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00:00:18
Speaker 2: So obviously all kinds of discussion of late about the polls and how accurate they are and what sort of decisions pollsters are making behind the scenes to craft their final results. So we thought the perfect person to talk to about all of this and where we stand in the midterm cycle is Rich Barris, who of course is the People's Pundit and has been quite accurate with his polling and has some new ones out that are quite interesting. So great to see you, Rich.
00:00:42
Speaker 3: Good to see you, man.
00:00:43
Speaker 4: It's great to be back, guys. Thanks for having me.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, of course. So we thought we would use your Florida poll as a sort of educational exercise here where people can see, OK, what's the raw data? How do you arrive at the numbers? So let me go ahead and put this up on the screen here. Can you talk us through some of this process? Because we're hearing a lot about weighting the polls. We're hearing a lot about the difficulty of reaching Republican voters that could be showing up and influencing here. So talk us through this poll and what you're seeing.
00:01:12
Speaker 5: Well, just to give people the headline real quick, the race for the governorship is tight, which isn't something I have seen in the post-2020 era in Florida. Florida has, of course, exploded with a Republican registration advantage. But in the last couple of months, which I think is important, and pollsters should think about this as we go in, as they decide what kind of assumptions they're going to make, is that Democrats have clawed back last couple of months, not significantly, but it has been a course correction in registrations after what had been years of Republican gains. So we found it within three points, Crystal. That's very close for Florida. Byron Donalds is badly underwater in the early vote. He will need a big Election Day vote. And the problem and why it is so close is that Republicans are cannibalizing, and we can see this even in the sample when we drill down into this more in a bit, we can see that they're actually higher propensity Republicans who are voting early. In other words, these are reliable voters that typically they would save until election day. Democrats have been able to close that gap because their turnout is really driven a lot more predominantly by lower propensity and less reliable, even new voters.
00:02:25
Speaker 4: And they're just doing a better job getting them out.
00:02:27
Speaker 5: So typically we'd go into election day and Democrats would almost have no gas in the tank. And it's not just Florida. But in this case, we're talking about Florida. That is the case this year once again. And it's new to Republicans who have gotten used to not seeing close races. Moody is ahead of Angie Nixon by a larger margin, about seven points.
00:02:48
Speaker 4: And it's interesting.
00:02:49
Speaker 5: I'll say this before getting into the details about the polling and how we did it. If David Jolly pulls this race off, it'll ironically be because of turnout among non-whites that Angie Nixon.
00:03:02
Speaker 4: Is driving up.
00:03:04
Speaker 5: And that's almost like she would take one for the team if she lost against Ashley Moody, but David Jolly was to defeat Byron Donalds. Now, we still, again, have Donalds ahead because it is a red state, and we do think there's enough election day vote that he could creep ahead. However, Democrats are much more enthusiastic, so if he falls short, it won't surprise me.
00:03:24
Speaker 1: So, Rich, let's dig down like you were saying. For example, let's put the New York Times tear sheet up here on the screen, which kind of fits a little bit with what you're talking about. Are Trump voters refusing to take polls and other polling risks? Something that Nate details, something you're dealing with as well, is non-response bias, recall vote, turnout, and then what other things that he lists is that key Senate races in solid Republican states and basically trying to adjust the art of projections and the likely voter sample. Talk us through that because you have to do the exact same thing.
00:03:59
Speaker 3: How do you adjust?
00:04:00
Speaker 4: We do.
00:04:01
Speaker 5: And the first decision that a pollster has to make is where are they going to get these responses from? The New York Times, they're going to go to the voter file like we do at Big Data Poll. And I think we even use the same one over at L2 Data. And we can go over and specifically about that. But also that's where when you're doing phone interviews, I kind of find it funny that everyone's now just talking about non-response bias. This has been what I built my career on for over 10 years, trying to explain to media and university pollsters that, look, these swings.
00:04:30
Speaker 4: You're getting aren't real.
00:04:32
Speaker 5: And the only thing we have to really measure is who is going to turn out. The preference, the swings that you're seeing in preference, and yes, people change their mind. It's just not as big. It doesn't account for the swings that we see in polls. That's a non-response bias. And, you know, when there's a convention and we get a convention bump, often people It's just because one party's voter– they're happy.
00:04:54
Speaker 4: They liked what they saw at the convention.
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Speaker 5: Maybe the other one feels a little depressed. So they're voting– I mean they're taking surveys at a lower rate. And then it will iron back out again, guys, even after the Billy Bush tape in 2016. We had a little bump for Hillary Clinton, and then it flattened right back out. It was simply Republicans going, oh, my God, and then needing two or three days to digest it, and then they got back on the phone. Then the other– I mean you can go to the voter file, and you can also go to marketplace panels, online panels, which is a little bit different. This is not a typical random sample. These are opt-ins. Now some of them are big enough where they can get a bit randomized. But they're opt-ins, and they have confidence intervals, which is different than a margin of error, which is why you'll see a lot of people talk about sampling errors overall.
00:05:39
Speaker 4: We do mixed mode. I prefer it.
00:05:42
Speaker 5: Which means– and I'm going to violate the polling laws here, but it's true. Randomization is not as clear-cut as it used to be back in the day. So even when some of the graphics that I gave to you guys– They're really targeted random sample polls, even when Nate or I go to the voter file, because how are we going to reach voters who don't have a landline, a cell phone? So immediately, it's already true that we're picketing, we're targeting a certain population within that entire universe. And it's a targeted random sample as opposed to just a straight up random sample. The days of random digital dial and everyone having a landline are over. So in the case of the Sunshine State poll, which is what we've always done, we have a mixed mode, which is A panel that is a large enough panel to reach certain groups, if we need to, that didn't participate in the phone interviews. And then most of it is still by the phone, especially because it's a midterm. By the phone, you're going to reach higher propensity voters a lot more. And this is what it comes down to with what Nate is talking about. It is true that Trump voters are less willing to speak on the phone.
00:06:48
Speaker 4: That has always been true.
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Speaker 5: And there are ways that pollsters can make sure that they're getting a representative sample and they're not going.
00:06:55
Speaker 4: To understate Trump's support.
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Speaker 5: And he makes one thing before I throw it back to you that's really important. He distinguishes, okay, maybe you're talking to enough Republicans, but are you talking to enough Trump Republicans?
00:07:06
Speaker 4: Again, a lot of this is region. You can see this in region.
00:07:11
Speaker 5: Are you going to reach a lot of Nikki Haley voters in rural Micanopy, Florida?
00:07:15
Speaker 4: Are you going to reach MAGA voters?
00:07:16
Speaker 5: So without giving away too much of the secret sauce here, Waiting by party is something that pollsters do.
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Speaker 4: It's a big debate.
00:07:24
Speaker 5: But it's something they do, guys, when the sample is not representative. They did something else wrong. That has always been my argument. And you'll see that in the graphics I sent to you. Our targets and our quotas are not that different from the raw sampling. they there's there's a design flaw if they're not reaching those voters.
00:07:42
Speaker 4: And that's something they have to address.
00:07:43
Speaker 3: Makes sense.
00:07:44
Speaker 2: So let's put C3 up on the screen. This was another example where you had the Washington Post had a Kansas poll that, you know, honestly, to their credit, they put out, even though they had a lot of deep doubts about the accuracy of the poll, because it showed the Democrat up by like, I don't know, something great, 14 points. Like it was, you know, where you're like, oh, this is. this is Kansas we're still talking about here. I do think it's close. I think Democrats may eke out a victory, but it's not going to be any double digit route. And what they detailed is just what a hard time they had in spite of really making an effort to reach the number of Republican voters that they needed to reach. Now, are you finding something similar when you're doing your polling? And what does it look like in adjusting for that? What sort of decisions, what sort of sort of you know, personal opinion, gut based decisions do pollsters have to make to try to make sure that they're accurately capturing public sentiment?
00:08:43
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, there's no doubt that we have always seen that. And honestly, there are some things you can do, Crystal, to coax them along to get them to take these surveys. Some of obviously Trump's base is a working class base. So if you call them Monday at around 11 o'clock in the morning, you're not going to reach them. Right. And I think a lot of pollsters don't use common sense when it comes to this stuff. We're not seeing huge gulfs like some other pollsters. And we know that by the recall vote. We're even confident enough where we can see of those who say I prefer not to say. who I voted for in 24, or I voted for somebody else, which is coming back now in larger numbers than we know it truly was.
00:09:26
Speaker 4: We can say by.
00:09:27
Speaker 5: The attributes that are attached to their voter file that they are highly likely to have voted for Trump. They just don't want to say it anymore. The same thing happened to Joe Biden, by the way. It happens in thermostat public opinion when the sentiment of the country swings against the president and his party, people will start to refuse to say, I voted for Joe Biden. I voted for Donald Trump. But it doesn't mean they're not there and we can't see them and we don't have a high degree of confidence that they, in fact, did vote for them.
00:09:56
Speaker 4: Again, I really think.
00:09:57
Speaker 5: That there is, pollsters are having a problem reaching some of these people, but it's the mode and it's some of the common sense practices that you can implement in order to keep them on the phone, maybe give them a little bit more time to commit to completing the survey.
00:10:11
Speaker 4: It really depends on the mode that they're doing it.
00:10:14
Speaker 5: But at the end of the day, waiting because you didn't reach enough of them, waiting for Republicans and just waiting them up is really putting your finger on the scale. So I think it was to the Washington Post credit and it was to Nate Cohen's credit that they just said, look, this is what we got and here's what we did. Because if they were to do that, we saw a lot of pollsters do it in 2016.
00:10:35
Speaker 4: They didn't believe they were reaching these voters.
00:10:38
Speaker 5: And Trump was actually winning that many in the Ohio River Valley.
00:10:41
Speaker 4: I did it myself.
00:10:42
Speaker 5: So I weighted down the Ohio river Valley and it turned out, I understated Donald Trump, I think four points or something in that state.
00:10:48
Speaker 4: You're putting your thumb on the scale if you do that.
00:10:51
Speaker 5: So you just have to, your collection modes have to have to improve and, uh, you know, watch recall vote and other things like that.
00:10:59
Speaker 3: Rich, last question for you on this front.
00:11:00
Speaker 1: There have been a lot of MAGA cope saying the polls are just off.
00:11:04
Speaker 4: They're off.
00:11:05
Speaker 3: They're off.
00:11:06
Speaker 1: People are posting about near time Sienna from 2024, which were off. Not dramatically, but often a couple different states, obviously, for Donald Trump.
00:11:15
Speaker 3: Obviously, in 2020, disastrous miss.
00:11:18
Speaker 1: You, though, as somebody who called out those misses at the time, you're saying, no, this is what I'm saying. So can you square that for the audience and for anybody out there who's saying, guys, these people miss all the time.
00:11:30
Speaker 3: Obviously, they're going to miss again.
