
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 5: in way of elections.
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 2: Oh, interesting. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: It's a barometer. It's definitely a weather vane. It is.
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 2: It is. Yeah.
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 5: And and and the New Hampshire Senate, too, is that's
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 5: the ours have about a two to one margin in
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 5: the state Senate. But it's only 24 members. You're talking
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 5: about a smaller, smaller state. The interesting thing to me
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 5: is that, yes, it's going to win. It is like
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 5: the one Republican incumbent this year who's completely safe and
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 5: hasn't been terribly close to her Democratic opponents. I went
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 5: back and looked, and in the last 75 years, New
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 5: Hampshire has only kicked out one first-term incumbent.
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 2: There have been some others that have retired.
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was Benson, right?
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 2: Was it him? Craig Benson, 06, I want to say.
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what was 06? Wave year.
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 5: Yeah, 06 was a wave year, definitely. But Benson had
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 5: some other problems, too. He was not the most popular
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 5: guy in New Hampshire.
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 2: But AI very much.
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: No she's she's a familiar face is rob sand how
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: lonely of a victory is he gonna have.
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 5: Well, he's going to win and he's going to win
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 5: by by an increasingly large margin.
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 2: The last the last surveys I've seen.
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: What I mean, what is it? When do you hit
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: a tipping point? Look, no Democrat has won more than
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: 55 percent of the vote in an Iowa governor's race
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: since I think it's 1966. I I when I was
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: doing this earlier, I that it stuck in my head.
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: And it was like, OK, that tells me there really
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: may be a ceiling, a pretty hard ceiling for sand
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: at 54, 55. But is there a if he gets to,
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: you know, is there a tipping point number there that
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: you're like, well, if he gets to 57, he's bringing
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: the you know, he's bringing something in the legislature.
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and he could.
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 5: I mean, the Iowa Dems have won a couple of
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 5: special elections this year. There are just these little signs
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 5: around the margins that the environment was moving this direction
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 5: even before gas prices went through the roof and Trump's
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 5: approval rating went in the toilet.
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 2: The Dems have won.
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 5: I think it's I think it's a dozen state legislative
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 5: special elections previously held by Republicans this year alone.
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 2: And, you know, we talk about 1994. Right.
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 5: The two special elections in Kentucky and Oklahoma that presage
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 5: that there were some specials in 2010 that showed off
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 5: that the hours were coming back then.
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 2: And 2006 had. Yeah.
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: No, I remember one in it was Ohio, too. I
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: remember in 2025 where Democrats came up short, but it
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: was in like a Bush plus 15 or 18 district
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: and they lost by two.
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 2: And it was like, was that the Gene Schmitz seat?
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: Gene Schmitz.
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah. She is, by the way, a member of the
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 2: Ohio legislature right now.
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about the Ohio legislature because veto proof
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: majority right now. Amy Acton, frankly, two weeks ago looked
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: like she might be one of these, you know, might
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: have to learn what life is like being a governor
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: with a with a. with a legislature that could overwrite
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: every one of your vetoes, I'm guessing that's less of
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: a concern now that she may not have a lonely
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: victory if she pulls this off.
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and Democrats are talking about that in a lot
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 5: of states where the goal is not to win the majority.
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 2: The goal is just to break the Republican supermajority.
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: Break the supermajority, right.
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Ohio's won.
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: Where else is that?
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 2: Kansas is another one.
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 5: Florida, Florida is certainly in that category of states where
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 5: they're not going to, they're not going to come close
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 5: to a majority, but they can break the, the, Missouri
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 5: is another one too, right?
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 2: I think Missouri is too. Yeah.
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 5: But if, you know, if, if David Jolly becomes, becomes
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 5: governor by, that'll be a, that would be a wave,
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 5: wave day.
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 2: Then, you know, his, his veto would actually mean something.
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: I'm going to guess single state, biggest issue in state
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: legislative races, data centers.
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 2: Data centers are big.
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 5: Um, no, the single biggest issue everywhere that everybody's talking
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 5: about all the time is affordability, gas prices, all this
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 5: kind of stuff. Um, data centers is creeping into the
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 5: conversation and it's creeping in for a couple of interesting reasons.
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 5: First of all, like I, like I said, in the top,
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 5: like Congress isn't doing anything, they're not doing anything on AI.
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 5: They're not doing anything on data centers. The States really are.
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 5: And it's a bipartisan project. Um, We've seen we've seen
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 5: moratoriums and bans pop up in red states and blue
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 5: states sponsored by members of both parties. And just to
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 5: give you a flavor of like how much the data
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 5: center conversation has changed in New York, Kathy Hochul called
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 5: for a one year moratorium. They actually got a one
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 5: year moratorium done. Her opponent called her crazy, said that's
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 5: a nutso idea. In Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro called for a
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 5: one year moratorium. His opponent, the treasurer, Stacey Garrity out
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 5: there said that wasn't enough. She wanted a three year moratorium.
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 5: And then the biggest red flag to me happened in
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 5: Texas a couple of weeks ago where Greg Abbott, who
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 5: had been an evangelist for data centers and all the
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 5: money they brought to the state, he just hit pause
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 5: on new permitting for data centers. So if even Greg
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 5: Abbott is saying, whoa, guys, I'm on the wrong side
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 5: of this in a tighter than expected election, that tells
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 5: me the politics have totally changed.
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: So the cynic in me says the easiest legislatures to
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: buy off are state legislatures. Actually, no, the easiest legislatures
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: to buy off are city councils. The next easiest are
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: the state legislatures. The hardest are sometimes Congress. And yet
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: big money has a huge impact in congressional races. Who
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: are the biggest financial players in the state legislative races
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: besides the two parties? I know the two parties are,
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: but I'm talking about the industries that are absolutely petrified
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: of what's coming at them. Who is it that is
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: pouring the most money in some of these places?
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 5: You're reminding me of John Broseau's line where, you know,
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 5: my vote can't be bought, but it can be rented.
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 5: But the biggest players in pretty much every state is
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 5: the utility, right?
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 2: It's Dominion in Virginia.
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 5: It's, you know, Pepco up around Maryland. PG & E
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 5: is a massive player in California. It's basically you're most
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 5: likely to see the industries that are regulated most at
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 5: the state level. So health care plays a huge role
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 5: in places where where where Medicaid is decided and education groups.
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 5: There's there's a whole sub industry of people who are
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 5: hired to administer things like education, savings accounts and voucher programs.
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 2: Those are those are billion dollar companies.
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 5: And they'll come in and spend a bunch of money
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 5: on pro-education savings account candidates to get them elected. The
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 5: giant in the local economy is always huge. So I'm
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 5: from Washington State. Boeing was always big. player, Weyerhaeuser, the
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 5: timber company was always a big player, and Microsoft. They'll
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 5: write those checks. It is basically the dominant industry in
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 5: that state. You can imagine that in Nevada, it's the
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 5: casino companies that are paying a lot of money too.
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: Well, I was just going to ask two things where
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: the state legislatures are going to be the canaries, regulatory
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: canaries first, it looks like. One would be this fight
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: between sports books and prediction markets where the states want
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: to have supremacy over the feds and the prediction market
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: guys want the feds with supremacy over the states. And
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: then the other is AI regulation. I mean, how big
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: is the tech and the casino interest right now across
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: the board?
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 2: This is interesting. So we've been looking at this a lot.
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 5: We've been trying to find the evidence that the AI
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 5: and crypto companies specifically are spending more in the states
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 5: than we can find.
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 2: Why not?
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 5: They're not really. They're involved in a couple of governor's races.
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 5: They're big in for Greg Abbott. They're big in for
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 5: some of the Rick Jackson in Georgia. They're less so
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 5: in the state legislatures, or at least the money that
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 5: we can find. We haven't been able to find a
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 5: ton of it yet. I was having a conversation earlier
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 5: with my reporter who covers the prediction market fight and all.
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 2: These legal battles. And I was asking her what's going
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 2: to come up next year. And she said, you know,
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 2: not a lot.
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 5: And it's not a lot because there are so many
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 5: lawsuits playing out right now that everybody knows it's going
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 5: to the Supreme Court anyway.
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: So they're waiting for the courts to decide who's going to.
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: And then when we know for sure, we get clarification
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: of where's the How are they going to be regulated, right?
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: How are these prediction markets going to be regulated? Through
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: the CFTC or is it going to be through the
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: Gaming Commission?
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's when the flood is going to come, depending
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 5: on what the ruling is, of course. And the parallel
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 5: to that is the sports gaming companies that after the
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 5: Supreme Court decision, you'll remember this, 2018, I think it was,
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 5: the sports marketing, sports betting companies flooded into the states
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 5: that would have them. ran ballot initiatives in the states
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 5: where the legislature was more reluctant. And the most expensive
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 5: ballot measure, set of ballot measures that I ever saw
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 5: came in California a couple of years ago, where they
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 5: ran four different ballot measures on sports betting, each of
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 5: which would have given the dominant slice of the pie
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 5: to one group. They collectively, they spent half a billion
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 5: dollars on that, and every single one of them lost
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 5: almost 80-20.
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: It is, it's so funny, Florida, Texas, and California, I
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: don't mean to get off on a sidetrack here, but look, I'm,
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: it's no secret. I'm a sports fan, no secret that
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: I enjoy gambling. So I pay a lot of attention
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: to this, right? When politics and, and you know, my,
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: one of my favorite hobbies, uh, collides, you're, you're going
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: to pay a lot of extra attention.
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: The stories I heard about the fights between essentially the
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: tribes and the, and the casino interest, depending on the state.
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: And in fact, there was a fight over, um, ballot
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: initiative that was going to get on the ballot in Florida.
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: And I heard a story of a guy who basically said, hey,
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: I've got half a million signatures. You could pay me
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: for them, or you could pay me to destroy them.
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: And that's how this system was working right now in
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: some of this. That's how cutthroat the fight was between
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: the tribes and And the casino operators, in this case, FanDuel,
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: in some places, FanDuel and DraftKings are partners with the tribes.
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: In Florida, they weren't.
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 5: And this is like, I love alcohol politics because there
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 5: are so many different layers and players and they're all
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 5: at each other's throats all the time.
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: But somehow they have like they're strange bedfellows depending on
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: the state.
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 5: Yeah they love each other today they hate each other
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 5: tomorrow whatever it happens to be in california you have
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 5: you have the four distinct groups right you have the
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 5: tribes you have the card rooms which are distinct from
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 5: the tribes you have the big casino operators the mgms
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 5: of the world and then you had the fanduel draft
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 5: king type uh big national companies they all went at
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 5: each other They all spent a half a billion dollars,
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 5: and they all got clobbered.
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 2: So just fantastic stuff.
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: Basically, our political consultant friends were the only ones that
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: made money on that, right?
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 5: And so along that line, I have a buddy of
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 5: mine who worked on the Maryland law that allowed the
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 5: casino out at the National Harbor out here. And he
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 5: was telling me he would get on the conference calls,
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 5: the weekly conference calls with all the consultants, and he
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 5: was like, You name a political consultant, that person was
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 5: on the phone.
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 2: They hired everybody. And the people they didn't hire were
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 2: hired by the opposition.
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 5: And so it was just a consultant money fest.
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: It is something else. One more issue I want to
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: pick at before we jump to governors. I'm going to
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: give you a theory, and I'm curious whether there's a
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: there there. Look, I think if Gina Enosa wins, it's
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: because of vouchers. You know, it's like the political environment
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: helps a lot. Don't get me wrong. But the difference
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: between her getting 47 and actually getting enough to win,
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: you know, why is the woman who was the January
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: 6th activist supporting, you know, so it's over Abbott and
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: vouchers and funding of education? Is the voucher movement on its–
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: What kind of setback would that be if, you know,
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: so one in Texas? And is that the right read
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: on this, that it would be? I mean, you look
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: at Iowa, I could argue that the sand backlash is
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: powered in some ways or sand success is powered a
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: little bit. Backlash over the education funding was a big
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: cause of of of watching Kim Reynolds approval rating go
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: down in Iowa. We've seen what happened in Kansas with Brownback.
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: It was all due to education funding. Am I overrating
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: it or is is there something? Is there is there
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: starting to be a pattern developing here that vouchers, while
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: they sound good, the implementation is not gone the way
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: parents had hoped?
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 5: So I struggled there for a second because you mentioned
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 5: Sam Brownback and Democrats in Kansas are still running against
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 5: Sam Brownback.
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: It's amazing. It still works.
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it does.
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: Watch how long watch how long people run against Trump.
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: We're going to be in an old folks home and
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: somebody's going to be running against Trump.
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 5: I haven't seen vouchers playing a huge role in the
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 5: paid communications that happen. I think one of the things
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 5: that is happening is that the voucher programs were promised
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 5: as spending X amount, and suddenly they're ballooning in costs,
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 5: and now they're three, four, five times what those costs were.
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 2: At the same time, kids are leaving public schools.
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 5: And nationally, we're down something like 90,000 kids over just
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 5: the last year. And since the pandemic, we've seen the
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 5: rise in charters, the rise in private schools. And there
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 5: was another great story, when Iowa passed their vouchers. This
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 5: is one of the first stories we covered as a
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 5: news company. When Iowa passed their vouchers, wouldn't you know it,
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 5: all the Catholic schools changed their tuition to exactly what
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 5: it would cost or what the maximum would.
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: This has been– look, I know.
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 2: We're shocked.
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 1: Look, I've watched this in my home county where I
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 1: grew up, Miami-Dade County.
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 2: Oh, your high school is shutting down, isn't it?
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: Well, it's not shut down yet. They're going to try
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: to create, believe it or not, a sports magnet, sports
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: industry magnet. God bless. But the point being is that
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: we've had this– it is– I understand parent empowerment. I'm
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: all for it. Trust me. We all believe we know
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 1: what's best. And I think, you know, I think a
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: lot of times we do on this front. The issue
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 1: is competition doesn't fix the public schools. The public schools
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: cannot be subject to the free market. It doesn't work
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 1: this way. Government, if we had a free market for
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: the Postal Service, you, my friend, wouldn't have gotten mail
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: on a regular basis where you grew up in Washington state.
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 1: It's just too damn expensive. You know, we don't need to.
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 5: Let me let me say one other thing. So the
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 5: on the on the voucher program, I think what we're
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 5: seeing in a lot of states and a lot of
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 5: these governors races and the reason that they're also competitive
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 5: is that the Republican Party is a lot more fractionalized, factionalized,
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 5: excuse me, than than. You would be led to believe
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 5: like there's this one thing holding this bizarre coalition together.
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 2: Right. And it's Donald Trump.
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 5: And when we when we look in a lot of
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 5: these states, look under the hood. There are reasons there
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 5: are these very hyper localized reasons that Republicans are not
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 5: terribly thrilled with with their own party, with their their
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 5: own gubernatorial nominees. And and I mean, the reason that
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 5: a Laura Kelly can win in Kansas is that there
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 5: are really three parties in Kansas, right? There's the Democratic Party,
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 5: which is maybe a third. There's the traditional business Republican Party,
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 5: which is maybe a third. Call them the call them
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 5: the I don't know, the time after some party, really.
