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Welcome to the Monday Edition as we try to bring you the most important stories of the day here and in Washington. It has a lot to do with the government shutdown looming less than a week off. This is Friday now we're talking about. There was a hope that over the weekend a plan would emerge. Sunday night, we were told it did not happen. If you're following along on our home game. The government begins shutting down Friday and would be totally shut the following Friday, March one
and March eight. We're going to talk to Jack Fitzpatrick about this a little bit later on this hour as the dear colleague letters start flying again, as we also pick up the pieces coming out of South Carolina. This is what we're going to focus on for the next little bit here, and a twenty point blowout for Donald Trump, who has now swept all of the early states. This has never happened before. I know you thought it was going to happen because everyone predicted it. But let's just
stop down for a moment. Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina, and yes, the Virgin Islands all for Donald Trump. Unprecedented in a contested primary. We have never seen this before. And so now Nicki Haley is hearing what she has been fearing that the money might be going away. The headline on the terminal billionaire GOP donors pivot to Congress as Haley run feeds, we're talking about the Koch Brothers here.
Americans for Prosperity Action had spent tens of millions trying to create a real challenge to Donald Trump here by way of Nicki Haley. And as we are reporting now, the political network created by the billionaire industrialist announcing that it's suspending its support for Niki Haley and it's going down ballot, House and Senate races. That's where we start our conversation with Mark Niquette, reporting for Bloomberg National Politics
and Government Reporter. He's the man on the trail and it's great to see you, Mark, after another primary weekend will remind everybody that a week from tomorrow is Super Tuesday. Nikki Haley says she's in for the duration, at least through next week. Mark, Is that what you expect.
That's what she's telling us. I mean, presidential candidates only get out of races when the money drives up, and they can't keep the lights on when they're necessarily losing. So she's pledged to stay in the race until Super Tuesday. Give these states, you know, these twenty one states that are voting here in the next ten days a chance to vote, and we'll see. I guess she'll probably have
enough money to stay in through that point. But as you said, if the donors keep leaving her now, deciding that she can't ultimately win or they don't want to keep funding her campaign, she won't just have the money to continue after that.
How important is the coke money going away here? I feel funny asking you that, Mark, but you know.
What I mean.
Yeah, I mean, I think very little bit is important. I mean, this was a source of funding for her campaign that again was sustaining her even though she wasn't winning any elections. So not having that access to that money, I think you know, one, it would be less money that she has available, but it could also signal to other donors that, hey, this is not a good investment anymore. You know, maybe I should pull my money as well.
Nikki Hilly's got events scheduled in the coming days. You'll probably be at some of them, if I know, you market a qutte Michigan, Minnesota, Colorado, and Utah. What is she actually trying to accomplish on Super Tuesday having not won a state yet?
Yeah, I think she's trying to hold out to be the alternative in case Trump for whatever reason is not able to continue or if it's some point down in the process here you know, he's not able to be the nominee. I mean, I think it's pretty clear at this point she's she's not going to win enough delegates
to you know, to be the nominee. But I think the strategy is to win enough delegates to be relevant and be sort of the alternative in case Trump some for some again, for some whatever reason, you know, can't continue as a nominee.
Is there a state or are there are a couple of states she's targeting though for for actual ws on Super Tuesday to say, hey, I can actually do this. You can't come in second place forever. Mark, and I realized that she's got some delegates. She could drive them all the way to the convention if she wants, right.
Yeah, I mean, I think there's there are some states I don't know specifically, you know what she's targeting, but you know, states in the Western US, for example, and states that have you know, more liberal rules in terms of who can participate in the primary where she might do better. You know, for example, she was able to do better and in New Hampshire than South Carolina because
Democrats were able to participate in the Republican primary. So I think the thinking is that she could tract you know, some Democrats or independence to play in the Republican primary and some of these Super Tuesday states that can help elevate her. But again, she's not shown the ability to you know, actually win these states. You know, I don't think she's got higher than forty three percent in any of these primaries.
Yeah, it's it's really something, Mark.
I appreciate your joining us stay in touch as we get into Super Tuesday, we've got more to ask Mark Niquette find him on the terminal and at Bloomberg dot com. He's an important part of our campaign coverage. Now as we add the voice of Jim Ellis, I've been looking forward to this conversation. Ellis Insight, the founder of the election analysis service. Jim, it's good to see you. Welcome
to Bloomberg Radio and on YouTube as well. We've got a lot of folks here watching and listening, wondering what happens next. I want to go down ballot with you, but before we do that, your insights following Super Tuesday or South Carolina or rather and heading for Super Tuesday? Is this actually Nikki Haley's last stand next week?