00:11:32
Speaker 5: Look, I wouldn't be surprised if the New York Times overstated the Democratic lead, but we also have Democratic leads in a lot of these states. We did not miss in 2020, which, by the way, was the most difficult election. in my lifetime, if not ever, to poll because it was the COVID environment.
00:11:48
Speaker 4: It was extremely difficult.
00:11:50
Speaker 5: We were going down to national origin and ethnicity to make sure we were getting.
00:11:54
Speaker 4: Correct racial subgroups. It was insane.
00:11:57
Speaker 5: And that's part of how we were able to outperform everybody else. But I will say this, in 2018, the New York Times wasn't bad. In 22, they were not horrible. And again, to his credit, Nate Cohen said, look, If I waited like I did back then for these polls, it would actually be worse for Republicans. So I tried to make it a little bit more representative here and get a little bit more. I don't want to say he was trying to get a more narrow result, but he wanted it to be obviously a little bit more realistic. And he was very conscientious of missing Republican support.
00:12:30
Speaker 4: We have not.
00:12:31
Speaker 5: And there are a number of other pollsters out there, not just me, Big Data Paul. There are a number of others who have not missed the Trump vote. Not in 10, 12 years almost now, you know, and we're just not if you if you count when he came down the.
00:12:42
Speaker 4: Escalator almost 12 years. It's just it is a cope.
00:12:45
Speaker 5: And I'm just saying I hate to tell people, but we see these Trump voters, guys. We see that we know exactly who voted in 24.
00:12:53
Speaker 4: The big problem they're having.
00:12:55
Speaker 5: Is that a lot of them were low propensity to begin with, and they're mad at Donald Trump. They disapprove of the job he's doing. They're not going to come out, so they have to be screened out. Even in our last national poll, it was Harris plus one. That's very close to the overall result. What accounts for that? The rest of those Trump voters aren't coming out unless some of them want to argue that everybody who voted in 24 intends to come out in 26.
00:13:19
Speaker 4: And of course, that would be a ludicrous argument.
00:13:21
Speaker 5: They're coping, pointing to other cycles when Trump was on the ballot and when he was popular.
00:13:26
Speaker 4: I hate to break it to everybody. He's not popular.
00:13:29
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:13:29
Speaker 4: And that's going to matter.
00:13:30
Speaker 2: Is there also a factor here of. You know, as you get closer to Election Day, Nate Selverson talking about it, he feels like some pollsters like to herd because that way you aren't an outlier. You don't stand out. If you get something really wrong, then you're not the one that everyone's coming after. You also do have the fact that Trump sued Ann Seltzer for her incorrect Iowa poll. And even though, you know, the dominant polling story over the Trump era has been missing those Trump voters, but you have had in midterms, you've had a different dynamic. I mean, 2025 actually was the worst polling miss that we've had, and that understated Democrats. So do you also think there's is there a lot of pressure on pollsters in that direction in particular where it's better if you're going to miss? It's better to miss understating Democrats than understating Republicans.
00:14:19
Speaker 5: There is absolutely something to that, Crystal, and I'm glad you brought that up, because for me, it doesn't really matter.
00:14:24
Speaker 3: I can go.
00:14:25
Speaker 5: I've been relatively accurate over 10 years and I can put out what I think is right. To be truthful, since late spring, early summer, I've been hanging out there with low double-digit Democrat leads from Democrat plus.
00:14:35
Speaker 4: 11 to 12.
00:14:36
Speaker 5: I predicted, I said, when we turn to Labor Day, you'll see other pollsters heard to me.
00:14:41
Speaker 4: That is what happened.
00:14:42
Speaker 5: There are some that are hedging at the end because of what you just said. If they're going to miss, they are keenly aware, especially in the environment and the way the president has been talking, they are keenly aware that it is better for them to understate Democrats than to overstate Republicans. And for some- including one large firm who's had multiple rounds of VC injections, who now wants to go public and take their company through an IPO. Another misfire that favors Democrats will be a disaster. So there are a lot of things going on right now like that. And they are feeling the pressure, even in 25. I could tell you we were the only one with Abigail Spanberger with a 13, a little over 13 point lead. Everybody else was afraid to go over seven. And we know because we spoke to them. Mark Mitchell, who was at Rasmussen, now he's at the Honest Poll. He was the only one who had Mikey Sherrill with a significant lead. Everybody else definitely felt the pressure. I don't want to overstate, you know, and look what happened.
00:15:45
Speaker 3: Great point.
00:15:45
Speaker 1: All right, Rich, while we have you, I want to talk about early vote, because I know you're factoring some of that in as well. Guys, let's go to the next part. I have been very focused on this. Obviously, I grew up in Texas. All my Texas sources are talking about this. The early voting numbers, guys, if we can put it up here on the screen, just show insane Hispanic turnout. Quote, it is not clear which candidates are supporting, but the turnout is up in early vote, including many voters who have not participated in in recent elections. Rich, the cope I'm hearing from the Paxton camp is, guys, we won Hispanics in 24. Obviously, this doesn't mean necessarily what you think it may mean, as previously people have extrapolated from that demographic. However, some of the more honest ones are like, yeah, no, this is really disastrous. And this is obviously a very good sign for James Tallarico. What's your read on it?
00:16:35
Speaker 4: That's cope. Let's go. Clear as day. Look, you play with fire, you're going to get burned.
00:16:40
Speaker 5: I warned Republicans that if you attract these Hispanic voters, which you absolutely need to do– by the way, there it is.
00:16:47
Speaker 4: It's all in Burn It Down. I wrote this almost a year ago. It just came out a couple of months now.
00:16:52
Speaker 5: If you do this, you better not let them down because millennials and Hispanics have the power to change the map forever. If they start to punch at their weight and they start to vote at higher rates like we're seeing them do for a midterm, which is insane– in Texas, and you're on the butt end of this thing because you betrayed them or you disappointed them, it's going to be very ugly for you. And oh, by the way, don't redistrict Texas thinking that you can win Hispanics like Donald Trump can because you can't.
00:17:21
Speaker 4: And here we are.
00:17:21
Speaker 5: I mean, I want to say maybe Ken Paxton gets 30% of Hispanic vote at this point. It looks ugly. Um, so it, that is cope. And when it's not just Texas, we're seeing this everywhere. Democrats did a better job. Like I said, in the beginning of getting low propensity voters out in, in Texas, it just so happens that a lot of them are nonwhite because it's a more nonwhite state. We are seeing this in Florida as well. And especially if they're younger guys, they are heavily democratic.
00:17:49
Speaker 4: This is, um, this was basically worst case scenario for Republicans. It was. And it was predictable. And they just didn't listen.
00:17:57
Speaker 2: Talk a little bit more about Florida. Put D3 up on the screen. This is this Axios report about how Republicans are white-knuckling it through Election Day. And we went through some of this before of how Byron Donalds in particular is going to have to have this massive, overwhelming Election Day vote turnout if he's going to turn this thing ultimately around. I wanted to tie this in with some of your commentary here about Latinos, the high Latino turnout. the persuasion, how Democrats have been able to win some of those demographics back. Does that imply in Florida, though, where you obviously have a very different Latino population than you do in the state of Texas?
00:18:35
Speaker 5: Yeah, for the poll, we actually broke this down by region.
00:18:38
Speaker 4: So people could see.
00:18:40
Speaker 5: You have Hispanics in the I-4 corridor in central Florida, which were always more difficult for Republicans to win over. They're Puerto Rican and they're Mexican. There's subgroups matter. You know, they're not monolithic. And then you have South Florida, which is Venezuelan and Cuban. And everyone knew about the Cuban population for years being more conservative. But Venezuelans are relative relatively new block. What we saw in the poll is that Venezuelans are holding stronger than Cubans even. And then, of course, the I-4 corridor in the central part of the state.
00:19:09
Speaker 4: Is just a massive swing.
00:19:11
Speaker 5: And again, going to people saying, well, maybe you just didn't reach the Trump Hispanic voter.
00:19:15
Speaker 4: No, we did.
00:19:16
Speaker 5: It's clear as day. He carried them by more than 10 points in the sample that is this poll. They have just swung in some parts of the state 25, 30 points.
00:19:25
Speaker 4: It's disgusting.
00:19:26
Speaker 3: Wow.
00:19:26
Speaker 5: These are people who are saying, I did vote for Trump. I did vote for Republicans. I did vote for Ballard. I did vote for Salazar. I'm just not doing it this year because I don't like what I'm seeing. Republicans didn't understand these voters weren't theirs. They got really arrogant, and the hubris was something to behold. These voters needed to be wooed. They needed relationship building. They were a new part of their coalition, a coalition. by the way, that I've always believed could govern for 30 years, and they did not do that. So I find it a little bit funny that everybody is struggling to believe this could happen.
00:20:03
Speaker 4: Well, of course it can.
00:20:04
Speaker 5: I mean, I feel like Republicans are where Democrats were circa 2010.
00:20:08
Speaker 4: No, those states can't move. And then we have bad midterms. It was no big deal.
00:20:12
Speaker 5: But Republicans will find themselves around circa 2016 if they don't start paying attention because they're going to have to win these voters back.
00:20:18
Speaker 4: I think they're gone this cycle for now.
00:20:20
Speaker 3: I think you're right.
00:20:21
Speaker 1: Last thing, there's been a lot of Democratic discussion. Let's put D4 up here from Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina. You have always said Mississippi itself.
00:20:31
Speaker 3: Could be a problem.
00:20:32
Speaker 1: Here is what we're looking at for the amount of vote share which is coming out of Louisiana. It appears that there has just been an explosive amount of black vote, especially in Louisiana, but you can also see in Mississippi and South Carolina and a lot of these deep red southern states as well.
00:20:48
Speaker 3: Talk us through this.
00:20:49
Speaker 1: Dynamic and what it would look like if we do see a shock Democratic win in any of these states.
00:20:54
Speaker 5: I think it would probably, I mean, you did have Mary Landrieu winning in a bad Republican year in a state like Louisiana. But this is a problem going forward, not just in a bad cycle, but I have been warning that a state like Mississippi, even Louisiana, in a bad cycle for Republicans could end up surprising because Trump did much, much better. in black belt counties all throughout the South, in the rural South specifically, he just did better with black voters. And that was built on mostly black voters who are under 45, who don't have the, still the, um, the civil rights era, you.
00:21:30
Speaker 4: Know, uh, minds. Yeah. You know, I mean, that's what happens.
00:21:33
Speaker 5: Generations change and we call it a cascading effect. It, These impressions that, that parties leave on voters, they fall off events, fall off. And Trump did better with them, even though, do you know that? I mean, the grief that a lot of these young men got for voting for Donald Trump in 2024 from their aunties and their grandmothers and the, you know, people around the table on, on Sunday for dinner, a lot of it. So again, this was something we probably should have expected. The truth is if you go and compare performances, Republican governors, for instance, against Donald Trump, who performs at the presidential level in a state like Mississippi, that central and central western part of the state is incredibly blue, and there are a lot of counties with high black voter populations, and Republicans always underperformed him there. But you really didn't see it, guys, because he also drove white turnout up without him on the ballot and without him being popular. There is absolutely a recipe where black voters come out, They go back to voting 95-5 for Democrats, and white vote is depressed, and oops, it slips by. The last governor's race there was low single digits, and nobody paid attention.