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 5: I mean, that's he's pretty typically conservative. And they're the
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 5: crazy nut jobs who are, I mean, not crazy nut,
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 5: you know what I mean? They're, they're hyper-conservative. They are
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 5: a little more conservative.
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 2: A little more, right.
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 1: A little more, a little more religious conservative.
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 5: The same thing, the same thing exists in Arizona. The
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 5: same thing exists in Texas. And when you have people, I.
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: Think increasingly we're going to see this in Florida, that
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: really Florida is a three party state. And that's probably
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: what we're seeing right now.
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 5: And now most of the time when the Republican Party
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 5: elects a somebody from that centrist wing or maybe even
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 5: somebody from a dominant conservative wing.
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 2: But is fine. Yeah, they're going to win when they
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 2: nominate a Sam Brown.
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 5: Back when they nominated Andy Biggs, when they nominated Kerry Lake, like, no,
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 5: there's a big chunk of those centrist, not centrist, those
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 5: business conservative Republicans who are going to say, no, that's
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 5: too much for me.
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 2: I'm going to vote for this. I'm going to vote
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 2: for a Laura Kelly.
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 5: I'm going to vote for a Katie Hobbs, who's not
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 5: a scary Democrat and who can just get the job done.
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 5: I mean, I think that's I think I think the
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 5: fissures in the Republican Party are run much deeper and
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 5: are much more consequential than the fissures in the Democratic
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 5: Party between the Rahm Emanuels and the socialist guys. You
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 5: can see Rahm Emanuel voting for AOC in November.
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 2: If that's the way these things work out.
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 5: It's a lot harder to see George Bush's brother voting
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 5: for Ken Paxton, which he said in a Facebook post
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 5: last week that he's not going to.
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: You know, Abbott intrigues me the most of these governors because,
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 1: you know, before this year, I would have said, you know,
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 1: that guy's had a pretty he's pretty successfully basically straddled
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: the two Republican parties.
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: Basically, you had Dade Phelan's Republican Party and you had
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 1: Dan Patrick's Republican Party, the former speaker and the current
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: Senate president slash lieutenant governor.
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 5: And who, by the way, has run four speakers out
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 5: of office, not just Dade Phelan, but Joe Stoss before
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 5: him and a couple others, too.
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 1: You know, it's sort of like what would be the shot?
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 1: What what are what are like huge wave shocks? Dan
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: Patrick not winning would be one of those where. I
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 1: don't think it's going to happen, but if it happened,
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: it wouldn't totally shock me, right? Like it's exactly the
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: type of thing that does happen in wave years when
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 1: everybody's just like, you know what? That's it. We need
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: to turn the page. But Abbott had done a pretty
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: good job of straddling the fence. And then I feel
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: like two things happened, right? One was the Paxton impeachment.
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: That was a combo platter of the two of your
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: three parties getting together to impeach him. And the other
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: was Abbott deciding to go after Republicans in primaries who
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: didn't support vouchers. If he loses, will that be among
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 1: the explanations that he just alienated too many people in
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 1: the in this sort of Bush wing of the party?
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 5: I wouldn't put that at the top of the list.
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 5: It may be a factor down below. I have seen
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 5: a lot of coverage of current and former Republican lawmakers
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 5: in Texas who are all saying they can't vote for
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 5: Ken Paxton. I have not seen the same stories about
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 5: I can't vote for Greg Abbott. I think that if
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 5: Abbott loses, it's a data center issue.
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 2: I mean, I read his.
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 1: That's what he is. Yeah.
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 2: I mean, the anger.
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 1: You might blame Elon Musk. Like, I have a theory that, like, boy,
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: if you were to ask Democrats, hey, if you introduced
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: a new main character in the last three weeks of
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 1: the campaign, could you make it a tech guy? I
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 1: think they'd all say yes. Right.
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 5: And then Musk has spent on Paxton alone, what, one
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 5: hundred and fifty eight million dollars.
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 2: You know, he's spent a lot for Abbott, too.
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 5: These and like it's so very clear what Musk wants
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 5: to do in Texas, like he's building his own city.
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: He said it. Yeah.
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And so I think. I think if there's
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 2: if there's a victim of data.
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 5: Centers this year, it's more like Greg Abbott than the Abbott.
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 2: That race just feels like the easiest to tie to those.
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, to be totally ham handed, like
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 1: if you were playing, you know, CNN pundit, you'd say,
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 1: who's the data center victim? You would say that guy.
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that guy or a or a now.
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 5: Okay before last week i might have said ramaswamy in
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 5: ohio um he looks like he was.
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 1: Just well but my thesis on ramaswamy the reason that
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: makes this even worse is because you were you're on
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 1: the same thing i am which is i never bought
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 1: his i never bought the idea that he was a
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 1: slam dunk because he was a tech guy oh yeah
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 1: And then now, obviously, look, you throw the other thing in.
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 1: But I think part of the reason he was struggling
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: was because of his tech background.
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 5: And I've also heard from a lot of folks that
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 5: he's not running a great campaign. Um, you know, he's
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 5: been jetting off in his private jet to Wimbledon and, and,
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 5: or the U S open, whatever tennis tournament that was.
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 5: So that's not a great look too. He doesn't connect
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 5: very well with people. Uh, and then you add in the,
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 5: the Amy Acton, uh, is like actually a pretty good
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 5: candidate and has been, has been doing pretty well there. Um,
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 5: so we, I think we all looked at Rama Swami's
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 5: bank account and said, well, this guy's definitely going to run.
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 5: And that's, that's not how it works in a lot
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 5: of these States.
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 1: All right let's um travel the governorships um okay pretty
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: much for the most of the year not counting our
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 1: friend mr mckee in rhode island who because he knew
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: he was going to not get out of a primary
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 1: he had to be the most vulnerable incumbent governor in
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 1: the country um after him i always said tina kotech
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 1: is that still the case That.
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 2: Is an excellent point.
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 5: I'm glad you brought this up because one of the
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 5: big theme trend that I think we're seeing this year
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 5: is that, yes, we're all obsessed with this Democratic wave
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 5: that looks like it's coming at the federal level, coming
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 5: at the state level. But there are a couple of
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 5: Democratic governors who. who are not safe in their home states,
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 5: and Tina Kotek is way up there. I think she
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 5: probably wins. Oregon hasn't elected a Republican governor since 1982,
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 5: but boy, there have been a lot of things going
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 5: wrong in Oregon. Speaking of data centers, Oregon's had data
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 5: centers longer than just about anybody else because Intel.
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 2: Is based there, and that's how they operate their business.
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 2: It is. I mean, it's totally closer than it should
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 2: have been.
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 5: Kotex signed a transportation funding bill earlier this year that
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 5: raised the gas tax.
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 2: Great timing. Voters went to the took it to the
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 2: polls in a referendum, rejected it. Eighty three. Seventeen. I mean,
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 2: it was not close. So Kotex has had.
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 5: And by the way, this is the third Republican governor,
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 5: excuse me, Democratic governor in a row who's had.
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 2: Some electoral issues but.
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 1: Still survived i know but they keep surviving yeah i.
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 5: Mean john kitts ever had to resign uh and that's
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 5: how kate brown i mean kotech would not have won
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 5: four years ago but for the third candidate in the
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 5: race correct I think there's a good case to be
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 5: made that the third candidate pulled more from her than
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 5: from Drazen. Remember, that third candidate was a former Democratic
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 5: state senator conservative on the conservative side.
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 2: But I, I, I don't know. I hear you.
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 1: And I understand she was the ex-Democrat who got the
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 1: she was the Phil Knight party.
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 1: You had a Democratic party. And that might have been
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 1: part of the problem. She was too associated with one donor, correct?
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 5: And well, hey, Greg Abbott in Texas. Let's see if
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 5: that becomes a problem, being associated too much with one donor.
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 5: But so beyond Oregon and also with McKee, look, another
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 5: candidate who's going to win but not by the margin that.
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 2: She should is Amy Klobuchar in Minnesota. That's going to
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 2: be a closer race than people think.
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 1: It's funny. I was going to ask about her because,
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 1: you know, I believe that she basically saved Democrats in Minnesota. Right.
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 1: If Tim Walz is if it's not her and it's
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 1: Tim Walz running again, you know, we'd be saying Senator
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 1: Michelle Tafoya. Or we'd be talking about that, too. Or
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 1: whoever it was that was the new Democratic nominee wouldn't
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 1: be as strong as an Amy Klobuchar. I mean, yeah.
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 1: But what's you know, what kind of penalty do you
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 1: expect her to pay? She's going to sounds like you
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 1: think she may have her lowest penalty. statewide victory number
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 1: that she's ever had.
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I should have looked up what she won by
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 5: in the Senate race last time, but it was probably
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 5: in the 60s.
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, she overperforms in the Iron Range where she
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 1: grew up and where her dad was from. And that's
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 1: a pretty Republican area. And, you know, she's she's locked
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: out on her opponents over the years. You know, some people,
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 1: you know, uh, having that guy, uh, who, uh, the
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 1: NBA player who sort of, it's off the deep end Royce, uh, Miller,
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 1: I think is Royce, Royce White.
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 2: No, I think it was in Texas.
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 1: I think it's right.
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 1: I can't remember. But anyway, we're, it, Honestly, he's sort
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 1: of Looney Tunes, a little more.
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 2: Like Looney Tunes. Yeah. Yes.
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 5: But this looked I mean, this fraud thing, this fraud
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 5: scandal that's been going on in Minnesota for a couple
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 5: of years. You know, a lot of times Republicans will
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 5: bring something up and it's like not really a scandal.
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 2: Now, this was a thing.
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 5: And voters in Minnesota are mad and begin like add
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 5: that in with Oregon, add that in with Dan McKee
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 5: in Rhode Island.
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 2: And I kind of get the sense.
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 5: Voters don't care what the letter is behind your name.
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 2: They just hate who's in charge.
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 5: And now that's going to punish the Republicans at the
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 5: federal level. It's going to punish the Republicans in some
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 5: of these state races. But in some of these blue states,
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 5: voters are just as unhappy.
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 1: Let me back up then. Look, you've done this for
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 1: a living for a long time as well. I'm torn
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 1: on two thoughts, you know, and I noticed that there's
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: some other prognosticators that think that the wave will be
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 1: even bigger in the blue states than it is in
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 1: the red states. I think if this is really a
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 1: red undertow year, as Charlie Cook proclaimed it, then you
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 1: might see Democrats do better in red states and actually
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 1: underperform a bit in the blue states, right? What you're seeing,
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 1: which trend would you bet on more? I mean, and
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: how much is Minnesota just unique to Minnesota?
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of these state
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 5: races turn on issues that we don't expect. The number
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 5: one issue that Rob Sand and Zach Lawn are advertising
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 5: about in the state of Iowa is cancer. There are
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 5: all these cancer clusters that are popping up in Iowa.
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 5: And because of ag interest and all that stuff.
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 1: When do they find out it's ag pesticides? And then
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 1: when the ag industry, what do you mean I can't
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 1: use that pesticide anymore?
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 5: But we're talking about a fraud scandal in Minnesota that
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 5: doesn't exist in other states. We're talking about, you know,
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 5: too many taxes and transportation funding in Oregon, which isn't
• 1:54:50
  Speaker 5: a problem in other States.
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 2: Um, you know, it's, it's, we're talking about data centers
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 2: in Texas.
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 5: Like these, these issues, uh, are, are unique to governor's
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 5: races because people vote differently for governor than they do
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 5: for federal races, right? Your governor is the person who
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 5: paves your roads is the person who, um, you know,
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 5: make sure your school's operating.
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 2: Okay. It fills the potholes, all that kind of stuff.
• 1:55:13
  Speaker 5: Don't forget Gretchen Whitmer's, you know, big slogan was, was
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 5: fix the damn roads. And Josh Shapiro's slogan in Pennsylvania
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 5: is get bleep done. I don't know if I'm allowed
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 5: to swear on this podcast, but he says, get shit
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 5: done all the time. We apparently have a lot of
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 5: governors who'd like to swear the, the, you know, so
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 5: all of these things are different. Rare that a big
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 5: national wave sweeps out a lot of governors. And it's
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 5: still the hardest thing to do in American politics is
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 5: to beat a sitting governor. The one hint that I
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 5: get that we're in a here's the race that will
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 5: decide whether or not this is a tectonic shift in
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 5: American politics or just a really bad wave.
• 1:55:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's going to be in Vermont. It's going to
• 1:55:55
  Speaker 2: be in Vermont.
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 1: Oh, I was going to add one more to it,
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 1: but okay. Vermont.
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 2: Okay. Go ahead.
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Make your Bill Scott.
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 5: Phil Scott is an anti-Trump Republican. He's never endorsed him.
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 5: He's never voted for him. He won two years ago
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 5: with 73% of the vote and he didn't run a
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 5: TV ad. Now he's in a race against an economist
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 5: who's never been on a ballot before. His name is
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 5: Amanda Janu. The last couple of polls I've seen, one
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 5: had him up by five or 10. One had her
• 1:56:27
  Speaker 5: up by a couple of points. In both cases, Bill
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 5: Scott was in the low 40s. If he loses this year,
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 5: that just tells me that the R label is so
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 5: toxic that even a guy like him who has built
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 5: a brand. I mean, he's been governor for what he's
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 5: running for his sixth term. They do two year terms
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 5: up there. So he's got such a brand that that
• 1:56:49
  Speaker 5: if even he loses, that's that's tectonic shift.
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 1: So it's interesting. You're getting to something that I was
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 1: about to ask you, because it's about you brought up
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 1: the point where, as we say, the second hardest thing
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 1: to do in American politics. is defeat a sitting governor,
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 1: the hardest being defeating a sitting president. So in 2022,
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 1: exactly one incumbent governor lost. And it was in the
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 1: swing state of Nevada. Joe Lombardo ran as, you know,
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 1: as center, you know, basically, arguably, Sisolak only lost because
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 1: he shut down the strip, right? He don't shut down
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 1: the strip during COVID. He probably ekes out reelection. I
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 1: have looked at Lombardo.
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 2: And still, Lombardo only won with 49%.
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 1: Correct. And so you pointed out Vermont as one wave test.
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 1: I feel like Lombardo is the other, that there's not
• 1:57:44
  Speaker 1: a fireable offense. He's out raising Ford because all the
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 1: local interests believe he's been fine. If he wasn't, Ford
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 1: would have raised more money. He's the state AG. I'm sure–
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 1: I've always said Nevada is a one-party state. It's not
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 1: D or R. It's casino.
• 1:58:01
  Speaker 2: It's gaming, yes.
