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This time yesterday, we were talking about new ratings from the Cook Political Report, including a move for the Pennsylvania Senate race the incumbent Bob Casey against Dave McCormick to a toss up from Lean's Democratic and we were asking the question, is it possible that you could see a difference in the outcome of the Senate race in terms of what party wins and presidential? Could Trump win and
Casey win, Could Harris win and McCormick win. And one of those states where it might be most likely that we see that kind of ticket splitting could potentially be in Ohio. It's now a bright red state, Joe. It's probably going to go Donald Trump unless something majorly unforeseen happens. And yet it's a Democratic incumbent that is vying to keep his seat there. A chair of the Senate Bank Committee, Shared Brown, who does stand a chance against his challenger,
Bernie Marino. But this is an expensive.
Race, could be the most expensive in the country. Here they've dumped five hundred million dollars into this contest already with two weeks to go.
Remarkable. And you're right, Kaylee.
This is Shared Brown, who we talk about a lot here, largely because of his chairmanship. He's featured prominently on Bloomberg TV and radio. The Real Clear Politics average gives him a little over a half percent, some of the others five thirty eight, little closer to one percent.
But in a sea of red, that's actually doing pretty well.
And Steve Dennis has an important story about this today on the terminal Bloomberg Congressional reporter with a great read in rust belt Ohio. He writes, a senator fights to hang on in Trump's turf.
Stephen, thanks for being with us. It's good to see you.
On balance of power. What if we can say Sharon Brown is doing well? What is he doing right?
You know, he has a deep well of support among working class voters who have swung over to Trump, and especially in places like the Mahoning Valley which have seen huge job losses to Mexico, to China, a lot of shuttered factories and steel mills. There are a lot of voters there who have been voting for Shared Brown because he opposed those trade deals, and they see Trump and Brown as sort of simpatico on the trade issues that they feel like hollowed out their communities and their towns.
Now the question is whether he can maintain that support among enough of those blue collar voters who are sort of voting Republican up and down the ballot more and more. You know, Brown's now the last Democrats standing essentially statewide. And if you look at a county like Mahoning County, where Youngstown is long a Democratic stronghold, you know, only one thirty five percent there. But Donald Trump won it outright in twenty twenty. And the last time Brown ran
in twenty eighteen, he won by twenty himself. JD. Vance won it four years later by three. So there are a lot of these crossover voters that I've tried to talk to for about a week in Ohio, and and
there are they're split. There's some who are now going the moreno, and there's some who are undecided, including the UAW shop chairman at the Ultium sales factory, exactly the kind of person that Brown's trying to appeal to that's at a plan that's benefited from billions of dollars from Joe Biden's you know climate law.
Well, if we consider benefiting from dollar Steve, as Joe mentioned, this is a very expensive race, half a billion dollars spent, some forty million dollars spent by crypto pac money. Specifically, what difference is the money making?
You know, if you if you go there, you talk to voters. They're being inundated with these attack ads going after Sharon Brown on things like transgender issues, which he's very upset about. Feels like these ads are lies. Moreno's also very upset about the ads against him, and it's just NonStop attack ads. Mostly. One of the issues that Brown also hopes will carry the day with some Trump
voters is abortion rights. This is an issue where Ohio voted last year fifty seven to forty three to enshrine abortion rights in the constitution, despite the fact that it's a Trump state. So that's an issue where there are
crossover voters that Brown's really trying to appeal to. And I did talk to one Trump voter a woman in just north of Youngstown who told me that she was offended by Bernie Moreno's comment the other day that sort of mocking suburban women who prioritize abortion rights, especially if
they're over fifty. She didn't like that, you know. She said she's going to vote for Brown, trusts him, feels like he has done the right thing for workers there, and also cited the trade policies that Brown has supported in the past. So you know there are The question is how many of those voters are there. The polling suggests that Brown's not doing as well with Trump voters as he did six years ago when he won by more than six points, But could it be enough to win?
And that's like the five hundred million dollar question.
Here find the story on the terminal and online in russ Belt, Ohio, where Stephen Dennis just spent some good time reporting a senator fights to hang on in Trump's turf. I'm Joe Matthew alongside Kaylee Lines in Washington as we assemble our panel for their take on this and more stories today on the campaign trail. Genie Schanzano is with US partner, I should say, a political science professor at Iona University. Rick Davis, partner at Stone Court Capital. Great
to see both of you here, Jennie. This is one of those states where Kamala Harris probably will not help the incumbent. There are sometimes when Kamala Harris can help being on stage, actually showing up to stump in person, and other times where it's actually more helpful to stay away.
Is this one of them.
Yeah, it probably is. And it's such a fascinating story. The idea that Brown could hold a state where Trump is you know, an all likelihood might win by ten plus or minus points. It's an incredible story. But yeah, she doesn't need, you know, Kamala Harris. Certainly Joe Biden out there. He's got to handle this on his own. As you just talked about.
Well, it raises the question of how much in these battleground states, Ohio not being one, Rick, we could expect there to be a difference in the outcome of what party wins control of that Senate seat versus wins the
presidential vote in these states. If you look at where there are contests in Michigan, in Wisconsin, in states like Arizona in Pennsylvania, which we talked about yesterday, do you expect that, in all likelihood, if Donald Trump is winning these states, that Republicans may be performing better than polls currently suggest in those Senate races.