00:22:43
Speaker 3: I didn't know that. That's the point.
00:22:45
Speaker 2: Rich, last question for you, and maybe it is Louisiana, but if there's one state that really shocks you on election night, what do you think it'll be where people the next day are, oh, my God, I can't believe Democrats won that state?
00:22:56
Speaker 5: This speaks to the environment we're in. There are a couple, honestly. Do I think Louisiana and Mississippi are still heavy lifts?
00:23:04
Speaker 4: Sure.
00:23:05
Speaker 5: But the generic battle that I put out a couple of days ago is disgusting. And environments like that cause surprises. It happens every cycle. I also do think, and maybe it's not a surprise to everybody now, but I mean, six months ago, I was saying, if this continues, you could lose South Carolina.
00:23:20
Speaker 4: It should not be close.
00:23:22
Speaker 5: I mean, even a four point lead is not something to, you know, to, to start to breathe a little bit more easier over it's within the sampling era in a state poll. So I wish I could just pick one, but unfortunately for Republicans, they're everywhere. Even Kansas and Nebraska, uh, you said before, I wouldn't be surprised if they eat get out in Kansas, me either. And I've seen internal polling on both sides in Nebraska and And the governor's race is close.
00:23:46
Speaker 4: The Senate looks tough.
00:23:49
Speaker 5: And even some of the statewide ballots are, you know, between secretary of state or other statewide offices or single digits when they should be blowouts.
00:23:58
Speaker 4: So I think we're going to get a lot of surprises. I do. It's just one of those cycles, guys.
00:24:04
Speaker 6: Yeah.
00:24:04
Speaker 1: Well, thank you very much, Rich. We appreciate your expertise here. And we'll talk to you soon, man.
00:24:08
Speaker 3: Thank you.
00:24:08
Speaker 4: All the best, guys. Take it easy.
00:24:10
Speaker 2: Thanks, Rich.
00:24:13
Speaker 1: Turning now to our excellent election panel, we've got Ryan Gerduski of the Numbers Game podcast, Baz Shakir of More Perfect Union, and formerly of the Bernie Sanders campaign as well.
00:24:23
Speaker 3: Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate your time.
00:24:26
Speaker 4: Thank you.
00:24:27
Speaker 3: All right, so you guys, we kind of kicked it to you.
00:24:30
Speaker 1: We said, all right, you guys pick ads, and you're going to pick an ad from the Democrat side and from the Republican side.
00:24:35
Speaker 3: You're going to pick the best one.
00:24:37
Speaker 1: We're going to start with the Democratic ad, and it's more interesting for our purposes because you actually both picked the same ad with no knowledge at all except right before when we told you you were here. So let's take a listen to the ad, and we'll have both of you break it down. Let's take a listen from James Tallarico.
00:24:52
Speaker 7: Do you keep seeing these attack ads against James Tallarico?
00:24:56
Speaker 4: Look a little closer.
00:24:57
Speaker 7: The same super PACs are paying for nearly all of them. Texas PAC, America PAC, Lone Star Liberty PAC. But who's funding these stark money groups? Elon Musk. This summer, Elon made some of the largest political donations in American history. He's now spent more than $ 180 million to defeat James Tallarico. He's almost single-handedly bankrolling the effort to install Ken Paxton in the U.S.
00:25:25
Speaker 6: Senate.
00:25:26
Speaker 7: But why is the world's first trillionaire doing this? Elon wants to buy up our land. He wants to buy up our water. And now he wants to buy his own personal U.S.
00:25:39
Speaker 8: Senator.
00:25:39
Speaker 7: He knows that if his millions drag the most corrupt politician in Texas across the finish line, Ken Paxton will owe him everything. So let's remind Elon, Texas is not for sale.
00:25:53
Speaker 1: Ryan, I'll start with you since you were looking at this. Obviously, you don't like James Tallarico, but you admire the ad. What about the ad did you think was effective?
00:26:01
Speaker 9: I think it was smart because Elon's obviously unfairable is pretty high nationwide. I don't know about Texas specifically, but there's a lot of controversies that they hit on immediately. One, the whole idea of buying the beach, huge in Texas right now. A lot of people talking about this, that um that x spacex is trying to buy this beach um that has been used for generations by texans families to the idea of it being a corporate oligarchy that they're all kind of embedded within um each other that the that these tech billionaires and no one like text likes tech billionaires right now it's let alone trillionaires um are are deeply invested and that makes it look like um It makes it look like all the attacks. And there's been hundreds of millions of attacks against James Tallarico that it's a complete personal push by Elon Musk himself. So it doesn't become even a Ken Paxton versus versus James Tallarico race, although, you know, Ken Paxton is is is a slam in the head. But it really becomes James Tallarico versus the machine. And that's very effective for James Tallarico, both to ignore the attack ads. and to build to that he is the man against the world's richest man.
00:27:10
Speaker 2: It reminds me a little bit of something that Abdul El-Sayed did successfully in his primary campaign where he was facing tens of millions of dollars in outside spending, much of it coming from AIPAC. And during one of his debates with Haley Stevens, he said, look, They're going to go to commercial break. You're going to hear all kinds of nasty things about me. That's because of all of this outside APAC spending that is coming into this race. And I thought it was a very clever way to undercut the messaging so that it causes people, whenever they see those ads, to then have a kind of, you know, a reverse impact where they're saying, oh, yeah, this is all of this outside money that's flooding into our district to lie about this guy.
00:27:45
Speaker 6: Right. It's assuming, it's sitting in the working class person's shoes, knowing that they have been consuming this nonsense for a fair amount of time. So it starts with the assumption that you've probably seen this ad. And then right off of that saying, let me tell you something you don't know about this ad. First of all, who's paying for it and naming the person Musk, but then getting into something more deeper, right? It's almost documentary style of an ad saying, what does Musk want? Let's answer that question for you. So that's really critical. And by the way, ending with Texas is not for sale. For those of us who are Bernieologists, we'll recall that Bernie Sanders running for mayor of Burlington in 1980 popularized the phrase, I think maybe the first politician to use it, Burlington is not for sale. And then guess who then used it later? A little known guy running for mayor of New York City. And we ran a final rally out called New York is not for sale. And here we are with Texas is not for sale. I like the phrase.
00:28:45
Speaker 3: Very smart, actually.
00:28:46
Speaker 6: All right.
00:28:47
Speaker 1: So let's get to the Republican ads. Ryan, we can start with yours. This is the Republican ad that you picked. It is Sarita Komita Reddy. I'm not sure the Groypers will love that you picked this one, Ryan. But she is she is running for the attorney general in the state of New York.
00:29:04
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen.
00:29:05
Speaker 10: There's a three word solution to affordability in New York.
00:29:09
Speaker 3: Just fight crime.
00:29:10
Speaker 10: When crooks steal a car, your insurance goes up. When scammers siphon money from Medicaid, healthcare costs go up. When Tish James forces solar and wind, electric bills go up.
00:29:21
Speaker 3: My name is Saritha.
00:29:22
Speaker 10: I'll be a different kind of attorney general. Letitia James spent 10 million bucks.
00:29:27
Speaker 3: Making herself a celebrity. My motto is my career. Just fight crime.
00:29:34
Speaker 1: Ryan, what do you think makes that one effective? I mean, from what we've seen so far, not necessarily a competitive race.
00:29:40
Speaker 3: I know you live in New York. Maybe you disagree. Why don't you break it down for us?
00:29:44
Speaker 9: One, I never heard of Saritha. A lot of times these races that are not U.S. Senate, not governor, don't get attention. And that's true of every race in the entire country, unless the candidate's like really zany, you know, over here with these races.
00:29:55
Speaker 10: Right, right.
00:29:55
Speaker 9: So I had not heard of this candidate before, but she does an effective job of arguing why crime is actually connected to cost of living, which is very, very, very smart. It's a super smart play, especially as crime has declined from a top three issue maybe to a top five issue in New York state. Very, very effective, very smart, very simple and plain and easy to understand. She also uses that not only to hammer her message of why crime is a cost of living issue, but also why Letitia James has failed on the issue. both as an attack ad and as an explanation. Really, I just think it's super smart. New York has moved to the right substantially over the last maybe five, six years. If she can come within single digits and polls have her maybe in a low double, like 12 point behind, I think it really says a lot that even in this environment, she's been a very effective candidate, especially as Letitia James is looking. to run for governor in the next four years.
00:30:52
Speaker 2: Faz, you also chose a Republican who sort of outperformed in a difficult environment. This is a Spencer Pratt ad in LA. Let's take a look at that.
00:31:02
Speaker 4: This is where Mayor Vass lives. You notice something?
00:31:05
Speaker 11: Or here, where Nithya Raman's $ 3 million mansion sits.
00:31:08
Speaker 4: They don't have to live in the mess they've created where you live.
00:31:14
Speaker 11: This is where I live. They let my home burn down. I know what the consequences of failed leadership are. That's why I'm running for mayor. For my sons and the rest of us Angelenos that want to stop these corrupt politicians from destroying our city.
00:31:29
Speaker 4: We are going to get the golden age of Los Angeles back.
00:31:32
Speaker 2: Faz, what do you think worked about this ad?
00:31:34
Speaker 3: Well, it's a class politics ad.
00:31:37
Speaker 6: It's saying that we here, all of us, are struggling because of the corruption of the elite. He knows his audience. He's in a blue area, Los Angeles. He's trying to win over people who may not necessarily be Republican or Trump supporters. And he's associating one clear problem and issue that Los Angelinos have dealt with, which is the fire, and getting a sense of the injustice through the lens of both corrupt politics and class, that all of us are struggling together. Very smart ad. I'm not here to fact check it. Other people can. But that said, it was very compelling and interesting to watch.
00:32:11
Speaker 3: That makes sense.
00:32:12
Speaker 1: Ryan, you know, generally looking across the spectrum, a lot of the Republican ads have dropped the name Donald Trump. His name mentions have gone down dramatically in the last couple of weeks. As you look at this or if you're advising candidates in such a difficult environment, what have you like outside of, you know, you picked the you picked the come with the ready ad, but Are there any national candidates like Senate candidates that you've seen do an OK enough job?
00:32:38
Speaker 3: What do you think?
00:32:40
Speaker 9: Well, the candidate that I actually picked besides, because I thought maybe you wouldn't want a candidate that's just running for AG instead of federal office. Susan Collins ad of she's just like me was a really, really compelling ad because it did two things. One, it connected Susan with the people of Maine and the. And her past in Maine, I think she picked potatoes when she was a child or something like that, to the fact that she is one of the most powerful people in the state of– sorry, in the federal government, in the U.S.
00:33:04
Speaker 8: Senate.