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's gaming. And I'm guessing both Ford and Lombardo
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 1: are considered fine, and I'm sure. that guys at the
• 1:58:11
  Speaker 1: MGM are like it doesn't really matter Lombardo feels like
• 1:58:17
  Speaker 1: if he loses that's environment it's not that is that
• 1:58:20
  Speaker 1: is that is that a good wave test yeah.
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 5: Yeah it is the interesting thing to me is that Nevada's,
• 1:58:31
  Speaker 5: every state has its unique characteristics. Nevada is the turnover, right?
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 5: There's so many new people show up every year. I
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 5: remember when Dean Heller was running for reelection, the statistic
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 5: was something like a third of the voters who were
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 5: going to decide whether or not Dean Heller won reelection,
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 5: he didn't. a third of those voters hadn't been there
• 1:58:49
  Speaker 5: six years before when he first ran for election. So Nevada,
• 1:58:53
  Speaker 5: you know, there's a huge change in turnover in the
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 5: state's electorate every couple of years.
• 1:58:58
  Speaker 2: You know, Vegas is growing like crazy. Reno's growing like crazy.
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 5: And In all the polls that I've seen in Nevada,
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 5: the number of undecideds is higher than any other state.
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's 18, 20 points. It's these newbies.
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of it is newbies.
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 5: And I think a lot of it is it's it's
• 1:59:15
  Speaker 5: difficult to find to pull an electorate amongst whom a
• 1:59:20
  Speaker 5: not insubstantial group is working from. you know, 5 p.m.
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 5: to 8 a.m. on the overnight casino shifts. And like
• 1:59:29
  Speaker 5: those are hard. Those people are hard to pull and
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 5: hard to find. And so Nevada is always going to
• 1:59:33
  Speaker 5: be a weird state. It's always going to be a
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 5: knuckle biter, a nail biter. And I would totally not
• 1:59:39
  Speaker 5: be surprised if Aaron Ford wins. You know, the other
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 5: line that we use is, you know, AG stands for
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 5: almost governor and all the AGs. There are more former
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 5: AGs in governor's offices today than there are former lieutenant governors.
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 2: So it's sort of a natural stepping stone.
• 1:59:54
  Speaker 1: I tried aspiring governor. That's what I thought the AG said.
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 2: Aspiring governor. They think it's almost governor. Let me tell you.
• 2:00:02
  Speaker 1: So if that's a wave test, if Nevada is potentially
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 1: a wave test, my tsunami test has been Florida and Texas.
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 1: That basically it takes a real collapse in Republican turnout.
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 1: I can get Jolly and Hino sort of 47, 48.
• 2:00:20
  Speaker 1: The last two or three points are easy.
• 2:00:23
  Speaker 2: Real hard.
• 2:00:23
  Speaker 1: You know, very difficult. And you need a combination of
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 1: either third-party candidate and a bad base turnout. And supercharged. Now, look,
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 1: we're seeing the ingredients. If you want to buy into
• 2:00:40
  Speaker 1: the early vote, you know, the ingredients are there. I mean,
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 1: we see it there. But that's been my sort of,
• 2:00:48
  Speaker 1: it's like, it's one thing for Democrats to do well
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 1: in federal races. If they pull off the two of
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 1: the three, if there's Democratic governors in California, New York, Florida,
• 2:01:00
  Speaker 1: and Texas, holy mess.
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 2: The four largest states in the country. Yeah. Yeah. I
• 2:01:06
  Speaker 2: think that's right. So we're talking about grades here, right? Correct.
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 5: There's the wave day, there's the tsunami day.
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like 06 is a wave to me, 94 is
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 1: a tsunami. That's sort of how I, like, you know,
• 2:01:18
  Speaker 1: and even 2018 was a Wave in the blue states
• 2:01:24
  Speaker 1: and purple states, but not one in the red states.
• 2:01:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 5: And I think that's what we're seeing. So I was
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 5: talking to Michael McDonald from the Florida Election Lab. Not
• 2:01:33
  Speaker 5: that guy.
• 2:01:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I know.
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 1: I make that joke too much.
• 2:01:39
  Speaker 2: He hates that joke.
• 2:01:41
  Speaker 1: I even sang in the last episode when I was
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 1: quoting my man, Michael McDonald. Look, I'm going to call
• 2:01:47
  Speaker 1: him a doobie brother because I hate saying the words
• 2:01:49
  Speaker 1: University of Florida. I mean, he has to understand that.
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 2: I understand very much.
• 2:01:54
  Speaker 5: The but his so his point was, if you look
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 5: at the states where the early votes report by bipartisanship,
• 2:02:01
  Speaker 5: the Dems have a hugely 15 points. Last time I looked,
• 2:02:04
  Speaker 5: I looked this morning. And if you look at the
• 2:02:06
  Speaker 5: states where they report race, black voters, Hispanic voters are
• 2:02:11
  Speaker 5: showing up at that.
• 2:02:13
  Speaker 1: The Latino voter number is the is the big deal
• 2:02:16
  Speaker 1: to me. But anyway.
• 2:02:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:02:17
  Speaker 5: Although although that's only coming from North Carolina and North
• 2:02:21
  Speaker 5: Carolina and Georgia.
• 2:02:22
  Speaker 2: And like those are not huge populations.
• 2:02:24
  Speaker 5: I'd love to see more early vote reporting in some
• 2:02:27
  Speaker 5: other states, but not not every state reports the same way.
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 5: Does that translate to Texas? The polls say it does.
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 5: We think it does, but we don't have the same
• 2:02:36
  Speaker 5: kind of data. And then the fascinating. anything he mentioned
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 5: to me is that in the states that report race
• 2:02:42
  Speaker 5: and partisanship he's seeing non-whites turn out at higher than
• 2:02:46
  Speaker 5: usual rates he's seeing uh white democrats turn out at
• 2:02:50
  Speaker 5: higher than usual rates he's seeing white independents turning out
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 5: at higher than usual rates who's left behind it's the
• 2:02:56
  Speaker 5: white republicans they are not showing up in the same
• 2:02:59
  Speaker 5: numbers and like now granted the Everybody votes differently. You know,
• 2:03:04
  Speaker 5: some states have a history of mail voting. Some states
• 2:03:06
  Speaker 5: have a history of early voting. But boy, if if
• 2:03:09
  Speaker 5: those trends hold. Yeah, we're talking about the higher end
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 5: and tectonic shift here rather than rather than even a
• 2:03:16
  Speaker 5: tsunami or a wave. So it could have made a
• 2:03:21
  Speaker 5: big bet on getting people out on one particular day.
• 2:03:24
  Speaker 2: Yes, they have. Let's see if that pays. Right.
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 1: I saw that the president has decided he's going to
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 1: vote early in person.
• 2:03:33
  Speaker 5: Which I think- He was also encouraging people to return
• 2:03:37
  Speaker 5: their mail-in ballots the other day.
• 2:03:38
  Speaker 2: And I thought he wasn't a big fan of those,
• 2:03:40
  Speaker 2: but you know.
• 2:03:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're getting there. One of my favorite gags of
• 2:03:45
  Speaker 1: our time at Hotline together, and I passed on this
• 2:03:48
  Speaker 1: tradition to you when I was there, is the joke
• 2:03:51
  Speaker 1: was at Hotline that October was Ballot Initiative Month. And
• 2:03:54
  Speaker 1: it all started when the fearless, the original editor-in-chief, the
• 2:04:00
  Speaker 1: late Bob Balkin, was on C-SPAN doing what we would
• 2:04:06
  Speaker 1: all do on C-SPAN. And back then it was a
• 2:04:07
  Speaker 1: big deal for Hotline to get its editor-in-chief on there.
• 2:04:10
  Speaker 1: And we were all watching and he was asked some
• 2:04:12
  Speaker 1: question about a ballot initiative that he knew nothing about.
• 2:04:14
  Speaker 1: And it was on in September. And he said, well,
• 2:04:17
  Speaker 1: at Hotline, October is ballot initiative month. And it sort
• 2:04:21
  Speaker 1: of became this running gag and it became our tradition
• 2:04:23
  Speaker 1: that we started to roll out these big analysis of,
• 2:04:26
  Speaker 1: all right, let's talk about the battle initiatives that are
• 2:04:30
  Speaker 1: attracting big money. I have friends in the consultant community
• 2:04:34
  Speaker 1: that haven't had a human being client in decades and
• 2:04:38
  Speaker 1: make a fortune doing these battle initiatives. Huge money gets
• 2:04:41
  Speaker 1: behind them. They're big deals. Give me the Give me
• 2:04:47
  Speaker 1: the five or six big ones in your mind that
• 2:04:51
  Speaker 1: people ought to be paying attention to because, you know,
• 2:04:55
  Speaker 1: it isn't going to stay within the borders of state acts.
• 2:04:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah. OK. Yes.
• 2:05:01
  Speaker 5: And I was actually just on C-SPAN doing the ballot
• 2:05:04
  Speaker 5: initiative thing myself.
• 2:05:05
  Speaker 2: So got all my notes right here.
• 2:05:06
  Speaker 1: So.
• 2:05:06
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 2:05:07
  Speaker 5: So abortions on the ballot in four states, Idaho, Missouri, Nevada, Virginia,
• 2:05:11
  Speaker 5: San Three of those states, Idaho, Nevada, Virginia, would enshrine
• 2:05:15
  Speaker 5: protections in state constitutions.
• 2:05:16
  Speaker 1: I know Nevada, Virginia are enshrining protection.
• 2:05:19
  Speaker 2: OK, the pro the pro choice measures, if you will.
• 2:05:23
  Speaker 2: I know people get people get angsty about the podcast.
• 2:05:27
  Speaker 1: We use pro choice, pro life. It's simpler for what
• 2:05:30
  Speaker 1: people want to call themselves.
• 2:05:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, great.
• 2:05:32
  Speaker 1: You know, right.
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 2: You know, whatever. OK, sure. OK.
• 2:05:35
  Speaker 5: Missouri is the it would repeal a constitutional amendment that
• 2:05:38
  Speaker 5: was approved just two years ago. We'll see how that goes.
• 2:05:41
  Speaker 5: But people generally don't like to take their own rights away.
• 2:05:44
  Speaker 5: There are trans sports bands on the ballot in five states, Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska, Washington, Missouri.
• 2:05:50
  Speaker 1: Are you surprised there's only five?
• 2:05:54
  Speaker 5: No, because those because most states that have the ballot
• 2:05:57
  Speaker 5: measure and Republican control have probably already passed them.
• 2:06:01
  Speaker 1: Already passed it.
• 2:06:02
  Speaker 2: OK, the thing in these.
• 2:06:04
  Speaker 5: So what are these? What are three of these five
• 2:06:06
  Speaker 5: states have in common? Arizona, Colorado, Washington. They all have
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 5: Democratic governors. Colorado, Washington have Democratic legislatures, too. They're not
• 2:06:13
  Speaker 5: going to pass a trans ban. So it goes on
• 2:06:15
  Speaker 5: the ballot here. In Missouri and Nebraska and then in
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 5: a bunch of states that have citizenship and non-citizen voting
• 2:06:23
  Speaker 5: bans on the ballot, I think a lot of these
• 2:06:25
  Speaker 5: are just being used as turnout generators. Now, you'll remember
• 2:06:29
  Speaker 5: that back in 2004, there were 13 states that had
• 2:06:31
  Speaker 5: to do turnout bans. Yeah, well, so here's the interesting thing.
• 2:06:36
  Speaker 5: Gay marriage bans on the ballot in 2004. All the
• 2:06:39
  Speaker 5: academic literature says that didn't work in turning out evangelical
• 2:06:43
  Speaker 5: voters for Bush.
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 2: He won anyway.
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 5: You ask Matt Dowd or something like that, and he'll say, yeah,
• 2:06:47
  Speaker 5: it didn't work either. Of course, Bush won anyway, so
• 2:06:50
  Speaker 5: he probably wants more of the credit for himself. um
• 2:06:53
  Speaker 5: issue number three taxes there are two really fascinating tax
• 2:06:57
  Speaker 5: measures on the ballot one in my home state of
• 2:06:59
  Speaker 5: washington uh the legislature passed a millionaire's tax a tax
• 2:07:02
  Speaker 5: on wealth over a million dollars first time the state's
• 2:07:05
  Speaker 5: ever had an income tax uh now people want to
• 2:07:07
  Speaker 5: repeal it it wouldn't go into effect until 2028 but
• 2:07:09
  Speaker 5: hey it's an income tax in washington we'll see how
• 2:07:12
  Speaker 5: voters feel about that historically we don't love the idea
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 5: And then in California, of course, there's the billionaire's tax,
• 2:07:19
  Speaker 5: a one time five percent tax on wealth over a
• 2:07:22
  Speaker 5: billion dollars.
• 2:07:23
  Speaker 1: Ever pulled over 50.
• 2:07:24
  Speaker 2: It is not pulled over 50.
• 2:07:26
  Speaker 5: But I think the interesting thing here, this is the
• 2:07:29
  Speaker 5: policy nerd in me coming out. You know, Bernie Sanders, SEIU,
• 2:07:32
  Speaker 5: Ro Khanna, they all support it. Gavin Newsom opposes it.
• 2:07:35
  Speaker 5: Why would he oppose it right before a presidential election?
• 2:07:38
  Speaker 5: He opposes it because he can read a budget. California
• 2:07:41
  Speaker 5: is so dependent on the capital gains tax for its revenues,
• 2:07:44
  Speaker 5: the biggest share of its tax revenue of any state
• 2:07:49
  Speaker 5: in the country, that Newsom knows that if all these
• 2:07:52
  Speaker 5: billionaires who happen to own stock leave the leave the state,
• 2:07:56
  Speaker 5: that puts them in a terrible financial position over the
• 2:07:58
  Speaker 5: long run. So I think, you know, the pro billionaires
• 2:08:03
  Speaker 5: tax folks are actually advertising against Newsom in some early
• 2:08:06
  Speaker 5: primary states and some digital ads and stuff like that.
• 2:08:09
  Speaker 5: Try to put some pressure on him ahead of the presidential. But,
• 2:08:11
  Speaker 5: you know, this shows me you can read a budget.
• 2:08:13
  Speaker 5: And I think that's I think that's.
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 1: Pretty Jerry Brown come out against it, too.
• 2:08:18
  Speaker 5: I don't know, but he is very opinionated, still up
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 5: on his farm in Sutter County.
• 2:08:23
  Speaker 2: No, and he would be a budget.
• 2:08:25
  Speaker 1: That is one where I wonder if just nobody's bothered
• 2:08:27
  Speaker 1: to ask him. But I bet you I kind of
• 2:08:31
  Speaker 1: think I think I know where.
• 2:08:32
  Speaker 2: It's going to come down. Yeah, I would, too.
