The armstrong and getting so Democrats by nature a nervous they they're so traumatized by two thousand and sixteen. They have to get over it, all right, And I get this all the time. I'll change. Please don't say that, because if people think we're gonna win and not to combine Vook, that's the idiotic We're going to win. What do you want me to do? Biden campaign has actually
been pretty good. He gets pretty good in the debates, and of course he's gonna make gas between nine election day and it just sends the the Democratic Party into some kind of state of depression. Get over it, tough enough, people, I'm sorry, that's just the truth. Deal with a Democrats. You're gonna worry. James Carville saying, look, we're gonna win. Well, there are a lot of polls out there that are
not favorable to Donald Trump right now. And I thought we'd talked to somebody who knows a lot about being involved in presidential campaigns. And you know where we are now. We haven't talked about about this sort of stuff because god, we're four months out and well and and well, I tell you what, let's bring long he in and and include him in the conversation lot and he j Chen David and Diane Stephie fellow in American Public Policy Studies at the Hoover Institution. Uh joins us. Now on here,
how are you, sir? It's good to be with you this morning. Think I got your title right? I forget to put on my glasses, so I'm squinting like a fiend. And you and you you have been involved in a couple of big time, major presidential campaigns, correct, four of them, including as a as a senior aide to romney in and a senior aide to Marco Rubio. And you're and you're a student of history and teach all this stuff.
So um, good person to ask some of these questions. One, do numbers move very dramatically from this point to election day? I mean is that common they? You know? Can can you make up ground? Did they tend to say you're eight points down in a pivotal swing? Stated? Sure? Did do numbers like that change in the last four months? Does that happen regularly? Yeah? The numbers definitely will bounce all over the place. Trends will change based on events.
You know, if you look at the campaign as an example, you had you had a race that was not close for a large part of the of the summer months and then closed quite rapidly after the first presidential debate, which was in early October in Denver. So yeah, that the numbers can absolutely change. The margins are are big now, don't get me wrong. I think Joe Biden has a
very healthy lead nationally. Some of the swing state polling, which has been notoriously inaccurate in the past, the sort of throw weight of that swing state polling suggest that Trump is also in trouble. So, I mean, those numbers I think reflect where we are today, but they are not necessarily a reflection of where the race will be in September or October. Well, not necessarily. But has anybody ever come back in one who is this far down
four months out? That's a good question. So um, I believe Buchanan was down thirteen points Jack and fairly fairly modern phenomenon. But I just don't remember anybody being this far down and coming back and winning. Yeah, I mean, there are certainly people who held onto leads, obviously, but I don't I don't know about coming back, And I'm just trying to rack in my brain thinking about people that have come back to win. Uh, and and it's
been rare. Clinton wasn't doing particularly well um against George H. W. Bush, and then things kind of turned around for him late in the race. So that might be one race to look at where I would say Clinton was probably down at this point came back to winning and not down by a small number either. So um. You know, part of a challenge for for Donald Trump as I see it now, is that there's two things. One is the self sort of self made errors I think has finally
begun to accumulate. I think people are beginning to see that, and the set things they I would just saying there's some you know, recent news about this is that it's not really clear what his second term agenda will look like. And I think he and his campaign probably need to get out there and to find that a little better.
Uh if if, if he wants to close this gap, right, I mean, even Trump fans who are friends, relatives of mine and ours will admit to some Trump fatigue, um, and he absolutely needs to balance that with a powerful as he would probably put it, a positive message for the second term. So listen, Lon he j J And I am, I'm a sport that did you? Are you a sports fan at all? Have we ever talked about this? Yes? Yes, right, okay, I am, I'm I'm I'm a big sports fan. What's
your favorite sport? I would say it's baseball? Okay, all right, fine, I'm a I'm a Dodger fan. Well, oh my god, we can't be friends anymore. Sorry, Uh no, I can't. Um a lot of fabulous Dodger fans listening to the show, and we're as willing to pander to you as dandy. But so if if you took a snapshot of where we are right now in terms of the Trump campaign and the numbers we've been discussing, is he down two runs in the fourth inning or how would you how
would you put? How does he stand? How nervous should Trump fans be? I think they should be nervous, but they shouldn't be overwhelmingly so, so I would say he's down, you know, I'd say five or six runs in the second inning. That's how I would That's that. That's how
it put. Interesting, it's a pretty it's a pretty big lead, but it's so early, okay, that is, and he's a team that's won a lot, so right, right, I mean you know, if so and all the players on the other team are eighty years old, there, right, they all have to they both torn their A C. L s or at Tommy john Surgs Racing. Look, here's here's here's how I would think about it if I were looking at these polls. And I'm sure you know you've got
a very sophisticated listener base. So maybe I'm saying something people already know, but you do not need to worry
so much about the national polls. The real worrisome numbers that we're seeing if you're the Trump campaign or a Trump supporter, are in the state five state And if he's losing states like Arizona and Florida and North Carolina that he won in twenty sixteen with decently healthy margins, you've got to be concerned when you see a number like, you know, down seven or eight in Arizona, down seven
or eight in Florida. We're looking at him down to eleven in Wisconsin, down to eleven in Wisconsin, down ten in Pennsylvania. Though, that's tough, and I think the numbers even bigger in Michigan. I mean, you know, I think we if you're the Trump campaign, you really do need to focus on Arizona and Florida and North Carolina right now. I mean, the fact that you're down in those states
is a is a major trouble sign. Uh. The other states, I mean Michigan, Wisconsin, those those polls never really had him all that close. And I think a few poles at the very in may have had him closing in Michigan, but the mission Michigan within polling, Pennsylvania polling never really was all that friendly to Donald Trump at sixteen anyway. So so that's why I say, if you look at the two thousand twenty state by state polling, it really is those states in the in the seven of the
South that are worrisome for Ms. Trump. Lana he Chan is online, Hey, Lana he quickly maybe a minute on this, but I'm looking at some COVID nineteen statistics. Um, when when the book is written, perhaps by you, about the politics of COVID nineteen, what's the headline, what's that title? What what approach would you take? How do you see
this whole thing? Because there's been such a big political uh, you know, part of part of this that is political, I should say, I would call the book the Polarized Pandemic, and and you sort of hit on the on the really big dynamic here, which is fascinating is the degree to which we as a society have been polarized over everything when it comes to this pandemic. I mean, there's literally almost no question that is not politically polarized. Where
did the pandemic come from? What should we call it? Should people wear masks? How should society respond to it? Who is responsible for the spike in cases? Why is there a spike in cases? All of these questions are politically tinged, politically motivated. People's answers will differ based on how they see their their politics and who they like
in political life and who they don't like. And that to me is staggering, because if you look at past pandemics, not just here in the US, but around the world, you will find, i'd submit, a much lower degree of political polarization. And in fact, if you look at the response that other countries have had, it has not been driven as much by politics, and so our situation here around COVID nineteen this will be a story people will write for generations to come how polarized we've become around
this pandemic. Well, that sounds like a great quickie book. I proposed the following, you do the work, I put my name on it, and and we put it on the market. I want you to think about that. Since you're offer great, offer a loan. He's a fellow in the American Public Policy Studies at the Hoover Institution and it's always great to talk. Thanks Lonnie Armstrong and Getty