Well, it certainly has the potentially give you an uplift if the top of your ticket is, you know, winning. And we've seen in the last four maybe five elections for president that the national party candidate really decides the outcome of the down ballot races. Right, we have very few examples where we've had a Republican win like Trump did in sixteen. And you know, in a state where a governor is a Republican and the senator doesn't win,
who's a Republican. I mean, we've become very homogeneous in our geography of politics, and so yeah, I think that this is probably a year that's not kind of incumbents in general. So we've seen incumbents struggle a little bit from both parties, I might add. And so the uplift that you're hoping is that the top of the ticket really drives turnout. I would say slightly different than in
the past. The Republican parties offloaded its turnout mechanism to Elon Musk, so it doesn't have firm control over who gets turned out. So how would you like to be you know, the Bernie Moreno canet who isn't getting the cooperation from Musk because he's only doing turnout in places like targeted states, and he could use some of that money and effort done in Colorado.
Way.
Pretty fascinating dynamic here once again involving Elon Musk with a group of former Republican lawmakers, advisors, and Justice Department officials now sending a letter to Merrick Garland to investigate this sweepstakes idea that we talked about.
Genie.
He's giving away a million dollars a day. I still wonder how many Democrats end.
Up capturing those checks.
Is Elon Musk the most important person not named Trump or Harris in this presidential campaign?
You know, he certainly is one of them.
I would just add to the list. Know, not quite up there with Elon Musk, but Charlie Kirk is also supposed to be handling some of this turnout for the Republicans. And both of these are untested in this realm, so I have to see how they do. And I can just tell you this just off, you know, just from a conversation I just had with a student from Pennsylvania who said Elon Musk was at her high school and in order to enter the place you had to sign. So it's going to be interesting to see how these
legal questions on this sweepstakes turn out. But I do think that it is an important issue to think that you now have a major party in the Republican Party at two weeks to go here, who are giving to the wealthiest man probably ever in the world, Elon Musk and then Charlie Kirk, the you know, the drivers, the keys to turnout for a very very close election. I would make me nervous if I was a Republican depending on them, if only because they are so untested in this realm.
Well.
Elon Musk, of course, someone we spend a lot of time talking about here on Bloomberg TV and radio, along with other figures in the Wall Street world, including the likes of Jamie Diamond, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase, with which The New York Times is reporting today that he privately supports Kamala Harris but is afraid to say
so for fear of blowback if Donald Trump wins. He also is expressed in private, According to sources familiar with the matter, interest in serving in a Harris administration, perhaps as Treasury Secretary. Jeanie wouldn't make any difference to Kamala Harris's campaign at this point in the race. If Jamie Diamond were to express the support out loud and vocally, you know, I think.
It may along the edges, although I have to say most of the people who would probably be listening and hearing and moved by that have already made up their mind. It can't hurt if he says publicly he supports her, But I think, you know, it's very clear that for him and his company, it is probably best not to
do that. And I'm just thinking back to our conversations about McDonald's yesterday and Charlie Pellett telling us that they came out very swiftly to say they are gold, not red or blue, and I think that's probably wise and sage advice for a lot of these companies, because there's very little benefit to them to alienate either their customers, their shareholders, or quite frankly, the people who work for them by expressing support in that way.
Rick, your well versus in the investment community, as a partner at stone Court Capital. What impacts would that have Jamie Diamond on your team this stage of the campaign.
Well, you probably would have hoped that it had happened a long time ago, because obviously he is a blackbird in Wall Street. He brings other people with him, He brings an enormous amount of capacity to fundraise, and so that financing isn't going to be really that readily available in the last two weeks of the election. I think it adds a lot of credibility and seriousness to the Harris effort. And look, I mean, Wall Street a long time ago gave up this notion that capitalists don't play
in politics. The only thing different between capitalists and politicians are politicians want money and capitalists want power, so sooner or later they converge. And that's what I think you see a little bit of Jamie Dimond doing right now, is seeing the potential for power.
Well, as we think about Wall Street, it does remind us that Donald Trump is going to be spending time in New York this weekend of rally scheduled for a Sunday at Madison Square Garden. We've spent some time analyzing why exactly he would be spending any time not in a swing state at this point. But we also learned today, Rick, that Kamala Harris will be visiting a non swing state too. She's going to Texas on Friday, Houston, specifically to highlight
abortion rights. Rick, is that a good use of her time just ten days out from election day?
A complete and utter waste of a perfectly good campaign day. I mean, I really don't get it. There's no evidence for her that she's been able to dominate the media by just showing up in some you know, random place and driving news. She has a different problem than Donald Trump. Donald Trump can generate news from his toilet in mar Lago, it doesn't really matter where he is, and she needs to spend time in these these states that are swing states, and Texas is not a swing state. That senate race
is not a swing senate race. She is wasting perfectly good time that is not readily replaceable in her campaign by showing up in Texas. Maybe it's a sot to trying to get more Hispanic vote, which she's doing today, you know, by doing a taping for thirty minutes for I think it's a Telemundo interview but the reality is spend time in Pennsylvania. You can't win without it.
Kinney, She's got interviews today on NBC and then Telemundo. As Rick just mentioned off the trail, no big rallies today, We've only got a minute left. There's something I've been meaning to ask you both about That's been really interesting to see Kamala Harris using sound cuts the way we do here on TV and radio, playing clips of Donald Trump to make points during her rallies. He has now started using his own campaign ads to play as clips.
Is this effective?
I think it is effective for her. She's calling for those sacks, Joe, she wants them, and you know, hey, listen when she's gonna pull out stuff that she thinks is unhinged that he said, she thinks it's effective.
And I would say I disagree with Rick.