• 2:08:35
  Speaker 5: OK, the last thing I want to touch on on
• 2:08:37
  Speaker 5: initiatives is the initiative process itself. So a lot of
• 2:08:42
  Speaker 5: people use the ballot initiative in conservative states to pass
• 2:08:45
  Speaker 5: progressive legislation that the legislature won't touch. They use the
• 2:08:48
  Speaker 5: ballot initiative in progressive states to pass conservative legislation that
• 2:08:51
  Speaker 5: the legislature won't touch. So now a lot of these
• 2:08:54
  Speaker 5: lawmakers are getting a little frustrated that people are going
• 2:08:57
  Speaker 5: around them. And so we've seen nine measures in seven states, California, Idaho, Missouri, Montana,
• 2:09:02
  Speaker 5: North Dakota, South Dakota and Utah. That would change something
• 2:09:05
  Speaker 5: about the ballot process. So either increasing the number of
• 2:09:08
  Speaker 5: signatures you need to get on the ballot, increasing the
• 2:09:11
  Speaker 5: share of.
• 2:09:12
  Speaker 2: The vote that you need to.
• 2:09:12
  Speaker 1: Florida is at 60 percent.
• 2:09:14
  Speaker 2: Your home state is at 60 percent.
• 2:09:15
  Speaker 1: 57% want weed. 57% want to protect abortion rights. But
• 2:09:20
  Speaker 1: if you can't get 60, it doesn't make it. Yeah.
• 2:09:23
  Speaker 5: And now there are two other ones that are sort
• 2:09:26
  Speaker 5: of on the other side of that. In Missouri and Montana,
• 2:09:28
  Speaker 5: there are measures that would limit how government officials, how
• 2:09:32
  Speaker 5: legislatures or the governor... could enact changes to a voter-approved initiative.
• 2:09:36
  Speaker 5: So you pass a pro-choice measure and the legislature goes
• 2:09:40
  Speaker 5: in and tries to ban abortion, well, they wouldn't be
• 2:09:42
  Speaker 5: able to do that under these laws. So that, like,
• 2:09:45
  Speaker 5: the fight around the process sounds really boring, but it
• 2:09:48
  Speaker 5: turns out to be really important for the future of
• 2:09:50
  Speaker 5: the ballot initiative.
• 2:09:51
  Speaker 1: I think, look, I somehow... because you know me, and
• 2:09:55
  Speaker 1: you do the same, I was reading the Idaho, the
• 2:09:58
  Speaker 1: one about trying to, if the Medicaid funding drops below
• 2:10:03
  Speaker 1: a certain level, and I'm sitting there going, when you're
• 2:10:06
  Speaker 1: asking voters to do a bank shot type of power
• 2:10:12
  Speaker 1: in a referendum, you're never going to get it.
• 2:10:14
  Speaker 5: Yeah, voters get to no a lot faster than they
• 2:10:17
  Speaker 5: get to yes.
• 2:10:18
  Speaker 1: Yes, I was just going to say, it does feel
• 2:10:21
  Speaker 1: that way. We have a big tax one in Florida, too,
• 2:10:24
  Speaker 1: that is really divided state county level Republicans from the
• 2:10:31
  Speaker 1: state Republican Party. It's been a fascinating little split because
• 2:10:34
  Speaker 1: it would just gut funding. It has to do with
• 2:10:36
  Speaker 1: homestead exemption and property taxes. But, you know, the fear
• 2:10:41
  Speaker 1: is that it was essentially gut services on the local level.
• 2:10:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
• 2:10:46
  Speaker 5: And that happens a lot. So let me throw out
• 2:10:47
  Speaker 5: three kind of wild cards. OK, get me out of here.
• 2:10:51
  Speaker 5: Idaho voters are going to choose an official state gun
• 2:10:55
  Speaker 5: from a list of five Michigan voters.
• 2:10:58
  Speaker 1: That's a good one. And what's do we have a
• 2:11:00
  Speaker 1: front runner? Is it the cold?
• 2:11:02
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know anything about guns.
• 2:11:04
  Speaker 5: It's they were specific models, but I couldn't tell you
• 2:11:07
  Speaker 5: anything about it. Michigan voters will decide on whether to
• 2:11:11
  Speaker 5: hold a constitutional convention. This happens in a couple of
• 2:11:14
  Speaker 5: states every year. They're asked whether or not to.
• 2:11:17
  Speaker 1: I believe Michigan– Jocelyn Benson told me I think it's a–
• 2:11:21
  Speaker 1: I think they have to put it on the ballot
• 2:11:22
  Speaker 1: every 12 years or something like that.
• 2:11:24
  Speaker 5: I think 12 years is the typical– is a typical thing.
• 2:11:27
  Speaker 5: Every incumbent lawmaker hates the idea of a constitutional convention.
• 2:11:30
  Speaker 2: Of course they do. Because it would be chaos. It
• 2:11:32
  Speaker 2: would be terrible. I know.
• 2:11:33
  Speaker 1: The fear is that we're getting more and more independent
• 2:11:35
  Speaker 1: voters who are like, eh, why not, rather than that
• 2:11:38
  Speaker 1: seems like a waste of time.
• 2:11:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
• 2:11:40
  Speaker 5: And the last one, New Mexico voters will decide whether
• 2:11:43
  Speaker 5: to pay their state legislators. Their legislators in New Mexico
• 2:11:46
  Speaker 5: make no salary. It's the only state in the country
• 2:11:49
  Speaker 5: where they where they don't earn any money for their service.
• 2:11:52
  Speaker 5: New Mexico legislators, New Mexico voters get a chance to
• 2:11:55
  Speaker 5: change that. And as somebody who loves my state legislators,
• 2:11:59
  Speaker 5: I would vote yes if I lived in New Mexico. I.
• 2:12:01
  Speaker 1: You know, look, the only I think that the most
• 2:12:05
  Speaker 1: there's levels of corruption in state legislatures. right? Your full-time legislatures,
• 2:12:11
  Speaker 1: harder to get, harder, I think, harder to corrupt. Your
• 2:12:15
  Speaker 1: part-time legislatures, that's where the lobbyists run everything. So if
• 2:12:19
  Speaker 1: you don't pay them, I can promise you somebody's getting paid.
• 2:12:23
  Speaker 2: You know this.
• 2:12:25
  Speaker 1: Somebody is getting paid. Where can folks find your work
• 2:12:31
  Speaker 1: if they'd like to do this? And Is there sort
• 2:12:33
  Speaker 1: of free versions, paid versions?
• 2:12:35
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 2:12:35
  Speaker 1: You know, advertise away. Where can they find this great stuff?
• 2:12:39
  Speaker 2: Check out PluribusNews.com.
• 2:12:41
  Speaker 5: We're actually rolling out a big website redesign this week,
• 2:12:44
  Speaker 5: and it's going to look super cool. We have some
• 2:12:47
  Speaker 5: legislative tracking and research tools that are second to none
• 2:12:50
  Speaker 5: in the industry.
• 2:12:52
  Speaker 2: It's really cool. If you want to know, I don't know,
• 2:12:56
  Speaker 2: pick your favorite. Voucher, school voucher.
• 2:12:58
  Speaker 3: Voucher.
• 2:12:59
  Speaker 5: What did states do on school vouchers this year?
• 2:13:02
  Speaker 2: You can type that into our search bar. You'll get
• 2:13:03
  Speaker 2: a full custom report. It's really cool. And it's changed
• 2:13:07
  Speaker 2: the way I report.
• 2:13:09
  Speaker 1: Can I make one request? Of course. I want a
• 2:13:14
  Speaker 1: beautiful cheat sheet that you just came up with for
• 2:13:17
  Speaker 1: our ballot initiatives. Can people follow if they want to
• 2:13:22
  Speaker 1: keep track? Because this is always a beef of mine.
• 2:13:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, I'm somebody who's committed this. Look, at
• 2:13:29
  Speaker 1: the end of the day, people want to know who's
• 2:13:31
  Speaker 1: controlling the House, who's controlling the Senate. We trickle our
• 2:13:34
  Speaker 1: way down. And then it was like, hey, what happened
• 2:13:36
  Speaker 1: to those ballots? What is that new gun in Idaho?
• 2:13:38
  Speaker 1: We want to know. But in all seriousness- Is there
• 2:13:41
  Speaker 1: a cheat sheet or anything that people can follow this on?
• 2:13:43
  Speaker 5: There is, I'll give you a good, good friends of
• 2:13:46
  Speaker 5: mine who I follow all the time. Ballotpedia, just type,
• 2:13:49
  Speaker 5: type in Ballotpedia, 2028 ballot measures. It'll be the first
• 2:13:52
  Speaker 5: thing you find it listed by state and listed by topic.
• 2:13:56
  Speaker 5: And then they'll have the results on election night. They
• 2:13:58
  Speaker 5: do great work up there.
• 2:13:59
  Speaker 1: Well, uh, it's going to be, we're, we're in the
• 2:14:02
  Speaker 1: weird week where we get to, sort of rest our
• 2:14:05
  Speaker 1: brains while we wait for so much data to come
• 2:14:08
  Speaker 1: in and the sprint between what I always say, the
• 2:14:11
  Speaker 1: minute polls close on Thanksgiving week. Right. Like it's going
• 2:14:14
  Speaker 1: to take us probably all three weeks to unpack all
• 2:14:16
  Speaker 1: of those things. The state that will take the longest
• 2:14:19
  Speaker 1: to count its votes. Is it your home state or
• 2:14:22
  Speaker 1: will it be California?
• 2:14:23
  Speaker 2: It'll be California. No question. Not Washington. Not Washington.
• 2:14:27
  Speaker 5: We only have one really close race. And that's the Marine.
• 2:14:32
  Speaker 5: I can I can never remember her last.
• 2:14:34
  Speaker 1: I'm all for MGP or less MGP. It's a great.
• 2:14:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
• 2:14:37
  Speaker 5: OK.
• 2:14:38
  Speaker 2: Sounds good. We only have that one close race.
• 2:14:41
  Speaker 5: California is going to have half a dozen, including just
• 2:14:45
  Speaker 5: even counting the governor's race. The thing I always say,
• 2:14:49
  Speaker 5: it takes time to administer a good election. We can
• 2:14:52
  Speaker 5: be patient with the results. It takes a lot of
• 2:14:54
  Speaker 5: time to count that many million ballots.
• 2:14:55
  Speaker 1: My friends at the Forward Party care about this. Will
• 2:14:58
  Speaker 1: we see a non-major? Will we see an increase in
• 2:15:03
  Speaker 1: non-major party legislatures, do you think, going into the next cycle?
• 2:15:07
  Speaker 2: I think we could.
• 2:15:08
  Speaker 5: I haven't I haven't taken a look on the state
• 2:15:10
  Speaker 5: legislative level, but there are more than a few at
• 2:15:12
  Speaker 5: the federal level. These Senate races where the Democrats dropped out.
• 2:15:16
  Speaker 5: You know, yeah, you can you can see a couple
• 2:15:18
  Speaker 5: of them. I mean, Angus King and Bernie Sanders could
• 2:15:19
  Speaker 5: have some buddies in the next.
• 2:15:20
  Speaker 1: Well, I know there's a couple in I know there's
• 2:15:22
  Speaker 1: a couple in Utah that the fourth party elected somebody
• 2:15:25
  Speaker 1: in Utah, one in a special and then was able
• 2:15:27
  Speaker 1: to hold on. And so I think they're they're hoping
• 2:15:30
  Speaker 1: they can grow their ranks there.
• 2:15:31
  Speaker 2: So.
• 2:15:32
  Speaker 5: Keep an eye on states like Vermont and Maine. They
• 2:15:35
  Speaker 5: have the longest traditions of electing independents.
• 2:15:38
  Speaker 1: All right. Good to see you, my friend. I would,
• 2:15:43
  Speaker 1: you know, you all in on Sam Darnold where you
• 2:15:45
  Speaker 1: get nervous.
• 2:15:48
  Speaker 2: I was getting a little nervous.
• 2:15:49
  Speaker 5: I was, I was wondering when the drew lock era
• 2:15:51
  Speaker 5: was going to come back, but last eight, you know, Sunday.
• 2:15:55
  Speaker 1: Night, I mean, you know, I, and I, I had a,
• 2:15:59
  Speaker 1: I had a bad vibe about it for you guys.
• 2:16:01
  Speaker 1: I thought Kenneth Walker was going to do the FU game.
• 2:16:04
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 2:16:04
  Speaker 2: I thought we were going to get murdered. That defense
• 2:16:06
  Speaker 2: is that good, man. I was fully prepared to go
• 2:16:11
  Speaker 2: to bed.
• 2:16:11
  Speaker 1: Is he also a Michael McDonald? Wait, he's Mike McDonald, right?
• 2:16:15
  Speaker 2: Mike McDonald. Mike McDonald, yes.
• 2:16:16
  Speaker 1: So we got Michael McDonald telling us how, you know, singing,
• 2:16:19
  Speaker 1: you know, singing songs for us with the Doobie Brothers.
• 2:16:22
  Speaker 1: Michael McDonald tracking the early vote and Mike McDonald running
• 2:16:26
  Speaker 1: the best defense in the NFL.
• 2:16:28
  Speaker 2: There we go. I love that one.
• 2:16:29
  Speaker 1: Reid, good to see you.
• 2:16:31
  Speaker 2: Good to see you too. As Chuck.
• 2:16:41
  Speaker 1: All right, now let's do a little Ask Chuck, where
• 2:16:44
  Speaker 1: you guys dictate which tangents and which rabbit holes I
• 2:16:47
  Speaker 1: will go down. All right, this comes from Scott from Milwaukee.
• 2:16:51
  Speaker 1: All right, hey, as I'm answering this question, the Brewers
• 2:16:56
  Speaker 1: blew it in the 12th. I hesitate to comment too
• 2:17:00
  Speaker 1: much on this because by the time you hear this,
• 2:17:02
  Speaker 1: it's possible the Brewers are already world champs. But if
• 2:17:05
  Speaker 1: they're not, I'll know why it happened because the Brewers
• 2:17:10
  Speaker 1: ran out of– because the one thing about the Rays'
• 2:17:13
  Speaker 1: 12-inning victory in Game 4 is that they may have
• 2:17:17
  Speaker 1: at least exhausted the Brewers' bullpen for Game 5. And
• 2:17:21
  Speaker 1: if this sucker ends his 3-2 and we're going back
• 2:17:23
  Speaker 1: to Milwaukee, when we know where all the pressure ends
• 2:17:26
  Speaker 1: up going on, it ain't on the Rays anymore. Look,
• 2:17:30
  Speaker 1: you know what I love about extra innings and what
• 2:17:32
  Speaker 1: I love about non-sweeps? More baseball.
• 2:17:36
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 2:17:36
  Speaker 1: I don't want the season to end, but I do
• 2:17:39
  Speaker 1: want the Brewers to end up winning this World Series
• 2:17:41
  Speaker 1: for what it's worth. But anyway, so I say this
• 2:17:43
  Speaker 1: because my questioner is from Milwaukee and it triggered Scott.
