Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch us live weekdays at noon Eastern on Applecarplay and then rounoo with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts. Watch us live on YouTube.
Thank you for being with us here on the Thursday edition of Balance of Power. You made it to Little Friday. Thank you for being here on Bloomberg Radio, on the satellite and on YouTube. Where you can watch us live right now search Bloomberg Business News Live. We've got the studio lit here in Washington and would love to have you along as the candidates head for the Swing States. Hey, happy Halloween. By the way, do you have your reflector vest handy? I had mine ready when I came in
earlier today. Of course, that's not why Donald Trump was wearing one last night. Did you see him in the garbage truck. We'll talk about this more as the whole garbage flap continues. Are we gonna get four days out of this thing? You know, it's silly season when stories like these are driving the day, and it has a lot to do with the fact that the polls are tied. Another reason why the candidates are in the swing states
today out West, at least mostly swing states. Kamala Harris leaving Wisconsin today to go to Phoenix to be in Reno, right, Arizona, Nevada, Swing States, Las Vegas later tonight, Vegas Baby. Donald Trump is strangely in Albuquerque. This is one that has been a bit confounding to people because well, New Mexico is
not a swing state. You could argue that he's appealing to the Latino voting block that has been at an issue in this whole conversation about the word garbage, but New Mexico does not appear to be up for grabs. He will, however, be in Henderson, Nevada after that, Tim Walls, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Erie and Detroit. It's a pretty tight map. That's why we're back in these states every day. And as we look at this nationally, we can get down
to the swing states. We do that every day here one point two point race depending on where you look, same story nationally. In fact, it has dwindled to a one point race based on research from IPSOS and as I mentioned, Cliff Young, the President US Public Affairs at Ipsos is with us right now in the studio.
Cliff, great to see you. Five days to go. Your phone must be ringing.
Stretch run. Actually, my fitbit is buzzing right now.
Okay.
Could I hope it has good news for you because stress is running high right, Anxiety is running high, because uncertainty is running high, and it's only getting worse.
It just couldn't be tighter, could it.
Yeah. What we're telling everyone is that basically it's a fifty to fifty race. We think it's trending a bit Trump, but our level of conviction is very low. That's just a fancy way of saying we don't know.
Yeah, okay, Well, the conviction aside. You are seeing a tightening and Donald Trump essentially closing the gap that we saw with some of the exuberant following the change.
At the top of the ticket. Not a surprise, I suspect no.
We've been seeing this narrowing at the national level over the last couple of weeks. We've seen the same in the swing states, where he's taken the lead in some of them, where Harris was leading in all of them at one point. We think it comes down to the critical issues inflation, inflation, inflation. He's more credible than Harris on that specific issue. That doesn't mean she's nestly going to lose, but I think that narrowing is because of that a very efficient and efficacious campaign.
Interesting, you wonder if we had different running mates, if we had different opportunities, or if Kamal Airas had a longer run here, if these numbers might look any different.
But these are the numbers. This is the race. You find most Americans as.
Well say they are prepared to accept the outcome. That's a really important number here because we've also known that a majority of Americans are pretty worried about violence breaking out around this.
Yeah.
I mean both those ideas are resting in people's minds. On the one hand, they say that as Americans say they would accept the results of the raise, but if you push them on it, they're very, very worried about the about the situation post election.
Yes, right, tell us what you learn though, all Americans eighty three percent, it's pretty big number.
It's a big number. I mean, you know, Americans are they believe that there are rules you have to fillow. The rules is that there's rules of conduct, and that the loser should accept the results. But when you peel that onion a way, as I was saying before, there's a lot of trepidation, there's a lot of worried, there's a big there's a lot of belief that the system is not fair, it's rigged, and it's fraudulent.
I'd like to ask you about methodology because I'm hearing more over the last couple of days that hey, maybe the sample is broken. We can only do so much based on the electorate that we think we have in the algorithms that we use. How do you treat your polls when you're trying to curve to make up for holes one way or the other in your sample.
This is something that every pole does.
It's why we have a margin of error at least partly, right, But how do how does it work?