00:33:05
Speaker 9: And the amount of money she gets brought back to Maine as a U.S. senator is tremendous. It's far more than a freshman senator would be. And connecting both who she is as a person being a Maine girl with also her ability to get resources to a very poor state outside of just a few coastal towns. is, I thought, very, very intelligent, and it really kind of reinforces both her origin story and her strength and power in all of D.C.
00:33:33
Speaker 3: That's smart, right. That's like her brand. That makes sense.
00:33:36
Speaker 2: Faz, a lot of the Republican advertising doesn't mention Trump. You do have some people who are actually going out of their way to say, I'm bipartisan, I work across the aisle. Ashley Hinson in Iowa comes to mind. But a lot of the negative ads continue to focus on transgender issues. And I wondered about your opinion on the choice that Josh Turek made in Iowa, where rather than saying, you know, I'm going to like stay on my message and hope that this is something voters aren't particularly focused on. He decided to cut an ad directly saying, I don't want, you know, men and women's sports against, you know, certain elements of this agenda and really went to camera to to push that issue and put it front and center. I wonder what you make of that decision.
00:34:17
Speaker 8: Choice.
00:34:18
Speaker 2: And if you think, you know, it varies race by race, if you think that was a smart move from him or not.
00:34:23
Speaker 6: It certainly does vary race by race. But I also think that people are assessing, are you sincere about this? Has there been a sense of authenticity? My view on a lot of these, they tend to be reflexive. You're really fighting a rearguard action to say, hey, I'm being attacked. Don't worry, I'm not as crazy as they seem. Obviously, the other thing besides trans attacks has been communism and socialism and A lot of immigration-related ads that, in my view, Democrats would be doing better if they're on their front foot telling you about a vision proactively of things that they are for because that's– especially in this election cycle when so much of the understanding of Trump is unpopularity. I think that people are looking for a choice, and you have to posit a choice, not to say, hey, I'm a light version of that, but rather what is the different world in which I want to live? It's interesting as we're talking about this, the immigration ad that actually kicks through this cycle was from a South Florida Republican congresswoman who distanced herself from Trump and really made waves and might actually win the election today. as a result of her doing so over ICE. And that, I think in some sense, lends more sincerity to her cause than some Democrats who are suggesting, hey, no, no, no, I'm not what they think you are.
00:35:34
Speaker 3: Interesting.
00:35:35
Speaker 1: One question for you, Ryan, because you are privy to a lot more of the data than we are. What do you, so like the big questions right now are in these deeper red states.
00:35:44
Speaker 3: I borrowed your take very early on.
00:35:46
Speaker 1: You're like, guys, this is something that's only happened a couple of times in the last 25 years.
00:35:50
Speaker 3: It's the eve before the election.
00:35:52
Speaker 1: What do you think, generally, since you were privy to a lot more than we are?
00:35:56
Speaker 9: I think that it's going to be... I think there's an uneven split between states. I don't think that the blue wave is uniform throughout the entire country. Let's say there's a 10 to 12 point swing to the left. That means that there probably might be states that has an 18 point. There might be states that have a five point. I think that... some early, I think that in a number of States, you're seeing a huge increase in minority turnout and youth turnout, Florida, Georgia, Texas, but that's not the truth in like Ohio, Iowa, um, Maine. We're not seeing that kind of early turnout numbers. So I think that that is, um, I think that that's really where, sorry about the noise in the background. I think that's really where we might see, uh, see a huge difference. And, and we'll, we'll look at the polls maybe the day after and say, home, that didn't turn out the way it was. Um, And I think that there is an I think that Nate Cohen's answer yesterday in The New York Times saying that the Democrat white Democrats are 30 percent more likely to answer polls than white Republicans. Rewaiting polls when you don't have full information is you might as well not do the poll.
00:36:53
Speaker 2: Very interesting.
00:36:54
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:36:55
Speaker 2: Faz, what's your sense of where things are trending?
00:36:58
Speaker 6: Well, the decider, of course, in a lot of these races that was just mentioned are Republicans. NPPs, no party preference. They're calling themselves independents. That number is up a fair amount in places like Florida, Texas, and all the places, all young people calling themselves independents, right? And if you're sitting out in Florida, let's say, and you have 25% of the vote, that is no party preference. They are the deciders. And how are they breaking right now is really the question of our politics. Because you look at an Angie Nixon, from my vantage point, She is shaking up and changing the way you would conceive of a quote-unquote democratic candidate. And does that do better or worse in appealing to some of these folks? And I'm hoping it does better, and we'll find out soon. But I do think to the point that we were just discussing, the young people voting in Michigan and Texas, I think there's a sense that that class politics of those candidates is attracting and expanding the pool of people.
00:37:53
Speaker 1: Yeah. I do want to ask you about Kansas, Ryan. Maybe you know more than I do. Bizarre situation we can start here where Roger Marshall, the senator, appears to have cut an ad by himself, like going around his campaign straight to camera trying to explain the billing practices, controversy. Let's take a listen and I'll get some of your reaction because you probably know a lot more about it than I do.
00:38:17
Speaker 3: Let's take a watch.
00:38:18
Speaker 8: I'm Dr. Roger Marshall and you should know the truth about Adam Hamilton's ads. They're false, plain and simple. When I practiced as a small town OB doc, often serving as the only OB in the middle of 40,000 people, my wife and I decided to take care of everyone regardless of their ability to pay. We wrote off hundreds of bills monthly and one of every five patients received free care. Now to ensure that 40,000 Kansans would still have access to care, we did have to keep the lights on. So we occasionally handed some accounts over to collection agency, just like nearly every private medical practice does. To be crystal clear, the Kansas Bill of Rights ensures that no one can go to prison because of indebtedness. And I would never wish that on any patient I had the privilege to serve. My involvement in any patient's account ended the minute it was turned over to an outside agency. I never had anyone arrested, not once, and Adam Hamilton knows it. Kansas deserves to know the truth, and now you do. I'm Senator Dr. Roger Marshall, and I humbly ask for your vote.
00:39:18
Speaker 3: What's going on here, Ryan? Why did he do this?
00:39:21
Speaker 9: Okay, so the backstory, and I cover this in my podcast episode today, was this. in allegedly a month ago, the RNC was told by Kansas insiders, Roger Marshall's not taking this very seriously and that they were in trouble.
00:39:34
Speaker 4: And Roger Marshall basically ignored it.
00:39:36
Speaker 9: Roger Marshall allegedly told people, don't spend money in Kansas.
00:39:39
Speaker 6: I'm fine.
00:39:40
Speaker 9: I don't have to worry. He didn't even hire a campaign team. He had no official campaign manager until late August or mid, sorry, mid-October rather. He did not have an organization whatsoever. He really thought that he had this kind of sailing. And now he's been caught completely flat footed by low poll numbers. And he wanted to do this ad. His campaign team told him no. So he hired his own camera guy. He wrote his own script. And when they refused to air it, he put it on Twitter. It's not actually airing on the air. It's just on Twitter. He just loaded his own social media. Uh, this is clearly the science of a candidate who feels like he's not being heard, but Roger Marshall very much created a situation where he's in this, in, in, in kind of a, in, in a free fall right now. Um, Kansas is not elected a Democrat since 1932, almost a hundred years, the longest run of any single state. Um, and Hamilton is very popular. However, uh, every, Every opportunity Marshall's had to reverse course, he has literally not done until 72 or 96 hours before the election.
00:40:44
Speaker 2: Wow.
00:40:44
Speaker 4: Wow.
00:40:46
Speaker 2: Lastly, you know, it wouldn't be a segment about ads if we didn't talk about the most notorious one of the cycle. I'm not going to play it, but the Amy Acton mom ad that was run by Vivek Ramaswamy. And it seems to have, you know, done what also his campaign consultants told him it was likely to do. which is to undercut his campaign. It has reportedly caused problems for other Ohio Republicans running in the state. I want both your reactions, but Faz, you go ahead and start on that whole debacle.
00:41:14
Speaker 6: Well, in the course of this campaign cycle, we know that a lot of people have been smeared and pretty aggressively. So, I mean, you could take Abdul as being a jihadist. Then you get Troy with some, Troy Jackson, some family issues, Jim Tallarico's in some mental health institution. But what Amy Acton's ad does, is the sense of the values discourse was blown up in a major way nationally, that Trump is going to stand at the lectern and defend these kinds of salacious, terrible attacks on a person just because they want to win. And I think in some sense, Galvin, not just in Ohio, I think she has benefited clearly, at least in the polls, and we'll see on election day what happens. But I think it has changed the discourse of how people are seeing the values discourse of what's at stake in this election cycle, because it just really revealed in many ways the worst elements of winning with ends justify the means. There is no character. There is no decency. There is no respect. There is just winning and losing. And I think people are beyond that, especially at a time when you're suffering. You're saying, hey, does anyone see the morality of the world in which I lived?
00:42:22
Speaker 1: You know, Ryan, you and I had talked about this privately, and we were both just mystified that this could even happen. Again, you've worked multiple times on races in Ohio. You've won races in Ohio. I mean, everybody told him not to do it, and he's the one who decided to do it.
00:42:37
Speaker 4: So it's not everybody.
00:42:38
Speaker 9: There were a handful of people around him who did say most people said no. So I broke this on my podcast, The Numbers Game. What happened was back during the Republican midterm convention, the team was giddy that they had this. They were telling everyone we have an ad with with Annie Acton's mom. No backstory into the mother's very clear mental health issues just from looking at her. The– but they were telling everybody. My suspicion is that Amy Acton's campaign heard that they had had this ad because they were so quick with a response that– and a professionally obviously made response that they had heard that this ad might be coming out. It– What no one really knows in private polling and in a lot of private polling is that Vivek has always been performing worse than John Hughes did this entire time. He has a likability issue. I talked to someone on Vivek's presidential campaign. They said the more Vivek is featured in his own ads, the more people dislike him. He has a serious issue of likability. There's just no other way to say it. And I assume that they thought it might be the Hail Mary pass that they needed to really close it. Ohio is a deeply red state. It's actually a state the Democrats have not been performing amazing in the early votes in.
00:43:49
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:43:49
Speaker 4: And they thought this could kind of catch them up.
00:43:51
Speaker 9: And it really has blown back and forced everyone in Ohio to say how they feel about the ad. And the ad was ultimately pulled from the air. But it was a huge miscalculation from a guy who I'm not shocked that from Vivek's character that he did something like this.
00:44:05
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:44:07
Speaker 2: Very desperate play, I think. And, you know, it certainly doesn't seem to have panned out the way that he thought this kind of disgusting Hail Mary would. Gentlemen, thank you so much.
00:44:17
Speaker 3: Thanks for your guys' time.
00:44:17
Speaker 2: So great to have both your insights. Really appreciate it.
00:44:19
Speaker 3: Appreciate it.
00:44:20
Speaker 4: Thank you.
00:44:22
Speaker 3: Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate it.
00:44:24
Speaker 1: We will be on the air tomorrow live starting at 6 p.m., so we will see you all then.