Well, thanks so much for having me. You think it would be? She loses basically sixty forty in her home state, remember before a Republican electorate that had propelled her to being governor twice. I was amused a little bit that your earlier reporter indicated that Donald Trump was the incumb but I don't think that's the case in South Carolina.
So that some people are claiming that Trump didn't do as well in the suburbs as he should have around Charleston and Columbia, but still sixty forty and the other person's home state. That's a pretty good indication that this race is over. So we'll see. We have Michigan tomorrow, and that's another indication for both Donald Trump and President
Biden as to where we might be headed. And we should have official nominees here very early in March, if not by Super Tuesday, then certainly by March nineteenth, when Ohio and Illinois and Arizona vote.
Yeah, it's interesting, Jim, we're all Joe Biden more closely than the Republican contest in Michigan tomorrow, maybe because there just isn't that much to watch when it comes to Joe Biden. And this is a very special circumstance that could present a problem for him nationally when it comes to Arab American and Muslim American voters. But as far as the Republican primary is concerned, and like I said,
I want to move down ballot with you. But when you listened to Nicki Haley last night, does she have a point? In Iowa and New Hampshire, Trump won with about half the vote. We saw what he won with in South Carolina. If you can't win your whole party, how do you win the general?
Well, that's pretty common. This is a contested race, after all, remember how many candidates began running here. It's not as if you're unopposed for reelection really, as President Biden is or has most presidents have been in the past. So this is an open election. And the fact that he's doing as well as he has, I think is an indication that he's in very strong shape headed into a
jen election with the United Republican Party. I mean, no one really has had as strong as internal numbers over the course of his term in office and post as Donald Trump has. So I think he's in good shape.
Elli's insight right now on Bloomberg as we look to Super Tuesday, not presidential, but let's look at some of these Senate races, Jim. Starting with California. This is a big one, a lot of money spent, a lot of media, and a lot of attention here. Adam Schiff is looking like he's in good place, in a good place going into it. He's certainly spent some money, but it's a
jungle primary. As you can explain to our audience here, this has almost as much to do with second place as it does first, doesn't it.
It certainly does so. A jungle primary means everybody's on the same ballot, and three states use this for their primary elections, California, of course, being won. It began in Louisiana, but they're going to change and go back to a partisan primary, and Washington is the other state that uses it, so everybody's on the same ballot, regardless of political party or percentage attained. The first two finishers here in California
will advance to the November general election. Adam Schiff appears to be set in position one, but there's a real dogfight in petition too, and it's one of the more unique campaigns we've ever seen in American history because you have both Adam Schiff and Katie Porter, congress Woman Porter from Irvine in Orange County. They're the two leading Democrats, and they're actually advertised to help Steve Garvey, or detract
from Steve Garvey coming in second place. Remember Steve Gardy be former famous baseball player running for the Republicans and by claiming he's too conservative, and this obviously is a signal to conservative Republicans to vote for him. So Schiff wants Garvey in second place, and therefore he doesn't have to deal with a double Democratic general election, which would
be highly competitive and highly expensive. He wants a republicanly ye next to him in the general, and Katie Porter is advertising to try to knock Garvey out of second place by claiming he won't support Donald Trump. So you have to go for this Eric early and so to help propel her in the second place. It's really a fascinating situation in California that'll be decided on March fifth.
This is incredible maneuvering here before we move to another state. Jim, is it more likely that we will have a Democrat and a Republican then if they're both spending in that direction?
Polding looks like Garvey is on the move if the polls are correct, but they're all very close, so it could go anyway, and it all depends on turnout. But I think there's a good chance right now that Garvey does get second place, and that would virtually elect Adam shiff in November.
Fascinating, and that's going to be part of what we're talking about on Super Tuesday. It's not just presidential. Shortly thereafter, Jim, we moved to Ohio. That's the nineteenth of March of course shared Brown, who hasn't had to get on the campaign trail in a while. We're looking at a three way Republican race.
What do we need to know?
Well, that's an extremely important race for the Republicans, and this is a critical election cycle for the Republicans in the US Senate. They have to take advantage of a favorable map, and by that I mean of the thirty four center races the Democrats have to protect or defend twenty three, the Republicans only eleven, and they really don't have very many vulnerable seats. The Democrats think they've got a shot at Ted Cruz in Texas. I don't think that will be the case at the end of the day.