• 2:17:47
  Speaker 1: He goes, let's see. And he's. said, with our beloved
• 2:17:51
  Speaker 1: Milwaukee Brewers currently up 3-0. See, he wrote this question
• 2:17:54
  Speaker 1: in before game four. I'm curious whether there's any connection
• 2:17:58
  Speaker 1: between a local sports team's success and election results. Does
• 2:18:01
  Speaker 1: the team's postseason success influence voter turnout or even which
• 2:18:05
  Speaker 1: way People vote. And does the sport itself matter, given
• 2:18:09
  Speaker 1: the political leanings of different fan bases? Do politicians ever
• 2:18:12
  Speaker 1: capitalize on that hometown excitement to push legislation or advance
• 2:18:16
  Speaker 1: their agendas? Love the show and go Packers and Brewers.
• 2:18:20
  Speaker 1: All right. The answer to this is academics have studied this.
• 2:18:25
  Speaker 1: So let me tell you about this academic study, Scott.
• 2:18:29
  Speaker 1: It was it was called it was by Healy, Malhotra
• 2:18:34
  Speaker 1: and Moe. You can find it where this in the
• 2:18:44
  Speaker 1: study was called Irrelevant Events Affect Voters' Evaluations of Government Performance.
• 2:18:48
  Speaker 1: And what they claim to find was that when a
• 2:18:52
  Speaker 1: county's local college football team won in the 10 days
• 2:18:56
  Speaker 1: before an election, the incumbent party did better in that
• 2:19:01
  Speaker 1: county by about one and a half to two points.
• 2:19:04
  Speaker 1: in Senate, gubernatorial, and presidential races. The effect was larger
• 2:19:08
  Speaker 1: for big-time programs with passionate fan bases and for upset wins.
• 2:19:13
  Speaker 1: The theory is mood spillover. Voters feel good and credit
• 2:19:17
  Speaker 1: whoever's in charge. But it isn't quite clear this is real.
• 2:19:22
  Speaker 1: This study was revisited in 2015. This one was called
• 2:19:26
  Speaker 1: College Football Elections and False Positive Results in Observational Research. Um,
• 2:19:32
  Speaker 1: And they checked predictions that should hold if the mechanism
• 2:19:35
  Speaker 1: were real, such as NFL teams producing the same effect,
• 2:19:38
  Speaker 1: and they didn't find anything. And they concluded that the
• 2:19:41
  Speaker 1: original finding was supposedly a statistical fluke. So look, there
• 2:19:47
  Speaker 1: was one study to claim that in a local, you know,
• 2:19:51
  Speaker 1: that college football, a big win or a big loss
• 2:19:54
  Speaker 1: can affect the mood and it becomes either pro-incumbent or
• 2:19:57
  Speaker 1: anti-incumbent depending on what happens. Two studies that go the
• 2:20:06
  Speaker 1: opposite direction. Look, my gut is that college football, especially
• 2:20:14
  Speaker 1: now college football, a loss doesn't end your season. It
• 2:20:18
  Speaker 1: wasn't that long ago that one loss could end your season.
• 2:20:21
  Speaker 1: So it had a larger mood effect than an NFL team.
• 2:20:26
  Speaker 1: So I do think that the mistake that was made
• 2:20:30
  Speaker 1: was that assumption that somehow you don't see the effect
• 2:20:33
  Speaker 1: with NFL teams. You don't. So it's, you might, and
• 2:20:40
  Speaker 1: I think that we need a third try at this
• 2:20:42
  Speaker 1: and Scott, maybe you and I can go fund some
• 2:20:44
  Speaker 1: academic research to do this. Right. Well, where, where, where
• 2:20:52
  Speaker 1: you can try to figure to see, because it, I
• 2:20:55
  Speaker 1: do think college football, and I wonder if it's unfindable
• 2:20:59
  Speaker 1: now with the 2014 playoff, you're going to be able
• 2:21:01
  Speaker 1: to go nine and three in the ACC and get
• 2:21:03
  Speaker 1: in eight and four in the SEC and get in,
• 2:21:06
  Speaker 1: et cetera. And so maybe you won't have the same effect.
• 2:21:08
  Speaker 1: But like I said, there was some attempted academic research
• 2:21:13
  Speaker 1: on here. And one study claimed to have found it.
• 2:21:18
  Speaker 1: You know, I know how I feel. I used to
• 2:21:21
  Speaker 1: feel after a Miami loss, it would take me a
• 2:21:23
  Speaker 1: week to recover. And I'd be in a bad mood.
• 2:21:27
  Speaker 1: And I do think college football affects moods for passionate
• 2:21:32
  Speaker 1: fans more than the NFL, just because you can recover
• 2:21:36
  Speaker 1: from a loss in the NFL. It is harder to,
• 2:21:40
  Speaker 1: you know, especially in the pre-college football playoff era, it
• 2:21:43
  Speaker 1: was much harder. It may be that this is an
• 2:21:46
  Speaker 1: irrelevant attempt to try to figure out anymore. But I
• 2:21:52
  Speaker 1: think the point is, is that yes, I do think
• 2:21:55
  Speaker 1: sports can temporarily set a mood, you know, within a
• 2:22:01
  Speaker 1: small window, right? And so, like I said, you know,
• 2:22:05
  Speaker 1: in the immediate weekend or week prior to an election,
• 2:22:10
  Speaker 1: at least that's what the one study found. Then another
• 2:22:13
  Speaker 1: attempted to undo it. But the point is that there's
• 2:22:15
  Speaker 1: been an attempt to see whether there's something here. You know,
• 2:22:21
  Speaker 1: I am persuadable. that there was, and I'm also realistic
• 2:22:26
  Speaker 1: now that it's probably no longer the case. Ted Kaye
• 2:22:31
  Speaker 1: here from Ohio's 1st Congressional District. Ooh, Cincinnati, don't feel
• 2:22:34
  Speaker 1: bad about your Monday Michael McDonald obsession. My wife always
• 2:22:38
  Speaker 1: knows when what a fool believes comes on anywhere in
• 2:22:41
  Speaker 1: our house. If Democrats take both the House and Senate,
• 2:22:44
  Speaker 1: would there be value in bringing the Langford bipartisan border
• 2:22:48
  Speaker 1: compromise up for a vote, especially with so many newly
• 2:22:51
  Speaker 1: elected Democrats promising a different approach? And Hispanic voters potentially
• 2:22:54
  Speaker 1: returning to the party without necessarily supporting open borders. Could
• 2:22:58
  Speaker 1: passing it demonstrate the Democrats are serious about border security,
• 2:23:01
  Speaker 1: put Trump in a difficult position politically, and give the
• 2:23:04
  Speaker 1: party something tangible to run on in 2028, even if
• 2:23:07
  Speaker 1: Jeffries loses some support from the left? Ted, you know,
• 2:23:13
  Speaker 1: I think you ought to become an advisor to Chuck
• 2:23:14
  Speaker 1: Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries. I think this is a great idea.
• 2:23:18
  Speaker 1: You know, is, you know, bring up something that has
• 2:23:21
  Speaker 1: Republican support. This gets at to a larger question of,
• 2:23:26
  Speaker 1: and I think I've shared this with you before. I
• 2:23:29
  Speaker 1: certainly share it whenever I'm on the speaking circuit and
• 2:23:31
  Speaker 1: I'm asked this question. I'm more confident knowing what's happening
• 2:23:36
  Speaker 1: on Tuesday than I am about how Democrats are going
• 2:23:38
  Speaker 1: to behave if they do have the two majorities. Are
• 2:23:42
  Speaker 1: you going to have Democrats that want to try to
• 2:23:44
  Speaker 1: pass stuff that Trump might sign? Are you going to
• 2:23:47
  Speaker 1: have a Democratic Party that wants to pass stuff that
• 2:23:49
  Speaker 1: they want Trump to veto in order to build a
• 2:23:52
  Speaker 1: platform for 28? Or do you not want to work
• 2:23:55
  Speaker 1: with Donald Trump at all and focus on accountability and
• 2:23:59
  Speaker 1: just do the minimum and ride it out for the
• 2:24:02
  Speaker 1: two years with Trump? And I think that that's– I
• 2:24:06
  Speaker 1: think a lot of it depends on A, if Democrats
• 2:24:10
  Speaker 1: get both the House and the Senate, and B, whether
• 2:24:13
  Speaker 1: those are durable– whether they're larger majorities. Small majorities make
• 2:24:18
  Speaker 1: it very difficult. Larger majorities make it easier to do
• 2:24:21
  Speaker 1: these things because, as you said, Jeffries can lose some folks.
• 2:24:26
  Speaker 1: But I think it's brilliant. It makes a lot of sense.
• 2:24:29
  Speaker 1: This is sitting out there. I don't see, you know,
• 2:24:36
  Speaker 1: you're basically calling the bluff of the handful of Republicans
• 2:24:39
  Speaker 1: that like this. You don't need, you know, all. So
• 2:24:43
  Speaker 1: and I do think. There's a variety of versions of
• 2:24:46
  Speaker 1: Trump that could show up in February of 27. There's
• 2:24:50
  Speaker 1: the Trump that may decide he's going to go it
• 2:24:52
  Speaker 1: alone on everything and he just ignores everything Congress does.
• 2:24:56
  Speaker 1: Or there's the guy that wants to hang out with
• 2:24:58
  Speaker 1: Mom Donnie, right? And suddenly, if Democrats want to make
• 2:25:05
  Speaker 1: him look good in signing ceremonies, then he would love
• 2:25:08
  Speaker 1: to do signing ceremonies. I think I've shared this with
• 2:25:11
  Speaker 1: you before, but my favorite test on how far How
• 2:25:14
  Speaker 1: far are you willing to go to get what you want, Democrats,
• 2:25:17
  Speaker 1: if it means giving Donald Trump credit? And my test is,
• 2:25:21
  Speaker 1: I know this would be true. If the District of
• 2:25:24
  Speaker 1: Columbia promised to name the state, the 51st state, after Trump,
• 2:25:31
  Speaker 1: he would support D.C. statehood. How badly do you want it? Anyway,
• 2:25:40
  Speaker 1: something to think about. John from the Florida Panhandle here. Hey, John,
• 2:25:45
  Speaker 1: longtime listener since the MTP 1947 podcast days. Very nice.
• 2:25:50
  Speaker 1: And potentially a first time question asker. No more potentially.
• 2:25:55
  Speaker 1: And hey, I'm an adopted panhandler. So it is it
• 2:25:59
  Speaker 1: is it is it is nice to see you, neighbor.
• 2:26:01
  Speaker 1: With so many polls flooding my Twitter feed and the
• 2:26:03
  Speaker 1: controversy surrounding the Wedgwood fake polling. How can the average
• 2:26:07
  Speaker 1: person distinguish a credible poll from a bad one? What
• 2:26:09
  Speaker 1: should we look for in polling methodology, weighting, and likely
• 2:26:13
  Speaker 1: versus registered voter screens, especially when evaluating unfamiliar pollsters alongside
• 2:26:18
  Speaker 1: established names like Fox News, NBC, New York Times, CNN?
• 2:26:21
  Speaker 1: Thanks a bunch. And even though I'm a Gator fan,
• 2:26:23
  Speaker 1: I'm pulling for the Hurricanes to succeed until we meet again,
• 2:26:27
  Speaker 1: of course. Well, I appreciate that. I have softened on
• 2:26:31
  Speaker 1: the Gator. I certainly want Florida to beat You know,
• 2:26:35
  Speaker 1: beat Texas and Alabama and Ole Miss these days. So,
• 2:26:38
  Speaker 1: you know, a little.
• 2:26:41
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 2:26:41
  Speaker 1: I haven't softened that much. Softened a lot more in
• 2:26:43
  Speaker 1: Florida State for obvious reasons. When you marry a Noel,
• 2:26:45
  Speaker 1: you got to soften up a little bit. Well, like
• 2:26:51
  Speaker 1: I said, I'm sort of a bit old school here.
• 2:26:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, if information is missing, right? You know, the
• 2:27:01
  Speaker 1: basic information you want to know is when was the
• 2:27:03
  Speaker 1: poll conducted? What methodology did they use? And if you
• 2:27:08
  Speaker 1: can't find how they did it, right? Was it IVR technology?
• 2:27:16
  Speaker 1: And what's IVR? Means it's an automated person called phones
• 2:27:20
  Speaker 1: and the respondents pressed one, pressed two, pressed three for
• 2:27:23
  Speaker 1: their different choices, right? It wasn't a live caller. Then
• 2:27:27
  Speaker 1: there's live caller or was it text to web? If
• 2:27:30
  Speaker 1: they're not telling you, and by the way, if they're
• 2:27:32
  Speaker 1: only using one mode, to try to get their sample,
• 2:27:36
  Speaker 1: meaning they only did live telephone callers, or they only
• 2:27:40
  Speaker 1: did automated telephone callers, or they only did text to web,
• 2:27:44
  Speaker 1: just ignore those polls, right? But if you have a
• 2:27:47
  Speaker 1: hard time even finding how they did the methodology, just
• 2:27:50
  Speaker 1: ignore it, just throw it away. As I've said, with
• 2:27:54
  Speaker 1: the statewide polling, I really only deep dive into New
• 2:27:58
  Speaker 1: York Times-Siena, The Fox News polls, and this is on
• 2:28:02
  Speaker 1: the state level polls, the Fox News polls, New York Times-Siena, AARP,
• 2:28:09
  Speaker 1: and the Cook Report has been doing a handful of polls.
• 2:28:13
  Speaker 1: I know, you know, they're using a bipartisan team. Those
• 2:28:18
  Speaker 1: are extensive, multi-mode, modal ways that they try to get
• 2:28:23
  Speaker 1: their sample and they use, because it's, you know, younger people,
• 2:28:26
  Speaker 1: you need text to web. Older people, the telephone is fine.
• 2:28:30
  Speaker 1: Rural folks, you've got to make sure it was definitely
• 2:28:34
  Speaker 1: multiple tries. What was the response rate? The more information
• 2:28:39
  Speaker 1: a pollster will give about the poll, the more credible
• 2:28:42
  Speaker 1: I'll find it. And the harder it is to find
• 2:28:45
  Speaker 1: out when did they conduct it? Was it likely voters
• 2:28:48
  Speaker 1: are registered? If they're not volunteering some of the basic information,
• 2:28:53
  Speaker 1: if you've got to dig around, if it's all not there,
• 2:28:56
  Speaker 1: then it's not worth seeing. the handful of brand names.
• 2:29:00
  Speaker 1: And by the way, this is another thing. A lot
• 2:29:02
  Speaker 1: of people will misrepresent a good poll on Twitter. So
• 2:29:08
  Speaker 1: I'd just be a little leery. I'd like to think
• 2:29:14
  Speaker 1: if you follow me and I retreat a poll, it'll
• 2:29:17
  Speaker 1: be a poll that I think is legitimate. Now, look, Marist, Quinnipiac,
• 2:29:21
  Speaker 1: they're not they're not bad. They're just, they don't have
• 2:29:27
  Speaker 1: the financial resources to do a more thorough way, which
• 2:29:34
  Speaker 1: it's just so costly now to do a good poll.