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00:00:18
Speaker 2: So obviously all kinds of discussion of late about the polls and how accurate they are and what sort of decisions pollsters are making behind the scenes to craft their final results. So we thought the perfect person to talk to about all of this and where we stand in the midterm cycle is Rich Barris, who of course is the People's Pundit and has been quite accurate with his polling and has some new ones out that are quite interesting. So great to see you, Rich.
00:00:42
Speaker 3: Good to see you, man.
00:00:43
Speaker 4: It's great to be back, guys. Thanks for having me.
00:00:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course. So we thought we would use your Florida poll as a sort of educational exercise here where people can see, OK, what's the raw data? How do you arrive at the numbers? So let me go ahead and put this up on the screen here. Can you talk us through some of this process? Because we're hearing a lot about weighting the polls. We're hearing a lot about the difficulty of reaching Republican voters that could be showing up and influencing here. So talk us through this poll and what you're seeing.
00:01:12
Speaker 5: Well, just to give people the headline real quick, the race for the governorship is tight, which isn't something I have seen in the post-2020 era in Florida. Florida has, of course, exploded with a Republican registration advantage. But in the last couple of months, which I think is important, and pollsters should think about this as we go in, as they decide what kind of assumptions they're going to make, is that Democrats have clawed back last couple of months, not significantly, but it has been a course correction in registrations after what had been years of Republican gains. So we found it within three points, Crystal. That's very close for Florida. Byron Donalds is badly underwater in the early vote. He will need a big Election Day vote. And the problem and why it is so close is that Republicans are cannibalizing, and we can see this even in the sample when we drill down into this more in a bit, we can see that they're actually higher propensity Republicans who are voting early. In other words, these are reliable voters that typically they would save until election day. Democrats have been able to close that gap because their turnout is really driven a lot more predominantly by lower propensity and less reliable, even new voters.
00:02:25
Speaker 4: And they're just doing a better job getting them out.
00:02:27
Speaker 5: So typically we'd go into election day and Democrats would almost have no gas in the tank. And it's not just Florida. But in this case, we're talking about Florida. That is the case this year once again. And it's new to Republicans who have gotten used to not seeing close races. Moody is ahead of Angie Nixon by a larger margin, about seven points.
00:02:48
Speaker 4: And it's interesting.
00:02:49
Speaker 5: I'll say this before getting into the details about the polling and how we did it. If David Jolly pulls this race off, it'll ironically be because of turnout among non-whites that Angie Nixon.
00:03:02
Speaker 4: Is driving up.
00:03:04
Speaker 5: And that's almost like she would take one for the team if she lost against Ashley Moody, but David Jolly was to defeat Byron Donalds. Now, we still, again, have Donalds ahead because it is a red state, and we do think there's enough election day vote that he could creep ahead. However, Democrats are much more enthusiastic, so if he falls short, it won't surprise me.
00:03:24
Speaker 1: So, Rich, let's dig down like you were saying. For example, let's put the New York Times tear sheet up here on the screen, which kind of fits a little bit with what you're talking about. Are Trump voters refusing to take polls and other polling risks? Something that Nate details, something you're dealing with as well, is non-response bias, recall vote, turnout, and then what other things that he lists is that key Senate races in solid Republican states and basically trying to adjust the art of projections and the likely voter sample. Talk us through that because you have to do the exact same thing.
00:03:59
Speaker 3: How do you adjust?
00:04:00
Speaker 4: We do.
00:04:01
Speaker 5: And the first decision that a pollster has to make is where are they going to get these responses from? The New York Times, they're going to go to the voter file like we do at Big Data Poll. And I think we even use the same one over at L2 Data. And we can go over and specifically about that. But also that's where when you're doing phone interviews, I kind of find it funny that everyone's now just talking about non-response bias. This has been what I built my career on for over 10 years, trying to explain to media and university pollsters that, look, these swings.
00:04:30
Speaker 4: You're getting aren't real.
00:04:32
Speaker 5: And the only thing we have to really measure is who is going to turn out. The preference, the swings that you're seeing in preference, and yes, people change their mind. It's just not as big. It doesn't account for the swings that we see in polls. That's a non-response bias. And, you know, when there's a convention and we get a convention bump, often people It's just because one party's voter– they're happy.
00:04:54
Speaker 4: They liked what they saw at the convention.
00:04:55
Speaker 5: Maybe the other one feels a little depressed. So they're voting– I mean they're taking surveys at a lower rate. And then it will iron back out again, guys, even after the Billy Bush tape in 2016. We had a little bump for Hillary Clinton, and then it flattened right back out. It was simply Republicans going, oh, my God, and then needing two or three days to digest it, and then they got back on the phone. Then the other– I mean you can go to the voter file, and you can also go to marketplace panels, online panels, which is a little bit different. This is not a typical random sample. These are opt-ins. Now some of them are big enough where they can get a bit randomized. But they're opt-ins, and they have confidence intervals, which is different than a margin of error, which is why you'll see a lot of people talk about sampling errors overall.
00:05:39
Speaker 4: We do mixed mode. I prefer it.
00:05:42
Speaker 5: Which means– and I'm going to violate the polling laws here, but it's true. Randomization is not as clear-cut as it used to be back in the day. So even when some of the graphics that I gave to you guys– They're really targeted random sample polls, even when Nate or I go to the voter file, because how are we going to reach voters who don't have a landline, a cell phone? So immediately, it's already true that we're picketing, we're targeting a certain population within that entire universe. And it's a targeted random sample as opposed to just a straight up random sample. The days of random digital dial and everyone having a landline are over. So in the case of the Sunshine State poll, which is what we've always done, we have a mixed mode, which is A panel that is a large enough panel to reach certain groups, if we need to, that didn't participate in the phone interviews. And then most of it is still by the phone, especially because it's a midterm. By the phone, you're going to reach higher propensity voters a lot more. And this is what it comes down to with what Nate is talking about. It is true that Trump voters are less willing to speak on the phone.
00:06:48
Speaker 4: That has always been true.
00:06:50
Speaker 5: And there are ways that pollsters can make sure that they're getting a representative sample and they're not going.
00:06:55
Speaker 4: To understate Trump's support.
00:06:57
Speaker 5: And he makes one thing before I throw it back to you that's really important. He distinguishes, okay, maybe you're talking to enough Republicans, but are you talking to enough Trump Republicans?
00:07:06
Speaker 4: Again, a lot of this is region. You can see this in region.
00:07:11
Speaker 5: Are you going to reach a lot of Nikki Haley voters in rural Micanopy, Florida?
00:07:15
Speaker 4: Are you going to reach MAGA voters?
00:07:16
Speaker 5: So without giving away too much of the secret sauce here, Waiting by party is something that pollsters do.
00:07:23
Speaker 4: It's a big debate.
00:07:24
Speaker 5: But it's something they do, guys, when the sample is not representative. They did something else wrong. That has always been my argument. And you'll see that in the graphics I sent to you. Our targets and our quotas are not that different from the raw sampling. they there's there's a design flaw if they're not reaching those voters.
00:07:42
Speaker 4: And that's something they have to address.
00:07:43
Speaker 3: Makes sense.
00:07:44
Speaker 2: So let's put C3 up on the screen. This was another example where you had the Washington Post had a Kansas poll that, you know, honestly, to their credit, they put out, even though they had a lot of deep doubts about the accuracy of the poll, because it showed the Democrat up by like, I don't know, something great, 14 points. Like it was, you know, where you're like, oh, this is. this is Kansas we're still talking about here. I do think it's close. I think Democrats may eke out a victory, but it's not going to be any double digit route. And what they detailed is just what a hard time they had in spite of really making an effort to reach the number of Republican voters that they needed to reach. Now, are you finding something similar when you're doing your polling? And what does it look like in adjusting for that? What sort of decisions, what sort of sort of you know, personal opinion, gut based decisions do pollsters have to make to try to make sure that they're accurately capturing public sentiment?
00:08:43
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, there's no doubt that we have always seen that. And honestly, there are some things you can do, Crystal, to coax them along to get them to take these surveys. Some of obviously Trump's base is a working class base. So if you call them Monday at around 11 o'clock in the morning, you're not going to reach them. Right. And I think a lot of pollsters don't use common sense when it comes to this stuff. We're not seeing huge gulfs like some other pollsters. And we know that by the recall vote. We're even confident enough where we can see of those who say I prefer not to say. who I voted for in 24, or I voted for somebody else, which is coming back now in larger numbers than we know it truly was.
00:09:26
Speaker 4: We can say by.
00:09:27
Speaker 5: The attributes that are attached to their voter file that they are highly likely to have voted for Trump. They just don't want to say it anymore. The same thing happened to Joe Biden, by the way. It happens in thermostat public opinion when the sentiment of the country swings against the president and his party, people will start to refuse to say, I voted for Joe Biden. I voted for Donald Trump. But it doesn't mean they're not there and we can't see them and we don't have a high degree of confidence that they, in fact, did vote for them.
00:09:56
Speaker 4: Again, I really think.
00:09:57
Speaker 5: That there is, pollsters are having a problem reaching some of these people, but it's the mode and it's some of the common sense practices that you can implement in order to keep them on the phone, maybe give them a little bit more time to commit to completing the survey.
00:10:11
Speaker 4: It really depends on the mode that they're doing it.
00:10:14
Speaker 5: But at the end of the day, waiting because you didn't reach enough of them, waiting for Republicans and just waiting them up is really putting your finger on the scale. So I think it was to the Washington Post credit and it was to Nate Cohen's credit that they just said, look, this is what we got and here's what we did. Because if they were to do that, we saw a lot of pollsters do it in 2016.
00:10:35
Speaker 4: They didn't believe they were reaching these voters.
00:10:38
Speaker 5: And Trump was actually winning that many in the Ohio River Valley.
00:10:41
Speaker 4: I did it myself.
00:10:42
Speaker 5: So I weighted down the Ohio river Valley and it turned out, I understated Donald Trump, I think four points or something in that state.
00:10:48
Speaker 4: You're putting your thumb on the scale if you do that.
00:10:51
Speaker 5: So you just have to, your collection modes have to have to improve and, uh, you know, watch recall vote and other things like that.
00:10:59
Speaker 3: Rich, last question for you on this front.
00:11:00
Speaker 1: There have been a lot of MAGA cope saying the polls are just off.
00:11:04
Speaker 4: They're off.
00:11:05
Speaker 3: They're off.
00:11:06
Speaker 1: People are posting about near time Sienna from 2024, which were off. Not dramatically, but often a couple different states, obviously, for Donald Trump.
00:11:15
Speaker 3: Obviously, in 2020, disastrous miss.
00:11:18
Speaker 1: You, though, as somebody who called out those misses at the time, you're saying, no, this is what I'm saying. So can you square that for the audience and for anybody out there who's saying, guys, these people miss all the time.
00:11:30
Speaker 3: Obviously, they're going to miss again.
