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