On Texas because she is closing on abortion and Texas is the epicenter of the abortion bands. She's got people like Katie Cox and other women victimized down there, and this is a critical part of her strategy. She started out the year talking about reproductive health and she's coming back to it. It's not a swing state, but it's an important issue.
All right, Schanzano and Rick Davis, our signature political panel. Thank you both for joining us. We all have more ahead with the president and CEO of Vodo Lutina, look at that demographic specifically right here on Bloomberg TV and Radio.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast Ken just live weekdays at noon Eastern on Applecarplay and then ron Oto with the Bloomberg Business app. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station, Just Say Alexa Play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Thanks for being with us on Balance of Power, the Tuesday edition on Bloomberg TV and Radio. I am Joe Matthew alongside Kaylee Lines in Washington following the candidates on the trail today as Kamala Harris steps away from the rallies to stop down for a couple of interviews, one on NBC News, the other Telemundo, and it coincides. This is not an accident, of course, kayleie the decisions that are made at this stage of the game. We are
two weeks out, two weeks from today. We know for a fact that Kamala Harris is trying hard to appeal to young black men, to young Latinos, and this has really become not only a gender gap, but a big age gap in this campaign.
Absolutely, and Donald Trump is trying to court some of these voters as well, which is why we saw him holding a Latino focused roundtable in Florida earlier today. So it's certainly a key demographic, which is why we're paying such close attention to the pulling around this, including one that just hit yesterday from Voto Latino that looks specifically at the battleground states and finds sixty four percent of support among the Latino vote for Harris thirty one percent
for Trump. But there's an interesting geographic breakdown here that we want to get into. Is this voting block, like all others, is not a monolith. So let's dig into the details now with Maria Theresa Kumar. She is VOT Latino President and CEO, joining us here on Balance of Power. Maria Theresa, welcome, it's great to have you. It's noteworthy to look at how the numbers are different depending on
which battleground state we're looking at. In Michigan, for example, sixty two percent of Latino respondents VO support for Harris in Pennsylvania, that number is seventy seven percent at sixty six in Arizona. How are you looking at the geographic question here?
That's the right question to ask because oftentimes the polls are national and we want to look specifically on what is mobilizing voters. Where I will share with you, we have never seen such enthusiasm by Latino voters or a Democratic candidate as we're seeing in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is actually in the pack at seventy seven percent. To give you an idea, in twenty twenty Biden, when you looked at generational divide among Latinos, he was at seventy percent and
really didn't break that fever among young voters. So she's really pulling ahead. The place that we're finding that she is neck to neck right now in the Latino community is in Nevada, and I can share with you, Kayley, we were in Nevada over the weekend with partners in SCIU. We were door knocking, We were listening to the voters, and what we keep hearing is that for them, housing is the number one issue. To really appreciate it, Kaille, we were talking to one voter one potential voter, and
he said, look, I am twenty four years old. I was three years ago I was paying seven hundred dollars in rent and now I'm paying over twelve hundred dollars in rent and my wages have not come up. So any way that the campaign can talk more about the fact that on their platform they are thinking of increasing three million individual low income housings under her platform, that's important. Talking about twenty five thousand dollars for first time home buyers,
you're talking about someone in a different socioeconomic gap. It's not the one. That's not the message for young people. And I will share with you the biggest potential that both candidates have is like, how do you mobilize the young voter in the African americ community, young voter in the Latino community, Because it was the young voter in Arizona and in Nevada in twenty twenty two that basically secured a Democratic Senate because they were the last ones
to vote. They were low propensity information voters. And so with less than twenty days out, now's the time to really for the candidates to talk to these voters specifically about the issues and try to break through that noise.
Maria, I want to go back to April for a little context on your poll. As Kaylee mentioned, you found sixty four percent of respondents support Harris in the Swing States, thirty one percent Trump, five percent third party. In April, again, she had sixty four percent, Joe Biden had forty eight percent, Donald Trump right around where he is now, he had thirty three and there was a twelve percent reading for our FKA Junior. Our FK is out of the race, but it takes more than his votes to get Kamala
Harris to sixty four percent. When you see an instant reaction like that by changing the top of the ticket, what is it about Kamala Harris that appeals to this community?
Joe, you're incredibly astute. It was the first time that we had seen Latino voters actually shifting from Donald Trump to Kamala Harris. And one of the things that we were able to find in our Polly and our and our surveys was that these individuals her story appealed to them.
She is the.
First candidate that doesn't have to be explained what it means to have parents who have immigrant roots to navigate America as a multicultural, bicultural woman, and that in itself resonated. She also doesn't have to speak about the virtues of abortion access. What most folks don't realize is that in the Latino community, while the average age of a white voter is forty five years old, the average age of
a Latino voter is thirty one. These are individuals, specifically women that are in their prime of their reproductive lives and they want to make sure that they have access to abortion care. So once she got on top of the ticket, they believed her when she said that she wanted to codify Roe versus Wade. In all our surveys that we find the number one issue is housing, the
second issue is abortion access. And so in a place where you have ballot initiatives in Nevada, in Arizona, even in Florida, that is going to be I believe a stealth weapon in mobilizing a lot of these folks that might be soft right now, but that recognize that at the end of the day, it's going to be about abortion access in their local state.
Well, Marie teria'sa Donald Trump has made attempts to tie some of these issues to the wider issue of immigration, suggesting, for example, that the flood of migrants that have come to the US or crowding out hospitals making it harder for people to access healthcare, that they're bringing up housing costs.