00:11:32
Speaker 5: Look, I wouldn't be surprised if the New York Times overstated the Democratic lead, but we also have Democratic leads in a lot of these states. We did not miss in 2020, which, by the way, was the most difficult election. in my lifetime, if not ever, to poll because it was the COVID environment.
00:11:48
Speaker 4: It was extremely difficult.
00:11:50
Speaker 5: We were going down to national origin and ethnicity to make sure we were getting.
00:11:54
Speaker 4: Correct racial subgroups. It was insane.
00:11:57
Speaker 5: And that's part of how we were able to outperform everybody else. But I will say this, in 2018, the New York Times wasn't bad. In 22, they were not horrible. And again, to his credit, Nate Cohen said, look, If I waited like I did back then for these polls, it would actually be worse for Republicans. So I tried to make it a little bit more representative here and get a little bit more. I don't want to say he was trying to get a more narrow result, but he wanted it to be obviously a little bit more realistic. And he was very conscientious of missing Republican support.
00:12:30
Speaker 4: We have not.
00:12:31
Speaker 5: And there are a number of other pollsters out there, not just me, Big Data Paul. There are a number of others who have not missed the Trump vote. Not in 10, 12 years almost now, you know, and we're just not if you if you count when he came down the.
00:12:42
Speaker 4: Escalator almost 12 years. It's just it is a cope.
00:12:45
Speaker 5: And I'm just saying I hate to tell people, but we see these Trump voters, guys. We see that we know exactly who voted in 24.
00:12:53
Speaker 4: The big problem they're having.
00:12:55
Speaker 5: Is that a lot of them were low propensity to begin with, and they're mad at Donald Trump. They disapprove of the job he's doing. They're not going to come out, so they have to be screened out. Even in our last national poll, it was Harris plus one. That's very close to the overall result. What accounts for that? The rest of those Trump voters aren't coming out unless some of them want to argue that everybody who voted in 24 intends to come out in 26.
00:13:19
Speaker 4: And of course, that would be a ludicrous argument.
00:13:21
Speaker 5: They're coping, pointing to other cycles when Trump was on the ballot and when he was popular.
00:13:26
Speaker 4: I hate to break it to everybody. He's not popular.
00:13:29
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:13:29
Speaker 4: And that's going to matter.
00:13:30
Speaker 2: Is there also a factor here of. You know, as you get closer to Election Day, Nate Selverson talking about it, he feels like some pollsters like to herd because that way you aren't an outlier. You don't stand out. If you get something really wrong, then you're not the one that everyone's coming after. You also do have the fact that Trump sued Ann Seltzer for her incorrect Iowa poll. And even though, you know, the dominant polling story over the Trump era has been missing those Trump voters, but you have had in midterms, you've had a different dynamic. I mean, 2025 actually was the worst polling miss that we've had, and that understated Democrats. So do you also think there's is there a lot of pressure on pollsters in that direction in particular where it's better if you're going to miss? It's better to miss understating Democrats than understating Republicans.
00:14:19
Speaker 5: There is absolutely something to that, Crystal, and I'm glad you brought that up, because for me, it doesn't really matter.
00:14:24
Speaker 3: I can go.
00:14:25
Speaker 5: I've been relatively accurate over 10 years and I can put out what I think is right. To be truthful, since late spring, early summer, I've been hanging out there with low double-digit Democrat leads from Democrat plus.
00:14:35
Speaker 4: 11 to 12.
00:14:36
Speaker 5: I predicted, I said, when we turn to Labor Day, you'll see other pollsters heard to me.
00:14:41
Speaker 4: That is what happened.
00:14:42
Speaker 5: There are some that are hedging at the end because of what you just said. If they're going to miss, they are keenly aware, especially in the environment and the way the president has been talking, they are keenly aware that it is better for them to understate Democrats than to overstate Republicans. And for some- including one large firm who's had multiple rounds of VC injections, who now wants to go public and take their company through an IPO. Another misfire that favors Democrats will be a disaster. So there are a lot of things going on right now like that. And they are feeling the pressure, even in 25. I could tell you we were the only one with Abigail Spanberger with a 13, a little over 13 point lead. Everybody else was afraid to go over seven. And we know because we spoke to them. Mark Mitchell, who was at Rasmussen, now he's at the Honest Poll. He was the only one who had Mikey Sherrill with a significant lead. Everybody else definitely felt the pressure. I don't want to overstate, you know, and look what happened.
00:15:45
Speaker 3: Great point.
00:15:45
Speaker 1: All right, Rich, while we have you, I want to talk about early vote, because I know you're factoring some of that in as well. Guys, let's go to the next part. I have been very focused on this. Obviously, I grew up in Texas. All my Texas sources are talking about this. The early voting numbers, guys, if we can put it up here on the screen, just show insane Hispanic turnout. Quote, it is not clear which candidates are supporting, but the turnout is up in early vote, including many voters who have not participated in in recent elections. Rich, the cope I'm hearing from the Paxton camp is, guys, we won Hispanics in 24. Obviously, this doesn't mean necessarily what you think it may mean, as previously people have extrapolated from that demographic. However, some of the more honest ones are like, yeah, no, this is really disastrous. And this is obviously a very good sign for James Tallarico. What's your read on it?
00:16:35
Speaker 4: That's cope. Let's go. Clear as day. Look, you play with fire, you're going to get burned.
00:16:40
Speaker 5: I warned Republicans that if you attract these Hispanic voters, which you absolutely need to do– by the way, there it is.
00:16:47
Speaker 4: It's all in Burn It Down. I wrote this almost a year ago. It just came out a couple of months now.
00:16:52
Speaker 5: If you do this, you better not let them down because millennials and Hispanics have the power to change the map forever. If they start to punch at their weight and they start to vote at higher rates like we're seeing them do for a midterm, which is insane– in Texas, and you're on the butt end of this thing because you betrayed them or you disappointed them, it's going to be very ugly for you. And oh, by the way, don't redistrict Texas thinking that you can win Hispanics like Donald Trump can because you can't.
00:17:21
Speaker 4: And here we are.
00:17:21
Speaker 5: I mean, I want to say maybe Ken Paxton gets 30% of Hispanic vote at this point. It looks ugly. Um, so it, that is cope. And when it's not just Texas, we're seeing this everywhere. Democrats did a better job. Like I said, in the beginning of getting low propensity voters out in, in Texas, it just so happens that a lot of them are nonwhite because it's a more nonwhite state. We are seeing this in Florida as well. And especially if they're younger guys, they are heavily democratic.
00:17:49
Speaker 4: This is, um, this was basically worst case scenario for Republicans. It was. And it was predictable. And they just didn't listen.
00:17:57
Speaker 2: Talk a little bit more about Florida. Put D3 up on the screen. This is this Axios report about how Republicans are white-knuckling it through Election Day. And we went through some of this before of how Byron Donalds in particular is going to have to have this massive, overwhelming Election Day vote turnout if he's going to turn this thing ultimately around. I wanted to tie this in with some of your commentary here about Latinos, the high Latino turnout. the persuasion, how Democrats have been able to win some of those demographics back. Does that imply in Florida, though, where you obviously have a very different Latino population than you do in the state of Texas?
00:18:35
Speaker 5: Yeah, for the poll, we actually broke this down by region.
00:18:38
Speaker 4: So people could see.
00:18:40
Speaker 5: You have Hispanics in the I-4 corridor in central Florida, which were always more difficult for Republicans to win over. They're Puerto Rican and they're Mexican. There's subgroups matter. You know, they're not monolithic. And then you have South Florida, which is Venezuelan and Cuban. And everyone knew about the Cuban population for years being more conservative. But Venezuelans are relative relatively new block. What we saw in the poll is that Venezuelans are holding stronger than Cubans even. And then, of course, the I-4 corridor in the central part of the state.
00:19:09
Speaker 4: Is just a massive swing.
00:19:11
Speaker 5: And again, going to people saying, well, maybe you just didn't reach the Trump Hispanic voter.
00:19:15
Speaker 4: No, we did.
00:19:16
Speaker 5: It's clear as day. He carried them by more than 10 points in the sample that is this poll. They have just swung in some parts of the state 25, 30 points.
00:19:25
Speaker 4: It's disgusting.
00:19:26
Speaker 3: Wow.
00:19:26
Speaker 5: These are people who are saying, I did vote for Trump. I did vote for Republicans. I did vote for Ballard. I did vote for Salazar. I'm just not doing it this year because I don't like what I'm seeing. Republicans didn't understand these voters weren't theirs. They got really arrogant, and the hubris was something to behold. These voters needed to be wooed. They needed relationship building. They were a new part of their coalition, a coalition. by the way, that I've always believed could govern for 30 years, and they did not do that. So I find it a little bit funny that everybody is struggling to believe this could happen.
00:20:03
Speaker 4: Well, of course it can.
00:20:04
Speaker 5: I mean, I feel like Republicans are where Democrats were circa 2010.
00:20:08
Speaker 4: No, those states can't move. And then we have bad midterms. It was no big deal.
00:20:12
Speaker 5: But Republicans will find themselves around circa 2016 if they don't start paying attention because they're going to have to win these voters back.
00:20:18
Speaker 4: I think they're gone this cycle for now.
00:20:20
Speaker 3: I think you're right.
00:20:21
Speaker 1: Last thing, there's been a lot of Democratic discussion. Let's put D4 up here from Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina. You have always said Mississippi itself.
00:20:31
Speaker 3: Could be a problem.
00:20:32
Speaker 1: Here is what we're looking at for the amount of vote share which is coming out of Louisiana. It appears that there has just been an explosive amount of black vote, especially in Louisiana, but you can also see in Mississippi and South Carolina and a lot of these deep red southern states as well.
00:20:48
Speaker 3: Talk us through this.
00:20:49
Speaker 1: Dynamic and what it would look like if we do see a shock Democratic win in any of these states.
00:20:54
Speaker 5: I think it would probably, I mean, you did have Mary Landrieu winning in a bad Republican year in a state like Louisiana. But this is a problem going forward, not just in a bad cycle, but I have been warning that a state like Mississippi, even Louisiana, in a bad cycle for Republicans could end up surprising because Trump did much, much better. in black belt counties all throughout the South, in the rural South specifically, he just did better with black voters. And that was built on mostly black voters who are under 45, who don't have the, still the, um, the civil rights era, you.
00:21:30
Speaker 4: Know, uh, minds. Yeah. You know, I mean, that's what happens.
00:21:33
Speaker 5: Generations change and we call it a cascading effect. It, These impressions that, that parties leave on voters, they fall off events, fall off. And Trump did better with them, even though, do you know that? I mean, the grief that a lot of these young men got for voting for Donald Trump in 2024 from their aunties and their grandmothers and the, you know, people around the table on, on Sunday for dinner, a lot of it. So again, this was something we probably should have expected. The truth is if you go and compare performances, Republican governors, for instance, against Donald Trump, who performs at the presidential level in a state like Mississippi, that central and central western part of the state is incredibly blue, and there are a lot of counties with high black voter populations, and Republicans always underperformed him there. But you really didn't see it, guys, because he also drove white turnout up without him on the ballot and without him being popular. There is absolutely a recipe where black voters come out, They go back to voting 95-5 for Democrats, and white vote is depressed, and oops, it slips by. The last governor's race there was low single digits, and nobody paid attention.