Yeah, well, there's a lot to impact there. So I think there's two principle points that I make. The first is, it's not just about having a robust sample of the population. It's a robust sample of the population.
That will vote.
And so what we're trying to do is predict who will either show up on election day or who will vote early and that's a tricky issue. That's a challenge that we've always had historically, right. The more recent challenge has been we've missed Trump voters. We underestimated Trump the Trump vote in twenty sixteen by three points, in twenty
twenty by three points. And the market, including its US, has worked very hard to fill those holes to try to get at those mega Trump voters that otherwise wouldn't participate in other things, including polls. We've done that both on the design side, trying to find where they are. And there's this what we call post survey adjustments. We weight the data trying to correct for.
It after the red wave did not material realize did that curve change again? When you look back to the mid terms as we got ready for twenty twenty four.
We should never use mid terms as any sort of leading indicator for anything, and maybe you don't. Yeah, we don't. I don't. As an analysts and an expert. Midterms are a different beast. So we really have to compare it to twenty twenty twenty sixteen and question whether our method is a robust method for capturing a population that votes in a general election.
This is really helpful for people because the poles are a black box for people in a lot of ways, right, they don't understand necessarily what goes into it because we don't always talk about it.
So this is a great opportunity.
I've had many people say to me recently as well, or ask me, do you know anyone who's ever been reached by a polster? And the answers usually know, does it matter?
That's a great question, and that's a very logical one. We are a country of three hundred and thirty five million people enough the probability to fall in any given poll is very, very low. In addition, you know, in addition, many of the polls, we actually recruit people into a panel like an episodes, and so we go to your door, we knock on the door, we recruit you in. We go to your door, Joe, we said, will you participate in theps this pole? And you say yes, and then
we interview you multiple times after that. So you know, the probability of falling in any given pole is very low. A lot of us are using panels where we're not always going out there into the field. We're reinterviewing individuals that we recruited in interest, but ultimately The issue is our focus always is to have a robust sample that's representative of the population, and we use benchmarks like the Census, the demographics on the census to ensure that we're aligned and that our sample is.
Robust, the cell phone and the internet. Not to sound like a really old guy, but I am change the game in polling. Is that still evolving because I hear, Look, there are people who still have landlines.
They're getting phone calls from posters.
It's in flux. Never before has the industry used so many methodologies. Pew Research Center did a study last year that showed that we're doing it by phone, a cell phone, landline, online, a recruited online, which is what IPSES does. Sometimes we're even knocking on the doors.
And when you say we, IPSOS is doing all of.
Those in one way or another.
We're doing all those.
Maybe not just for our electoral polling, but I'm talking about the industry more generally. Sure a snail mail as well. In twenty twenty two, we use snail mail sending letters out to interview people in the States, and so we're using a whole host of methodologies at this moment of time.
Want to get back to something that you mentioned here in terms of overcorrecting. Maybe for Donald Trump the three point miss mate silver tweets both Trump and Harris are a polling error away from a blowout. And he threw a couple of numbers in here. He said, if Harris wins the national popular vote by four points a two point error, she's favored for a blowout. Trump, on the other hand, favored for a blowout if he wins by just a point.
Why is that That's because those margins really really matter in those key swing states. I mean, maybe we're talking about two hundred thousand votes in those seven states and ultimately airing one point one way or one point the other way represents that amount of votes. And so I absolutely agree with him. Yeah, we think we've corrected things, but we don't know. That's why I'm fifty to fifty leading Trump. Yeh, with low levels of conviction.
Is it true though, that Democrats outperform in the popular vote? So you do need to see a couple of extra points for Kamala Harris than Trump to get the.
Electoral Yeah, the rule of thumb is about three or four. Okay, you know there are a lot of people that vote Democratic in California, New York. Yeah, so ultimately to take the national to take the election, excuse me, you have to be about three or four at the national level. That's historical rules of thumb. There's a lot of argument and back and forth in debate whether that relationship still
exists today. But I would say any analyst, anyone when looking at the election, should be looking for a three or four for Harris. She needs that to win.