It's really not the year to presidential year is not to win the year for a Democrat to win in Texas. So it really comes down to Republicans not only getting to fifty or to fifty one to get a bare majority. They need to pretty much run the table and get to fifty two, fifty three to fifty four to protect themselves against more unfavorable maps coming in twenty twenty six.
Eight is we all know senators have six year terms and every two years a third of the senator is up, so this year it really helps the Republicans and they have to take advantage of this map. Ohio becomes one of the key states for them. The West Virginia race without Senator Mansion in that race looks like it's in the bag. So we're really an effectively fifty to fifty right now from an electoral standpoint, Ohio Montana being the next two that have to go for the Republicans for
them to take advantage of this. In that Republican primary in Ohio, you have a three way race the Secretary of State Frank Leroose, state Senator Matt Dolan, whose family owns part of the Cleveland Guardians baseball team, and the third candidate, who both former President Trump and Senator jd Vance has endorsed, the businessman Oh my names, I'm scaping on his first name, Marino. That will have a three way race to win their nynation Bernie, thank you so much,
and he is all three of them. Polls are very close in that race. It's a three way race and it's a I think frankly though, whichever one of the three wins, the Republicans are actually going to be in pretty good shape. I think each of those candidates would be strong enough to go up against shared Brown. And really, from Senator Brown standpoint, he's won tough elections in Ohio before, but the state has really moved to the right since
his last election in twenty eighteen. And we have to remember these Senate terms are so long that the last time people like Senator Brown and Senator John Tester and Montana were on the ballot was twenty eighteen, and that was a good Democratic year, a wave most people thought for the Democrats, and so they were able to win in those years. And then the previous time they had twenty twelve, what was happening In twenty twelve, They had
Barack Obama on the ballot running for reelection. They don't have that this time, and this year is going to be a much more difficult time for both Senator Brown and Senator Tester in those two critical states.
Fascinating.
This is why we wanted to talk to Jim Ellis in a real seminar as we look down ballot here specifically to the Senate, you have the wild card of Maryland and Larry Hogan, and we've got a real conversation Jim, I hope that you'll come talk to us on the regular here throughout the balance of this cycle. I'm really happy to have you on today and bring your expertise to our viewers and listeners. He's the founder of Ellis Insight Election analysis service. Jim Ellis, Thank you, sir for
being part of the conversation today. Keep this all in mind as we go into Super Tuesday. It's not just Donald Trump and Nicki Haley we're talking about here with massive implications when it comes to yes, the Balance of Power on Capitol Hill.
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The deer Colleague letters are starting to fly, which is never a good sign.
I'm Joe Matthew in Washington.
Thanks for being with us on Balance of Power as we keep our eyes on midnight Friday. This is when the government's set to start shutting down here. And while we've been talking about it for weeks on this program while many folks had their attention.
On other matters. It's still here and there's no deal.
Lawmakers will get back Wednesday, at least the House, so they'll have three days to put this together.
And that would be a land speed record.
Chuck Schumer out with the deer colleague last night, accusing Republicans of playing politics with people's lives, and boy, it seems like we've seen this movie before. Jack Fitzpatrick seen it a lot of times. He's with us from Bloomberg Government and keeping an eye on things here on the Hill. Jack, I'm sure you're in for a couple of weeks. It's
Friday followed by Friday, right, two different deadlines. There was talk of a deal emerging last night, that we might wake up Monday morning to having some kind of a deal on spending.
It did not happen. Was that real was that media talk?
It never seemed particularly realistic. It was floated out there. It was reported in a couple places. We had heard that some people involved in the negotiations hope to have something by Sunday night. But even late last week when it started coming out, two staffers from the Speaker's office said, no, that's not a plan. That's not something that's going to happen. So there's a bit of a back and forth on
expectations setting. You then saw the dear colleague letter from Chuck Schumer come out late yesterday saying we hope to have a deal Sunday, but House Republicans are dragging this out. The Speaker then said, it's Democrats who are introducing new issues that weren't even in their own bills initially. There's some mudslinging going on. I think when you hear of expectations of oh, here's when it's going to come together, here's what we know is going to happen, you have
to take it with a grain of salt. They are very likely going to take this up to the last minute if they do succeed in avoiding a shutdown. Yes, and there are maybe some games being played behind the scenes on expectation setting.