• 2:29:36
  Speaker 1: It's why there's not that many out this week, right? Normally,
• 2:29:39
  Speaker 1: you know, back in my old hotline days, the 10 days,
• 2:29:44
  Speaker 1: you know, the last 10 days, we were probably getting
• 2:29:47
  Speaker 1: 10 polls a day out, but there was only, you
• 2:29:51
  Speaker 1: just needed one method. You just needed landlines. You just
• 2:29:53
  Speaker 1: needed telephones, you know, and then Then it was just
• 2:29:55
  Speaker 1: landlines and cell phones. And that was still pretty reliable. Now,
• 2:29:59
  Speaker 1: when you have to probably need three or four different
• 2:30:01
  Speaker 1: modes in order to contact people, that just adds to
• 2:30:03
  Speaker 1: the cost. And many of these universities don't have the
• 2:30:05
  Speaker 1: budget for that. Many news organizations won't spend more. Like
• 2:30:10
  Speaker 1: I said, the one NBC national poll costs $ 50, 000 just
• 2:30:18
  Speaker 1: for a thousand person sample that is correct. That's how
• 2:30:23
  Speaker 1: much a really good poll And I promise you some
• 2:30:25
  Speaker 1: of these, they're spending five grand, six grand, seven grand.
• 2:30:29
  Speaker 1: You know, the cheaper the cost of the poll, the
• 2:30:34
  Speaker 1: less reliable it's going to be. So I don't have
• 2:30:37
  Speaker 1: a hard and fast rule, but I'd stick to the
• 2:30:41
  Speaker 1: brand names that I told you about. But if you're
• 2:30:45
  Speaker 1: still not sure, it's, you know, you want to know
• 2:30:48
  Speaker 1: the dates of Do they tell you as registered voters
• 2:30:52
  Speaker 1: or likely voters? What was the mode that they contacted
• 2:30:55
  Speaker 1: the voters? Do they admit that information? And if they're
• 2:30:58
  Speaker 1: not telling you that information, there's a reason. How big
• 2:31:02
  Speaker 1: is this sample? I don't, you know, if it's 400 or,
• 2:31:06
  Speaker 1: you know, if it's under 600, I'm not interested. You know,
• 2:31:11
  Speaker 1: at a minimum, at a midsize to small state, 600
• 2:31:14
  Speaker 1: to 800 total respondents per is acceptable. A state the
• 2:31:21
  Speaker 1: size of Texas, minimum 1,000. State the size of Ohio,
• 2:31:28
  Speaker 1: minimum 800. So, you know, how many respondents were in
• 2:31:32
  Speaker 1: the poll? But it's the harder it is to find,
• 2:31:37
  Speaker 1: and who paid for it, right? If you've never heard
• 2:31:39
  Speaker 1: of the pollster, who paid for it? Why did they
• 2:31:42
  Speaker 1: do it? Who did they do it for? If you
• 2:31:44
  Speaker 1: can't find that, that should be troubling. And that should
• 2:31:49
  Speaker 1: be a yellow flag. Look, many of these polls can direct, like,
• 2:31:55
  Speaker 1: I'll give you one. And I'm highly skeptical of Insider Advantage.
• 2:32:02
  Speaker 1: Their numbers never look off. Sometimes they're almost perfect to
• 2:32:07
  Speaker 1: the average. I mean, it seems like Insider Advantage, tell
• 2:32:12
  Speaker 1: me what the RealClearPolitics average is and somehow Insider Advantage
• 2:32:15
  Speaker 1: polls will all meet it when they have. You know,
• 2:32:19
  Speaker 1: ask yourself, you have a budget to poll in eight
• 2:32:22
  Speaker 1: or nine states. Who gave you that budget? Look, there's
• 2:32:27
  Speaker 1: some places where there's a good pollster in that state.
• 2:32:29
  Speaker 1: And if that's the only thing they do, I do
• 2:32:31
  Speaker 1: trust that pollster.
• 2:32:31
  Speaker 2: Marquette.
• 2:32:33
  Speaker 1: Marquette's Wisconsin poll is terrific. Charles Murray does that poll.
• 2:32:37
  Speaker 1: It's just terrific. Charles Franklin, excuse me. Charles Murray is
• 2:32:40
  Speaker 1: another academic. Charles Franklin, just a terrific poll. And I
• 2:32:44
  Speaker 1: trust the Marquette poll in Wisconsin. And you should, too.
• 2:32:47
  Speaker 1: There are some Michigan-specific pollsters, Epic MRA, Mitchell & Associates.
• 2:32:52
  Speaker 1: They've been doing it a long time. So I'm always curious.
• 2:32:55
  Speaker 1: I don't know if they're spending the money that I
• 2:32:57
  Speaker 1: think is necessary to do a good one. But if
• 2:33:00
  Speaker 1: they're local of the state, Mason Dixon has been conducting
• 2:33:04
  Speaker 1: polls in Florida, South Dakota, Minnesota, for as long as
• 2:33:07
  Speaker 1: I've been doing this professionally. So I trust Mason Dixon
• 2:33:11
  Speaker 1: polls and my friend Brad Coker over there, particularly in Florida. Guys... I,
• 2:33:16
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm, I wish there were one more, I
• 2:33:18
  Speaker 1: want one more poll from your Brad, uh, out of,
• 2:33:22
  Speaker 1: out of, uh, Mason Dixon. I'd like to see if
• 2:33:24
  Speaker 1: we're missing something here, but he understands the demographics of
• 2:33:27
  Speaker 1: the state, you know, pollsters that are based in there,
• 2:33:30
  Speaker 1: you know, that conduct polls in the state that they
• 2:33:32
  Speaker 1: live in usually are, you know, know how to wait
• 2:33:35
  Speaker 1: their polls better. So those are all the ways. I mean,
• 2:33:40
  Speaker 1: like I said, I wish I could give you a
• 2:33:41
  Speaker 1: checklist to say this makes a poll good or bad. Um,
• 2:33:47
  Speaker 1: And I don't want to be dismissive of pollsters I've
• 2:33:49
  Speaker 1: not heard of that may be working really hard. But
• 2:33:53
  Speaker 1: I will say this. If you're a pollster listening to
• 2:33:56
  Speaker 1: this and I didn't mention your poll and you really
• 2:33:58
  Speaker 1: think you've got a good methodology, shoot me an email.
• 2:34:01
  Speaker 1: Chuck at thechuckpodcast.com. That's my email. Chuck at thechuckpodcast.com. The
• 2:34:07
  Speaker 1: email comes to me, okay? Not to some ghost machine
• 2:34:11
  Speaker 1: or anything. It comes to me, not to my producer, Naysa.
• 2:34:15
  Speaker 1: But to me, I will see it and make your
• 2:34:17
  Speaker 1: case and tell me. And I try to do that.
• 2:34:21
  Speaker 1: When I see a new pollster show up that looks
• 2:34:23
  Speaker 1: like they're– I actually try to call them up and
• 2:34:25
  Speaker 1: find out more. Tell me how long you've been doing this,
• 2:34:28
  Speaker 1: et cetera. It's like source building, right? And then over time,
• 2:34:36
  Speaker 1: you notice patterns with certain pollsters. I feel like Quinnipiac,
• 2:34:41
  Speaker 1: I think they're always a little bit off on the electorate.
• 2:34:45
  Speaker 1: but it's always in the same direction. Take Mark Penn.
• 2:34:49
  Speaker 1: He's in charge of this Harvard-Harris national poll. It's always
• 2:34:52
  Speaker 1: an outlier, but it's consistently an outlier. So in some ways,
• 2:34:56
  Speaker 1: it's just like Rasmussen, always a right-wing outlier, but consistently one.
• 2:35:01
  Speaker 1: So sometimes if at least you're consistently outlier and consistently
• 2:35:05
  Speaker 1: outlying in the same direction, well, then when you move,
• 2:35:09
  Speaker 1: that becomes interesting. So There are different ways that I'll
• 2:35:13
  Speaker 1: look at a poll and learn something from it, even
• 2:35:16
  Speaker 1: if I don't take that individual poll to the bank,
• 2:35:18
  Speaker 1: if I at least think the pollster is consistent with
• 2:35:20
  Speaker 1: their methodology. And that matters too. There was probably a
• 2:35:24
  Speaker 1: lot more information than you wanted because you're just sitting there, dude,
• 2:35:27
  Speaker 1: I just want to know which polls can I believe
• 2:35:29
  Speaker 1: and which ones shouldn't I believe. Here's one more thing
• 2:35:32
  Speaker 1: to keep in mind. States like Kansas, Texas even, you know,
• 2:35:40
  Speaker 1: it's been a while. since there's been a lot of
• 2:35:42
  Speaker 1: polling going on. So, you know, sometimes when you, when
• 2:35:46
  Speaker 1: an electorate is on the move and you don't have
• 2:35:49
  Speaker 1: a good historical sort of baseline to wait from it,
• 2:35:55
  Speaker 1: that's a really hard state to pull. Right. And I
• 2:35:58
  Speaker 1: think the fluidity of the Texas electorate, um, is, is
• 2:36:04
  Speaker 1: upped the ante on the challenge for polling, uh, uh, in, um,
• 2:36:10
  Speaker 1: in Texas for what it's worth.
• 2:36:12
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 2:36:13
  Speaker 1: Pulling lecture over, uh, appreciate the question.
• 2:36:17
  Speaker 2: There, John. All right.
• 2:36:25
  Speaker 1: Nancy comes in. He goes, I've followed you since the
• 2:36:27
  Speaker 1: meat's breast days. And as a Packers fan since 1967,
• 2:36:32
  Speaker 1: I appreciate your football loyalty, although as a proud University
• 2:36:34
  Speaker 1: of Florida alum, man, back-to-back Gators. Jesus. We'll have to
• 2:36:37
  Speaker 1: disagree on college football. I love my Gators as much
• 2:36:39
  Speaker 1: as you love your Hurricanes, but how do you justify
• 2:36:41
  Speaker 1: Miami's number one ranking when they haven't played a ranked
• 2:36:44
  Speaker 1: opponent all season and nearly lost to Florida State? While
• 2:36:47
  Speaker 1: Florida has beaten two highly ranked teams, I know my
• 2:36:50
  Speaker 1: Gators don't deserve to be ranked much higher, but shouldn't
• 2:36:53
  Speaker 1: strength of schedule count for something? Thanks for all the
• 2:36:55
  Speaker 1: political insight and education over the years. Much appreciated, Nancy. Nancy,
• 2:36:58
  Speaker 1: I can't sit here and tell you that Miami's earned
• 2:37:00
  Speaker 1: the number one ranking yet. Do I think Miami is
• 2:37:02
  Speaker 1: going to be the number one ranked team by the
• 2:37:04
  Speaker 1: end of the season? I do. I think when I've,
• 2:37:06
  Speaker 1: when you all said and done, and I, you know,
• 2:37:09
  Speaker 1: the question is how much should I, how much should
• 2:37:11
  Speaker 1: last season matter? Well, it depends on how many players
• 2:37:15
  Speaker 1: you have returning and Miami has plenty of, you know,
• 2:37:18
  Speaker 1: all their coordinators returning and a decent chunk of their
• 2:37:21
  Speaker 1: defense returning. And certainly the most important offensive player returning
• 2:37:25
  Speaker 1: in Malachi Toney. And you look at sort of how
• 2:37:29
  Speaker 1: the balance of offense and defense versus what we've seen
• 2:37:32
  Speaker 1: out of Ohio State, what we've seen out of Georgia,
• 2:37:34
  Speaker 1: what we've seen out of Texas, what we've seen out
• 2:37:36
  Speaker 1: of your team, Florida, which I believe you guys are
• 2:37:39
  Speaker 1: still looking for a defense. So I do think Miami
• 2:37:43
  Speaker 1: eventually is going to win. And look, You know, last year,
• 2:37:46
  Speaker 1: nobody wanted to believe that Miami, you know, was Miami
• 2:37:49
  Speaker 1: a playoff team or not. And then once we got
• 2:37:51
  Speaker 1: in and we proved, oh, no, we're, you know, I
• 2:37:53
  Speaker 1: think we were 3-0 against the SEC last season, including,
• 2:37:57
  Speaker 1: I believe, beating Florida. But we were undefeated against the SEC.
• 2:38:03
  Speaker 1: And we lost one game against the Big Ten. And
• 2:38:09
  Speaker 1: won one game against. We played the two best Big
• 2:38:11
  Speaker 1: Ten teams one-on-one. And we, you know, played two of
• 2:38:18
  Speaker 1: the three best SEC teams. We didn't play Georgia. And
• 2:38:22
  Speaker 1: we went 2-0. And then you were.
• 2:38:24
  Speaker 2: Our third victory.
• 2:38:25
  Speaker 1: I know you don't want me to remind you of that.
• 2:38:27
  Speaker 1: I know, son but Billy, et cetera. So I accept
• 2:38:32
  Speaker 1: the premise that we haven't earned the ranking yet. But
• 2:38:36
  Speaker 1: I will go off of something I ranted about earlier,
• 2:38:38
  Speaker 1: which is, you know, Miami didn't get any credit for
• 2:38:41
  Speaker 1: its Wake Forest win. In fact, it was like, oh,
• 2:38:43
  Speaker 1: Miami kind of, And it's like, oh, it turns out
• 2:38:45
  Speaker 1: Wake Forest is pretty good. And, you know, Wake Forest
• 2:38:49
  Speaker 1: is slightly, they're finally getting ranked to where I think
• 2:38:52
  Speaker 1: they belong. But they've been underranked simply because they were
• 2:38:55
  Speaker 1: in the ACC, right? Six and one Kentucky gets all
• 2:38:58
  Speaker 1: sorts of credit. Six and one Wake Forest didn't get
• 2:39:01
  Speaker 1: any of the credit, right? So just like we're watching here,
• 2:39:04
  Speaker 1: the Big 12 beating each other up in conference. Oh,
• 2:39:08
  Speaker 1: they're only going to get one team in the playoff.
• 2:39:10
  Speaker 1: SEC beating each other up. Oh, they're proven they need
• 2:39:13
  Speaker 1: four teams in the playoff. My point is, is that
• 2:39:16
  Speaker 1: perception is driving this, right? And preseason perception and expectations. So,
• 2:39:22
  Speaker 1: and it goes back to, if you've beaten a top
• 2:39:25
  Speaker 1: five team, but they're not in the top five by
• 2:39:27
  Speaker 1: the end of the year, did you beat a top
• 2:39:28
  Speaker 1: five team? And, you know, it goes to UCLA's victory
• 2:39:35
  Speaker 1: over Oregon. How good does that look now? Or I'll
• 2:39:39
  Speaker 1: give you another one. Oklahoma State's victory over Oregon. How
• 2:39:42
  Speaker 1: good does that look now? So, look, we're getting better,
• 2:39:51
  Speaker 1: at least getting to the point where we're going to
• 2:39:54
  Speaker 1: figure this out. And the playoff has helped. I think
• 2:39:56
  Speaker 1: Miami proved itself last year. And so knowing what you know,
• 2:40:01
  Speaker 1: those data points are not absent. I think if Miami
• 2:40:04
  Speaker 1: hadn't performed well in the college football playoff, they would
• 2:40:06
  Speaker 1: not have been elevated to number one after everybody lost
• 2:40:09
  Speaker 1: in front of them. But there's something to be said
• 2:40:12
  Speaker 1: that you hang on even when you play a bad game.