Yes, spending time with Cliff Young and ipsos is the early vote keeping you up at night because we see in some states it's only I think three where you get d's and rs and like, boy, we can actually make some assumptions here on who's pulling ballots.
But then I here, wait a minute, you could.
Have Republican ballots going for Kamala Harris is so much noisier you can't tell.
Yeah. I wouldn't use it as a leading indicative of anything. Every electoral cycle it suggested something different. I'd be very careful when it comes to that. Really, let's look at the pre election polling and and you know, you know, step sit back, take a look on election day and be very careful looking the data coming in.
So This is the question everybody wants to ask you. Right when are they going to call this thing? Are you bracing for days or weeks?
If it's as close as we think it is, it'll be longer than days.
I have longer than days because you need to Pennsylvania count all these early ballots. Arizona takes forever, but it might be recounts as well, recounts if it's too close and the you know, ultimately, my real worry.
Is about confidence in the system. The closer it is and the longer it takes, the more likely it is for people to not trust the.
Results about that.
This is gonna be another test for the polling industry. I guess it is every four years, isn't it.
It is? Once again it's fifty to fifty linning Trump with low levels of conviction.
There we go, there's the man.
So you know, everyone's got a gut check. We got Cliff Young's gut check. And I'm gonna do this every day between now and whatever they call this thing. President US Public Affairs IPSOS doing the good work for us here and I really appreciate it. As always, You've been wonderful through this whole cycle. Let's compare notes next week and see where we're at. Absolutely, Cliff Young for sure, I'm Joe, Matthew and Washington, and this is Balance of Power.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast Ken just live weekdays at noon Eastern on Applecarplay and then Roud Oro with the Bloomberg Business Ad. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station, Just Say Alexa playing Bloomberg.
It's pretty much true across the board when you look at national polls, but also when you look at the poles in the battleground states, almost all of them at this time show a statistical.
Tie in our poll.
None tighter, ye as, I remember than Wisconsin, that's right, which was a three tenths of one point race. So we'll call that a literal tie. I think for these purposes, that's why they were both there yesterday.
Yeah, and that's why we add a valuable voice on Wisconsin to our program. Now we're joined by Democratic Congresswoman Gwen Moore, who represents the Badger State here on Bloomberg TV and radio. Thank you so much, Congresswoman for being with us. It's nice to hear from you again, Could you just give us your real read on how tight Wisconsin is at this time?
Oh my god, it is so tight. But I am so encouraged by it is really really tight. But I'm really encouraged by what I am seeing visually on the ground regularly, seeing that our two hundred and fifty person a staff here is really getting people out, young people. I'm delighted to see millennials and first time voters out to vote, and that is very encouraging.
Take us to school on geography, Congresswoman. When we bear down in our coverage on Tuesday night, we're going to be focused on your state like a laser. Where should we be looking as the time zones bring Wisconsin poll closings into the picture.
Well, that's a good question. A lot of people always want to zero in on Milwaukee, where the largest aggregation of African Americans live, and Madison, of course, which is the capital of progressive politics in our state and in our country. But I want to point out to people that a Milwaukee and Madison combined, that's only one third of the voters in the entire state. And so that is why I think that the Harris Waltz campaign has
gone everywhere. I would really when I look at Waukeshaw County, a place that has been ruby, ruby, ruby, red, we have found that every cycle Democrats have made greater and greater inroads into that community. And as a matter of fact, the mayor of the city of Waukeshaw endorsed Kamala Harris and so you better look everywhere. I of course represent
Milwaukee and much of Milwaukee County. So I am laser focused on getting our vote out and we've had As of yesterday, we had over seventy one thousand people voted in the city in Milwaukee, and that's about one third of what we expect. But we are every single day we're racking the numbers up well.