So let's talk options here, and we can remind everyone that this is not the full government. This is four departments or four spending bills that would be expiring on Friday, and these are the easy ones, right. If you can't figure that out, the week later is going to be really something. The Speaker of the House has vowed to not do another continuing resolution a short term deal, although apparently there is talk.
Of doing that. When will we know he's out of options that we either do a CR or close it down.
That's another last minute issue, because we've heard from the Speaker, we've heard from others in House Republican leadership. It came out from Tom Emmer a little while back. They're not doing another continuing resolution. But if they don't have a deal that they can enact and they're not doing a CR, then it's a question of how long do you shut the government down? And that's what really builds pressure, and
people crack under pressure sometimes. So look, it is very notable that House Republicans have said absolutely not, we do not want another CR. So that's the escape hatch if nothing else works. Anyway, so it's going to be a last minute question of do they need to buy a little more time. And it's worth keeping in mind that House Republicans in particular do not want to vote for a stopgap measure, and that is a factor that could lead us in full partial shutdown.
They do hate that a lot of this we're told is coming down to policy writers. Is that still the case? Could that change when they come back Wednesday.
That seems to be the case, And it's been pretty consistent that once they got the basic parameters of how much they're going to spend on defense, on non defense, on each bill, it was a matter of policy writers. There were a ton of policy writers and the House Republican measures. As I said, the Speaker then accused Democrats of adding things that they hadn't included in their own bills.
But generally, what I've heard is a lot of things were not able to be negotiated by the people who are supposed to write the bills, the subcommittee chairs, and that was sent up to the full committee chairs and to leadership to hash out a great number of remaining policy rider issues that cover a lot of ground.
So this is the granular stuff.
Big picture is a meeting tomorrow, apparently at the White House. Joe Biden's invited Mike Johnson to come back with the other leaders. McConnell, Schumer, Jeffries will be there. What's the point if we've come.
This far without a breakthrough, We're at a point now where pressure is a major part of the negotiations. In the news cycle. That may be more of a factor on Ukraine funding than funding the government. But like I mentioned, when you have a number of things that cannot be negotiated by the people who usually write these bills and it's kicked up to the top, there's you could call
it a staring contest, a game of chicken. The pressure is building on the toughest issues, and this meeting may not be glad handing, but they'll get a sense of where they agree, where they disagree, who has an advantage, and who has a discisis.
And they come out to the sticks. As they say in the business, there'll be a stake out in the driveway. Those microphones will be set up. Does Mike Johnson walk out in bad mouth Joe Biden or say that we actually see eye to eye on some things.
It would be harder for him to say he sees eye to eye.
It would harder politically.
He's got to sell a lot to conservatives who do not want to deal with Joe Biden. He's in a tough spot. He's got a lot of members of his conference who do not want to vote for a stop gap. They don't want to vote for anything that could get past the Senate and get Biden's signature. So you know, a Kumbaya moment is not in the cards politically for the speaker.
Well, that's going to be a riot. We'll be talking about it tomorrow. That is confirmed, right, Did they all accept the invite?
They're going.
They're all invited. It would be unusual if anybody's skipped.
But Johnson's going is the point. Everyone else is just there to bear with.
That's the two keys.
Yes.
Now, I don't know if they're going to talk about anything else, like say Ukraine. Maybe this is a very specific topic meeting here, but this is the other matter.
As President Zelenski, who has been on quite a tour speaking of pressure lately, tells us that thirty one thousand Ukrainians have died in this war, the Ukrainian members of the military, and we're seeing this kind of last minute full court press from NATO members including Poland was on the air with US their foreign minister making the point here last week it was in Washington, DC. There's no sign of anything changing here, is.
There not yet? But that's where the pressure comes in because there's been there have been little bits of movement. It's been pretty quiet in the last week or so, but when you saw the Centrist House members led by Brian Fitzpatrick, say well, we have a paired down proposal. Look, it doesn't look like they're about to attach something on Ukraine to one of these government funding bills. It's not
moving that quickly, but the pressure is building. You see swing district members feel like they have to put something out there. It's a pressure campaign. I wouldn't say it's an absolute stasis. There has not been a lot of movement, not a lot of negotiating, but as the pressure builds, that's when you look for cracks and changes in people's.
I'm glad you mentioned that this brings us to the idea of a discharge petition.
That would be very rare, and we're told stop talking about it because that never happens, but it seems like it might this time. To see Fitzpatrick no relation to you on Sunday Morning television sitting there or the Republican talking about this happening. By the way, the flannel, I guess it's main It makes you wonder if we're getting closer to something here.
Does Mike Johnson.