• 2:40:16
  Speaker 1: winning a game you're not supposed to win in some
• 2:40:19
  Speaker 1: ways is usually necessary to win the national title. I'm
• 2:40:25
  Speaker 1: a believer in that. And I also think, look, I
• 2:40:28
  Speaker 1: have this premonition. I think it's going to be Miami
• 2:40:31
  Speaker 1: and LSU in the national title game. Now, I'm not 100%
• 2:40:35
  Speaker 1: sure LSU gets into the playoff, but I know now
• 2:40:38
  Speaker 1: that if they get in the playoff, I think they're
• 2:40:40
  Speaker 1: Miami from last year. I'd like to think we're, we're, we, we,
• 2:40:44
  Speaker 1: we can become, we could be the Indiana, you know?
• 2:40:47
  Speaker 1: And I think there's nobody, the most lethal offensive combination
• 2:40:51
  Speaker 1: in the country belongs to Miami. And so I'm certainly
• 2:40:59
  Speaker 1: bullish on where we end up, but I think it's fair.
• 2:41:01
  Speaker 1: You're not wrong, but Hey, we haven't asked the bed yet.
• 2:41:05
  Speaker 1: Let's just hope I don't ask the bed. They don't
• 2:41:09
  Speaker 1: ask the bed. and make this answer that I'm giving
• 2:41:13
  Speaker 1: you look even more ridiculous come Saturday night in Chapel Hill.
• 2:41:18
  Speaker 1: All right, last question. This is a little more political.
• 2:41:21
  Speaker 1: This comes from Adam B., West Virginia, 2nd District. Hey,
• 2:41:23
  Speaker 1: just wondering, when the Trump presidency is done, whose tell-all
• 2:41:26
  Speaker 1: book are you most looking forward to reading? My vote
• 2:41:29
  Speaker 1: is Marco Rubio. I would love to know his inner
• 2:41:32
  Speaker 1: thoughts about working in the second Trump cabinet. If you
• 2:41:35
  Speaker 1: think he will even write one, love every one of
• 2:41:38
  Speaker 1: your episodes. Well, thanks. Well, can I make a– I
• 2:41:42
  Speaker 1: am not interested in reading a single Trump tell-all book
• 2:41:47
  Speaker 1: until Trump passes on. While Trump is alive, nobody is
• 2:41:54
  Speaker 1: going to do the tell-all. It is the first book,
• 2:42:02
  Speaker 1: the comments, what everybody has to say after he is
• 2:42:09
  Speaker 1: no longer– After he ages out of voting. And that's
• 2:42:15
  Speaker 1: when I will believe a tell-all book. I don't think
• 2:42:19
  Speaker 1: Rubio will ever write that book. Rubio's still got a
• 2:42:23
  Speaker 1: career in front of him. My bet? I'll tell you
• 2:42:30
  Speaker 1: the tell-all book I would read. I don't know if
• 2:42:32
  Speaker 1: he'll ever write it. It would be Chris LaCivita. So
• 2:42:37
  Speaker 1: Chris LaCivita has been a Republican operative. He became a
• 2:42:43
  Speaker 1: bit nationally known because he was the political consultant behind
• 2:42:46
  Speaker 1: the Swift Boat ads that were credited with sort of
• 2:42:53
  Speaker 1: hurting John Kerry's candidacy back in 2004. That's when he first–
• 2:43:00
  Speaker 1: I've known Chris a long time. I think he's always
• 2:43:01
  Speaker 1: felt a bit over-demonized for those ads. Um, but he
• 2:43:09
  Speaker 1: never makes apologies for it. He's kind of a, uh,
• 2:43:12
  Speaker 1: he's a ruthless consultant, smart. Uh, you know, I think
• 2:43:18
  Speaker 1: sometimes as a, whatever it takes consultant, um, which is,
• 2:43:22
  Speaker 1: I think a little, you know, but he's a former Marine, uh,
• 2:43:25
  Speaker 1: and he thinks that way. His brother has amazing restaurants,
• 2:43:29
  Speaker 1: by the way, uh, including a couple here. He started
• 2:43:31
  Speaker 1: in Arlington brothers, a terrific chef, but Chris has seen
• 2:43:36
  Speaker 1: some stuff. It's the tell-all book about American politics through
• 2:43:42
  Speaker 1: his eyes. Going back from 2000, he was the key
• 2:43:47
  Speaker 1: figure in George Allen's campaigns. Like I said, did Swift Boat,
• 2:43:52
  Speaker 1: was brought in to save Pat Roberts back in 2014,
• 2:43:55
  Speaker 1: was brought in basically to rescue Trump in 2021, 2022.
• 2:43:58
  Speaker 1: Put it this way, he's the one I want on
• 2:44:05
  Speaker 1: Truth Serum. I want to just hear it all. I
• 2:44:07
  Speaker 1: want to know everything. Um, after him, it would be
• 2:44:11
  Speaker 1: Susie Wiles, but I want both the Florida, I want
• 2:44:15
  Speaker 1: Florida chapters and I want Trump chapters because I want
• 2:44:18
  Speaker 1: some DeSantis chapters with her as well. Um, I'd like
• 2:44:24
  Speaker 1: Doug Burgum's explanation for what he, why, you know, why
• 2:44:27
  Speaker 1: he told me he's somebody he'd never do business with. And,
• 2:44:30
  Speaker 1: and I want to know the full story. Did, did, um,
• 2:44:36
  Speaker 1: did he offer a hundred million dollars for a super
• 2:44:38
  Speaker 1: PAC to get If he was named running mate, that
• 2:44:41
  Speaker 1: was always one of the rumors out there that there
• 2:44:44
  Speaker 1: was some promise, some amount of money that was necessary
• 2:44:47
  Speaker 1: to at least get the cabinet post that he won.
• 2:44:50
  Speaker 1: I don't think we'd ever hear the truth about any
• 2:44:52
  Speaker 1: of those things until after the former president is aged
• 2:44:56
  Speaker 1: out of voting. So the point is, is that there's
• 2:45:00
  Speaker 1: quite a few people I'm intrigued by, and I just
• 2:45:02
  Speaker 1: don't think any of them will write the book you're
• 2:45:04
  Speaker 1: looking for. Yeah. Until after he's no longer around to
• 2:45:12
  Speaker 1: tweet back. All right. Let's look ahead Saturday. And it's
• 2:45:18
  Speaker 1: to say I'm nervous a little bit about the Chapel
• 2:45:20
  Speaker 1: Hill game. The fact that ESPN decided they wanted to
• 2:45:22
  Speaker 1: put the number one team in primetime. I get it.
• 2:45:26
  Speaker 1: Let's just say I wish we were. This is a
• 2:45:28
  Speaker 1: case where I wish Miami was the noon game or
• 2:45:30
  Speaker 1: the 3.30 game. Road conference games at night are trap games.
• 2:45:36
  Speaker 1: So I am petrified. of this game against North Carolina.
• 2:45:42
  Speaker 1: They have no business holding Miami's jockstrap in this game,
• 2:45:45
  Speaker 1: and yet it's a road conference game at night, right?
• 2:45:50
  Speaker 1: There's a few nightmare games I remember when Miami first
• 2:45:56
  Speaker 1: joined the ACC with losing stupid games to North Carolina,
• 2:46:02
  Speaker 1: the long field goals out of nowhere and stuff like this.
• 2:46:06
  Speaker 1: There was a time it felt like Miami didn't do so.
• 2:46:09
  Speaker 1: North Carolina was a little bit of a– the way
• 2:46:13
  Speaker 1: Georgia Tech turned into sort of this– just one of
• 2:46:17
  Speaker 1: these blind spot games. BC was that way for us
• 2:46:19
  Speaker 1: for a while in these different rotations. I'm hoping that
• 2:46:23
  Speaker 1: we're sort of out of the North Carolina being a–
• 2:46:29
  Speaker 1: but this is a great test for the Miami coaching staff, right?
• 2:46:33
  Speaker 1: Do they have– and sort of what kind of chip
• 2:46:36
  Speaker 1: on their shoulders– does the team have? You know, do
• 2:46:39
  Speaker 1: they want, do they, do they want to know that
• 2:46:42
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of people like Nancy emailing to me,
• 2:46:47
  Speaker 1: Miami doesn't deserve to be number one. You know, do they,
• 2:46:50
  Speaker 1: do you say that over and over? Hopefully I haven't
• 2:46:52
  Speaker 1: thought about the Notre Dame game yet. I don't know
• 2:46:54
  Speaker 1: how you're not, but you know, it's sitting there, it's
• 2:46:56
  Speaker 1: out there. But of course, Notre Dame cares more about
• 2:46:58
  Speaker 1: the Miami game than Miami cares about the Notre Dame
• 2:47:00
  Speaker 1: game this year. And because Notre Dame lost to BYU,
• 2:47:03
  Speaker 1: suddenly the Miami game is their season, right? You've got
• 2:47:06
  Speaker 1: a lot, My new friend, Tim Murray, who runs a
• 2:47:12
  Speaker 1: terrific podcast on the Visa Network, a big Notre Dame fan,
• 2:47:16
  Speaker 1: and he and I have been reaching– reaching out to
• 2:47:21
  Speaker 1: each other, chit-chatting a little bit. And, you know, he's
• 2:47:25
  Speaker 1: convinced that if Notre Dame loses that, that they may
• 2:47:28
  Speaker 1: not make the– even 10-2 Notre Dame with two losses
• 2:47:30
  Speaker 1: to BYU and Miami, that they don't make the college
• 2:47:34
  Speaker 1: football playoff. Meanwhile, my son, the SMU fan, you know, Obviously,
• 2:47:40
  Speaker 1: the Wake Forest game is going to be for the
• 2:47:43
  Speaker 1: for the number, you know, for the essentially the number
• 2:47:45
  Speaker 1: two slot in the ACC. But SMU goes to Notre
• 2:47:48
  Speaker 1: Dame two weeks later. You know, that to me, you know,
• 2:47:53
  Speaker 1: so obviously SMU wants Miami. I think they want Notre
• 2:47:55
  Speaker 1: Dame to beat Miami so that if they beat Notre Dame,
• 2:47:58
  Speaker 1: it's a big deal on that front. But I do
• 2:48:03
  Speaker 1: think Notre Dame's mindset that, you know, losing to BYU
• 2:48:06
  Speaker 1: made the Miami game a bigger deal. Miami, obviously, it's
• 2:48:09
  Speaker 1: not a conference game. So in theory, it's not. So
• 2:48:13
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe Notre Dame's going to have more
• 2:48:15
  Speaker 1: of a look-ahead issue. They play Navy. They do this
• 2:48:20
  Speaker 1: with some of their rivals. It's technically Navy's home game,
• 2:48:23
  Speaker 1: but it's somewhere in New England. They're playing it at
• 2:48:25
  Speaker 1: the Patriots' home field. And they do this. They've done
• 2:48:28
  Speaker 1: this quite a bit with the Navy game. You know, look,
• 2:48:31
  Speaker 1: Navy makes a little extra money. Notre Dame's a big draw.
• 2:48:34
  Speaker 1: They're going to sell out, you know. I'm sure it'd
• 2:48:39
  Speaker 1: be a lot more fun to have Notre Dame in Annapolis.
• 2:48:43
  Speaker 1: But even when Notre Dame plays Navy in the larger DMV,
• 2:48:48
  Speaker 1: the game's not usually in Annapolis. It's usually either in
• 2:48:52
  Speaker 1: Baltimore or in FedEx Field on that front. So this
• 2:48:59
  Speaker 1: is not the best Navy team that we've seen. It's
• 2:49:01
  Speaker 1: not as good as the Navy team of the last
• 2:49:03
  Speaker 1: couple of years. So I don't think they're on upset alert.
• 2:49:07
  Speaker 1: But do they shut it down a little bit earlier, right?
• 2:49:11
  Speaker 1: Do they just, you know, that, you know, how much
• 2:49:14
  Speaker 1: more focused are they on the November 7th matchup versus Miami?
• 2:49:19
  Speaker 1: You know, we've got the target on our back, right?
• 2:49:25
  Speaker 1: And Belichick desperately needs a signature win. So I'm a
• 2:49:28
  Speaker 1: little nervous. We shouldn't be. It's interesting. The Vegas has gone...
• 2:49:36
  Speaker 1: There's not a lot of confidence in Miami covering more
• 2:49:39
  Speaker 1: than two touchdowns here. But in the old on paper,
• 2:49:43
  Speaker 1: they probably are really about three scores better than North Carolina.
• 2:49:48
  Speaker 1: But there's the road, look ahead, exemption, and this or that.
• 2:49:51
  Speaker 1: So anyway, I have to say, I love Halloween in
• 2:49:55
  Speaker 1: my neighborhood. But Halloween on a Saturday night, I enjoy
• 2:50:00
  Speaker 1: giving out the candy, seeing what the new costumes are,
• 2:50:02
  Speaker 1: all of that jazz. But I've got a college football
• 2:50:05
  Speaker 1: game to worry about. All I'll say is, hey, trick-or-treaters,
• 2:50:09
  Speaker 1: if you know you live in my neighborhood, please stop
• 2:50:11
  Speaker 1: coming at 7.30. I will start giving out candy at 5.
• 2:50:15
  Speaker 1: I'm all for that, but man, when 7.30 comes, get
• 2:50:21
  Speaker 1: your candy and go. Now, of course, I'll get harassed
• 2:50:24
  Speaker 1: more at the 7.30 hour than any other. Look, to me,
• 2:50:29
  Speaker 1: the other interesting games on the docket, Utah goes to Cincinnati.
• 2:50:33
  Speaker 1: Cincinnati just Gave Texas Tech its first loss. Is Cincinnati
• 2:50:37
  Speaker 1: going to give Utah its first loss? What do you
• 2:50:39
  Speaker 1: do there? I don't have a lot of faith Cincinnati
• 2:50:41
  Speaker 1: puts back-to-backs like this together. But I'll say this. Of
• 2:50:47
  Speaker 1: the three remaining undefeateds, Miami, Utah, and UCLA, it's interesting.
• 2:50:53
  Speaker 1: Both Miami and Utah are on the road. That's always
• 2:50:55
  Speaker 1: scary as an undefeated team. But UCLA has this game
• 2:50:59
  Speaker 1: against Nevada. And They should win it big, right? Well,
• 2:51:07
  Speaker 1: Nevada's not a bad group of six team. I don't know.