Although economically, of course, that has been disputed, and there is a massive question about what the economic impact of mass deportation of millions of people who have not come here through legal means would mean for the US economy. What is the right way to approach the immigration question for Latino voters? What do you hear from them?
I think we might have lost our connection.
All right, Well, it is something to consider, and we've had many conversations about this in recent weeks. Show the economics potentially of the kind of abortion policy Donald Trump or immigration mass deportation policy that Donald Trump is suggesting, what that would do to the workforce and labor supply and some of these exact states that we're talking about that do rely on undocumented labor to get a lot of work done.
Yeah, I think Maria is back with us speaking from vot Latina where she's president and CEO. Maria, if you can hear us, I wonder your thoughts on these economic impacts that Kaylie's talking about.
Well, I think he most folks when they hear mass deportation, oftentimes they don't realize that policy itself would just ravage local communities. When you see the contributions of immigrants, whither they are on document or here with papers, they are a massive contributors to our social security, they are massive contributors to our treasury, coffers at the lake, at the state and local and national level. So that is kind of like a non starter, and it should be a
non starter for every single American. My concern around the mass deportation though, is that even if it's not done in an official act, there will be plenty of folks that follow Donald Trump on the extreme that basically says, okay, I got a wink in a nod that folks that are that seem undocumented can be targets for racial harassment. And we saw that extensively, sadly when Donald Trump was at the White House with folks. Remember the l Passo massacre.
It basically took a tweet from the president from the then president to encourage someone to jump in their car and drive ten hours and killed twenty three innocent Americans who happened to be of Mexican descent. But I do think that their opportunity on the Paris site is to divorce what's happening at the border and address the individuals that have been here for ten twenty years, that have been paying their taxes, that still don't have proper documentation
because the system is fundamentally broken. All our polling shows is that when you focus specifically on that domestic policy issue, not only does it mobilize and encourage voters in the Latino community to vote, but it's also an essential issue among white, independent moderate voters. And sometimes people ask me why is that. I said, well, that independent moderate white voter might have a business where this undocumented person has been working with them side by side for decades, or
they could be a spouse. And so it's really recognizing that we have to have a real conversation after the election around what it means to be American and what it means to have immigrants with among us, because it is America's secret sauce. It is the reason why we have a competitive advantage.
Across the world.
And you know, Kayley, you don't have to take my word for it. When you look at election interference that's coming from foreign from foreign folks. It is around the issue of immigrants and race, something that was widely underreported. What happened in Springfield, Ohio where you saw bomb threats that we're targeting local high schools in local schools, a
good quarter of them came from from abroad. Those phone calls were coming from foreign interference, And it makes you It begs the question, why do folks want to disrupt the one of the basic economic engines of our country, That is that the contributions of immigrants to our economy
every single day. And so I would encourage us to have that conversation post election, But I also think that it's vital for our economy to understand the contributions that these groups make every single day to our country.
It's the reason we have just about a minute left here. But if there's going to be real immigration reform, I think we all know a lot of that has to come from Congress. Are you seeing the same kind of patterns in the down ballot races as you're seeing in the presidential race among Latino voters right now?
So it's really interesting, even in April, if you look at our stuff in April and April, Democrats were overwhelmingly winning in the and in the down ballots, and so it says that there that the Latino community really does espouse a lot of democratic platforms, but they were very soft on the top of the ticket candidate, and so this is going to be very much neck to neck. I am curious to see what happens in the Senate
because that is absolutely one that no one knows. You have test really having a hard time, I think putting it over the top. But is there going to be wiggle room where Colin Alred takes it away in Texas? And if he does, it's going to because of the Latino vote, and it's going to be because of the youth vote in Texas.
Maria comes see us again.
She's president and CEO of Voto Latino, an important voice in this campaign. Maria, Teresa Kumara, thank you so much for joining on Ballots of Power. The Fastest show in Politics continues as we turn our attention to the polymarket in crypto. Kayleie, an important conversation coming up next. We've got a lot going on today here on Bloomberg TV and Radio YEP.
The chairman of the CFTC Roston Benham will be with us as he participates in the Bloomberg Global Regulatory Forum. That's straight ahead here on Bloomberg TV and Radio.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch Just Live weekdays at noon Eastern on Eppocarplay and then Proudoto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
Two weeks to go as we watch not only the polls, but interestingly the poly market and what people are betting on here, what Wall Street thinks in the amount of money that at least some traders are willing to put on the outcome of this election.
Kayley, it's already happening.
Americans can legally wager millions of dollars on this campaign.
But we've been reminding.
Our audience, as we've heard from a lot of smart people on this program, that it takes very little to manipulate the outcome of a betting market like this. One big wager can skew this one way or the other, so it may not be worth comparing.
It to a poll.
Yeah, and this is a concern that the Commodity's Future Training Commission has raised about these politically oriented events contracts in the way in which these things could be skewed, but seef toce to this point, not one in court. As you mentioned, two court rulings have allowed these things to be trading with two weeks ago and till the election. And it's to the chair of the CFTC we turn
to next. He is joining us from global headquarters in New York where he is taking part in Bloomberg's global regulatory for him and it is kind to spend a few minutes with us here on balance of Power on Bloomberg TV and Radio. Rust and Benham, mister chairman, thank you for being here. You have repeatedly said that the CFTC should not be an elections cop So what is your recourse going forwards? We are already seeing this happening.
What do you expect could actually change in terms of how this kind of betting activity could influence American elections?