And that's just a reminder of how many minds congressomen have already been made up. There may be very few left to change here. I do wonder, though, if you think some minds may have been changed by the comments Donald Trump made in Wisconsin at his rally in Green Bay last night, the suggestion that he will protect women audio Congressman, can you hear me? I have loved congresswoman all right, Well, get back work on that with Congressman
Gwen Moore of Wisconsin. What I was going to say, Joe is call attention to the remarks made in Green Bay last night. Brett Farv was there with Donald Trump when he talked about protecting women. This is something we have been hearing more and more from Donald Trump as he does seem to be trying to reach that group of voters that he is not pulling as well with as Harris is. He's pulling better with men. Of course, he said I will protect women, whether they like it
or not. In Congressoman if you can hear me. Now, this language from Trump, whether they like it or not, is that going to change the minds of the decided voters in Wisconsin.
Yeah, he's trying very you know what, it's really pathetic. Whether we like it or not, we are going to vote him out. I think that we are going to see a gender gap that is widening because of his reckless comments and because he's just incredibly unbelievable.
It seems to me.
That you know, his position on you know, the father of IVF. He is incredible. He is unbelievable, and we are going to continue to amplify those kind of comments to voters because we are going for every single vote. Donald Trump, of course is coming to Milwaukee tomorrow, but so is Kabla Harris uh. And she's bringing the Isisley Brothers with her MC light Glow, Rilla Cardi B and so there are We are really appealing to everyone now. In terms of people who are undecided, I don't believe
that there are people who are undecided. I think there are people who love to vote on election day. I used to be that person until until COVID that just wanted to wait until election day to vote.
Uh.
And those people who have not voted, we are tracking them. We know where people are are eligible to voting, are not voting, and we're continuing to call and to knock on doors. We have droves of volunteers that knock on a regular basis and call on a regular basis. Where we're going. We're doing this thing until you know, one minute to eight on Tuesday night.
Well, it seems that somebody is listening on the call. When it comes to early voting. Congresswomen, I'm looking at fresh numbers here from Wisconsin that jump off the page. We've seen some first day records in some important states, but no one expected early voting to top. As you just pointed out what we experienced in COVID enter Wisconsin. With five days out, you have already beat the number
of in person absentee ballots cast in twenty twenty. As of this morning, seven hundred five three hundred twenty six voters have cast ballots in person. You're going to have an all time high. What does this suggest to you about the final result?
Well, because people in Wisconsin understand our important role in standing up our democracy. You know, we understand as women the importance of protecting our civil rights. We understand even as men it hurts men. We understand the importance of protecting workers' rights, in terms of protecting social security, in terms of protecting pensions, in terms of protecting all of the things that we believe that with Project twenty twenty five that the president will roll back.
You know, you know.
Reasons that people like Elon Musk, for example, are so involved in the campaign want to destroy payments, for example, in salaries for overtime work, and men and women know that there is much at risk.
You'll get your state back maybe in a week. Congresswoman, good luck with the ads and the speeches.
And thank you for being with us.
Gwen Moore from the fourth District of Wisconsin, the congresswoman, of course, has a good chunk of Milwaukee in her district where we actually have the RNC just a couple of months ago and what was a very different.
Kaylie, Yeah, Joe Biden was still imagine that running back.
It's hard to remember, actually, Yeah.
And the first tempt on Donald Trump's.
Life has had just out of business weekend.
Yeah.
Pretty incredible few months we've seen on this trail, and pretty incredible to realize that this is all coming to an end in five days, or at least we hope in five days. It could be you know, ten, fifteen, couple weeks, could stretch out for a little bit longer, but the home stretch is my point.
Well, there does seem to be consensus. The more voices on this program. We don't know about any undecided voters. I think we're beyond that now. It's about getting people out and that includes you. You'll help us get there next week with special coverage on election like this is Bloomberg.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch us live weekdays at noon Eastern on Appo CarPlay and then Proud with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
We countdown, which is five days to go until election day, and both candidates making their pitches to groups where they are trying to have more strength. For Kamala Harris today she Chris crosses Nevada and Arizona and part that's a focus on Latino voters. The same could be said for Donald Trump, who is in Albuquerque, New Mexico. But for Donald Trump as well, it's about courting more women because Harris consistently has been pulling ahead of him in that
gender group while she lags him on men. He's been talking a lot about rallies, at rallies about protecting women, and as we have mentioned a few times this hour, he talked about protecting women again last night in Wisconsin.