• 2:51:12
  Speaker 1: This one just smells to me. I'd be a little,
• 2:51:18
  Speaker 1: I know if I were a UCLA fan, this game
• 2:51:21
  Speaker 1: would scare me because no one thinks it's going to
• 2:51:23
  Speaker 1: be a problem. And this is not, you know, as
• 2:51:26
  Speaker 1: folks keep pointing out, UCLA got seven turnovers against Oregon
• 2:51:30
  Speaker 1: and could only score 17 points. This is an offense
• 2:51:33
  Speaker 1: that isn't moving the ball very well without Nikko. Um,
• 2:51:37
  Speaker 1: you know, it's got a good defense. You trust them to, to,
• 2:51:41
  Speaker 1: to cover 23 points. I'm not sure I do. I
• 2:51:44
  Speaker 1: just said that one, if something we're not expecting happens,
• 2:51:48
  Speaker 1: that one is intriguing to me. Like I said, Hey,
• 2:51:51
  Speaker 1: it's Florida, Georgia. It's the cocktail party. It's the big one.
• 2:51:54
  Speaker 1: I know we're not allowed to call it the world's
• 2:51:55
  Speaker 1: largest cocktail party. Um, I'm curious which Florida team shows up.
• 2:52:00
  Speaker 1: It's the Florida team that can run on anybody has
• 2:52:03
  Speaker 1: an amazing offense. How does Georgia exploit that defense? There's
• 2:52:12
  Speaker 1: this assumption that despite Georgia– remember, Georgia losing to Auburn
• 2:52:16
  Speaker 1: means they're still the number one team in the country.
• 2:52:18
  Speaker 1: Miami's struggling with Wake Forest and people are questioning whether
• 2:52:21
  Speaker 1: Miami deserves the number one ranking. My friend– Nancy, who
• 2:52:24
  Speaker 1: wrote in, clearly only thinks the only good football is
• 2:52:27
  Speaker 1: played in the SEC. This is the SEC bias. This
• 2:52:30
  Speaker 1: is the SEC perception. I understand it. If I were
• 2:52:33
  Speaker 1: in SEC school, I would have this mindset, too. My
• 2:52:36
  Speaker 1: in-laws are all SEC fans. I am the lone. I've
• 2:52:41
  Speaker 1: been in this debate multiple times. You know, the SEC
• 2:52:44
  Speaker 1: is a gauntlet. No other conference is. How do you
• 2:52:46
  Speaker 1: know you're not in these conferences? But I'll shut up.
• 2:52:51
  Speaker 1: That doesn't mean I don't love the world's largest cocktail party.
• 2:52:54
  Speaker 1: And the Florida Georgia game is always, uh, or something,
• 2:52:57
  Speaker 1: although this hasn't been a great game in a long time,
• 2:52:59
  Speaker 1: we're due for a good one. Um, so we'll see.
• 2:53:03
  Speaker 1: I I'm, I'm, I'm curious what wins out, uh, whether
• 2:53:08
  Speaker 1: this becomes an offensive shootout or whether Georgia is able
• 2:53:12
  Speaker 1: to exert their, their will. And they are able to
• 2:53:14
  Speaker 1: slow down, uh, Florida here.
• 2:53:16
  Speaker 2: A little bit.
• 2:53:18
  Speaker 1: Um, uh, Let's see what else to me is grabbing
• 2:53:21
  Speaker 1: my eye. I have no concerns about Indiana hosting Minnesota.
• 2:53:29
  Speaker 1: In fact, I think this could be, you know, I think,
• 2:53:31
  Speaker 1: you know, Minnesota's won their two trophy games at home
• 2:53:34
  Speaker 1: against Michigan and Iowa. I think they're riding high. I
• 2:53:38
  Speaker 1: think this is when, you know, Indiana brings the wood.
• 2:53:42
  Speaker 1: I just have a feeling. It's Florida State Clemson week.
• 2:53:44
  Speaker 1: This is supposed to be a big game. This game's
• 2:53:46
  Speaker 1: on the ACC network. It tells you how far down
• 2:53:49
  Speaker 1: particularly Clemson has fallen. Florida State's entertaining. Clemson's not even
• 2:53:53
  Speaker 1: an entertaining offense. They just don't move. So I understand
• 2:53:56
  Speaker 1: why ESPN threw this game on the ACC network. But
• 2:54:01
  Speaker 1: I'm fascinated to see that Clemson lost last week. I'm
• 2:54:07
  Speaker 1: just on quit watch with Clemson. And that's the question
• 2:54:11
  Speaker 1: I have. I'm on quit watch with them. That's the
• 2:54:12
  Speaker 1: only reason I wouldn't touch any other games because of this.
• 2:54:16
  Speaker 1: Let's see. Nothing else. Like I said, this is the
• 2:54:22
  Speaker 1: weekend before the weekend. Texas Tech-Arizona. Sneaky good game. Arizona's
• 2:54:27
  Speaker 1: been pretty good. Texas Tech can't afford a second loss here.
• 2:54:31
  Speaker 1: Not at all. So this could be a shockingly competitive game.
• 2:54:37
  Speaker 1: Just keep an eye on it. And then Ohio State,
• 2:54:39
  Speaker 1: with its backup quarterback, travels to USC. This, to me,
• 2:54:44
  Speaker 1: is also– I care about this game. It's on at
• 2:54:46
  Speaker 1: the same time as Miami-Notre Dame, so I'm not going
• 2:54:48
  Speaker 1: to be able to see it. But– or excuse me,
• 2:54:50
  Speaker 1: same time as Miami-North Carolina. Sorry, not Miami-Notre Dame. That's
• 2:54:53
  Speaker 1: next week. Miami-North Carolina. I am very curious to see
• 2:54:58
  Speaker 1: how well the backup is able to get the ball
• 2:55:00
  Speaker 1: to Jeremiah Smith. It's a pretty easy offensive game plan,
• 2:55:04
  Speaker 1: get the ball to Jeremiah Smith. But how good is
• 2:55:07
  Speaker 1: the backup at doing that? This is a– I think
• 2:55:11
  Speaker 1: this is Lincoln Riley coaching for his job.
• 2:55:14
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 2:55:15
  Speaker 1: You're hosting Ohio State. You need to prove you can
• 2:55:18
  Speaker 1: win a big game. You're hosting Ohio State without their
• 2:55:20
  Speaker 1: starting quarterback. There's never been a better chance for you
• 2:55:22
  Speaker 1: to have a statement game. Lincoln Riley, this is a
• 2:55:25
  Speaker 1: big one. If not, maybe you ought to apply for
• 2:55:28
  Speaker 1: the Baylor job. That's I'm not saying I'm just saying.
• 2:55:33
  Speaker 1: And then I care about Wisconsin, Iowa, because. I always
• 2:55:38
  Speaker 1: care about what the Hawkeyes are doing. You know, it's
• 2:55:41
  Speaker 1: it's I always say, you know, I didn't I never.
• 2:55:43
  Speaker 1: grew up in Iowa, but because my family did, I
• 2:55:45
  Speaker 1: was quote unquote raised Island. So I always care. I
• 2:55:48
  Speaker 1: always care who I was up to. And so I
• 2:55:50
  Speaker 1: want to, you know, it's the lowest over under, I
• 2:55:53
  Speaker 1: think of the weekend at 36 points. So I'd love a,
• 2:55:56
  Speaker 1: a good, you know, eight to seven ball game, Wisconsin
• 2:56:00
  Speaker 1: wins it with a two point conversion at the last minute. Right. Uh, would, would,
• 2:56:04
  Speaker 1: would be, would be my, um, would be my assumption there. Um,
• 2:56:12
  Speaker 1: A quick confession. The whole McAfee snowflake stuff. I've taken
• 2:56:25
  Speaker 1: my share of threats, attacks. When you're in the media business,
• 2:56:32
  Speaker 1: you're going to have people that love you and you're
• 2:56:33
  Speaker 1: going to have people that hate you. The longer you
• 2:56:38
  Speaker 1: do it, the more you sort of realize it. And
• 2:56:40
  Speaker 1: you realize it's just welcome to society. Nobody has 100%
• 2:56:43
  Speaker 1: approval rating. Look, I'm not going to tell somebody else
• 2:56:56
  Speaker 1: how they should feel. But I sort of don't have a.
• 2:57:01
  Speaker 4: Lot of respect for people who want to be, who
• 2:57:05
  Speaker 4: go out of their way to showcase being a victim
• 2:57:08
  Speaker 4: or who want to try to claim victimhood on something that,
• 2:57:12
  Speaker 4: you know, it's one thing when you're a victim of
• 2:57:14
  Speaker 4: an actual crime.
• 2:57:16
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to, I'm not, I'm not, I don't
• 2:57:18
  Speaker 1: want to minimize, I'm not minimizing that. But when you're like,
• 2:57:21
  Speaker 1: woe is me because somebody said something nasty about me,
• 2:57:25
  Speaker 1: or I took offense to something on social media, woe
• 2:57:28
  Speaker 1: is me. And you sort of, some people are self, um,
• 2:57:32
  Speaker 1: they kind of self ID themselves, right? They love, I,
• 2:57:36
  Speaker 1: you know, I never understand people that want to showcase
• 2:57:40
  Speaker 1: attack tweets on themselves. Like it's, it's, I get it.
• 2:57:45
  Speaker 1: I guess it's a form of coping. Um, I I've,
• 2:57:50
  Speaker 1: you know, I, maybe I've done it once or twice.
• 2:57:53
  Speaker 1: I don't, you know, I'm not a big fan of it. Um,
• 2:57:58
  Speaker 1: I just don't think it's healthy. If you're so consumed
• 2:58:02
  Speaker 1: with what other people think, are you thinking, right? Don't, if,
• 2:58:09
  Speaker 1: you know, if your life is dictated by what your
• 2:58:14
  Speaker 1: belief of what other people think, you're not living a
• 2:58:17
  Speaker 1: good life. Care about you. You know, be the best
• 2:58:23
  Speaker 1: version of yourself. Who gives a shit what other people think?
• 2:58:27
  Speaker 1: And You know, McAfee strikes me as one of these
• 2:58:30
  Speaker 1: guys who's highly intelligent, but plays the goofball, right? It's
• 2:58:34
  Speaker 1: the shtick. It's a little bit of an act. Because
• 2:58:38
  Speaker 1: you can sort of tell he wants to be like the,
• 2:58:39
  Speaker 1: you know, and this is the guy whose own show says, hey,
• 2:58:42
  Speaker 1: don't take anything too seriously, right? You know, he can
• 2:58:45
  Speaker 1: deliver it, but he can't take it. And again, what
• 2:58:49
  Speaker 1: he got offended by from the University of Utah. I mean,
• 2:58:53
  Speaker 1: this is, I didn't even, I didn't know any of
• 2:58:55
  Speaker 1: it was a criticism. So somebody didn't want to see
• 2:58:57
  Speaker 1: him shirtless. He thinks that's a threat. You know, and
• 2:59:03
  Speaker 1: then you and then you and then he like wrapped
• 2:59:05
  Speaker 1: himself in into an actual political violence story that had
• 2:59:10
  Speaker 1: nothing to do with this. But it was like almost
• 2:59:12
  Speaker 1: his way of trying to enhance his own victimhood. Anyway,
• 2:59:17
  Speaker 1: I just. I think I do. I can speak to
• 2:59:20
  Speaker 1: this in the first person. So that's why I feel
• 2:59:24
  Speaker 1: comfortable doing this. it sucks to see people criticizing you.
• 2:59:32
  Speaker 1: You know, the fact of the matter is you realize
• 2:59:35
  Speaker 1: over time, it's, you know, it's a handful of cranks.
• 2:59:39
  Speaker 1: These aren't, you know, think about how screwed up somebody's
• 2:59:42
  Speaker 1: life is that they get pleasure off of attacking other people, right?
• 2:59:47
  Speaker 1: They're the ones, you know, if that's, if, you know,
• 2:59:51
  Speaker 1: don't get consumed by it. And so, It's just a
• 2:59:57
  Speaker 1: bad look. I don't know what's going on there. Maybe
• 3:00:00
  Speaker 1: he's got something else happening in his life. Look, am
• 3:00:05
  Speaker 1: I the biggest fan of some of his antics? I'm not,
• 3:00:08
  Speaker 1: but I'm not. I get it. There's plenty of the
• 3:00:16
  Speaker 1: show I used to love, and I think that some
• 3:00:18
  Speaker 1: of the stuff that he's brought has been good. I
• 3:00:20
  Speaker 1: love the kicking thing. I think it's cute. that gets fun.
• 3:00:23
  Speaker 1: And I know this, I know it from my own
• 3:00:25
  Speaker 1: daughter's experience with game day on campus. Game day on
• 3:00:27
  Speaker 1: campus is so much fun for the students, which is
• 3:00:30
  Speaker 1: why it was such a bummer that he had to
• 3:00:31
  Speaker 1: attack the students. That was just a disappointment. And the
• 3:00:36
  Speaker 1: students were having fun and he couldn't have fun with them.
• 3:00:40
  Speaker 1: So again, maybe he's got something else and I don't
• 3:00:42
  Speaker 1: want to presume that. Maybe something else has happened in
• 3:00:44
  Speaker 1: his life and he's just on a short trigger. If
• 3:00:47
  Speaker 1: that's the case, then take a break. But it's interesting.
• 3:00:52
  Speaker 1: Watching people and whether they can handle the tension, right?
• 3:00:57
  Speaker 1: And part of this, I do sort of lay at
• 3:00:59
  Speaker 1: the feet of Donald Trump. He is just, you know,
• 3:01:02
  Speaker 1: he is particularly, there's a lot of these, and I
• 3:01:04
  Speaker 1: think I noted it before, right? You know, these, Pete
• 3:01:07
  Speaker 1: Hegseth is one of these guys, and I'd hate to
• 3:01:10
  Speaker 1: see McAfee behaving this way. But these supposedly tough guys
• 3:01:14
  Speaker 1: who think, you know, who mock others who can't handle
• 3:01:17
  Speaker 1: a joke, that the slightest dig and they lose it.
• 3:01:22
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 3:01:23
  Speaker 1: Trump is the king of this. Don't be a cliche.
• 3:01:28
  Speaker 1: Don't be a stereotype. Be better.
• 3:01:35
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 3:01:36
  Speaker 1: With that, enjoy your college football weekend. Enjoy the last weekend.
• 3:01:39
  Speaker 1: If you haven't voted, go vote. Make sure you vote.
• 3:01:44
  Speaker 1: You have less right to complain if you didn't participate
• 3:01:47
  Speaker 1: in the process. I will tell you this. The democracy
• 3:01:51
  Speaker 1: is always better when more people are participating. So get
• 3:01:56
  Speaker 1: out there, get that vote done. I'll see you on
• 3:01:59
  Speaker 1: Monday morning. Thanks for listening. And until we upload again.