Secretly hope that they do this and he doesn't have his fingerprints on it.
That is one way in which a discharge petition is sometimes useful. That's probably the most obvious way for a discharged petition to work is if leadership isn't necessarily entirely opposed to putting a bill forward, but they have to go to the opponents and say, look, I had no choice. Yes, there are other ways. I think maybe even more important is if there are promises by Democrats to back him up, if there's a motion to vacate the chair and not
allow his speakership to be kicked out. Yeah, because of this, that would relieve a lot of pressure on him and move him toward potentially favoring Ukraine. So those are two big questions there. With regard to the pressure on Mike Johnson's specific.
Then the Senate would have to, I guess, handle or deal with whatever they sent back over there. And I bring that up because I'm just compelled by the headline that John Thune has decided to endorse Donald Trump. This is about as close to Mitch McConnell as you can get here in the chain of command, and I wonder how important that is when we've seen the hand of Donald Trump impact what's happening in the House to this extent.
Yeah, it is a sign of the strength of Donald Trump in Republican politics that if you were harshly critical of him following January sixth, now you see those same people coming back to endorse Donald Trump. He's had a huge effect on these Ukraine negotiations. He hasn't necessarily scuttled the possibility of the AH to Ukraine, but he looms large over these talks and over anything else on Capitol Hill. The question of Republicans looking to Trump saying what exactly
does he want to do? Is he going to come after me for this vote? That is one of the key questions in the cash Sure.
Now Donald Trump's going to the border this week. Apparently Joe Biden is too. He's not gonna let anything get through on the border. Well, Joe Biden's running for reelection.
Is he?
I mean, that's again where you look to the Centrists, you look to something pared down. He is largely responsible for the death of that bipartisan negotiated measure led by James Langford, who kind of got thrown under the bus. Could there be something smaller focused on a remain in Mexico policy, like Fitzpatrick brought up, that's not necessarily out
of the question. But yes, the former president managed to basically kill a major piece of legislation and it's going to be tough to see anything broad on immigration in the border because of it.
For sure.
And the Senate leadership is starting to apparently come around on this.
Now.
That's one of the three.
I don't think Mitch McConnell is ever going to endorse Donald Trump.
Maybe I'm wrong, we'll see. That's Trump is effectively the head of the Republican Party right now. It's it's a lot of support for Trump among people who might have surprised you.
Well, I'll tell you. We talk about politics a lot.
We talk about the appropriations process with you because that's your specialty. But you're a generalist as well. You're a political junkie. You're watching all this stuff. Imagine a world, and I keep hearing in this newsroom there are two things that political journalists pine for every four years or maybe more often. One of them is a contested convention. The other is a discharge petition. Of course that could come anytime. Are we going to be in a world pretend we're not on the air right now.
Where we get both this year?
Ah oh man, would that be something to number of things that have happened or could happen this year that are so so unusual. I'll admit I'm a little more focused on the possibility of a shut down there during the State of the Union right now.
Look, I've asked a lot of folks this. We have less than a minute. Would that delay the speech? Does Joe Biden go back to it from the White House?
It would be a massive embarrassment to cancel the State of the Union because you shut the government down. I have to think they would stick to it, and Biden would relish the opportunity. My god, give it a point address. Some blame Republican.
They can pay to keep the lights on in the chamber for that, right Yeah, Congress cameras will work. Can you imagine the booing and the heckling on that night as well? Are you going to be there for it?
I don't think I'll be in the room, but I'll be around, all.
Right, Meet me in stat Hall, I'll be there.
Let's getch you on. We have special coverage that night State of the Union as well as Super Tuesday. Both of them are next week. We'll find out if it shut down coincides, with a lot more to follow. Today on the fastest show in Politics.
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As we talk about how Trump decisively won South Carolina, as he's decisively won every primary contest thus far, it's worth keeping in mind, and Nicky Haley pointed to this, Joe, roughly forty percent of Republican primary voters or Republican or primary voters, as there's independence in this mix as well that we should consider, are not picking him, and he's essentially an incumbent Republican.
That's true.
If you look at this from the incumbent standpoint, it might not be as impressive I guess, to see.
Him win all of the early states.
Joe Biden's winning his as well, but you don't look at it because he's the.
President, and so it raises a question of how those primary voters may translate into general election voters and On that note, we want to bring in Andrew Smith now of the unh Survey Center. He is the director there. Andrew, always great to see you and get your expertise. Far beyond New Hampshire, of course, state that Trump also won. Where do those forty percent of voters who did not vote for Trump in a primary? Where are they likely to go in a general election?