The women of our country. I want to protect the women, sir, Please don't say that why. They said, we think it's we think it's very inappropriate for you to say. I say, why I'm president, I want to protect the women of our country. I said, well, I'm going to do it, whether the women like it or not. I'm going to protect them.
And that is not all Donald Trump said in the rally in Green Bay. If you're with us on Bloomberg TV or YouTube, you see him wearing the reflector safety vest as he was trying to don the outfit of a garbage man, as he put it, following the flap over the use of the word garbage earlier in the week. This is getting to be extensive background here with several turns in this whole controversy. But Donald Trump also told supporters that they're on pace for a runaway victory barring
any fraud. And it brings us back to the preamble here, the pre buttle, if you will, setting the stage potentially for what Donald Trump could call a rigged election having experienced this in twenty twenty. Shields are up and our signature panel is with us. Genie shanz No, Bloomberg Politics contributor, Democratic Analysts, political science professor at Iona University, alongside Rick Davis, of course, bloomber Letics contributed Republican strategist and partner at
Stone Court Capital. Genie, what's your thought on this? Because people's minds go to the same place. He points to the poly market he tells supporters that he's leading in the polls when they're in fact, we've established over the course of this program already they're dead even but it helps to set up the narrative for post election.
According to some Democrats, how do you see it?
Yeah, And I think that's the big fear. I mean, we've just heard that Kamala Harris's team has gone and hired Mark Elias. He is a great attorney that helps Democrats and these kinds of challenges the obviously the GOP, the Republicans and the FRUM campaign have their own attorneys. Because I think we have entered now what we all knew was coming, which is days before the race and in the days after, there's going to be a host of legal challenges. And I think we can see that
and this is nothing new. This sort of you know, election law fair if you will, has been coming since the two thousand campaign. We're twenty five years after that, and now we are living in a democracy in which almost every election is being challenged in court. And so it's not the way you want to run an election, but it's where we find ourselves. And I can just tell you I was talking to young people earlier today, many of them are concerned about what's going to happen
after the election. And they are concerned because, like all of us, they listen to this rhetoric and they hear that people are saying these things are going to be challenged, and they fear that somebody or some group may take this too far.
So I think it.
Could be a few days after this election, and hopefully it doesn't last too too long.
So it raises a couple questions for me, Rick, one being does the electorate, the broad electorate, kind of see through this, Maybe not the most loyal Trump supporters who still believe that he won in twenty twenty that something was wrong when no court, no factual evidence supports that. Or does it even matter if the electorate sees through it, because it's ultimately going to be decided not by them, but potentially in the courts.
Well, ultimately it's always the voters who decide who gets counted as a voter. You want to have confidence that all qualified voters have their votes count on election day. The question is when is that decision going to be made. I mean, over the last two years, have will already been one hundred and sixty five lawsuits that would dictate who those voters are, who's eligible, what the voter rules
look like. And we've heard an onslot of those things recently, and obviously post election they'll be even the more by both parties over one election and regularities, and two a lot of activity around vote counting, including what is likely to happen, which is almost every one of these targeted states, these swing states are within the mark error, certainly within one percentage point most of them. The leeds are only a tenth of a point or two tenths of a point,
and those are likely to go to recounts. And each of these seven states have different recount laws, and each of those have different times that govern how long it takes to recount them. And so we may be sitting through seven recounts in addition to all the litigation.
Wow, what a thought.
You know, we talked so much about the weave that's Donald Trump, that we do the weave. How about the blur genie. This lawsuit that was filed in Pennsylvania two days ago is important. Donald Trump's campaign suing the Board of Elections in Bucks County because they said people were denied access when they tried to drop off their mail in ballots. To be clear, they don't do in person early voting there, but you can drop off your mail
in ballot in person. It got to the point where a judge granted a preliminary injunction and extended the deadline for these ballots. But we have little stories like this cropping up around the country.
Here.
When you put them into the mosaic blur, people start to say, hey, this whole system is broken.
Isn't that the idea?