Kayley and Joe, Thanks, it's great to be with you. And you know, as you said, a court district court in DC made a decision just over a month ago, and we did appeal to the Court of appeals for a stay on the actual contracts. Both were denied. We respect those decisions and you know, we will regulate those markets as we can as best we can. We are appealing the actual case on its merits. What we appealed for was a stay on the listing of the contracts
and trading. That was refused. But we still are going to challenge the legal arguments on its merits and we'll see what happens there. That will take some time, but in the meantime, you know, we have registered entities, a number of them, who are listing these contracts. We're going to monitor the markets, We're going to surveil the markets. We're going to do everything we do that we typically do with registrants, whether it's the brokers, the exchanges, the
data that we collect. And my position hasn't changed. I've said this many times. The position of the Commission has actually been pretty consistent for the better part of a decade that we don't believe listing event contracts on political elections is legal, but you know, while we have this ongoing legal challenge, will allow them, and we're going to do what we can to protect the integrity of the markets. As you mentioned in the beginning, This does pull us
into being an election cop. Whether or not there's manipulation and fraud, you know, remains to be seen. But we will monitor markets, will take tips or any information we get from the general public, and will pursue any action as we do in any part of our markets.
Well, so, mister chairman, you've got a little problem here that you never asked for. And I wonder if you could put a finer point on your ability to detect fraud in this system and the powers or authorities that you and your agency has to combat them.
How do you go about this?
Yeah, Joe, it's a good question. And you know, we have typical regulatory authorities over registrants. As I said, you know, we get to register the exchanges and the brokers, the individuals. We get a sense of how they conduct their business, and we're able to ask questions and do examinations, collect data to monitor trading patterns. And I think really that gets to the heart of your question in terms of anomalist trading patterns, in seeing what the data gives us.
So much of our enforcement program across the board and in this space and traditional derivatives contracts is driven actually by information from the public and the market participants if they observe anomalies in trading or positions that may be skewed off of you know, sort of a supply demand price discovery. So well, we're going to treat these products in this current state we are right now as we
would treat any other product. Obviously, you know, with elections being the underlying reference here, it is new for us to examine. But we're going to use the same tools and the same expertise that we've brought to derivative markets and commodity markets for decades. And you know, if we do see something or if we hear about something, we will pursue it. In the meantime, you know, we'll continue to vigorously fight the case in court and see what
the outcome is and the appellate court. We have seen a fair amount of members of Congress weigh in on this publicly. I have had a number of conversations too, and I think there's a little bit of consternation from some not all, about what this means. And we've seen a broad listing of these contracts across just control of one body of the Congress, whether it's the House or the Senate. So these contracts will continue to grow and
we're going to have to monitor them closely. And as I said, and as you mentioned, you know, this is not necessarily something I believe is are within our authority or legal but we will do the job given the court's decision.
Well, and of course some people will have their bets
proven write some won't. This election will have an outcome in the future of the regulatory authority of the CFTC could be influenced by election outcomes, not just at the presidential level, but also what you were just speaking to the congressional level, whether or not you get to continue forward as CFTC chair, Sir, do you expect any future chair will have the same struggles that you've had in regard to regulating crypto, for example, without guaranteed delineated authority given by Congress.
Yeah, I don't think anything is going to change for my successors, whenever and whoever they may be. The fact of the matter is a number of these tokens are commodities under current law, and the CFTC is a derivatives regulator. We don't regulate underlying cash markets, whether it's in the agricultural space, the energy space, or the financial space. And this is technology, this is disruption, this is a new asset class. These things happen constantly over time, and I
think it's just we're at an inflection point. And as you point out, Kayley, I've been sort of ringing the bell for a number of years now because we've made observations as the CFTC as chair myself about a growing market, a market that's proven to be sustainable, a market that has continued interest from both retail investors and institutional investors. And when you have those ingredients, I think it's really
important that we react from a policy perspective. So we're doing what we can with the tools that we have at the CFTC, which is enforcement authority over fraud and manipulation. But what we don't have over these underlying cash markets is the traditional regulatory tools that we bring to traditional
derivatives markets. That's registration, that's surveillance, that's examination, that's governance requirements, that's financial resource requirements, all of these components that have made in my view, American capital markets the best and
the strongest in the world. We've seen a shift, I think in the sentiment of Congress over the past call it twelve months, certainly different than two or three years ago when I was first talking about this, and even five or six years ago when this first became an issue for the CFTC and I started having thoughts internally
and discussing it. But I do think as we get into a new administration, a new president, and a new Congress, I think there's going to be an appetite given that sustainability of the asset class and the desire from a lot of retail and institutional investors to see a regulatory structure around crypto.
Well, regulatory structure is one thing. Actual money to do that work is another. Mister Chairman. If Congress does not allow more allocation toward spending money in order to regulate crypto, how do you out the agency's resources to be dealing with that still relatively nascent market and all of your traditional obligations to traditional finance at the same time.
Yeah, it's difficult. And you know, our markets are very large at the derivative markets, they're global markets, trillion dollar markets, and huge responsibility in terms of oversight and financial resilience, market resilience and financial stability, and that has been a point of frustration for me because we have a lot of new entrants in the space, in the crypto space that are coming to be registered as futures brokers and exchanges, but also this underlying market that is consuming a lot
of our enforcement bandwidth. So it is a challenge. We'll, you know, use the resources we have we always have as an agency. Certainly, I think if there is new legislation coming down the road, I've vigorously advocated that any
new authority would have to be paired with resources. But it does put the agency in a little bit of a difficult position where we are stretched thin you know, we're constantly dealing with new markets, new asset classes, new participants, and that is, you know, a product of growing market. It's a product of increased retail demand and institutional demand,
and I think that's a positive thing generally speaking. But I think it's important from a DC and policy perspective that we understand what is changing, how markets are evolving, and that the agencies evolve with markets. And that's not only from a personnel and expertise standpoint, that's an authority standpoint, and ultimately, to the point of your question, that is also a resource issue that we have to address as well.