Will the great majority of them are likely to go and vote for Trump in a general election, presuming that he's a candidate. People have a great ability to rationalize why their party skunk is better than the other party skunk. So I imagine a lot of those voters will go to vote for Trump because they're you know, they don't they aren't engaged in politics that much, and they're going to vote for their team, and that is the Republican Party.
The biggest problem that Trump has is not that they're going to go over and vote for Biden, but that they just won't show up and turnout. I think is really going to be the key issue in determining who wins the election this fall. It's essentially a replay of almost the last two presidential elections, and turnout of a few percentage points in key states makes a difference between
who wins and who loses. And if say five percent of those Republican voters who voted for Haley don't show up in November, Donald Trump will lose.
So where's your head on this race? Andrew?
We left New Hampshire talking with you about a general election that was already beginning. It's really looking like when now you've got Trump and Joe Biden both at the border on the same day. They're now referring to each other directly. How long can this last for Nikki Hayley, as you know, the potential alternative. She's in there just in case something goes wrong with the Trump campaign, it seems. But when does that start to look ridiculous?
I think you're right, she's in there in case something happens, But that means that you're campaigning where you're relying on something that's completely out of your control, and that's not a good place to be in My sense is this her campaign is really all over. But the crime to use a phrase, she can stay on until Super Tuesday and see when the money runs out. I think that's
going to be the key issue. But to the point of your last guest that I think she is somebody who with the Republican Party, with kind of the mainstream of the old Republican parties, looking forward to as a potential candidate in twenty twenty eight, presuming that Trump is already the nominee this time around, so she can go on for a little bit more. But I just don't think she really has any avenue to winning the nomination unless something really dramatic happens to Trump. And I don't
even think that's a conviction in a court case. I think it's going to have to be something a health related thing, or something that really prevents him from being.
Able to run.
So when you see pulling like some that we've conducted here at Bloomberg Worth Morning consult that suggests that voters, specifically swing state voters would be less likely to vote for Trump if he were to be convicted of a felony, you don't necessarily think that matches reality.
Well, it may match reality right now, but again, the election is a long time away and people are not in an election framework. By the time the election comes around, you're going to have so much mud thrown by both of these candidates that I have a feeling that both parties are just going to hold their nose and vote for the R or the D, not necessarily for the
candidate who's running. But it's really way too early. We've not seen an election like this where the nominees have been identified this early on, where there's really not much going to be going on between now and then except a battle between the top two people. That's just going to get uglier and uglier. And my maybe that's what I fear it's going to get, but it's not going to be something that's illuminating a sparkling example of American democracy.
For spending time with Andrew Smith, political scientist and head of the UNH Survey Center, when we were in New Hampshire with you, Andrew, the idea was that this state was unique because of the independent vote, that if Nicky Haley were to outperform anywhere, it would be here. Her campaign pointed to South Carolina in the same way, what did we learn from the demographic breakdown and the party breakdown in the Palmetto state here to try to gauge success and failure moving forward?
Well, you know, Hayley has done okay with the protest, but essentially you know, Trump is going to get the majority of the republic mainstream Republicans, registered Republicans, and Haley's had to rely on people who are not the mainstream part of the party, and obviously getting forty percent of that, frankly is pretty good. And she got over forty percent here in New Hampshire, which is pretty good, but it's
certainly not enough to win. But I think the problem that we have to look at this is that Trump hasn't been able to win convincingly really anywhere he's won. But he is, as you say, he's the incumbent. He should be able to win this by eighty to ninety percent, like Biden is able to do against the say Dean Phillips.
What that tells me is that you've got us just a deeply divided Republican party that wishes it had somebody else, but it doesn't see that there is any alternative to Trump at this point.
Andrew, you just mentioned that Biden has been able to secure eighty to ninety percent of the vote. Do you think he'll be able to do that in the Michigan primary tomorrow? Knowing that Arab American specifically there are suggesting they will be backing uncommitted instead of the president because of the issue of Gaza and his role in supporting Israel in that war effort against.
A moss Yeah, I think Biden will be fine in the primary election. The Arab vote is very important, but it's important in just a few places in the state, and in a very close statewide election, whether or not they show up and vote, it's going to be a difference.
But in a.
Democratic primary, I think Biden has all the controls of the party establishment itself, so I think he'll win the HANDI leive there in Michigan.