It absolutely is. I like the idea of the blur. I don't like the idea, but it's a great descriptor, Joe. And that's precisely what Trump is trying to do. I mean, his argument all along has been I am going to win. The only reason I won't win is because the other side has stolen this election. And so this is how he does it. He talks about Bucks County, where we know the Bucks County officials on the ground said that was them trying to stick with voting hours, and it
was something that the judge rightly extended those days. That should give us sort of a sense of calmness and a sense of you know that this system is working the way it should, but that's not how Donald Trump is presenting it. Also, he's you know, talking constantly about Lancaster, Pennsylvania two hundred twenty six hundred votes he said were stolen.
Those weren't votes, Those are voter applications, right. He doesn't mention the fact that the GOP just won in the US Supreme Court with the case of the Governor of Virginia purging those sixteen hundred voters from the voter roles. So there's a lot of litigation out there. He is absolutely trying to do what you call blur this thing. So if he does lose, and it makes you wonder if that's what they're seeing in their internal polls, that he then will come back and say this was stolen.
And that is what makes what's happening today and what's happened with Donald Trump so different. We do have a right to challenge elections when we are a part of them. We do have that absolute capacity in legal ability and right. But it is the fact that he will not promise that when this thing is over, he will accept a loss if that's what indeed occurs, that makes everybody so anxious about this thing.
In addition to all of the legal issues happening around the vote itself. There also was heard in court today arguments in the case surrounding Elon Musk's million dollars sweepstakes to a registered voter. It's now moving to federal court
after a state judge heard arguments earlier today. This, of course, is a million dollar a day sweepstakes rick that is being led by America Pack, which Musk has funneled millions and millions, tens of millions of dollars into and also has been charged with a lot of the ground game for Donald Trump. Do we have a sense of how maybe not the sweepstakes, but how the actual get out the vote effort is going with the fact that it has been outsourced by the Trump campaign.
Yeah, I must admit I have a particular anis in this.
I love the ground game activity. I've been making a lot of calls to Arizona, North Carolina, Nevada places that I still have some old friends who are in the political game operating, and to an individual, they indicate to me that the biggest disaster of the twenty twenty four campaign is going to be the America pack It's stewardship of the money that they've received, the conflicting, you know, demands that Eli Musk gives making them to do these
turnout operations, the lack of coordination that they've had with political groups like the Party on the ground in virtually every one of the swing states. So would not I would be shocked if there's any evidence that the turnout operation is going well in any one state. And I will not be shocked if Donald Trump loses he blames it on Elon Musk.
What do you make of that, genie.
That's a lot of money to spend to be blamed for an electoral loss.
It is.
And just to follow up on that, we heard about some people, some canvassers who said they were put in the back of a pickup truck. They didn't know who they were working for, they were threatened. I mean, it has gotten ugly on the ground. It is a hard thing to do, the ground game, as Rick knows better than anyone, and it takes time and it takes organization.
Elon Musk has never exhibited any sense or ability to do this, And so I would say that I agree with the assessment that if this thing goes south for Trump, it's gonna be based probably on the ground game.
Well, El Musk certainly is one of Trump's loudest surrogates. Genie, we just have about ninety seconds left. But if you look at Kamala Harris's prominent surrogates, we talked about Joe Biden's garbage gaff already this week there was President Barack Obama, former president, suggesting that black men who don't vote for Harris, we're doing it because of some kind of sex and
sexism or misogyny. Then today what's making the rounds in conservative circles is Mark Cuban, another powerful surrogate for her, saying that Donald Trump is never around strong intelligent women. Are the surrogates doing more damage to her than helping her at this point?
Yeah, I think absolutely. In the case of Joe Biden, you hear every Democrat saying get him in the White House and keep him there and don't let him go before zoom. And I do think Kamala Harris could have came out tougher on that and distanced herself. It's one of the dangers of working with surrogates. I'm not sure that Mark Cuban statement will have as much traction, But the Joe Biden and definitely didn't help the campaign, all right.