Well, mister chairman, it's great to have you with us today on Bloomberg TV and Radio. Speaking from the Crypto Frontier Chairman Ross Benham Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast kens just live weekdays at noon Eastern on Applecarplay and enroud Oro with the Bloomberg Business app. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station, Just say Alexa play Bloomberg eleven.
So how about the nine weeks log?
That's what we're pointing to here, right? Why wait to talk about it? Bruce Melman, isn't everyone woke up Sunday and said what this six chart?
Sunday?
Then I started thinking, wait a minute, how many stages of grief are there? It turns out there five denial, then anger, bargaining, followed by depression and.
At last acceptance.
And it kind of frames what's going to happen between November sixth and January sixth. Of course, when the votes are certified here in Washington, that's a day that meant nothing to anyone before twenty twenty.
Now it means a lot. And if you walk through the sixth chart.
Sunday by Bruce Melman, it'll give you a sense of what we're in for.
Here.
We've talked about one hundred and sixty five lawsuits that have already been filed. Let's bring him in right now. He's partner at Melman Consulting, author of the Bruce Melman's Age of Disruption sub stack. If you haven't subscribed, you should so, Bruce, you got everybody upset over the weekend. How bumpy are these nine weeks going to be?
Well? That remains to be seen for sure.
And I think the point Laura made with you a moment ago is important.
It's a three ring circus.
And even if the presidential proves to be less dramatic than we all expect it might be, it's a very high likelihood we're not going to know who controls the House of Representatives and potentially whether there was a red wave or whether there's a blue check of balance in the House on a second Trump term were he to win,
until some time in December. So the thesis is for those of us who feel like the Wednesday after the election will be the day of relief where at least we have certainty that may be the end of the column and the real beginning of the storm.
Well, how true as you right?
Getting past November fifth will reduce some uncertainty, but the intensity picks up during the subsequent nine weeks slog as we mentioned during this fraught window, Bruce writes, we'll lead to count the votes, conduct any recounts, certify results in state capitals potentially roiled by protests, all amids, partisan paranoia and allegations of Malfeasan's intense litigation and disinformation, a deluge accelerated by foreign adversaries makes me want to go back home, Bruce,
But that is, of course what we're dealing with here. I want to seize on a couple of these, Starting with counting the votes your first chart, When might we know who won? How about the top of the ticket. It took us until Saturday last time. And the conventional wisdom is if Donald Trump wins, we might know that night. If Kamala Harris wins, we might wait till the end of the week.
Is that how you see it?
You know? Sure?
At least one of the biggest questions is whether the polling has figuredured it out now. In Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. In twenty sixteen, they underestimated the Trump vote by about eight points on average. In twenty twenty, they underestimated the
Trump vote by about four points. The polls are all too close to call, within the margin of error, although Trump has crept to where he is slightly leading, still within the margin of error, So it could be either way and the polling would be right unless the polling's off again by those sort of same amounts in the industrial Midwest. We may then, as in twenty twenty, having a call by the Associated Press.
They called a day after the election. They called it for Biden.
Obviously, Trump contested it and continues to contest it, notwithstanding a lack of evidence in court to cause anything to get reversed. In twenty sixteen, it took four days after the election to come to resolution.
You just mentioned something important for the benefit of our audience.
Here I poddled you.
By the way I reversed sixteen to twenty. They were four into twenty twenty and one in twenty.
Seve understood, yes, that's right, And it took us until Saturday right to learn about Joe Biden. So are we basing this on the AP call? Is that the voice of credibility, Bruce?
It is a credible voice, it's not a voice of authority. So you know I'm old enough to recall.
In twenty twenty, the AP called it for Bush, then they called it for nobody, Then they called it for Gore, then they called it for nobody. In two thousand days later, Yeah, two thousand we were done.
That said. AP hasn't had.
To reverse the call in the last multiple elections. They're careful to not want to make a call until such time as the remaining votes that are outstanding based upon who you know, who they are, the registrations and the counties give them enough confidence and enough insight to be able to appoint. So I personally tend to feel like once the AP has made a call, that's if it's not quite money to the bank, it's pretty highly reliable.
Well that's right.
It's about as close as you're going to get until they're really done counting here. And you wonder how careful they are going to be after last time, Bruce, are going to be beaten our Thanksgiving Turkey wondering when the AP is going to show up here to your point in your own six slide presentation, here, you're six charts. There are no trusted referees, which I think is what we're getting at here. You also point out recounts are
rare and they rarely reverse outcomes. And therefore, back to our litigation tsunami that you talk about, will this election be decided in the courts?
You know it could be decided in the courts, though. A recount is they've finished all the ballot, all the official ballots, and then it's just a matter of did you miscount it? And there's never been a presidential state that has been flipped changed as a result of a recount. There was one Senate, one governorship, one state auditor.
But it's if you're not if it's.
Not within just a few votes, it's just not going to get turned over or famously, the Arizona Republican Party hired a group that calls itself the cyber Ninjas to audit the vote in twenty twenty where Biden edged out Trump, and they came back and Biden's margin had slightly.