00:22:43
Speaker 3: I didn't know that. That's the point.
00:22:45
Speaker 2: Rich, last question for you, and maybe it is Louisiana, but if there's one state that really shocks you on election night, what do you think it'll be where people the next day are, oh, my God, I can't believe Democrats won that state?
00:22:56
Speaker 5: This speaks to the environment we're in. There are a couple, honestly. Do I think Louisiana and Mississippi are still heavy lifts?
00:23:04
Speaker 4: Sure.
00:23:05
Speaker 5: But the generic battle that I put out a couple of days ago is disgusting. And environments like that cause surprises. It happens every cycle. I also do think, and maybe it's not a surprise to everybody now, but I mean, six months ago, I was saying, if this continues, you could lose South Carolina.
00:23:20
Speaker 4: It should not be close.
00:23:22
Speaker 5: I mean, even a four point lead is not something to, you know, to, to start to breathe a little bit more easier over it's within the sampling era in a state poll. So I wish I could just pick one, but unfortunately for Republicans, they're everywhere. Even Kansas and Nebraska, uh, you said before, I wouldn't be surprised if they eat get out in Kansas, me either. And I've seen internal polling on both sides in Nebraska and And the governor's race is close.
00:23:46
Speaker 4: The Senate looks tough.
00:23:49
Speaker 5: And even some of the statewide ballots are, you know, between secretary of state or other statewide offices or single digits when they should be blowouts.
00:23:58
Speaker 4: So I think we're going to get a lot of surprises. I do. It's just one of those cycles, guys.
00:24:04
Speaker 6: Yeah.
00:24:04
Speaker 1: Well, thank you very much, Rich. We appreciate your expertise here. And we'll talk to you soon, man.
00:24:08
Speaker 3: Thank you.
00:24:08
Speaker 4: All the best, guys. Take it easy.
00:24:10
Speaker 2: Thanks, Rich.
00:24:13
Speaker 1: Turning now to our excellent election panel, we've got Ryan Gerduski of the Numbers Game podcast, Baz Shakir of More Perfect Union, and formerly of the Bernie Sanders campaign as well.
00:24:23
Speaker 3: Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate your time.
00:24:26
Speaker 4: Thank you.
00:24:27
Speaker 3: All right, so you guys, we kind of kicked it to you.
00:24:30
Speaker 1: We said, all right, you guys pick ads, and you're going to pick an ad from the Democrat side and from the Republican side.
00:24:35
Speaker 3: You're going to pick the best one.
00:24:37
Speaker 1: We're going to start with the Democratic ad, and it's more interesting for our purposes because you actually both picked the same ad with no knowledge at all except right before when we told you you were here. So let's take a listen to the ad, and we'll have both of you break it down. Let's take a listen from James Tallarico.
00:24:52
Speaker 7: Do you keep seeing these attack ads against James Tallarico?
00:24:56
Speaker 4: Look a little closer.
00:24:57
Speaker 7: The same super PACs are paying for nearly all of them. Texas PAC, America PAC, Lone Star Liberty PAC. But who's funding these stark money groups? Elon Musk. This summer, Elon made some of the largest political donations in American history. He's now spent more than $ 180 million to defeat James Tallarico. He's almost single-handedly bankrolling the effort to install Ken Paxton in the U.S.
00:25:25
Speaker 6: Senate.
00:25:26
Speaker 7: But why is the world's first trillionaire doing this? Elon wants to buy up our land. He wants to buy up our water. And now he wants to buy his own personal U.S.
00:25:39
Speaker 8: Senator.
00:25:39
Speaker 7: He knows that if his millions drag the most corrupt politician in Texas across the finish line, Ken Paxton will owe him everything. So let's remind Elon, Texas is not for sale.
00:25:53
Speaker 1: Ryan, I'll start with you since you were looking at this. Obviously, you don't like James Tallarico, but you admire the ad. What about the ad did you think was effective?
00:26:01
Speaker 9: I think it was smart because Elon's obviously unfairable is pretty high nationwide. I don't know about Texas specifically, but there's a lot of controversies that they hit on immediately. One, the whole idea of buying the beach, huge in Texas right now. A lot of people talking about this, that um that x spacex is trying to buy this beach um that has been used for generations by texans families to the idea of it being a corporate oligarchy that they're all kind of embedded within um each other that the that these tech billionaires and no one like text likes tech billionaires right now it's let alone trillionaires um are are deeply invested and that makes it look like um It makes it look like all the attacks. And there's been hundreds of millions of attacks against James Tallarico that it's a complete personal push by Elon Musk himself. So it doesn't become even a Ken Paxton versus versus James Tallarico race, although, you know, Ken Paxton is is is a slam in the head. But it really becomes James Tallarico versus the machine. And that's very effective for James Tallarico, both to ignore the attack ads. and to build to that he is the man against the world's richest man.
00:27:10
Speaker 2: It reminds me a little bit of something that Abdul El-Sayed did successfully in his primary campaign where he was facing tens of millions of dollars in outside spending, much of it coming from AIPAC. And during one of his debates with Haley Stevens, he said, look, They're going to go to commercial break. You're going to hear all kinds of nasty things about me. That's because of all of this outside APAC spending that is coming into this race. And I thought it was a very clever way to undercut the messaging so that it causes people, whenever they see those ads, to then have a kind of, you know, a reverse impact where they're saying, oh, yeah, this is all of this outside money that's flooding into our district to lie about this guy.
00:27:45
Speaker 6: Right. It's assuming, it's sitting in the working class person's shoes, knowing that they have been consuming this nonsense for a fair amount of time. So it starts with the assumption that you've probably seen this ad. And then right off of that saying, let me tell you something you don't know about this ad. First of all, who's paying for it and naming the person Musk, but then getting into something more deeper, right? It's almost documentary style of an ad saying, what does Musk want? Let's answer that question for you. So that's really critical. And by the way, ending with Texas is not for sale. For those of us who are Bernieologists, we'll recall that Bernie Sanders running for mayor of Burlington in 1980 popularized the phrase, I think maybe the first politician to use it, Burlington is not for sale. And then guess who then used it later? A little known guy running for mayor of New York City. And we ran a final rally out called New York is not for sale. And here we are with Texas is not for sale. I like the phrase.
00:28:45
Speaker 3: Very smart, actually.
00:28:46
Speaker 6: All right.
00:28:47
Speaker 1: So let's get to the Republican ads. Ryan, we can start with yours. This is the Republican ad that you picked. It is Sarita Komita Reddy. I'm not sure the Groypers will love that you picked this one, Ryan. But she is she is running for the attorney general in the state of New York.
00:29:04
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen.
00:29:05
Speaker 10: There's a three word solution to affordability in New York.
00:29:09
Speaker 3: Just fight crime.
00:29:10
Speaker 10: When crooks steal a car, your insurance goes up. When scammers siphon money from Medicaid, healthcare costs go up. When Tish James forces solar and wind, electric bills go up.
00:29:21
Speaker 3: My name is Saritha.
00:29:22
Speaker 10: I'll be a different kind of attorney general. Letitia James spent 10 million bucks.
00:29:27
Speaker 3: Making herself a celebrity. My motto is my career. Just fight crime.
00:29:34
Speaker 1: Ryan, what do you think makes that one effective? I mean, from what we've seen so far, not necessarily a competitive race.
00:29:40
Speaker 3: I know you live in New York. Maybe you disagree. Why don't you break it down for us?
00:29:44
Speaker 9: One, I never heard of Saritha. A lot of times these races that are not U.S. Senate, not governor, don't get attention. And that's true of every race in the entire country, unless the candidate's like really zany, you know, over here with these races.
00:29:55
Speaker 10: Right, right.
00:29:55
Speaker 9: So I had not heard of this candidate before, but she does an effective job of arguing why crime is actually connected to cost of living, which is very, very, very smart. It's a super smart play, especially as crime has declined from a top three issue maybe to a top five issue in New York state. Very, very effective, very smart, very simple and plain and easy to understand. She also uses that not only to hammer her message of why crime is a cost of living issue, but also why Letitia James has failed on the issue. both as an attack ad and as an explanation. Really, I just think it's super smart. New York has moved to the right substantially over the last maybe five, six years. If she can come within single digits and polls have her maybe in a low double, like 12 point behind, I think it really says a lot that even in this environment, she's been a very effective candidate, especially as Letitia James is looking. to run for governor in the next four years.
00:30:52
Speaker 2: Faz, you also chose a Republican who sort of outperformed in a difficult environment. This is a Spencer Pratt ad in LA. Let's take a look at that.
00:31:02
Speaker 4: This is where Mayor Vass lives. You notice something?
00:31:05
Speaker 11: Or here, where Nithya Raman's $ 3 million mansion sits.
00:31:08
Speaker 4: They don't have to live in the mess they've created where you live.
00:31:14
Speaker 11: This is where I live. They let my home burn down. I know what the consequences of failed leadership are. That's why I'm running for mayor. For my sons and the rest of us Angelenos that want to stop these corrupt politicians from destroying our city.
00:31:29
Speaker 4: We are going to get the golden age of Los Angeles back.
00:31:32
Speaker 2: Faz, what do you think worked about this ad?
00:31:34
Speaker 3: Well, it's a class politics ad.
00:31:37
Speaker 6: It's saying that we here, all of us, are struggling because of the corruption of the elite. He knows his audience. He's in a blue area, Los Angeles. He's trying to win over people who may not necessarily be Republican or Trump supporters. And he's associating one clear problem and issue that Los Angelinos have dealt with, which is the fire, and getting a sense of the injustice through the lens of both corrupt politics and class, that all of us are struggling together. Very smart ad. I'm not here to fact check it. Other people can. But that said, it was very compelling and interesting to watch.
00:32:11
Speaker 3: That makes sense.
00:32:12
Speaker 1: Ryan, you know, generally looking across the spectrum, a lot of the Republican ads have dropped the name Donald Trump. His name mentions have gone down dramatically in the last couple of weeks. As you look at this or if you're advising candidates in such a difficult environment, what have you like outside of, you know, you picked the you picked the come with the ready ad, but Are there any national candidates like Senate candidates that you've seen do an OK enough job?
00:32:38
Speaker 3: What do you think?
00:32:40
Speaker 9: Well, the candidate that I actually picked besides, because I thought maybe you wouldn't want a candidate that's just running for AG instead of federal office. Susan Collins ad of she's just like me was a really, really compelling ad because it did two things. One, it connected Susan with the people of Maine and the. And her past in Maine, I think she picked potatoes when she was a child or something like that, to the fact that she is one of the most powerful people in the state of– sorry, in the federal government, in the U.S.
00:33:04
Speaker 8: Senate.