Jeanie Shanzano and Rick Davis, our signature political panel joining us on this Thursday, Thank you so much as always, and we still have much more ahead on balance of powers. We talk about the campaign and the ground game, the messaging they are putting out to try to turn voters out in these final days here, a lot of that
messaging does also surround policy. For all of the attention paid to some of these more provocative one liners, if you will, they're still trying to sell their economic policy in particular, and we're going to take a closer look at that and where the economy is yep, absolutely heading into election day because this is it.
We spent months asking where will the economy be when people vote? Here we are and Douglas holtz Echan will join us coming up next on the Fastest Show in Politics. Thanks again to our signature panel, and a lot more to follow here on Bloomberg TV and Radio. Alongside Kaylee Lines, I'm Joe Matthew. Have we mentioned there are five days to go?
Oh and Happy Halloween. Thanks for being part of the show today only on Bloomberg.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast kens just live weekdays at noon Eastern on Applecarplay and then royd Otto with a Bloomberg Business app. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station, Just Say Alexa play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
This is a big data week and it matters because, well, presumably some people are still making up their mind on who they want to vote for. Maybe some people could have their minds changed. There's also a little FED meeting. I hate to remind you here it's right after the election next week, which makes us wonder as well. Kayley lines about potential volatility in this market if we don't get an early.
Call, Well, yeah, there could be a major uncertainty around not just who wins the presidency, but who's going to control Congress. And then potentially you add monetary policy and certainty to you to all that potential fiscal policy uncertainty. It could be a pretty nasty cocktail. And a reminder that we're all in for.
It next week.
So thank you, Joe. Happy Halloween everyone. It's spooky out here as we consider though the economic data we got today that could inform that Fed decision next week and inform voters thoughts on the economy as they head to the ballot box. It's arguably trending in the right direction. PCEE two point one percent, almost right there, exactly at the federal reserves target.
Pretty good reading, although a bit below forecast two point eight percent growth on GDP.
This week we get jobs data tomorrow.
Expected to have the lowest pre election unemployment rate Kley in twenty four years.
So we want to get a picture of all of this and consider the economic policies being put forward still on the campaign trail, because we've gotten some new ones just in the last week or so. Douglas, while Deacon is with us now he is president at American Action Forum. Welcome back to Balance of Power, Sir, are always great to have. You can you just diagnose where the economy really is right now as election day is basically upon us.
Well, I think the starting point is the third quarter GDP numbers, which were quite good, you know, year over year two point seven percent growth two point eight in the third quarter at an annual rate, bolstered by strong
household spending and strong government spending. The only you know, Achilles Heel in that report is light on business fixed investments, something I always keep an eye on, but on the whole, a very strong report, and you compliment that with a big jump in consumer confidence early in October that suggests that the households are going to continue to be spending
their money. You get a jobs report from ADP at two hundred thirty thousand jobs, another big number in the labor market, and then you get the PC report, and that's the only thing that makes me, you know, have a little pause, which is core PCE eas zero over year a two point.
Seven has been stuck there for four months.
And so if you look at inflation expectations a year out there two and a half to three, inflations at two and a half, which we've sort of settled into a two and a half percent rot And the question is will we see continued progress toward two percent or will the Fed essentially go on hold. But I think the right way to think about it, if you listen to the spooky list that you went through here at the lead in segment, the economy is not the spooky thing.
It's the policy risk that's surrounded. If you're trying to figure out where you're going. It's all about what will the FED do, and in particular, what will the candidates do, who will win, and how will the FED have to react to, for example, a ten percent across the word tariff.
That's hard to game that out.
Does that mean we've got a quarter point in the bag for next week, Douglas? I ask you that because Joe Biden put out a statement on the PCEE data. He says inflation has now fallen to two point one percent, nearly at its two percent target, but we have more to do.
Well.
I think that, you know, many presidents try to box the FED in good luck with that they're going to do their job. I was among those who was surprised to see them go fifty basis points and thought that when they did that, they really gave themselves the option to go more slowly later the day after the election, when it may not even really be settled and we've seen these recent strong data, it might be a good stay on hold.
We'll see, Okay.