Grown in edging out Trump.
So once you're at the recount point, you know the partisans take some hope that something will.
Be found that will be profound.
You know, even in two thousand with Bush v. Gore, ultimately the conclusion in the US Supreme Court was, you.
Did the count You're done counting.
You can't keep recounting because every time you run the ballots through the machines, some chads fall off. So you're changing it by recounting and recounting and recounting. You're done that. All said, Look, we've seen there's lawsuits. Democrats are trying to keep Cornell West off the ballot. They're trying to make sure Robert F. Kennedy Junior doesn't get off the ballot. Republicans are trying to question about voting roles and about you know, whether you can trust machines.
And this is a full lawyer employment Act.
It's gonna be Kamala Harris certifying these results. Isn't it playing the role of Mike Fence this time around?
I mean it's a ceremonial role.
So no, she doesn't have she won't be able to make a decision that changes anything. She's there as the presiding Officer of the Senate. But in legislation that got passed in twenty twenty two, the Electoral count Reform Act. They made a crystal clear that what President Trump asked former Vice President.
Pence to do and Pence wouldn't do.
You can't just say I've made the decision that I won and my boss won.
You can't do that.
No, you're correct, Bruce.
But you also know how many people don't care, didn't read when that happened. We've talked about it a lot on this program. And then the optics are what they are, and perception becomes reality. Right, is your biggest hope in our last minute here that we got a landslide one way or the other?
Well, sure, but you know that also would be attached to add Will mccraven throwing in as a third party and getting ninety percent of the vote.
So my biggest hopes.
Are already out the window. But I certainly think the worst thing for democracy would be in that nine week period, added mistrust, added allegations, things that can't be proven, candidates who simply don't accept when they lose that they lost, and god forbid going to a Congress that decides we're not going to certify because we don't like what happened, even though we don't have actual proof that anything else happened.
Can't wait for November.
Bruce, come back and talk to us after we survive the election and we get in the throes of the nine weeks log.
Check out his sub stack.
If you listen to this program, I think you'll probably enjoy it. Bruce Melman, Partner Melman Consulting. I'm Joe Matthew in Washington. We're going to go to ground coming up in the swing state of Pennsylvania.
This is Bloomberg.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast Ketch just live weekdays at noon Eastern on Epocarplay and Android Otto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
Coming to you live from our Washington, DC bureau every day here, but our eyes, of course are on just about everywhere else. As the candidates settle in for the next two weeks, and they've been there for the last two weeks, largely in the swing states, none more important than Pennsylvania, and we talk about the closing arguments for the presidential candidates. It's closing argument time for all of
the candidates. That includes those for Senate and this is one of the most closely watched Senate races, and I believe, by far the most expensive Senate race in the country right now. Everyone freaked out yesterday when the Cook Political Report weighed in and move this race between the Democratic incumbent Bob Casey against Republican challenger David McCormick from Lean's
Democratic to toss up. This is as close as it gets, prompting a whole new round of questions about tickets splitting, which most of the experts we talked to here on Bloomberg don't see happening in Pennsylvania. As for the closing arguments, Dave McCormick out with his This is the closing ad of the campaign, which he spoke directly to the camera to record at West Point.
Let's watch and listen.
The United States Military Academy, West Point. It gave me the code I live by duty, honor country. I'm Dave McCormick. Our country is stuck and we've got to make a change. Bob Casey's had eighteen years and he's never made a difference.
He said, eighteen years and he's never made a difference. The closing argument there from David McCormick. Now, I'll bring you back to something I mentioned a little bit earlier, and that's the early vote.
This is a big deal.
Fifteen million Americans have already decided who to vote for, and in the case of Pennsylvania, thousands have already chosen between David McCormick and Bob Casey. In fact, we learn now among the few states, we can learn a lot in Pennsylvania, among the few states that track mail ballots
by party registration, here's what we know. More than five hundred eighty thousand Democrats have already returned their mail ballots in Pennsylvania, compared with two hundred and fifty four thousand Republicans. This is why we keep hearing. And remember Pennsylvania doesn't start counting these till seven o'clock in the morning on election Day.
They're putting them all on a.
Shelf somewhere deep in the safe waiting for election day. That's why you will not likely have a call in Pennsylvania. That's why it will probably look like Donald Trump is winning early on, and he may be, but if he's not, that could change as the mail in votes are counted. Now This is where we start our conversation with an expert in Pennsylvania politics.
Michael Berkman is with US.
Director of the mcartney Institute for Democracy and Political Science, professor at penn State University, co host of the Democracy Works podcast.
Michael, Welcome back to Bloomberg.
It's great to see with everything that I just mentioned, knowing that it doesn't get closer than this. How many days are you going to wait for this race to be called in Pennsylvania?
Well, you know it could. You're correct that this could take a while because the mail in ballots are going to come in heavily democratic as a did last year. I mean you said something like five hundred thousand. It's actually up to six hundred and fifty thousand Democratic ballots. I've already been heard in three hundred thousand Republican ballots.
But it may be quicker than last year because improvements have been made, some money has been invested in better machinery, and the hopes that Philadelphia and Algany County is in particular, get those mail ballots counted quicker. You're correct the issue with fury and they can't open them until seven am.
That's right, So give me your read. Let's go to ground in Pennsylvania. Because I'm sitting down here in Washington with a lot of people who think they know what's going on in your state. You can talk to us about the presidential race. They're tied at the hip, it seems to the Senate race. Is this a one or two point race in your view? Like the polls are showing.