What does it tell you when you start to see the money turn here, Andrew, this is a big headline for Nikki Haley. Koch Brothers money is going down ballot, which was really helping to breathe life into her ground operations.
Specifically, she's not going to have that moving forward.
Now.
You're used to people asking you every four years when people are going to drop out. Give us the anatomy of the end of this campaign.
Well, you stop running when the money runs out. That's the ultimate truth of it. And I think the money is slowing down dramatically, and in fact, Haley needs so much money to counter Trump. In fact, I don't even think there's an amount of money that she could spend that would really effectively counter Donald Trump, because he's so well known to the electorate and to the Republican primary electorate to convince them otherwise. I think there's almost no
amount of money that could make that case. But she's not going to have the money just to keep the people going in her staff for too much longer. So I think that she's likely to go through Super Tuesday. She's been pretty honest by saying that. She says she was going to be in South Carolina. She's there. She said she's going to be there at Super Tuesday. She's likely going to be there. But I just can't see
her really practically going on mind longer than that. About half of the delegates are going to be awarded on Super Tuesday, and it's going to be hard for her to win just anything but a fraction of those.
Andrew, we just have about a minute left with you. But it strikes me that we always knew Nikki Hayley was going to be a long shot candidate. We knew that she was gaining momentum, Yet we knew that Trump was still far and away ahead in pretty much every poll across the board, all of which at this point seemed to have proven pretty accurate. Is this the most accurate election cycle you've seen in terms of polling in some time?
Yeahlling primary is it's really kind of a little bit of a crap shoot. You don't know what you're going to get because you don't know who's going to show up. But this has been a fairly straightforward primary going forward, even including the Iowa caucuses, which are really quirky. Yeah, but I think the poll has been pretty accurate, largely because you essentially have an incumbent and people are either
going to vote for the incumbent or not. And now that Hayley's the only one left, it's really just the two person race. The biggest problem in primary poling always is who's going to show up, and I think that's one of the reasons that you see Trump's numbers overestimated a little bit.
Remember this conversation a week from tomorrow again, that'll be super Tuesday. Andrew Smith, great to see you post New Hampshire. He's the director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center and a reliable voice Kayley on All Things Politics.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast kens Just Live weekdays at noon Eastern on Applecarplay and then royd Oro with a Bloomberg Business app.
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You know, it's interesting we talk about different topics and ideas throughout the course of an hour. In this particular hour, they all intersect. We're at the point now where you cannot remove the tentacles from the campaign trail to the White House to Capitol Hill, where of course Donald Trump is impacting the outcome of a number.
Of debates right now.
Yeah, as he has the ear of the House Speaker Mike Johnson, and it's not really clear exactly what Mike Johnson might be thinking about the looming deadline to avoid a partial government shutdown.
Correct, come the end of Trump's.
Wait in on that. We don't have a truth social on shutdown yet.
No, a lot on the border by some other things. But yes, definitely stand by because of course the House still isn't back. They come back to town on Wednesday, and then they'll have to race over the course of just three legislative duties to try to avert this. Reminding everybody, this is a partial government shutdown, potentially just for appropriations bills. Are the ones that are supposed to pass to avert this, They're supposed to be the easy ones, to the controvers are the hard ones.
That's true.
Yes, so the countdown clocks will be running here, and we're going to do this twice. Although if we shut it down, if we start shutting down Friday, I would submit, we're going to be in much more trouble the following week because to your point, you know, doing the the HUD bill or the FDA bill is a lot less controversial than say the Pentagon or.
Right when you're talking defense, the big bulk of government spending on the eighth, that's where it gets really tricky. But of course this is all tricky already. So on that note, trying to work through the trickiness is Mark Goldwine, who is joining us now from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget where he is senior policy director. So, Mark, how do you see this going down? What odds are you personally putting on a partial shutdown by the end of this week.
I really try not to put odds on this stuff, but it's relatively high. Remember the shutdown, what happened midnight Friday, so it really wouldn't matter until sometime on Monday. But I think it's likely we have that little shutdown and that we try to pass these individual appropriations bills and then probably have kicked the can for that second set of bills so that they don't have a larger shutdown or a particularly long one.
You're, of course, again at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget that's the name on the door mark. Is is it possible we don't get a responsible federal budget for this entire fiscal year because they're talking about cr for the duration at this point.
Well, it seems like we haven't had a responsible federal budget in some time. But yeah, it's possible we don't get any appropriations. I do think if they go the route of permanent continued resolutions sort of kick the can, they're going to have to make so many adjustments to it that will almost look like a hybrid between a continued resolution and an appropriations. But it is possible they can't get all their act together on the rail true appropriations.