So that's the monetary policy side of this equation. To get back to the fiscal side, though, which could obviously be dramatically impacted depending on who wins these many races. On Tuesday, Douglas, We've heard from Elon Musk and Donald Trump reiterating what Elon Musk said in the last week that he, if he is appointed the head of this Government Efficiency Commission or whatever you want to call it, could cut two trillion dollars in government spending. Is that really possible?
I will be six to.
Four and have a full head of hair before that happens. There's just no way. This is a nice talking point, but who is going to give him that authority? The President doesn't have the authority to give a private citizen an accent, say, go after.
The federal agencies.
The Congress that I states would have to pass a law to produce the commission that he could lead that had those authorities, and that is never going to happen. They created the programs that he's talking about cutting out, They put in place. The personality is talking about acting out. No, this is a campaign talk that should be interpreted as no more than campaign talk.
Well, considering your former life at CBO, we thought maybe you could score this idea because Elon Musk told people in the crowd yesterday, fight if you're laughing, that's not a good sign because Elon Musk says, we're gonna be in it for some pain.
Douglas, what's it gonna feel like?
So if supposed you just did the exercise where you had a commission that could recommend things, they would have to recommend the near elimination of half the government in order to reset that two trillion dollars target they've taken off limits. So screamatic here. Remember the candidate Trump has said he's not touching those. Those are by themselves over half of nonasure spending over the next ten years. So you got to take on the other half of government
and decimate it. I think some Republicans are going to want to hold on to the defense to I'm just guessing. And you know, it seems unlikely that you could get anything through Congress to enact these this commission's proposals. So you know, I'm now officially old. I remember the Grace Commission. I remember the great claims that were going to be made about how it changed the trajectory of the federal
bureocracy forever. And as I sit here in twenty twenty four, it doesn't look like it did much and this won't either.
Well, if we're just still gaming out like the hypothetical math here, even if you were to do all of that, could you pay for the tax cuts? Donald Trump has put forward the very long list of the tax either cuts or brakes. Even if you were to do all of that, get rid of the Defense Department or what have you.
Look, look, there are so little specificity, and there's so there's one that happens every day, don't nobody's proposed today. I'm not sure we're going to have a tax base by tuesday. He has given away the store on a daily basis, so you know it's it's not it's nothing like a sound tax policy platform. He wants to simultaneous extend the twenty seven Act or the seventeen Act and do a bunch.
Of other things. They're gonna have to.
Step back and restart. And I guess you know, I understand campaigns. I've been on a campaign. I understand the politics of trying to collect votes as you go to the finish line. But it's important to recognize that he wants to get a deal on seventeen. That would be his signature accomplishment. Did it in his first term, renewed it in his second term. Every time he makes a proposal, let's not tax overtime, let's not tax let's get rid of the salt cap.
He creates a constituency that.
Makes it harder to extend, that makes it harder to renew it, and so he is working at odds with what he means next year.
It is true the appropriations folks that we talk to are getting some anxiety every time Donald Trump announces another exemption at the podium here Kymlin Harris has had her share of them, is well Douglas, and as a creature of Washington, you know what, the conventional wisdom is, the House they say will turn democratic, the Senate will turn Republican. In that world, neither of them likely get any of their proposals passed, right.
I think the New proposals, so you know, the Harris proposals on taxing capital gains and the like, they're non starters in that world. I think the Trump proposers are the same way. My concern is they will revert to form and just buy each other off, and we'll do the extended spending that the Democrats want, will extend all the task cuts without paying for him, and will be in a fiscal mess and so that's that's really.
Worth looking out for.
Oh gosh, well you know.
That's that is Halloween, right, Well, you want to you want to one up us on spooky?
I think you one.
No, But honestly, one of the things to watch for is when really pressed for time and it's gonna be tight next year, they got a lot going on, and yeah, not knowing really what to do, they revert to form and do what they did before. And they have done that before, so they can easily kick the whole decision out two years and.
Try again Path of Least Resistance Douglas Holds seeking great to see you as always. Thanks for joining us today on Bloomberg TV and radio. We always have good conversations with you, Douglas because he can speak freely now that he's not running the CBO.
Thanks for listening to the Balance of Power podcast.
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