It feels very close, and I have no reason to believe otherwise. And I'm not surprised to see the Casey McCormick race getting closer. You know, McCormick didn't have quite the name recognition that Casey does. Casey is quite the well known name in Pennsylvania, so not surprising that he had a big lead early on. But I think we're seeing it converge closer to where the presidential election is, and I suspect we'll see that in other states as well, where senate candidates and the presidential.
Race seem to be diverged.
Because you made an important point at the top, and that is just simply not a lot of split ticket voting anymore.
So talk to me about that. That's the narrative.
You know, everybody's going to leave stuff blank, and we remember what happened in Georgia, and we're seeing wild potential for tickets splitting in Arizona.
Why is Pennsylvania an exception?
Well, I mean spliketts vote is split ticket voting could occur just in you know, ten thousand votes, and it's going to make a huge difference. So even if there's not a lot of it, it could still make a big difference. But just looking back at twenty twenty, we simply didn't see a lot of split ticket voting between the Senate races and where Biden was. Now you're gonna have It's going to be different in states where you really have flawed candidate. It's I think Arizona is probably
in that category. But McCormick is McCormick's a strong candidate, as is Casey, So I expect it's going to trap pretty closely to what we see in the presidential race, which is very close.
It's really interesting when you talk about Pennsylvania and people remember the old James Carvill line that you've got you know, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Alabama in between or something like that, something like how how nimble have these candidates been in addressing the very different types of communities and demographics throughout the state. We talk about it like it's one place, but it's not.
No, it's not. And you know, the old Carville line has a lot of truth to it. There is a lot of areas of Pennsylvania which are quite rural or small towns or you know, older industrial areas, and that's what Carville was referring to. But you know, in my view, this election actually decided in the suburbs outside outside Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and suburbs are much more competitive right now. Choice is a large issue in these suburbs, especially with
the women voters. So I'm my eyes around Bucks County and some of the suburban areas now. Having said that, what we're seeing the candidates, do you know, Harris, as Biden did, is spending more time out in Republican areas just trying to cut those vote margins down. I think that's a good strategy on her part. And McCormick as well, has been pretty much all over the state as far as I can see.
So you're in state College, yeah, you drive fifty miles in any direction. Who's winning the lawn sign war?
Is it?
Trump?
Oh? Without a doubt it's Trump. That's the Trump McCormick territory. Once you get outside of State College. I mean that part of Carvill's characterization of the state is absolutely correct. You know, you get outside of states relatively blue and you're in a stee of red. But what I don't think Carvill had quite right, you know, going back, what is that in nineteen ninety two is that the suburbs have become much more of a battleground within Pennsylvania.
Tod the McDonald's stunt play because it was aimed at the very area you're sitting in here, and people say, wait, he didn't really make anything. He was in there for five minutes. They closed the restaurant. But those optics work for a lot of people, Professor.
Do they?
I don't know.
I had visions of Michael Cocka's riding around in a tank a little bit because.
It was Oh man, you know I drew that comparison in advance. You're the first person who said that, is that what happened? He put on the helmet in your view.
Bit.
I mean, it seemed really incongruous to me. Donald Trump working on a McDonald's. I mean, I know he likes McDonald's. But who am I to say it could have been an effective stunt. He got certainly got a lot of play on it. I agree with you, it didn't get it didn't get slammed down quite like Michael Decoccus did at the time.
But you see him shaking those fries. Ceci, he did it like he meant it. Producer. Cec says stolen wage worker valor professor.
He didn't want to take the question on the minimum wage. Was that a missed opportunity?
And that is part of it, isn't it. I mean, if you're going to do something like that, then it seems like that's the kind of issue that you would be prepared to really talk on. At least that's what people that work in McDonald's, that's probably what they're thinking about. He also put extra salt on the fries, but that's different, different.
Well, he says he really loves the salts. That we did learn that yesterday. You know one of the things that jumped off the page, Well, I guess on one of them. We had fries in here. We talked about it so much the other day we couldn't help this is really interesting. Del Volpe op ed in the New York Times. Of course, you know he's Harvard, he's working with the campaign now, but he's running against the grain.
And I wonder your thoughts on this.
Among men eighteen to twenty nine, he writes, Harris's favorability rating is forty four percent, seven points higher than Biden's and thirteen points higher than Donald Trump's.
Is the sample broken for young people?
You know, it's.
The poli of young people. Is tough because when you start to read cross tabs within the national polls or even the state poles, you're dealing with pretty large margins of errors. So, for example, the Harvard poll shows pretty strong support for Harvard. I guess for Harris. I guess that's the pull you're mentioning, right, the vaultyople that Yes, that's right, that's right. Yeah, that's the pole you're mentioning.
So that's continuing to show strong support for Harris. I go with that more than I do some of the cross tabs. Having said that, I do think there are issues with younger men in particular and Kamala Harris, where Donald Trump seems to have particular strength there, and his clearly targeting a lot of his campaign towards them. The problem is they're very low propensity voters, so you're taking a risk that these people will turn out to vote.
I mean, young men are probably the least likely group of people to vote.
Fascinating.
I'm really glad we got to spend some time with Michael Berkman. Thank you Michael for being with us as we get the view from Pennsylvania, more specifically from the center of the state. There really interesting director the McCartney Institute for Democracy and political science professor at penn State University. It's got a podcast called Democracy Works. Thanks for listening
to the Balance of Power podcast. Make sure to subscribe if you haven't already, at Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and you can find us live every weekday from Washington, DC at Noontimeeastern at Bloomberg dot com.