Well, and of course if they don't come the end of April, that's when the one percent sequester kicks in. One percent cuts to everything across the board, defense included. And when you're talking about defense that has a significantly larger budget, that one percent is worth a lot more than for other appropriations. Just can you just remind us walk us through what would really happen to the government financing if that one percent sequester kicks in? What would be detrimentally affected?
Well, here's the reality. A one percent sequester by itself is actually not that big a deal, and most of the agencies could bear it because they've been on the CR. The problem is sort of this twofold. The first is it's actually more than one percent right now on the non defense side because of some weird stuff relate to veterans and receipts, so it's actually more like a five percent. But the other is, if we do a permanent CR,
we don't actually get those one percent sequester. What we get is no sequester for defense and something closer to a ten percent sequester in the non defense And trying to cut ten percent of your budget in just half the year is just not doable. The only way is really significant rolling furloughs for many of the agencies.
Wow.
Well, I mean you'd think that that would be quite a deterrent mark. But it seems to me Defense spending will be the matter that makes a difference. Right when the Hawks get a hold of this, this is going to be an ugly debate on Capitol Hill.
And with defense spending, it's less the level and it's more this stagnation that if you do the CRS, you can't actually make new choices about what contracts to enter into and things like that. So with the Defense Department, it's really the flexibility that matters, maybe more than the actual level of spending.
Well, and of course, as Joe and I were discussing, the first week of March is going to be pretty wild because of course you have this March first deadline, you have the March eighth deadline in terms of government funding, and smashed in between, the President is supposed to be giving his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on March seventh, so the eve of the deadline for the bigger chunk of appropriations bills that need to pass, and then just a few days after that,
he's supposed to be giving his budget for the next fiscal year, when we still haven't sorted out, as Joe was alluding to the budget for this current fiscal year, when the president outlines his policies, what should those policies look like to be more fiscally responsible.
Yeah, and I also heard there's some election stuff happening in that same time.
Yes, indeed, yeah, I mean.
Look, we are deeply in debt.
Interest this year is projected to be larger than the defense budget and larger than medicares. Expect to be the second largest government program, which is nuts if you think about it. So I hope the President comes forward with significant depths of reduction. Doesn't mean balancing the budget, doesn't mean paying off the debt, but at least getting US five to eight trillion dollars, so the debt isn't growing
much faster than the economy. And that's going to have to come from tax revenue, which actually this president has been pretty good about talking about, and it's going to have to come from spending cuts, which this president hasn't really talked about at all, especially in the healthcare system where there's so much waste that I think we could cut trillions of dollars and not even really miss it.
We haven't talked about raising revenues yet, Mark, is that a joke?
Well, I mean actually just said the President's actually been pretty good on this issue. I do think he only wants to raise taxes on the two percent of Americans making over four hundred thousand dollars. I think it's a little silly that if we have a bad tax break, we'd want to leave it into effect for somebody making three hundred and ninety nine thousand. But as president actually in his last budget put forward about three trillion dollars of net tax increases, maybe even a little bit more.
And I hope he'll put forward more this time because they got to be on the table so that we can discuss them, figure out which ones are good, which ones are bad, and ultimately we're not going to be able to solve the debt without raising substantially more revenue than what we're projected.
To Mark, just in our final minute with you, we're obviously here on Bloomberg Television and Radio, where both Joe and I have taken note that markets at this point don't seem that concerned about fiscal risk that may out be out there. A partial shutdown is not really reflected at all, it seems. What would you tell the markets about how worried they should be about fiscal conduct on Capitol Hill.
Well, a shutdown itself, it's disruptive, but it's just not like it's not a macroeconomic activity that's going to fundamentally change the economy. And so even if I were worried about shutdown, I wouldn't be worried about its effects. What I worry about is what it means for the ability of Congress and the President to solve other larger problems. Right our debt is as large as the economy, and if we can't even keep the lights on, how are we gonna how are we gonna solve these major issues?
And if we can't solve the major issues, then we are in big trouble. And I think you're starting to see that a little bit in the interest rates.
Pay Mark.
It's great to see you, Mark Goldwine at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Thanks for the insights here and the fair warning as it does look like we couldn't in fact be headed for a shutdown starting Friday. Kaylee then we'll see where we are by the next Friday made complete. 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 Noontimeeaster at Bloomberg dot com.