00:33:05
Speaker 9: And the amount of money she gets brought back to Maine as a U.S. senator is tremendous. It's far more than a freshman senator would be. And connecting both who she is as a person being a Maine girl with also her ability to get resources to a very poor state outside of just a few coastal towns. is, I thought, very, very intelligent, and it really kind of reinforces both her origin story and her strength and power in all of D.C.
00:33:33
Speaker 3: That's smart, right. That's like her brand. That makes sense.
00:33:36
Speaker 2: Faz, a lot of the Republican advertising doesn't mention Trump. You do have some people who are actually going out of their way to say, I'm bipartisan, I work across the aisle. Ashley Hinson in Iowa comes to mind. But a lot of the negative ads continue to focus on transgender issues. And I wondered about your opinion on the choice that Josh Turek made in Iowa, where rather than saying, you know, I'm going to like stay on my message and hope that this is something voters aren't particularly focused on. He decided to cut an ad directly saying, I don't want, you know, men and women's sports against, you know, certain elements of this agenda and really went to camera to to push that issue and put it front and center. I wonder what you make of that decision.
00:34:17
Speaker 8: Choice.
00:34:18
Speaker 2: And if you think, you know, it varies race by race, if you think that was a smart move from him or not.
00:34:23
Speaker 6: It certainly does vary race by race. But I also think that people are assessing, are you sincere about this? Has there been a sense of authenticity? My view on a lot of these, they tend to be reflexive. You're really fighting a rearguard action to say, hey, I'm being attacked. Don't worry, I'm not as crazy as they seem. Obviously, the other thing besides trans attacks has been communism and socialism and A lot of immigration-related ads that, in my view, Democrats would be doing better if they're on their front foot telling you about a vision proactively of things that they are for because that's– especially in this election cycle when so much of the understanding of Trump is unpopularity. I think that people are looking for a choice, and you have to posit a choice, not to say, hey, I'm a light version of that, but rather what is the different world in which I want to live? It's interesting as we're talking about this, the immigration ad that actually kicks through this cycle was from a South Florida Republican congresswoman who distanced herself from Trump and really made waves and might actually win the election today. as a result of her doing so over ICE. And that, I think in some sense, lends more sincerity to her cause than some Democrats who are suggesting, hey, no, no, no, I'm not what they think you are.
00:35:34
Speaker 3: Interesting.
00:35:35
Speaker 1: One question for you, Ryan, because you are privy to a lot more of the data than we are. What do you, so like the big questions right now are in these deeper red states.
00:35:44
Speaker 3: I borrowed your take very early on.
00:35:46
Speaker 1: You're like, guys, this is something that's only happened a couple of times in the last 25 years.
00:35:50
Speaker 3: It's the eve before the election.
00:35:52
Speaker 1: What do you think, generally, since you were privy to a lot more than we are?
00:35:56
Speaker 9: I think that it's going to be... I think there's an uneven split between states. I don't think that the blue wave is uniform throughout the entire country. Let's say there's a 10 to 12 point swing to the left. That means that there probably might be states that has an 18 point. There might be states that have a five point. I think that... some early, I think that in a number of States, you're seeing a huge increase in minority turnout and youth turnout, Florida, Georgia, Texas, but that's not the truth in like Ohio, Iowa, um, Maine. We're not seeing that kind of early turnout numbers. So I think that that is, um, I think that that's really where, sorry about the noise in the background. I think that's really where we might see, uh, see a huge difference. And, and we'll, we'll look at the polls maybe the day after and say, home, that didn't turn out the way it was. Um, And I think that there is an I think that Nate Cohen's answer yesterday in The New York Times saying that the Democrat white Democrats are 30 percent more likely to answer polls than white Republicans. Rewaiting polls when you don't have full information is you might as well not do the poll.
00:36:53
Speaker 2: Very interesting.
00:36:54
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:36:55
Speaker 2: Faz, what's your sense of where things are trending?
00:36:58
Speaker 6: Well, the decider, of course, in a lot of these races that was just mentioned are Republicans. NPPs, no party preference. They're calling themselves independents. That number is up a fair amount in places like Florida, Texas, and all the places, all young people calling themselves independents, right? And if you're sitting out in Florida, let's say, and you have 25% of the vote, that is no party preference. They are the deciders. And how are they breaking right now is really the question of our politics. Because you look at an Angie Nixon, from my vantage point, She is shaking up and changing the way you would conceive of a quote-unquote democratic candidate. And does that do better or worse in appealing to some of these folks? And I'm hoping it does better, and we'll find out soon. But I do think to the point that we were just discussing, the young people voting in Michigan and Texas, I think there's a sense that that class politics of those candidates is attracting and expanding the pool of people.
00:37:53
Speaker 1: Yeah. I do want to ask you about Kansas, Ryan. Maybe you know more than I do. Bizarre situation we can start here where Roger Marshall, the senator, appears to have cut an ad by himself, like going around his campaign straight to camera trying to explain the billing practices, controversy. Let's take a listen and I'll get some of your reaction because you probably know a lot more about it than I do.
00:38:17
Speaker 3: Let's take a watch.
00:38:18
Speaker 8: I'm Dr. Roger Marshall and you should know the truth about Adam Hamilton's ads. They're false, plain and simple. When I practiced as a small town OB doc, often serving as the only OB in the middle of 40,000 people, my wife and I decided to take care of everyone regardless of their ability to pay. We wrote off hundreds of bills monthly and one of every five patients received free care. Now to ensure that 40,000 Kansans would still have access to care, we did have to keep the lights on. So we occasionally handed some accounts over to collection agency, just like nearly every private medical practice does. To be crystal clear, the Kansas Bill of Rights ensures that no one can go to prison because of indebtedness. And I would never wish that on any patient I had the privilege to serve. My involvement in any patient's account ended the minute it was turned over to an outside agency. I never had anyone arrested, not once, and Adam Hamilton knows it. Kansas deserves to know the truth, and now you do. I'm Senator Dr. Roger Marshall, and I humbly ask for your vote.
00:39:18
Speaker 3: What's going on here, Ryan? Why did he do this?
00:39:21
Speaker 9: Okay, so the backstory, and I cover this in my podcast episode today, was this. in allegedly a month ago, the RNC was told by Kansas insiders, Roger Marshall's not taking this very seriously and that they were in trouble.
00:39:34
Speaker 4: And Roger Marshall basically ignored it.
00:39:36
Speaker 9: Roger Marshall allegedly told people, don't spend money in Kansas.
00:39:39
Speaker 6: I'm fine.
00:39:40
Speaker 9: I don't have to worry. He didn't even hire a campaign team. He had no official campaign manager until late August or mid, sorry, mid-October rather. He did not have an organization whatsoever. He really thought that he had this kind of sailing. And now he's been caught completely flat footed by low poll numbers. And he wanted to do this ad. His campaign team told him no. So he hired his own camera guy. He wrote his own script. And when they refused to air it, he put it on Twitter. It's not actually airing on the air. It's just on Twitter. He just loaded his own social media. Uh, this is clearly the science of a candidate who feels like he's not being heard, but Roger Marshall very much created a situation where he's in this, in, in, in kind of a, in, in a free fall right now. Um, Kansas is not elected a Democrat since 1932, almost a hundred years, the longest run of any single state. Um, and Hamilton is very popular. However, uh, every, Every opportunity Marshall's had to reverse course, he has literally not done until 72 or 96 hours before the election.
00:40:44
Speaker 2: Wow.
00:40:44
Speaker 4: Wow.
00:40:46
Speaker 2: Lastly, you know, it wouldn't be a segment about ads if we didn't talk about the most notorious one of the cycle. I'm not going to play it, but the Amy Acton mom ad that was run by Vivek Ramaswamy. And it seems to have, you know, done what also his campaign consultants told him it was likely to do. which is to undercut his campaign. It has reportedly caused problems for other Ohio Republicans running in the state. I want both your reactions, but Faz, you go ahead and start on that whole debacle.
00:41:14
Speaker 6: Well, in the course of this campaign cycle, we know that a lot of people have been smeared and pretty aggressively. So, I mean, you could take Abdul as being a jihadist. Then you get Troy with some, Troy Jackson, some family issues, Jim Tallarico's in some mental health institution. But what Amy Acton's ad does, is the sense of the values discourse was blown up in a major way nationally, that Trump is going to stand at the lectern and defend these kinds of salacious, terrible attacks on a person just because they want to win. And I think in some sense, Galvin, not just in Ohio, I think she has benefited clearly, at least in the polls, and we'll see on election day what happens. But I think it has changed the discourse of how people are seeing the values discourse of what's at stake in this election cycle, because it just really revealed in many ways the worst elements of winning with ends justify the means. There is no character. There is no decency. There is no respect. There is just winning and losing. And I think people are beyond that, especially at a time when you're suffering. You're saying, hey, does anyone see the morality of the world in which I lived?
00:42:22
Speaker 1: You know, Ryan, you and I had talked about this privately, and we were both just mystified that this could even happen. Again, you've worked multiple times on races in Ohio. You've won races in Ohio. I mean, everybody told him not to do it, and he's the one who decided to do it.
00:42:37
Speaker 4: So it's not everybody.
00:42:38
Speaker 9: There were a handful of people around him who did say most people said no. So I broke this on my podcast, The Numbers Game. What happened was back during the Republican midterm convention, the team was giddy that they had this. They were telling everyone we have an ad with with Annie Acton's mom. No backstory into the mother's very clear mental health issues just from looking at her. The– but they were telling everybody. My suspicion is that Amy Acton's campaign heard that they had had this ad because they were so quick with a response that– and a professionally obviously made response that they had heard that this ad might be coming out. It– What no one really knows in private polling and in a lot of private polling is that Vivek has always been performing worse than John Hughes did this entire time. He has a likability issue. I talked to someone on Vivek's presidential campaign. They said the more Vivek is featured in his own ads, the more people dislike him. He has a serious issue of likability. There's just no other way to say it. And I assume that they thought it might be the Hail Mary pass that they needed to really close it. Ohio is a deeply red state. It's actually a state the Democrats have not been performing amazing in the early votes in.
00:43:49
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:43:49
Speaker 4: And they thought this could kind of catch them up.
00:43:51
Speaker 9: And it really has blown back and forced everyone in Ohio to say how they feel about the ad. And the ad was ultimately pulled from the air. But it was a huge miscalculation from a guy who I'm not shocked that from Vivek's character that he did something like this.
00:44:05
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:44:07
Speaker 2: Very desperate play, I think. And, you know, it certainly doesn't seem to have panned out the way that he thought this kind of disgusting Hail Mary would. Gentlemen, thank you so much.
00:44:17
Speaker 3: Thanks for your guys' time.
00:44:17
Speaker 2: So great to have both your insights. Really appreciate it.
00:44:19
Speaker 3: Appreciate it.
00:44:20
Speaker 4: Thank you.
00:44:22
Speaker 3: Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate it.
00:44:24
Speaker 1: We will be on the air tomorrow live starting at 6 p.m., so we will see you all then.
